by Parisa Reza
When he arrives home one summer evening in 1319, he opens up his bag in front of Talla, and takes out a freshly killed rabbit.
“You’ve had fun playing the hunter again,” she says. “What are we going to do with it?”
“I don’t know but isn’t it beautiful? It took me a while to catch it. It wore me out, but I’m glad I haven’t lost the touch.”
“I think the Farangi eat them.”
Talla knows that foreigners eat rabbits, a servant reported this bizarre fact—one among so many. There happens to be a German diplomat and his family living very nearby. Holding the rabbit up by its hind legs, she calls her son and shows it to him.
“Go to the Germans’ house and sell them this rabbit. Take whatever they give you for it.”
Bahram sets off at a run. There is nothing to check a runner’s speed on the plain; it is vast and man is light-footed. But Bahram has more than other people in his legs, a gift, a will, something aided and abetted by open terrain. He runs with the rabbit at arm’s length, its head bobbing rhythmically.
The rusted gate to the Germans’ residence stands ajar. As Bahram pushes it open with his free hand, he hears on the cool evening breeze the muted music of a gramophone mingling with the sounds of splashing water and women’s voices. Trees block his view, allowing only diffuse light through. Bahram walks a few paces up the drive, then cuts through the trees toward the light. On the far side he sees men in trunks and women in swimming costumes, some sitting around a pool, others in the water. What a strange sight! He is seven years old and has already seen naked women at the hammam, but nearly naked women and men in underwear, together, in the same place, looking happy and not embarrassed—it can’t be, or it’s just a dream. Astonished, he avidly watches every detail, every move of this fantastical gathering. As he slowly gets used to the spectacle he notices that some of the women have golden hair that glows in the lamplight, and that their skin is white as snow. He sees one woman in the water laughing and playing with one of the men, putting her arm around his neck and kissing his cheek. The man strokes her back. How intoxicating!
One of the Farangis spots him and calls him over. Bahram remembers why he is here and walks over to the man with a smile. Having had an opportunity to watch them, he can give some impression of familiarity, as if he is in on their secrets. He feels the German will have no choice but to buy the rabbit at a good price.
“Would you like a rabbit?” he asks loudly, brandishing it toward the man.
“Mahmoud!” the German cries, turning toward the residence.
While they wait for Mahmoud to arrive, the German gesticulates wildly at Bahram who gathers the man is not interested in his rabbit, so he goes around all the others, offering the rabbit. Some of them laugh, others looked disgusted, especially the women. An elderly man appears and the German asks him, in rudimentary Persian, to get rid of the boy. Bahram calls him “sir” and explains that he only wants to sell his rabbit and he knows Farangis eat rabbit, he knows they do. The old man tells him these particular ones do not, and pushes him toward the gates. And that is where the dream comes to an end.
Bahram goes home disappointed but happy. Disappointed because he would have liked them to buy his rabbit so he could go back on the pretext of selling them other things. And happy because he has seen what he has seen. That evening he and his family climb up onto the roof to sleep in the cooler air and, lying there beneath Shemiran’s starry sky, Bahram dreams of those German women with their white skin and golden hair.
Rumor had it that Reza Shah was turning cemeteries into schools, so Gholhak’s school would be built on the plot of the old cemetery. The first schoolchildren to use it would see the ground swell up in places and ooze an oily substance—humors from decomposing bodies, people said.
Bahram was in the first-year group to go through this compulsory, mixed primary school that came to be known as “Djam” and promised to be prestigious. It had six classes from first grade through sixth grade, an amphitheater, a large yard, a swimming pool, a house for the headmaster, and another for the janitor, as well as sports fields and equipment for volleyball, soccer, basketball, pole-vaulting . . .
All the pupils wore uniforms: a gray dress with a Peter Pan collar for the girls and a gray suit with a white shirt for the boys.
That first year, they were of mixed ages and from every sort of background, the destitute and the well-to-do. The state school had to be open to absolutely everyone; it would not have been right to take only seven-year-olds and forsake older children, so they took all the local children over seven.
The school’s headmaster—“may he rest in peace,” Bahram would later say whenever he mentioned his name—was an imposing character who ran his own little world with a firm hand. Under his authority were several teachers, both men and women, including his own wife. In each class the teacher would appoint a prefect to keep an eye on the other pupils when he or she was out of the room, and to report any disruptions. There were severe punishments, especially the falak, when the pupil lay full length with his or her legs attached firmly to a wooden stick that one teacher held up while another beat the soles of the wrongdoer’s feet. The beating itself hurt but the worst of it was having to walk afterward . . .
The teacher, the most powerful person in the world after the headmaster, stood with his hands behind his back, dictating:
“Hossein goes to school . . . Hossein’s mother does the washing . . . Hossein’s father is a farmer . . . ”
Bahram wrote with a fountain pen—known as a “French pen”—that he dipped into an inkwell filled with Chinese ink and tiny pieces of fabric to act as a sponge.
Their schoolmaster also taught them that Iran is an ancient civilization and it had been bequeathed to them by great kings like Darius and Cyrus who forged an empire whose glory knows no end. Bahram believed everything his teacher said.
On the very first day of school, the teacher noticed that Bahram wrote with his left hand, which, according to him, went against the laws of nature. He rapped Bahram across the hand with his metal ruler: “We write with the right hand.” Bahram found it very difficult, but the beatings eventually had their effect. He took to holding the pen in his right hand, blinking his eyes briefly, then writing. It was a habit that stayed with him his whole life: a tension, an irritation, a few blinks . . . For drawing and painting, though, he would continue using his left hand.
Luckily, all the hardships inflicted on him by his teacher paled in significance beside the joy he felt about his new pigeons. When he first went to school, his father gave him two, a male and a female. As soon as lessons were over, Bahram fled in a flash to get home to them.
Like all his friends, Bahram played the pigeon game, which consisted in making your pigeon fly higher than everyone else’s to win the round. This was called the “pigeon game” but also “the love game,” and “pigeon players” were also known as “lovers.”
“There are some regions in Iran where they’ve built towers for their pigeons,” his father told him. “Very tall towers with thousands of alcoves, each alcove houses two birds, imagine how many pigeons that is . . . They’re bred for their droppings, they’re a good fertilizer, very rich . . . ”
From that moment on, Bahram dreamed of having a pigeon tower in his garden.
While Bahram’s future was being nurtured at Djam School, something wonderful came into Sardar’s life: radio. The first time Sardar heard a radio, it was like a divine sound coming out of a box, a sound from paradise—it was music. He had never heard an orchestra play music before. He had occasionally heard a flute, a peasant song, popular music played at weddings, but this sound was . . . Sardar had no words to describe what he was hearing so he simply told Talla, “It’s beautiful.” This was at Gholhak’s police station some time after Radio Tehran had been set up. Sardar looked at the box and was not afraid of it; he even went over and touched it and asked how it wor
ked. He was told that the sound was sent from the sky and landed in the box. “Allahu Akbar,” he murmured and stood puzzling for a moment, but then what did it matter how it worked! He realized that once they had electricity in their house, he could buy a radio of his own, take it home, and listen to it every day. Happy with this, he smiled and nodded his head as he announced, “We’ll wait for the electricity, then.”
For some time now a black cat had been covetously eyeing the Amirs’ chicken coop, a stubborn cat who took no notice of Talla’s threats. Then one day Sardar caught him in the act: The cat was walking surreptitiously toward the henhouse, one paw after another, unaware that Sardar was following him slowly and silently, the perfect huntsman. When Sardar caught up with the cat, he drew out his knife and cut off its tail. The cat wailed, leapt over the wall, and was never seen again.
Talla saw this incident as a sign and remembered a promise she had made to God to make a pilgrimage to Shah-Abdol-Azim if Bahram reached the age of six. She felt it was high time she fulfilled this promise. Sardar would not come with her; he would have liked to, but had to look after the house and the animals. Each to his or her own duties.
Very early one Friday morning, Talla puts a few provisions into a bundle, fills a gourd with water, hides her money in a tightly knotted fold of her scarf, takes Bahram’s hand, and sets off on this adventure.
They catch the bus to Tehran—the first time Talla has taken a bus. Oh my! If it weren’t for the love of God, she would never have set foot in one of the things. She clings to her seat all the way to the Shemiran Gate, which, with its columns and Persian tiles like the gates to a palace in the middle of nowhere, finally announces they have reached Tehran. The city Talla has never visited. Sardar, for some mysterious reason, had always said it wasn’t for them and they mustn’t tempt the devil. Even though Talla had put less stock in Sardar’s words since Bahram was born, she now remembers his enigmatic pronouncements and wonders whether she is outside the majestic gates of hell. When she returns to Gholhak, this trip will earn her universal respect: It takes courage to travel so far without your husband. But for now, she grips Bahram’s hand and he tries desperately to break away, but there is nothing for it, she is frightened. What if the devil himself was waiting for them on the other side! For a moment she even considers turning back. But then what could she tell God? She looks around her, but the other passengers on the bus don’t look frightened. Granted, they’re all men; there isn’t a single other woman among them. But still. Well. It has to be done, for the love of God, it has to be done.
So this is Tehran: cars, horse-drawn carts, bicycles, pedestrians, policemen, buildings, wide avenues . . . the most beautiful, the most impressive thing is the vast Toup-Khaneh Square surrounded by buildings with thousands of balconies and adorned with ponds, fountains, flowers, and lampposts. And the city is teeming with people. Women in hats, high-heeled shoes, and silk stockings; headdresses in folded fabric, turbans of satin, of twisted velvet; hats decorated with feathers or freshly picked flowers. Other women go bareheaded. And men in homburgs, and collars and ties, some even have coats with fur collars. Over there a porter carrying buckets of yogurt piled up on his head. And suddenly a donkey nonchalantly crossing in front of the bus. And also some normal people like Talla, or Sardar: women in scarves and full robes over leggings and men in worn, ill-fitting jackets, pants that are too big or too short, with their heads uncovered or wearing the hat decreed by Reza Shah. Tehran is too big, too beautiful, extravagant, outlandish, strange . . .
Their journey across the capital ends at Khorasan Gate, where they are to catch the smoking engine at a station that goes by the French name of “Gare machine” because it was a French engineer who secured the first railway concession from Naser al-Din Shah Qajar in 1261, linking Tehran to Shahr-e Rey. The engineer thought he would be transporting the quantities of pilgrims heading for Shah-Abdol-Azim’s mausoleum. No one ever knows why some wonderful ideas fail to take, just as the yogurt sometimes fails to take in Talla’s expert hands. “The smoking engine,” as it is known here, is a steam train that drew crowds for a while without ever achieving its anticipated success. The passengers stand in an open-sided carriage. Bahram is thrilled to be taking the smoking engine but Talla is a little disoriented—too many novelties for one day. When the train sets off, children race after it, throwing pebbles. Bahram watches them with delight: he’s better than them, he’s inside and they’re outside.
The train stops by the Shah-Abdol-Azim sanctuary in Shahr-e Rey. When Talla lived in Shahr-e Rey she never had an opportunity to come here. She and Sardar discussed it and thought about making the trip but it never happened, they never had the time. What splendor! Shah-Abdol-Azim was a descendant of the Imam Hassan, and his tomb has two magnificent minarets reaching up toward the sky, and three domes, one of which is golden. Inside are a myriad of mirrors reflecting each other into infinity and reflecting the thousands of tears shed by pilgrims. Bahram is fascinated by so much beauty combined with the ecstatic state his mother is in as she weeps helplessly for joy. Talla strokes the walls of the tomb several times and then smooths her now blessed hand over Bahram’s face. Her rough skin chafes his face, leaving him in doubt that it is his mother’s hand. That abrasive feel, the mark of her motherhood, loving and harsh.
They leave the sanctuary exhausted. Talla drops to the ground in the corner and pretends to die. This has become a habit of hers, a macabre joke she indulges in more and more frequently with Bahram now that he is growing up and has started trying to avoid her invasive love. Talla still wants her son in her belly or clamped to her breast, wants him there now and forever. Talla is compulsively possessive about everything, and most of all about her son. So she plays this part well, and it torments Bahram. Even though he knows from experience it is an act, he cannot help panicking. There is always some doubt. What if this time she really died?
Bahram runs over to the fountain, realizes he has nothing to carry water, asks someone for a bowl, comes back with the water, and tips some over Talla’s face, then tries to get her to drink some and after a while—which feels like an eternity to him—she pretends to come back to life. Bahram is reassured but doubly exhausted now.
They take the smoking engine back, then the bus, and reach Gholhak after nightfall.
Sardar is sitting waiting for them by the side of the road, next to their garden door. It is the first time he has been at home without them. It is late, Tehran and Shar-e Rey are far away, and the roads dangerous. Whatever made him let them go on their own? He should have paid for a neighbor to go with them. His thoughts are very dark this evening. What if something’s happened to them, what if they don’t come back, or have been killed in an accident, what would he do all alone on this earth? Everything suddenly loses all meaning. His whole life, from Ghamsar to here, all those years of working to buy a house, land, animals. The milk, the yogurt, the butter . . . nothing would taste of anything or matter anymore. He would die, too, of grief. He has been sitting on this doorstep for three hours peering at the end of the road. And now here they are, in the distance he can see Talla’s silhouette, and tears roll down his cheeks. He has been this happy to see her twice: once in Ghamsar when he came to claim her and now this evening. And his son strolling behind her. Happiness blooms again. He’ll give them everything, his whole life, it’s nothing without them, he thinks. Then he gets to his feet, wipes away his tears, and goes back inside. He has already laid out the tablecloth, the bread and cheese. He draws water from the well. Everything is as it should be.
Electricity came to Sardar’s house sooner than expected. A German who lived in Gholhak bought a generator for himself and—for a one-off fee of twenty tomans and a monthly subscription of one toman—he supplied other households with enough electricity for one light and a radio.
Almost before the line was installed Sardar hurried off to buy a radio. And, for the first time since their marriage, he made the decision without asking Ta
lla’s opinion. Filled with excitement, he plugged in his radio and settled himself beside it for the rest of his life.
As soon as he had finished his day’s work he would sit by the radio, turn it on, light his pipe, and stay there enjoying both until the broadcasts finished. In those early years of Radio Tehran the signal was fairly mediocre, and Sardar spent more time turning the dials than listening to broadcasts. Still, he managed to receive an hour or two a day. Sometimes he came across programs in foreign languages, a rare curiosity for him, and he could listen to them at length. He had found what made him happy. He listened without commentary, and believed everything he heard. Everything, that is, that he could understand, because much of the meaning was lost on him. His preference was for music. It reached deep inside him and delighted him. He thought paradise must be filled with this music, that God was satisfied with his subjects and these were blessed times, which was why He was rewarding them with the gift of radio: the sound of paradise on earth. Sardar wanted to go to paradise. He wondered whether he had done anything in his life to hamper this, and could think of nothing. Sardar had faith in himself and in God.
On Shahrivar 3rd, 1320, a radio announcement about the mobilization of reservists sends shock waves through Gholhak. Iran is being invaded simultaneously by the Soviets in the north and the English in the south. The Iranians have hesitated to join the Allies in the war, their oil fields need protecting and a supply corridor for the Soviet army has to be established via the Arabian Sea.
Mahtab-Khanoum’s eldest son Mohsen goes off to join the army, and his mother weeps in Talla’s arms. Talla cries, too, because Iranian etiquette dictates that no one should cry alone.