by Parisa Reza
Now they waited till they heard the cannon fire announcing the changing of the year at the exact moment when the sun passed over the equator. They never missed this moment, even if it happened in the middle of the night. Talla recited prayers and when the cannon boomed they all kissed each other. Then she would take from the Koran a bill she had slipped between the pages. She handed it to Bahram, who had been tempted a hundred times to open the Koran and see how big a bill it was.
They ate fish for the first meal of the new year, the only time in the year that they did. Talla bought it in the market, smoked fish from the Caspian Sea in the north, and she reheated it in rice seasoned with herbs.
Sardar was particularly happy because during the festivities radio programming was different, with radio plays, more music, and a jaunty note in the announcers’ voices. And Bahram was happy, too, because it was the only school holiday except for the summer vacation, and he would get a bit of money and could eat a lot of sweet foods.
Next came all the visiting, in descending age order. First people visited family, starting with the oldest members, then friends, then neighbors. After this, everyone who had been visited would come back to visit them in the same order, but it inevitably grew very disorderly. Passersby in the streets wore their best clothes. Women went out without chadors, their faces powdered, their lips outlined and perfectly colored, and with bows in their hair. Those in chadors wore them over new shoes. Men had slicked-back hair, and children proudly wore their new clothes. Tables were laden with pastries and sweet treats for Norouz. Children were repeatedly told not to help themselves until there were guests in the house, that they mustn’t take too much “because that’s rude and brings shame on us.” Talla bought special Norouz cakes, too, and hid them far from Bahram’s grasping fingers. The Amirs had no family in Tehran or in Shemiran; their visits were restricted to neighbors, local people, and a few dignitaries who had to be wished a happy new year but who would not come to visit them.
Adults would usually give children gifts of money at Norouz, but there were so many children in the neighborhood that it would have meant ruination to give a bill to each of them. So the only other bill Bahram could be sure of receiving was from Mahtab-Khanoum, their immediate neighbor and Talla’s oldest friend. The dignitaries would also sometimes give him money, but the exact amount could vary considerably depending on their mood.
The New Year celebrations and school holidays lasted thirteen days, because the ancient Persians believed that each of the twelve signs of the zodiac would reign over the earth for a thousand years and then would come the thirteenth era, the era of chaos.
Despite the occupation, Norouz 1322 is celebrated with joy. Then, almost before the spring has started, the campaign for the legislative elections of the fourteenth Iranian parliament begins. It is the fiercest fight there has ever been on the country’s political scene. The monarchists, democrats, socialists, communists, liberals, and religious adherents—all of whom might or might not be pro-Soviet, pro-English, or pro-American—fight to win seats for their representatives and loyal followers. And for the first time Gholhak’s workers take an interest in the electoral campaign.
Sardar walks over Gholhak’s hills and gazes into the distance. Here he hears only pleasant things: silence barely disturbed by the tinkle of bells from a flock of sheep that a shepherd is grazing on the opposite hillside. At forty-three Sardar has the authenticity of an unbowed spirit, a man who has created for himself a world in keeping with his own wishes. He is tall and thin with broad shoulders, dark skin, black eyes, low eyebrows, and a piercing, noble expression. A short, graying beard covers half of his sculpted face lined with deep wrinkles that have nothing to do with old age but are a mark of durability. His hair is still black, his back still upright, and his bearing always aloof. He looks at the mountain, its snow-capped, conical majesty. He likes looking at his mountains. As he walks he hums a tune from Ghamsar, a song about mountains, in fact. He has often wondered what might lie beyond these mountains, but he can feel age catching up with him, he no longer has the strength to go see for himself. He feels that had he been born here, he would definitely have made the journey; he would not have tolerated not knowing. He thinks there is a desert on the far side of these mountains, and beyond that more mountains. He has been told that beyond them is the sea. But he does not believe this. People have such strange ideas. One day his son will go to see and confirm this for him, show him photos. Sardar will shake his head, grind his teeth, and say a disappointed “Allahu Akbar,” now knowing there is nothing but a chain of mountains between him and the edge of the earth.
Sardar walks over the hillside, brushing pebbles aside with his stick. Then he stops, takes off his headdress, squats down on the ground, and takes a deep breath of Shemiran’s fine, pure air. He has reached his decision: he will not vote this time, either. His neighbor Mirza has told him he must vote. Mirza has a son who has learned to read: His eldest son Mohsen has had adult literacy lessons. He reads the papers laboriously but conscientiously, so he now knows about politics and tells his father whom he should vote for. And he really should vote. Sardar will not go, he is happy to be illiterate, not putting his nose in any of those people’s affairs. What if he made the wrong choice? Who knows who these men really are? “I’m just a shepherd, a smallholder, I deal with livestock and land, not men.” He therefore agrees with Mossadegh’s intention to withdraw the right to vote from illiterate individuals who will simply vote for whomever their feudal lord, their khan or sheik, tells them to. Sardar knows this for himself, he does not need Mossadegh to tell him, he does not want to be anyone else’s sheep. Sardar acts only when no other man stands between him and the job to be done.
At the end of 1322, the fourteenth Iranian National Assembly comes together, comprising twenty-six deputies and seven parliamentary groups. They are all there, even the communists have secured a seat. They have come from every corner of Iran, from the south occupied by the English, the north occupied by the USSR, the unoccupied zones, from every ethnicity, tribe, and language. Most of them are rich, titled, or at least from important families, and with diplomas from European universities. They have all come and are about to start their sessions of endless debating and shouting in the Assembly building. For now, as they stride like conquerors marching triumphantly to the temple, they are convinced they will perform miracles for the Iran of tomorrow. And Sardar has no part in it, and Talla does not even count.
In these uncertain times, the Amir family wants for nothing. Sardar watches over his livestock and tends the land he now owns; with the passing years he has steadily bought up more plots, and together they are beginning to constitute a handsome property. They have their own meat, fruit, and vegetables, and there is plenty of water.
Talla cooks in earthenware pots on a wood-fire oven dug into the ground. She makes her own bread, too. She spreads the dough on a round mat of thick fabric then sticks the loaf to the side of the oven. Once it is cooked, the bread falls away from the side and onto the grate, and then it can be removed with a wooden paddle. Talla herself takes it out with her bare hands, her toughened skin can tolerate the heat. Sometimes she makes toutak, sugary biscuits with almonds or walnuts, and if she adds milk to them she can make nan-e shirmal. She also knows how to make a different sort of bread cooked on top of the oven, known as nomad’s bread.
Bahram’s friends like coming to his house because they are always allowed to fill their stomachs with Sardar’s watermelons, to dip their fingers in Talla’s pots of cream and yogurt, or to eat their fill of dried fruit, toutak, or nan-e shirmal. On top of this, as an only child, Bahram has more pocket money than his friends from large families, always enough to buy a rial or two of candy from a peddler and share it with them. In the spring they paddle in Gholhak’s unnamed river. In summer they go to the swimming pool in Davoudieh or find a body of water near Gholhak where they can swim. And they always end up in the shade of the old trees in the Amir
s’ garden while Talla climbs to the top of the mulberry tree and shakes it to make the fruit drop, and the boys gather it up and eat it with childish glee.
And to the pleasures of moments like that, another delight is gradually added: girls and their perfume. Bahram has started looking at them shyly, and has noticed the beautiful Saname, a girl his own age who goes to Gholhak’s girls’ school. For some time now Bahram has stopped racing home at the end of the school day, but slows his pace in order to walk behind Saname. He watches her from behind. She has a long, neatly plaited braid that falls to her waist and is embellished with an impeccably tied ribbon. Her gray uniform is perfectly ironed, her shoes meticulously polished, and her ankle socks with their silky edging always immaculately white. This girl is cared for. Every morning a loving hand combs her long black hair, plaits her braid, and carefully ties the white ribbon, never the previous day’s ribbon, but a new, clean, ironed one, then her clothes are checked over, she is given a kiss and sent off to school. Saname is the daughter of the man who owns the Iran Cement factory. Bahram, who has dreamed of nothing but blond hair and white skin since seeing the German women, falls under the spell of this dark-haired, dusky-skinned girl. Dark as night and delicate as dawn.
On Fridays, Bahram and his friends play soccer on a pitch close to Saname’s house, near her father’s factory. They have only a bundle of rags tied together for a ball, and it is too light, which means they have to kick it very hard, sending pebbles flying through the air along with the ball. If he sees her on these Fridays she wears pretty colorful dresses and carries a purse like a lady.
Bahram ends up passionately in love, and when he arrives home from soccer one day he begs his mother to go and ask for Saname’s hand on his behalf. To which Talla replies: “Hush now, you’re only ten.” His age means nothing, Bahram wants her. So he decides to go see Mash-Hakim, who makes amulets and magic potions, to ask him for an elixir of love. “Bring me three tomans, and I’ll give it to you,” says Mash-Hakim.
Bahram cannot think how to come by three tomans. He has only one. “Could you give me two tomans?” he asks his mother. “I need them.”
“Don’t even think it,” she replies.
Bahram waits a few days, then renews his attack, saying it is for a soccer ball, then for school, all the pupils are being asked for two tomans, then he offers to work for his mother two Fridays running to earn two tomans. Talla thinks this is far too much to pay. In the end she gives in without asking anything in exchange. Bahram takes the three tomans to the old talisman maker who mixes up various solid and liquid ingredients and hands him a vial of a blackish oily substance.
“Pour this in water and give it to her to drink,” he says.
“If I could get her to drink something I wouldn’t need you.”
“Ah well, you didn’t tell me that. In that case it’s more expensive. You need to give me another five tomans.”
Five tomans! Bahram cannot ask Talla for more money so he decides to sell his postcard collection—his forty-three postcards from all over the world, things he cherishes more than his pigeons. He parts with them sadly and gets four tomans for them. And he steals one toman from Talla, he has no choice. Talla thinks she has lost it and curses for days. Bahram gives the money to Mash-Hakim and receives a different vial in return.
“Pour this in water and throw the water in front of her so she walks on it . . . ”
After school the next day, Bahram races home, fills a bucket of water, and runs over to Saname’s house to wait for her. As soon as he sees her he pours the contents of the vial into the bucket and when Saname is only yards away he empties the bucket over the sidewalk. He waits to check that she steps into the love potion and then runs away.
That very evening Bahram tells his parents he is going to sleep in the garden. He makes his bed close to the garden door and waits till his mother locks it for the night. Once his parents are asleep he gets up quietly, unlocks the door, and leaves it ajar. Then he lies down and waits for the bewitched Saname to join him on his bed.
But she did not come, not that evening, nor the next, nor on any other night.
He went back to Mash-Hakim in despair, but the potion maker reassured him: “She will absolutely definitely come. Wait a little longer.” Bahram was patient and opened the garden door ever wider when he heard footsteps ringing in the still of the night, hoping they were Saname’s . . .
In the fall, Bahram packed away his love for Saname as a lost cause, and sought comfort in drawing. He drew a lot and with increasing skill. Some of his pictures were hung on the classroom wall; the headmaster even chose one for his office. As an excellent sprinter, Bahram was the star of the school’s athletics team. And he was conspicuous for his very good grades in history and geography. The headmaster of Djam started taking an interest in him: “If out of a hundred pupils we can produce one elite individual for the nation, we have fulfilled our duty,” he confided to his wife, also a teacher. And in Bahram he had found this longed-for elite individual.
He instigated a discreet, methodically planned strategy. He took to summoning Bahram to his office from time to time, and this disconcerted the boy, who had no idea of the headmaster’s plans. On each occasion the man wore a serious expression and would ask Bahram to stand and wait by his desk, then in a clipped voice he would issue an order which Bahram interpreted as a punishment: “You’ll stay behind after school today and write out the schedule for the athletics team” or “This evening you can draw me a landscape to hang in . . . ” Then, when the time came and because the headmaster knew Bahram had an interest in history, he asked the boy to read particular newspapers and cut out the most interesting articles about international events and bring them to him once a month.
Bahram was not yet eleven when he handed his first set of articles to the headmaster; the subject was the Tehran conference. All the papers used the same photo: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin sitting in different-sized chairs on the terrace of the Soviet embassy. Roosevelt’s chair was higher than the other two, and Churchill was more sprawled in a wider, lower armchair. He looked apprehensive, had put his military cap on his left knee, and was looking down. Roosevelt had crossed his legs and appeared thoughtful. Stalin, on the other hand, seemed buoyant and looked straight at the lens. They had come all that way to settle a number of issues: the arrangements for the Normandy landings, the Polish border, the future of Yugoslavia . . . Bahram had read it all, concentrating and motivated. The headmaster accepted this roundup of press coverage with interest and asked him to summarize it orally. Bahram did as he was asked, naming the key figures, their position and nationality, outlining the terms of their alliance, and citing the enemies they had in common. The headmaster added that they had promised Iran territorial integrity, the withdrawal of their troops at the end of the war, and compensation for the occupation . . . and then he congratulated Bahram. It was very likely thanks to this modest exercise that Bahram found his vocation and became an expert on World War II. He would learn its every detail, every place and date, the most minor anecdote. He would come back to it all through his life, in every conversation, with didactic accuracy and a formidable command of the Persian language. He also identified where he personally came in the chronology of the Second World War, and whenever he was asked for his date of birth, 1933, he would always point out it was the year Hitler came to power in Germany.
It is about 7:30 on the morning of Khordad 2nd, 1325. Bahram is walking in the shade of trees along Telephone-khaneh Street. On the left are a few houses hidden behind their walls, Mash-Rahim’s grocery shop, and the telephone exchange. To the right there is just a row of trees and a dusty stretch of wasteland. When he is level with the grocer’s shop he spots the zinc roof of a huge house far away in the distance through the trees. This is the summer residence of a Tehrani nobleman, a general in the army; in summer, high-ranking families escape the heat of the city and take refuge in Shemiran, making the most of
the cool mountain air. Thanks to their cars, the men frequently travel back and forth to Tehran, but the women and children stay here for the whole summer, enjoying their sheltered gardens. The gates open, cars come and go, the passengers’ hats can be seen, and occasionally one of them turns around and looks toward you, or even into your eyes, even the women. Those women look you in the eye and all you can do is look away. How could anyone look into the eyes of these women who are too beautiful and too heavily made-up to be real? Sometimes when Bahram walks along the walls to their properties he hears laughter, a cry, or even music: a garden party. Everyone uses the English words “garden party,” even the servants, the maids and the gardener say it: “They’re having a garden party tonight.” And now the locals have taken to saying, “They’re having a garden party,” if their neighbors make noise. The sound of those foreign words in Talla’s mouth when she refers to her hens cackling in her own yard somehow rings true although she does not even realize she is speaking English. Much later an outrageous rumor would circulate around Gholhak about a certain young lady from that residence: The general’s daughter was in love with Bahram. The maid entrusted with delivering the note would give the secret away, and this would be the final touch, establishing Bahram definitively as Gholhak’s hero, the boy who triumphed over the indifference of the nobility.
But at the moment they have not reached that point, they will have to wait until the end of the month of Khordad and the beginning of the school summer vacation when their cars will arrive one behind the other and everyone will remember that, come what may, they return every year.