by Parisa Reza
So they bought a house for their student son to give him his independence, and to give him the freedom to invite friends over. And Bahram hosts the party’s meetings in his new house. The same people who, as boys, liked to come to Bahram’s house to dip their fingers into Talla’s pots of cream or to gorge themselves on Sardar’s watermelons now enjoy coming back to this same garden, this time intoxicating themselves with ideologies. They are continuing their journey together. Except for Darra, who is not from this neighborhood and has not followed in their footsteps. He has stayed in the Iranian Workers’ Party and abandoned Mossadegh. But they are still friends. They often argue, sometimes screaming at each other, but the connection between them, which was forged in politics, now reaches beyond that. Each gets from the other something he himself does not have. Darra wishes he had the same presence as Bahram, and Bahram likes going to Darra’s house, a traditional bourgeois home with its rules and fine manners, and his warm, courteous, cultivated parents.
Elaheh sits on the bench in her black coat with her hair loose over her shoulders, her face red with cold and anger, gazing into space. As soon as she sees Bahram, she gets up, goes over to him, says a curt hello, and hands him the letter. Bahram is amazed, hesitates before taking it. But Elaheh does not back down, she holds the letter out until he takes it, then leaves. Embarrassed, Bahram looks around, the entrance is swarming with students, some saw the exchange. He blinks as he always does, slips the letter inside a book, and continues on his way. He has not thought about Elaheh for a single second since they met in the library, and he feels he must have missed something. It reminds him of Mahine’s letter during Varamine’s Ashura. He tells himself this time there shouldn’t be any posse coming after him to frighten him off, even though the two incidents are separated by only a short time and very little geographical distance. And he laughs about this privately.
He waits until after dinner that evening to open Elaheh’s letter, ten pages of it. He reads it in one sitting. Bahram cannot bear being criticized. He reads faster and faster, he wants it to be over, but he simply cannot give up on a letter addressed to him by a girl, even though the tone of voice is uncomfortable for him. A woman who writes ten pages to you, even if they are full of criticism, is basically writing a love letter. When he has finished reading, he folds the pages and puts them back in the envelope. He can feel the power of her words, and the sheer energy of her feelings sets his cheeks ablaze, but not his heart. Elaheh has never mattered to him. He does not even try to remember catching her eye in the library, or the trip in the taxi; these things meant nothing to him at the time, so they mean nothing now. Elaheh should never have gone so far, analyzing details so minutely and reaching the conclusion that he will never experience the deep things in life if he carries on like this. Yes, let’s talk about the deep things in life! They’re not here, they’re in the history books and geography books he learns by heart every evening, they’re in those men-only evenings when they discuss all the ideas in the world, they’re in the hands of master painters who create divine works of art, and they’re certainly not in a woman’s guts!
And yet this letter is written in brilliant, formal Persian. In a pinch Bahram might think the girl is extraordinary, but he would rather view this letter as a sort of performance rather than acknowledging its intelligence and its still more remarkable perspicacity. All the same, he feels a certain tenderness for Elaheh. He knows that, despite all the things she wrote to him, it would take only a few words to reverse everything in her mind. But he won’t be doing that because she’s not the one he wants. He wants Ava Gardner, he wants Firouzeh. And he wants her not for any particular reason, not for anything important. He wants her because she is beautiful and because she takes no interest in his soul. Firouzeh is interested in herself and in what she wants, and Bahram is one of the things she wants, he knows that. Bahram also knows that if you could weigh up honesty, Elaheh would be much heavier. But that isn’t important, this isn’t some world full of angels, it’s a land of men, and all that counts is the sublime beauty of a conqueror’s perfect actions. The only mind-blowing, intoxicating thing here is the conquest. No other qualities matter.
Elaheh is the defeated party. She has revealed herself, laid herself bare; with one gesture she showed all her strengths and weaknesses. She has no more surprises for him now.
A few days later Bahram comes across Elaheh and gives her a kindly nod of the head but no more.
It so happens that this same day Firouzeh has invited him to her birthday party. She gave him an invitation card.
What’s a birthday party?, Bahram wonders, he has never heard of one—where he comes from people do not even know their birth date. But Firouzeh has studied at a French school and has been celebrating her birthday since she was a little girl. Bahram does some research. One of his university friends also studied at Saint-Louis, Tehran’s French school, but what he says does not make things much clearer for Bahram:
“Well, my friend, you had to start sooner or later, but you could have started more gently. You’ll have to stick this out now!” he says mischievously.
The party is held in one of the Elahieh gardens not far from where Bahram lives. On the well-founded advice of the same friend, Bahram arrives with a bouquet of roses. Firouzeh is wearing an Ava Gardner dress and he is dazzled. Not only by Firouzeh but also by the lights around the swimming pool that he can see through one of the bay windows. Where should he start? By taking a glass from the tray offered by the white-gloved servant and tasting this bitter, acidic drink they call champagne? Or watching men kiss Firouzeh’s hand while holding their cigars poised in their other hands? Or watching the couples dancing swing to the music played by a jazz band?
Firouzeh is in her element. She is radiant, she is the woman. The woman for all these men, all these men paying her so much attention, she does not neglect a single one of them. This is not malicious or fickle, she owes it to herself and to each of them. It is almost a duty. You have to be nice to the people who value you as highly as you would like to be valued. And accept as a compliment the fact that they may not realize there could be a more fragile soul among them who could snap like the stems of the beautiful flowers she is throwing at them right now.
But she is particularly keen to introduce Bahram to her father, the congressman.
“Father, I’d like to introduce my friend from university, Bahram Amir . . . ”
“Amir . . . ”
A misleading name: short, noble, universal, and it means “sovereign.”
“Are you from the Amir family descended from a grandson of Naser al-Din Shah? Or is it Mozaffar al-Din Shah, I don’t remember?”
“No, sir.”
“I believe there’s an Amir family descended from one of the khans in Khorasan,” says a man standing next to Firouzeh’s father.
“No, sir, my family is from Kashan.”
It would be inappropriate to mention Ghamsar.
“There are a good many Kashanis among the Bazaaris, worthy tradesmen,” Firouzeh’s father forces himself to say, just to please his daughter, but he is thinking, I must tell the girl not to mix with these social-climbing street vendors.
Whatever happens I must avoid the fateful What-does-your-father-do question, thinks Bahram. And he thinks it so hard that a guardian angel hears him: The Shah’s younger brother arrives in person and attracts everyone’s attention.
Bahram knows he needs to leave before he is asked to dance or do anything else. He gives the excuse that his mother is unwell, but Firouzeh turns on the charm to get him to stay at least until her cake arrives.
“It would be rude to leave before that,” someone says.
So he stays and now here comes the cake with its eighteen flickering candles. He will see plenty more and in a few years’ time he will even have forgotten where and when it all started. For now, though, he is enchanted by the sight of his Ava Gardner blowing out her candles .
. .
He walks out of that garden in the same state as when he left the Germans all those years ago, except that this time he does not want to go back anytime soon. But he is happy finally to have seen what goes on behind the walls and closed doors of noblemen’s gardens, and to have witnessed a Garden Party—the great enigma of his childhood.
Lying in bed that night he keeps telling himself he’s a socialist and really doesn’t belong anywhere that the Shah’s brother might be . . . and he has erotic dreams.
The following week, Firouzeh agrees to go to the movies with Bahram to see The Great Sinner, then lets him steal a kiss from the corner of her mouth. Bahram stays vague about his family, and Firouzeh gradually succumbs to his charm, then falls completely in love while Bahram grows increasingly detached. She now lets him take her properly in his arms, kiss her on the mouth for a long time, and stroke her body, but without ever undressing her completely. He might unbutton her blouse, slip his hand over her breasts, one after the other, run his hand down to her waist and stroke her hips. A triumphant moment of pleasure he will remember for a long time. He will go no farther, but will keep making the same moves until he is sated. Meanwhile Elaheh has done a lot of crying; she waited a long while for a reply to her letter and wrote him several more that she will never send, but she will not forget him.
Then Firouzeh unbuttons her dress herself. Infuriated, Bahram does not touch her. He has tired of these constantly repeated performance. She realizes she has embarked on a love affair that can go nowhere and decides to break up with Bahram. She does it without anger or hatred, saying simply, “We’re not made for each other, we’d better stop now, I still like you but this isn’t what I want.” Saving face is what matters most. She is leaving him before he does the same to her, playing the more pleasing role and walking away from this relationship with her head held high. Her restraint is remarkable. Bahram is very sorry, he would have preferred a more tragic ending: Firouzeh’s parents forcing her to marry someone else and Firouzeh weeping in his arms for days on end.
At the start of spring Bahram comes across Elaheh at the bus stop.
“ . . . I know that you know that I know,” he says awkwardly.
“And I know that you knew. You knew exactly what I wanted and you didn’t want to give it to me, but you didn’t withhold it either. Pretty exhilarating for you. Unconsciously, though, because the image you have of yourself wouldn’t let you be conscious of it, and not just where I’m concerned. There must be other women, more fish in the sea. Listen, Bahram, I’m telling you this completely sincerely, you’ve got lost in your love life, lost between a thousand longings and doubts, not being able to cope without one particular girl but not really wanting any of them, resenting them all . . . It’s your life, you’re master of it, but I can’t stay and watch this . . . I know you’re not interested in what I’m saying, you’re somewhere else, wrapped up in different games, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m saying it for my own sake, not for yours. By saying it to you I’m actually setting myself free. What I’m about to say may be pretentious, but what the heck, I think I was one of the best things that could have happened to you and you couldn’t see it . . . ”
She blurts all this out without stopping then as she steps on the bus she adds, “Could you take the next bus, please.”
Bahram laughs out loud, he hasn’t understood a single word. What on earth is she talking about? Why the hell are women so fond of the illusory world of the truth? And why are men so unreasonable?
He gets onto the bus. He has just suffered Firouzeh’s last goodbye, he needs comforting.
It really does take very few words from him . . .
From that day on Bahram and Elaheh see each other regularly. She even goes to his little house and they shut themselves away to talk politics and literature. Bahram’s background does not shock her, in fact it is a pleasant surprise. Out of loyalty to her father, Elaheh thinks of herself as a Communist. So what more could she hope for to demonstrate her convictions?
She even ends up alone with Talla and Sardar one day. After the other Talla, Bahram’s childhood sweetheart, this is the first time Bahram has brought a girl home. And it is her third time here, Talla has been counting, so it must be serious. Talla and Sardar never suspect that Bahram may not bring home the girls who mean something to him because he is ashamed of them, his parents. Sardar is so happy he goes to find a sheep and sacrifices it in front of Elaheh. He slits the sheep’s throat in the middle of the yard. He is convinced Elaheh is his future daughter-in-law, she must be welcomed into the family with generosity worthy of her charms. And Talla is not even jealous, she cannot be, Elaheh is from a world to which she has been submissive all her life. You can tell at a single glance, appearances never lie about this.
Bahram enjoys Elaheh’s company. No one knows her in Gholhak so they are free to go for walks together in peace through the streets and gardens . . . Bahram has tried to kiss her once under the mulberry tree but she refused. He tried to take her in his arms in his room, she pushed him away.
“This is friendship, we agreed on that,” she says.
Bahram does not remember agreeing on anything, but it doesn’t matter, they’re having fun. He finds her company more and more agreeable, life feels easy with her, there’s nothing to hide, nothing to prove. But at the back of his mind he still thinks she is not the one he wants to be seen with later. He would rather walk about in public with a Hollywood beauty, and he would sacrifice every moment spent with Elaheh to achieve that.
Elaheh herself wants much more. She wants the apocalypse and the rebirth. She wants him to go down on his knees before her, she wants regrets—no, more than that—repentance, recognition that he has done wrong, a promise he will mend his ways . . . And she is convinced it is possible, it will happen in the end.
V
ELAHEH,
GODDESS OF SHIPWRECKED SOULS
Ali Farhang is the lecturer Bahram most admires, his master, a Mossadeghist and an eminent teacher, a brilliant orator whose words fill Bahram with passion in the university’s big amphitheater, as he talks without notes about the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans; he has given Bahram a lifelong love of rhetoric and he makes Bahram think “I want to be like him . . . ” And this is the man who deducts ten marks from Bahram’s end-of-year grade because he arrived late for one of his lessons, accompanied by a new student, a girl who suddenly appeared on the course like an angel sent from heaven, the girl with the golden hair.
Two months before the end of the academic year, Bahram met a new female student. She is the daughter of an embassy attaché who has come home to Iran. She started her university education abroad and has transferred to Tehran University. Her mother is Dutch. She has blue eyes and golden hair.
Perhaps the lecturer is jealous because one of his best students spends time with the girl he himself would so like to have a dalliance with. Just a dalliance. And it makes him behave unfairly, he is abusing his position. Perhaps he thinks his students should be at their most reverential with him and never dare compare themselves to him. Piqued, he lops ten points from Bahram’s grade, putting him second in his year group. And at the same time he withdraws his authorization for Bahram to be absent for athletics selections. They will never forgive each other.
On the day of the athletics trials, Farhang has arranged a trip to the Museum of Iranian Antiquities. Bahram keeps looking at his watch and Farhang talks on and on about all these artifacts collected by the museum, although for once he is not really interested in them. If Bahram’s permission for leave had not been withdrawn he would already be at Amdjadieh Stadium for the national athletics team trials. It is one of his life’s great ambitions to be a part of this team. It is five o’clock before they get out of the museum and are free to go home. Bahram is already running, still hoping something has delayed the selection process, which was meant to take place at two. The gods can’t abandon him now, he’s tra
ined so hard, he’s an excellent sprinter, worthy of the Olympics. He promises the gods that if he is selected for the national team, he will give his best. He keeps making this promise all the way there . . . Iranians really do believe in miracles.
When he arrives at Amdjadieh he keeps running until he reaches the athletics track. The place is empty, everyone has gone, the team has been selected. Bahram collapses to his knees. He weeps with exhaustion and disappointment, alone, in an empty stadium, after dark . . . What could be crueler?
Maybe the absurd thing about this situation is that I still keep talking to you. I still feel like it from time to time, and the way you distance yourself from me doesn’t put me off . . . I probably need to tell you these things in order to hear them myself.
I do realize there will always be some girl who’s prettier than me and that that’s enough to make you to change tack immediately . . . I accept that. And by accepting it, I can’t find anything you do hurtful anymore.
I’m not writing to ask you to apologize, there’s no need for that; at some point, while I hoped your fire burned with a cold flame, I had my wings burned.
And I want you to know that, right at the start, I trusted you, but then I stopped trusting you. Now that I no longer see myself as a part of your love life, or I should say that I no longer see you as part of my love life, I trust you again. I know people can put their faith in you as a person, even if they can’t as a boyfriend.
I see so much in you, some very good, some less so, I see your strengths and weaknesses, but I won’t talk about them anymore because there’s no point. Because you take that as an attack, and instead of seeing me as an ally precisely because I’m prepared to talk to you about them, you give me the cold shoulder . . .