by Parisa Reza
You are a man in the making, you’re too young. Maybe later we’ll meet up again on different terms and maybe then you’ll be ready to listen to me . . .
Meantime, we don’t have to hate each other just because we didn’t manage to make something of our relationship . . . If possible, I’d rather we didn’t end on a bitter note. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have an image of you that will be a pleasure to look back on. And I’d like it to be the same for you . . . You’ve made your mark on my life and I’m sure I’ve made an impression on yours . . . let’s see it like that . . .
Lastly, and this is the main reason I’m writing, so you hear it from me and not from anyone else: I’ve decided to get married. To a man a lot older than me but who will be a loving husband, I’m sure of that.
I don’t have anything else to add for now. Maybe I’ll keep writing you for a while, or maybe not, and things will fade away of their own accord.
Bahram reads this last letter from Elaheh with tender feelings but no regrets. He feels tired of everything that is happening to him, and thinks life should cut him some slack.
Elaheh marries a friend of her father’s, a man twenty years her senior, Sadegh Mohajer, a journalist and member of the Toudeh Party, so he, too, is a Communist. He asked for her hand in the winter but she turned him down. Then she asked for him to be contacted again and gave her consent.
The marriage takes place in the first month of summer, on Tir 15th, in her grandfather’s summer residence in Darband, at the foot of the eternal mountain, a place that sees the family come and go from generation to generation, immutable, untouched by pain, regrets, or love. The bride in her white dress cries after saying, “I do,” which is normal, the bride always cries, so does her mother. Everyone in Iran cries, with happiness and in sorrow. People cry so much that they can hide any feelings they like behind other, more acceptable emotions. This bride cries because she does not love her husband and she loves someone else, but that happens so often here that even the angels pay no attention. What also often happens is that two weeks later the same girls end up in love with their husbands, if they know how to treat their wives properly, unlike the other men who have broken their hearts.
Elaheh’s husband always calls her Madame, he speaks to her and treats her with the utmost respect, kissing her hand and reminding her of her freedom and her rights, saying, “It’s up to you” and, “That’s for you to decide” . . . and she ends up loving him. Especially afterward. After the events that flare up so quickly. Because these are uncertain times, each individual plays out his or her fate on a knife edge, still believing in all its possibilities and taking risks, risking everything, risking life itself. She chose a member of the Toudeh Party because Bahram does not like the party. She chose a proper rival for him. A monarchist would have been ridiculous, Bahram would have laughed in her face, but a Toudeh Party Communist—and what is more, no ordinary Communist, an important journalist, a well-read, cultivated, and committed man—makes a perfect rival. She hopes Bahram will hate him with a loathing that will consume him for the rest of his life. But calculations in love are always wrong.
When Bahram is told her husband’s name by a friend, he says, “No, really? Goodness! That’s great, that’s great! He’s a good man. I’ve read his articles, I think he studied in France. That’s fantastic!” And no more.
Men are jealous only if they were in love, otherwise a former girlfriend’s marriage is comforting, especially if he treated her tactlessly and if she is marrying a good man. It’s fantastic.
Then the day came, Mordad 28th. Through history some events endure forever, a past that still exists in the present, a shipwreck that still floats over the ocean—haunting, obsessive. Because fate takes a course that leads to the Apocalypse when there was clearly another possible path. People refuse to accept that these events are truly over, and they doggedly ponder, study, and write thousands of words in an effort to find one detail to shed some light on why these things happened, even though the events themselves are not worthy of those who suffered them, nor those who committed them: the Mongol invasion, Mordad 28th, 1332 . . .
The Shah and his queen had already fled abroad after an attempted coup against Mossadegh, which was thwarted thanks to the network of Communist officers in the Toudeh Party. On Mordad 26th the National Front and the Communist Party both organized huge demonstrations in Tehran, and the Communists toppled statues of the Shah and his father.
On Mordad 27th, Mossadegh met the American ambassador, who expressed his concerns about the increasing Communist presence in Iran—the Americans hated the Communists and were afraid Iran might side with the Soviets. Everything else, even oil, was only a secondary consideration. That same day Mossadegh asked Iranians to stop demonstrating in the street, he wanted to restore order.
Tehran’s public squares emptied, now they simply needed occupying. That was when American agents gave the order for a coup. The operation was codenamed AJAX and was run from Tehran itself by the nephew of former U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt. And Mossadegh could not believe the Americans would do something so scurrilous.
At siesta time you can barely even hear the buzz of flies, it is immediately swallowed by the silence that watches over Gholhak’s sleeping inhabitants.
Toward two in the afternoon there are suddenly three knocks at the door. Without waiting to be invited in, Ebrahim rushes into the garden.
“Bahram! Bahram!”
“I’m coming,” Bahram calls from his house.
“Hurry up,” Ebrahim keeps yelling.
He runs past Sardar, who was taking his siesta in the garden under the mulberry tree and who has just woken with a start, but Ebrahim does not even say hello.
“The worst thing possible may have happened . . . ” Sardar hears from some way off, and then Ebrahim whispers in Bahram’s ear . . .
“I’m going out!” Bahram shouts. When he is at the garden door he can just hear his mother’s voice but does not listen.
Sardar understands, he gets up and switches on the radio.
“What are you doing? This is no time to listen to the radio!” Talla exclaims, surprised. Sardar does not reply and something stops Talla from pressing him further. Knowing Sardar, this must be serious.
As soon as they are in the street the two young men part with a “see you later.” Bahram starts running toward Tehran; his job is to go check that the rumors circulating in Gholhak are true.
Bahram is now twenty and he runs through Gholhak’s streets with ease like a Greek god, light, swift, and supple. When he reaches Shermiran Road he takes a taxi into Tehran. The taxi draws near the capital and even from some way off there is a sense of the chaos in the city center. Pedestrians run in every direction, a crowd gathers, men armed with sticks and knives appear, soldiers arrive, there are shouts and groans. The taxi driver can go no farther so Bahram alights and melts into the crowd. A dark mass of people crying, “Long live the Shah! Down with the traitor Mossadegh!”
“Please, please, what’s going on?” Bahram asks.
But no one gives him a clear answer, as if what is going on has not yet fully happened, it is too soon to give it a name. He needs to know. He elbows his way to the Bahar Café on Shah Avenue. The manager, Jamshid Khan, is an active party member. Bahram comes here often for student meetings, to drop off tracts and have a beer. Khan is an unusual man, an Azari who speaks Persian with a strong Turkish accent; he must be about fifty or older, hard to tell. He has the moustache and bulk of a Turk, a genuine smile, and big, kindly hands. He always knows everything that is happening, has friends everywhere, a network of informers; he knows the news even before the newspapers publish it. No one knows exactly where he is from and a lot of stories are told about him, but one thing is almost certainly true: He was once a member of the Toudeh Party and now no longer is. At least that is what his words imply, but he does not state this clearly. He will be
able to tell Bahram what is going on. If the café is open.
The metal shutter has not been lowered, but the café is empty and the door locked. Through the window, Bahram can see the key in the lock, and someone hovering inside. He is about to knock when he sees Taghi, the waiter, coming to the door. Taghi was on the lookout at the back of the café and recognized Bahram. Jamshid Kahn told him to open the door only to party members he knows well. He lets Bahram in and goes to tell Jamshid Khan.
“Come through to the kitchen,” Taghi says.
Jamshid Khan has his back turned, he is standing by the oven burning papers. Bahram feels sick with impatience.
“Ask Taghi to serve you some tea,” Jamshid Khan says without turning around, “and come sit next to me here.”
“Please tell me what’s going on!”
“Do as I ask.”
Tea in hand, Bahram sits down next to Jamshid Khan, who is still calmly and carefully dropping papers into the flames one by one. As if defeat has become familiar to him, as if he wants to act out this part as appropriately as every other, he wants the beauty of his gestures to show that there is no end goal, all that matters is the road you take, and that road leads from one disaster to the next. As if he once met Talla’s aunt Gohar, and she told him, “Man is revealed in defeat . . . You’ll see, every time you do your duty as a man, defeat will be there. You might as well love it and cherish it. Drink it like tea that is as bitter as poison the first time but afterward, if you accept it, it will reveal you to yourself.”
“If you knew how many times I’ve done this in my life,” Jamshid Khan says with a sad smile. “It started early this morning, at about eight, a load of people, thousands, thugs from the south of the city, armed with sticks and knives, hired hands shouting, ‘Long live the Shah!’ and ‘Death to Mossadegh!’ And the best of it is the chief of police ordered his forces not to move, to leave them to it! They went to the bazaar and the bazaaris shut up their shops. Then there were more and more of them. Do you know what? Buses full to bursting came from God knows which suburb and since then the buses have been driving all over town bringing more people to the demonstrations. We don’t know where they’re from or who paid the drivers. They’ve already ransacked the offices of the political parties, and ours, too. The Toudeh Party’s premises have been completely destroyed . . . And the offices of at least twenty newspapers, some are on fire! They’ve also taken the army headquarters. And they’ve freed Shaban the Brainless from prison, he’s the ringleader of the street fighters bankrolled by the royal court, and he’s already out in the streets leading his troops. Does that give you some idea how highly connected these bastards are? They’ve also captured the radio station, General Zahedi has already made a speech announcing that the Shah’s appointed him as the new prime minister. Right now these lowlifes are launching an attack on Mossadegh’s house, his guards are holding out for now . . . ”
The telephone rings. Jamshid Khan leaves the kitchen but comes straight back.
“It’s over,” he says. “Army tanks are crushing Mossadegh’s house as we speak. They’ve got their coup. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It didn’t work last week . . . but this time it has.”
Jamshid Khan starts talking very quickly, his hands jittery. “Now listen up, go home straightaway, don’t stop anywhere, don’t talk to anyone. When you’re home clean everything out, don’t leave a single piece of paper, nothing. Don’t trust the little things you’re tempted to keep as souvenirs. Then, complete silence. You’ve never been a member of the party, you’ve never been to a single party meeting, none of your friends have ever been activists in a party. Even among yourselves you can’t talk about it again. Listen to me, from now on no party will or can be tolerated in their eyes, there won’t be any political parties. Erase the whole thing from your memory. You’ll never come back here, even to drink tea. Now go. Wait, do you have anything in your pockets?”
“I don’t think so . . . Oh, yes I do.”
“Put it in the fire.”
Jamshid Khan takes Bahram in his arms and kisses him on both cheeks.
“Another time, you’ll see, another time . . . ” he sighs, and this is the first time since Bahram arrived that he has revealed a hint of despondence. Then he smiles and adds, “In a few years, if we’re alive, we’ll put this together again! Go on, my boy, go. Hey, don’t run, walk.”
Bahram is worried. He can hear shouts and gunfire in the distance. Tanks roll past him on Shermiran Road. He is jostled by the crowd. Dust everywhere. He feels dizzy, fear sweeps over him, overwhelms him. He cries like a child who has lost his mother. He cries in terror but also with disappointment. Until today this era he lives in belonged to him. He was part of a group, strong, determined men guided by prestigious leaders. These were hugely significant times, and they were heroic. Now, suddenly, he has been robbed of his community. His roots are being cut away from under him. He realizes that his ideals will now be banned, and he will have to forget, to wipe himself from his own memories. All of that was who he was, but no longer can be. He looks around, hoping a familiar face will come to help him, someone will take his hand and lead him to where he needs to go. But no one is interested in him. For a few more minutes he tries without success to find some compassion in the faces bustling around him. Then he instinctively starts running as fast as he can toward Shemiran, as if he is being pursued by armed men, as if his life depends on it. He has to run away from fate. He stops looking at people’s faces, does not turn round when he hears cannons boom, he just runs. When he passes through Shemiran Gate, things gradually grow calmer. He has escaped the feverish activity and is now in Shemiran, where time seems suspended, where it has always been possible to stop the clocks and for the pages of newspapers to stay blank, a place where history has never set foot, where only life’s everyday things happen. He keeps running on and on, until he sees Shemiran’s gardens, its gardens of consolation. Shemiran the maternal, the protector, Shemiran with its enduring fragrance of the peace of paradise. Shemiran is an oriental woman, she never stands up to men but takes them in her arms and soothes them.
When he reaches Gholhak, Bahram slows a little and goes directly to Ebrahim’s house. He knocks three times, goes straight in, and lets himself collapse to the floor. Lying there on his back, all he can hear is the frantic beat of his heart. He thinks he might die like the Greek soldier who ran from Marathon, but only after speaking many more words than this historical precedent. He must hold out long enough to pass on the message.
Eyes popping, Ebrahim comes and sits beside him and shouts, “Water, water!”
“There’s been a coup, army tanks have destroyed Mossadegh’s house, the Shah’s back . . . I saw Jamshid Khan,” Bahram tells him, and he repeats what Jamshid Khan told him word for word.
Ebrahim helps him back to his feet and leads him to the door, saying, “I’m going out.”
As they leave they are obscurely aware of a woman’s voice saying something but they ignore it.
Ebrahim’s sister is left transfixed under the cherry tree, the glass she offered to Bahram still in her hand. She heard what he said. The two men have left and she is alone in her garden, toward the end of a summer afternoon. The temperature has dropped, her father will come out of the house to do the watering, her mother is frying eggplant for the evening meal, and the crows are cawing.
She looks up at the sky and says, “God, only if you can, only if you want to. Please do it. Tell me it’s still possible for the Mossadeghists to win.”
Ebrahim runs and Bahram walks. Outside his own front door, fear grips him again: What if they’re here waiting to arrest him? But who? He doesn’t know. He enters the house cautiously, the radio is murmuring; his mother is hunkered down on the terrace, she says hello to him but he ignores her. He goes straight to the room that he lends to the party, unhooks the large “Third Power” banner from the wall and throws it into a corner, then scoops
up the tracts from the table and chucks them onto the banner.
Darra arrives, they look at each other, and Darra glances at the mess.
“Has your party cleaned everything out?” Bahram asks him.
Darra is upset, he does not know, he did not have the heart to go look.
“You have to, go see everyone, one by one, you have to clear everything out, burn it all. All of it! Don’t keep a thing, not in your pockets, not in any drawers. Nothing. And as of now, none of this ever existed, we’ll never talk about it again. Listen to me, no political party can or will be tolerated in their eyes, there won’t be any political parties anymore, not yours or mine. Maybe one day we can put this together again, maybe one day . . . I can’t make you to do anything, obviously, you do what you like, but don’t ever talk to me about it again.”
And he turns away to go stack the chairs. Darra leaves, still more frightened than when he arrived. Bahram takes down flags and throws them on the pile too. The portrait of Mossadegh is still there. Bahram stands looking at the photo, hesitating, his hands do not want to take it from the wall.
“Take it down!” Ebrahim says, coming into the room.
Bahram gathers up everything he has put into a pile and goes out, and Ebrahim follows him with the picture of Mossadegh.
“We need to burn everything,” he says.
Talla has come to the door and says, “Over there, at the bottom of the garden.”
She makes no reproachful comments, is extraordinarily calm, as if aware that this is too serious to make a scene. Bahram turns around and sees her following them with her head lowered. So, my mother does know when to stop . . . he thinks, and that is when he remembers the curse of the cat that meant so much to his mother . . .