City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran

by Ramita Navai

  ‘I need your help. You’re not in any trouble at all; but this is a sensitive matter.’ She gave Morteza her business card and told her husband to go and buy some ice cream. ‘I represent people who are victims of our justice system. I usually represent people no one else will touch. Are you happy to talk here?’ Morteza looked around; nobody in sight. He nodded.

  ‘Did you know that the old Commander of your Basij unit was stabbed to death recently?’ Morteza bristled. Thought of the Commander still made him shudder; he had tried to obliterate all memory of him from his mind.

  Morteza had heard the news in the mosque a month ago. The Commander had been murdered by a madman. Not everyone believed the story. The mullah of the mosque had said the killing was the work of an undercover Iraqi spy who was seeking retribution for all the enemies the Commander had valiantly slain during the war. The Commander’s close friends had said a drug lord had ordered the assassination for an enormous opium debt. The mosque had held a lavish funeral for the Commander. Hundreds had paid their respects. Food was handed out to the poor. Morteza had felt intense relief.

  ‘I don’t know how I can help. I was simply a student of the Commander. I hadn’t seen him for years,’ he said, staring at a patch of dried grass.

  ‘But I believe you know his killer. Ebbie Haghighi.’

  Morteza looked up in shock. ‘But Ebbie went missing years ago, people said he was found dead.’

  ‘He’s very much alive. He suffered greatly under the Commander. He turned to drugs. Do you know what the Commander was doing to him?’

  ‘No.’ Morteza lied, instinctively and quickly.

  ‘The Commander was raping him. Every week. Ebbie has admitted to the murder. He says he feels no remorse. He’s very happy he killed the Commander. But he’s about to be executed for it. Ebbie wasn’t the only victim. If I can prove this happened to others, I have a good chance of saving him.’

  Ebbie had never forgiven the Commander. He had left Tehran, wanting to be as far away from him as possible, and had worked on building sites across the country, until the need for vengeance grew so strong he could think of nothing else. He had returned to the city and headed straight for Gomrok, where he bought a serrated hunting knife. The Commander was still living in the neighbourhood. When he answered his front door, Ebbie plunged the knife into his chest and his stomach. The Commander fell backwards, but he carried on stabbing him, even when the Commander’s wife ran to him screaming. When he was done, he wiped the blade on his jeans, calmly tucked it back into his jacket and walked to the nearest police station, where he handed himself in. The cops thought he was a lunatic, but he was simply a man at peace, resigned to the fact that he would soon be hanging from a crane – a small sacrifice for the satisfaction of revenge. When asked about his motives, he had kept silent. It was only after his case was assigned to Nassim that the truth came out. Nassim’s instinct and experience taught her there was more to this than a straightforward killing. She had also dealt with enough cases of abuse to know there would be more than one victim.

  ‘You’re not the first person from the unit that I’ve spoken to. Obviously I can’t give you any names, but three others have so far agreed to testify. The Commander abused a lot of young boys. The more testimony I get, the stronger our case is. Maybe the Commander didn’t touch you, but if he did, I can guarantee that your family will not hear about it. Nobody will, apart from me and a judge. None of his other victims will present evidence on the same day; no one else will see you.’ Morteza agreed to meet in Nassim’s office on Vali Asr the following afternoon.

  Morteza had never heard a woman speak with such candid honesty and unflinching openness. Nassim talked about genitals and sexual proclivities as if she were discussing the weather. The only other person who had been this direct was Ebbie. Morteza was immediately comfortable in her presence. He told her all that had happened with the Commander and agreed to testify.

  The case was held behind closed doors, as Nassim had promised. Ebbie was found guilty of murder, but his death sentence was revoked. He would remain in Evin prison until he was an old man.

  The week of Ebbie’s appeal, newspapers had received an order from the Ministry that the word ‘rape’ was banned from use in all media. A few newspapers reported the crime of a stabbing of a Basij commander, but they were not allowed to name him. They stated that the assailant had been spared execution, as there was evidence that the Commander had mistreated him and other boys.

  It was not until his epiphany at the secret Ashura, back in the room filled with blood and sweat, that Morteza realized that everything he had believed in was a lie; that he could no longer be a basiji, that he did not believe in what it stood for; more than that, that he did not like the people he called his friends. Until that moment, Morteza had expected to devote his life to the Basij.

  He had been spending all his spare time at the hosseinieh, staying later and later. When everyone went home he would research his condition on the shared laptop, making sure always to wipe his browsing history. To his surprise he read that the state advocated medical intervention for people like him, and there was even a fatwa condoning it.

  He had stopped having sex with strangers, but his thoughts were still transgressive. He had been grateful to the Basij for keeping him in line, acting as an extra incentive to fight his unnatural urges. He had believed it would be his salvation. But now he saw things clearly for the first time. Staying in the Basij would in fact be his ruin. He had to get out and turn his life upside down.

  When he walked out of the secret Ashura, after managing to shake off the twins and Abdul, he wandered through the streets for a while and called Nassim. She was gentle and reassuring and promised she would help him. He returned home, announcing to Khadijeh that he had left the Basij. He wanted to tell her more, to tell her that he had felt duped all these years, but her reaction was bad enough so he thought it should wait.

  The dawn light had only just started to smudge the night sky when Morteza heard the banging on the door. At first Kazem and Khadijeh thought they were being burgled. Then they heard the shouts.

  ‘Fucking fag!’ It was the Ahmadi twins. Kazem began beating Morteza about the head.

  ‘Shame, shame, shame. You have brought nothing but shame on our family! Go out and face justice!’

  Khadijeh began beating her own head and wailing.

  ‘We know why you left Ashura! We have evidence you’re a queer, we saw the filth you were reading on the computer!’ More banging. Morteza cowered in the corner of the room. Khadijeh peeked through the curtains; she could see some neighbours looking out of windows.

  ‘Why are they saying these things?’ Khadijeh turned to Morteza. ‘You need to leave and not come back. Your father will either kill you or have a heart attack. And I will never be able to face the neighbours again. Please go.’ She hugged him as she led him to the back door.

  *

  Shireen leaves her job as a secretary on Fatemi Street early; she has a final appointment with the doctor who operated on her nose. It was worth paying the extra money as the surgeon is one of Tehran’s best. When she leaves the consulting room she rushes home, buying pistachios on the way; tonight she has a special guest.

  She lives in a tiny flat and struggles to make ends meet, yet Shireen is the happiest she has been in her life.

  She cooks her guest’s favourite dish: jewelled rice with saffron, almonds, pistachios and barberries. On top she scatters rose petals. She spends hours getting ready and puts on her best outfit, an elegant cream suit with nude-coloured peep-toe sandals. Her flatmate gives her copper-coloured hair a Farrah Fawcett-style blow-dry.

  When Nassim arrives with two boxes of pastries, the women hug and Shireen introduces Nassim to her flatmate, who has heard all about this straight-talking lawyer.

  Shireen has set the table beautifully, with a candle burning in the middle. The women eat and talk for hours. Before she leaves, Nassim tells Shireen how proud she is of her.

 
‘I want to give you something,’ says Shireen. From a box in the corner of her room she takes out a laminated card and hands it to Nassim. ‘I won’t be needing this any more.’ Nassim laughs and kisses her. It is a Basij membership card. Printed on it is a small photo and next to it Shireen’s birth name: MORTEZA KAZEMI.

  seven

  ASGHAR

  Nasser Khosrow Street and Shoosh Street, south Tehran

  ‘I toast all you motherfuckers!’ Asghar raised his glass, waving it across the room, ‘and all the motherfuckers we’ve lost along the way!’ He gulped the triple shot of aragh sagee, home-brewed vodka, and smacked the glass down on the small wooden table, sucking his teeth as the liquid burned the back of his throat.

  ‘Ya Hossein!’

  The regulars shouted back, over the sound of slamming, ‘Ya Hossein!’

  Tonight was a tradition that Asghar had lived by for over forty years: to mark the start of the holy month of Ramadan they would drink for four nights straight. It was the final hurrah, a celebratory blow-out drink before thirty days of fasting and abstinence, thirty days of a city full of hungry, bad-tempered people with bad breath. He looked around the room at all the new faces. How he wished the old boys were still here. Nobody understood the old ways any more.

  After the toasts, the regulars all went back to playing, mainly poker and blackjack. It was nearly a full house tonight. Asghar was pleased. Until he heard her coming. Above the clamour, his doormen’s voices pleading with her, trying to hold her back. He knew nothing could stop her. Pari threw open the doors and stormed in.

  ‘You promised me! You promised me!’ The men started laughing. They were used to Pari’s dramatic entrances and public admonishments of Asghar. None of them understood how she ever made it past security; they joked that security probably pissed themselves in fear whenever they saw her black chador angrily billowing behind her as she strode up the stairs. Asghar ran over to her, his face red.

  ‘Darling, it’s not what you think, we’re just having a drink!’ He had his arm round her and was manoeuvring her towards the door.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me! I can see the cards, I can see the money. You’re a liar. You’ve always been a liar.’ Pari started sobbing.

  ‘Pari Khanoum, we just like to play snap, that’s not un-Islamic!’

  ‘Pari Khanoum, I swear, the only bet I’ve made is with Asghar – a million tomans that you would find out about tonight!’

  The regulars began trotting out the usual jokes. None of them could understand why Asghar would get so upset by his crazy wife, or why he was so soft on her.

  ‘Quick, someone get a doctor, Asghar’s balls have just been chopped off!’ The men were raucous with laughter. Pari stormed out. Asghar wanted to run after her and apologize, promise that he would close the place down in a few months’ time when they had made enough money to pay off their debts. But he went nowhere. He was too embarrassed to chase his wife, afraid of subjugating himself in front of the men. It was his reputation, after all, that attracted so many of the young crowd who came here, to see Asghar the Brave, the man who once ruled the streets of south Tehran – a real-life, living, breathing old gangster, a relic of the city’s history. His friends regularly berated him for not keeping his wife under control. They saw her as an interfering termagant who needed to be put in her place. They did not know that she had endured decades of broken promises. Asghar was angry with her for making him look stupid and he resented that she always made him feel pathetic. But he could never stay angry at Pari for long; she was his everything, his one true love. And he had failed her yet again. Asghar got back to pouring the drinks. He would talk to her in the morning.

  After forty years, Asghar could still surprise himself with the force of his love for Pari. She was now nearly seventy years old, but when he looked at her he still saw the wide-eyed, carefree beauty he had fallen in love with. None of his friends could understand it. They all found their wives unattractive and boring. Asghar was the only one who had remained faithful to his woman. He had strayed early on in the relationship, before they were married, and Pari had found out. She had sent a messenger boy to tell him he was a liar and she never wanted to see him again. It took nearly six months to get her back, the worst six months of his life. He spent a week sleeping on the doorstep outside her house begging for a second chance. He was never going to risk that again.

  Pari and Asghar had met in a cabaret club called the Moulin Rouge in Manuchehri Street. She was a showgirl and his crew were providing security. Mustangs, Chevrolets and Cadillacs were parked outside. Unlike the cabarets of Gomrok, where most of the performers were from France and Germany, at the Moulin Rouge the dancers and singers were all Iranian. Pari’s wardrobe was a dazzling collection of fringed bikinis, beaded leotards and fishnet tights; she would high-kick while a live jazz band played and Asghar knocked back vodkas. Asghar had fooled around with most of the dancing girls, as they all had, but Pari was different. She had an honesty about her that he had never seen before. He told the other guys she was out of bounds, and they respected that. Even in those early days it was obvious Asghar was on his way to the top – that he would be somebody. Asghar knew very well what dancing girls did, but that was not a problem. One of his brothers had married a dancing girl; he had simply taken her for tobeh, Shia baptism, to be cleansed of her sins by a mullah. Which is what happened to Pari when Asghar proposed. Asghar took her to a holy shrine where she repented her whoring and swore her loyalty to God and the imams as the cleric uttered prayers under his breath and splashed the backs of her ears with water. She was pure again. Asghar never held her past against her. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody deserves a second chance.

  Pari was thirteen years old when her parents sold her to a man in his sixties. They haggled over her skinny, undeveloped body for ten minutes before they settled on her worth. The buyer got himself a bargain thanks to his excellent timing. He had arrived at the precise moment that withdrawal symptoms were taking hold of Pari’s parents; their bodies shivered with need, they spoke in broken sentences. Pari’s mother put her daughter’s belongings in a blue plastic bag – a chador, a pair of trousers, two tops and some underwear. Pari was crying, but she knew better than to beg; it was bad enough that she was being sold, but to be beaten over the head at this moment would be even more humiliating. Especially in front of the man. Her new husband, Agha Mammad. As her mother handed her over to Agha Mammad, she kissed Pari’s head, only the third time in her life that her mother had kissed her. There were no tears.

  ‘Don’t cry Pari joon, we’re doing what’s best for you, every girl needs a husband.’ The lies came out in the same familiar slur, as they always did. Pari’s parents had both been born in Nazi Abad, a deprived neighbourhood a little farther south than where Asghar grew up. Education, health care and regular employment simply evaded their families for generations. The men were mostly labourers who slaved whenever they had the chance to work, and died young. Most of them succumbed to addiction somewhere along the way. First it was opium and then, when a cheaper opiate came to town, they snapped it up. Pari’s parents were quick to turn to heroin, as were so many of their neighbours.

  As Tehran’s early construction boom stretched south, Nazi Abad slowly transformed from a magnet for the poor and dispossessed to a suburb full of thriving shops and working-class hope. Pari’s parents were soon priced out by rising rents and shamed by the creeping respectability of the neighbourhood. They headed one and a quarter miles north, settling in a new hovel – in the backstreets of Shoosh.

  Pari was born beautiful. As a little girl her sharp cheekbones and naturally arched eyebrows made her look womanly before her time. Her looks tricked people into seeing maturity and allure when they were not there; it was hard not to be startled by her green eyes. When she turned twelve the marriage offers flooded in despite her parents being known heroin addicts. Her suitors were nearly always much older men. Pari would shake with fear whenever they came round, but her parents ha
d promised they would not marry her off until she was at least sixteen.

  Pari’s husband robbed her of her virginity with as much care as a blacksmith hammering a nail. It was not a shock to Pari, nor did she put up a fight. She had been in the room when men visited her mother, and had seen her father mount her at night.

  Her new home was nearly identical to all the others she had lived in: one bare room with cracked, dirt-streaked walls, rolled-up blankets in the corner and a gas stove. This room had a few extra luxuries: a small red television set on a wooden crate, a cheap Persian carpet on the floor and a round brown plastic clock propped up against the wall.

  The next day a mullah came round to legalize their union and sanctify it in the eyes of God. The mullah was a good man; he was not dazzled by Pari’s beauty but concerned for the frightened young girl that stood before him. He took Pari outside the room, making sure Agha Mammad did not follow. The mullah wanted to know if her parents knew about this union and if Agha Mammad had already defiled her. Are you happy my girl? Pari lied. Out of fear and out of habit. Even now she wanted to protect her parents, knowing they had done wrong. She did not realize the mullah would have helped her, for he had helped other young girls in the neighbourhood, without judgement. And so Pari was married to Agha Mammad on the spot.

  Agha Mammad was a bricklayer but he rarely had work. He spent most of his time smoking opium. Sometimes the opium would make his erections last for hours and Pari got used to lying there while he did his business. He would give Pari opium too, and he was surprised by how much she could take without getting sick. Her parents had given her opium since she was a baby, first for her teething pains, rubbing it in tincture form onto her gums, then to shut her up when she cried.