Dardedel

by Manoucher Parvin

  Hafez’s reservation remains and he resists even as he resigns:

  “First you demand this, and then you demand that!”

  Mitra pulls him to his feet and spanks the sand from his bottom.

  “I am a conqueror, Hafez Jaan! I admit it!

  I’ve got the weapons and you’ve got the goodies.

  You are my territory now—all of you is mine!”

  She thunderlaughs loud enough to wake the plastic owls

  Dangled from trees to scare woodpeckers away.

  Hafez allows himself to be led to the taxi.

  “True, I am now more yours than I am mine.

  But remember, my Western conqueror,

  The East is not dead and the West not what it pretends to be.”

  Mitra opens the door, growling playfully:

  “Enough of your Persian jibber-jab—so it is settled?”

  Hafez bends his head and crawls inside. “So it is settled, Mitra.”

  The lovers do what lovers do, a night of paradise in the backseat,

  The cab’s moon-lit yellow skin cuddling

  With the green scrub pines and the amber grasses,

  The ocean rhythmically shooshing and shooshing,

  The taxi never resting, bouncing and bouncing.

  Even though she is pleased as a bee

  Sucking the blossoms of a cherry,

  Mitra’s relentless desires flare once more for more thrills.

  Just past midnight she shakes her husband.

  “Are you awake my grieved old lover?”

  “I am awake,” he yawns, “but I don’t want to be awake.”

  He grins a moon’s grin and touches her lips with his lips,

  And adds: “My ancient dream is coming true

  More often than I ever could have dreamed!

  Tell me what is it you wish now?”

  She tells him that the sea is lonely, and that she is also lonely.

  “Smell the salty mist, my love, the teardrops of the sea.

  The sea is thirsting for us, the sea is weeping for us,

  For us to join the sea and together with the sea become one us.”

  Hafez yawns again and protests:

  “We are not baby turtles rushing to the sea at midnight.”

  But Mitra smiles and persists:

  “Then why are we trapped inside this yellow shell?

  I want to go skinny dipping, Hafez Jaan—please!”

  These strange words puzzle Hafez.

  “What is skinny dipping? The name of an island? A boat?

  A species of fish you want to catch with your hands?”

  Mitra giggles: “I want to go swimming, Hafez Jaan.

  As naked as we were before!”

  “In the middle of the night?” frets Hafez.

  “Just because we were born and married naked, must we die naked, too?

  Are you not afraid of anything?”

  Mitra opens the cab door and slides out,

  And pulls at him as if he was a stubborn suitcase.

  “I fear nothing, not any more.

  My love for you thwarts all fears,

  Including the fear of ghosts, laws, or bottomless seas.

  But Hafez, why are you suddenly afraid of everything?”

  “Because suddenly I am Adam,” he says.

  “And you are suddenly a woman who talks to snakes.

  You tempt me and tempt me, and tempt me,

  To eat apples and pomegranates, and persimmons, too.

  Wife, trust me, I am an Adam better suited to writing poems

  Than picking one dangerous fruit after the other!”

  Mitra laughs wickedly, seductively.

  “You are my Adam, Hafez, and I am your Eve,

  And in this Eden of ours, I am God and Satan combined!

  You will taste my fruit or any fruit I command!”

  Hafez is serious now:

  “I want to be commanded, tempted into submission.

  But I also want us to be cautious, I want this to last.

  Having been treated so well by fate, I fear we are tempting our fate.

  Oh Mitra, my precious love, my perfect fate!

  I am suddenly as a warrior returning home from the last battle,

  Having fended off a thousand swords and arrows,

  Suddenly afraid of slipping on a loose stone.

  Come on, my wife, let’s go dip our skins!”

  They undress and don the moonlight—it fits them perfectly.

  They run to the beach and splash into the waves,

  Which embrace them voluptuously and shower them with kisses,

  Soft and wet kisses, such incredibly horny kisses.

  They not only see and feel the moonlight, but hear the moonlight.

  The faraway lights of a ship wink at them,

  And the stars sprinkle them with the sweet scent of eternity.

  Hafez feels, and Mitra feels, that for the first time in history,

  A love, their love, has become conscious of itself,

  Conscious of its own beauty and dignity,

  Conscious of its own truth, historicity, and immortality,

  Ascending to the limits of all consciousness.

  Their love mingles with the ocean’s warm vapors of love,

  Ascending higher and higher, building a staircase to their vasal,

  Touching all luminous creatures in the sky,

  Dancing a universal dance of love,

  Singing a universal song of love,

  Seducing every fire in the firmament,

  To dance and sing with their love,

  To make love to their love,

  And give birth to numerous new stars in love.

  Suddenly a shower of meteors

  Serenades their togetherness in love.

  Just as suddenly the flashing lights

  Of police cars surround their love.

  Hafez takes Mitra in his arms, and whispers sadly:

  “I think we have just been evicted from Eden.”

  And how right Hafez is:

  In a few minutes questions are asked and explanations rejected.

  Mitra is driven home to Manhattan in one black car,

  And Hafez driven to jail in the screened backseat of another.

  14 Judgment Of Flanders Bay

  Pirooz takes Rumi another glass of orange juice,

  And another box of Kleenex,

  Protecting his own nose with an empty espresso cup,

  So the poet’s hungry germs, propelled like microscopic rockets,

  By endless screaming sneezes,

  Don’t crash land in his own tender insides.

  The Mowlana sneezes: “Hbleeeeech! Hbpppphhhhht!”

  Then asks: “Are you sure I shouldn’t go with you today?”

  “If I’m sure of anything” answers Pirooz,

  “It’s that you should stay put—and should’ve stayed put.”

  “Hbleeeeech! Hbpppphhhhht!

  You are still blaming me for marrying Hafez?”

  “No, Mowlana,” Pirooz says. “I am still blaming me

  For telling my problems to a pair of cactuses.

  Hafez came to New York to look after me,

  And you came to New York to look after him,

  And here I am looking after both of you—pray-tell, Mowlana!

  How ever did you think that marrying Hafez and Mitra

  Would uncomplicate the complicated,

  Instead of making it more complicated?”

  “Hbleeeeech! Hbpppphhhhht!

  I know you are forever worried about the law, Pirooz,

  And wish that I had taken your side in this Mitra matter.

  But as someone who has lived and died and lived again,

  I am more worried about God’s law than man’s law.

  Hafez and Mitra love each other truly,

  And giving themselves to each other is not

  The bad thing you think it is—Hbleeeeech! Hbpppphhhhht!

  “So
take poor Hafez to Long Island,” Rumi says

  As Pirooz circles the bed, filling the sick air with a spray of Lysol.

  “And let the judge judge him as he will.

  Rape is a heinous crime,

  But the love of Hafez and Mitra is not a crime.”

  And so Pirooz piles Hafez into the taxi,

  And drives east across the Queensboro Bridge.

  Hafez brings with him a pile of Pirooz’s books,

  To read on the way, and if the judge decrees,

  To read in jail for the rest of his second life.

  Pirooz glances at the book Hafez is reading.

  It is a book on America and what went wrong.

  He says: “Do not expect things not to go wrong.”

  Hafez replies without looking up: “It will go as well as it can.”

  Says Pirooz: “More than likely as bad as it can.”

  Hafez shrugs. “Then it will go as bad as it can.

  Either way makes no difference.

  I will still love Mitra and she will still love me!”

  “Given the trouble you are in, Hafez,” Pirooz scowls,

  “You are handling this all very well.”

  Hafez answers with a little shrug:

  “I have some experience with trouble

  From my former life.”

  Now the poet looks up from his book,

  And watches the cars flying west as they fly east.

  “Pirooz Jaan, inside I am crying the tears of a thousand orphans.

  I am frightened, already locked in jail,

  Already trapped inside the saddest poem ever written.

  Already missing Mitra as Majnun missed Layla.

  How many lives and deaths before man is kinder to mankind?”

  Three months have passed since the early morning

  When Hafez called from a jail cell in Flanders Bay.

  Three days he sat in that cell as the charges piled up against him:

  Statutory rape, theft of a taxi, going naked on a public beach.

  And two months have passed since Mitra’s mother

  Came to Pirooz’s apartment,

  And thinking Pirooz was Hafez, kicked him on the shin,

  And informed him that her daughter would be a mother soon.

  Pirooz explained who he was, and took the woman in his arms,

  For she was suddenly crying and shaking,

  And saying in the voice of a wounded sparrow,

  “My baby is a woman and I am no mother at all.”

  His kicked shin still throbbing, Pirooz took her into the kitchen,

  And made her tea, and held her hand, and listened to her life

  As it tumbled from her quivering lips.

  She was a beautiful woman, Mitra plus a few short years,

  And Pirooz struggled hard to keep his mind

  Where, under the circumstances, it should be.

  With news that her daughter was carrying a baby,

  Mitra’s mother pleaded that the charges be dropped.

  But the prosecutor persisted, saying that the law was the law,

  And baby or no baby, a girl is a girl,

  That the good people of Suffolk County

  Cannot permit the likes of this foreigner

  To prey on America’s impressionable young.

  All rise for the judge, who floats wearily to his bench,

  And looks out, over the top of his glasses,

  As if he were a barn owl watching mice from the rafters.

  He studies the defendant, the young Mr. Hafez,

  And wonders how such an innocent-looking lad

  Could have perpetrated such a heinous offense.

  After shuffling his papers and blowing his nose,

  He asks the prosecutor to begin.

  The prosecutor fills his cheeks with air, as if his head were a balloon,

  And states the state’s case: “Your honor,

  According to the statutes a rape has occurred,

  And given that Mr. Hafez has already admitted

  Doing what the law says he has done,

  And given that medical tests show

  He did indeed do what he says he has done,

  The prosecution’s work is also done—we rest our case.”

  His balloon head empty of air, he proudly sits down,

  Satisfied that he has demonstrated aptly

  That this Mr. Hafez is a bad man in a good world,

  Satisfied that in the next election he can convince voters

  That he is a good man in a not-good world.

  The judge swings his owl eyes toward the defendant.

  “Mr. Hafez, it is your turn.

  Do you still intend to represent yourself?”

  Hafez stands and clears his throat: “Your honor,

  I will not only represent myself, but be myself.

  After all, who knows better than me

  That I am innocent of everything but love?”

  Says the judge: “I remind you once more, Mr. Hafez,

  These charges could put you in prison for a very long time.

  Just because the cab company has forgiven you for taking their cab,

  And just because the park rangers have punished you

  With only a warning for bathing naked on a public beach,

  The County of Flanders Bay will not be so gentle.

  Should you be found guilty you will be genuinely punished.”

  “I genuinely understand,” answers Hafez.

  “Then proceed, Mr. Hafez.”

  And so, as Pirooz sits with his head in his hands,

  As Mitra rubs her slowly swelling belly,

  As Mitra’s mother twists a tear-soaked handkerchief,

  Hafez begins his defense: “I will call three witnesses today:

  One to testify on the cause of my trouble,

  One to testify on my innocence,

  And one to attest to my good character.”

  The balloon-headed prosecutor objects:

  “What has caused him to commit this crime

  Has no bearing on the fact that he has committed it.”

  “Overruled,” rules the judge. “Mr. Hafez, proceed.”

  Says Hafez: “I call Mr. Omar Khayyam.”

  Eyes look everywhere, But no witness is found.

  “Where is this Mr. Khayyam?” asks the judge.

  Hafez, as if taking a nap in another world,

  Blinks and then bows as if the judge were a king.

  “Forgive me, your honor, here is my witness.”

  He takes a small book out of his coat.

  “This is Mr. Khayyam, or what is left of Mr. Khayyam.”

  He hands the book to the seemingly bewildered judge.

  Says the judge: “This is the Rubbaiyyt

  Of the old Persian poet—just what is your point, Mr. Hafez?”

  “Well, your honor, since Mr. Khayyam has been dead awhile,

  I will recite his testimony myself.

  I have marked the pages so you can read along.”

  The prosecutor’s head again balloons: “Objection!”

  “Overruled,” rules the judge. “Mr. Hafez, proceed.”

  And so Hafez recites:

  “If I had been asked, I would have refused my birth.

  If asked, I would refuse my death.

  I would forswear all that there is: the coming, the being, the going.”

  Hafez waits for the judge to find the next page,

  Then says: “Mr. Khayyam also testifies that,

  “God knew full well all my future acts

  When he brought me forth into these facts.

  I am able to do nothing beyond His will.”

  Booms the balloon-headed prosecutor: “Your honor,

  ‘God told me to do it’ is not a recognizable defense!”

  Says the judge: “What evidence to judge,

  And whether to judge it, is for me to judge.”

  He pushes his head across the wide bench,r />
  And to everyone’s surprise, recites a verse of Khayyam himself:

  “Drink now while you live,

  For once buried under the earth you shall sleep forever,

  Without foe, without friend, without folks, without lovers.”

  Then the judge says with a wry smile: “You see, Mr. Hafez,

  Mr. Khayyam had doubts himself about

  The determinism you raise in your defense.

  Otherwise he wouldn’t suggest to you and me,

  That we do this or that as we please.”

  Says the startled Hafez: “Now I object!

  I am the one presenting the evidence!”

  The judge ignores him, saying,

  “But even if I accept that all is pre-determined—

  That man’s actions are merely God gibber-jabbering to Himself,

  To absolve Himself from Himself,

  For inducing you to do what you have done—

  Are not the laws that man creates the laws God wants?

  And if the answer is yes, Mr. Hafez,

  Has it not then been pre-determined

  That I must not only judge you guilty,

  But also God guilty, as a co-conspirator in the rape of this girl?”

  Booms the balloon-headed prosecutor: “Your honor, please!

  This is highly irregular, and confusing, too!

  Do you wish me to charge God in this affair as well?”

  Answers the judge: “If God wants us to charge Him,

  He will let us know.

  Meanwhile the prosecution may, if it wishes,

  Cross-examine Mr. Khayyam’s little book.”

  The prosecutor rises, his head not swelling at all.

  “No questions, your honor.”

  “Then,” says the judge, “Mr. Hafez will call his next witness.”

  Says Hafez with a smile: “I call Professor Pirooz.”

  Pirooz, surprised, springs to his feet,

  And on shaky legs struggles to the stand,

  Where he hears himself swear to tell the truth,

  The whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

  Knowing that if he does tell the truth,

  No one would believe the truth!

  How can he say that this young Hafez is really the old Hafez?

  How can he say this Hafez has been twice a man and once a cactus?

  So he tells the judge that he has known Hafez since a child,

  Which is someway true, someway false,

  Since he doesn’t say who was the child, Hafez or him!

  Before Hafez can ask him a question,

  Pirooz shushes him with a finger to his lips,

  And addresses the judge: “Your honor,

  I agree with the prosecutor that this trial so far

  Is both irregular and confusing.

  And since it is, may I say something about this determinism,