About which you and Mr. Hafez disagree?”
“Objection!” both the prosecutor and Hafez shout.
“Overruled,” rules the judge. “Mr. Pirooz, proceed.”
Pirooz thanks the judge and begins: “Your honor,
Physics, evolution, and history make some actions impossible,
Like holding this court in the Andorra galaxy.
This is absolute determinism—a pre-determined impossibility.
Local religions, cultures, and laws produce relative determinism—
The degree of difficulties a person must overcome
To do what he wishes to do, or not to do what he wishes not to do.
Just as there are two types of determinism,
There are two types of laws—absolute laws and relative laws.
Laws are constantly re-formed, sometimes even reversed.
So what Mr. Hafez is saying, I think,
Is not that he is innocent, but that he is innocently guilty
Of a law which should not exist.”
Pirooz now turns to Hafez: “Is this not what you are saying?”
Answers Hafez with a frown:
“Mr. Pirooz, I called you to defend me, not make excuses for me.
Mitra and I did what we were both designed to do
And what we both wished to do.
All this legal talk is just seeds rattling in an empty gourd.”
The judge interrupts him:
“Human design is not the only thing that matters here, Mr. Hafez.
There is the matter of the laws.”
Hafez turns to the bench and opens his arms,
As if welcoming an arrow.
“Your honor, I am guilty of only one thing—of love!”
The balloon-head of the prosecutor swells.
“Again the defendant defends rape as love,
And insults the court to boot!”
Says the judge: “The court is not insulted. Professor Pirooz, go on.”
Pirooz feels himself wilting,
As if his bottom were the roots of a melon plant,
And his chair a pile of dry rocks.
“As you can see your honor,
Mr. Hafez comes from a world very different from here!
I, too, was born in Iran,
When my mother was only fourteen years old.
All was heavenly, legal, and good.
I assure you I am legitimate!
And Mr. Hafez, too, is legitimate—
A legitimately good person, legitimately in love with Mitra.
Regardless of his age or hers,
They did make a vow of marriage good for any age.”
The prosecutor’s head nearly bursts:
“Vows to an impostor you mean!”
Answers Pirooz: “They believed what Bob Oyster was telling them,
Just as you believe what the law is telling you.”
Hafez is growing impatient with Pirooz.
“Professor, please! Tell the judge about the national religion!”
Pirooz suddenly wishes he had some of the prosecutor’s air.
“It is just a silly theory, your honor.”
Says the judge: “Silly or not, the counsel for the defense
Wants the court to hear it—which indeed it does!
Enlighten us, professor.”
So Pirooz proceeds to describe the national religion,
The Constitution as the new Holy Book, and all the rest,
Finishing thus: “It is self-evident that concerning age and sex
The precepts of the national religion violate
Both the will of Nature and God,
Making this court more illegal than Hafez’s behavior.”
Hafez is delighted: “Absolutely correct!
It is I who should be finding the law guilty,
Not the law finding me guilty.
Now, professor, tell the judge about the First Prime Rule!”
Pirooz winces, as he talks picturing himself
Rotting in the jail cell next to Hafez.
“The First Prime Rule is that all man-made rules die,
And are replaced by new rules,
Imposed by man-made human gods
Who have replaced the God-made God.
And the Second Prime Rule is that the First Prime Rule
Is an exception to itself and immortal.
So, Hafez is being prosecuted under a law which
Later will be prosecuted itself!”
The judge scratches his chin: “Are not both laws disobeyed at peril?”
The question makes Pirooz feel like the professor he is.
“Your honor, attraction and love have many dimensions,
Some good some bad:
Physical—like the attraction of magnet and iron.
Chemical—like that of hydrogen and oxygen.
Biological—like that of sperms and eggs.
Social—like attraction to status, intellect, power, and wealth.
Spiritual—like that of one kindred spirit to another.
Ecstatic—like infatuation with beauty and human possibilities.
Local rules and laws and even religions,
Always temporary like seasons and flies,
Are unable to control these permanent
And prominent and imponderable pre-dispositions of man.
Someday this very prosecution will be thought a witchhunt
By the new high priests of a new national religion,
Like so many previous witchhunts in history.
In short, your honor, love must be understood, not chained
Just to please those who have never experienced its ecstasy.”
“Have you questions for the professor?”
The judge asks the prosecutor.
The prosecutor lifts himself just half way.
“Just at what college he teaches, so I never send my son there!”
Everyone laughs, Pirooz the hardest.
Then the courtroom falls as silent and cold and sad
As an empty refrigerator.
Whispers the judge: “Mr. Hafez, proceed.”
Says Hafez: “I call my final witness, Miss Susan M. Smith.”
From the back of the room walks a very old lady,
Badly bending over a bamboo cane, wearing the floppiest of hats,
Its brim alive with a band of yellow roses.
Her white curly hair covers her wrinkly white skin.
Her baggy print dress descends from her chin to her heels.
Still, her blue eyes are dancing with exuberance and vitality.
Only on the outside is this old lady old.
The bailiff, the judge, all in the courtroom,
Treat her with the greatest patience and respect,
For at her age she has earned such esteem.
Begins Hafez: “Miss Smith please tell the court
What you know of the man wrongly charged.”
She says this: “I have known the defendant
Since he arrived in New York,
And not knowing our currency,
Trusted me to make my own change
When he drove me here or there.
Look into his eyes, your honor:
Are they not the eyes of a trusting man?
Are they not the eyes of an honest man?
Are they not the eyes of a caring man?
Do they not gleam with creativity and intelligence?
Do they not thirst for knowledge,
Truth, and the truest kinds of love?
Can anyone honestly say that those eyes
Should be looking out through iron bars?
Can anyone honestly say that Mitra was wrong
To fall in love with those eyes or the sweet soul peering out?”
Hafez knows that his face is as red as a radish.
“Thank you, Miss Smith, I have no further questions.”
The judge swings his own owl eyes to the prosecutor.
�
��She is your witness,” he says.
The prosecutor rises and approaches,
His head swelling with questions as he walks.
He nods respectfully at the witness,
And speaks in the soft tone he reserves for his grandmother.
“Miss Smith, can you please tell us what the accused does
For a living, this creative and intelligent, thirsty man?”
“Well, he drives a taxi.”
“A taxi you say?”
“And writes some pretty good poems,” the old lady angrily adds.
The prosecutor chuckles softly: “So does my ten-year-old son.”
Says the old lady: “I hope you aren’t going to jail him, too.”
Everyone laughs and the judge bangs his gavel.
The prosecutor’s head seems to lose air, as if punctured by a wasp.
“Miss Smith, with all respect due,
Your Mr. Hafez can’t make change,
Can’t count past the age of fifteen,
Can’t keep on his clothes or learn the laws all others know.
And yet you say he’s as smart as they come?
Can you give the court one single example
Of this taxi driver’s great mental gifts?”
The old lady glares through her curls.
Then her eyes soften and her lips rise into a confident smile.
“Well, for one thing, Mr. Hafez knows both
The Holy Bible and the Holy Koran by heart, every word of them,
And is able to provide the most profound interpretations of each.”
Says the balloon-headed prosecutor: “Every word, Miss Smith?
While I’m sure you believe it’s true—”
Answers the old lady: “I believe it’s true because it is true.”
Now the judge intervenes:
“It is easy to test her belief—we do have a Bible here.”
Hafez is surprised: “And not a Koran?”
“Unfortunately, no,” answers the judge.
“But I will ask you a question that
Someone familiar with both should know.”
The judge takes the bailiff’s Bible, and folds himself over it,
So no one can see what pages he turns.
“Mr. Hafez” he says, “please recite for the court Genesis 17:5.”
The defendant, without thinking, says:
“Neither shall thy name anymore be called Abram,
But thy name shall be Abraham;
For a father of many nations I have made thee.”
The court is duly impressed, But Hafez does not stop there.
He continues to recite—
Despite the judge’s banging bang-bang gavel—
Right through 17:17:
“Then Abraham fell upon his face,
And laughed, and said in his heart,
Shall a child be born unto him that is
A hundred years old? and shall Sarah,
That is ninety years old, bear?”
Hafez stops, grins at Miss Smith, and says to the prosecutor,
“You see? God cares nothing for age! Only the results of love!”
The judge pounds his gavel one last time, asking,
“Does the prosecution have more questions for the witness?”
“No, your honor.”
Says the judge: “The witness may step down.”
But the witness does not step down,
Instead telling the judge:
“Given the gravity of the charges against Mr. Hafez,
I wish to provide further evidence.”
No matter how wide he opens his mouth,
Or squirms in his chair,
The prosecutor cannot make himself object.
So the judge smiles and says to Miss Smith:
“Who are we to deny the wisdom of a long life?”
Miss Smith springs suddenly up,
Tosses her hat and her wig of white curls.
With a swipe of her sleeve the white skin and wrinkles
Disappear from her face, the baggy dress falls away,
And like a butterfly emerging from the dingiest of cocoons,
Stands there the most beautiful of creatures,
In a silk blouse of Persian blue and a white wool skirt.
A string of small white pearls adorn her neck.
It is Mitra.
The court is rocking like a ship caught in a storm.
The judge’s gavel is suddenly made of sponge,
Unable to bang anyone to civility and order.
The prosecutor, balloon-head bobbing like a leaky blimp,
Screams his objections: “Perjury! Contempt! Subterfuge! Fraud!”
While Hafez dances a proud Sama,
Pirooz and his handkerchief are busily catching
The torrent of tears dripping from Mitra’s mother’s eyes.
Finally the courtroom returns to quiet,
And the owl-eyed judge, as angry as the American eagle,
Demands that Mitra explain her deceit.
She says: “The prosecutor claims that I am a victim,
While all the while I know I’m the luckiest woman on earth,
For I am loved by Hafez and I love Hafez back.
The prosecutor says that Hafez must suffer,
Because there are too few birthdays in my basket of life.
But can age be the only determinant
Of physical, intellectual, emotional, or even political maturity?
From what I’ve seen, many children are more adult than adults.
Look at all the adults addicted to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and their jobs.
Look at all the irresponsible adults in business and government.
Why is it that when children do wrong they are tried as adults,
And sentenced to life as adults?
Why is it that adults eagerly send children to fight their wars?
Why are children taxed as adults but denied the right to vote?
Why are children taught repeatedly, on every television show,
In every movie, every ad, and in every song,
That sex is good and sex is fun, and then are told to abstain?
Why are there these magical ages?
Do the clocks of all bodies and minds tick at the same rate?
At sixteen you can do this, at eighteen that?
Why is it that we trust our arbitrary clocks
More than the maturity measured by our biological clocks?
The Hafez before you is only a few ticks older than midnight,
And I am only a few ticks shy.
Yet Hafez must go to prison,
While his child is ticking toward birth in my womb?
Why isn’t there a national test for adulthood?
An exam that encourages children to work for it?
Why aren’t there different licenses
For the different attributes of adulthood?
Don’t most teen-agers tinker with sex?
Should we send them all to jail?
“This court shouldn’t be deciding whether Hafez is guilty.
This court should be deciding whether I’m an adult!
Shall I be permitted to pursue my happiness,
Or forced to submit to the medieval ethos of purity,
Without being permitted to enjoy the matrimonial status
That the young medievals enjoyed?
Why is my husband taken from me?
Where is our freedom in this land of the free?
When I was dressed in the dress of an old woman
Your eyes respected me, and your ears listened to me,
And your judgment accepted my judgment.
What really has changed?”
Now the judge, watching his watch,
Gives Mitra just two more minutes to conclude.
“Two minutes is plenty,” says Mitra as she rises,
And starts unbuttoning her blouse.
(What now will she turn into, Pir
ooz wonders,
Holding Mitra’s mother’s hand
As if it were a hand that he himself owned.)
Says Mitra as the buttons slip open one by one:
“Hafez is not guilty of statutory rape—
I am guilty of statutory seduction!
He is the honey bee, yes, but I am the honey flower, also yes.
It was me who tempted Hafez, me who persuaded him to flee,
So judge me, judge, and set the innocent Hafez free!”
Her blouse is now open
And her mature breasts are glowing under the sun-like lights.
The prosecutor is too stunned to object.
“My breasts are not jailbait,” Mitra says. “They are lovebait,
The bait Hafez took on the instruction of Nature
Soon they will be the bait that catches a hungry child,
Which the prosecutor says I must nourish alone.”
“Cover yourself!” the judge commands. “Cover yourself now!”
But Mitra does not cover herself.
Instead she reaches for the zipper that holds her skirt to her rolling hips.
There are shrieks and confusions,
Some eyes closing, some opening wide.
Again the prosecutor shouts his objections:
“Indecent! Indecent! Impudent child!”
Mitra shouts back: “It is you who have forced my private acts
To become public facts!
It is you who have forced my private parts to become public parts!”
Uniformed guards rush forward,
Awaiting the judge’s instruction to haul the witness away.
Mitra’s mother is wailing,
Crushing Pirooz’s fingers as if they were five pods of peas.
Bang-bangy-bang goes the judge’s gavel, as he screams:
“CASE DISMISSED! THE DEFENDANT IS FREE!”
All are stunned, all are silent, all are frozen in disbelief.
Squeals the prosecutor’s exploding head:
“Case dismissed? What do you mean?”
The judge slides over his bench,
Grabbing Hafez and Mitra in his robe-heavy arms.
“This way! Quick!” he so orders,
“Professor Pirooz, you come with me, too!”
Pirooz asks Mitra’s mother to join them
But she needs to rush to work.
So the four walk briskly from the chamber,
Down the hall toward the wide oak doors.
The guards and lawyers follow silently in awe,
But the reporters are in a frenzy.
(“What a court!” one exclaims. “What truths!” exclaims another.)
“Is that your taxi?” the judge asks Hafez when they get outside.
Hafez nods and they all pile in.
Suddenly, as Hafez turns his key, the black robe of the judge
Changes into the enlightened robe of an old Persian poet.
Dardedel Page 17