About five seconds pass in the dark of the leather-padded interior until someone at the steering wheel reaches back and clicks on the overhead light. Next to me is a slender man whom I recognize as the Shekufeh interrogator. He’s dressed in an eighties drape suit by Alan Flusser, with natural shoulders, a full chest and peaked lapels. ‘So how is everything. Is the party any good?’ The driver is looking into the rear-view mirror, smiling at me. I don’t react.
‘Never mind. You know I was wondering about something. Tell me. Have you been to the Khomeini museum up in Jamaran?’
He only briefly waits for an answer. ‘Well, you should go. Even Castro went, he went last week. Especially if you like galleries and all that. Beautifully done. You see his furniture, his clothes, his perfume, his paintings, all sorts of stuff.’ He sighs. ‘So anyway. All things considered, I have to say we were pretty happy with you. We all were. Stella, everyone.’
There’s still no reaction on my part, which doesn’t seem to surprise the driver, who now turns around to look me in the eye. ‘I especially liked your appearance in Shekufeh. You pretty much got everything right. Toptabulosa. I liked that a lot.’ I look out the window. Two doors down from the Promessa is a boutique with an oversized wooden signboard, with red lettering saying KYF O KAFSH ROMANTYK. The driver turns back and starts talking at the windshield, much like the young Leonid Brezhnev only a few hours earlier.
‘The Hamburg Zurich Beirut thing is working out nicely too.’ He pauses. ‘Will take a while, but that’s OK. Let’s remember that St Petersburg took longer than expected, but it was worth the wait, as we all know. The only thing is, well. The only thing is, you shouldn’t have done that signature business in Shekufeh. You know that.’
I look up to see whether the driver is watching me, but he’s still staring straight ahead, at the Nissan parked in front of us. ‘And also: you could have checked back with us about the San thing before you went ahead. The San thing, you know? You should have checked back.’
The interrogator in Alan Flusser clears his throat and nods, agreeing with the driver. ‘Exactly. And the other thing is you never passed on the check.’ He checks his watch. ‘And it was all becoming very awkward because we were positive you’d tell Stella at some point. I mean it was such an obvious sort of situation, no? And then came the San thing.’ He checks his watch again. ‘About time, no?’ He looks up at the eyes and eyebrows in the rearview mirror, then turns to me. ‘You didn’t flake out on this too, did you?’
‘Any moment now,’ I say, to no one in particular. The driver starts the car and slowly drives down the street, past boutiques and stores selling computer software, designer glasses or university textbooks. Which is when we feel the stifled thud of an underground blast, followed by a low-pitched muffled thump not far behind. As we turn right, into Enqelab Avenue, I fight the urge to turn back and see what is left of the Promessa.
As I step out of the car, I can see the lights are on in my apartment. The others remain seated as I walk up to the entrance of block 44D with familiar jarring movements in my stomach.
Stella is standing by the living-room window, wearing a shapeless, washed-out jogging suit, thick, rectangular glasses and a boyish crew cut. She has put on a considerable amount of weight since we last met, and I’m oddly touched, as if she’d done so just to please me. I smile nervously at Stella, who doesn’t smile back, her now very globular cheeks lending her a vulnerable, almost pouting expression.
Our last meeting was well over a year ago, and there’s a sense of embarrassed, misplaced intimacy in the air. After a moment’s hesitation, Stella walks up to me and gently takes me by the arm, just above the elbow, leading me into the bathroom. I look down and notice that her fingers are no longer lovingly manicured as they used to be.
‘You did a great job,’ she’s saying. ‘And we hope you’re as happy as we are.’ Stella pauses as we reach the bathroom. ‘I don’t even care about the check that much. Only problem is, well, they have your signature now. That’s unfortunate. Not that we don’t trust you. Just a matter of policy. Why make things complicated, at this stage? I’m sure you understand?’
As I step inside she closes the door behind me, so I reach for the notebook in my inside pocket and take a seat on the edge of the bathtub. I never considered this situation to be an option in the overall scheme of things, although in retrospect, it makes perfect sense. At least the Promessa has found a worthy ending. Cruel and gracious, ambiguous and cutting, dramatic and humble at one and the same time.
At the very least, Stella could have framed another rooftop martyrdom, which might have been more fitting, more emblematic, given the Zirzamin context. But at this stage, the site-specific, suicide scenario looks quite unlikely. Staring out the window into the apartment opposite, I wonder where exactly she’ll be placing the barrel of the handgun. Assuming it will be above my left sideburn, if I stand in the middle of the room facing the window, I’ll be leaving the Action Jackson patterns on the mirror and shower curtain. Most of the liquid will be soaked up by the bathroom rug, and since the floor is slightly tilted, whatever is not contained by the fabric will flow neatly towards the bathtub, along the edges and into the drain, making faint chirping noises as it trickles down the spout. I shall place this notebook on the shelf by the face creams, where it won’t get stained.
All the pastes and liquids in their respective tubes and flasks are neatly lined up, keenly anticipating their date of replacement, as always. I can hear Stella outside, taking her Polaroid portrait from the wall, gathering all the Zip discs, minidiscs, VHS tapes, newspaper articles, urban panoramas, email printouts and audio CDs she can find. But she’ll probably leave our Moleskines where they are, piled on the floor by the Le Corbusier armchair.
Tirdad Zolghadr is an independent critic and curator born in 1973. Aside from the field of contemporary art, Zolghadr has worked in journalism, translation and documentary film. He is also a founding member of the Shahrzad art & design collective.
ISBN 13: 978-1-84659-020-7
eISBN: 978-1-84659-177-8
copyright © Tirdad Zolghadr 2007
This edition published 2007 by Telegram Books
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