The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree

by Shokoofeh Azar

  * * *

  1Be! And it is. What God says of creation in the Quran 2:117.

  2Wood used for making tars.

  3A neighbourhood in southern Tehran.

  4A type of head scarf that covers the wearer’s head, chin, shoulders and chest and became popular after the Revolution.

  5A neighbourhood in southern Tehran that until the Revolution was famous for its brothels and bars.

  6A sheet-like black cloth that is meant to cover all of the wearer, except the face.

  7The largest of Tehran’s amusement parks prior to the Revolution.

  8A desert south of Tehran where the nameless victims of the executions of 1988 were buried in mass graves.

  9A local dance from Mazandaran in which men and women dance in pairs.

  10Various intellectual magazines from before the Revolution.

  11The last Zoroastrian empire in Iran before the Arab invasion.

  6

  There was no news from Sohrab because he was waiting. He was waiting for the executions to end. They did end. Some say it was September 27, 1988 and some say it was later. Either way, they eventually came to an end. Five thousand men and women, young and old, whose only crime had been their political or religious beliefs, were killed in the prisons of Tehran, Karaj, Mashhad, and other cities. Once they had all finally died and their corpses had fed the crows and stray dogs in the desert, they didn’t sit idle. They set off.

  The ghosts of five thousand political and religious prisoners rose up from the cities’ deserts and from around Tehran and Khavaran and looked at their smelly, maggot-infested body parts strewn about and carried in all directions in the mouths of crows and dogs. They set off with a common loathing. They wanted to see their murderer’s face up close. They could have appeared instantly in Khomeini’s bedroom, the man who had signed their execution orders, but in memory of their not-so-distant lives, they decided to walk in silent accord. It was thus that groups of doleful, unhappy ghosts set off from the southern, western and eastern deserts of Tehran and converged at the intersection at Vali’asr. Hands in their pockets or smoking cigarettes that some had stolen from passers-by, five thousand ghosts marched towards Vali’asr Square, Vanak, Tajrish, and then to Jamaran Street.1 They looked at the men and women who walked right through them without so much as sensing their presence. They looked at the children who could be their own; at crowded stores and streets filled with vendors; at the City Theatre, at Qods Cinema, Sa’i Park and Melli Park. How dynamic life still was without them! How full of cotton candy next to the cinema and fortune-telling with walnuts; how full of boutiques and bookstores and gold sellers. How at first sight, the boys still fell in love with girls, followed them around, and passed them their numbers! How glorious the plane trees on Vali’asr Street still were! How many cats and crows there were in Tehran! Filling their non-existent lungs with air, they wandered until it got dark and then decided against going to face their murderer. They realised their sorrow was too great for killing their killer to make things any better. Life and death took on another form as they walked on and looked at the faces of the living. Nostalgia and hopelessness was what filled all of their hearts. Gradually the city fell silent. Lovers emerged from restaurants and cinemas two-by-two, disappearing into the maze of alleyways. Shop lights were extinguished and, here and there, the homeless lit fires around which they gathered. The city streets became empty. The smell of warm food filled the air and the muffled sound of night-time talk filtered out from the windows. Suddenly, the ghosts felt so sad that their constricted throats burst open. Walking north from Vanak Square, five thousand miserable ghosts began to cry. They cried … and they cried … and they cried. They cried because they missed eating dinner with their loved ones; they wanted herb stew, meat and eggplant stew, and barberry chicken. They missed the carefree laughter alongside their families, their kisses and goodnights. Their tears flowed and flowed … until they turned into a torrent.

  Here and there passers-by who had missed the last buses looked up at the star-filled sky and wondered where the deluge was coming from. It was only the homeless addicts and vagabond lunatics whose inner eyes saw that a river of tears was proceeding up Vali’asr Street, flowing ahead of five thousand despairing, crying ghosts marching like a vanquished army, occasionally leaning against old plane trees and keening in a funereal lament. The flood worked its way up, reached Tajrish Square and Jamaran Street, crossed the bridge over the dry river-bed and flowed under the feet of plainclothes officers. It entered the courtyard and ascended the steps, soaked the rugs and made its way directly to Ayatollah Khomeini’s bedroom where it climbed up the feet of his twin bed and reached him as he lay in a fitful sleep at 2:32 in the middle of an ordinary summer night. He was having his usual nightmare. He was dreaming that thousands of family members of people executed had surrounded him in Azadi Square and were ripping and clawing at him with such savagery that not even one drop of his blood hit the ground.

  He awoke with a fright and felt the stickiness of his sweat on his fingers, toes, and temples. He rolled over, scratched his long, bushy beard, and when he saw that his baggy shirt, mattress, and pillow were wet, he sat up with a start. He was afraid it was his own blood that had made everything so wet and slimy. He stuck his finger in the moistness and brought it to his tongue. It was salty and slightly viscous. It didn’t taste like blood. It tasted like tears. Frightened, he got out of bed and put his decrepit eighty-year-old feet on the wet carpet and sank into it up to his ankles. He groped around for the light switch and flicked it on. Then he saw that his room was submerged in tears. His heart constricted with the fear of death and he let out a terrifying scream, sending the guards into a panic, bringing the termites who were gnawing away at the wooden ceiling to a standstill, and giving fright to some sleepy Eurasian, collared doves. Eight, usually indolent, guards jumped up and rushed into the house with weapons loaded, and followed the flow of tears from Ruhollah Khomeini’s room all the way to Vanak Square, next to the maze of alleyways where the addicts and homeless had fallen asleep under house windows with the lingering smell of warm dinners.

  It took three days and nights of diligent, obsessive cleaning before the puddles of tears were all mopped up from the recesses of the house on Rahbari Dead-end off Jamaran Street.2 He continued to find large puddles in strange places, however, into which he would stick the tip of his right little finger, taste it, and yell out in anger and fear, until 10:20 on the night of June 3, when Khomeini died. Once, when brushing his hand over the mantle in search of his glasses, he found it drenched in tears. He shrieked so loudly that for three days he couldn’t talk for the sore throat it had given him; cancelled a meeting with supporters among clerical leaders in Qom, and retreated fearfully into a mysterious underground room that was still under construction.

  It was thus that at daybreak the next morning after the tear-filled procession, the sorrowful, wandering ghosts each set off alone. Some returned to their families in villages and cities; others remained on the streets of Tehran in memory of the hopes and dreams of the fiery days of the Revolution and in the hope of one day seeing with their own eyes the destruction of the regime that had killed them like flies. And still others were so repulsed by earthly events that they began a quest for transcendence in the spirit world.

  Sohrab was among the latter.

  * * *

  1A street in northern Tehran where Khomeini lived.

  2The translation of Rahbar is leader.

  7

  Doors creaked. Shoes and sandals were thrown into the garden. Pebbles hit the window panes. Lightbulbs turned on and off and curtains opened and closed. Before the wide-eyed and terrified gaze of the guards, footprints walked past them in the freshly fallen snow and continued towards the yard and steps leading to the house. The door opened then closed. A hand took Khomeini’s cloak from the rack and threw it out the window into the yard. Another hand unravelled his turban, put one end of it into the toilet and flushed. In the middle of the nig
ht, with all the guards everywhere searching wildly, and his wife Batul, in her bedroom saying the Fear Prayer,1 they could hear footsteps on the porch, voices whispering, and then the chair draped in a sheet that was exclusively reserved for his Speech Days shifted and sank inwards as if under someone’s weight. One night a young guard was so frightened by the clear voices issuing from under trees and behind bushes all around him, saying, “Murderer … murderer … murderer …” that his finger nervously pressed the trigger, showering the petunias and jasmine with bullets, before the rest of the guards quieted him with their hushes. Even in the middle of the night when Ruhollah’s glasses were lifted from the mantel above his head, flipped around and, right in front of his weak eyes, flew to the ground and broke, no one in the room with him gave the slightest reaction because Khomeini hadn’t given any orders.

  The man, who in all the years since becoming Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran had developed a habit of giving orders as he sat in front of a large mirror, had fallen silent. Sitting in front of the mirror while he spoke with others filled him with such self-confidence and daring he felt he could conquer the mountains, deserts and skies and, with the flick of a finger, spread Mohammad’s pure Islam throughout the world. Still he insisted on remaining silent. If they hadn’t gone too far the night they heaved his sleep-heavy body down from his bed, if they hadn’t dragged him the whole length of the room over the hand-woven Kermani carpet and then through the long living room, and tried to propel him off the second floor, his guards would have continued to show restraint. But in the middle of that particular night, Khomeini was so scared and made such a ruckus, that twelve Revolutionary Guards on Jamaran Street also heard his screams and, running into the house, saw his eight special guards pulling, terrified, on his legs as they tried to pull him back into the room. When two Revolutionary Guards shot at the invisible force, the guards finally managed to drag his old, wrinkled body back in through the window. That night when Khomeini realised the others had seen the wet, yellow streaks that ran down his pants, he cried and, for the first time, he allowed everyone to see how frightened and alone the man behind that perpetually scowling, stonily arrogant face actually was.

  An hour later, the twelve Revolutionary Guards and eight special guards heard him talking in his bedroom. They guessed he was talking, as he usually did, to his mirror. At times his voice was raised to a yell and at times his howling sobs echoed through the old house’s rooms that were devoid of sunlight. At noon the following day, when he emerged from his room with sunken eyes, his face covered in sweat, arms and legs shaking, and holding a fistful of crumpled paper, everyone realised that more than just the objects hurled from one end of the room to the other had broken in that bedroom. The same day, two engineers sat on their knees in front of Khomeini as he ordered the construction of an underground palace. Nobody dared speak against the bizarre plans that he was hurriedly, nervously, and fearfully drawing up right before their eyes. From the very beginning he had said, “Questions suspended”.

  Contrary to what was published in the newspapers, broadcast on radio and television, and even what was advertised on the twenty-metre billboards on Vali’asr, Tohid and Enghelab Streets, many of the soldiers who had volunteered to go to the front were neither militants infatuated with spreading Islam, nor followers of the Revolution and Khomeini. They were just simple-hearted, patriotic young men who didn’t want so much as a centimetre of their country to fall into enemy hands. When the ranks of the dead exceeded ten thousand, fifty thousand and then one hundred thousand, the martyrs selected representatives of their own to join forces with the errant ghosts of the executed political prisoners who still sometimes wandered the streets of Tehran in memory of their revolutionary dreams, to finish him off. When they finally came face-to-face with Khomeini in his bedroom in the middle of that snowy January night, their message was clear, “Either you die right now or you build a palace of mirrors, the instructions for which we will give you in fragments, day by day. The day the palace is completed you will die”.

  It was thus that hundreds of builders began labouring day and night to dig through the basement of the house towards the mountains. Where the engineers gave orders to continue, Khomeini would appear and wave his index finger in the air and scream for them to stop. Where the engineers told them to stop digging because there was risk of a collapse, Khomeini would give confusing instructions and insist that the work continue. It took a year to dig a cavity in the heart of the mountain suitable for the construction of a palace of mirrors; it was several hundred metres square with a height of thirty metres in some places and just one metre in others. However, contrary to what the engineers thought, not only was the job not over, but the most difficult part had only just begun. As the days progressed it appeared the project was taking shape, but it soon became clear that it was becoming more and more murky by the day. Everyone was confused and worn out, Khomeini most of all. But whereas the workers’ drive and desire for money helped them slog forward, Khomeini’s only motivation was survival as he became increasingly disorientated and began rapidly ageing as time went on. Metre by metre the structure was built as per the precise instructions fed to Khomeini every minute by the Council of Ghosts comprised of war dead and ex-political prisoners. The palace entrance was formed by a long corridor, narrow and winding, some sections of which were so low the engineers and workers had to crouch down to walk through, while others stretched thirty metres into the air. There were mirrors everywhere: on the stairs, on the walls, ceilings, railings, and in the hallways. Broken mirrors on the floor that crunched stubbornly underfoot didn’t allow their presence to be forgotten for even a moment. There were stairs that ended at sheer cliff walls, hallways that sloped gently upward and converged with the ceiling. Seven contorted floors were constructed in accordance to the whimsy of the Council of Ghosts so that just when the workers thought they were on the second floor, they emerged on the fourth; and when they thought they were going from the fifth to the first floor, they hit a dead end on the seventh. There were windows in the floor, doors and ceiling. Pillars placed hither and thither were left disconnected from above. Twelve fireplaces were built with only one that connected to the outside; one connected to a bedroom without a door, and the shafts of several converged, whilst the rest led to the mountain. In one bedroom, a second bedroom was built in which there was a third bedroom, in the floor of which was a door that opened up to the floor below but had no stairs. And there were winding, convoluted hallways with destinations that were anyone’s guess.

  Mirrors. Mirrors were everywhere, catching everyone off-guard with a view of himself from every angle. Gradually fear gripped all who were worked there. Cries of terror could be heard day and night, calling for help out of the labyrinth. Some of the workers said they had seen wounded ghosts without heads or legs in the dark corridors. One day a worker saw the ghost of his martyred brother. The man cried so hard out of joy that other ghosts gathered round and wrapped him in their arms to comfort him. Before long, rumour had it that if you were looking for someone from among the martyred or unknown war-fallen, the thing to do was get a job there as a labourer. It became normal to hear crying and laughter issuing from within the dark, mysterious interior of the palace. People from all over the country formed long queues in front of the house on Jamaran Street, standing for hours in the rain and snow to join in the work, even without pay, so they could secretly meet with their ghostly loved ones. Later, the guards caught several women disguised as men who had been hired because they wanted to meet with their martyred husbands, make love with them again in the palace’s dark recesses, and get pregnant. At first the guards, engineers and Khomeini were happy. They thought the people were full of revolutionary fervour and adoration for its great leader and had come as an expression of their love for him. However, when news of workers meeting with their martyred brothers, sons, fathers and husbands reached the ears of Khomeini and his eight private guards, they began selective hiring. From then on work
ers had to fill in long, detailed forms to ensure they had no martyrs in their family. The war ghosts who had found some peace and joy in seeing their families again were angered by this complication. And so it was that one engineer disappeared in a long, dark corridor, never to be seen again. Shortly thereafter, the body of one of the eight private guards was found dangling upside down from a door on the ceiling, his gun sling wrapped around his neck. From then on, to prevent anyone from getting lost or disappearing, multi- coloured, phosphorescent rope with little bells was strung everywhere. The futility of this became clear, however, when in some places the ropes met, and in others they ran parallel, only to, at some undefined point, came back to where they had begun. Gradually the number of frightened engineers and guards decreased. No one knew if they hadn’t returned to work or hadn’t returned from it. The last engineer was spotted opening a window facing the mountain wall, where he found himself staring at a mirror five centimetres from his face. When Khomeini, lantern in hand, who had been cautiously peeking into the dark, half-finished corridors, rooms and stairways, asked the engineer what he was doing, without so much as turning his head, the engineer replied, “I’m thinking about yesterday’s work”.

  This continued for a time and Khomeini was surprised that no one from the government had come to meet with him. Then the reality slowly sunk in. The country no longer needed him. There was no war. No political unrest. All voices had been silenced; everyone had left the streets and battlefields to return to their homes. Now was the time for building. The other politicians could probably organise things themselves. As the days went on, there were fewer and fewer around, until Khomeini found himself completely alone and unsettled by the omnipresent mirrors, silence and darkness. When the last engineer disappeared, no other dared continue. Workers vanished, never to return. Khomeini was eventually obliged to devote a number of hours a day to the construction of his mirrored labyrinth. For the first time in his eighty-seven years, he had no choice but to take a hatchet in his unsteady hands, cut mirrors with diamond blades, saw wood, and sprinkle his wounds with penicillin powder. The first days were tiring, but he gradually became so drawn to his own reflection in the mirrors and the sound of the tools in the silent palace corridors, that he forgot to return home in the middle of the night. The scent of wood filings was bewitching and, for the first time in a thousand years, he recalled that years ago, he had dreamed of becoming a carpenter.