The Drum Tower

by Farnoosh Moshiri

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m just lonely here. It’s a fucking hard life. All these rough men around—and Memaar is busy all the time.”

  “You never sleep together?”

  “Fuck him! We’re not married. I’m his mistress. But I guess he is tired of me or something. Not that there is another woman. There is no other woman for thousands of kilometers in all directions. Unless you count those stinky, dirty, nomad women with their callused skins. Greed has blinded this man. He’s lost interest in sex. All he thinks about is money. And his smoke.”

  “Opium?”

  “That is his undoing. I keep telling him, you’ve made enough, let’s get out of here before something bad happens. But the damned smoke has taken away his judgment. He is deaf and blind.”

  “Why don’t you leave?”

  She raised her head for the first time and looked at me in the dim light. Last night’s mascara ran down her cheeks. “Leave? After all these years? Either he has to marry me, or give me my share of everything. I’ve spent nine years of my life with him. I’ve worked for him like a housemaid. He’s dragged me all over the country to different fucking construction sights. Just leave?”

  “Let’s go in, Mehri.”

  “If I’d stayed in my own town and married one of my suitors, I’d have my own family now. I left with him because he said he’d marry me. But now I’m sure he won’t.”

  “Maybe he will, after this business—”

  “Oh, I don’t care anymore. I just want my money. Some savings for my future.” Suddenly she paused and stared at me. “Why are you pretending to be a boy?”

  “I feel safe this way.”

  “I envy you.”

  “Envy me?”

  “Yes.” She buttoned her shirt, went toward the door, and stopped. “I won’t tell anybody. Stay a boy. Good for you!” Now she laughed. “Did I make a fucking fool of myself? Trying to seduce a little boy?”

  “I’m not little. I’m seventeen,” I teased. “Don’t think about it anymore. And keep my secret. I’ll keep yours.”

  Politics in the Desert

  The tall, rotating fan was in the middle of the room sending waves of hot air toward us. Mehri taught me how to splash water on the bamboo shade from outside to cool the room. Passing through the wet bamboo, the hellish breeze turned heavenly. All afternoon Tara slept in the cool current.

  So this was my job—every half-hour I filled a bucket from the pool, splashed water on the bamboo shade, poured some on my head and came in. Once, I felt so hot that I stood in the middle of the yard and poured the whole bucket of cold water over my body. A bearded man looking down from a window on the second floor laughed and said something in a language I did not understand.

  When Taara woke up, she had some hot tea and lemon with Mehri, who insisted that steaming tea was the best cure for heat. Then they squeezed into the passenger seat of a truck that belonged to the same bearded man who’d laughed at me earlier, and went to Zabol to shop. I tried to take a nap, but it was too hot. Besides, how could I sleep and splash water on the bamboo at the same time?

  So the rest of the afternoon I sat in the empty room, wrestling with fragments of disturbing thoughts, waiting for Taara to return. If Taara wouldn’t talk with Memaar, then I had to do it. Either the man would find our uncle or we’d leave. But where to? Back to Tehran? I thought about the deed for Drum Tower. Was it valid? If Assad could erase Khanum’s name, then a smuggler could put his own signature there. Could we use this document instead of money and cross the border? But the dim vision I had of the other side was something I did not want to think about.

  And what if Taara became comfortable here and spent her days in a daze and her nights at opium parties? And then the baby would come and we wouldn’t be able to move. I had to talk to this Master Memaar.

  At dinner, Mehri was quiet and somber. I knew now that she had two moods: talking and sulking. Taara drank again. I warned her that she was feeding alcohol to the baby—it would be crippled. She laughed and told me to shut up. Samandar with his charcoal black eyes drilled holes in her. Either Taara’s belly didn’t matter to him, or he liked big-bellied women. Master Memaar and Safdar discussed politics, cursing the revolution, praising the old regime, the safety and security of the twenty-five-hundred-year monarchy. One of the guests, who had been absent last night, joined the dinner. He was chubby and bald and wore a short-sleeved shirt. Memaar never introduced him and he didn’t even glance at us.

  Now when Master Memaar praised the fallen monarchy, Mr. Amaani, the gray-haired man who had been quiet last night, raised his head for the first time and spoke in a calm voice.

  “Imagine a pressure cooker, water boiling in it. The lid is tight. The water expands and pushes against the lid; the lid bursts open and hot water overflows. It’s a law, isn’t it? If the Shah and his American advisors were wise enough, they’d leave the lid open a crack. They wouldn’t censor the poets’ books or arrest the university students for reading Jack London or Maxim Gorky.”

  Memaar and Safdar looked at the man, puzzled. They didn’t know who Jack London and Maxim Gorky were and what they had to do with the revolution. The bald man pretended to be deaf.

  “Are you saying the revolution was inevitable?” the younger Baluch, Samander, asked.

  “Obviously. If it wasn’t inevitable, it wouldn’t have happened,” the gray-haired man said, and smiled.

  “But why all these mullahs?” Memaar asked. “Where have they been? Where were they hiding all this time?”

  “They were around us all the time—in the dark chambers of their theology schools in Qum, in our neighborhood mosques. The Shah exiled their leader. He fanned their rage. He created the Islamic movement.”

  “You mean the Shah is responsible for the Ayatollah’s power?” Memaar asked.

  “He and his masters,” the man said. “Yes. They caused it. Again, they didn’t leave the lid of the pressure cooker open.”

  “What is to be done now?” Safdar asked.

  “The secular organizations are weak,” the gray-haired man said. “They’re out of practice. The monarchy never gave them the freedom to exist, to be among people, to spread their roots. People are used to tyranny. In this country, one tyrant replaces another. People don’t know the concept of democracy. Every single man in Iran is a little shah in his own house, dreaming of a big shah to control him and save him. That’s all they know: tyrants. Our history is full of them. People worshiped the bloodsucker kings. Now they worship the ayatollahs. The tyrant is the same; the crown has turned into a turban. Liberal and leftist organizations cannot gain much power. People don’t know them. Some of them have just arrived from exile. Twenty-five years in Europe. They even speak with a funny accent!”

  “So you’re saying the rule of the clergy is inevitable?” Samandar asked.

  “They were here. They’ve spread their roots in the commercial sector. They’re popular among the shopkeepers of the bazaar. And the poor are ignorant. The government of the Shah, or the government of Allah, it doesn’t make any difference to them, as long as a savior is up there—a savior who doesn’t need to save them. Just an idol, a father figure. The ayatollahs are playing with the people’s deepest emotions—their blind faith.”

  “What about those who understand?” Taara asked. “Those who are not blinded by religious faith?”

  “This country is not their place anymore, my dear. They had better leave. Some have already left.”

  After the tablecloth was cleaned up, shaken and folded for the next meal, the mysterious bald man returned upstairs. Mr. Amaani, as if embarrassed by his long lecture, vanished too, and everybody else went to the yard to sit in the cool breeze and smoke. Taara was wearing a loose-fitting maternity dress she’d found in Zabol’s Bazaar. The dress was a native gown with glittering green sequins all over it. It was a color she would never wear in the city—the hot pink of a strange evening sky, dotted by stars. She held her setar in her arms and followed her belly to
the porch. The zinc coins of her native necklace jingled on her chest.

  They had cleared the porch of all the faceless men, and had spread a carpet there. Mehri, Taara, Memaar, and the two Baluchi brothers sat drinking, smoking, and chatting. I wanted to speak with Master Memaar, but he was busy trying to refute Mr. Amaani’s earlier comments in his absence. I couldn’t interrupt him and besides, he considered me a child. I needed Taara’s help, but she couldn’t see me. She was absorbed in herself and conscious of the young man’s attention. She was acting like a soloist, sitting majestically on a stage ready for her concert. As she began playing and Samandar singing, I left the porch.

  Since they had brought us here, I’d never opened the front door of the house, never seen the outside. Now I sat on the steps looking at the narrow dirt alley. A dusty, yellow bulb on top of a wooden post cast a dim light and moths flew around it. I saw a few other houses in the alley, much smaller and older—poor people’s hovels. The alley was short and its end lay in darkness. A gust of cool wind brushed dry sand onto my face. I ran my hand over my head and felt the grains.

  If Memaar kept drinking and smoking, I would never be able to talk to him. Had we come all the way to the end of the earth to linger in this strange house and get drunk?

  “Upset? Or alone?”

  First I saw the red spot of his cigarette, then he emerged from the darkness. It was Mr. Amaani. I didn’t say anything. He sat next to me on the stone step.

  “It feels lonely here, especially at night. There is something about the desert, I don’t know what, that makes one feel orphaned, abandoned. Maybe trees keep us company in Tehran—all those tall maples—our old friends.”

  “Are you a poet too?” I asked.

  “Too? Who else is a poet?”

  I realized that ever since I saw this man I’d been thinking of my father. Father could have made such a speech about the revolution.

  “Are you?”

  “What?”

  “A poet?”

  “Oh, no. But I do write.”

  “Are you here to cross?”

  He laughed. “You’re already using their terms. ‘To cross!’ Yes, I’m here to cross. What else would bring me here? This is the end of the world.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “I don’t want you to tell me what you’re not supposed to, but how come you and your sister are planning to leave the country? Where are your parents?”

  “We don’t have parents. I mean, not in a normal way.”

  “I see.”

  “And we didn’t come here exactly to cross. I learned about the crossing business here. We came because of our uncle.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Somewhere around here. Master Memaar said he knew everybody; he’d find him. But now he says he doesn’t know him.”

  “Be careful.”

  “About Memaar?”

  “Everybody. Everything. You should have stayed home.”

  “No home was left.”

  “I see.”

  “Why are you trying to cross?”

  “I guess I already told everybody at dinner. Oh, damn! I shouldn’t have talked so much. And in front of that man. I regret it.”

  “I don’t think they know who you are.”

  “They know what type of person I am. A cowardly intellectual.” He laughed bitterly.

  “Why do you say this?”

  “Because everything I said was a justification for what I’m doing.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re kind.”

  “You’re neither a political activist, nor a religious believer,” I said. “So you should leave.”

  “Some people believe that every single person who understands what is wrong is responsible.”

  “For what?”

  “For staying and fighting. So that the catastrophe won’t happen. Have you read about the rise of fascism in Germany in your history classes?”

  “But aren’t these matters beyond the power of individuals?”

  “Individuals, yes. But they’re not beyond the power of political organizations. Sufferers of the World Unite! Haven’t you heard such slogans?”

  “I’ve seen them on the walls. Once I walked with a group of people all the way to a cemetery where their martyrs were. They sang their anthems. Their leader was called ‘Uncle.’”

  “Oh, really?”

  “I joined them accidentally.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The Guards shot at them.”

  “I know. Criminals are gaining power by the minute. Cowards and realists are leaving.”

  “Where is your family?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Oh—”

  “I don’t want you to tell this even to your sister—I was a political prisoner in the former regime. When the revolution opened the doors of the Shah’s prisons, I walked out.”

  “Just recently.”

  “To be precise, six months ago. I spent fifteen years there. ‘Uncle’ was my cellmate.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. My wife divorced me before my trial was over. I don’t blame her. We have two children. I haven’t seen the older one since he was two, the younger I’ve never seen. They must be around your age now.”

  “No contact?”

  “Nothing. They live in England. Their mother didn’t want them to know me.”

  We sat for a while, listening to the sound of the wind blowing in from the desert, brushing sand against the clay walls of the houses. From inside, setar music was rising. Taara’s fingers had warmed up and she played the way I’d heard only a few times before. Inspired.

  “Your sister is a real artist.”

  “I know.”

  “Why does she drink?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “It’s not good for the baby.”

  “I know.”

  He got up and paced along the wall, then stood facing the vacant end of the alley, where the dark desert lay. He tried to light a cigarette, but the wind didn’t let him. He turned toward the wall, cupped his hands and tried again; he lit the cigarette and came back.

  “Well, I’m supposed to leave tomorrow or the day after. Depending on when the border is safe. We’re waiting for a messenger to bring news. I spent all I had for this trip. If the whole thing turns out to be a trick and they bring me back, I’ll be homeless. I gave them the small house and a little inheritance money my father had left me. I could’ve stayed in Tehran, lived in that house, and watched the show to the end. But I’m leaving. I fought once; I was young then. They put me in prison. I came out old. I can’t fight anymore. I can’t even watch the fight. Let Uncle do it. He is an optimist, an idealist. I’m a pessimist. A realist. They’ll shoot them all. Remember this, kid! They’ll shoot Uncle, his people, and all the rest of them. I can see the black tyranny. I’m surprised no one else can see it!”

  Jack of Spades

  A minute before Mr. Amaani and I went back inside, a jeep pulled up in the alley and two men jumped out in a cloud of dust. They rushed inside and soon there was a meeting in the room where the men slept. Mr. Amaani whispered, “These are my messengers,” and joined the meeting. Men sat on the carpeted floor in a circle, smoking and waiting for Master Memaar. I had underestimated the Master’s importance. But how could he discuss serious matters when he was drunk or drugged? He entered the room and, before closing the door, asked me, “Are you here for the meeting, too?” He was teasing me, of course. He pinched my cheek and shoved me out.

  I found Taara alone, sitting in the backyard with an old deck of cards, arranged in four rows, in front of her. She was staring into the dark, thinking. I crept close to her, but she didn’t notice me. She was somewhere far away.

  “Napoleon?”

  “Is it you?” she asked. “You startled me. Look! Two cards didn’t come out. Two obstacles.” I looked at the cards that were still facing down. “Queen of hearts,” she said, and picked it up. �
�A good-hearted woman. A romantic. That must be me. Jack of spades. A mean man.” She picked up the second card.

  “Taara, listen. This is extremely important. We didn’t come all the way here to eat and drink and shower with buckets, did we?”

  “What do you mean? Get to the point.”

  “I don’t think this man, this Master Memaar, will find our uncle. I don’t think he’ll even make an effort. He’s busy smuggling people out of the country. Why did he bring us here? Have you thought about it?”

  “We were possible customers?”

  “He told his wife to find out if we wanted to cross.”

  “Do we?”

  “That’s what I want to ask you, Taara. Do you want to leave the country?”

  “How can we pay him? Do you know how much I have? Almost nothing.”

  “I have Drum Tower’s deed with me.”

  “They won’t take it.”

  “If we tell them what kind of house it is and where it’s located, they may take it. They can put their own name on the document. The country doesn’t have any law now.”

  “We can try—”

  “But do you want to leave?”

  “What is on the other side?”

  “Afghanistan.”

  “What will they do to us?”

  “They have a Communist government. Maybe if we say our father is a Communist they’ll let us pass through and go to India.”

  “Where Garuda is—”

  “Leave Garuda alone. I’m serious.”

  “I’m serious too. Maybe the whole thing was meant to be this way. Maybe when I saw the shadow of the bird and left Vahid’s place to search for her, she led me in the right direction. Maybe we took the right street the other day.”

  “The bird didn’t lead you here, Taara. She led you to the Black Mountains, to find Baba-Ji’s’s crazy family. She misled you!”

  “I thought she’d be there. But there are many other places she could be. India is one. An important one, too. The flute-beaked Garuda with scarlet wings. Remember? ‘In India lives a bird that is unique/ The lovely phoenix has a long, hard beak. . . .’ ”