Stranger to History

by Aatish Taseer

  ‘That’s OK, but don’t say anything about religion. Say you’re working on a thesis about the cultures of people in the East.’

  It sounded vague to me, but I guessed that was the idea. It was evening and Tehran’s main arteries were clogging when Hosseini dropped me off at Shiraz Avenue. On the way I asked him why he had left Iran. ‘I didn’t like this government,’ he said. ‘Also, I wanted my children to grow up in a free country. One goes to Harvard, the other to Stanford, and my son goes to Northeastern for engineering. They wouldn’t have had those opportunities here. I value very much freedom of expression, freedom of thinking. I value these things very much.’

  Hosseini’s family had owned a construction company, which they lost in the 1979 revolution. He spent many years in America and had only recently come back after being offered a senior position at the university. Like so many other Iranians, a sense of loss and love of his country brought him back. His main reason for leaving, as he said, was his children and how growing up in the Islamic Republic would limit them.

  ‘You know what happened in Iran?’ he said, after the traffic slowed again, ‘People were very connected to religion even though the government was not religious. But now that the government is religious, most of the people want to get away from religion. They see it as killing people, putting journalists in jail. That is the true religion. It is very hard for me to say I am a Muslim. Most of the terrorists today are religious. I prefer to say I have no religion.’ Then, as if in an afterthought, he said, ‘We are a talented, enthusiastic people, but with a bad government.’

  ‘It’s funny that everyone always says “government”,’ I said, ‘when they mean “regime” or “state”.’

  ‘Yes, because every year we say this is the last year, but they’re still here.’

  We agreed to meet the next morning at nine fifteen outside the office of the Disciplinary Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

  That evening I had an urge to go out. Nightlife in Tehran happened at private houses, and as my absent host once said to me, ‘It’s filthy.’ Most of the time I was too busy or unprepared for its excesses, but that night, like many young people in Tehran, I felt in need of release.

  I called Amir. When I told him what had happened, he became quiet. I still expected Hosseini to perform a miracle, but Amir smelt trouble. ‘This can also happen,’ he said, after a long silence. ‘Don’t push too hard.’ We talked of other things and I said I’d like to see him in case I was leaving tomorrow.

  ‘Yes,’ Amir said. ‘In fact I’m taking you to a party. It’s the birthday of an actor friend and I think it’ll be fun.’ I readily agreed and he said he’d pick me up in a few hours. I was standing on the balcony when I spoke to Amir and caught a glimpse of the lights coming on in the city. My eyes had fixed on this view so many times over the previous month and, despite its ugliness, it was a captivating and dark urban vision.

  Amir and Anahita arrived in high spirits. They drove an elegant, cream 1970s Paykan – Iran’s Volkswagen – and Anahita was holding a large tambourine. The party was in another high-rise building, which, like mine, was constructed in the time of the Shah.

  At the party, beautiful made-up girls threw off manteaux and scarves to reveal décolleté tops and long, flowing hair. The room was dark, the music loud; a famous Iranian hit song played; a light came from the kitchen where several kinds of spirits and beer lay around the sink.

  Most of the crowd were in the film business, and when I told them I was Indian, they tittered about Bollywood. A girl in a red and white satin blouse danced close to me, a man smoked a joint on the balcony and Anahita beat on a drum while others, including the host, who was bearded, with clear blue eyes, danced round her. Fun of this kind in Tehran always seemed to be had with the accompanying awareness that it could land you in trouble. Almost everyone present had had a brush with the law; almost everyone had been at a party that was busted; many of the girls had been picked up for stretching decency laws. An entire urban youth had been criminalised. Most of the people there were almost exactly the same age as, or slightly older than, the revolution. They had lived through times when T-shirts, Western music, certain haircuts, the mingling of the sexes, dancing and, of course, intoxication could have you hauled in. And yet they took their chances – in fact, too many; they were hooked on dissent.

  Leaving the party, two girls reeled ahead of us, carrying a giant ten-foot sandwich from the party on their shoulders. They rocked from side to side and their headscarves slipped off. One climbed drunkenly into our car. Anahita, who had been drinking through the evening, drove and sang. She tore down highway after highway, veering the car towards traffic islands, then pulling away with a laugh at the last minute. Amir looked serene. It was behaviour that would have got us arrested in London, let alone Tehran. I leant over to him and said, as if consoling him, ‘Fuck the Islamic Republic of Iran.’ He laughed, and Anahita and he stuck up their elbows and rotated them, a jeer at the regime from the time when elbows were sexy.

  We ended up at some house, sitting about the floor, drinking cheap vodka in plastic cups. A painter friend of Amir, a dark man with a shaved head, began a story. Addressing me, he said, ‘I was the most religious guy. I believed in Muhammad and Ali for years. But I have seen all the propaganda in schools and now I don’t believe in religion. One day I started thinking and I stopped believing.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I was driving with my friend and I had a Koran kept in that . . . How do you say it, the sun thing in the car?’

  ‘Visor?’

  ‘Yes, visor. And the road was very bumpy and the Koran fell down. So I picked it up and kissed it. And my friend, he saw me, and he said, “Oh, your Koran fell down. Let me kiss it too.” So I give it to him and he takes it, kisses it and throws it out of the window.’

  The room erupted in laughter, but the painter withheld his smile, eager to continue. ‘And . . . and my friend says, “This is nothing.” And I start to think, How can he and how can’t I? How can he and how can’t I? All night I lay in my bed, thinking, How can he and how can’t I? All night. And then it came to me: Islam was nothing but history written by victors.

  So before, when I was religious, I was a big fighter. Now I give a prize to anyone who can make me fight.’

  No one laughed now. They smiled knowingly at the painter, nodding and sipping their drinks. He described Islam as ‘history written by victors’. He made a haphazard connection between being a ‘big fighter’ and religion. His description of himself reminded me of Muhammad Rahimi’s student days. Religion overcome, the painter knew a kind of peace; he saw empowerment in his transformation from believer to thinker. His tracing his former rage to the religion’s view of history was the most significant thing I heard on my journey. It was at the heart of my problem with my father, with whom, but for religion, it could be said I shared a single history.

  The next morning, I felt the effects of the night before. Payam was downstairs at eight fifteen, alert in a crisp white shirt. The highways had burst their banks and even the exits were filled with slow-moving traffic. Our maddeningly slow pace, leagued with my dehydration, brought on nausea and sweatiness. When we reached Muhammad’s office, Valaie was already there but was caught up with work and took many minutes to come down. I was anxious not to keep Hosseini waiting, but when I called him, he was already outside the government office. We were fifteen minutes late for him.

  This time Hosseini, dignified despite his limp, led us into the office. It was as crowded as it had been the day before. I caught sight of the man whom I had dealt with previously. I pointed him out to Hosseini and he signalled to me to stand back. Watching from afar, I could see that the man had spotted the large figure of Valaie slouching towards him behind Hosseini. He looked irritated, but when Hosseini approached and introduced himself, his manner became courteous and helpful. It was the first encouraging sign so far.

  The man retrieved my file and began to leaf through it as Hosseini, oc
casionally throwing a glance in my direction, stood in front of him. After the man looked over the file carefully, Hosseini and he had a short exchange. Then Hosseini nodded and limped slowly back to me.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your application,’ he said. ‘He says he’d give you the extension right now, but since Mr Rashidi has denied it, he says we must speak to him to find out why. He’s from a different agency.’

  ‘Where is Rashidi?’

  ‘He’s not in yet, but should be here soon.’

  A moment later Valaie came up to us. He had enquired about Rashidi and been told that he would be in at eleven. It was ten o’clock and we decided to take a break for an hour and meet back at eleven. I hadn’t had breakfast so Payam took me to the former Miami Hotel. We went to a breakfast room on the top floor and I fell upon a plate of fried eggs, cheese and cold meat. Two cups of coffee later, I felt much better.

  When we met up again with Hosseini at eleven, Rashidi had still not arrived. We decided to wait for him outside. A couple of Pakistani women in chador were slumped on a bench with their chins in their hands as if in grief. A heavyset man in Pakistani salwar kameez stood in front of them, staring in bewilder ment at a set of pink forms. Hosseini and Valaie were deep in conversation. Hosseini was saying how in the past you could send someone to pick up your US or UK visa for you but now, since the revolution, it was different: if you hadn’t been in the Islamic Republic for a long time, it was important not to lose your cool when dealing with bureaucracy.

  Then he grew impatient and moved towards the office again. I was going to stay outside, but decided to follow him in so that I could take a mental note of what the office looked like. The crowd had thinned, but the windowless room was still almost full. I had barely an instant to take it in when across the room past dozens of people and behind the glass partition, I saw a man who could only have been Rashidi. The words ‘He’s from a different agency’ shot into my mind and, guessing which agency it was, the blackest fear sprang up in me.

  I had seen an intelligence man only once before. It was in Damascus and I remember I was struck then by the certainty with which I recognised him. Rashidi, too, was a breed apart from the other officials in the room. In plain clothes, he wore a dark blue jacket over a dark blue shirt, had a short salt-and-pepper beard and his eyes gleamed from behind a pair of silver spectacles. There was an air of extra-legality about him. He looked like a man who had been sent to override the system, to get the job done quickly and efficiently. He spoke rapidly into a mobile phone, and though I’d never laid eyes on him till that moment, the instant he saw me he knew who I was. His eyes burned and he made a violent gesture with his arm for me to come over. Payam, who had followed me in, saw the gesture, and it was only when I recognised the fear in his face, like a man made aware he’s bleeding by another’s reaction to it, that my heart sank.

  I grasped for Hosseini. He had seen the gesture too, and continued to walk at a steady pace ahead of me. His presence shielded me from the anger that Rashidi was ready to direct at me. When he saw that the small, elderly man was with me he seemed to show the disappointment of a dog restrained by the appearance of his master. We went up to the window together. Hosseini and Rashidi began to speak energetically to each other in Farsi. I could only make out the odd word in common with Urdu: ‘saval ’, question, ‘javab’, answer, ‘Afghanistan’ and ‘Pakistan’. They spoke for many minutes, Rashidi shaking his head vigorously and answering the professor politely, but assertively, and Hosseini stubbornly persisting. At last they came to an impasse and Hosseini turned to me to say, ‘He won’t give it because apparently you filled in your visa application incorrectly. You have to review it before you apply again.’

  At the time, Rashidi’s sarcasm was lost in translation, but the extension was the last of my concerns now. I wanted to take my passport and leave immediately. Hosseini said, ‘I told him you were my student.’

  To which Rashidi had replied, ‘Don’t get involved with these foreign students.’

  It was an easy lie to uncover and it scared me more.

  ‘I’m already involved,’ Hosseini said. ‘I represent the international relations of Tehran University. He is doing research for a humanities thesis on Eastern peoples.’

  Rashidi gave the old professor a long, cold stare, then picked up the telephone and made a call. When he hung up, he gestured to two young military recruits in dark green fatigues to take us somewhere. The bearded men, with sunken eyes, came up to us. Only Hosseini and I were to go. We followed them out of the office and into a small lift. The building was not just that one office, but a complex. The recruits pressed the button for the fifth floor and the small lift made a slow ascent. When the doors opened, we were met with a series of green arrows. Four pointed left, indicating services such as passport renewal and licence-plate registration. A single arrow pointed right. It read ‘Offend’. Hosseini looked at me and shrugged. For the second time that morning I felt sick.

  We were brought into a lobby of sorts, with rooms leading off it, and were seated next to two European men. We waited in silence again. A few minutes later, three plain-clothes men showed up and salaamed everyone before vanishing into different rooms. One of the Europeans was called in. They began to speak and I heard something about a camera. Photography in the wrong places could get you into serious trouble in the Islamic Republic. Then suddenly, I felt my notebook in my pocket and became nervous. If they went through it, they would find all they needed. I whispered to Hosseini that I should do something with it. He nodded his approval. I looked at the door and saw it was not guarded. I took the opportunity and ran out, down five flights of stairs, past the guards at the main office and into the street. Payam and Valaie were waiting for me outside. I indicated that they should come with me into a side-street.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Payam asked frantically.

  ‘I don’t know. I have to go back up, but keep this.’ I gave him my notebook and had to fight the temptation to jump into the car and leave.

  On my way back up the five flights of stairs, I passed Rashidi. He darted a suspicious look at me. I nodded and continued upstairs. When I came back into the room Hosseini was still sitting where I had left him. He seemed to have digested the sinister colour of the place and looked nervous now. In a few minutes, two men appeared. One was small and dark with lively eyes and a sparse grey beard, the other was fairer, larger, with a broad face and a grim aspect. These were our interrogators. With a wave, they cleared a room of the two chadored women manning a desk, and asked Hosseini to come in. I couldn’t hear what was said, but it was a short conversation, and in a few minutes, Hosseini reappeared. The small, dark man came out after him, flashed me a smile and asked me in.

  The large, fair man was the interrogator and he took his position behind a long desk, sprawling comfortably in a chair with wheels. The small, dark man was the translator. The larger man would ask a question in Farsi to his small, mean conduit. While he translated, his beady eyes glued to me, the larger man reclined in his chair, swivelled slightly and watched. The roundabout way in which the questions reached me caused so much discomfort that I was inclined to think the larger man spoke perfect English and only introduced the other as part of a strategy to break me down. They told me to sit on a straight-backed chair placed against a pale, yellow wall.

  The questions began immediately without any explanation of why I had been brought there in the first place.

  ‘Where are your other two companions?’ came the question in Farsi, then the anticipation, and finally the translated echo.

  ‘One is the son of a family friend,’ I said. ‘The other works in his father’s office.’

  ‘What are their names?’

  ‘Payam and Mr Valaie.’

  ‘Their full names?’

  ‘Payam Rahimi.’

  ‘Rah?’

  ‘Rahimi.’

  ‘What is their connection to you?’

  ‘His father is a family friend.’
r />   ‘What’s the father’s name?’

  ‘Muhammad Rahimi.’

  ‘Rah?’

  ‘Rahimi, like the son’s name.’

  ‘Are you staying at a hotel?’

  ‘No, at a friend’s flat.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Saman building, off Shiraz Avenue.’

  ‘What number?’

  ‘719C.’

  ‘Whose flat is it?’

  ‘Bahador,’ I answered, swearing to myself that I would tell the truth, but try to withhold information where possible.

  ‘Afkhami?’ The larger interrogator snapped, relishing the surprise it created in me.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bahador is here?’

  ‘No. He’s in London.’

  ‘But you say you’re staying in his flat?’ the little man asked, his eyes widening.

  ‘Yes, he let me stay there while I’m here.’

  ‘Are you paying him money?’

  ‘No. He’s let me use it.’

  ‘How do you know Mr Bahador?’

  ‘From London.’

  ‘Can you describe the exact circumstances of your first meeting?’

  ‘Yes, we had lunch in London.’

  ‘Who did you meet him through?’

  ‘Through a mutual friend.’

  ‘Can you say where you first heard of Mr Bahador?’ I didn’t know where this was leading, but the questions were coming so quickly I felt I could only rely on telling the truth, even though the truth was turning out to be more complicated than I first imagined.

  ‘In Indonesia,’ I answered, mystified by the strangeness of the word in this room.

  ‘Do you know his job in Iran?’

  ‘No. I don’t think he has one.’ Bahador was not connected to any network, and as I didn’t know much about his work in Iran, I hoped to get away with genuine ignorance.

  ‘No?’ the little man said, his voice brimming with sarcasm.