by Ali Hosseini
“Of course, kings are always good at things like this. They can sacrifice all the people if necessary. Well, the wise man told the king that if His Majesty wished the princess to be saved he must do exactly as he tells him without asking why. The king accepted. The wise man said first that the princess must be married to a young man who is a virgin. Second, that about nine months after the marriage the husband would die and must be buried in a sunny spot in the palace garden. Third, that the princess must pour water over his grave every day. And fourth, that the king shouldn’t say a word about this to anyone.
“The Chinese wise man said he would be back when the time was right and left the same way that he had come, without anyone noticing where he went. As soon as he was gone, the king arranged for the princess to be married to the Governor of the East, a handsome young man whom the king did not trust. He was afraid the governor was waiting for a chance to revolt against him. But one thing the king didn’t know was that the princess was in love with the Governor of the East and had met him secretly many times. Of course the princess happily accepted the marriage. There was a big wedding with all the marvelous things that happen when a princess marries. The newlyweds were very happy. They spent all their days in the palace gardens, strolling by the winding streams and making love under the willow trees. It was as if they were free of everything earthly and were living in heaven. The sound of their laughter and joy was heard all day long as if they were intoxicated by some mysterious essence. Day by day, the princess started to get better and the husband weaker, until he died exactly nine months to the day after the wedding. He was buried the way the Chinese man had described, and his grave was watered by the princess. No one ever heard her laugh again. Some say that the grave and the ruins of the palace are somewhere around here.”
Musa looks at me and moves his hand in a half circle. “There is a place—maybe I’ll take you there one of these days—where people have heard strange sounds, sounds of a woman, sometimes laughing, sometimes wailing. I think I have heard them myself. It was an unusually hot day and I was searching for one of my lambs that had gotten away. It was a dreadful sound. I got out of there fast. Even though I saw the hoofprints of the lamb, I didn’t dare to go on looking for him.”
He becomes quiet for a moment, cocking his head as if listening for something. I turn and look at Kemal. His eyes are closed and he’s breathing calmly. I think he is pretending to be asleep.
“A month or so later there grew from the grave a clump of plants with long stems and beautiful flowers that no one had ever seen before.”
Musa waits and I think he is surely lost in his own story, trying to picture the flowers blooming.
“As soon as the flowers appeared, the Chinese wise man came back out of nowhere. He watched the flowers every day, until their petals dropped and the only thing that remained was a seed case that looked like an egg topped with a crown. In the heat of the afternoon the wise man scored the seed cases with a razor and the next morning collected the milky sap that had oozed out and was turning brown. He repeated the same thing for several days and then one day picked the seed cases, which were full of hundreds of tiny gray seeds. Those were the seeds of the poppy flower, the source of this opium, you know.”
Musa puts the tip of the hot wire on the opium and takes a couple of deep breaths.
“The day the wise man was leaving, he explained to the king that the extract from this rare plant could reduce pain and do miracles in the field of medicine, all thanks to his beautiful princess. But one thing the wise man failed to realize was the love that was in the princess’s heart. That mysterious power added a dreadful complication to the outcome of his experiment.” He points to the last fragment of opium in his hand. “Yes, love. Love caused this thing to have a duality—devastation or salvation. On the one hand it reduces pain, on the other it can devastate a person’s life.”
“Well, wise old man,” Kemal says, half-asleep, “what can we do? The Chinese man and the king were not wise enough, and we have to suffer because of it.”
“That’s the way everyone talks these days,” Musa grumbles. “It’s always someone else’s fault.”
Kemal props himself up on one elbow and looks at me. “This drug problem is all over the place, isn’t it, Behruz? In America you probably saw all sorts of drugs—like heroin. Is it true that if you take it, you think you can fly? Or you see a puddle of water and think it’s a lake?”
I think about all the things I’ve heard about America since I’ve come back and wonder how people hear and repeat and make up things about a place they’ve never been to.
“Well, Behruz Khan?” It’s the first time he’s addressed me with the honorific Khan, and I can hear the sarcastic tone in his voice. Realizing I’m not interested in answering, he goes on. “It must have been nice in America. Why did you come back, man? How could you leave those blonde, blue-eyed women and come back?”
“Tell me, man. Why?” he asks again after a minute.
Slowly the feeling fills me that I’d like to get up and put my foot on his neck until he tells me everything he’s been up to.
“They say America is very green, and its farms are all mechanized, that everything is done by machines. Is it true that in America there are farms so huge they could produce wheat and corn for the whole city of Shiraz?”
The vast plain of Nebraska with its yellow stalks of corn flies past my closed eyes.
“To tell you the truth,” says Musa, “I can’t figure out God’s doings at all. He has offered too much water and greenery to one place and to another … well, look”—he points around us—“a land burning for a drop of water.”
“The work of our God is beyond fairness, dear Musa,” says Kemal. “He has not only provided beautiful nature to some places like America but also gifted them with many other things. Like the heavenly blonde angels. But to us, he has promised everything good in the next life. Isn’t it true, Behruz?” He looks at me with sleepy eyes.
“Not everything is the act of God,” Musa says. “It’s in people’s hands too. If people were hardworking and honest, if they weren’t corrupt, they could change this desert into green. You tell me, Behruz, don’t I tell the truth? I bet the people over there don’t have the wickedness that people have here. Am I right?”
Kemal sits up and laughs. “Dear old man. You’re probably right. But if I could hold hands with one of those blondes, I would be able to do much better too. I know that people there work hard and also that they enjoy life. I saw that when I worked with them at the refinery. Always at the end of the week they would go to an orchard on the side of the mountain not far away. They had friends who were professors at Pahlavi University and doctors at Namazi Hospital who came too. I went with my foreman, his name was Bill—can you believe that someone’s name could be ‘shovel’? He was a small man compared with all the other Americans. We called him Bill-che, Little Shovel. They would eat, drink, and have a good time. I learned some English too. Bill would talk to me with the little Persian he knew, ‘Keemal, mard-e khobi’—good man. I forgot all the English I learned, though. I only remember ‘Good morning. How are you? Very vell, tank you.’”
He looks at me and laughs.
“Well, there were a few women too,” he goes on with excitement. “There was one who taught English at the university. She made me crazy when she lowered her blue eyes. Her name was Katy. She had short blonde hair and I liked looking at the back of her bare neck. She had big breasts”—he cups his hands against his chest—“this big. She was very quick in learning Persian and very different from her friends. She didn’t drink or eat meat. It was strange to me. I thought they all drank. Sometimes she would spread out a blanket and sit for a long time meditating. Once I walked up to her slowly and put a flower between her fingers.” He touches his thumb to his forefinger like a yogi. “She looked at me and smiled. Then I asked her, ‘You, me, party?” and pointed behind the trees. She laughed and pinched me like this.” He leans over and pinches Musa’s cheek. Musa pus
hes his hand away.
“And she said, ‘Keemal, tu divone-ie.’”
Musa laughed, “She was right about that. Tu divone-ie.”
“I told her to say it in English,” Kemal went on, “and she said, ‘You crazy.’ Is it right, Behruz?”
I nod. He winks at me and then turns to Musa. “See—I know some English. I can learn very fast. Maybe Behruz will teach me.”
When he’s calm, his black eyes smile and there is a lightness in his movements, as if he were free of everything—free from any attachment, despair, or fear. He loves this life despite all its difficulties and all the problems that have turned up in society in the past few years. He doesn’t just talk about his dreams but tries to follow the ones he thinks are achievable. Every time he comes here, he talks about this land, about reviving it. He wants to fix the pump and irrigate the orchard.
He’s been trying in whatever way he can to convince me to let him start working the land. These days when everyone is running away from farming, he wants to farm. In my heart I believe him and am coming to doubt what Musa has told me about him.
Kemal smiles and asks, “Did you have a woman there? I know that those blue-eyed American girls love dark-eyed men like us. Come on, Behruz, tell us. Why don’t you talk? Why don’t you ever say a word?”
“Leave him alone,” Musa says.
The truth is, I don’t have anything to share. I’m just enjoying hearing about the things that he had picked up working with the Americans. My mind starts to drift to Juanita, wondering how she is, when Kemal, agitated, says, “Well, you can’t just not talk, especially if I’m going to be here. There’s so much I’d like to know. About what it’s really like in America and if the things we hear are true. And why the Iranian students over there, instead of enjoying themselves, being happy and studying, started demonstrating against the Shah? I used to hear all about it over the BBC radio. They must have been all these spoiled rich kids from big cities.” He glances at me. “If people like me had been given the opportunity, I bet you things would have been different.”
“What do you mean?” Musa asks.
“What I mean is, if I had had a chance to go to college, get a degree, I would have done much better. I would have learned more. Even with my lack of education, when I was working with the engineers, some of them foreigners, I could see that having a good job makes a world of difference. But look and see what we have now. Where are all those engineers? Gone with the industries shut down or bombed by the Iraqis. Why? Because a bunch of rich kids at the universities and the crowds who followed the mullahs were a bunch of useless people … The mullahs think praying is the answer to any problem. If it were, believe me, it would be as green as a jungle here with all the praying people do for rain …”
Not paying any attention, I lie down and stretch out, letting the vibrations of the cicadas take me away. Slowly my eyelids get heavier and Kemal’s voice fades from my consciousness …
I’m in a crowd of students. Our faces are covered by paper masks with holes for our eyes. We walk in front of the student union shouting—first in Persian, then English, and finally in Spanish. “Down with the Shah!” “Carter stop supporting the Shah!” “Down with imperialism!” The police and a group of American students are standing around looking at us. Then we get on a bus for Washington, D.C., and sing labor songs and “The Internationale” … We reach Pennsylvania Avenue and see that it is full of police on horseback. President Carter is welcoming the Shah to the United States. We’re marching in front of the White House, students against the Shah on one side of the street and students supporting the Shah on the other. Suddenly people are rushing in all directions. We’re hitting them, they’re hitting us, and the police are grabbing anybody they get their hands on. The voice of President Carter is drowned out by the slogans and the wail of sirens. Clouds of smoke and teargas are carried toward the guests and journalists. The Shah wipes his eyes with his white handkerchief. Princess Farah tries not to show her tears …
“Where are you, Behruz?” I hear Kemal’s voice. “Are you gone again? Gone to America? Forget it, my friend. Come back here with us. Come back to the desert. Why don’t we work on this water pump and get it going? What do you say, Behruz?”
I realize he never talked this openly in front of Musa.
“Let’s rebuild this place,” he goes on. “Let’s revive the Naranjestan. Give it another chance. Give it water and make it green. What do you say, Behruz? How about it?”
Nine
MUSA, HAVING FINISHED SMOKING his share of the opium, is quiet, probably fallen into daydreams of his youth. The propane burner is off and Kemal has put away his smoking articles. He has stretched out and I hear his soft breathing. I can’t recall how the day started but remember going down into the well and am amazed at myself for doing it. Now, lying here on this warm evening, a feeling of lightness floods my body cell by cell, a sensation like floating on top of calm water. My eyes are barely open and my ears are tuned to the silence around us.
“Tell us about America,” Kemal says dreamily. “Did you like it there?”
“Let him sleep,” Musa says.
“Sleep? He’s always asleep! Tell us, Behruz. Tell us about the girls, about the women there.”
I smile and think of Juanita with her straight black hair and round face and high cheekbones. I remember her lying naked on the bed in my apartment in the hot midwestern afternoon with me next to her and the ceremonial music of the crickets in the backyard. She laughs, then is quiet. We’ve just made love in the rickety old bed that pulls out of the wall. “You can sleep on this Murphy bed,” my landlady said when she showed me the apartment. What a surprise it was when she pulled it down. I had never seen anything like it, and what nights I had on that bed with Juanita. Making mad passionate love all night in the old sagging bed that squeaked pleasantly and then falling asleep with our bodies entangled in the sheets. It was as if heaven had been brought down to earth in an old apartment building on a quiet street in a small midwestern town.
I remember how she would laugh and turn her back to me and how I would hold her tight and move my palm gently over her flat belly. “Listen,” she would say, “lie still and listen to your mind.” I would concentrate and listen, feeling as if I were stretched out on the bottom of a stream with water rushing over me.
Often on summer evenings we would drive to a prairie to watch the hundreds or even thousands of fireflies blinking like stars at eye level, going on/off, on/off just above the tallgrass. Once in a while a whistling train would pass in the distance or a church bell would ring from a nearby town. I would catch one of the fireflies in midair, holding it prisoner and feel the soft tickling on my palm. Then I would peep between my fingers to see it winking at me with a dim greenish light. Each time I was as astonished as the first. Juanita told me how she and her sister used to collect them in a glass jar and take them to bed to look at under the blankets.
“Talk, Behruz.” I hear Kemal again. “Tell us about America—if you don’t want to talk about the girls there, tell us about the cities—the great cities—and the people.”
“Let him rest,” Musa says. “Let him be.”
The great cities … I think of New York City. How could I describe New York or Chicago, with their skyscrapers and crowded streets, or any American city for that matter? One has to see it, walk it, hear it, and smell it in the morning, at midday, in the afternoon, in the evening, or late at night. I think of the cafés and streets of New York, a city full of impatient people hurrying around, walking, jogging, and bicycling. A city where every language of the world can be heard:
“Hey man—watch it, man!”
“¿Qué pasa, mi amor?”
“As-salamu alaykum.”
“Hia, hia. Chotto matte.”
“Che tori? Che khabar?”
A city of all kinds of sounds, and at every corner tall buildings of steel and glass stretching upward like giant arms praying to God. And everywhere music—in the streets,
in the stores, in the elevators, coming up out of the basements. A city that throbs continuously, as if holding the heart of the world in her chest. That vibrates constantly from subways, like fast-flashing worms moving in her belly.
How could I describe America? The America I found was a land of ideas and a can-do attitude. It was where a self-made people put down the first brick not long ago and have built a nation unique in many ways. History seemed always to lay lightly there, the scars of the past never dimming hope and optimism toward the future. Iran by contrast seemed an old nation not able to break with its past, a past that is a heavy load not just dragged behind but also controlling the future. Even its last drastic push for freedom, bought with the blood of its most able young generation, is lost in the desert of centuries-old belief. It’s as if the train of time had left us many stations back while we were busy with our past and our God.
How could I explain America? America of the Fourth of July and hot dogs. A country open to all nationalities and any religion, with temples, mosques, synagogues, and churches standing next to one other. A country of tree lovers, animal lovers, bird lovers, Jesus lovers, drug lovers, music lovers, sports lovers, gun lovers, peace lovers… And which America should I describe? A country of people who won’t hurt a dog or a cat but are able to wage wars on people thousands of miles away? A nation proud of having saved Europe from the Fascists or one still wounded and confused about Vietnam? A place where hardworking people proudly say, “It’s a free country,” or where you hear constantly, “There is no free lunch.”
I went everywhere in America with no problem, except for once in Kansas when we stopped at a place selling used furniture and an old black man in a rocking chair asked me where I was from.
“Iran,” I answered.
“Eye-ran?” he said in a low voice, almost a whisper. I had to lean down to hear him. “Didn’t you people have our hostages?”
I stood still—it was the first time in all my years in America I had been confronted like this.