The commanding officer was now aiming his gun at him. Barat slid down the horse’s mane and yelled again: “Pull!” The cable tightened around the horse’s leg. The soldiers crouched down and aimed at the truck’s tires. But it was already too late. The horse and its rider had begun to tilt. They leaned over, and when they finally collapsed, the entire main square shook, and the water in the four fountains of the square spilled over the edges.
The soldiers stood up. The crowd crouching in the gutters stood up, too. It all happened in one instant. We had seen that statue since we were kids, and now as the dust settled, we could see that it was gone — the horse erect on two legs, neighing; the rider, with his military cap, forever holding the horse’s bridle, forever galloping, no more. The base was now empty. And there, in the middle of the square, lay the head of the rider, wedged in the stone pavement. The horse’s four limbs were pointing at the sky and trembling as though the animal was alive. The limbs shook, then seemed to search the ground for a firm footing, as if the horse was attempting to rise up, get the rider back on the saddle to hold the bridle, so that it could neigh and rise once again on its legs.
We, all of us, emerged from the back alleys, jumped out of the stores, driven forward onto the streets, looking at our hands, our empty hands, when we saw Barat. He was standing there, on the base of the statue, his chest bare, and he was holding his shirt in his hand, his other hand on his waist. He was dancing and twirling his shirt over his head like a handkerchief, and he was shaking his lower body. No, the statue would not rise again. It had been toppled and the riders nose and hat were stuck deep in the pavement.
We said: God is great!
We said: Death to the Shah!
We said: Long live the people!
And we began to dance. We danced like Barat, with or without a handkerchief, holding each other’s hands. It was finally over. The war was over. And the soldiers who were pointing guns at us were now only pretending to fight. We danced and we walked. Wherever we saw people bent over weeping, we grabbed their hands and twirled them around. If they pulled their hands away to wipe a tear, we kissed their half-open mouths. We knew the Shah wouldn’t come back.
Suddenly we heard a shot. Where did it come from? The soldiers were facing us though their guns were at rest. The commanding officer was just holding his hat in his hand. Who was it, then? The base of the statue stood empty. Barat had been shot. The soldiers were looking at us, showing us their empty hands. They stared at one another to see who had fired the shot. Suddenly, a shower of rocks began. The soldiers huddled together. Holding on to their guns, they began to retreat. Then, it was them again shooting, and they were not shooting in the air. They were aiming at us. A few of us fell, but we couldn’t stretch out and pour out into the back streets. Some of the soldiers stopped, put down their guns, and tossed away their hats. They were weeping.
The rest were running, under a shower of rocks, toward the military vehicles that had begun to move.
Barat had collapsed right there, at the base of the statue. He was covered with blood. We picked him up. He just said: “My arm.” It was his right arm. It was broken, and blood was gushing from his shoulder. We lifted him up and ran through the passage that people opened up for us.
That was the kind of guy Barat was. He was one of us, an old hand at resistance, and very headstrong. When they had to operate on him, we all lined up to donate blood: the line we formed went around the hospital and all the way up Majidiyeh Street. And on the day they released him, we all went along to bring him home, with much pomp and celebration. His tavern was closed and we didn’t want to him to go there. We said: “Stay home. Stay till your arm heals.” He said: “It will heal.”
The bone in his arm had been shattered. It was in a cast. But Barat was not one to stay put; after a couple of days, he undid the bandage around his shoulder, and the next thing we heard was that he was heading back to his store, with a pot under his arm. He even managed to open the metal gate with his left hand. We loved him. We didn’t want him to get into trouble. We went over and asked: “Barat, what are you doing?”
He said: “What do you all do at night, huh? Go home before the sun sets and coop up like chickens?”
We said: “Barat, the Shah is gone. Isn’t that enough?”
He said: “I was fourteen when I saw them smash his nose with a sledgehammer. I was a member of the party’s Youth Organization.2 My father was a party member, too. I saw with my own eyes how they tied the cable to his arm and pulled it with a truck.”
We said: “This time he is gone for good. Now the people of Tehran are armed. They are not fighting with empty hands. Our young people are no longer dependent on others; they can stand on their own two feet.”3
He said: “Yeah, I’ve heard it, too. Sadduq’s son told me. He also told me that as you were on your way to fight, a van drove alongside, and over the loudspeakers they kept saying that no jihad had been declared. Here you were, ready to fight and push the Royal Guards back, and they kept telling you, over loudspeakers, ‘People, these people are SAVAK agents, move away from them.’ “
We said: “You weren’t even there. You were in the hospital. We went and took over the SAVAK building.’ “
He said: “Yes, I know, but when was that? By the time you got there, they had already burned all the documents or taken them away. You dilly-dallied so long that those bastards managed to escape.”
We said: “They wouldn’t let us.”
He said: “Who wouldn’t let you?”
“The counterrevolutionaries.”
“What counterrevolutionaries? You guys are supposed to be the counterrevolutionaries. Haven’t you heard the radio? You, all of you, are counterrevolutionaries.”
“What about you, with this pot of yours, and with your bottles of liquor?”
He said: “Look in here and see what my wife cooked.” He lifted the lid of his pot. Warm steam wafted out. It was filled with dolma, stuffed grape leaves, light green in color and arranged neatly all the way to the top. They sure would hit the spot. He picked up the chairs, which had been stored over the tables, and set them down.
He said: “Well, why don’t you take a seat?” And before we could do or say a thing, he had wiped the table clean, placed four slender glasses before us, along with four plates, spoons, and forks.
We said: “Dear Barat, don’t you understand?”
We pointed to the street. People were walking by, staring at us.
He said: “You mean this was the problem?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Well, when we were smashing the windows of the cinemas, we weren’t really thinking of the cinemas. We were attacking vulgarity, and those who perpetrate it. And when we were throwing rocks at the windows of the banks, we had no grudae against the glass itself, or against the bank employees. We —”
“And what came of it?”
“What about the statue? Have you forgotten?” He adjusted the sling around his cast as if to remind us, and said: “Didn’t I just say that the statue was toppled once before.” “This time he won’t come back.”
He took a bottle out of his pocket and filled four glasses. He said: “I have no bean salad to offer you.4 You’ll have to forgive me.”
All four of us turned and looked toward the street. We couldn’t start drinking openly, not like this. Just a few days ago, we had heard about someone getting flogged, the religious punishment for drinking. Eighty lashes. We thought maybe Barat hadn’t heard about it.
We said: “They give lashes. They’ve already flogged several people. Right there, in public. They made them lie down on the ground and flogged them.”
He said: “I know. They have to do it. The Commander of Re-sisters Mohammad did the same thing. He carried out the sentence himself, with his own hands. I am sure that you have read Hafez:
They shut down the taverns, O God, do not let it be.
For they shall open the door to deceit and hypocrisy.
Things hadn’t gone that far yet, though some were saying that Ferdowsi’s poems were being eliminated from textbooks.
We said: “It isn’t that bad. It’s different now.”
He brought the pot over. As he placed the hot green dolma on our plates, he asked: “What’s the difference?”
We didn’t know.
We knew we would make matters even worse if we argued that now you can’t stone someone to death, you can’t collect blood money, or carry out retributions. Barat was a fun-loving man, a spiritual, down-to-earth man. He was familiar with Rumi’s poetry. When he lost his office job, he opened a bookstore. They shut it down. They arrested him. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He’d said: “If I open up a tavern, they’ll leave me alone.”
We said: “Man, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
He said: “In this dark and dreary town, we’re all looking to find a cozy place, a simple spot with no frills. Well, I have found the place. Even if it’s only my friends from the office who are my customers, I could still make a living.”
Eventually he opened a tavern, though he was no tavern keeper. His food was first-rate, and he wouldn’t serve liquor to just anyone. He could always spot the SAVAK agents.6 He would say: “After all, that ‘Mother of All Evil,’ drinking, has its own set of customs; you must respect its traditions. Look at our history; people have never gone to taverns merely for the pleasure of drinking. When our poets write of wine and of the cupbearer, they mean the fight against deception and hypocrisy.”
If anyone got drunk and rowdy, Barat would ask him to leave. He would say: “Either you sit down and drink quietly or you go to some other place.” Whenever we went there, he would set our table before we even said a word. He knew what each of us wanted. He knew how much drink we could handle. He wouldn’t serve us beyond our limits. And when a stranger came in, he kept an eye on him, and would warn us to watch what we were saying. For those of us who had passed through Barat’s filter, it no longer mattered whether we had money or we were broke, we’d still go in for a chat and a sip of what Barat called “Mother of All Evil.”
He didn’t drink himself. He never drank with the customers. He always said: “If I were to drink at every table, I’d be smashed by the end of the evening.” But sometimes, late at night, he’d close the gate halfway. Then, he’d bring over to our table his own bottle and his food. He’d fill his glass and say: “Cheers!” And we would say: “Cheers!” in return. He’d raise the glass to his lips and down it in one gulp. We’d offer him a spoonful of yogurt. He’d tap our hands in a gesture of gratitude, and eat it. He’d wipe his long mustache with the back of his hand, and recite the famous line from Hafez:
That bitter elixir that the Sufi called Mother of All Evil
is sweeter to us than a virgins kiss.
We said: “Dear Barat, everything you say is true, but we still don’t want to end up in trouble because of this ‘Mother of All Evil’ you give us. It’s not something worth standing up and fighting for.”
He said: “But we can’t go back to those dark, dank wine cellars run by our Jews in the old days. Nor can we go back to sitting on stone benches, while Turkish and Tajik cupbearers serve us wine, as our classical poets describe.7 And besides, even if we wanted to make our own wine, where would we get the vats? And in what cellar would we do it?”
We said: “That’s what everyone is already doing. Go and look around. If you manage to find a single handmade pressure cooker made in Najafabad, we’ll buy it from you for three times the going price. Nowadays, when you go to the grocer’s to buy some raisins, he says to his assistant: ‘Boy, go get a vat from the back room for this gentleman.’”
He said: “Then you are all practicing hypocrisy. I told you, this is how it begins. As the poet Khayyam would say, when we hide who we are, and pretend to be something else, we accept to be shamed and humiliated. Once that is done, we are easily manipulated. What do you think Reza Khan did?8 He just said, ‘Make your hats a little less tall, and shorten your gowns, yes, just a bit. That’s all.’ And when we did it, when we agreed to do it, hypocrisy became a part of our nature, and began to dictate our actions. If a ruler is ruthless like the Il-Khanid, Holaku Khan, we become submissive like Khajeh Nasir, the learned man. If a ruler is like the Seljuk king, Malek Shah, we become his instrument, like his grand vizier, Nezamolmolk.”
He went to the shelves across the room and brought back a bottle. He opened it with his teeth, picked up a glass with the hand that was in a cast, and poured himself a drink. He put the cap back on the bottle, and came back toward us, holding his glass. He walked heavily, dragging one foot.
He said: “Do you know that for more than twenty years I went every single year, on the anniversary of Mordad 28th, down to Shah Square. There would be large crowds there, and I wanted to yell at them, ‘Listen, people, we did pull him down once before. We did make him run away.’ But I could see that no one remembered. Maybe they’d never seen it, or even heard about it. They’d all stand around the square and listen to the military march.”
We said: “Didn’t you always tell us that if ever the bastard left you’d shut down this place, never touch another drop of the stuff, and you’d even make your daughter wear a scarf?”
He placed the glass on the edge of the table, and stroked the beard of one of the fellows — I don’t remember whose it was. In those days, there was only one of us who had a beard.
He said: “So, now you have started growing a beard, too?”9 He picked up his glass and took a sip. He said: “Cheers!”
We didn’t say “Cheers!” in return. He bristled like a cat and glared at us. He reached out and picked up two glasses between his index finger and the thumb of his left hand. He downed both in one gulp, and dropped the glasses into his pocket. Liquor was dripping from the tip of his mustache. He didn’t bother to wipe it with the back of his hand, the way he used to when he came to sit at our table late at night. He bent over, drank the two remaining glasses in the same manner, and dropped them into his pocket.
He said: “Well, that’s done. I was the only one who drank. Now, how about some food? You still eat, don’t you?”
So we did eat, though the bottle remained right there in the middle of the table. We couldn’t say a thing. When five more customers showed up, we felt relieved. We knew them. They were fun-loving people. As soon as they sat down, Barat brought them a bottle and five glasses, and he poured for all of them. Then he went to prepare five plates of dolmas. We knew we no longer belonged here. Barat returned to their table. He asked: “Where is the bottle?”
We looked over. Their table was empty. Not even glasses to be seen. They were holding them in their hands, and they all stared back at him. He shouted: “I said where is the bottle of arrack?”
Someone pointed under the table, behind one of the legs. Barat bent down and picked the bottle up. He placed it back in the middle of the table.
He shouted: “Either you are man enough to risk the lashes, or you can go home and drink in your own back room. And after you’ve rinsed your mouth, you can take your prayer beads and go out to greet people with a pious look on your face.”
They stood up, wiped their mouths, and threw some money on the table. Barat walked over, his foot dragging behind. He grabbed one of them by the jacket with his hand which was in a cast. He stuffed the money back in his pocket, and said: “You know I never serve the Mother of All Evil to those who don’t deserve it.”
So we left, too. We went looking for a vat and a cellar. We could no longer sit openly at one of Barat’s tables, and let him bring us drinks, along with bread, cheese, and herbs, or beans, and yogurt with shallots. He had always poured us the first glass himself. Yes, we had to leave Barat, although we did worry about him, and with good reason. Later on we heard that he’d been attacked one evening and beaten up. But Bar
at wasn’t easily intimidated, and he continued to carry his pot under his arm. And if a “deserving” person showed up, he’d place the bottle on the table, and pour him the first glass. Then, he’d pour one for himself, too, and wipe his mustache with the back of his hand.
Things got much worse. Even for those of us who were now drinking homemade “Mother of All Evil,” in a storage room or in a cellar: a quick drink followed by a spoonful of yogurt or a bite of pickled cucumbers, that’s all. We had so many problems ourselves that we forgot all about Barat. They announced that all women had to wear the veil.
Mohammadi said: “I told my daughter, Took, dear, some people hope to create discord among us with things such as scarves and chadors. They want us to fight each other. Then, they can come back and put us on the rack again. Don’t you remember what happened in Chile? Go and read about it. See how their women prevented the revolution from taking root.’”
Of course, this was good for our pockets: all we needed to get for our wife and daughter were a scarf, a pair of pants, and a loose shirt. All the beauty salons were shut down. Sadduq’s daughter went and got her hair cut short, like a boy’s. She said: “During the demonstrations in Tehran, at first there were only people like us. The supporters of the Shah didn’t dare to come and demonstrate under a shower of stones, a shower of bottles. It wasn’t till the second and third day that we started to see women with makeup. And the clothes they wore! That’s when we said: ‘No, this isn’t for us. They can have it,’ and I got my hair cut short.”
We too would go to shout: “Death to America.”
Hassan Agha, the cloth merchant, said: “What do you think imperialism looks like? It’s this sort of thing, these frills. Who cares if there are no more cinemas? I didn’t lose a loved one so that they bring back the same old movies. And what do I need music for?”
Hasan was in mourning. We were, too. Sometimes in the late afternoon, on a Thursday, we’d get Akbar Agha, “Magic Fingers,” to come over with his sitar. We’d prepare food and drinks, and Akbar Agha would play softly. And once in a while, he’d let himself go and begin to sing in a scratched and husky voice a well-known line from Hafez:
Strange Times, My Dear Page 4