A few soldiers rush to the far end of the garrison wall. All heads turn. It seems some people have been trying to climb the walls. The young officer’s voice rises again from the loudspeaker.
“If you try to make trouble for us, you will only hurt yourself. . . you will impede the defense of the city
People pull back from the wall. A voice emerges from the crowd: “We won’t leave until you give us weapons!”
The voice of the young officer again: “If it becomes necessary, we will arm every resident of the city. . . but give us a chance ... I beg you, return to your homes
Some young people drive endlessly back and forth on their motorcycles, arms raised, guns aloft. People cheer and applaud.
The news of the fall of Hamid Army Base explodes like a bomb. “With all its fancy defenses?” “Its barricades!” “All those big cement blocks!” “How can this be possible?” “There is no ‘how,’ brother. It fell!”
An old man, rubbing his calloused hands together, is shaking his head. “Our pride, honor . . . gone!”
And then he stares in humiliation and says under his breath, “Iraq . . . ? Damn!”
Rumors crawl like lice over people’s bodies. “In Susangerd they have raped women and girls!” “They’ve looted all the stores and houses!” “Looted?”
“And shot all the men!” “Bastards!”
A young girl, fuming like incense on embers, screams, “Some of the Sunni Sheikhs are cooperating with them!” “Damn them!”
“They say that Sheikh Shonar is now the ruler of Susangerd!” “I don’t believe it!” “Believe it, brother.” “Damn them!”
When the MIGs arrive, people scuttle toward the bomb shelters, or lie down on the sidewalks behind columns, under staircases and behind the sandbags piled high in every street in the city.
Traffic is completely out of control. There are no traffic police at the intersections. The city’s cars are the color of the desert: people have covered them with mud to hide them from air strikes. Now, without anyone teaching them anything, people are gradually learning confrontation and resistance. Bakeries close one after another, and the lines at the ones still open grow by the minute. At high noon, when even camels are forced off their feet, workers in the bakeries stand in front of the hot ovens to make bread, sweat pouring from their faces. Before long, they are standing in a puddle of their own sweat.
Two consecutive explosions rock the city. Rumors spread that the square in front of White Bridge has been hit. People charge up to their roofs, shading their eyes, looking at the mountain of dust rising from the square. The dust mixes with smoke and flames and finally threads apart and disappears. People leave their roofs and pour back down into the streets. A man arrives on a bicycle.
“They’re killing . . . killing . . . massacring!”
The bicycle rides away and voices mix.
“They’ve destroyed the whole square!”
“They were aiming for the White Bridge!”
“God knows how many people were killed.”
“They say eleven.”
A man on a motorcycle sputters toward the crowd and pauses in front of the people. “Eleven people!”
Voices mix into the mellow hum of the motorcycle. The biker roars from the depth of his chocked throat: “All the bank employees are under rubble. God have mercy on them!”
“Damn them and their fathers!”
In the distance, ambulance sirens can be heard. The biker pushes the gas. The motor explodes into life and away he flies.
“There were people killed in the square!”
“And they say thirty, maybe forty, were injured.”
Now, when the MIGs come down and break the sound barrier, we lace our fingers behind our heads and hold our forearms against our ears. Spines stretch, knees weaken, legs give out, and you are forced to sit. “Phantoms” follow the MIGs. All the glass doors and windows shatter. We haven’t had time to tape the glass. In one night, tape has become scarce. The building trembles. Dust falls from the brick ceiling of the cellar. It has now been two weeks since we started living in the cellar. It is October 8. Yesterday they pounded the railroad. Just as the train was about to pull out, with people milling about in the station saying their farewells, a bomber dipped around the Municipal Building, flew on its side, and, before anyone could move, pounded the station, the control room, and the overpass.
Now all trains leave from Karun Station.
— Translated by Kouross Esmaili
Footnotes
1 Khuzestan is the oil-rich southern province of Iran that borders Iraq.
2 Throughout the south of Iran, the signals to Iraqi television stations can be picked up, particularly from the bordering towns.
3 Most houses in Iran have flat roofs, and in summertime many people move their beds or mattresses to the roof to sleep in the fresh air and keep cool.
4 A section of the city of Ahvaz.
5 Soap is used to make Molotov cocktails.
Esmail Fassih
Esmail Fassih was born in Tehran in 1935. After finishing his secondary education in Iran, in 1956 he studied in the United States at Montana State College, where he obtained degrees in science and English literature. Upon his return to Iran, he worked as a translator for the Franklin Institute and the National Iranian Oil Company. In 1963, he became a full-time employee of the National Iranian Oil Company and moved to the southern city of Ahvaz to teach at the company’s Institute of Technology.
In Ahvaz Fassih began to write fiction, publishing his first novel, Raw Wine, in 1968. During a leave of absence from his job, he studied at the University of Michigan, where he got his master’s in English language and literature. Back in Iran, he settled in the southern city of Abadan to teach at the Abadan Institute of Technology.
In the 1970s Fassih published a novel, The Blind Heart, and two collections of short stories. His 1980 novel The Story of Javid is based on the real life of a Zoroastrian man during the Qajar dynasty and The Winter of ‘62 is about the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War. His novel Sorraya in a Coma, published by Zed Press in Iran in 1985, has been one of the most successful post-revolution novels.
The excerpt from Sorraya in a Coma was translated by the author. With as much humor as possible, the story depicts the anguish, insecurity, and confusion that surround lives disrupted by revolution, war, and emigration.
Excerpt from
SORRAYA IN A COMA
Late autumn, 1980, a cold Tuesday afternoon, around two o’clock, Tehran . . .
At the open access to the west bus terminal, on the northwestern outskirts of Azadi Square, peddlers, vendors, and passengers mill about in the dust and diesel fumes, the honking, the jumbled noise and shouts, “Liver . . . Mmm! Two tomans a skewer!” “Sandwiches, Agha!1 Fresh egg sandwiches!” “Move on, Agha!” “Beans! Baked beans!” “Shah-savar oranges!” “Sweet buns!” “Out of the way, you!” “Winston cigarettes, Agha!” “Biscuits!” “Hamburgers! Sausages!” “Handbags, Agha!” “Move your bags, Father!” “Woolen socks, hats, gloves!” “Fresh tea!” “Agha, move on! Move aside, Mother!”
Some have spread out their wares on an upturned drum, a cardboard box, or piece of cloth on the ground. One sells barbari bread and cheese; another lavash bread and boiled eggs. An old man sitting in a corner sells plastic packets of dried seeds, almonds, pistachios, chickpeas and raisins, dried figs, and mulberries.
The new makeshift terminal’s interior is a shapeless, undefined space, with no buildings, no facilities, not even a wall. Inside, it is still just a taken-over lot. But buses heading for the north and northwest of Iran, and even for Turkey and Europe, all start from this point.
To the north, under the blue sky and fat white clouds, rise the clean snow-covered Alborz Mountains. Closer, a cluster of tall, multistory buildings, dusty gray and white, huddle together like dingy monsters modeled on New York’s skyscrapers; these supposedly residential units are now stranded, unfinished, worthless, useless, and empty under the a
utumn wind, behind the terminal. In the foreground, scattered around the lot are tarpaulin tents, each representing a bus company or travel agency, and in every corner, “cooperatives” have sprouted. Behind the tents, coaches unload and reload passengers.
The crowd milling around are mostly from the provinces, or are war refugees, or just people like myself, driven from their homes for one reason or another. There are homeless Turks, Lurs, Kurds, and Khuzestani Arabs, pouring into Tehran or leaving it. Where I enter the terminal, to one side, several dusty-bearded soldiers in crumpled uniforms are drinking tea. Three Kurds in baggy trousers, wearing paramilitary jackets and their traditional polka dot turbans, are resting in a corner smoking Winston cigarettes. An Arab from Khuzestan sits in a corner apparently with his mother, wife, and six or seven children, doing nothing, their faces empty.
I find the tent representing the TBT bus company, now “Cooperative No. 15.” There is even a bivouac counter in a corner with a cardboard sign: “Passengers to Istanbul.” The counter is almost deserted. I find somebody and hand in my ticket. Without even checking it, the man ticks off my name on his list. I have no luggage as such to hand in, so he allows me to keep my small suitcase and handbag. The door of “the coach” — a well-worn Deluxe Benz 0302 — is open, and the driver and his assistant are loading luggage onto the roof, but it is not ready for boarding. A tall man, with a soft curly beard, fine mustache, and a round white fur hat, which gives him a holy Zoroastrian look, has a pile of luggage and is haggling with the driver.2 One of the larger suitcases has burst open, and he is trying to tie it up with rope. I help him, then lift it and the other pieces, onto the roof; he thanks me. Then I wander around, light a cigarette, and wait.
Just then the Red-Alert siren sounds from the airport across the road. Almost immediately the nationwide two o’clock news, on the radio in the little TBT tent, is interrupted by the now familiar monotone warning: “Attention, attention! The sound you are now hearing is the Red Alert or the Danger Warning, it means an air raid is about to take place. Leave your place of business and go to shelter!” The Red Alert is then broadcast. No one pays much attention. Except for a few jeers and grumbles, more or less everyone goes on with what they are doing. After two months of war with Iraq, the people in Tehran are hardly very excited by these mostly false alarms.
The tall gentleman with the beard and mustache strolls up and stands by me. He has stashed away his luggage, but is still loaded with bags and parcels, blankets, and assorted cushions. He, too, has lit a cigarette.
He shakes his head. “Red Alert!”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think they’ll hit, Jenab, eh?3 What is your excellency’s opinion?”
I do not answer.
“They’ve probably seen something on their radars, no?” “Probably.”
“Or perhaps an unidentified object has been reported?” “All finished with your luggage?” I ask. “Yes. Are you by any chance traveling to Europe by TBT?” “Coach to Istanbul.” I turn and toss my half-smoked cigarette aside, retreating into my own thoughts.
“What is your point of destination?” he asks. “Paris.”
“Are you a French resident?”
“No.”
“How did you, er, get an exit permit in this chaos?”
He simply won’t give up, so I briefly tell him about my niece’s accident in Paris and the ensuing troubles. He volunteers no information. “So,” he says, “your excellency’s heading for Paris?”
“Supposedly.”
“You’re not married, are you?” “How did you figure that out?”
“Ah! I’m an expert on faces and characters. I have spent a lifetime in the public relations department of the national airlines.” I see.
“Have you had lunch?” he inquires in a friendly tone. “I had a little something at my sister’s place.” He looks around the terminal. “Looks like there are no restaurants or anything around here.”
“I saw some liver kebab and egg sandwich stands by the entrance.” “Oh God, no!”
The siren has been cut off.
My companion says, “Let’s go ... By God almighty, let’s get out of this nowhereland.”4
The Arab woman sitting quietly in a corner just shakes her head in silence, steadily beating herself on the head.
We walk slowly back to the bus, and as there is nowhere to sit, we stand and wait. Curly-beard continues complaining about the state of things in Iran.
“How did you get an exit permit?” I ask him.
“My passport has a Pakistani permanent residency stamp. My mother’s there. I sent my passport over, she fixed it.” I see.
“I’ve got a valid U.S. visa, too. My ex-wife, my son, and my daughter are there, in Virginia and Los Angeles; according to their laws, they grant asylum to emigrants with political or religious insecurity. They fixed it for me.”
I do not understand what exactly he means by “religious insecurity.”
We finally get on the coach around midafternoon, and the driver starts the engine. The migrating Zoroastrian-looking gentleman and I are seated next to each other, he by the window and I in the aisle seat. Before sitting down, he arranges a couple of blankets and cushions under and around him. “If we can’t travel by 747 jumbo, let’s at least travel in comfort!” Opposite me in the aisle sits a young woman, and a not-so-young, tubby little fellow who is apparently a student in Germany.
Before we take off, the driver welcomes each and every one of us with his typical Azerbaijani kindness and good humor. In front of him, and ranged around and above his windshield, is an assortment of tiny pictures, curtains, tassels, artificial flowers, mottos, a radio, a box of tissues and other odds and ends. Between a portrait of the Imam Ali, and a snapshot of the driver’s little son, is a poem printed in fine Persian script: “A night at home, and a hundred on the road/Oh, fatherless Benz where doth thou lead me on?” He calls out, “I introduce myself: Ladies and Gentlemen. I am Abbas Agha — Abbas Agha Marandi — at your service. Anything you need, you need at all, let me know. And this here is my helper, Hussein Agha — ditto for him. By his holiness, Imam Ali himself, the first Shi’ite imam, the king of men, I hope the trip goes nice and smooth for all the ladies and gents. So, to Mohammad and his descendants, Salavat!”5
All the passengers loudly chant the Salavat. Curly-beard, too, raises his voice, but he turns aside and laughs. Abbas Agha Marandi calls for a second, a third, and even louder Salavat for the leaders of Islam and for our dauntless fighting soldiers.
After armed Revolutionary Guards have checked the bus and the driver’s papers at the terminal’s only exit point, the Benz 0302 finally starts the journey.
Ten kilometers up the main highway, Abbas Agha stops to gas up. A long line of vehicles, stretching over two or three kilometers, is lined up at the filling station. Passenger-carrying coaches are exempt from lining up for fuel, so Abbas reverses slowly to the head of the line. About ten minutes later the refueling is complete.
Meanwhile, my traveling companion, who says his name is Vahab Soheili, tells me about his many years service with Iran Air, how he had recently been kicked out of his job, how on several occasions they had “barged” into his house and confiscated many of his books and albums, and how he had been kept in Evin Prison for a month and a half, before it turned out that he had committed no crimes, and so was released without a trial. His wife, his ex-wife, and his offspring were either in England or in the United States, his mother was in Karachi, and his late brother’s four sons and daughter were in Germany.
Looking around, it seems that nearly all the passengers are in the same position. Except for me and one or two of the students, the rest have gathered up their belongings and are leaving for good. Soheili, for one, is bidding adieu to his motherland, and says he has packed even the pumice stone in his old bathroom; Dr. Kiumarspur, a microbiology Ph.D. from America, is going to join her husband in Paris. In a none-too-rigid Islamic headcovering, she is breast-feeding her baby, which is
probably a game in itself, for apart from this, her only concern is flirting with the tubby student bound for Germany.
Dusk has fallen when we come out of the filling station. About half a kilometer farther up the highway, a little pickup truck has been hit and overturned. Seventy or eighty kilos of onions are scattered over the road. The driver, an old peasant, squats by his vehicle and the onions, his head in his hands, as if dazedly wondering what do. Traffic whizzes past, left and right, nobody caring about him. The scattered onions, the overturned truck, and the old man are a hilarious laughing matter for most of the passengers.
Two hours after nightfall, Abbas Agha Marandi pulls up in front of a large coffeehouse outside Takestan city limits, “for supper and saying of prayers.” Several other buses are parked there. Most of our passengers rush to buy dinner tokens from the coffeehouse proprietor, who is already helplessly crowded with customers. Soheili is in front of me.
“Jenab Aryan,” he says. “They only have rice and khoresh gheimeh, lamb stew and kebab. What should we do?”
“Whichever. Both are fine,” I reply.
“The khoresh-geimeh is certain to be full of fat. And God only knows where the kebab meat came from!”
“Take it easy, Agha Soheili.”
“I don’t see any dogs around here, by the way
I chuckle. “Even if it’s crickets’ chitterlings from the Moghan Desert,” I said, “I’m eating it.”
Soheili laughs. “In that case, if I may so trouble you . . . you wouldn’t happen to have a hundred tomans or so change?6 If you could lend it to me, a thousand thanks. I only have dollars and pounds left. We’ll settle what we spend later.”
“Of course.”
“Dinner’s on me!”
“I’m most grateful.”
“Tea or soft drink?” “Tea’s fine.”
“Well, then — two kebab barg, two teas, two yogurts. How’s that?” “Perfect.”
I hand over a hundred note and Soheili gets tokens for food and yogurt. While, bag in hand, he goes to “clean up,” I get the food at the crowded kitchen door. Loaded with kebabs, country bread, yogurt, and onions, I find an empty place in a corner.
Strange Times, My Dear Page 9