Strange Times, My Dear

by Nahid Mozaffari

  My Khan Papa Doctor said, “How are you feeling, Rokni?” I said, “I don’t know how to describe it for you.” “Aren’t you getting dizzy?”

  It’s true, I was. I said, “Oh, my Lord, yes. My head is light as cotton, a puff of cotton. I’m spinning like a pinwheel. But I feel fine; there’s nothing wrong with me. How cool it’s turned in the library! Look how hollow and distorted the furniture has grown. What air, what cool and pleasant air — chilled and thin and brittle, just like a sheet of glass.”

  He said, “Prick up your ears and see if you hear the sound of singing far, far away.”

  I said, “Oh, my Lord, yes. How clearly I hear it, Khan Papa Doctor! Someone is singing far, far away. Oh, my Lord, that’s not it. Someone is whistling. How well he’s whistling, too! Like my cousin Masoud who used to go to the head of the alley every evening and lean against the lamppost and whistle for the neighbor girls. Do you remember, Khan Papa Doctor?”

  He said, “Of course I remember.”

  I said, “Do you remember Homayundokht, God forgive her soul? After thirty-odd years, do you still think of her?”

  I was speaking without fear now. I was picking up speed. I remembered the picture taken in Petersburg of Homayundokht, God forgive her soul, with her Dear Daddy, the late Mirza Yousef — the white shawl around her naked shoulders, and her pitch-black hair tossed and spreading on the lilac-white skin at the back of her neck, her swooning gaze turned to the sky. The photographer’s backdrop shows a gray jetty in a stormy, raging sea. They have put a rattan chair in front of waves that are foaming at the mouth and tearing at their chains, and on the chair they’ve set Homayundokht, God forgive her soul, who is no older than thirteen.

  My Khan Papa Doctor was taken aback by my question. He couldn’t seem to think of an answer. I insisted: “Well, Khan Papa Doctor? What are you worried about?”

  He set aside the sugar pouch. He sat down and said, “You puppy dog! This meddling doesn’t become you.”

  I said, “Why not?”

  “I asked you here so we could talk about your half brother Zia.” I was thunderstruck. I hadn’t expected this. I opened my mouth but couldn’t speak. He grumbled, “How come you’ve stopped talking?”

  “You swore you’d never utter the name of my Khan Brother Zia,” I said.

  In protest, he raised both hands and said, “There has to be at least one person who will look after our business, who won’t allow that inheritance we gathered with our heart’s blood to get lost. When I go to Ghaleh Bagh, who will there be to care? The Sardar Azhdaris? Like hell they will. You, Your Excellency? You’ve always got your head up your ass. Who’s left, then? Obviously, your Khan Brother Zia. He may be stubborn as a mule, can’t tell up from down, acts like a donkey, but he’s a Heshmat Nezami. He gets things done, and he doesn’t allow anyone to stick it to him.”

  It dawned on me that our lives were changing, that there was more here than met the eye. I stammered, “It’s eleven years since we’ve seen a trace of him. We don’t know where he is. May God cut my tongue off, cut it off, but what if he’s deceased?”

  He lowered his head in his hands and reflected. “I’ve thought of that myself. Some people say he’s been executed. Some people say he’s at large, has changed his name, is driving a truck in the south. Others say he’s still in prison. But I know he’s alive. It’s been proven to me, and I don’t give these rumors the attention I’d give a dog.”

  I said, “How has it been proven to you?”

  He broke into a chuckle and said, “Maybe you won’t believe this. I’ve seen him in my dreams. For two weeks now, I’ve dreamed about him regularly, every night, Rokni. All my dreams are the same. It’s as though once again we’ve gone on that trip to Nishapur. In front of the house, there’s a carriage parked. It’s New Year’s and the late Homayun-dokht is straightening your Khan Brother Zia’s sailor suit for the traditional visits to relatives. Then there’s a knock on the door. When I open it, Big Cousin Mirza Hassibi pokes his head from the carriage. I put your Khan Brother Zia in the carriage. I sense that the late Homayun-dokht is watching with anxiety. I feel uneasy and I tell myself, Well, she’s a mother; she has the right; she can’t part with her child. I want to take your Khan Brother Zia off the carriage and give him to her, but the carriage starts moving. Big Cousin Mirza Hassibi motions for us to come aboard. What are we waiting for? I point to the late Homayun-dokht and shout, ‘Mirza, Mirza, we can’t, we can’t

  He fell silent. He lowered his head and stared into my eyes. “Do you remember Mirza Hassibi?”

  “No.”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. He seldom shows himself. I have no idea where he is. You know, Rokni? It’s as if everybody’s gone. But there’s something in the Heshmat Nezamis that will last forever. It only has to be looked after and protected. Your Khan Brother Zia, with all his obstinacy, would never allow these things to blow away. He’ll come back. You must search for him. You must ask this person and that. Masoud was saying that on his trip to the south he saw your Khan Brother Zia. He knows something about him. Recently, Masoud himself has been invisible. That cuckold never keeps his feet in one place. Otherwise, he could find your Khan Brother Zia, even if it meant pulling a few strings. After all, Masoud’s a Sardar Azhdari. The Sardar Azhdaris always have their hands in every bowl of henna.”

  “People say Masoud’s in smuggling now,” I said. “He goes to Kuwait. He smuggles back American suits, cigarettes, suede vests, and jeans.”

  My Khan Papa Doctor put on his reading glasses. From behind the lenses his eyes appeared wider and more watery. He stood up and came over to me. He set his hands on my shoulders and looked at me with an expression of discouragement. He shook my shoulders and said, “Now, wake up. You ass, the world is washing away and here you sit with your dreams. From now on, no more playacting. Nothing’s going to be helped by those weird masks you put on your face, or those artificial beards. We don’t have much time. We can’t take our family lightly. It’s a pity, Rokni. Listen to me. It’s a pity.”

  He straightened and turned to leave the library.

  “Was that all you wanted to talk to me about?” I asked.

  He nodded. “That was it.”

  I said, “What about the story of Homayundokht, God forgive her soul?”

  He didn’t answer. With shuffling steps, he left the library. I turned my head, and through the window I saw my mother, my Bee Bee, and my half sister Iran following after my Khan Papa Doctor like a pair of pull toys.

  I felt tired. The cool, dusty smell of the sugar pouch was still in my nostrils. The furniture in the library looked alive and uncanny. Everything was hunting for an excuse to unlock its tongue and share a confidence with me. But the silence continued, and the only sound was the grinding teeth of a solitary mouse, sawing away at the dark of the night behind the empty bookshelves. It was clear I had to look for Masoud.

  CHAPTER 2

  After the last few years, facing Masoud didn’t much appeal to me. But in spite of all our childhood fights, we couldn’t break our ties completely. It seemed to be our destiny that either I search for him or he for me. Even the plays we used to stage were based on that. He always played characters whose underhandedness my own characters relied upon; yet at the same time these characters couldn’t get along. If I were the late Shah Sardar Sepah, he was Sardar Sepah’s prime minister, Sayed Zia. If I were Shah Anushirvan the Just, he was the Shah’s grand vizier, Buzar Jomehr the Wise. Then we got our high school diplomas, went our separate ways, and didn’t see each other till the middle of last fall, when his head emerged from the water and, everywhere I went, he grew in front of me in the street like a weed. He wanted to talk, but I didn’t give him the chance.

  One time in Sarcheshmeh, I exploded, “Masoud, I don’t have time to talk! I like to walk in the street alone.” He answered, surprised, “Didn’t you promise we’d go south together and find your Khan Brother Zia?”

  “That was a few years ago. Now
I don’t feel like it. Get yourself another traveling companion.”

  “You Heshmat Nezamis are never in the mood for anyone. You put on a high hat for everyone.”

  I didn’t answer. I ducked into Lazarian’s and slugged down beer until the tiredness left me and I felt better and was sure Masoud was gone. Then, through the foggy window, I caught sight of him. He had turned up the collar of his raincoat. He had stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets, and from his half-open mouth the steam of his breath was twisting and knotting in the cold, wet air of autumn. With barely contained hunger, he fixed his sunken eyes on me. I waited till he glanced away. Soundlessly, I slipped through the back door and lost myself in the narrow alleys behind the mosque. I was free of him. When I reached the Curb of Shemiran I saw him again, standing under the lamppost in front of the Women’s Hospital. In the dark of the night, he was whistling. He was whistling in the Scale of Shur, and as soon as he saw me he stopped. As I passed, he leaned forward and said, “How are you, Rokni? Are you feeling all right?”

  I said, “Not bad. Its getting late. I have to find a cab and go home.”

  He said, “Never mind about me, but don’t you want to come visit my Dear Daddy? He asks about you all the time. He says, ‘Where is Rokni?’”

  I said, “Give my regards to Uncle Abdolbaghi. Tell him I’ll come see him very soon.”

  Then I set off again in a hurry. From a hundred paces away, I heard his whistling begin once again. He was whistling the Chekavak Corner of the Scale of Homayun. When he reached the Bee-Dad Corner, he started twittering like a nightingale — a constant, massaging twitter that polished the wet street. I felt guilty. Maybe I shouldn’t have acted so cold and distant.

  It occurred to me that night that much of the split between the children of Heshmat Nezam and the children of Sardar Azhdar was meaningless; it was all a masquerade. There’d been fifty years of bad feeling between Agha Heshmat Nezam and Agha Sardar Azhdar over the late Prime Minister Vosugh el Doleh’s concessions to the British. It started at the festival of the thirteenth day of the New Year, when everyone had gathered at the family cemetery. They were busy with chitchat when Agha Heshmat Nezam descended from his carriage in his military uniform and went straight to the late Sardar Azhdar and shouted, “Honorable Brother! I wish our honorable late father could stick his head out of his grave and see that Your Excellency is putting this country in the hands of foreigners for a lousy ten thousand tomans! Agha, what do you feel attached to? What is important to you?”

  People say that, because of his deafness, the late Sardar Azhdar didn’t hear a word the late Heshmat Nezam said; but then the late Agha Ass Dass Dolah whispered something in the late Sardar Azhdar’s ear that split the two brothers forever, as well as the brothers’ children. You could see this split in the random photographs Mirza Hassibi had taken of their weddings, their funerals, and the thirteenth days of the New Year. In one corner the two sisters, Great Pride and Superior Venus, the first-ranking grandchildren of the late Sardar Azhdar, sit on openwork metal lawn chairs in the middle of their inherited courtyard. Each of them clutches a nosegay in her fist and gazes so hard at the camera that her eyes are widened. Their late father, Agha Ass Dass Dolah, with an unturbaned head, a Yazdi robe hanging aslant from his shoulders, leans on his cherry cane and admires the two sisters from a distance with a poetic smile. A little farther away, the late Aunt Lady Najafi and her insane husband, Sayed Kazem, the owner of The Book of Divine Graces, sit next to the samovar. All around them, Heshmat Nezamis and Sardar Azhdaris and Hamedani Sadats are swarming like ants and grasshoppers. And behind them Homayundokht, God forgive her soul, with her head bare, in her white lace gown, is stretched on the lawn under the walnut tree examining her fingernails. Aunt Lady Badi Zaman, the interpreter of the Quran, employed by Radio Tehran, with her hair cut à la garÇon and her French cap and broadcloth suit and black tie that make her look like a classroom monitor, has drawn herself up as if to deliver her Friday night sermon. At the left, the Heshmat Nezami ladies are gathered and their gazes, full of pity, fall upon the giddy, coquettish face of Homayundokht, God forgive her soul. It seems they might at any moment move their lips and express their regrets that the daughter of Mirza Yousef had set herself on fire in front of relatives and strangers and her own little daughter Iran, all because of an insignificant quarrel with her obstinate, military husband.

  Even now, after some thirty-odd years, they still talked about it as though it had happened yesterday. They had never given any thought to the children of Homayundokht, God forgive her soul, and used to melodramatically describe the onion and garlic of that story in front of my Khan Brother Zia and my sister Iran as though those two were deaf and couldn’t hear them. Not only my Khan Brother Zia, who understood a good many things, but even my feeble-minded sister Iran grasped what they were saying. When you looked into Iran’s face it would occur to you that still, after some thirty-odd years, she was staring at that scene with the eyes of a three-year-old child. As long as she lived and breathed, her gaze would be branded by that scene. It carved a vacant space around her with an invisible chisel and created in her face a contradiction of childishness and age, of thickheadedness and shrewdness.

  But what about my Khan Brother Zia? No matter how I remembered him, I still couldn’t imagine what went on in his mind. In the photo, he looks distant and apologetic. He is sitting on a stool. He has placed one heel on his knee. He leans his elbow against a pillar, tilts his head in the hollow of his palm, and fixes his eyes upon a corner of the sky as though he were about to start singing. The entire background of sky is black except for the corner that my Khan Brother Zia is watching. That corner is yellowed like votive candles, like congealed beads of fat on a bowl of soup. It seems he wants to open his mouth and tell me something but his tongue is tied.

  In my heart I said, Oh, God, what’s wrong with me? I can get moving and go look for him and ask for clues from this person and that. Eleven years is a long time, but still I have him in mind. A handful of memories and cluttered images rushed into my head. I stood up and left the library.

  Since it was late in the evening, I abandoned the idea of calling Masoud. There was no hurry. Maybe tomorrow he would come to the School of Art, or I would run into him in the street. I felt he was loitering somewhere near me. He was passing shadowlike among the trees. I was sure I would find him eventually. Either he would search for me or I for him.

  In the courtyard, my Bee Bee sat next to Iran watching television. They were broadcasting news of killings and a bomb explosion in the bazaar. There wasn’t a trace of my Khan Papa Doctor. No doubt he’d gone to his office again, or perhaps he was inspecting his crossbred roses in the garden. Then I noticed that Iran’s eyes were on me. She was genuinely looking at me. At the same time there spun, behind her pearly and unchanging gaze, a moving pattern of dreams and thoughts and feelings. I bent down and whispered in her ear, “Iran-jun, do you hear my voice?”

  I thought she did. From the way she was looking at me I felt she could see me better than anyone else could. She was screwing questions into me with her drilling gaze. She was asking strange questions I knew the answers to but couldn’t explain. My Bee Bee noticed. She turned her head and looked at me curiously. I raised my shoulders, as if confessing to this clumsiness. She poured me a glass of tea and put the sugar bowl in front of me. I said, “Bee Bee-jun.”

  She said, “Now what?”

  “Has my Khan Papa Doctor talked to you, too?” “Of course.” “What did you say?”

  “Your Khan Papa Doctor will do what he has to. Maybe you can’t see his purpose now, but you will later. There’s a time for everything.”

  “I’m afraid that hunting my Khan Brother Zia won’t have a happy ending.”

  She smiled and said, “Rokni, you with your natural gifts will succeed at whatever you tackle. You’re not an ordinary person.”

  “What if I can’t find him?”

  “Don’t let them discourage you. Don’t listen to the S
ardar Azdaris. It’s not important to them. They say, ‘Shit on the grave of the world.’ They say, ‘Seize the moment.’ But you’re not bitter and pushy like them. Go after your brother. It’s God you should rely on.”

  I bent my head and started to drink my tea. A fairy lamp was burning in the vestibule. The servant, Zahra Soltan, was sitting on the bench in front of the kitchen, rubbing her swollen knees with goat lard and sarcocolla. In that old house, everything had the look of something left behind forever, like the cloth bundles in the dressing room of a Turkish bath. Even the walls were longing for movement, and the building seemed about to uproot itself and take off.

  I stood up and started walking. I looked at the tiled wall in front of the basement. The late Sardar Azhdar had brought those tiles from Ghom, but after he was removed from office and retired, he couldn’t pay for them. The Sardar Azhdaris circulated a rumor that the Agha’s enemies were jealous of him, that it was they who put the banana peel under his foot and made a scandal of him. As his son-in-law, Agha Ass Dass Dolah, said, “They forced the old man to face the wall.”

  Anyone could testify that the late Sardar Azhdar’s sleight of hand and magic shows were much more interesting than those of the most famous magician of his day, Mirza Malkam Khan. The late Sardar Azhdar put a pearl-handled revolver in a sugar pouch and attacked it with a sugar hammer till it was completely shattered. Then, with two of his pen-shaped fingers, he held the sugar pouch in midair and, like Mashd Abbas the bonesetter, he caused the broken pieces to be reassembled in the presence of His Majesty, the Mecca of the Universe himself. He took the revolver from the sugar pouch, whole and untouched, and put it on the blessed palm of His Majesty.