Strange Times, My Dear

by Nahid Mozaffari

“Good . . . very good.”

  Mother heaved a long sigh. She was looking down and stoking the fire with the tongs. Maryam stood up and went toward her. She put her arms around her neck and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Are you sad, Mama?”

  Mother forced a bitter smile. “No, thank God, nothing is wrong with me.”

  “Then what happened? Where did Akbar go?” “Akbar . . . he has gone to the mill

  Maryam took her mother’s face in her hands and looked her straight in the eyes. “Mama, what is it?”

  Mother’s lips quivered; her eyes welled with tears and in between sobs she entreated: “Is it... is it really you?”

  Maryam’s hands went limp. She let go of her mother and said with surprise: “Of course it’s me . . . who else could I be?”

  Mother, who was now sobbing, grabbed her shoulders and entreated: “You mean, nothing . . . nothing’s changed?”

  “Well, what could have changed, dear?”

  The gate creaked. Maryam saw the old matron, who had come into the yard. Behind her were the village women and the children, who had suddenly appeared. Mother stood helplessly, kissed Maryam and said: “It’s nothing, it’s nothing.”

  The old matron was standing in the door frame, with one hand on the door and one hand on her hip. She smirked. Mother was now standing up.

  “She’s pure . . . my daughter is as pure as the Quran.”

  “Well, now, we’ve got the thief and the stolen goods; we’ll test it out.”

  Maryam was leaning against the wall. The room had grown dark. The village women, with heads of a thousand serpents, were peeping over the old matron’s shoulder. Mother said with a sob: “It is a lie . . . it’s a lie . . .”

  The old matron stepped forward, entered the room, and said: “It doesn’t lie, don’t speak blasphemy . . . don’t make your dead turn over in their graves.”

  Mother quietly swallowed her sobs. The old woman came closer and gestured at Maryam with her brown, thin hands. “Get up . . .”

  Maryam looked with terror at her mother. Mother grabbed the old woman’s skirt, pleading: “Right here in the room is better . . . out there is indecent; they’ll see.”

  The old matron’s smirk widened. “More indecent is that in that city of strangers she has disgraced everyone.”

  A thousand bulging black eyes watched Maryam, and in the midst of the hot breaths and the gaping mouths of the entire village, she heard her mother’s voice:

  “Wait till her brother comes . . . he has gone to Shiraz to pick her up . . . wait till he comes.”

  The black bulging eyes were getting close. A thousand hands were reaching for her, and Maryam saw the two brown snakes that coiled around her arms and other snakes that grabbed her feet and lifted her. Something like a chunk of stone was caught in her throat and was stifling her scream.

  She shook her head vehemently. A hand grabbed her hair and pulled. She looked over the water cellar and saw that the children, big and small, were standing on the mud-brick walls. The air was full of noise, and noises were whistling past her head, wrapping around her neck, and she couldn’t breathe.

  “The djinn has appeared in the old matron’s dream three times.”

  “I saw it, too. I saw that the djinn was turning black as before; then I heard it say, it is the fault of the girl who is away from here.”

  Her body burned, as if a thousand snakes were biting her, as though she were caught between thousands of Satan’s stones, stones that were moving toward her, rolling over her, crushing her arms and legs and her whole body.

  A hand laid her on the ground. Two old women grabbed her legs and pulled them forcefully toward themselves. Some women sat on her legs; her hands were pinned to the ground, and two hands were holding her head. Her legs were spread open. A woman was handing the old matron an egg. The old matron was standing in front of her. Maryam’s eyes were burning, she could hear the voices:

  “Not even a single tear.”

  “Her unfortunate father is shuddering in his grave.”

  The village was full of bulging eyes. The old matron was sitting and groping her legs with her hands. Some hands spread her legs apart. The matron’s sleeves were pulled up. Her eyes were continuously opening and closing.

  “Move over, dear, let me see what I’m doing.”

  “She’s right, it’s dark . . . move back.”

  The lump of stone in her throat had grown bigger. A brown snake was moving between her legs. She couldn’t feel the weight of the Satan’s stones on her arms and legs. The world had turned into the shape of a small egg, and her leg was trembling from the egg touching it. It seemed as though an insect was jumping up and down there. A raspy snort came out of her mouth. It was the sound of a chicken’s gasp, one whose throat had been cut. She shook herself and a strange scream emerged from her throat: “Oh, God!”

  The women pulled back. The old woman ordered: “Hold her tight.” And again she pushed the egg. The women were watching quietly. She saw the old matron’s long finger, which was like a snake, twisting under her skirt. The old matron cleaned her finger.

  “Oil.”

  She felt the old matron’s slippery, cold finger between her legs. She had become soaking wet with sweat. She was cold and shivering. When the old matron raised her finger, her face shone and her eyes sparkled. The women, with their eyes glued to her mouth, remained silent. The old matron patiently shook her hand toward the palm trees where the old djinn lived and said: “Thanks.”

  The sound of ululating resonated through the village. A woman emptied a sugar bowl on her head. Mother had fainted in the women’s arms. Maryam was watching with glazed eyes. The old woman came forward with her oily hand and kissed Maryam, who lay motionless, and said:

  “Doctor, you make your mother proud, you bring pride to your village.”

  Maryam could hear nothing but the sound of the wind that had been ricocheting between the Satan’s stones.

  — Translated by M. R. Ghanoonparvar, Persis Karim, Atoosa Kourosh,

  Parichehr Moin, Dylan Oehler-Stricklin, Reza Shirazi, and

  Catherine Williamson

  Reza Farrokhfal

  Born in 1949 in Esfahan, Reza Farrokhfal graduated from Shiraz (formerly Pahlavi) University and Concordia University in Montreal. He began his career publishing stories in Jong-e Esfahan, a well-regarded literary journal edited by Houshang Golshiri in the 1960s. Farrokhfal has published numerous stories and articles in Iranian journals and newspapers. His short story collection Ah, Istanbul was published in 1988 in Tehran. He has also translated novels by Graham Greene and Alexander Solzhenitsyn into Persian.

  In 1995, Farrokhfal moved to Montreal, where he continued studying and writing on literary theory, criticism, and semiotics. He currently teaches Persian literature at McGill University.

  “Ah, Istanbul” was selected from the collection by the same name. The story touches upon the complexity of love in difficult times. F. Scott Fitzgerald held that it is dangerous to transplant one’s dreams from one period of life to another. Farrokhfal implicitly seconds that idea and suggests that it is precarious, if not impossible, to transplant the dreams of one era to another.

  AH, ISTANBUL

  Her eyes were gray. Having come up the three flights of stairs and the narrow corridor of the publishing company, walls stacked to the ceiling with boxes of books, her eyes must have turned this color. But I hadn’t noticed her. I hadn’t even heard her voice asking the office boy for the way to the manager’s office. I was engrossed in my own work. The door of my office was half open. I was working on the translation of a tiresome sociology text. I would write some sentences, rub them out, then write them again. When I lifted my head for a moment, I saw a medium-height woman wearing dark clothes from head to toe — as is fashionable these days — passing by my office.

  I took off my glasses and pressed the corners of my eyes with my fingers, to ease the pulsating flow of blood in my veins. From the early hours of the day, my eyes d
idn’t seem to cooperate. It was the result of the previous night’s sleeplessness. I glanced at my watch. Half an hour till noon, but the manager, the old man, still hadn’t shown up. I lit a cigarette, rose, and walked to the window. The sun bothered my eyes, but it was no longer the lewd, gaze-stopping summer sunshine that scorched and cleared out our street full of bookshops for a whole season.

  I’d heard the sound of the old man’s door opening, and his laughter, and thought to myself that he must have another of his old friends visiting him, so I carried on working. The sociology text wasn’t progressing. The office boy came in and said, “Agha is asking to see you.” And the old man, from amid the purple haze of pipe smoke surrounding his face, had introduced me to the woman: “Our boss — or as they call them today, our editor,” following up this comment with one of his long, protracted laughs, which could only emanate from a person of his generation. A yellow folder lay on his desk. Puffing on his pipe, he was telling the woman, “I should tell you that bringing out a book these days is like coming to grips with a wild beast. The beast will only surrender if one had lost a lot of blood oneself. Being a publisher myself. . .” This was his habitual catchphrase.

  The woman had asked, “What about poetry? Do you also deal with poetry as part of your imprint?”

  I murmured to myself, “Who does she think she is?” And the old man, as if attempting to answer a sad, ponderous question, sighed deeply and said, “No, no, just like translations of fiction or history books . . . publishing poetry these days has a lot of problems.” The old man’s pipe kept going out, and he would have to interrupt the flow of his speech to light up again. It had only been a week since he had quit cigarette smoking and picked up the pipe for fun. He accompanied the woman to the top of the stairs to see her out.

  In those days, all kinds of people came to our publishing offices. They would ask directions from the bookshop on the ground floor and come right up. Sometimes Fazli, the fellow downstairs, would send up bothersome characters just to annoy us. He could have got rid of them right there in the bookshop. There was also the occasional distant, budding talent submitting manuscripts from the provinces by registered mail. The old man referred all of these to me so I could read them and give an opinion. He would lean back against his chair, point at me, and say: “No, no, don’t be mistaken! I’m telling you this in my capacity as a publisher so you can spot the best talent exactly where you least expect it.” He was lying. I knew that he had never yet published a single page without the recommendation and opinion of another friend or acquaintance. But he would puff up proudly and, staring out at a patch of pale sky behind the booksellers’ street, framed by the dirty window, say, “In this trade there are times when you mustn’t be afraid. You have to have guts and make a choice; in a nutshell, you have to score!”

  Work on the sociology text still wasn’t progressing. There were other manuscripts, too. That dignified, elegant man, Mr. Mehryari, who had been denied permission to travel outside the country, would occasionally turn up. At the ripe age of sixty-five, he had translated some poems from French into Persian. The old man, our publishing manager, said that he was very fluent in French and English. I was completely intoxicated by the man’s expensive aftershave, but at a loss as to what to say to him about his translations.

  In the evenings, before going home, I would look in on Fazli at the bookshop downstairs. Fazli always had some sunflower seeds, raisins, or something on him, and he would throw a handful on the counter and we would start chatting. When I finally got home, tired and beat, I would take a cold shower and close my eyes. I would tell myself that I was listening to a constant, endless drizzle of rain and the flow of water was washing away the remains of words clinging not just to my mind, but also to my skin. If I weren’t going anywhere in the evening (where would I go to?) I would sit behind the desk again. I used to leave my unfinished work for this time of night. Around midnight, when I would look up from my work, my brain had stopped functioning. I would get up and stagger to bed, a book in hand, always remembering the English painter’s quote: “It is through suffering for art that we come to find our respite in it once again.” But my bleak and drowsy mind would corrupt these words, and I would deliriously blurt out to myself, “It’s through suffering for art that we are exhausted and fall asleep once again.”

  The old man had said, “Well, I never! So she has been here all this time?” He was puffing gently on his pipe, still staring at the pale patch of sky over the booksellers’ street. As if speaking to himself, he was saying, “They’re all going. They’re all leaving here.” I wasn’t particularly surprised by what he said. The old man went on, “She used to be a beautiful woman. She still is. I know her from way back, from when she was about twenty-three, twenty-four years old . . . she’s the one who’s translated this novel.” He shoved the yellow folder on the desk toward me. “Before she leaves, she’s coming back here to get an answer from us. I think it must be an interesting work.” I had glanced at the pages in the folder. There were about two hundred, written in a tiny feminine hand. The book itself was there, too.

  “She was a talented woman,” said the old man. “At one time she used to paint. She even had a few exhibitions. I think she’s written some poetry, too. But it’s strange that this woman never took anything seriously in her life. In those days she had quite a fan club. I don’t think you would have heard of her. You’re too young.”

  Every day, about twelve-thirty, I would pop out of the office for lunch. If I didn’t want to share Fazli’s food, which he would bring each day in a small pot from home, I would go to Havagim’s cafe. I used to know Havagim the Armenian from many years before. I would pass by the bookshops. At the first junction I would cross the street. Always, at that time of day, a waft of cold, fetid air from the open door of a cinema on my way would brush my face and stifle me. Turning into the side street, my glance would fall upon the lettering in white on the window of a launderette: “View an album of all the different plaids available.” A few steps farther, on the opposite sidewalk, under an elm tree’s canopy of leaves and branches, was Havagim’s cafe. That day I had taken the yellow folder containing the translation, and the book itself, so I could take a look at them over lunch.

  In the cafe I sat at the table by the window. I placed the folder carefully on the table beside me. The two former design students were also there. What with university holidays being indefinitely prolonged on a regular basis, they were fast approaching their thirties. In the early days of the revolution, they would come here with other students, male and female. They would order down-to-earth food and engage in political debates. But now these two were the only survivors of that group.

  One of them, the one with the brown goatee, had finished his meal and was picking his teeth with a matchstick. He threw me a familiar glance. It was their habit to have philosophical discussions over their meal, and then when they had finished eating, to fix their gaze on me in silence. Once in a while when I felt up to it, I would return their gaze, but they couldn’t stand it and would quickly look down. While I waited for Havagim to bring the food I lit a cigarette and opened the yellow folder, as if it contained a rare and precious manuscript. I read the page I fell on: “The ship was nearing the warm, clear waters of the Mediterranean; the clearest waters in the world.” It was the opening sentence of a chapter. I read on: “He opened his eyes to the white cabin walls of the ship, but recalling the events of the night before, he rolled over and a delicious morning sleep overtook him.” My hand went to my shirt pocket to bring out a pencil and strike out a dangling modifier, but I thought there would be plenty of time for such trivial details. As I washed down mouthfuls of food with sips of iced water, I looked over the original. I didn’t recognize the writer. It struck me as being one of those pocket book series with brightly colored covers that they sell in hotel or airport shops. The woman had translated the title as Double Dealing. Its publication date was New York, 1980. I thought to myself that she’d therefore probably n
ot bought the novel from one of the bookstalls here. For a long time now, the city’s bookstalls were selling only the worst leftover foreign titles, ones that had appeared before 1979. I remembered one of the old man’s aphorisms: “Half the translator’s job is always what he chooses!” The old man didn’t leave me in peace with his sayings even while I was eating.

  I closed the book tentatively and lit up. I had finished eating. As I was contemplating the street scene before me in the afternoon sunshine, I fell to thinking about the woman: a woman who had never taken anything seriously in her life, and had now decided to undertake a translation. Strange that I couldn’t remember her face. The only thing I remembered was that she had pale eyes. But were they blue or gray? It had been years — perhaps since my thirties — since I had been sidetracked by this sort of memory blank.

  But despite all my curiosity I kept postponing reading the translation. Finally I took home the yellow folder and the book and spent a few late nights reading them in bed. My disbelief turned into despair after browsing through the book, and reading thirty, forty pages of the translation. It was a stiff, amateur rendering, even containing some gross errors. The main character of the novel was a middle-aged man, an expert in Byzantine art history who was traveling by ship from North America to Europe to continue his research. On board, a troupe of Hungarian artistes — among them a young girl — aroused his curiosity. Before meeting the girl, this professor of art history had had nothing to do but spend the days on deck or nights at the ship’s bar getting drunk and recalling unhappy memories of his marriage (his wife had left him), his relations with his lovers, or his quarrels with university authorities. The best years of his life had seen him turn into a drinking, distrustful, cynical person who one would expect at any moment to end his life by throwing himself into the ocean’s heaving waves or swallowing a dozen sleeping pills late one night. But coming to know the Hungarian girl, who was of Gypsy origin, led to a torrid love affair. The suspicions of the troupe of artistes (whose members included one or two secret agents) were aroused. A mysterious murder takes place on board. One of the male dancers, who had been the girl’s closest friend, evidently commits suicide by slashing his wrists. The ship anchors in Greece, and the art history professor and the girl escape to Istanbul.