by Terence Ward
Rich, always the scientist, described to us the geological havoc that created the plateau. He spoke of the late-Cambrian continental dance when the supercontinent Gondwanaland split up into smaller pieces. By the late Miocene period, he explained, east of Madagascar the Indian tectonic plate had broken free from the African continent. Racing out to sea, it surged northward, aiming directly at the underbelly of Asia. The final impact was cataclysmic. Wrenching and buckling collisions of these continental plates threw coastal beaches and sea shells high into the clouds, forming the Himalayas. The Middle East was also sculpted this way. North of the sweltering Persian Gulf, two plates had slammed together over the sea floor and lifted a vast plateau more than a mile high.
I scanned the sculpted mountains that rose like hunched copper bones out of the green-streaked plain. With my heart pounding, I read the landscape like an excited boy.
Our eyes searched the expansive sky, which pulled our gaze from east to west. Against this spectacular Asian topography, Montana’s mind-stretching horizons would look mundane, even parochial. Iran’s strength spoke through her mountain ranges, through her forbidding ramparts, brown and purple, framed in silent, rugged wonder. Familiar sensations gripped us in this sanctuary of Fars, home of the ancient Persians.
* * *
The lofty Iranian plateau is shaped like a trapezoidal tabletop and ringed by snowy shark-tooth peaks. Hemmed in by two formidable ranges, the Elburz and the Zagros, the plateau is bone-dry.
The only water seeps down from melting mountain snows; it rarely rains. Sweeping west to east along the Caspian Sea’s lapping shore, the colossal Elburz Range—topped at nineteen thousand feet by Iran’s Fujiyama, the volcano Demavand—links Eurasia’s rugged Caucasus with central Asia’s Hindu Kush and the soaring Pamirs that feed into the Himalayas. The Zagros chain slashes north–south like a crescent-shaped scimitar down the long Iraqi border and along the Persian Gulf coastline, demarcating the eastern limit of the Arabic-speaking world. On this plateau, sensations are vivid. High altitude sharpens pathos. Senses open wide.
God’s hand chose to be minimalist here. No humid sun-beaten river basins like the bilharzia-ridden Nile, no aching silt-washed Mesopotamia, no teeming eternal Ganges can be found. Instead, wild, dizzying peaks lift out of a rough moonscape with forceful enterprise. Copper-tinted flanks fold and buckle like accordion frames, leaving snowmelt-carved gorges and steep unnerving ravines. Yet when and wherever water runs, there is life. Erect steeples of poplar trees line up in sleek columns alongside riverbeds or bravely stand alone. Reaching to the sky, they remind passersby: look up. Look to the heavens.
3. The Past Is a Foreign Country
The past is a country from which we all have emigrated.
—SALMAN RUSHDIE, IMAGINARY HOMELANDS
A pearl beyond the shell of existence and time was searched for by those lost on the seashore.
—HAFEZ
In the north of Iran, buttressed by the flanks of the slate-gray Elburz Mountains, sits Tehran. Our old house, above the neighborhood of Tajrish, clung to the first wave of steeply rising sheets of stone. And for ten years it was home. “For those who have left it,” Mircea Eliade wrote in No Souvenirs, “the city of their childhood and adolescence always becomes a mythical city.”
I remember a warm spring evening. If memories of Tehran define my family’s fabled cosmology, then a garden-encircled villa is our touchstone. Like the alchemist in his laboratory, Hassan in the kitchen swirls like a dervish. Mixing fire with water, he transmutes elements. Outside, coals burn white-hot. Inside, steam rises from the cauldron. The table groans with vegetables and spices: turmeric and cumin, red peppers and eggplant, sweet garlic and tomatoes, all laced with herbs; mint, tarragon and dill are potions in his hands. Plums, quince, lemons and apricots add the sweet-sour flavors he seeks. With special care he creates mouthwatering feasts: seared lamb kebab, delicately softened with his secret marinade; crushed walnuts in pomegranate nectar flooded over braised duck called fesenjan; jujeh kebab, a grilled, saffron-yellow lemon-garlic chicken; all spread over a bed of pollo—hot basmati rice with melted butter and sumac.
Smoke and heat animate Hassan’s storytelling. In his bag of tales, he picks from a wide range, comic buffoonery to operatic tragedy. Rich’s favorite tragedy is from the Shahnameh, the Persian Iliad. The story begins: heroic Rustam, the Hercules of Iran, holds off the marauding Turan Turks from the east. While the battle unfolds, Hassan twirls his apron, grabs his chopping knife and flares his eyes for dramatic effect.
Rustam’s mythic battle with his enemy, Sohrab, lasts three days. The country’s destiny is at stake. The fight rages on, and even God pauses to watch. Rustam and Sohrab clash under thunderclouds. Finally Rustam fatally slashes Sohrab, who falls. When the mighty Rustam bends down over the bleeding warrior, he sees a magical armband that once was his own. In a flash he remembers: this was a gift to the only woman he ever loved. After one night of passionate love twenty years before, she vanished and he never saw her again. Now Rustam knows that his dying enemy can only be his long-lost son! Brave Sohrab, finally reunited with his father, dies slowly in his arms. Noooo! We gasp on cue as Hassan deftly pulls a hissing, puffed-up baked Alaska out of the oven.
In our living room and on the candlelit verandah, a lavish black-tie affair bubbles away. A Louis Armstrong record croons Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” to a gathering of Iranian aristocrats and pipe-smoking professors, Western diplomats, covetous businessmen with their trophy wives, and thinly disguised spies as they gossip and guzzle Russian vodka. Dad recounts his “Dancing Master” story to uproarious laughter while my brother Kevin loiters around the caviar bowl like the thief of Baghdad, acting nonchalant as he scoops up large dollops of the black gold onto his waiting toast. Waiters and bartenders serve the crowd. Upstairs, brother Chris, inside his cardboard-box spaceship, soars past Mars.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Hassan continues to describe Rustam’s pain as he holds his son’s head in his arms. Tears fill his eyes and ours. Outside, the jazz tempo changes. Billie Holiday languidly flies on “God Bless the Child.”
* * *
As the summer months settle in, Hassan introduces us to a Tehran custom—when heat blisters the city’s flatlands, families head into the hills for respite. We trek above Tajrish Square to Darband’s roaring mountain river, where teahouses hang from cliffs, cooled by breezes cast off by the tumbling water. We climb along the winding path, and kebab smoke wafts from braziers, stoked by waving fans. From tiny stalls, vendors call out their temptations: tangy pressed sour-cherry rolls or young shelled walnuts, tender and white.
But in Tajrish there is another attraction: the bazaar. I remember it vividly as a world of deep shadows. Holding Hassan’s hand, I step cautiously. Shafts of light shoot through the overhead mesh, slowly streaked by blue smoke and dust. Shops and stalls, bustling teahouses, even a post office lie hidden in this hooded cavern. Swirling through its arteries are ladies in chic dresses, students carrying their books home, laborers and hawkers, turbaned mullahs clutching Korans, women draped in long black cloaks, straggling children being dragged in tow.
Inside this labyrinth, people come to dip into exotica: shiny porcelain tea sets, copper-bright trays, intoxicating perfumes, stacked rolls of textiles, plastic toys and telephones, shrill gold jewelry, burlap bags filled with rice, flowery carpets, nuts and dried fruits—Persian figs, mulberries, apricots, persimmons. And then there are the spices, standing upright in a row, waiting for you in their woven hemp sacks: fiery reds, simmering yellows, burnt tans and fading greens. Spilling from one pigment to another, they are the colors of blood, sunflower, amber, grass.
Parviz’s quick hand swoops out of the darkness and tugs at the air. Hassan shakes his friend’s hand warmly. I find my wooden stool and sit beside Parviz while Hassan goes off to buy vegetables. Shoppers scurry, streaming by. Parviz’s dusty fingers rustle my red hair, leaving saffron dust behind. I smile. His fragrant offerings fend off
the ripe stench of lamb meat hanging at a nearby butcher’s. As usual, he offers me one of his treasures, a strip of cinnamon bark or a mint leaf, and we sit silently to watch the world go by. Like seasoned fishermen, we patiently wait for the nibble, the bite; we wait for someone to stop and stare at his rainbow of goods.
A searching hand caresses a root. Another rubs some seeds or flicks through the dried leaves. Pepper, cardamom, nutmeg, Parviz explains. Curious heads turn to listen. His soft voice retraces the spices’ long journey across land and sea before their auspicious arrival in Tajrish, to meet the welcoming touch of such honorable customers.
Mostly, I remember, he begins the travels east along India’s Malabar Coast; for the dried Omani lemon he sets out from the southern Arabian deserts. I listen, pleased to join his verbal caravan. But no spice I know is more astonishing than his offering on that June day.
His weathered, cracked fingers place a dried dark flower stem in my palm. He winks, says “Beyah, bokhor,” and shows me how he tucks it under his tongue. His eyes roll with a smile. I do the same. It slips quickly under my teeth and I bite into the thick petal, breaking it into smaller pieces. My mouth explodes like a bomb. Tongue ablaze, cheeks flush, blood racing. My gums quickly go numb. I break out in a sweat. A quick breath sends the rich, fiery scent into my lungs. It is clean and heavy. My God, what is this? I look up dazed at Parviz. I feel moist droplets on my forehead.
Still smiling, he gives me another. “Powerful, no?” he says.
I nod weakly.
“Feel that strength?”
“What is it?” I stammer, my mouth still in flames.
“Queen of the spices. Clove.”
“From where, baba?” I ask.
“Farther east than all the others.”
“How far?”
“The end of the world. Maluku. Islands of Kings.”
“Where?”
“Where Asia ends and the oceans begin.”
“Ma-lu-ku,” I repeat under my breath.
“Yes. Farther east than China, islands floating like gardens. One day, little brother, you will go there.”
“Insha’allah,” says Hassan, just then returning to Parviz’s stall.
Their eyes turn upward. Mine follow. “If God wills.” Always the last words. The radio from the teahouse buries their words with a song by the great diva Parisa, about moonlight, narcissus eyes, the maiden in the white chador.
That summer, my brothers and I swim like tadpoles for hours, escaping the sizzling heat in a turquoise-tinted pool. Overhead, a steel cable stretches from a treetop to the verandah across the water. A brainstorm of my mother’s, this cable holds a pulley and a wooden swing. Climbing the steep ladder, we take turns jumping onto the swing, flying over the pool and leaping in midair, ending with wild splashes below. Exhausted by the afternoon, with chlorine-reddened eyes, we tiptoe across burning gravel to Hassan’s home.
Under shady trees on a large wooden bench covered with maroon carpets, we find Hassan sipping tea with his wife and, occasionally, a friend. This is the seat of tradition. Jasmine, planted by his wall, floats its scent into the air. Chatting away, we drink glass after glass of tea. Between soft talk and naps, young Fatimeh and her friend giggle at Hassan’s humor. A small brass samovar simmers. Smiles cross over tiny rims of tea glasses.
Often, Chris, Rich and I doze off. Fatimeh unrolls her mattresses and calls us inside. One by one we collapse by the pink cylindrical pillows that line her room. Slowly sunlight fades. When I wake to voices outside, gold streaks of the setting sun fall across the garden like jewels. Beyond our wall, purple and indigo shadows cover the mountain ridges. Onion, garlic and pungent simmering herbs drift from Fatimeh’s kitchen. I nudge Chris and Rich, who wake up groggy and pleased. It’s time to leave. We scamper back to the big house.
Often, after dinner, I wander again down the dark path to Hassan’s warmly lit room. Before his nightly storytelling, Hassan always washes and Fatimeh sits before her loom. I play with baby Ali and watch Fatimeh weave. After his ritual ablution, Hassan wipes dry his damp hands. His face is refreshed. He lifts up his baby and kisses him. Then, without speaking, he lays out his prayer rug. In silence, he kneels. He raises his head, eyes half shut. His lips move. I cannot hear his words.
* * *
W. B. Yeats once suggested that the Irish, in times of great joy, know that tragedy lurks around the corner. The same holds true for Iranians.
Each year, the nation relives its collective suffering. Across Iran, the murders of Hussein, his sons and followers in A.D. 680 on the plains of Kerbela are reenacted in processions and plays. Though frowned on by the Shah’s father as backward folk art, these centuries-old performances called taziyeh are the Islamic world’s only indigenous drama. Because the Muslim lunar calendar contains twenty-nine fewer days than our Gregorian year, the holy month of Moharram—an emotional time of remembrance that plunges everyone into ritual grief—changes seasons with the years.
Dressed in mourning, Hassan tells us that this year too he will carry the green flag of Hussein in the Ashura procession. Somber music plays over the radio. The big day arrives. Jostled by the crowd, my brothers and I peer through the legs and arms of adults. Stern and dignified, Hassan marches past, followed by scores of black-clothed boys and men beating their chests with open palms or lashing their backs with chains before the watching crowds. Women trail behind them. Tears flow freely for their saintly martyrs. “Yaaaah Hussein!” they cry. The sounds of drums and chains echo down the street.
* * *
In the late afternoons of autumn, on our way home from school, we buy tart green almonds sprinkled with salt from stacked roadside carts. We dodge rocks tossed by rival kids, outpace growling street dogs or pluck bark off the towering plane trees before turning the corner near our house.
Once inside the red iron gate, we pad down our garden footpath over well-worn stones by the cherry orchard and enter a doorway that opens onto a room with carpets from wall to wall. Fatimeh greets us with her round cherubic face and pomegranate cheeks. Inside, we find sips of hot tea, little Ali, baby Mahdi and the mystery of Fatimeh’s loom. Her tiny pearl-white hands are ideal for carpet making. In her remote native desert village, Fatimeh tells us, she wove her first knot when she was only six years old.
Her father used to work in Tehran. My brothers and I knew about his tragic death—crushed while digging a water tunnel with his crew in north Tehran. Fatimeh did not remember him; she was far too young when the tunnel collapsed. The family was left in desperate straits. By the time her sixth birthday arrived, she was one of many girls weaving from dawn to dusk for the pay of just one rial. Seven days a week. No school, no breaks, no food. Only a piece of dry bread in her pocket. The loom’s strings made her fingers bleed. Whenever child Fatimeh nodded off, the money-hungry matron, a Dickensian villain, would hit her on the back with a stick. The girl’s heads were shaved to prevent them from wasting time fussing over their looks.
A month before he died, her father had announced in a booming voice: “Young Hassan Ghasemi must marry my daughter.” Fatimeh lay swaddled in the corner, barely two years old. A brown hat was placed on Hassan’s ten-year-old head in front of both families, symbolizing their engagement.
Hassan lost the hat, but never forgot his obligation. Nor did the two plotting mothers. With the death of Fatimeh’s father, Hassan’s fate was sealed. When he finally agreed to marry, at the age of twenty-two, his bride was still a child. “She was a baby,” Hassan later told us, laughing. “She just wanted to play with dolls.”
Hassan’s father was a scoundrel, a ne’er-do-well, a camel driver who set out across the desert trade routes, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves, stranded and penniless in their desolate village. For months, even years, he would disappear. During one inauspicious homecoming, young Hassan, then only five, did not recognize his father and attacked him with a stick, defending the family shack from the “Afghan” intruder. For his insolence, his father beat
him with the same stick, long and hard. When food was scarce, his mother ordered the kids to scavenge trees for bugs and locusts. That was all the protein they ate. When she suggested killing a camel for meat, her husband said he’d rather kill one of his children. At seven, Hassan was taken away from his mother, dragged off to the capital by his father. In Tajrish Square, he was cast off and told to get a job. For the next year, he roamed the nearby hills as a shepherd, guarding a rich man’s flock. He never saw his father until the winter snows fell again in Tehran and it was time to go home for the one-month vacation. Only then would his father reappear to collect his son’s wages.
Working as a shepherd, a gardener and then a cook, the young boy came of age. Hassan was a mature twenty-three when he first walked through our red gate with his young bride.
* * *
Concerning important things, I was sure that my father consulted Hassan first. As a child, I suffered from warts. For more than a year, doctors with knives and red-hot cauterizers had left nothing but scars on my elbows and knees when trying to remove them. After each operation, a new batch appeared, turning every fall and scrape into a painful ordeal. Frustration hung in my parents’ voices.
One wintry evening, Dad arrived home from work and pulled out a ram’s horn from his leather attaché case. Dusty with flecks of leaves and dirt, it curled like a nautilus shell. He carefully rested the horn on the walnut table by the fireplace in the chilly living room, where we rarely played. Hassan made a fire and lit a candle. My father had a mystical look in his eye and set his strong, gentle hand on my shoulder, drawing me near.