by Terence Ward
“When they took him in front of the court, the judge asked him why he had come to Cairo. So the man told him about his dream and the treasure.
“The judge began to laugh. ‘You foolish man. I have dreamed of a house in Isfahan three times. There is a garden. In the garden there is a sundial, a fig tree and a fountain. And under the fountain there is a treasure. Did I believe this? No!’ the judge shouted. ‘You shouldn’t either. Go back to your city, and never set foot in Cairo again. Here, take this money and go!’
“Well, when the man got back to Isfahan, he saw his own garden. Amazing! It was exactly the garden the judge had described, with a sundial, a fig tree and a fountain. So he grabbed his shovel and started digging …”
“And?” we all cried out. Wiping his forehead, Hassan looked at each of us.
“Soon you will leave Isfahan. When you get home, don’t forget to look under the fountain in your father’s garden. There you’ll find the treasure!”
“Hassan, how did you know that Dad’s garden has a fountain?”
Hassan’s eyes sparkled. “It’s my secret. Come on, let’s go back and find your mom and dad.”
As we rose to leave the quiet courtyard, Hassan said one more thing. “It’s like the old poem. Open the eye of your heart, then you can see things that cannot be seen.”
* * *
In his exhaustive work The Arabian Nights: A Companion, Robert Irwin uncovered the epic’s numerous incarnations and tracked its footprints back to the source. These tales were in fact originally Persian, not Arabian. They were called A Thousand Tales, from the Farsi title Hazar Afsaneh. Translated into Arabic between the eighth and ninth centuries, they were renamed first Alf Khurafa and then Alf Layla, or A Thousand Nights.
Irwin traced the historic link back to Ibn al-Nadim, a ninth-century bookseller and compiler of an extraordinary annotated bibliography called Kitab al-Fihirst, which listed all the books known to have been written until that time. Al-Nadim wrote that these stories were first told in pre-Islamic Sassanian Persia, and reported that the collection was originally composed for Humai, the daughter of Shah Bahram of Persia.
The background of these tales is a glamorous royal betrayal, when King Shahryar has his faithless wife executed. From then on, he marries a new damsel each day and puts her to death the following morning, before she has time to betray him. A gruesome cycle begins. A heroine is needed to break the chain. Enter Scheherazade, who will do just that. Armed with her feminine charm and the genius of a storyteller, she begins on her wedding night, fueling it with a never-ending story.
By daybreak, she has artfully built up suspense, captivating her husband without revealing the ending. When she pauses, the king balks. Her execution is postponed. The following night, the story continues. Narrate or die. Spellbound, the king keeps reprieving her. A thousand and one nights pass, in which time she gives birth to three male heirs. Finally, the king abandons his plan. And her tales become immortal.
Europe’s first translation was in French, by Antoine Galland in 1717. Soon Ali Baba and his forty thieves, Aladdin and his lamp, the fisherman and the genie, Sinbad the sailor and the magic horse stormed into Western literature with fabulous adventures, aristocratic and bawdy, romantic and satiric, even supernatural. The exotica of the mysterious Islamic East, with camel trains, desert riders and calls to prayer, filled the outward senses, while inside each fantasy lay a moral core: the unseen hand of fate mapped out each human path.
Inspiring writers’ pens and imaginations, the unseen hand touched all the great literary masters: Joyce, Proust, Borges, Calvino, Poe, Melville, Goethe, Pushkin and Tolstoy. And of course it inspired Rimsky-Korsakov, who composed the unforgettably bewitching Scheherazade.
The art of storytelling that flourished in medieval Persia is ingrained in the Persian character. Naqqals, or storytellers, were endowed with prodigious memory and knew how to work the crowd, reciting their repertoire from Ferdowsi’s Book of Kings on request. Sir Richard Burton, the Nile explorer, wrote, “The two main characteristics of The Nights are Pathos and Humour, … carefully calculated to provoke tears and smiles in the coffee-house audience.”
For us four wide-eyed boys, Hassan, in his own way, had a narrative gift richer than Scheherazade’s. Our Persian father had told us tales on summer nights that still live on. Today, my small nephews and nieces listen to the same suspenseful stories. When Hassan unrolled his flying carpet, it was big enough for us all. Tapping into his own tradition, he had flown us across many seas.
We escaped the daunting caverns of the grand bazaar and its fraternity of scrupulous merchants with only slight damage: two small Bakhtiari carpets that Kev could not resist. Stepping out into the blinding light behind Hassan, we were momentarily dazed. Hassan was climbing a flight of narrow stairs. We found Mom and Dad happily seated right where we had left them. Kev showed off his trophies.
“And then Hassan told us stories,” Rich said.
“Only one or two,” Hassan said. “With my boys, I’m feeling young again.”
“I feel I’ve come to Tír na nóg,” my dad said with a wink to me, referring to that enchanted Celtic land of youth.
“Well, let’s go back to my house for lunch,” Hassan said.
Catching two cabs beneath the gateway, we flew back to Bi-sim Street.
* * *
Bap-te-bap. “Hey, hey!” Hassan clapped his hands. Cooking class was in session. He spun toward me in the steamy kitchen.
“Terry the Red! Look over here. The ghormeh sabzee, stew with vegetables, this one is special. You take leeks, parsley, fenugreek, dill and a little spinach. You wash and cut, then you put in a big pan with water. Now, in another pan you put a little oil and fry onions until you see them brown. Then you mix lamb, beans, onions and dried lemon from Oman in with the vegetables.”
Lifting a spoon, he showed me the cooking herbs.
“Ah, but you know, most important is the rice.”
“I still can’t make it like you used to.”
“Because you have to soak it in salt water for four hours.”
“Salt?”
“That’s right. You boil it for seven minutes, ten if the rice is good quality, then you pour it out and run warm water over the grains. Place it back into pan with little water boiling on bottom. But keep the flame low! Then you add a bit of oil and put a cloth over the top for steaming. Wait an hour, the rice will be ready, and on the bottom you will find the crispy crust of tadig.”
Scrumptious tadig—crunchy golden rice, broken into tempting wafers—I had craved for years. Until now, it had been an elusive mystery. Hassan was decoding a culinary Rosetta stone for me.
“If you want to make sabzee pulou, then put chopped dill into boiling water one minute before the rice. For ghormeh sabzee, sauté the herbs, beans, and lamb, then add dry lime. And remember, you must have pepper, turmeric, ginger, curry. And of course”—he held up the golden stems in a tiny glass bottle—“don’t forget the saffron from Khorasan. It’s the best for laughing!”
* * *
After lunch, I peeked into the room of Majid, Hassan’s fifteen-year-old son. Next to the far wall stood Fatimeh’s wooden loom. How many hours had we spent in her small brick house in our garden, where a kerosene heater with its blue flame hissed warmly through the winter months? Whenever we dropped by to play with baby Ali, Fatimeh would offer us cups of tea and we’d sit quietly watching her mesmerizing fingers at work. Newly born Mahdi, in the arms of his grandmother Khorshid, rocked back and forth. Weaving along the horizontal weft, her hands moved around the ivory, burgundy, ebony and lapis threads.
Her design rested on the left side of the loom. Pasted onto thin brown fiberboard, the paper with hand-colored geometric shapes showed a blown-up section that indicated the color of the knots. Following the design, running across the weft, she slipped in the thread and with a twist swiftly knotted it. After she tied each knot, her knife cut the thread. Ever so slowly, her fingers traversed the width of the loom’
s white woolen strings. Silently, hypnotically, she drew us into her interlocking world, defined by the borders of her loom.
I felt a hand touching my shoulder. “You remember?” It was Fatimeh.
“How many knots is this one?”
“Oh, Terry, as many as stars in the sky, sand in the desert, raindrops in the Caspian. Thousands and thousands.”
Jorge Luis Borges once wrote that the “thousand” of The Thousand and One Nights implied “endless nights, countless nights.” So a thousand and one, he concluded, “is adding one to infinity.”
What then of Fatimeh and her carpets? I wondered. Were her fingers weaving anything less than infinity? I had watched her create gardens of Paradise with plump roses, budding leaves, running deer and water vases. From the first winter frost through the melting of snows and the sudden burst of spring, each day she wove. She knew that sooner or later her carpet would warm someone’s feet, brighten a room and transport viewers to an imaginary world. Once the carpet reached its final destination, the lucky owner would sit in Fatimeh’s eternal garden where no leaf ever fell, where no fountain ran dry, where no songbird ever died, where winter had no name.
* * *
Desert rivers bestow outlandish generosity upon their cities. Isfahan is no exception. In Africa, the White Nile and the Blue Nile merge in Khartoum and crash down past Aswan, Luxor and Cairo. Flowing across a Sahara that sees no rain, each mile of waterway defies nature. No wonder the Isfahanis call their river Zayandeh, the Life Giver. The river is fed by countless rivulets and tributaries. Acting as arteries and heart, the Zayandeh pumps the very lifeblood of the city. And at night, there is no more pleasant place to be than on its banks.
We walked down Isfahan’s Champs-Élysées, a wide promenade called Chahar Bagh, or Four Gardens, with its abundant chenars—Persian plane trees—casting shade and incomparable beauty. The Eight Heavens pavilion and garden sprouted a small merry-go-round with its plinking music and flashing orange and green lights. An equally small Ferris wheel rotated in the sky.
Drinking in the cool air, we joined the Isfahani passeggiata, crossing the Khaju Bridge, where hundreds gather each evening. On wide stone steps beneath the glorious arches, families congregated in a pleasing ritual. Lost in thought amid the waterway’s gushing roar that drowned out the noise of traffic, people gazed for hours at churning white waves surging down open chutes. Infinite liquid spirals danced before flattening out into the green, tranquil, slow-moving current.
“We come here many times, Fatimeh and I. We sit there.” Hassan pointed to his favorite spot.
Couples strolled, students gabbed in groups, cotton candy vendors spiked sugar cravings of little kids while pink and orange balloons tempted mothers. Along the riverbanks families picnicked on broad grass lawns or took brightly painted rowboats out for a paddle. We walked along the river to a Safavid footbridge, named for its thirty-three graceful arches.
Hassan slipped into the teahouse tucked under the arches. We followed him, and as twilight lingered, we puffed on water pipes in the middle of the life-giving river. Three open bay windows overlooked the lights bouncing off the darkening water. Curling up in one of these niches, my brothers and I rested against rust- and saffron-colored kilim cushions, Hassan facing us. Warm and inviting, the vaulted ceiling shimmered in amber light, goldfish swam in an aquarium, dangling lanterns lit antique photos of musicians and portraits of Imam Hussein, and red plastic hibiscus flowers leaned lazily out of pink porcelain vases on wooden tables. Worn carpets covered the floor.
“I love it here. It’s like Ali Baba’s cave,” said Kev.
“No, much better.” Rich toyed with the burning coals on his ghalyan’s cone of tobacco, then took a long, soulful drag, releasing smoke in a dignified exhalation. He coiled the long red tube and handed the wooden nozzle to me, and I sucked on the pipe. It burbled peacefully.
A blue-vested tea boy arrived with our first round: a brass tray of cylindrical glass cups, a rose-hued steaming pot. From hidden speakers a tar rang out, its plucked strings bending tones, sending notes soaring. A flute soon joined in.
Hassan’s eyes lit up. “Ah. This is Maulana.”
“Rumi?”
“That’s right. The story of the shepherd and Moses.” His eyes accompanied the sound. “Listen! No, I will tell you.” An undulating voice curled around the sound of the flute. Excitedly, he began. “The shepherd is saying, ‘O God, come here. I will prepare your bed. I will fix your shoes, comb your hair,’ he’s telling God. Then Moses comes to him and says, ‘Hey, what are you saying? God is not like you or me, needing someone to make his bed, comb his hair. He’s not like that.’ The shepherd gets very sad and begins to cry in the middle of Sahara.”
Hassan provided his translation as the warbling singer repeated the refrain under the flute. “ ‘I will kiss your hand, sweep the floor.’ And Moses says, ‘Hey, shepherd, what’re you talking about? This isn’t you and I who have shoes. This is God you’re talking to. Why are you saying this nonsense? A big fire will come down from the sky and burn us all up. What the heck are you talking about?’ ”
The flute spiraled again, then the singer, and Hassan repeated right behind.
“So the shepherd walks away. And God speaks to Moses: ‘Hey, you made him go away from me. You are here to put things together, to bring people closer to me, not to separate them from me. What did you tell this guy? You should know better. I don’t care what people say. I look only inside their hearts. That’s what I listen to, not their words.’ ”
Hassan’s eyes glistened in the lantern light. The voice rolled over and over. Even the tea boy looked up at the ceiling, as if in a momentary trance. Again the flute and the voice.
“So Moses runs after the shepherd and says, ‘The word has come from above. You can worship God in any form and shape you want. You got it right. I got it wrong.’ ” The voice modulated in rolling waves. Hassan repeated, “Moses runs after the shepherd and finds him and says, ‘I bring you the best news. Whatever is your heart’s desire, say it!’ ”
The music crescendoed with the drumming of a daf rising to an ecstatic peak. And as suddenly as it began, it ended. The whole teahouse seemed to exhale.
“Incredible,” murmured Kevin.
“So you see,” Hassan said. “Maulana says, through the love of the shepherd, the prophet Moses learns big lesson.”
I looked at Hassan and at my three brothers. Scents of burning tobacco wafted out our window. Lights twinkled off rippling water. A sudden warmth came over me. I made a mental engraving of this scene, carving it deep into memory, to hold close when we would be far apart.
“Remember,” he said. “ ‘If you open the eye of your heart, then you can see things that cannot be seen.’ ”
* * *
Out into the inky fresh night we walked. Hassan led us in silence. The river’s moist breath washed over us.
“Come sit, I must tell you something,” he said quietly. Kev and Rich sat on the fresh-cut grass. Chris stretched out on his side, looking at the passing river.
“I remember,” he began, “many years ago, when your mother would go out to the airport with bottles of fresh lemonade to greet the hajis coming back from Mecca and the hot desert. I told my friends about it. They were surprised that a foreign woman was doing something even Iranians didn’t do for the hajis.”
Raising his eyes to the stone-white moon, he leaned toward us. “Your mother and father do their acts spontaneously, from the heart. Every time Ali or Mahdi was sick, your mother would say to Fatimeh, ‘Put the children in the car and let’s go to the hospital.’ Just by looking at the eyes, she understood. Fatimeh was so young. Khorshid, her mother, didn’t know. Your mother did, and she was always there for us. I never can forget that. Ali’s and Mahdi’s clothes were better than Prince Reza’s. She ordered them from a catalogue. Why did she do that?”
Hassan looked out to the river, then into our eyes again. “When Moses went to the mountain, God said to hi
m, ‘I’m going to send down diseases to kill everyone. Tell your people to hide under the ground.’ So Moses told the people to dig tunnels. And all the people, rich and poor, worked together to build everything. But then nothing happened. Moses went to God and said, ‘Hey! Why didn’t you send down the plague?’ God told Moses, ‘I saw the people together, helping each other. It made me very happy.’ ”
“Baleh,” Kev said.
“Hafez tells us it’s not the prayer beads, fancy robes or prayer rugs. The best prayer is when you help others. Each morning I wake up at three. It’s the best time for praying. This is when I speak with God, and He speaks with me. He always listens.”
Hassan looked at each of us and said, “I know why God brings you here.”
There was a long moment of silence. None of us could say a word.
“We are old. Soon we will die. The only thing that stays is what we do in life. Some people have a lot of money but a black heart. They don’t care, they don’t know how to give. God is aware of this. If people don’t want God in their hearts, then he just leaves them alone. And many times bad things happen to them. But God loves most of all the people with a heart, who help others. This is how he chose the three prophets, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad.”
A passing car hummed by.
“You know, the day you left Tehran, we cried. In all the time we spent in your house, your mother and father never got mad at us. They never acted like they were higher than us. With the people they were always polite. They looked at us like family. And I never forget.”
“But, Hassan, we also never forget,” Rich said. Hassan waved his hand so Rich would stop.