Searching for Hassan

by Terence Ward

  “Insha’allah,” I replied.

  * * *

  A pink Frisbee flew by my shoulder. Two buddies took turns sending each other off in hot pursuit of this small plastic creature with a mind of its own. It was our last night. My parents and brothers were back in their rooms packing new purchases. In Laleh Park, just behind the hotel, these spirited kids ran back and forth in their makeshift game. Nearby, four older men huddled together, chatting under the warm lamplight, fondling their prayer beads.

  I strolled along the winding paths. An amorous young couple sat beneath a protective weeping willow. The boy lay on his back with his feet propped up on the tree. His head rested on her lap. Beyond the park, the hum of the city was barely audible, drowned in slumber. I heard the couple speaking softly. The sky showed few stars.

  Walking in the darkness, I wondered about this country’s magnetism and beauty, its inner and outer faces, the duality of forces with equal weight that push and pull. These people, so long cut off from the world, possessed such acute insights. They offered their humor in healthy doses and a profound friendship that will conquer any who encounter it. I thought of Hassan watering his tiny garden and wondered about his life—a simplicity of possessions, but a wealth of spirit. In the face of such civility and refinement, I felt overwhelming humility.

  My father, Patrick, who grew up in the Depression and battled as an activist for social justice, never dismissed the mark of hardship on people’s lives. This social awareness had forged his compassion and respect for the common man. He shared a great deal, I decided, with Majid Majidi. They viewed the world through the same lens.

  In 1975, when I returned to Berkeley after a long winter working above the Arctic Circle on a wildcat oil rig, I naively asked my father why all his friends from Tehran days, expats and Iranians both, were wealthy and we were not.

  “Didn’t you ever have any chances to take kickbacks or bribes?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he replied.

  “You did?”

  “They would say, ‘Name your price.’ ”

  “And what was your answer?”

  “I’d say five figures.”

  “And then?”

  “When they offered five figures, I’d say six. Each time they were ready to pay, I’d add a zero. Pretty soon they understood I couldn’t be bought—much to their dismay.”

  Around us was a house in chaos—bare wallboard and unfinished rooms. This was the first home we ever owned.

  “Look, Terry, the most important thing in life is to wake up each morning and be able to look yourself in the mirror and know you’re clean.”

  He smiled as his words burned into me.

  Because of my parents’ social conscience, I now knew why we had related with our hearts to Hassan and Fatimeh as a family—befriended, worked, played and grew with them. In the end, we had no choice but to try to find them. Perhaps this was the most precious gift that my parents had given us. With it, they had connected us to the world.

  * * *

  “Are you awake?” My mother knocked lightly on the door. It was still dark when we dragged our bags down to the lobby. On a bulletin board Chris read a last-minute note for an Italian tour group going back to Rome: “E per l’ultima volta, anche oggi speriamo che Allah vi accompagni. And for the last time today, we pray for Allah to accompany you.”

  At the front desk, a feisty blond journalist from Vienna wearing a cream scarf confronted me as I paid our bill. She too was leaving, and bursting with news. With great agitation she confided that President Khatami would soon resign. The hard-liners whom she had met with in Qom insisted upon the need to create “pure Islam” in Iran. Each had told her emphatically, “I own the truth.”

  She had railed, she said, at the ignorance of some university students who did not know of the “one-night-stand provision” in the Koran whereby a man could marry a woman in the evening and divorce her the next morning. She spoke about rampant prostitution and runaway girls. She informed me that heroin, cocaine, opium and liquor were all available in Tehran. She assured me that she knew where these things could be found.

  “Interested?”

  “No thanks.”

  * * *

  At Mehrabad Airport, a queasiness seized my stomach. The last time we had been here, on July 4, 1969, was the day we had left Iran. But now our four carpets had to pass through customs. We needed time and we were late. Unlike the easygoing feel of the Shiraz airport, here a large illuminated yellow sign greeted sleepy arriving passengers at the baggage claim: “In Future Islam Will Destroy Satanic Sovereignty of the West.”

  Rich asked Vaz what he intended to do now that the trip was over.

  “I’ll just go to my boss and say that’s it.”

  “Good. Then you’ll take five months off,” I said.

  “Before you commit to anything else,” Rich added.

  “Great idea,” Vaz said. “Yeah, I’ll have a lot of free time, but I guess I’ve earned it. Maybe I’ll go down to the bazaar and sell Pat’s shirt.”

  My father rolled his eyes. “That’s supposed to be a gift! You really give new meaning to ‘taking the shirt off someone’s back.’ ”

  “Let’s take him with us!” my mother joked. “Come on, Vaz, get in my wheelchair. We’ll sneak you onto the plane.”

  “It’s too late, Mrs. Ward. If you wanted me to come with you, we should have started all this much earlier, like out by the parking lot. These guys have already seen me walking,” he said with his deadpan delivery.

  We loaded our bags onto the conveyor belt as Kevin spoke with a tall, gruff man at the Iran Air counter. Luckily, Kev uttered the magic word: Yazd. Thrilled to hear that we had passed through his hometown, the man began to tell us about his stay in America years before. In 1963, his army training took him to Dallas. “Yes,” he said, “I arrived on November 22, the day John Kennedy was assassinated.”

  * * *

  I leaned back in my seat, and the Iran Air 727 taxied down the runway. The overhead bins rattled. My mother squeezed my arm. Dawn was breaking with its first pale vermilion fire over Mount Demavand, the mythic volcano. The plane thrust us skyward over the sleeping city of flickering lights, above dark Laleh Park and its gardens. We circled over Ayatollah Khomeini’s minarets shining above his tomb and then straightened out over open desert.

  As the silver wings dipped once again, a beam of sunlight blinded me at that sacred moment of dawn. Now, looking out my window at thirty thousand feet, with my mother already snoozing in the seat next to me, I thought back to that midnight porch in Yazd where I had felt so humbled, lost and desperate. On that night, Akbar had told me, “Don’t worry, my dear friend. Even if you don’t find him, something else will happen. In the end, you will find many Hassans along the way.”

  I had no idea until this morning how prophetic he had been.

  Let the road’s dust settle so you can see.

  With your eye on the waystation of love, step forward …

  —HAFEZ

  I recall an old legend that Hassan used to tell us as children that we never quite understood. It was a story about an odd collection of thirty birds who all set out on an unusual quest. Written by the Shirazi poet Attar, The Conference of the Birds remains one of the greatest Sufi epics.

  These curious birds decide to embark on a search for Simorgh, the mythic phoenix that reigns high on a cosmic mountain. As they get ready for their holy mission, fears cloud their thoughts. Many dangers lie ahead. Hostile deserts, cold mountain peaks and seven fearful valleys loom between them and the divine Simorgh.

  Frightened and worried, they begin to make excuses. The goldfinch confesses that he’s too weak and afraid. The duck speaks sadly about leaving her lake. The nightingale cannot bear to part with his rose. The parrot repeats nonsensical words; the proud peacock cannot leave his beautiful garden. All give reasons to abandon the search. But the humble hoopoe—whom they have appointed as their leader—masterfully persuades all the birds to summon up
their daring and nerve. Warily, they set out together.

  Thinking back on our journey across Iran, I realize now that my brothers and I behaved just like the birds in Hassan’s story. Clearly, my mother, Donna, was the hoopoe. After all, didn’t she encourage us to set across the great divide? Hadn’t she allayed our fears as we each played out our roles: Chris the goldfinch, Kevin the peacock, Rich the nightingale and I the parrot? During our voyage, like the birds, we faced bleak deserts and treacherous mountain passes. And at every obstacle, when hope seemed to be lost, my mother the hoopoe pressed us on.

  According to Hassan’s story, when the birds reach the end of their long quest, only thirty have survived. Finally, they each come face-to-face with the brightly lit Simorgh. Standing there awestruck, they stare at the burning phoenix. At first the light blinds them. But, slowly, they recognize their own reflections emerging in the light. It is then they realize that the phoenix’s glow is their own. They understand that the illumination they had long searched for had always been with them—inside their own hearts.

  Aptly, the Persian word for phoenix, simorgh, has a double meaning. It also is the union of two Persian words. Si means “thirty” and morgh means “birds.” So, in the end, the divine phoenix and the thirty birds are one.

  Over the centuries, Attar’s masterpiece has been called the zenith of Persian mystical poetry. This epic, for Iranians, symbolizes the spiritual quest. When Hassan wove this tale, we children would listen about the birds and their travails but never could grasp the hidden message. Finally now, decades later in life, the metaphors sing.

  Enlightening journeys have long served as portals for self-discovery and for meaning. For us, our search for Hassan was our last great voyage together as a family, and it changed us utterly. Like the birds of Attar, our path to find our long-lost friend brought us face-to-face with love … beyond all politics and preconceived judgment. Beyond earth and sky. Beyond death and rebirth. Beyond all opposites. When we first descended from that plane in Shiraz to step onto the high plateau of Fars, little did we know that the timeless poet had already mapped out, centuries before, our final destination.

  Out beyond the ideas

  of wrongdoing

  and rightdoing,

  there is a field.

  I’ll meet you there.

  —RUMI

  Epilogue A New Dawn

  “Journeys to relive your past?” was the Khan’s question at this point, a question which could also have been formulated: “Journeys to recover your future?”

  —ITALO CALVINO, INVISIBLE CITIES

  My friend Behnam called me excitedly on the summer solstice, June 21, 1998. It was two months after our return. The match between Iran and the United States was being shown live, he said, in the Coles Sports Center of New York University, with a satellite-link dialogue among students of both countries. I ran down to NYU to watch Iran’s stunning World Cup victory over Team USA, 2–1, which capped a week of unprecedented American overtures, first by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and then by President Bill Clinton, who expressed hope for “a genuine reconciliation” between the two nations.

  Lighthearted cheers greeted TV images showing Iranian and American players posing together, arm in arm like old chums, for a group photo before kickoff. In taarof fashion, lilies and gladioli were handed to the somewhat bewildered Yankee players. Surely, none of them had ever received flowers from opponents before a game.

  Classy sportsmanship in the match was roundly applauded by the packed audience, and afterward I rushed home to Gramercy Park to phone Hassan. At three o’clock in the morning, Isfahan time, he was awake.

  “My whole family is in the streets celebrating with friends and neighbors,” he said. “No one can sleep. The whole city is up!”

  My parents and brothers, I told him, had rooted for Iran. Before we hung up, he asked me, “Terry, when are you coming back?”

  “Soon, I hope,” I replied.

  “Insha’allah. Next time, don’t forget to bring khanoum, your sweet wife.”

  * * *

  Hassan’s daughter, Maryam, had promised to write, partly so she could practice her English. When her first letter arrived, I realized she had become the self-appointed scribe of the Ghasemi family.

  Dear Terry,

  We received your letter in July 4 and became very happy. July 12 was the birthday of our prophet Mohammad and that day was my brother Ahmad’s wedding. We wished you were in Isfahan and had seen our ceremonies for wedding.

  We became very happy for football match between Iran and America, not only for winning, but for nearness Iran’s nation and America’s nation. Chris telephoned our home and congratulated us on the victory.

  Hassan is at home. He cooks, gardens, and repairs house hold furniture. He says: we miss for you very much and look at your pictures everyday. Hassan and Fatimeh and we say to people about you and your kindness, because you came to Iran after 29 years for seeing us. Pardon me if I wrote this letter with unskill. This was the first of my experience.

  With highest regards and warmest friendship, your Iranian family,

  Hassan, Fatimeh, Maryam, Rasool, Ahmad, Majid, Mahdi, Ali and all of us

  A fire of spirit was lit. Soon after Ahmad’s wedding, Richard’s wife, Ellen, launched her own quest to meet the mythic Ghasemis, not once but twice. Accompanied by several friends, the women all arrived at Fatimeh’s green gate bearing gifts and were greeted with open arms. These visitors cemented friendships with the neighborhood by purchasing the legal limit of carpets, avoiding bazaar merchants, choosing instead to reward Bi-sim Street’s ladies for their months of meticulous labor. The family circle was widening.

  At the end of February 1999, in Florence, I heard the BBC report that President Khatami’s candidates had won another landslide victory in local elections. Three towns south of Tehran would be governed by women. As votes were still being counted, Khatami embarked on the first state visit to the West by an Iranian president in twenty years. In Rome, he was asked why he had chosen Italy as one of his stops. “Because here, Roman civilization and the Renaissance were born,” he answered. “For us, this is important.” His long-awaited dialogue among civilizations had begun in earnest. At the Vatican, the ailing white-robed pope greeted the charismatic black-robed cleric.

  In Fiesole, just north of Florence, I sneaked into the European University, where Khatami delivered an address. He spoke of the need for dialogue with America, appealing for noninterference and respect. After his speech, I approached the podium. I wanted to tell the president that my mother had met with his sister in his ancestral town of Ardakan, and that theirs was the same message. But tight security surrounded him, and he was whisked off before I could reach him. That next morning, the Florentine edition of La Repubblica trumpeted, “The New Iran of Khatami.”

  * * *

  On March 18, 1999, three days before Nowruz, thousands of youths in Tehran lit bonfires and set off firecrackers. I called Hassan to wish him Happy New Year. Then I asked about Fatimeh.

  “She’s out,” he said, “with Maryam and the kids, jumping over the fires.”

  In north Tehran’s middle-class districts, young people were also jumping over fires, dancing and singing. This time, officers looked on without intervening. The Chaharshanbe Souri fire festival, long attacked by hard-liners as a pagan relic, had been marred in the past by clashes. But now the authorities took a different tack. The moderate interior minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari publicly praised the tradition. Liberal newspapers publicized the event and highlighted the country’s pre-Islamic heritage. The racket of firecrackers was heard all over the capital.

  Then, in a bold gesture that took the Ghasemi clan by surprise, a week later brother Rich arrived on Hassan’s doorstep with his family. On Bi-sim Street they spent four days of the Nowruz holiday together. It was Rich’s wife Ellen’s third trip to Iran. All the brothers had vowed to take their wives to meet the Ghasemis. I was next. Another letter arrived from Maryam.
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  Dear Terry,

  Richard and Ellen came to Isfahan with their lovely boys and stayed from 23–26 March. We spent the sweet hours together. But we were heavy hearted (homesick) for you. We are sorry because we are far away from you. We hope you visit Isfahan with Idanna soon. We will never forget you and your kindness. Ali was in Isfahan in Nowruz and wished to see you.

  from your father, Hassan, your mother, Fatimeh, your sister, Maryam, your brothers, Ali, Mahdi, Ahmad and Majid

  Unexpectedly, in July events in Iran burst onto the world’s front pages. Student protests against the shutdown of a pro-reform newspaper had swept the University of Tehran campus. Soon mass demonstrations shook the city. Undercover police and Revolutionary Guards struck back, viciously attacking dormitory rooms at night, leaving five students dead, hundreds wounded. Students watched helplessly as the hard-liners in the courts, police and the Council of Guardians worked in tandem to silence opposition.

  Seven months later, on February 18, 2000, a broad coalition of reformers aligned with President Khatami won a resounding election victory in parliament with 80 percent of the vote. Christiane Amanpour, voicing the sentiments of many Iranians, explained in the International Herald Tribune:

  These elections have not been about overturning Islamic law. Iranians are proud of their revolution—it really meant something, because for the first time in thousands of years, the country was standing on its own two feet, no longer a lackey of the US or any other country. That part of it they don’t want to give up, and why should they? People just want a more livable life—that’s what they voted for.

  On March 29, on Shelter Island, New York, the Ward clan got together at Kevin’s house to celebrate my parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. The black-tie affair featured Broadway musical routines that retraced the route of their lifelong odyssey. Kev reminded us of my mother’s prophetic words to Pat fifty years before: “There’s only one way for us to fit in, if we move to someplace like Afghanistan.” I then stood to read a note that had just arrived from the Ghasemis.