A Hundred Sweet Promises

by Sepehr Haddad

  A Hundred Sweet Promises

  Sepehr Haddad

  APPLEYARD & SONS PUBLISHING

  Disclaimer

  This novel was inspired by a story my grandmother told me on the eve of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Even though I recreated events and conversations from what she shared with me over forty years ago, in certain situations, I have added fictional conversations inspired by historical figures.

  These conversations and interactions are a product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual conversations or events is purely coincidental. In some instances, I have changed the names of individuals and locations and other identifying details, such as physical properties, occupations, and places of residence.

  Copyright © 2020 Sepehr Haddad

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Book Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com

  Cover photographs by: Sepehr Haddad

  APPLEYARD & SONS PUBLISHING

  5557 Baltimore Ave., Suite 500-1108

  Hyattsville, Maryland 20781

  AppleyardandSonsPublishing.com

  Print ISBN 978-1-7325943-0-2

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-7325943-1-9

  Dedication

  For my two sons, Kian and Riyan, hoping that they always remember their Persian roots.

  Acknowledgments

  I thank my late grandmother, Mami, for telling me this story, and thank Moana, who encouraged me to write this book and assisted in editing it. I am also grateful for Gertrude Lowthian Bell’s timeless translation of Hafez’s poetry over a century ago, which I have used herein.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1. A Friday Turns Black

  Chapter 2. A Lunch with Mami

  Chapter 3. The Reluctant Return

  Chapter 4. Crossing the Caspian

  Chapter 5. The Homecoming

  Chapter 6. The Leader of the Band

  Chapter 7. The Governor’s Guest

  Chapter 8. The Wager

  Chapter 9. An Excursion to Margoon

  Chapter 10. The Sonneteer of Shiraz

  Chapter 11. A Letter from a Friend

  Chapter 12. A Man of the Cloth

  Chapter 13. An Unusual Request

  Chapter 14. A Most Unfortunate Turn of the Wheel

  Chapter 15. Two Answered Prayers

  Chapter 16. Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder

  Chapter 17. Sowing the Seeds of Doubt

  Chapter 18. Black Eyes

  Chapter 19. The Secret Meeting Place

  Chapter 20. A Day at the Museum

  Chapter 21. The Arrogance of Ignorance

  Chapter 22. The Invitation

  Chapter 23. An Unexpected Guest

  Chapter 24. Pen to Paper

  Chapter 25. An Audience Granted

  Chapter 26. A Change of Plan

  Chapter 27. A Forbidden Love

  Chapter 28. If You Have Little, Give of Your Heart

  Chapter 29. The Pantheon of Khojivank

  Chapter 30. The Love Note

  Chapter 31. A Choice Is Made

  Chapter 32. The Anthem

  Appendix—Photographs

  “For One Moment Our Lives Met, Our Souls Touched”—

  Oscar Wilde

  Chapter 1

  A Friday Turns Black

  Tehran, Iran, 1978

  “Move away now! I repeat, move away at once!” the soldier yelled in Persian through the bullhorn. I peered curiously through the window of my grandmother’s bedroom onto Shah Reza Avenue in downtown Tehran to see what the commotion was all about.

  It was Friday, September 8th, 1978, the first full day after martial law had been declared in Tehran and other cities in Iran. No one could have imagined that just several months later, the Islamic Revolution would ultimately overthrow the shah’s government. My family was visiting my grandmother Mami for lunch, as many of our extended family often did on Fridays. (Fridays were the traditional day of rest.)

  On this day, it was only my immediate family who showed up. We assumed others stayed away due to the uncertainty of the situation under martial law.

  From my view through the window, I noticed there was a lot of unusual activity. There were armored vehicles and tanks stationed at each corner of the square. Soldiers were enforcing the new rules that forbade gatherings, and they broke up any group of more than two people walking together or just hanging around. Gun-toting soldiers were backing up the regular traffic cops. I felt nervous and excited to see the troops out and about, having never witnessed anything like it except in the movies.

  This day, the one thing the soldiers, police, and civilians all had in common was a sense of uneasiness, and it seemed everyone was on edge. Demonstrations cropped up all over the city while the shah’s military tried to stop them before they got out of hand. I watched from the window as soldiers went from group to group, attempting to break up any perceived collaboration. This action seemed hopeless since just as one group dispersed, another quickly formed.

  I strained to see whom the soldier was yelling at, not able to see all directions from the window. As I leaned in closer with my nose pressing against the glass, I suddenly realized the soldier with the bullhorn was addressing me, and this time he angrily ordered, “Baraye akharin bar az panjereh boro kenar!” (“This is the final warning, move away from the window!”)

  Standing beside him was another soldier with a G3 automatic rifle pointed directly at me. My brother, Kaveh, who had heard the commotion outside, rushed into the bedroom and forcefully pulled me from the window. Being singled out by the soldier was so shocking that I had frozen and could not move out of fear. If not for my brother’s quick thinking to drag me away and assuming the soldier’s threat was valid, the day could have ended very differently.

  Up to this point, the developing political crisis had not directly affected me. However, suddenly it had, and I anxiously wondered if the soldiers would enter the apartment building and try to find me.

  Kaveh and I looked at each other, and I sensed that he was worried too, so we rushed to the front of the apartment, cupping our ears behind the door, trying to detect the soldiers' footsteps in the stairwell. We could only hear muffled yelling in the distance to others on the street below and realized the coast was clear. We took a few moments to collect ourselves and went into the living room, where Mami was sitting. She had the television on, listening to the news while knitting in her typical rhythmic motion, oblivious to what had just happened outside her bedroom window. My parents had stepped out to go to the apartment next door, where my cousin lived, so it was only the three of us in her living room at the time.

  Mami slowly raised her head, looking at us from above her eyeglasses, which had slid almost to the tip of her nose, and asked, “Are you boys hungry?”

  Feeling as though I had dodged a bullet, I had no appetite, and we excitedly told her what had just happened. She probably thought we were exaggerating since she did not take the matter as seriously as I had expected. Sitting down next to her, I was grateful to watch events on television away from what was happening just outside. As time went on and my anxiety subsided, I began to pay more attention to the constant news updates being broadcast.

  Every few minutes, the announcer would repeat all the guidelines the public had to follow not to be in breach of martial law, reminding the viewers that the military government expected strict adherence to these new rules.

  As the reporter read the latest news, I kept hearing him mention “Khomeini,” a name I had
never heard before. He said that Khomeini’s anti-shah sermons were reproduced on cassette tapes and distributed to mosques to influence people as they came to the houses of worship for prayers. These inflammatory sermons against the monarchy ran the gamut from accusing the government of not respecting Islam, to pronouncements against foreign influences on the country, particularly by the United States.

  Since I had never heard of him, I asked my grandmother, “Mami, who is this Khomeini?”

  She replied, “He is a cleric who gave fiery sermons against the shah in the holy city of Qom about twenty years ago. One thing led to another, and he was eventually exiled to Iraq.”

  At hearing this, I assumed the shah had thought, Out of sight, out of mind, hoping that Khomeini could no longer spread his message in exile. The shah’s government could control messages through the airwaves and newspapers, but not through the system of mosques where clerics gave their sermons every Friday and on religious holidays.

  I wondered why I had never heard of Khomeini since I had attended the International School in Tehran. Unlike in typical Iranian high schools and even the University of Tehran, we had access to controversial reading material. These publications even included what was banned on the street, but somehow, I never read anything about Khomeini.

  When Mami told me of Khomeini’s past, I was surprised to hear that someone had dared to overtly disagree with the shah, because growing up in Iran, we saw the shah as all-powerful. He was portrayed as such in the media, and it was unheard of for anyone to quarrel with him so publicly. Statues of the shah and his father, Reza Shah, were strategically placed in public squares in the capital and other cities. The shah’s portrait was everywhere. It was on all paper money and coins, in every schoolbook, all public buildings, and every movie theater near the projection screen. This portrayal of the shah gave us a larger-than-life impression of him.

  I told my grandmother, “I am amazed. I cannot believe that there was no mention of Khomeini in our history class or on radio, television, or even in casual discussion. How could it be that we did not know about him?”

  She replied, “No, Sepehr, it is not that amazing, since there are many things you do not know. Things as close as your own family!”

  I paused in thought, wondering what she was referring to. Was there something everyone else knew but me, and I was the last to find out? Or was this a family secret that she had felt hesitant to reveal to anyone up until now? Her comment seemed strange, so I asked, “Mami, what do you mean?”

  “Your grandfather, for instance. He fell in love with a Russian princess many years ago. I am sure you did not know that!”

  When Mami mentioned this, my eyes locked with hers with sincere and profound curiosity, signaling my eagerness to hear more.

  One would think she would have displayed envy or perhaps embarrassment in this confession, but I did not detect even a hint of it. Instead, without any awkward silence, she seemed to want to carry on, as if telling me a story about someone else’s husband, not her own, and his love for another woman.

  However, we were suddenly interrupted by a special news bulletin announcing clashes between government forces and demonstrators near Jaleh Square, which was just a few miles away. My parents returned from my cousin’s apartment, having also heard the news, and they said we had to go, not wanting us to be caught up in the melee. We rushed off, and Mami’s story about my grandfather had to wait for another day.

  The car ride home was exciting, at least for the first few blocks, as we drove amongst army personnel carriers and tanks. The force of soldiers and police with guns at the ready was a sight to behold, especially considering my very recent encounter with a soldier.

  But the farther we got from downtown, the fewer soldiers were present. After a while, it was like nothing was going on, and everything appeared as usual. Tehran is unique in that way; there is a clear north-south divide. The southern section of town is congested, hot, and polluted, and the people who lived there were more traditional and religiously observant. This part of the city was where most of the clashes were taking place.

  In contrast, the northern portion of the city, where the more affluent and less traditional Tehranis lived, was closer to the Alborz mountain range and therefore had a colder climate. Even in the old days, my mother would tell me how the whole family would pack up their belongings and move to the northern part of the city to pass the hot summer months. This part of town was also home to a significant international presence. Here one could see women wearing the latest fashions from Paris and Rome, including miniskirts, while in the southern parts of the city, women mostly wore the traditional head-to-toe covering, the chador. On this day, the quiet north of town displayed no outward indication that martial law had even been declared.

  As we got closer to home and things quieted down, I thought of what Mami had said before our sudden departure, and I asked my mother, “Did you ever hear Mami tell a story about your father falling in love with a Russian princess?”

  She turned around and faced me in the backseat, caught off guard by my question. “A Russian princess?” She paused for a moment and then added, “I know my father studied music at the conservatory in Saint Petersburg, but about a Russian princess, no, Mami never mentioned it.”

  Then she curiously asked me, “Well, what did Mami say about him?”

  I told her I had not found out since we had to leave so quickly. It made me wonder even more what Mami was going to say to me.

  When we got home, we were fixated by the television news and heard the calamitous result of the day’s events. The army, which comprised untrained recruits, had opened fire on the demonstrators at Jaleh Square, and hundreds of people had been shot to death. This bloody scene was a tragic turning point in the unfolding political turmoil. The massacre was dubbed Black Friday, and it made any future compromise between the shah’s government and the demonstrators impossible.

  Chapter 2

  A Lunch with Mami

  Ten days had passed since Black Friday, and a strange new normal descended upon Tehran. This included people sharing rumors, with a dose of their own opinions, as to what had transpired and what was to come, but most went back to business as usual. I had just a few days left before returning to California for college, and I wanted to visit my grandmother one last time before my departure.

  I took a taxicab to Ferdowsi Square, in the southern part of the city where she lived. Sitting in a shared taxi in Tehran was like listening to a radio talk show where all kinds of news, opinions, and unsolicited advice were offered. On the way downtown, all the talk was about martial law, who was to blame for Black Friday, and views on the economy.

  Today this frustrated driver complained that he had to wait in an awfully long line at the gas station due to the fuel supply shortage resulting from the workers’ strike at the country’s major refinery. He grumbled, “The minute it was my turn to pump gas after the long wait, the power went out, and the pumps couldn’t operate, so I wasted half a day where I could have been driving my cab,” as he lamented the lost income.

  We all commiserated with him, agreeing that things seemed to be taking a turn for the worse. One of the younger passengers, sitting beside me in the cramped front seat, hopelessly exclaimed, “I wish I could move to Europe or America,” anxious about his future. An elderly gentleman in the backseat offered some fatherly advice, with a kind smile and in a comforting tone: “Young man, don’t worry so much. Things are going to get better; this is just a rough patch!”

  It appeared that the driver was trying to make up for his downtime at the gas station by cramming in as many passengers as he could along the way. He drove recklessly fast to deliver each rider to his destination quickly, attempting to recoup the income he could have made earlier in the day.

  Even though I was intrigued by the conversation, being packed in tightly with strangers in the stifling heat of the claustrophobic cab made me feel queasy. So I decided to get out and walk the rest of the way to get so
me fresh air. When I got to Mami’s apartment, she had just finished setting the table for lunch.

  Mami and I were remarkably close; I was the youngest of her twelve grandchildren and the son of her youngest daughter. She was a kind-hearted but strong lady. She lived a simple life but had not had a simple life. She was married at a young age to my grandfather Nasrollah Minbashian and had been widowed earlier than most, raising five children by herself. For many of the ensuing years, she lived with her mother, my maternal great-grandmother, Mrs. Davamolmolk Vaziritabar, known to the family endearingly as Khanoom Bozorg, literally meaning “Grand Lady.”

  Khanoom Bozorg had lived to the ripe old age of ninety-eight, having died just a few years earlier. While alive, she was the matriarch of the family and was quite strong-willed.

  Khanoom Bozorg had been instrumental in Mami’s arranged marriage to Nasrollah. In the many years that they were married, Nasrollah had brought Mami a sense of fun that filled her life, and she was always grateful to her mother for that.

  Mami had managed to raise highly successful children, at least in terms of their careers. Of note were two of my uncles. The eldest had risen to the highest rank of the army as a four-star general and commander of the Iranian Armed Forces. The other was appointed the first-ever minister of culture and fine arts of Iran by the shah.

  Mami loved her apartment, filled with sunlight and family mementos, even though it was a simple two-bedroom flat showing signs of age. Her apartment held many unforgettable memories for me as the Friday meeting place where we visited with relatives whom we would not regularly see. She had two helpers who could prepare food for thirty-plus people in no time, but today, it was only Mami and me.

  As we sat at the lunch table, I had no idea that this would be the last time I would ever see her again. After a few minutes of small talk, I reminded Mami of the story she was going to tell me about my grandfather’s love for a Russian princess.