Reading Lolita In Tehran Part 3

16.

Is this how it all started? Was it the day we were sitting at his dining room table, greedily biting into our forbidden ham-and-cheese sandwich and calling it a croque monsieur? At some point we must have caught the same expression of ravenous, unadulterated pleasure in each other's eyes, because we started to laugh simultaneously. I raised my gla.s.s of water to him and said, Who would have thought that such a simple meal would appear to us like a kingly feast? and he said, We must thank the Islamic Republic for making us rediscover and even covet all these things we took for granted: one could write a paper on the pleasure of eating a ham sandwich. And I said, Oh, the things we have to be thankful for! And that memorable day was the beginning of our detailing our long list of debts to the Islamic Republic: parties, eating ice cream in public, falling in love, holding hands, wearing lipstick, laughing in public and reading Lolita Lolita in Tehran. in Tehran.

We sometimes met on a corner of the wide, leafy boulevard leading to the mountains for our afternoon walks. I used to wonder what the Revolutionary Committee would think of these meetings. Would they suspect us of political conspiracy or of a lovers' rendezvous? It was encouraging in a strange way that they would perhaps never guess the real purpose of our encounters. Was not life exciting when every simple act acquired the complexity of a dangerous secret mission? We always had something to exchange-books, articles, tapes, boxes of chocolates he received from Switzerland-for chocolates were expensive, especially ones from Switzerland. He brought me videos of rare films, which my children and I, and later my students and I, would watch: A Night at the Opera, Casablanca, The Pirate, Johnny Guitar. A Night at the Opera, Casablanca, The Pirate, Johnny Guitar.

My magician used to say he could tell a great deal about people from their photographs, especially the angle of their noses. After some hesitation, I brought him some photographs of my girls, anxiously awaiting his p.r.o.nouncement. He would hold one in his hand, scrutinize it from different perspectives and issue a short statement.

I wanted him to read their writings and to look at their drawings, right there and then: I wanted to know what he thought. They are fine people, he said, looking at me with the ironic smile of an indulgent father. Fine? Fine people? I wanted him to say that they were geniuses, although I was glad to be a.s.sured of their fineness. Two of them, he thought, could make something of their writings. Shall I bring them to you? Will you meet with them? No, he was trying to get rid of people, not add to his acquaintances.

17.

Cincinnatus C., the hero of Invitation to a Beheading, Invitation to a Beheading, talks of a "rare kind of time . . . the pause, hiatus, when the heart is like a feather . . . part of my thoughts is always crowding around the invisible umbilical cord that joins this world to something-to what I shall not say yet." Cincinnatus's release by his jailers depends on his discovery of this invisible cord deep inside himself that joins him to another world, so that he can finally escape the staged and fake world of his executioners. In his preface to talks of a "rare kind of time . . . the pause, hiatus, when the heart is like a feather . . . part of my thoughts is always crowding around the invisible umbilical cord that joins this world to something-to what I shall not say yet." Cincinnatus's release by his jailers depends on his discovery of this invisible cord deep inside himself that joins him to another world, so that he can finally escape the staged and fake world of his executioners. In his preface to Bend Sinister, Bend Sinister, Nabokov describes a similar link to another world, a puddle that appears to Krug, his fictional hero, at various points in the novel: "a rent in his world leading to another world of tenderness, brightness and beauty." Nabokov describes a similar link to another world, a puddle that appears to Krug, his fictional hero, at various points in the novel: "a rent in his world leading to another world of tenderness, brightness and beauty."

I think in some ways our readings and discussions of the novels in that cla.s.s became our moment of pause, our link to that other world of "tenderness, brightness and beauty." Only eventually, we were compelled to return.

During the break one morning, while we were enjoying our coffee and pastries, Mitra began to tell us how she felt as she climbed up the stairs every Thursday morning. She said that step by step she could feel herself gradually leaving reality behind her, leaving the dark, dank cell she lived in to surface for a few hours into open air and sunshine. Then, when it was over, she returned to her cell. At the time, I felt this was a point against the cla.s.s, as if it should somehow guarantee open air and sunshine beyond its confines. Mitra's confession led to a debate about how we needed this pause from real life, in order to return to it refreshed and ready to confront it. Yet Mitra's point stayed with me: what about after the pause? Whether we wished it or not, our lives outside that living room made their claims.

But it was the fairy-tale atmosphere Mitra had alluded to that made it possible for all eight of us to share confidences and to share so much of our secret life with one another. This aura of magical affinity made it possible for Mahshid and Manna to find a way to peacefully coexist with Azin for a few hours every Thursday morning. It allowed us to defy the repressive reality outside the room-not only that, but to avenge ourselves on those who controlled our lives. For those few precious hours we felt free to discuss our pains and our joys, our personal hang-ups and weaknesses; for that suspended time we abdicated our responsibilities to our parents, relatives and friends, and to the Islamic Republic. We articulated all that happened to us in our own words and saw ourselves, for once, in our own image.

Our discussion of Madame Bovary Madame Bovary continued way past the hour. It had happened before, but this time no one wanted to leave. The description of the dining table, the wind in Emma's hair, the face she sees before she dies-these details kept us going for hours. Initially our cla.s.s hours were from nine to twelve, but gradually they were prolonged into the afternoon. I suggested that day that we continue with our discussion and that everyone stay for lunch. I think this is how we established lunches. continued way past the hour. It had happened before, but this time no one wanted to leave. The description of the dining table, the wind in Emma's hair, the face she sees before she dies-these details kept us going for hours. Initially our cla.s.s hours were from nine to twelve, but gradually they were prolonged into the afternoon. I suggested that day that we continue with our discussion and that everyone stay for lunch. I think this is how we established lunches.

I remember all we had in the refrigerator were eggs and tomatoes, and we made a tomato omelette. Two weeks later we had a feast. Each one of my girls had cooked something special-rice and lamb, potato salad, dolmeh, saffron rice and a big round cake. My family joined us, and we all gathered around the table, joking and laughing. Madame Bovary Madame Bovary had done what years of teaching at the university had not: it created a shared intimacy. had done what years of teaching at the university had not: it created a shared intimacy.

During the years they came to my house, they knew my family, my kitchen, my bedroom, the way I dressed and walked and talked at home. I had never set foot in their houses, I never met the traumatized mother, the delinquent brother, the shy sister. I could never place or locate their private narrative within a context, a locality. Yet I had met all of them in the magical s.p.a.ce of my living room. They came to my house in a disembodied state of suspension, bringing to my living room their secrets, their pains and their gifts.

Gradually my life and family became part of the landscape, moving in and out of the living room during the breaks. Tahereh Khanoom would sometimes join in and tell us stories about her part of town, as she liked to call it. One day my daughter, Negar, burst in crying. She was hysterical. Between tears she kept saying she couldn't cry there; there; she didn't want to cry in front of she didn't want to cry in front of them. them. Manna went into the kitchen and came back with Tahereh Khanoom and a gla.s.s of water. I went to Negar, held her in my arms and tried to calm her. Gently I took off her navy scarf and robe; under that thick scarf her hair was damp with sweat. Unb.u.t.toning her uniform, I asked her to tell us what had happened. Manna went into the kitchen and came back with Tahereh Khanoom and a gla.s.s of water. I went to Negar, held her in my arms and tried to calm her. Gently I took off her navy scarf and robe; under that thick scarf her hair was damp with sweat. Unb.u.t.toning her uniform, I asked her to tell us what had happened.

That day in the middle of her last cla.s.s-science-the princ.i.p.al and the morality teacher had barged in and told the girls to put their hands on their desks. The entire cla.s.s had been escorted out of the cla.s.sroom, without any explanation, their schoolbags searched for weapons and contraband: tapes, novels, friendship bracelets. Their bodies were searched, their nails inspected. One student, a girl who had returned from the United States the previous year with her family, was taken to the princ.i.p.al's office: her nails were too long. There, the princ.i.p.al herself had cut the girl's nails, so close that she had drawn blood. Negar had seen her cla.s.smate after they were dismissed, in the school yard, waiting to go home, nursing the guilty finger. The morality teacher stood beside her, discouraging other students from approaching. For Negar, the fact that she couldn't even go near and console her friend was as bad as the whole trauma of the search. She kept saying, Mom, she just doesn't know about our rules and regulations; you know, she just came back from America-how do you think she feels when they force us to trample on the American flag and shout, Death to America? I hate myself, I hate myself, she repeated as I rocked her back and forth and wiped the mixture of sweat and tears from her soft skin.

This of course diverted the whole cla.s.s. Everyone tried to distract Negar by joking and telling her stories of their own, how once Na.s.srin had been sent to the disciplinary committee to have her eyelashes checked. Her lashes were long, and she was suspected of using mascara. That's nothing, said Manna, next to what happened to my sister's friends at the Amir Kabir Polytechnic University. During lunch three of the girls were in the yard eating apples. They were reprimanded by the guards: they were biting their apples too seductively! After a while Negar was laughing with them, and she finally went with Tahereh Khanoom to have her lunch.

18.

Imagine you are walking down a leafy path. It is early spring before sundown, around six P.M. P.M. The sun is receding, and you are walking alone, caressed by the breezy light of the late afternoon. Then, suddenly, you feel a large drop on your right arm. Is it raining? You look up. The sky is still deceptively sunny: only a handful of clouds linger here and there. Seconds later, another drop. Then, with the sun still perched in the sky, you are drenched in a shower of rain. This is how memories invade me, abruptly and unexpectedly: drenched, I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain. The sun is receding, and you are walking alone, caressed by the breezy light of the late afternoon. Then, suddenly, you feel a large drop on your right arm. Is it raining? You look up. The sky is still deceptively sunny: only a handful of clouds linger here and there. Seconds later, another drop. Then, with the sun still perched in the sky, you are drenched in a shower of rain. This is how memories invade me, abruptly and unexpectedly: drenched, I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain.

I have said that we were in that room to protect ourselves from the reality outside. I have also said that this reality imposed itself on us, like a petulant child who would not give his frustrated parents a moment to themselves. It created and shaped our intimacies, throwing us into unexpected complicity. Our relations became personal in many different ways. Not only did the most ordinary activities gain a new luminosity in the light of our secret, but everyday life sometimes took on the quality of make-believe or fiction. We had to reveal aspects of ourselves to one another that we didn't even know existed. I constantly felt I was being undressed in front of perfect strangers.

19.

A few weeks ago, while driving down the George Washington Memorial Parkway, my children and I were reminiscing about Iran. I noticed with a sudden misgiving the alien tone they had adopted when talking about their own country. They kept repeating "they," "they over there." Over where? Where you buried your dead canary by a rose-bush with your grandfather? Where your grandmother brought you chocolates we had forbidden you to eat? They did not remember many things. Some memories made them sad and nostalgic; others they dismissed. The names of my parents, Bijan's aunt and uncle, our close friends, they evoked like magic mantras joyfully taking shape and disappearing with each utterance.

What triggered our reminiscences? Was it the Doors CD that my children were so accustomed to hearing in Iran? They had bought it for me for Mother's Day, and we were listening to it in the car. Jim Morrison's seductively nonchalant voice purred from the stereo: "I'd like to have another kiss . . ." His voice stretched and curved and twisted while we talked and laughed. "She's a twentieth-century fox," he intoned. . . . Some memories bore them, some excite them, like when they make fun of their mother, dancing all over the place from the hall to the living room, singing, "C'mon baby light my fire . . ." They tell me they have already forgotten so much; so many faces have become dim. When I ask them, Do you remember this or that? most often they don't. Now Jim Morrison has moved to a song by Brecht: "Oh show me the way to the next whiskey bar," he sings, and we accompany him on the next line, "Oh, don't ask why. . . ." Even while we lived in Iran, they, like most kids of their background, had little affection for Persian music. For them, Persian music was identified with political songs and military marches-for pleasure they turned somewhere else. I was shocked to realize that their childhood memories of songs and films in Iran would be the Doors, the Marx Brothers and Michael Jackson.

They liven up to one memory. This one is surprisingly clear; they fill in all the details I had forgotten. As it comes back to me and images form in my mind, their voices interrupting one another, Jim Morrison fades into the background. Yes, Ya.s.si was there that day, wasn't she? They remember my whole cla.s.s, but Ya.s.si is the one they remember most, because at a certain point she became so much a part of our family. They all did: Azin, Nima, Manna, Mahshid and Na.s.srin were frequent visitors. They used to spoil my children, bringing them gifts, despite my disapproval. My family had accepted these intruders as another one of my eccentricities, with tolerance and curiosity.

It happened in the summer of 1996, when my two children were home from school. It was a lazy morning. We had puttered about the house and prepared breakfast late. Ya.s.si had stayed over the night before. She did that regularly now, so we came to expect her. She slept in a spare room next to the living room that was supposed to be my office, but it was too noisy for me; I had moved my office downstairs, to a bas.e.m.e.nt room with windows opening onto the small garden.

It was an odds-and-ends room, with a desk and a very old laptop, some books, my winter clothes and Ya.s.si's makeshift bed and lamp. Sometimes she spent hours in that room, with the lights turned off, because of her headaches. Almost every time she came from a visit to her hometown, she had these headaches. That morning she looked radiant, I remember. This is how I see her: in the kitchen or in the hall, standing or sitting. I imagine her mimicking some comical professor, doubling over with laughter.

That summer there were many days when Ya.s.si would follow me around the house, telling me stories. Our place was mainly in the kitchen or the hall, and I enjoyed the fact that, unlike the grown-ups and like my own children, she actually liked my cooking. She loved my so-called pancakes and French toast, my concoctions of eggs, tomatoes and vegetables. Never once did she smile the indulgent smile that my grown-up friends gave me, as if to say, When will you learn? As I cooked or chopped, she would move with me and spin stories, mostly about her cla.s.ses. Negar, who was eleven by then, would join us and the three of us would talk for hours.

That day Ya.s.si was holding forth on her favorite subject: her uncles. She had five uncles and three aunts. One uncle had been killed by the Islamic Republic, and the rest lived in the United States or Europe. The women were the backbone of the family, the ones on whom everyone depended. They worked at home and they worked outside the home. Their marriages had been arranged, at a very young age, to much older men, and apart from one of the sisters-Ya.s.si's mother-they all had to put up with spoiled, nagging husbands, inferior to them intellectually and in every other way.

It was the men, the uncles, who always held the promise of the future for Ya.s.si. They were like Peter Pan, descending every once in a while from never-never land. When they came to her city, there were endless gatherings and celebrations. Everything the uncles said was enchanting. They had seen things no one else had seen, done things no one else had done. And they would bend down and play with her hair and say, Hey, little one, what have you been doing?

It was a quiet and peaceful morning. I was in my long housedress, curled on a chair in the living room, listening to Ya.s.si's tale about a poem one of her uncles had sent her. Tahereh Khanoom was in the kitchen. From the open dining room door we could hear different noises, the sound of running tap water, the thin clink of pots and pans, half a sentence addressed to the children, who were in the hall by the kitchen, alternately laughing and quarreling. I remember yellow and white daffodils; the whole living room was filled with vases of daffodils. I had put the vases not on the tables but on the floor, beside a painting of yellow flowers in two blue vases, also on the floor.

We were waiting for my mother's Turkish coffee. My mother made fabulous Turkish coffee, thick, bittersweet, and this served as her excuse for periodic intrusions. At different intervals in the day, we would hear her calling us through the connecting door to our apartment. "Tahereh, Tahereh . . ." she would call, and she continued calling even when Tahereh and I answered her back in unison. a.s.sured that we did indeed want our coffee, she disappeared, sometimes for over an hour.

This was my mother's way of communication for as long as I can remember. Curious about my cla.s.s on Thursday mornings and too proud just to barge in, she used the coffee to gain admittance to our sanctuary. One morning she "accidentally" came upstairs and called me from the kitchen. "Do your guests want coffee?" she asked, glancing through the open door at my curious, smiling students. So another ritual was added to our Thursdays: my mother's coffee hour. She soon formed her favorites among my students and tried to create separate relations with them.

For as long as I can remember, she would ask perfect strangers to our house for coffee. One day we had to turn away an alarmingly athletic man in his late thirties, who had by mistake rung our bell asking for the lady who had told him to drop by and have coffee with her when he was in the neighborhood. The guards at the hospital opposite our house were her regular "customers." At first they would stand reverently, coffee cups in hands; later, at her insistence, they sat down uneasily on the edge of chairs as they related all the gossip about the neighbors and the goings-on at the hospital. This was how we later learned the details of what happened that day.

Ya.s.si and I were waiting for our coffee, basking in the luxury of no special urgency, when the bell rang, sounding louder than usual because of the quiet of the street. As the bell rings one more time in my memory, I hear Tahereh Khanoom dragging her slippers along the floor, making her way to the front door of the apartment. I hear her footsteps fading as she slowly goes down the stairs to the street door. We hear a few words exchanged between her and a man.

She returned rather startled. There were two plainclothes officers at the door, she explained, men from the Revolutionary Committee. They wanted to raid the apartment of Mr. Colonel's tenant. Mr. Colonel was a new neighbor, whom my mother consistently ignored because of his newly rich ways and manners. He had destroyed a beautiful vacant garden next to our place and built an ugly, gray-stone three-story apartment. He lived on the second floor, his daughter was on the third and he rented out the first. Tahereh Khanoom explained that "they" wanted to arrest Mr. Colonel's tenant, but they couldn't gain admittance to the house. So they wanted to go into our yard and climb over our walls to get into the neighbor's house. We obviously, or perhaps not so obviously, wished to deny them this permission. As Tahereh Khanoom wisely put it, What good is a Committee official who doesn't have a search warrant and can only go into people's houses through their neighbors' yards? They needed no search warrant when it came to barging into decent people's houses at all times, so why were they so helpless when it came to this one particular crook? We had our differences with our neighbor, but we were not about to hand him over to the Committee.

As Tahereh Khanoom was relating all of this, there was a commotion in the street below. We heard the sounds of men talking hurriedly, feet running, a car engine starting. We hardly had time to wrap up our criticism of the Committee when there was another ring at the door. This time, it was more persistent. A few minutes later Tahereh Khanoom returned, accompanied by two young men in the khaki outfits that were then fashionable with the Revolutionary Guards. They explained that they no longer needed our garden wall to jump over to the neighbor's house: the culprit had now jumped into our garden and was armed and hiding there. They wanted to use our balcony, and the balcony of the third floor, to keep him busy by shooting at him while their colleagues sought to catch him. Our permission was not required, but they were considerate of "other people's wives and mothers," so they asked for it anyway. They let us know, by implication and gesture, that their prey was dangerous: not only was he an armed drug pusher, but he had other crimes to his name.

Three others, who proceeded to march upstairs, now accompanied our two intruders. What went through my mind then was, I later discovered, exactly the same thing that occupied Tahereh Khanoom's. Upstairs, on a corner of the big terrace, we had hidden our large and forbidden satellite dish. Later, we all wondered how it was that our concern was not so much for our lives or for the fact that five armed strangers were using our house for a shooting match with a neighbor who was also armed and hiding somewhere in our garden. We, like all normal Iranian citizens, were guilty and had something to hide: we were worried about our satellite dish. Tahereh Khanoom, who was more coolheaded than I and knew their language better, was a.s.signed to go upstairs. Ya.s.si was in charge of looking after my two bewildered children, and I accompanied the two men to our balcony, which opened into our bedroom and gave onto the garden below. I remember in the midst of all the confusion, at one point I thought, What a good story for Ya.s.si's uncles. I bet even they can't top this.

The events of that day, even after my children and I thoroughly inspected every detail, are somewhat confused. As I remember it, I seem to be in all places simultaneously. Like the genie in the Aladdin Aladdin cartoon, one moment I was on the balcony in the middle of cross fire, listening to the Committee men threatening the culprit while relating in bits and pieces his sinful history, intimating that he was supported by "people in high places," which explained why they had no official search warrant; next, I was upstairs, a.s.sured by Tahereh Khanoom that the guards were too busy to pay attention to our satellite dish. Later she told me that the guards had tried to use her as a shield, saying that this man would shoot at them but not her. cartoon, one moment I was on the balcony in the middle of cross fire, listening to the Committee men threatening the culprit while relating in bits and pieces his sinful history, intimating that he was supported by "people in high places," which explained why they had no official search warrant; next, I was upstairs, a.s.sured by Tahereh Khanoom that the guards were too busy to pay attention to our satellite dish. Later she told me that the guards had tried to use her as a shield, saying that this man would shoot at them but not her.

In between the shootings, my interpreters of these strange proceedings revealed that were they to succeed in their present enterprise, our neighbor would probably be released by his high-powered patrons. He warned me insistently about the evil nature of this criminal, who had now taken cover at the farthermost corner of our garden, under the generous shade of my favorite willow. With comical despair, they took to bewailing the hopeless nature of their mission to us-we, who considered both sides equally criminal and intrusive and wanted them both out of our lives as soon as possible.

The game now shifted to our other neighbor's house, as his two frightened children and their baby-sitter took refuge in the street. One of their windows was shattered by the gunfight. The culprit hid for some time in a small toolshed at the end of their garden by the swimming pool, but by now the guards had approached him from several sides. He threw his gun into the swimming pool-why, I cannot say-and the scene shifted to the street. We brought the neighbor's two sons into our house. The children-the neighbor's and mine-and Ya.s.si and I leaned out the window to watch the Committee men as they dragged their prey into the back of a white Toyota patrol car, he shouting all the while, calling out to his wife and son and warning his wife that under no circ.u.mstances should she open the door to the house.

We did have our coffee in the end that day, as all the partic.i.p.ants-Ya.s.si, Tahereh Khanoom, the children and I-and the guards at the hospital all gathered in my mother's parlor to exchange stories. The guards gave us the inside scoop on Mr. Colonel's tenant. He was in his early thirties. His arrogance and rough manners had earned him the hatred and fear of the hospital staff. For the past six weeks, our street had been under observation by the Committee members who had just made their move.

We all agreed that this was a factional fight and that the culprit most likely worked for some high officials. That would explain how, at such a young age, he could afford the exorbitant rent, the opium and the antique cars in his garage. The hospital guards were told he was one of the terrorists responsible for some of the a.s.sa.s.sinations in Paris over the past ten years. It was predicted by our self-appointed investigative committee that he would soon be released. As it turned out, these predictions were correct: not only was he released, but he came to our door one day soon after his return and tried to persuade Tahereh Khanoom to lodge a complaint against the Revolutionary Committee members who had barged into our house to arrest him, something we did not do.

That night, as my husband and I were drinking tea at yet another meeting convened at our neighbor's house, the children, intrigued by the events of the day, decided to inspect all the scenes of the skirmish. In the process, they discovered in the toolshed a small tape recorder in the arrested man's black leather jacket, which he had hidden there. We were law-abiding citizens and, after listening to an incomprehensible conversation about some trucks, we handed the tape recorder and the jacket over to the Committee, despite pa.s.sionate protests from the children.

This story was repeated many times, including the following Thursday, when Tahereh Khanoom and my children, who had by then lost their shy curiosity-and with it the necessary decorum to keep them off the premises during my cla.s.s-re-enacted the scene to an eager and smiling audience. It was interesting to see that "they," the Committee men, were so helpless, so bungling and unprofessional. As Ya.s.si pointed out, we had seen better action movies. Still, it was no consolation to learn that our lives were in the hands of bungling fools. Despite all the jokes and the power we felt then, the house became a little less secure after that, and for a long time we were startled by the sound of the doorbell.

In fact, the bell became like a warning from that other world we had tried to turn into a joke. It was only a few months later when the sound of another bell brought two more Committee members to our house. They were there to raid our house and to take our satellite dish away. This time there were no heroics: when they left, our house was in semi-mourning. My daughter, in response to my admonition about her spoiled att.i.tude, asked me with bitter disdain how I could possibly understand her affliction. When I was her age, she said, was I punished for wearing colored shoelaces, for running in the school yard, for licking ice cream in public?

All this was discussed in my cla.s.s the following Thursday, in detail. Again we skipped back and forth between our lives and novels: was it surprising that we so appreciated Invitation to a Beheading Invitation to a Beheading? We were all victims of the arbitrary nature of a totalitarian regime that constantly intruded into the most private corners of our lives and imposed its relentless fictions on us. Was this rule the rule of Islam? What memories were we creating for our children? This constant a.s.sault, this persistent lack of kindness, was what frightened me most.

20.

A few months earlier, Manna and Nima had come to me for advice. They had saved some money and had to choose between buying some "necessities of life," as they put it, or a satellite dish. They had very little money and they had saved what little they had from private tutoring. After four years of marriage, like many other young couples, they could not afford to live on their own. They lived with Manna's mother and younger sister. I don't remember what advice I gave them that day, but I know that shortly afterward they bought a satellite dish. They were euphoric about their satellite dish, and every day after that I would hear about a new American cla.s.sic they had watched the night before.

Satellite dishes were becoming the rage all over Iran. It was not merely people like me, or the educated cla.s.ses, who craved them. Tahereh Khanoom informed us that in the poorer, more religious sections of Tehran, the family with a dish would rent out certain programs to their neighbors. I remember that when I was on a visit to the United States in 1996, David Ha.s.selhoff, the star of Baywatch, Baywatch, bragged that his show was the most popular show in Iran. bragged that his show was the most popular show in Iran.

Manna and Nima were never, strictly speaking, my students. Both were working towards their master's degree in English literature at the University of Tehran. They had read my articles and had heard about my cla.s.ses from some friends, and one day they just appeared in cla.s.s. They asked me afterward if they could audit my courses. After that, they attended every hour of every cla.s.s I taught, as well as my talks and public lectures. I would see them at those lectures, mostly standing near the door, always with a smile. I felt their smiles were meant to encourage me to continue talking about Nabokov and Bellow and Fielding, that they were meant to tell me how crucial it was that I should go on doing so at all costs to myself or them.

They had met at the University of Shiraz and had fallen in love in large part because of their common interest in literature and their isolation from university life in general. Manna later explained how their attachment was based, more than anything else, on words. During their courtship they wrote letters and read poetry to each other. They became addicted to the secure world they created through words, a conspiratorial world in which everything that was hostile and uncontrollable became soft and articulated. She was writing her thesis on Virginia Woolf and the Impressionists; he, on Henry James.

Manna used to get excited in a very quiet way; her happiness seemed to come from some unknown depth inside of her. I can still remember the very first day I saw her and Nima in my cla.s.s. They reminded me of my two children whenever they entered a conspiracy to make me happy. At first Nima was the more talkative of the two. He would walk beside me, and Manna followed a little behind him. Nima would talk and tell stories and I'd notice Manna peering past Nima to catch my reaction. Seldom did she ever volunteer herself to talk. It was only after several months, when at my insistence she showed me some of her poetry, that she was forced to talk to me directly and not through Nima.

I have chosen to give them rhyming names, although their names sound different in real life. Yet I was so used to seeing them together, voicing the same thoughts and feelings, that to me they were like two siblings who had just discovered something wondrous in their back garden, a doorway into a magic kingdom. I was the fairy G.o.dmother, the madwoman in whom they could confide.

While we sorted papers and reorganized my office at home, placing the novels side by side, arranging my notes in different files, they shared stories and gossip from the University of Tehran, where I had held a post years before. I knew many of the people they mentioned, including our favorite villain, Professor X, who nurtured a sophisticated and persistent hatred towards them both, Nima and Manna. He was one of the very few professors who had not resigned or been expelled since I had left that university. In the meantime, he thought they did not sufficiently respect him. He had developed an efficient way of solving all of the complicated problems of literary criticism: he put all matters of interpretation to a vote. Since the voting was performed by a show of hands, debates tended to be resolved in his favor.

His princ.i.p.al quarrel with Manna and Nima was sparked by a paper Manna wrote on Robert Frost. At the next session, he informed the cla.s.s about his various disagreements with her thesis, and asked them to vote on the matter. All of the students except for Manna, Nima and one other voted for the professor's views. After the vote, the professor turned to Nima and asked him why he was such a turncoat. Was it perhaps because his wife had brainwashed him? The more he questioned them and put their ideas to vote, the more obstinate they became. They brought him books by prominent critics that supported their ideas against his. In one outburst of anger, he expelled them from his cla.s.s.

One of his students had decided to write his thesis on Lolita. Lolita. He used no sources, had not read Nabokov, but his thesis fascinated the professor, who had a thing about young girls spoiling the lives of intellectual men. This student wanted to write about how Lolita had seduced Humbert, an "intellectual poet," and ruined his life. Professor X, with a look of thoughtful intensity, asked the student if he knew about Nabokov's own s.e.xual perversions. Nima, with ripples of contempt in his voice, mimicked the professor, shaking his head sadly and saying how, in novel after novel, we find the lives of intellectual men being destroyed by flighty females. Manna swore that he kept throwing her poisonous glances as he embarked on his pet subject. Yet despite his views on Nabokov's flighty young vixens, when this man had been "looking" for a new wife, his main condition had been that her age should not exceed twenty-three. His second wife, duly recruited, was at least two decades younger than he. He used no sources, had not read Nabokov, but his thesis fascinated the professor, who had a thing about young girls spoiling the lives of intellectual men. This student wanted to write about how Lolita had seduced Humbert, an "intellectual poet," and ruined his life. Professor X, with a look of thoughtful intensity, asked the student if he knew about Nabokov's own s.e.xual perversions. Nima, with ripples of contempt in his voice, mimicked the professor, shaking his head sadly and saying how, in novel after novel, we find the lives of intellectual men being destroyed by flighty females. Manna swore that he kept throwing her poisonous glances as he embarked on his pet subject. Yet despite his views on Nabokov's flighty young vixens, when this man had been "looking" for a new wife, his main condition had been that her age should not exceed twenty-three. His second wife, duly recruited, was at least two decades younger than he.

21.

One Thursday morning so hot that the heat seemed to have permeated the cool of our air-conditioned house, seven of us were talking aimlessly before the cla.s.s began. We were talking about Sanaz. She had missed cla.s.s the preceding week without calling to explain, and now we didn't know if she would come again. No one, not even Mitra, had heard from her. We were speculating that maybe the troublesome brother had hatched a new plot. Sanaz's brother was by now a constant topic of conversation, one of a series of male villains who resurfaced from week to week.

"Nima tells me we don't understand the difficulty men face here," said Manna with a hint of sarcasm. "They too don't know how to act. Sometimes they act like macho bullies because they feel vulnerable."

"Well, that's to an extent true," I said. "After all, it takes two to create a relationship, and when you make half the population invisible, the other half suffers as well."

"Can you imagine the kind of man who'd get s.e.xually provoked just by looking at a strand of my hair?" said Na.s.srin. "Someone who goes crazy at the sight of a woman's toe . . . wow!" she continued, "My toe as a lethal weapon!"

"Women who cover themselves are aiding and abetting the regime," said Azin with a defiant flourish.

Mahshid remained silent, her eyes targeting the table's iron leg.

"And those whose trademark is painting their lips fiery red and flirting with male professors," said Manna with an icy stare. "I suppose they are doing all this to further the cause?" Azin turned red and said nothing.

"How about genitally mutilating men," Na.s.srin suggested coolly, "so as to curb their s.e.xual appet.i.tes?" She had been reading Nawal al-Sadawi's book on brutality against women in some Muslim societies. Sadawi, a doctor, had gone to some lengths to explain the horrendous effects of genitally mutilating young girls in order to curb their s.e.xual appet.i.tes. "I was working on this text for my translation project-"

"Your translation project?"

"Yes, don't you remember? I told my father I was translating Islamic texts into English to help Mahshid."

"But I thought that was just an excuse so that you could come here," I said.

"It was, but I decided to do these translations for at least three hours a week, sometimes more, for the extra lies. I reached a compromise with my conscience," she said with a smile.

"I have to tell you that the Ayatollah himself was no novice in s.e.xual matters," Na.s.srin went on. "I've been translating his magnum opus, The Political, Philosophical, Social and Religious Principles of Ayatollah Khomeini, The Political, Philosophical, Social and Religious Principles of Ayatollah Khomeini, and he has some interesting points to make." and he has some interesting points to make."

"But it's already been translated," said Manna. "What's the point?"

"Yes," said Na.s.srin, "parts of it have been translated, but after it became the b.u.t.t of party jokes, ever since the emba.s.sies abroad found out that people were reading the book not for their edification but for fun, the translations have been very hard to find. And anyway, my translation is thorough-it has references and cross-references to works by other worthies. Did you know that one way to cure a man's s.e.xual appet.i.tes is by having s.e.x with animals? And then there's the problem of s.e.x with chickens. You have to ask yourself if a man who has had s.e.x with a chicken can then eat the chicken afterwards. Our leader has provided us with an answer: No, No, neither he nor his immediate family or next-door neighbors can eat of that chicken's meat, but it's okay for a neighbor who lives two doors away. My father would rather I spent my time on such texts than on Jane Austen or Nabokov?" she added, rather mischievously. neither he nor his immediate family or next-door neighbors can eat of that chicken's meat, but it's okay for a neighbor who lives two doors away. My father would rather I spent my time on such texts than on Jane Austen or Nabokov?" she added, rather mischievously.

We were not startled by Na.s.srin's erudite allusions to the works of Ayatollah Khomeini. She was referring to a famous text by Khomeini, the equivalent of his dissertation-required to be written by all who reach the rank of ayatollah-aimed at responding to the questions and dilemmas that could be posed to them by their disciples. Many others before Khomeini had written in almost identical manner. What was disturbing was that these texts were taken seriously by people who ruled us and in whose hands lay our fate and the fate of our country. Every day on national television and radio these guardians of morality and culture would make similar statements and discuss such matters as if they were the most serious themes for contemplation and consideration.

It was in the middle of this scholarly discussion, peppered with loud laughter on Azin's part and increasing moroseness on Mahshid's, that we heard the sound of screeching brakes, and I knew that Sanaz was being deposited by her brother. A pause, a car door slamming, the doorbell and a few moments later Sanaz entered, the first words on her lips an apology. She seemed so distraught at being late and having missed the cla.s.s that she was ready to burst into tears.

I tried to calm her down, and Ya.s.si went into the kitchen to bring her tea. She held a big box of pastries in her hands. What's this for, Sanaz? It was my turn last week, she said lamely, so I brought it this week instead. I took the pastries from her hand-she was sweating-and she uncoiled her black robe and scarf. She had tied her hair tightly behind her ears with a rubber band. Her face looked naked and forlorn.

Finally she took her usual place, beside Mitra, with a big gla.s.s of ice water in her hand and her tea stationed in front of her on the table, and we all waited in silence to hear what she would say. Azin tried to break the silence with a joke. We all thought you'd gone to Turkey for your engagement party and forgot to invite us. Sanaz attempted a smile and took a sip of water instead of responding. She seemed to want to at once say something and reveal nothing. There were tears in her voice before they became visible in her eyes.

Her story was familiar. A fortnight earlier, Sanaz and five of her girlfriends had gone for a two-day vacation by the Caspian Sea. On their first day, they had decided to visit her friend's fiance in an adjoining villa. Sanaz kept emphasizing that they were all properly dressed, with their scarves and long robes. They were all sitting outside, in the garden: six girls and one boy. There were no alcoholic beverages in the house, no undesirable tapes or CDs. She seemed to be suggesting that if there had been, they might have deserved the treatment they received at the hands of the Revolutionary Guards.

And then "they" came with their guns, the morality squads, surprising them by jumping over the low walls. They claimed to have received a report of illegal activities, and wanted to search the premises. Unable to find fault with their appearance, one of the guards sarcastically said that looking at them, with their Western att.i.tudes. . . . What is a Western att.i.tude? Na.s.srin interrupted. Sanaz looked at her and smiled. I'll ask him next time I run into him. The truth of the matter was that their search for alcoholic beverages, tapes and CDs had led to nothing, but they already had a search warrant and didn't want it to go to waste. The guards took all of them to a special jail for infractions in matters of morality. There, despite their protests, the girls were kept in a small, dark room, which they shared the first night with several prost.i.tutes and a drug addict. Their jail wardens came into their room two or three times in the middle of the night to wake up those who might have dozed off, and hurled insults at them.

They were held in that room for forty-eight hours. Despite their repeated requests, they were denied the right to call their parents. Apart from brief excursions to the rest room at appointed times, they left the room twice-the first time to be led to a hospital, where they were given virginity tests by a woman gynecologist, who had her students observe the examinations. Not satisfied with her verdict, the guards took them to a private clinic for a second check.

On the third day, their anxious parents in Tehran, unable to locate them, were told by the concierge at their villa that their children might have been killed in a recent car accident. They set off at once to the resort town in search of their daughters, and finally found them. The girls were then given a summary trial, forced to sign a doc.u.ment confessing to sins they had not committed and subjected to twenty-five lashes.

Sanaz, who is very thin, was wearing a T-shirt under her robe. Her jailers jokingly suggested that since she was wearing an extra garment, she might not feel the pain, so they gave her more. For her, the physical pain had been more bearable than the indignity of the virginity tests and her self-loathing at having signed a forced confession. In some perverse way, the physical punishment was a source of satisfaction to her, a compensation for having yielded to those other humiliations.

When they were finally released and taken home by their parents, Sanaz had to deal with another indignity: her brother's admonitions. What did they expect? How could they let six unruly girls go on a trip without male supervision? Would n.o.body ever listen to him, just because he was a few years younger than his scatterbrained sister, who should have been married by now? Sanaz's parents, although sympathetic to her and her ordeal, did have to agree that perhaps it had not been such a good idea to let her go on the trip; not that they did not trust her, but conditions in the country were unsuitable for such indiscretions. On top of everything else, I am now the guilty party, she said. I've been deprived of the use of my car and am being chaperoned by my wise younger brother.

I cannot leave Sanaz and her story alone. Time and again I have gone back to it-I still do-re-creating it bit by bit: the garden fence, the six girls and one boy sitting on the veranda, perhaps telling jokes and laughing. And then "they" come. I remember this incident just as I remember so many others from my own life in Iran; I even remember the events people have written or told me about since I left. Strangely, they too have become my own memories.

Perhaps it is only now and from this distance, when I am able to speak of these experiences openly and without fear, that I can begin to understand them and overcome my own terrible sense of helplessness. In Iran a strange distance informed our relation to these daily experiences of brutality and humiliation. There, we spoke as if the events did not belong to us; like schizophrenic patients, we tried to keep ourselves away from that other self, at once intimate and alien.