7
Was it right for Hasti to make a drawing for Salim on the fiberboard that Morad had given her for New Year’s last year? Morad had polished that fiberboard so much that it looked like ivory. In cutting it, he had observed the golden ratio. He had told Hasti, “One cannot disassociate oneself from the past. Review the manuscript illustrations in the college library. Start with the medieval manuscripts, like Khavas al-Advieh (Properties of Spices) and Manafe‘ al-Hayawan (Benefits of Animals), and finish with contemporary miniatures, even the ones for sale. There are some skilled miniaturists who work on fiberboard or ivory on Manuchehri Street. I didn’t have the money to buy ivory for you. We’ll go together.”
And they had gone together.
When Grandmother had said that Morad wasn’t coming for her birthday, Hasti was secretly happy. That day was the day of Mrs. Farrokhi’s gathering.
The day after the New Year’s party, Mother Eshi had phoned Hasti looking for the book Ajayeb al-Makhluqat va Gharayeb al-Mowjoudat (The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of What Exists). Complaint after complaint. “I never expected you to leave without saying good-bye! Many of the guests were asking Ahmad, ‘Where’s your beautiful daughter?’ Especially Mr. Crossley, who was quite taken with you. Murray came to our rescue. ‘She went to see her fiancé . . . ,’ he said, ‘and anything for my dear girl.’ But it’s a shame that you didn’t see the play by the performing minstrels. You won’t believe what they did on the platform. They played and sang and shook their hips and grimaced and did somersaults and turns . . . Of course, in the end the platform broke and they all fell. The guests thought that this was part of the performance.”
“So they didn’t put on a play?” Hasti had asked.
“They did. After dinner they put on the Uncle New Year play. A thin-bearded man got on top of two others who had arranged themselves like a donkey. The thin-bearded man held a fan, and he fanned himself as he ascended the throne in place of a king. The vizier and ministers and several women surrounded him. Pasita had mixed herself in. That little devil became the thin-bearded man’s favorite wife, and the man flirted with her as much as he could.”
“Was it the drama Mir-e Nowruzi (New Year’s King)?” Hasti had asked. “Or the comedy Kuse bar neshin (The Thin-Bearded Man Sitting on Top)?”
“Bijan, who was translating, said ‘Uncle New Year,’ and he said, ‘He’s similar to Santa Claus of the Christians, except that he has left behind his pack of gifts.’”
“Really,” Mother Eshi had asked, “why didn’t you stay? Don’t spend so much time with that old hyena . . .” Then she had sincerely apologized and had said, “Don’t spend so much time with Grandmother, or you’ll waste away.”
Hasti had spoken of fatigue and Mother Eshi of sympathizing. When Hasti had asked her to say more about the play, Mother Eshi had said, “Even the children were saying that they’d never had so much fun in their lives. That thin-bearded man who had sat in the place of the king was supposed to have two Black servants who would make funny gestures. Ahmad didn’t allow them to blacken their faces.”
“For Mr. Crossley’s sake,” Hasti had said.
“Yes, and Bijan was in a foul mood. Indeed, from the time that he returned, he was in a bad mood. Mr. Crossley called him ‘Bij.’ He looked him in the eye and said, ‘My name is Bijan, sir.’”
Hasti had said good-bye.
“Wait,” Mother Eshi had said. “I have something more to say to you. Why are you angry with me? And was it you who took Salim’s photo from the dressing table?”
Hasti had answered the second question affirmatively, and Mother Eshi had said that she had wanted to show her guests her future son-inlaw—that when Hasti had said Salim was not coming, she understood that Grandmother had cast an evil eye on the poor child.
Mother Eshi had asked Hasti to swear that she would come the day of Mrs. Farrokhi’s gathering, and Hasti had said that she would. Mother Eshi’s boisterous laugh seemed to Hasti the sign of a marriage marketplace. She thought her mother had also snapped her fingers in joy. Mother Eshi had thanked God that Hasti had broken up with that half-witted boy, and Hasti had said, “It’s not broken off yet.”
Hasti sat at the dining table. She put Salim’s gift bergamot orange and his photo on the table and arranged the painting tools on a plastic sheet next to her. Grandmother had put on Hasti’s gift cardigan and was sitting with her back to the wall of the dining room, awaiting guests and reading Zad al-Ma‘ad (Provisions for the Hereafter) with a magnifying glass that was also a gift from Hasti.
Hasti had had the basic drawing in mind since last night when she knew that Morad was not coming. A large circle, a fresh bergamot orange with its branch and leaves in the middle of the circle, a circle within another circle. Light from above. Light of the surroundings and light from the interior. All over in the drawing, Salim’s eyes: in profile, straight on, three-quarters forward, even his closed eyes.
Hasti’s hand started working. Her mind suggested various pictures.
You can draw one luminous, protective, half-opened hand above the larger circle.
Is love that clear?
Well, you can draw a bird in flight facing the open eyes and full face of Salim that is above the bergamot orange.
Would that be seen as a “yes” to Salim’s request for my hand?
You can draw a vague sketch of your own naked body inside the bergamot orange.
Would that be seen as my request for Salim’s hand? Besides, the bergamot orange itself is said to have concealed within it the bitter orange and bergamot girl.
Decorate around the bergamot orange with miniature-like drawings?
No, I’ll draw a branch and leaves on the bergamot orange.
If it were not fiberboard, but rather a large canvas, all of this could be drawn.
Grandmother’s voice broke the train of her thoughts. “Why does no one ring the doorbell of this house?”
“Teimur Khan and Akhtar Iran each came last night with their families.”
Why doesn’t Grandmother understand that she cannot have many guests? Before her leg pain took from her the ability to walk long distances, most mornings Grandmother went to this or that hospital to visit one of her age mates, and most afternoons she went to the funeral service of one of them. She used to say herself, “If only I had the joy of attending at least a circumcision party.”
As for Hasti, she had set a date with her friends for the first Friday of each new year, to go to a restaurant for lunch, each person at their own expense, to exchange New Year’s greetings.
She remembered Brigadier General and his orderly. A brigadier general who was retired but had an orderly, thanks to the good offices of his nephew, Lieutenant General Tondar. A brigadier general whose house was a few houses above and across from the shop of Teimur Khan. A brigadier general who would sit, New Year’s or not, in the frontage of his house, which was a fairly wide space, put his swollen feet on a footstool, and place the canes that the German doctors had sent home with him at his two sides. There he would seat his visitors, whether the visits they were making were socially obligatory or not, on the steps that ended at the porch of the house, or they would seat themselves. The gathering of the neighbors and passersby around Brigadier General resulted in the formation of, in Teimur Khan’s terms, a kind of neighborhood or quarter council.
Hasti looked at Grandmother. The book Zad al-Ma‘ad was closed, the magnifying glass was on top of it, and both were on Grandmother’s lap. She seemed to be dozing off. “Touran Jan,” Hasti said, “recite a poem. Please recite Attar’s The Conference of the Birds so that my hand, eyes, and mind work more sharply and with more strength.”
Grandmother didn’t do it. Hasti wanted to raise her spirits. “I don’t think there is any woman your age who knows so much poetry.”
“What do you mean? Your Simin Khanom surely does!”
“Simin Khanom has gone to Shiraz.”
“To hell with her.”
Hasti didn’t want to get mad and say, “What wrong has Simin done to you?” So she said, “I wish that Mehrmah Khanom were alive and would tell me the story of the bitter orange and bergamot girl.”
Grandmother opened her eyes. “Where are you, Mehrmah? If you were alive, you would certainly have stayed with your cousin. Whatever poetry I have memorized was done during the time that I had given you shelter.”
The doorbell rang. Hasti, with the help of Brigadier General’s orderly, opened each of the two sides of the door to give passage to Brigadier General and his canes. The ends of the canes rested on four bent prongs, to the bottom of which thick rubber had been pounded. With the help of his orderly, Brigadier General sat in the armchair in the living room, and Hasti assigned the orderly to one of the dining room chairs. Their New Year sweets were Grandmother’s favorites: Turkish delight, masghati, rice cookies, and of fruit, long-lasting ones: apples and oranges.
After she had served tea and offered sweets and fruit, Hasti sat across from Brigadier General and asked, “Did you have a good time in Germany?”
“I was in the hospital the whole time.”
“Which city was it?”
“It was Germany. I don’t know which city. My son Emad knows. They took us straight from the airport to the hospital. The lieutenant general had made the arrangements.”
“You had surgery?”
“No. They said at my age it was impossible.”
“Did they say what your ailment is?”
“Emad knows. It’s long and complicated. Emad said, ‘It’s erosion of the bones of the pelvis . . . ’ They should, with plastic or, I don’t know, with nylon, or I don’t know with what . . . In any case, they should take out the bones and replace them with artificial bones. They told us to buy these two canes.” And he put his hands on both of his claw-footed canes, which had been placed at the two sides of the chair. It was as though he were caressing them.
Hasti left the conversation to Grandmother and Brigadier General and returned to her drawing in the dining room. Brigadier General’s orderly had eaten everything Hasti had put in front of him. He took his plates, knife, and tea glass to the kitchen, washed them, dried them, and put them away, and now he was absorbed in Hasti’s drawing.
“Do you like it, Asadollah Khan?” Hasti asked.
“Draw one of these and give it to me as a New Year’s gift. I’ll hang it in my room. Being far from home is a bad thing.”
“You mean you are uncomfortable here?” Hasti asked softly.
“Brigadier General,” Asadollah Khan whispered, “is like my father, but when Aqa Emad comes once a week, he slaps my face.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just like that. One time he hit me with a water hose. My back turned black and blue. The attendant at the Valiabad bathhouse told me so.”
“Well, tell Brigadier General.”
Asadollah Khan murmured more softly. “Brigadier General is like a timid mouse. He fears Aqa Emad. Every time Aqa Emad comes, he asks his father, ‘Are you still alive?’ Whatever provisions there are in the house, he gathers them up, puts them in his car, and leaves right away.”
“Then conceal the provisions.”
“What should I do?”
“Hide them.”
“I had hidden them the time he hit me with the hose.”
“Do you want me to tell Brigadier General?”
“No, no. He’ll kill me.”
Hasti couldn’t think of anything else to do. “How many months are left in your term of service?” she asked.
“One year, one month, and seven days. If they allow me to leave . . .”
“Why wouldn’t they allow it?”
“Well, maybe they won’t allow it.”
“What town do you come from?”
“It’s not a town. Our village is near Saveh.”
Hasti changed the subject and asked in a louder voice, “Do you like my drawing?”
“Very much.”
“What have I drawn?”
“You’ve drawn two suns, one inside the other. Also, you’ve drawn seven or eight stars like eyes. But stars don’t come out in the daytime. Draw one sun. There aren’t two suns . . .”
When a car horn blared, Asadollah jumped up. “Aqa Emad. They have come to give New Year’s greetings. When the lieutenant general has returned from greeting the shah . . .”
This lieutenant general, Hasti had heard from Brigadier General, gets a New Year’s gift of one gold Pahlavi coin from the shah . . . from the majestic hand of His Highness . . . But his wife would put a bunch of new ten toman notes within the pages of a Quran and would give them herself as gifts to women, children, and men, old and young, and to orderlies, from whatever part of Tehran they were, and they would rush to get it. Brigadier General is of the opinion that the dresses of the lieutenant general’s wife are splendid. Brigadier General likes the word splendid.
Grandmother’s eyes were closed, but, contrary to what Hasti imagined, she was not napping. She had let her mind wander.
Mehrmah, who had broken off relations with her son and his family and had found refuge in her cousin’s house, says, “Cousin, you sit and study. Rewrite your notes neatly. I’ll keep the children busy, and Akhtar Iran will do the housework.”
Hasti jumps into the arms of Mehrmah and says, “The story of the bitter orange and bergamot . . .”
“Once upon a time, a devil was lying down under a tree. He asked, ‘With what did he pluck?’ Someone said, ‘With tongs.’ He said, ‘It can’t be done with tongs . . . ’”
“All of my classmates are young,” Touran Jan complains. “They call me ‘the old one.’”
“Cousin,” Mehrmah says, “you are more knowledgeable than all of them put together. You outdo the professors, too. You’ve said that yourself.”
Touran Jan walks around the courtyard memorizing Attar’s The Conference of the Birds. She recites it for Mehrmah. She has forgotten only two couplets.
How full were the wells of their minds! What strong ropes they were holding that they could pull so much eloquent literature from their minds.
“If we leave Hafez aside,” Foruzanfar said, “then Persian poetry worthy of scrutiny . . .”
“Professor, classical Persian poetry should have ended with Hafez, and Nima . . .”
“Venerable lady, don’t spin such nonsense.”
Several professors and several final year students, among them an old lady, have been standing in the cloakroom entrance to the Faculty of Literature meeting hall. They are awaiting a former minister. The former minister’s speech is about the tribes of Iran. He’s late. A professor who has recently become a senator shifts from one foot to the other. He cracks his knuckles. Since he has become a senator, he has grown a goatee. Last year he had a messy gray beard.
As though it were yesterday. Memories from a long time ago nail themselves firmly into the brain. But ask me, “What did you eat yesterday?” I won’t remember. But no, wait. I do remember. I ate the sprouted wheat porridge that Mohsen Run had brought. Nevertheless, old age means living in the past . . .
The professor’s patience is wearing thin. He turns to a professor who Touran doesn’t recognize and complains, “Why doesn’t this fellow come? Does he think he’s still a minister? I must appear in the royal court and have dinner with His Highness.”
Touran Jan had heard that the professor had become a senator from his wife. They saw each other in the Valiabad bathhouse. They had even washed each other’s back when the bath attendant wasn’t there. They had poured warm water on each other’s head. The professor’s wife had said, “My husband has become a senator.” She had advised Touran Khanom to do her thesis with another professor. “My husband doesn’t have time anymore.”
Touran Khanom had grumbled and said that it was no longer possible. “Why did the professor need to become a senator?” she had asked. “Isn’t his merit and accomplishment already acknowledged by all?”
“Well,” the professor’s wife had said, “he was going to lose this piece of property that we have. Two of the children want to study medicine.”
In time, Touran Jan had thought, everyone shows their true colors. I don’t know what charm the people of Iran have, what tool they possess that they can separate the pure from the impure.
The former minister still has not come. The senator professor turns to the other professor, strokes his goatee, and says, “Let’s forget about listening to this fellow’s nonsense. Whenever I see him, I feel as if I’m being knifed.”
The unrecognized professor says, “Maybe one day he will be useful. You made one blunder. That’s enough.”
“What did I do?” the senator professor asks.
“You acted like an amateur. You wrote a poem for Mosaddeq, and like a true friend, he ordered that they broadcast your poem three times on the radio. It was an original poem.”
The senator professor discreetly signals to the other with his eyes and eyebrows that he should drop the subject. But the other professor still recites the poem:
O Mosaddeq, you are a man, a true man.
You are in battle with the devil and with evil.
O Mosaddeq, we say your praise.
. . .
“Sir,” the senator professor says, “I adore heroes.”
Laughing loudly, the unrecognized professor says, “One hero is Mosaddeq. One hero is the shah.”
“Careful. I’ll set fire to your mustache to get even with you.”
“You see that I don’t have a mustache.” The unrecognized professor continues, “Why did you let him get his hands on your poem? You could have recited it for him and left.”
“He was slick. He took it from me, hid it under his pillow, and played sick.” No, another person had said played sick another time, on another occasion. That other person had said, “Putting his head under a blanket and crying were among Mosaddeq’s weapons. And always at the perfect time.” Touran Jan remembered. Khalil Maleki had said it. He had said it to Hasti . . .
The speaker enters. He’s thinly built, and he’s wet from head to toe. So, it’s raining and they haven’t realized it. He couldn’t get a taxi. The senator professor goes forward, says hello, bows, and helps the former minister and main speaker take off his wet overcoat. He hangs the speaker’s overcoat on the coatrack. He also hangs his wet hat. “We were just talking about you,” he says.
Touran Khanom knew that the “talking about you” professor would assign her thesis to another professor, and he did. Touran Khanom was disappointed because the senator professor was more enthusiastic, and, as he himself had said many times, in Persian literature up to Hafez, there was nothing that he did not know.
Most of the students had accepted Mrs. Nourian. Only a few students still called her “the old one.” She had lent her neat notes in her good handwriting to most of them, on the condition that they keep them only one night. Boys and girls would go to her and pour out their hearts. The girls’ concerns were related to either love or political confusion. The boys were more distressed about politics, and as soon as their political faction matured, they began thinking about establishing a new faction. She would mediate, and she often helped lovers unite. Arranging two abortions. Arranging the marriage of a girl three months pregnant. Convincing the notary public to predate the marriage by three months. Of course, the notary public was a longtime acquaintance, but in this kind of matter some “convincing” was still necessary.
She gathered those caught up in politics, boys and girls, around herself and gave them motherly advice to stick to their studies—that politics can’t be trusted, that politics is passing, that politics is for gaining power, and that they well knew what power and money do to a person. Some said that there was something in the air that drew them to politics, and one of them asked, “But wasn’t your own son martyred in support of Mosaddeq?”
The deniers would say “no.” But most of those who accepted Mrs. Nourian gathered either around the heater or around the warmth of her soul, and she described what had happened. And each time it brought forgotten details to mind.
Mosaddeq had broken off with Parliament, and Hossein Nourian had arranged with his friends to accompany Mosaddeq from his house to the Parliament building and carry him above their heads into the building. The friends don’t come. Hossein goes and makes himself a protective shield for Mosaddeq.
It’s February 28, 1953. The shah has left. Ruffians have set off from the palace to the door of Mosaddeq’s house. Hossein goes and speaks from atop a stool. “Long live the national leader of Iran,” he shouts, “Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq!” The thugs assault him. A certain lady comes to his rescue and pulls him off the stool. If not, he would have been martyred right then . . .
Mosaddeq comes out of the Parliament building. He says loudly, “It’s a den of thieves in there. The nation is here.” Hossein Nourian bends over . . . Mosaddeq stands on his back to speak until they can bring a stool. Hossein realizes that a soldier has pointed his rifle at Mosaddeq. Hossein shouts to Mosaddeq, “Sir, get down!” Baring his own chest, he says, “Shoot here, you scoundrel,” and the scoundrel shoots . . . Most of the girls and some of the boys shed tears. Crying, Touran Khanom wipes their tears.
Touran Khanom brings to the college the signed photo of Mosaddeq that he has dedicated “To the mother of the martyr Hossein Nourian.” She shows it to her classmates. She has attached this photo to the wall above the head of her bed. She greets the photo every morning. Mosaddeq has addressed Mrs. Nourian as “Dear Sister.”
Hossein Nourian is the hero of heroes, and the mother of this legendary hero gains more respect day by day. Her classmates have accepted Mrs. Nourian’s belief that the only path is the path of Mosaddeq.
The “talking about you” professor had recited a poem for Mosaddeq. Hossein Nourian gets the poem from Mosaddeq and takes it to Radio Tehran. He asks one of his closest friends to read the poem every morning, noon, and night . . . five or six times . . .
Touran Khanom emboldens one of the students whom she has united with his beloved to mention the subject of modern poetry, if the senator professor comes, in order to provoke the professor. Since he has become a senator, the professor comes to class late and brushes off students seeking guidance from him.
The professor comes and sits at his desk. He points to his head and says, “Half of my head is aching.”
The emboldened student says, “Professor, today tell us your views on modern poetry. Your headache will get better.”
The professor smiles bitterly and scratches his goatee. He softens his voice and says, “It’s nonsense, sir. It’s absurd.” He takes a piece of paper from the pocket of his jacket and reads, “‘The dark blue cave runs, it screams loudly.’ Right from the belly of the poet! The meter is not right, nor is the rhyme. One long hemistich, one short . . .”
Touran Khanom raises her hand, and the professor’s voice becomes softer than before. “Venerable lady, you who wept for the beginning of the decline of Persian literature in the sixteenth century will now weep blood for the decline of modern Persian literature. Americans are fanning the flames of these absurdities.”
“So there’s a fire, Professor?” Touran Khanom asks. “In my opinion, new poetry is the blood of our poets that has fallen drop by drop onto paper in the form of words. In the very lack of equality of hemistiches, a kind of meter and order can be observed, and there’s a kind of harmony and cohesion in the complete work. But reading it takes patience. One should get used to it.” Without waiting for the professor’s permission, she recites, “My farm remained dry, and so did all thoughts.” She adds, “No one knows better than Nima the fear and repression of his era . . .”
“Enough, old woman!” the professor shouts. “You have added to my headache. I can’t gather my thoughts now.”
When the professor had not yet become a senator, he would take his hat by its brim and cram it onto his head. Once he became a senator, he would take his hat off the table, level the two sides with his hands, push the center of his hat in, and straighten the brim . . . It seems he has returned to his old habits. He grabs the brim of his hat and crams it onto his head. He picks up his silver-headed cane and says, “Now my whole head hurts.” Then, in a deep voice, he says to Mrs. Nourian, “Tell this lowly poet with his absurd poems, ‘The Pahlavis have served this country very well.’ And they have served you, old woman, more than all the others, enabling you to take center stage in your old age!”
But at the elementary school where Mrs. Nourian was working, no one cared about the martyrdom of her young son, nor about the path of Mosaddeq. Touran Khanom was a sixth-grade elementary school teacher. One day that she was missing her son and spoke about his martyrdom, she saw the girls’ eyes staring at her in horror. When she talked about Mosaddeq, the girls chattered. The principal of the school was formerly a member of the Women’s Center. Mrs. Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, head of the center, looked dignified in the long white dress she was wearing. One night she had introduced the principal to Her Highness Shams, and Her Highness had shaken her hand. Everyone became aware of this “hand-shaking.” Mrs. Dowlatabadi gave a fantastic speech . . .
The head of the Parent Teacher Association is a retired director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Under the direction of Mrs. Nourian, the sixth-grade girls are preparing a performance for the end-of-the-year celebration. The first play is Khayyam Night. The invitation cards also include the title Khayyam Night. The math teacher, who is of the first sex—that is, male—has agreed to play the role of Khayyam. And in the second play, he has agreed to play the role of Bozorgmehr in Anushirvan’s court.
Touran Khanom pulled out whatever she thought she had in her closet. The girls also brought from their houses, either by their father’s car or by taxi, other things needed. They cut and sewed for many days. With Mehrmah’s help, Touran Khanom spent three nights making a beard from cotton and wool and a crown of cardboard for Anushirvan, and she drew pictures of jewels on the cardboard crown. The head of the Parent Teacher Association sent by minivan two cushions with golden pillowcases and a platform. They painted the platform as a throne, and put jewels on it in harmony with those on the cardboard crown.
Touran Khanom is sitting next to the head of the Parent Teacher Association. The hall is full of students’ parents and family members and of relatives of the teachers and the principal. Touran Khanom has brought Mehrmah and Hasti with her.
Akhtar Iran remained home to watch Shahin. She tied the child’s leg with a long rope to a large stone that is in the corner of the courtyard so that he couldn’t stray from her sight. With that rope on his leg, Shahin could go one paving stone’s distance from the pool and return. Akhtar Iran sat to clean herbs.
The performance has begun. The girls have sung the national anthem while everyone stood and then sat. Khayyam, with his white beard, has leaned on two cushions. His beard has been attached a little crookedly. It will probably fall off. A young, angelic girl in a silk dress comes onstage. A decanter and a goblet are in her hands. She pours wine from the decanter into the goblet. With smooth movements, she walks and strolls gracefully. Khayyam removes his hand from his beard and takes the goblet from the girl. But now the beard has separated from his chin. With his left hand, Khayyam puts the beard in its place, and oddly, the beard is now level. The decanter in hand and with shining hair, the girl stretches her free hand toward Khayyam and sings, “O Khayyam, if you are drunk with wine, be merry. If you sit with a rosy-faced beloved, be merry.”
The math teacher—Khayyam—drains the goblet, which contains Pepsi. But he fears extending his goblet toward the girl. Perhaps the beard will decide to fall again. The girl bends and pours Pepsi from the decanter into Khayyam’s goblet. She twirls, a few more graceful steps, and she sings!
O Khayyam, who said there will be a hell?
Who went to hell and who returned from heaven?
The head of the Parent Teacher Association shakes his head and says, “Bless you, Firdowsi.” He whispers in Mrs. Nourian’s ear, “‘This tomb is my resting place.’ From Rostam Farrokhzad’s letter to his brother.”
Mrs. Nourian understands the retired director general saying Firdowsi instead of Ferdowsi and is of the opinion that Persian-speaking Turks like him are full of life. But she doesn’t understand the relationship between the phrase From Rostam Farrokhzad’s letter to his brother and this night of Khayyam.
The second play, that of Bozorgmehr and Anushirvan, with the same beard of Khayyam and with the same actor. This time the beard falls off several times. The math teacher bends and picks up the beard from the floor, and finally he dispenses with the beard altogether.
When the performance is finished and the lights come on, everyone applauds. The beardless Khayyam-Bozorgmehr and all the actors come onstage and take bows.
A woman comes toward Touran Jan, along with the angelic girl who had played the part of Khayyam’s beloved. The woman has a dark complexion. She says, “Mrs. Nourian, my name is Simin . . . , and this niece of mine, Leila, is a student and admirer of yours.”
Touran Jan shakes her hand and asks, “How were the plays?”
Simin laughs and says, “I laughed a lot. I enjoyed their simplicity and their innocence. But I think a mistake was made in the play of Anushirvan and Bozorgmehr.”
“What mistake?”
“When Bozorgmehr discovered the secret of chess, he was not yet in prison and had not been blinded. In the performance, they brought Bozorgmehr in prison clothes and in a neck iron and chains to Anushirvan. A blind Bozorgmehr would not have been able to discover the secret of chess and then invent backgammon in response to the gift of the Indians. But it’s not important. It’s not important at all.”
“No, it is important. What else?”
“The words that Bozorgmehr used about fate are true in India also. Our countries, both countries, were, and are, fated.” Simin sighs and adds, “Our countries are the crossroads of history and the crossroads of events.”
Simin extends her hand to take her leave, but Mrs. Nourian asks about other mistakes in the play. Simin smiles and says, “You know, Mrs. Nourian, Leila said to me, ‘Auntie, tonight wear your wedding dress. I want my favorite teacher to like you.’”
“Still, please go on.”
“Well,” Simin says, “if the gift-bearing Indians spoke in pretend Hindi, that is, in a made-up language, it would be more comical . . . If Anushirvan’s cardboard crown that had been hanging from the ceiling was balanced and Anushirvan was not obliged to raise himself in order to put his head in the crown, it would be better. But this itself made me laugh a lot. And when the precisely aimed crown fell from the ceiling onto Anushirvan’s head and went down to his shoulders, I nearly died of laughter. The scuffle of the actors and Indian messengers to take the crown from Anushirvan’s head, and that finally they brought scissors . . . My God, I was bent with laughter.”
Touran Jan doesn’t even smile. “What else?” she asks.
“Well, from a historical perspective, when the Roman messengers came, Bozorgmehr was in prison and had been blinded. They brought him out of prison, and when he answered the Romans’ questions, Anushirvan again gave instructions to take him back to the dungeon. But in this play, Bozorgmehr seemed comfortable and sat down with his neck iron and chains and white robe, this time completely beardless. And when the shah ordered the singers to sing, minstrels to play, and dancers to dance, Bozorgmehr really enjoyed it. With eyes completely sighted—and, excuse my language—with ogling eyes, he looked all of them up and down.”
“If the Romans also spoke with an invented language,” Touran Jan says, “it would be better.”
After Simin leaves, Touran Jan says to Mehrmah, “That shameless, pompous witch. She shook my self-confidence. To hell with her. I will continue my studies . . .”
“Cousin,” Mehrmah says, “she didn’t know that you are the one who staged these plays. Besides, you yourself asked.”
“Shut up!” Touran Jan says, “Shut up! Shut your trap!”
Oh, that she hadn’t said that. Oh, that her hand had been broken and she hadn’t hit Mehrmah on her head so often . . . Oh that . . .
Touran has just come home from high school . . . The test questions had been difficult. Two or three of the students had turned in blank papers. Touran Jan is thinking.
The telephone rings. A male voice asks, “Are you Mrs. Touran Nourian?”
“Yes.”
“A woman has been in an accident. We found your phone number in her calendar.”
Touran Jan’s teeth are chattering uncontrollably. “What does she look like?” she asks.
“She’s short with a rather dark complexion, and she’s wearing a wig.”
Touran hits her head and says, “God, have mercy. My dear cousin. My sweet Mehrmah.”
At Amir Alam Hospital, she’s directed to her cousin’s room. Blood has fallen on the floor from the hallway into the room. The mattress is bloody. The sheet that has been pulled over Mehrmah is bloody. A man and woman are standing next to the bed. “A jeep hit her on Takht-e Jamshid Street,” the woman says, “just above the embassy, and it left. It left in such a hurry that no one could get its plate number. A crowd gathered. One of the shopkeepers said, ‘I saw that jeep come out of the embassy.’”
“A taxi driver stopped,” the man says. “God bless him. I picked her up and laid her down on the back seat. She was alive. I asked her, ‘Sister, whom shall I notify?’ She pointed to her purse that was in this woman’s hand. This woman and I got in the front seat. The taxi had an accident at the Dowlat intersection. She fell from the back seat to the floor of the car. She was no longer alive.”
Touran Khanom looks at the man and the woman. The clothes of both are bloody. “Truly,” she says, “you two are both Good Samaritans.”
Hasti heard Grandmother’s voice clearly this time. “Horrible Tehran! Day by day you become more horrible. Oh, Moshfeq Kazemi, where are you? My dear Mehrmah, where are you?”
Again, her voice became a murmur and was mixed with snoring. Hasti made the last leaf on the bergamot orange greener. Done. She gathered up her supplies.
She looked at Grandmother. Her eyes were shut. The buttons of her cardigan were open. The buttons of the blouse under her cardigan were also open. Her left breast had been taken out. She had put her hand under the head of an imaginary child, and she said loudly, “Suckle, my dear one. Suckle, light of my life.”
Hasti was frightened. What if Touran Jan has lost her mind? But she remembered that Grandmother often talked loudly in her sleep, or she snored.
Mehrmah Khanom had measured the size of Hasti’s ear with cotton. She had melted the wax and poured it in the hollow of the cotton. When the wax became hardened, she had made the cotton into a ball and said, “At bedtime, put this in your ears, and you won’t hear a thing, even if a bomb goes off . . .”
“Hossein Jan,” Grandmother said, “don’t sit on the downspout. You’ll fall. Hey, what are you doing on the rooftop? Why have you all gathered on the rooftop? Father, Cousin, Mehrmah, Hossein?
“I’m not coming. My prayer chador is lost. My black chador is torn. It wouldn’t be right for me to come to the world of the dead in a torn chador.
“Mehrmah, let go of Eshrat’s hand. It wasn’t right for a twenty-year-old woman to rot in the home of her first husband until the end of her life.
“Eh, now you have taken Simin’s hand. Where are you taking her? What wrong has she done?
“Me? I have erred.
“Well, on whom should I pour out my anger? On whomever is handy.
“Whether innocent or guilty.
“Hossein, my dear. See, didn’t I say Hossein will fall? Catch him, catch him.”
A firecracker exploded in the alley. Hasti asked herself, “Do the kids want to set off firecrackers from New Year’s until Doomsday? Roman rockets? Make noise and bang on house doors for candy?”
She looked at Grandmother. Tears were falling from her cheeks to her lap, and her left breast was still in her hand. She sat next to her and wiped away her tears with her finger.
Grandmother opened her eyes. “Were you dreaming?” Hasti asked.
“All the dead had come to the rooftop. The dead numbered more than the living. They wanted to take me.”