WHY DID ALL IRANIANS in Toronto know Soleiman? Nobody knew. Soleiman wasn’t wealthy; he wasn’t a poet, a writer, a musician, or a singer. He didn’t boast university or scientific titles. Soleiman was an ordinary person who chose to be silent. But Soleiman’s silence spoke volumes and people read words into his silence. Some believed Soleiman had never opened his mouth to speak. He was always quiet when they saw him. But it wasn’t true. Other had heard him tell the story of his past, a past as mysterious as his silence.
Some believed Soleiman was raised in a city at the edge of the desert, a city full of impatient, gloomy, and thirsty people. A city imprinted in Soleiman’s face and eyes. Soleiman had told many stories about the city’s long, burning, boring summers—bittersweet stories. People retold these stories in Soleiman’s presence with the hope that he would confirm or deny them. He listened and said nothing.
Others believed Soleiman came from a mountainous area. They believed they had heard Soleiman describe the cold winter, gusting winds, hardworking people who didn’t think about anything but how to conquer the summit hidden under the clouds. It seems that Soleiman had nice memories of this city, unlike the desert city that dragged energy from people, that made people struggle. The mountain, which sheltered the city, frightened people. The people believed there was a monster hidden on the summit of the mountain, a monster that should be killed. People worried about climbing the mountain, reaching its summit, and finding the monster that threatened them.
Others thought Soleiman was from a city in the North, close to the Caspian Sea. They said that Soleiman had described tall poplars, willows, cedars, and plane trees whose brimming greenness in summer was like a wavering hallucination in the desert. The winter was rainy, days turning quickly to night filled with dreams and memories. Soleiman spoke so elegantly about this city, that listeners could feel the breeze passing over their skins and hear the waves that crashed on its shores.
Everyone who knew him believed Soleiman was a good listener. Many witnessed the hours he spent by the lake at the south end of the city, listening to the waves or the sea gulls that careened and screeched over the lake’s rocky shore. When he strolled in the lush parks of this city, he sometimes stopped walking to listen to bird songs or to the gentle whisper of the breeze. At those moments, there was ecstasy in his eyes, excitement at the sounds of the day that enveloped him. So Soleiman wasn’t deaf or mute; many had heard him speaking, many had listened to his stories as well.
So why did Soleiman choose silence? It was a mystery. Even though people didn’t know why, they wouldn’t admit it. They considered their own lack of knowledge a fault, so every one claimed that they knew why, everyone had their own reasons to explain the mystery; reasons that might have had nothing to do with Soleiman’s silence at all.
Some believed Soleiman was bored by living in exile, that he was homesick. These people had strong reasons for their own silence, but not for Soleiman’s silence. They believed that exile pushes people into isolation, seclusion, and finally, and inevitably, to silence.
More than a few believed Soleiman chose to be silent because he hadn’t been able to learn the new language. These people attributed their own problems to Soleiman, and cried sincerely for him. But a wise person knew these were crocodile tears.. Soleiman’s problem, if he had one at all, wasn’t that he didn’t know the language. He could speak the language before he left Iran; in fact, he had started learning it in kindergarten. On arrival, he had a little trouble understanding the language because of the common accent, but when he heard the words clearly, he had no problem with comprehension. Soleiman’s enigma wasn’t language. Furthermore, Soleiman had lived in this country for years. He had attended school, learned new skills, and worked in this country. He had relationships with people of this country. There’d also been TV—his companion, night and day. Many remembered that Soleiman had listened carefully to the news, and read the newspapers. Soleiman wasn’t illiterate in English.
But if Soleiman chose to be quiet, other people, people who liked to comment on everything, spoke too much. They made such a fuss, filling the air with busy words, so that even the most patient became impatient and urged them to be quiet. These busy bodies talked and talked about Soleiman’s silence. Sometimes they spoke of it right in front of him. He heard them and, strangely, didn’t react.
Some people believed Soleiman needed to see a psychologist or even a psychiatrist. He might have a complex of some kind, something that forced him to be silent. A psychologist or a psychiatrist might help. Perhaps Soleiman was mentally ill; maybe, he couldn’t assimilate in the exile society. But these people forgot that Soleiman had been living in exile a long time and that he had suddenly chosen to be silent. In answer to these people, others claimed that Soleiman was an egoist and too proud. They said words are the only way to forge relationships among human beings. If someone doesn’t answer questions, or remains silent around others, it means he doesn’t respect them. For these, there is no viable reason to leave questions unanswered. These people believe human beings are talking animals. One who doesn’t speak denies humanity. These people ignored Soleiman. They were hurt by Soleiman’s silence. They even wished him dead because Soleiman’s silence was an insult to all people who liked to offer their opinions on every aspect of life.
One thing was clear, no one really knew the real reason for Soleiman’s silence. Soleiman, like all immigrants, left his own homeland and landed in this city, thousands of kilometres away from the place he called home. Soleiman once spoke like others did. He laughed, cried, joined in discussions. Some said he told good jokes and made people laugh, that he talked about his memories and his family. Now, nobody knew what had happened to them, really, and they gossiped about this in different ways because Soleiman said nothing about this either. What had happened to Soleiman? Why had he suddenly become quiet?
Iranians in the city didn’t stay quiet about Soleiman’s silence. They continued to express their opinions on his silence at any gathering. Sometimes this discussion would become so heated the even the most patient people became impatient and annoyed. Interestingly, if Soleiman was present, he said nothing and showed no reaction.
Soleiman became a constant topic of discussion. As if the people around him had nothing better to do but argue about Soleiman. Strangely, Soleiman became more sullen, more reserved, more determinately silent. There were people among the immigrants who had pity for Soleiman and wanted to cure his illness, if he had one. And they kept the discussion about Soleiman heated.
It is said, that once the argument was so heated that it ended in cursing, kicking, and fighting. Soleiman had been present, watching the people fighting without reaction, when he suddenly burst into flame and in an instant was turned into a handful of ashes piled onto his chair where he had sat just a moment before. The flame lasted only a few seconds and many hadn’t seen it, especially those busy fighting and disputing. Only a very few saw Soleiman transform into a ball of fire and then a clump of ashes. Those who didn’t see the flames didn’t believe the witnesses. These people trusted only what they saw with their own eyes. They saw the ashes, but doubted they were Soleiman’s.
Again, there was much discussion. But, as the majority agreed that Soleiman had indeed been burnt to ashes, and as Soleiman was no longer ever seen at any other gathering, they thought it best to bury Soleiman’s ashes. They believed if the ashes were really Soleiman’s, they should be buried in the soil, as all the deceased are buried in the soil for their eternal sleep. As usual, there were different opinions on this matter. Some people said the ashes shouldn’t be buried in soil, because they already had been changed to soil. According to them, it was better to scatter Soleiman’s ashes in the lake at the south end of the city, the lake that gave the city its historical identity should be Soleiman’s eternal home.
Others had different ideas. They said that Soleiman had spent most of his spare time in a park located in the heart of the city. They said Soleiman was familiar with all the trees, bushes, and flowers in this park, all the paths through the high and low lands of the park. They said he had spent long hours on a particular bench, dissolving his presence and memory into the trees surrounding it. They insisted Soleiman was close to the swans, ducks, geese, squirrels, and the hundreds of birds that made the park a magnificent place for him. So, they argued, it was fitting that Soleiman’s ashes be spread throughout the park, some of them left on the leaves of trees, or on his favourite bench, and some strewn over the park’s lake to mingle with the swans, geese, and ducks that lived there.
As no one could agree on this matter, the jar of Soleiman’s ashes was left intact, moved periodically from one house to another. There were many meetings held to discuss Soleiman’s ashes, and a great deal was discussed at all the meetings, but no decisions were ever made.
The presence of Soleiman’s ashes bothered the residents of each house like a difficult question. For that reason, the residents of the city invited the new immigrants, who felt responsibility for any problem in the community, to attend the meetings and discuss this issue with them over the long hours of the meeting. The endless speaking and sharing of ideas had become a way of life for them, the result of an unwanted immigration to an unfamiliar land, and struggling with problems that seemed to have no answers, but appeared in different shapes and sizes, forced people to try to find solutions.
The guardian of Soleiman’s ashes began to change after every meeting and each new guardian felt more responsible than the last toward the ashes. The presence of Soleiman’s ashes disturbed the guardians and made them feel guilty. So each looked for a solution harder than the others and invited even more people to yet another meeting. And again, after hours of discussion and exchanging ideas, the meeting would end without agreement and sometimes with fighting and kicking. The ashes would be moved to another house.
This didn’t last forever. One evening, while the ashes were being transported through the downtown, through a busy, crowded intersection where all the world’s races crossed, and where many a skinny old man played trumpet on the corner, the jar of Soleiman’s ashes dropped to the ground and shattered into a thousand little pieces. On each corner of the intersection there was a huge high-rise, and the wind, which always whipped through the city, was always at this corner more unbridled, slapping the faces of the pedestrians without mercy. This savage, cruel wind grasped Soleiman’s ashes and dispersed them in an instant throughout the big city.
The guardians of Soleiman’s ashes hurried to collect them, but they were not able to retrieve them. Some of the ashes stuck to the soles of pedestrians from all around the world, pedestrians of different races and different nationalities, who walked away unaware of the spirit they carried under their feet. And then, a heavy rain pelted the sidewalks and washed away the ashes that had stuck to the street into the sewer, then to the lake, the symbol of life in this city.
Those who had been carrying Soleiman’s ashes breathed easily. They described the accident to all the immigrants in a big meeting. They believed that Soleiman’s spirit had dissolved into the heart of the city, the heart of life in the city, and the heart of all races and nationalities. He was in the lake, in the high-rise apartment buildings, in the parks, and in the fields around the city. He travelled to the Pacific, to the Atlantic and to the Arctic oceans, all of which surrounded the three sides of this country, his ashes flowing in the world’s waters, some perhaps even becoming frozen particles encased in ice atop the world’s mountains.
Yes, it was like that. And the story of Soleiman and his reasonable or unreasonable silence is still a mystery to our immigrant community.
The original version of this story appeared in a collection of short stories, Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been, published by the University of Arkansas Press in 2006.