Refuge--A Novel

by Dina Nayeri

  “So you’re admitting to this?” said the judge, a bit too alert now for comfort.

  “Of course not,” said Bahman. “It’s too absurd to dignify.”

  “Absurd he calls it,” said Sanaz’s brother-in-law, “with traitors on every rooftop and the country threatened.” Then he nudged the wooly-bearded man forward. Bahman had to admit that the man was a better storyteller than himself. It was, after all, his profession. He described Bahman’s sitting room, his pillows, his photographs, his samovar. He claimed to have been delivering food with his friend (he clasped the shoulder of the boy with sunflower seeds) and that neither of them was involved in the meeting. But a meeting was taking place; no question. And listen, here are all the damning words they heard, recalled (naturally) in list form . . .

  Bahman wanted to leave—a slow awareness was blooming, not only of the desperation gripping his throat as the witness spoke, but of a quieter longing simply to walk away. From this room, yes, but also the city, this country. He wanted to gather his albums and papers, pack a suitcase, and go. Maybe to an apartment in Cyprus, or to a village in Shomal. He imagined himself living out his days in white drawstring trousers made of light cotton and rolled up to the knees. In the mornings, he would drink his coffee as he walked on a beach or in a garden. And then in the afternoon, he would smoke, eat a plate of fruit, and drink cardamom tea as he read his favorite poets, reciting to himself, testing his memory. He didn’t dare dream of joining Niloo and Kian in America (or was Niloo living in Europe still? It had been so long since they’d talked). Anyway, how would he survive there, and meet his various needs? But maybe his daughter would help—she was a rescuer. When Niloo was small, she took a baby chicken from the farm in Ardestoon, to save it from being slaughtered. She wrapped it in a cloth and sat with it in the back of the car, cradling it in her little fingers all the way home to Isfahan. She named it Chicken Mansoori, after Ali Mansoori, the boy down the street whom she loved. Every day she fed it in the backyard. Its pen was still in the garden and Bahman planned to take that to Cyprus too. One day when Chicken Mansoori had grown into a rooster, and Bahman was exhausted from work, a little delirious from opium, and frustrated with its crowing, he had it killed. Not wanting to waste meat in wartime, Pari cooked it for dinner. When Niloo asked after her bird, Bahman didn’t answer. He told her to eat her food, never meeting her gaze. There was a moment, though, when she knew. He was certain he saw the realization leak from behind her small face. She looked at her plate, then at her Baba. He could see that she was about to wail, but seeing his regret and discomfort, she stopped. She wiped her eyes and took a tearful bite. She ate her chicken friend. That’s how stubborn she was, resolute to unknowable levels.

  Now, out of bewilderment and despair, Bahman whispered, “Your Honor, you just granted a divorce to a dead woman.”

  And who bothers to remember all the other things that were said—the escalating accusations, the documents fetched, the other courts consulted—between insulting a weary, embittered judge and finding oneself in a jail cell?

  When would he be allowed to call someone? Maybe to obtain some money for bribes? He would suffer opium withdrawal soon . . . and worse, sitting in that muggy room alone, he was still married and no closer to freedom. Except for this one growing hope: Niloo would help. She was loyal. She chased the people she loved like a tiny pit bull, rescuing them, forcing conviction and hope into their hearts despite the pangs in her own.

  It was time for him to leave this hellscape of a country.

  “One long, slow madness,” Bahman muttered to his lawyer, when he was finally allowed to see him, and the boy simply replied, “Yes, Agha Doctor.”

  EROTIC REPUBLIC

  AUGUST 2009

  Amsterdam, Netherlands

  After an hour on the closet floor, Niloo’s promised draft emerges. She titles it RULES. Her opening words: I tried to be exhaustive . . . (the first rule of Niloo’s life as a prolific Western woman, and of the many lists that have guided it). She presses send.

  From: Dr. Niloofar Hamidi

  To: Guillaume Leblanc

  Subject: RULES

  I tried to be exhaustive, given stuff we keep getting wrong. But add anything I may have missed.

  (1) Each person does two nice things per day. Before bed, the other person has to guess those items and writes them down. We keep the list for purposes of knowing what we did for each other.

  (2) 1 yell = 1 chore, 1 condescension = 1 chore

  (3) On birthday or sick day, the person has final say, within reason. If a sick person yells or curses, they only get a warning, not a chore. The other person has to take care of them. They have to ask them what they need.

  (4) 15 minutes of phone time from 9 am to 6 pm. Full concentration; no working while talking, but be considerate of each other’s work. Must hear the other person say “bye” before hanging up. Try to end with “I love you.”

  (5) We eat dinners together, not at separate tables (if we’re both home).

  (6) Show interest in each other’s work: if someone wants to discuss a topic or show something they wrote (like when I edited your briefs), you have to listen. Also, find an activity we both like (novels? tennis? The Economist?).

  (7) After 10 minutes of fighting, if nothing is resolved, either party can call a time-out. Talk begins again after 20 minutes of time-out.

  (8) Avoid little hurts. No casual mentions of divorce. No ignoring the other person when they’re mad. No belittling their worries. No asking if supplemental work activities are worth the time or pay (actually, no valuing work in dollars or euros in the first place, because work is work).

  (9) Have more sex? On weekends, if you wake up before the other one, maybe stay in bed till they’re awake too?

  (10) If another fight occurs, add more rules.

  Her fingers dangle idly over her mouth as she rereads what she’s sent—That covers everything, she thinks; I should write a marriage book. She gets up from her corner of the closet, stretches her legs, and tidies the Perimeter. She takes her laptop to the kitchen, where she starts to make herself a cup of tea.

  She refreshes her inbox. Baba’s name peeks out from among store ads and University of Amsterdam Listserv messages. He writes in Finglish (Farsi words in Latin letters—he throws in strange punctuations and misspelled English words just to make things extra headachy in that special Bahman Hamidi way). The subject line is in all capitals, as if Baba is screaming through her computer, a bizarre image since he never raises his voice. He calls himself “dad.”

  Subject: I AM READY

  See you soon in doubai shayad bezoodi? {very nice pelace in doubai} Kian ham hast? man keh hastam. dad

  (See you soon in Dubai maybe soon? {very nice place in Dubai} Kian is there too? I am there anyway. dad)

  An email from Baba is rare and who knows if any reply would reach him—he has a new wife, a hotheaded young thing, possibly younger than Niloo (she doesn’t want to ask). The last time Niloo wrote to him, the curt “doctor Hamidi mashghooleh” (Dr. Hamidi is busy) that landed in her inbox was surely this woman’s work. So she refuses to reply now, though in the past month Baba has contacted her three times. He wants to organize another visit—their fifth since she left Iran in 1987. Niloo is finished with the visits—they are draining and painful and she’s bad at them. She keeps offending him or hurting him and sometimes he looks at her all dead lips and jutting eyebrows as if she’s a manuscript in a language he studied for a month back in fifth grade. These disconnects rouse her at night. The memory of them traps her breath so that it fails halfway up her chest, because she knows that it’s the sign of an unnatural shift—something she once had has died.

  In past visits, Baba has hinted once or twice that she might get him a visa. But the notion of helping her father become a desperate exile, given all his dangerous habits—the opium and the aragh that he claims “salt” his life in Isfahan—makes her shiver. All she can see are the
ways her father exposes her, the many risks. He doesn’t speak English. When he met Gui in Istanbul, he didn’t stop spewing nonsensical Persian idioms. Instead of I need to figure out my situation, or even the stiffer, but still intelligible translation I want to illuminate my fate, he said, I want to light up my homework, because the word illuminate in Farsi is highly literal, as in turning on a lightbulb, and because the word for fate is the same as for homework. How can she inflict this man on the Western world?

  She moves the email to a to-do folder and goes to fetch the screaming kettle.

  When she returns, she finds a message from Gui.

  From: Guillaume

  To: Crazy Chicken

  Subject: Re: RULES

  I’ll add the same thing I always say: you have to trade a few hours of work (or “supplemental work activities” . . . wtf is that?) for something useless. Not exercise or book club or The Economist or anything that helps your sweet little plots for world domination. Wanna show you love me? Waste some time. Meet some low-key people. Cheese making, falconry, folk dance. How about that Iranian poetry group in the Jordaan? Have some pointless fun with all that crazy energy.

  Why does he talk to her this way? She hates that he seems to have read traces of irony in a message she wrote with every sincere intention. Now she wants to fire back something sincere: But I want YOU to show you love me! Or something ironic: 1 condescension = 1 chore. Instead she writes something long and clumsy: My world domination isn’t sweet or little. Also, Iranian poetry doesn’t attract “low-key people.” And it’s extremely useful for collecting loyal armies of minions, soooo . . .

  Too upset to work, she makes herself a Shirazi salad: cucumber, tomato, and red onion drenched in lime and olive oil. She eats the vegetables with a soup spoon, then brings the bowl to her lips. She replays the conversation with Gui, stirring up her anger with each retelling. Waste time? Why does he expect her to behave as if she too grew up grinning drowsily through the sedative fog of her own privilege? Then, conceding that she didn’t, as if she should drop every hardwired habit and fixation by virtue of being connected to him now? She drinks the lime and olive oil to the last drop—she isn’t ashamed of this habit. It’s just instinct left over from another life; olive oil is expensive, and so are limes. But the first time Gui saw her do this, he stared, mouth agape. “You’re from another planet,” he whispered. Niloo grinned and wiped her mouth. Gui knows very well that she can’t waste time. She can’t even waste used lime juice.

  In the late afternoon, she walks to the Jordaan, to the narrow stone street on a canal so meager a fit person could jump over it. She doesn’t admit she’s come looking for Zakhmeh, the Persian squat and arts space that she stumbled onto a few Sundays ago while walking with Gui. “I can’t believe this is here,” she said as she cupped her hands around her eyes and peeked into the foggy window. She explained a little breathlessly that the name is derived from zakhm, the word for wound. But a man who had been smoking a few paces away—curious Iranians were always watching and listening when she took Gui anywhere—explained that a zakhmeh is a plectrum for Eastern string instruments, like the setar. He pulled one from his pocket.

  She thanked the man in Farsi. He cast his heavy eyes on Gui and said without looking at her, “You’re losing your fine accent, khanom. You should come and read some poetry with us.” He nodded to a flyer taped to the window.

  The event was called “Erotic Republic.” “Nice,” said Gui, reading no further. “Yeah, let’s check it out.” She wrote the details on an old business card.

  Erotic Republic: a night of sensual poetry, memory, and imagination:

  English–Farsi poetry night. All readers appreciated, applauded, worshipped! Gather here and share your most lurid stories, fables and myths, poetry, poetry, poetry. Come, listen, and share homemade soup. Doors open at 19.00. Entrance is free, but donations pay the rent (okay, we’re a squat. Donations pay for coriander and tomatoes . . . and a healthy supply of herbal libations).

  Now she thinks, maybe she does want to meet some newly arrived Iranians, people whose accents are still fine and whose memories of home are clear and unwarped. Besides, she loves stories and poetry. And Iranian food too.

  She lingers in the neighborhood until the light wanes and people begin drifting into brown cafés and beer bars in the adjoining streets. In case she needs to duck out and work in a café, she has brought along her backpack, an accessory that has grown up with her, filling with more and more things as her shoulders have strengthened, keeping pace, so that it always feels as heavy as the first time.

  Waiting for the right moment to enter, she grows impatient. She wants to watch these people who have familiar names and might be distant cousins, to study them as she has studied people and objects her entire life: from the men in her father’s photos, to petrified mulberries in Ardestoon orchards, to Russian men in an Italian refugee camp, to packs of teenagers in an Oklahoma McDonald’s. Now Zakhmeh has made her curious, and curiosity is one instinct Niloo rarely ignores.

  Past the industrial metal doors of the former factory, inside the heavily draped gathering space that smells like incense and lentil soup, unwashed pillows marinating in the sweat of strangers and a bounty of weed, she seems strangely American—the room is filled with a mix of dreadlocked Dutch and Middle Eastern hippies, artsy Persians, some hijabi women, and men in all kinds of dress. The artsy ones with long hair and Green Movement wristbands thrill her most—she left Iran too young to experience the underground creative scenes, the parties, the clubs and shows. Not that she partook in any of those things in America. If it had been illegal, though, she might have made a point of developing an interest from a safe distance.

  She walks unnoticed into the room, tosses ten euros into the donation jar, and plops down on a big sage pillow, swinging her backpack to her front and wrapping her legs around it to avoid taking up too much space.

  An older Iranian man with bushy white sideburns offers her a bowl of lentil soup. His spoon is still in the soup and he has taken a few mouthfuls. She smiles, remembering that offering a child food from one’s own bowl is a familiar, uninhibited gesture that her grandfather and every Ardestooni man used to make. She takes it and eats. “Merci, agha,” she says. Thank you, sir.

  “Please . . . call me Mam’mad,” says the man, and she greets him again by his first name, a lovely rural version of Mohammad that she knows intimately; two of her childhood friends, sons of village caretakers, opted for the same gentler form.

  “Will you be reading tonight?” he asks in Farsi. His accent is educated, but he has a lisp. The sh in “tonight” slipping out like a soft, bruised hiss. He is wearing a faded brown jacket, the plastic temples of his glasses lost in the white fluff cascading down his cheek. He looks older than Baba, by a little, and smaller built, by a lot.

  “No, agha . . . Mam’mad agha,” she says, flushing. She didn’t expect to be nervous here. She pulls one leg behind her haunches. “I’m not one of the readers.”

  He clicks his tongue. “No, dear, there are no readers,” he says, spitting now and then. “People go as the poetry moves them. See there?” He points to a stack of papers and a glass of water atop a low stool beside the microphone. “They have poems you can read to us, or you can tell your own private story, or read something you wrote. It’s all unregulated. No rules, no Dutch people. Do you require a smoke?”

  “I see some Dutch people.” She points to two men with blond dreadlocks.

  Mam’mad is already shaking his head. “Swedes. Less ice in the veins.” Then he leans toward her and adds in English, “I hate the Dutch. Fuck Wilders.” In his thick Iranian accent it comes out Fack Vilders.

  Though Niloo has never stumbled onto this scene before—the refugees, activists, artists—she has attended a Green Movement protest or two, hovering in the periphery. She has watched the news from Iran every day since June. She wonders if people like Gui and his colle
agues are aware of what the Iranian exiles suffer here in the Netherlands, without homes, always under threat of deportation, some living in squats, others on the streets. Often when news of Iran pounds too loudly in her head, she diverts her attention to Geert Wilders, the deeply racist (and anti-Islam, anti-immigration) conservative party leader who wants her people out of Holland. He is to be tried soon for hate speech against Muslims, having called the Koran a fascist book and Mohammad the devil. “Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe,” he once said. Sometimes his rants sound like her Baba, except Baba hates all religions, not just one. It baffles her that a country so progressive on health care, elder care, and education can allow this man anything but a clown’s platform. And yet . . . his Party for Freedom (PVV) is growing, and he could become prime minister.

  “Fuck Wilders,” she says and finishes her soup.

  Later she accepts a smoke from Mam’mad, whose wry humor reminds her of Baba when he’s in a dark mood. Halfway through the third reading, she notices a younger Iranian man standing in the back, near the door, smoking with a dark, sharp-chinned woman around forty who keeps touching his chest with one finger. She has thick black curls like coiled twine. The man glances at Niloo and nods. Even in the dim light, she can see that his face bears scars.

  A shy young woman with a girlish voice reads a poem about love and sex. A homeless man wanders in, but no one notices. The couple in the back lean against each other, their flaws covered by smoke and dark, each unknowingly giving the reader the same amused and encouraging but baffled look as the other.