“What did it feel like?” I used to ask them.
“It felt… it felt—” they would stammer not knowing what to tell me, language having left them. Only their eyes articulated what their tongues no longer could.
I was born a captive. And now I am not sure anyone is born free.
3
Yeki Bood, Yeki Nabood,
Gheir az Khuda Hichkas Nabood
That’s how every night my mother started all her stories, with those two lines that made absolutely no sense but which, despite their logical impossibility sounded musical enough to start me on a night of sweet dreams and restless wondering. An itch would gnaw at the sides of my spine, and by the time the story ended, wings would spring to lift me from the shambles of reality and into a heaven of ideas. And my mother, with a slightly orange face in the shaded light of the lamp, would always tell me: “You don’t need wings to fly. All you need is your imagination. All you need is a heart full of love.” I’d stare, smitten, at the oval holes of her nostrils, at the few pinheaded black hairs on her rounded chin, which she sometimes made me tweeze, and I’d wait for her to unlock the door of my cage and release me: her lovesick nightingale.
Dreams were for free, no one could take mine away. During the eight years of a war that orphaned children and widowed mothers, that amputated dark-skinned fathers and beheaded brothers on both sides of a vicious line called border, I ventured out of my nascent cage only when the rest of the world slept, and in the darkness of the night, free from the evils of this life, I fluttered toward the moon, and only in her light did I sleep.
My mother was an English student whose ambition was to become a teacher. She learnt English in school, and then practiced it with an American family that had —before the Revolution— lived three blocks from our house. By the time the Shah was dethroned, our American neighbours were already back in that distant nosy country, mowing their lawns and painting their picket fences. My mother had a thing for her teacher (it runs in the family), a certain Mr. Carl who was, according to my father, a CIA agent. During the Revolution, when the Morality Police raided houses to confiscate anything that they deemed immoral (everything from playing cards to alcohol but also any pictures of scarf-less women), my mother and father dug a huge hole in our garden and buried in it all their books, magazines, and their own un-Islamic pictures. That’s how memories and knowledge were preserved in my house. They had to be smothered to stay alive.
When, due to her unplanned pregnancy, my mother had to drop out of university, her only way of fulfilling her dream of teaching was through me: I was her only student. I learnt English very quickly, but it was years later that I perfected my pronunciation of certain words. For a long time Hawaii was Havaii, waitress was vaitress, and knife, I am ashamed to say, was kenife.
4
My second favourite story was the story of my birth, preceded only by the story of how I was conceived, a story my mother never told me but one that I heard through the grapevine. One cannot have secrets here, not those types of secrets anyway. They were special stories because my life could have still been saved; at that time it could have gone either way. She could have had an abortion, or could have killed us both. She could have fled the country, as many people had done and were still doing. Life was playing Russian roulette with my fate, but somehow it was always my temple that faced the open mouth of a gun. And each time I made the acquaintance of a bullet, I’d realize that I never pulled the trigger once, it was never me. Someone in my life always volunteered.
She had mistaken her contractions for mere stomach pains, and though her bags for the hospital had been laid and ready weeks in advance, she had only called my father when her water broke. “Be strong, I love you,” was what he told her before panicking and dialing random numbers and asking any woman who picked up to please help his wife. When my mother was releasing herself from nine months of carrying me, our black and white TV was standing on its wooden legs like a strange beheaded electronic animal, watching as my mother pushed me out of her and into this world, playing muted news that everyone was following.
A new Sherriff was in town. Out with the new, in with the old!
My mother lay on a mattress that they later got rid of because of all the bloodstains. My maternal grandmother Nana Farangis sat behind her, pressing my mother’s head to her own heavy chest and wiping with her brown hand a face that dripped hasty pearls of sweat all the way down to her belly. After five hours of shouting and pleading, of alternating swiftly between praying to God and cursing Him for making her a woman, of biting on a pillow, of almost pulling my granny’s arm out and kicking the midwife in her breasts so vindictively that my young aunt Bahar had to run and get the poor woman a glass of water, the fight was over and I surrendered. I emerged, with the combined effort of my grandmother and a foulmouthed neighbourhood midwife, slick and juicy like a pink and purple moist fruit, delicate and ready to burst. I was delivered from the womb of time, from an eternity of darkness to a reality of light, bombs and sunshine, of nightingales that travelled the skies freely, blind to borders while my people perished caged. I awoke to a world where fields were swept by bright red poppies that spotted with longing the green of the earth. Head first, with the bulgy angry features of pressed eyes and a convulsed mouth, my long neck and torso followed, with arms and legs sticking out extended and wiry, promising me the gift of height and a flat-chested adolescence. Finally, a full and rounded bottom which in addition to my lips, the few men I’ve slept with loved the most about my body. The first blur I saw when I emerged in my upturned position was the lit TV. I didn’t cry, I didn’t breathe. I just wanted to hide, to be pushed back into my mother and to stay in her forever. I wanted to go back to sleep in that darkness that was safe. Far away from what was happening. But the midwife delivered to my back three heavy smacks that I was forced to cry despite myself. Physical pain was more real than the intangibility I foresaw of my future. When my father finally arrived from work and held me bundled up in his arms, he cried, and the tears of joy and sorrow that merged and painted his face then, continued to paint my mother’s whenever throughout my childhood she had told me that story, a story she always ended by saying: “My lovesick nightingale, the day the world met you was the most painful and meaningful of my life.”
Mothers and fathers are ruthless sinners. They condemn many souls to an existence of exile, of failed dreams and marriages, of suicidal lovers and of death and incarcerations, because of their love and hope, because of their selfish needs, as if they didn’t know better, as if life hadn’t taught them better. Parents are thoroughly and truthfully the worst of criminals.
5
Hanging.
There are worse ways of dying than hanging. You could be stoned to death, or crushed in a car accident. You could fall; surprise the world and tumble down a rooftop while removing snow off a satellite dish, or trip out of a window feeding a sparrow. You could be clearing your throat to cock, spreading your rainbow feathers, slip into a neighbour’s garden and be strangled by a little girl. You could be dragged to the backside of this jail and shot, under the open sky while a wall of tiny incarcerated eyes you had spent time with watched from slits and barred crystalline squares. The last thing you hear could be the echoing whine of the bullet inside you, or possibly, the startled flapping of scared wings. The best way is to die with your whole family. To all of you, just leave together. Snap out of existence toward the finish line like sprinters, charging with your arms flailing, grinning at the cameras. Though I must say that hanging in Iran can be just as despicable to watch, and no doubt to experience, as any stoning. I wonder if they are going to drop me and hear my neck snap and head separate the old-fashioned way or if they will winch me up on a crater, strangling me by the neck like a stray dog and watch me suffocate from my own resurrected desire to live, to break free. Justice Will Be Served!
I prefer the second for two reasons. First, it is fair. And seco
nd, I want to be beamed up into the sky, like Jesus and unlike Judas, who rustled shamefully with the tree that held him. I want the horizon to be the last thing I see. Let them winch me up. It’s more a testament to my belief and to their disgusting cruelty. I’ll submit to my destiny without a struggle. I will show them.
I don’t like surprises. At least I know how and when. How many people have that luxury of knowing?
6
Do murderers have obituaries?
I imagine mine…
Ms. Sheyda Porrouya of Tehran, Iran died on the 11th of March 1999 from a broken neck after hanging by a court order from a noose.
Sheyda Porrouya was born on the 1st of April, 1979, the only daughter of the late Rustam and Arezoo Porrouya who were both killed under separate but equally tragic circumstances. Following graduation from Fatima Zahra High School, Sheyda immediately sat for her concour exam (university entrance exam) and passed with flying colours. She spent her first and only year in university studying voraciously, excelling at subjects such as Persian History and Mythology, English and Poetry, and leaving a very strong impression on those students and teachers who crossed paths with this unconventional and fiery young soul.
Ms. Sheyda was known by one and all as an incorrigible dreamer. Sheyda, the owner of a very unique and congenial disposition, was also an adventurous sprightly thing with endless stories to tell, and a relentless lover who believed with all her heart and being in the triumphant nature of love and in happy buttery and everlasting endings. Though her early death, brought on by the just decision of a hanging, meant that Sheyda didn’t live to accomplish her small dreams of loving the whole world, and in her own misunderstood way, rescuing it, it was her firm belief that we all, each and every single one of us, had an hour to shine, and that her timely death was her hour of shining.
Ms. Sheyda’s interests included an admirably and steadily growing collection of angel figurines, books, especially ones translated by the mysterious but brilliant Mustafa Sepehr. She was a natural and very gifted writer, though none of her writings would ever see the light of day, due to political correctness and reasons that reek of cultural and religious sensitivity. Some of her writings were also deemed as harbouring hate and hostility for the Islamic Regime and thus were burnt after her death. She was a keen observer of both birds and man, noting that in terms of freedom, birds always had the upper hand, or in this very instance, the upper wing.
Ms. Sheyda Porrouya is survived by her incarcerated teddy-bear, her faithful rag doll, Laleh, a universe that stops ticking for no one, and her many beautiful and undying dreams.
The Briefcase
Ethan Canter
Coughing into his handkerchief K– turns onto the old metal bridge. The wind across the water sprays freezing rain against his face, batting him from side to side as he walks. He narrows his eyes and hunches his shoulders, tries to hide behind the shelter of his up-turned collar. He cups his hands and warms them with his breath, but it makes him cough again. He digs his hands into his pockets and rubs his fingers against his palms, but the tingling, nearly anaesthetized sensation only makes them ache more.
A dirty, beady-eyed pigeon hobbles to the edge of the bridge. As K– passes, it takes flight. He watches it drop towards the water below, then disappear under the bridge.
A transport truck barrels past, making the bridge shake, and pulling behind it a thick mist of rain and diesel exhaust.
Across the bridge and halfway down a vacant street fluorescent light glows through the condensation-covered all-glass front of a café-bar. Through it K– sees a blur of movement. As he gets closer he hears the drone of voices from inside.
The gust of cold air as he enters draws only a little attention. A few heads turn. The barman nods. And the door sucks itself closed behind him.
The café-bar is a long, high-ceilinged room with the bar in the middle and tables and chairs all around it. The barren walls are white and dirty. The ceiling is dirty and spotted with watermarks. And the fluorescent lights, uncovered and screwed to the ceiling, cast no shadows, only debase the room further with their spray of uniformity.
At the bar, a rectangular island with high counters and no stools, K– orders a glass of hot water with lemon and a small bottle of vodka. His foot butts against something. He looks down and sees a shiny, black leather briefcase.
Scanning the room he spots Dag alone at a table against the wall, his eyes fixed on him and his hand raised and calling him over. As he sidesteps between two crowded tables a small hand grabs his arm. The hot water spills over the rim of the glass and burns his still numb fingers.
“Does it work good?” Veronika asks, looking back and up from her chair, her soft hair damp from the rain, her small breasts pulling at his downwards glance, and the gap from her missing tooth bringing back the memory of the sensation of his tongue accidentally slipping into it.
“It’s good, yes,” he says.
“You should come over and see my new one,” she says, letting her hand graze his leg as she lets go of his arm. “It’s bigger, and has colour.”
“Sure,” he says, his eyes drifting from her smile down to her breasts again.
“She’s pretty,” Dag says.
K– grunts softly in agreement, his elbows on the table, the glass of hot water and lemon in both hands held to his lips, the steam opening and warming his lungs.
“She’s pretty,” Dag repeats, turning and looking at her. “But she sleeps with everyone.”
K– looks over at Veronika, the hot steam wetting his upper lip. “That’s alright,” he says.
Feeling their eyes on her, Veronika looks up. Twisting and tilting her head, she blows Dag a facetious kiss—he responds with a half-grin and a grunt. But as her eyes meet K–’s an unaffected, almost embarrassed look of affection crosses her face.
Without thinking K– takes a deep breath of the steam and then tries to hold back a cough. Veronika lowers her eyes as she’s pulled back into the conversation at her table. K–’s look wanders past her to the lone briefcase still sitting on the floor by the bar.
“Why don’t you marry her?” Dag says, relighting a thin cigar.
K– clenches the handkerchief in his hand and feels the heaviness of his body slouched in the chair.
“She would marry you I think,” Dag says, crossing his thick, muscular legs. “And she’s very pretty.”
K– fills their two small glasses with vodka.
“Tell me,” Dag says, pinching a piece of tobacco leaf from his lip and wiping it on his dark jean trousers. “Why don’t you marry her?”
K– looks over at Veronika again. The young man across from her, with dark, slicked-back hair is talking—Veronika reaches across the table and covers his mouth with her hands—he grabs them, kisses them, smiles and keeps talking. Turning her head she catches K–’s eyes on her again. She covers her face with her hands. Then parting her fingers exposes one, then the other of her eyes to K–. This makes her laugh.
“I’m too old,” K– says quietly, turning his glass of vodka in little circles on the table.
Veronika’s young man heads to the bar, walking sidewise, walking backwards, still talking.
“Bah! You are like a child,” Dag says. “I know. I know you.”
The young man backs into the briefcase at the bar and knocks it over. K– stops fingering his glass, his eyes fixed on the briefcase. The young man turns, with open hands, ready to apologize—but there’s no one there. He rights the briefcase, shrugs his shoulders to his friends at the table, and turns to catch the barman’s eye.
“Out here,” Dag goes on, touching his hands and chest and face, “maybe you are not so young out here, okay. But that is nothing. Only the vain think they don’t get old.”
“Maybe you’re right,” K– says offhandedly, again turning his glass in circles.
“Maybe?” Dag says, feigni
ng exasperation. Then leaning in a little, adds, playfully, “And maybe you are old, no?”
K– can’t prevent a slight smile and chuckle.
“Good,” Dag says, leaning back with satisfaction. “It is good to laugh.” His small glass of vodka looks like a thimble-cup between his thick, weathered fingers. He clinks it against K–’s, in a deep voice says “Christos,” and then downs it in one gulp.
K– drinks his vodka in three small swallows. And before he’s set the glass back down on the table Dag’s refilling it again.
“I want to tell you something,” Dag says, the change in his voice drawing K– to look up at him. His eyes are heavy in their sockets. And his face, taut and weathered like a hide, only one day unshaven, seems, for the first time in K–’s memory, to falter. Dag holds his glass from the bottom, between his thumb and two fingers, and looks down into it as though there were something there to contemplate. K– watches him breathing, watches his chest inflate and deflate, inflate and deflate—and in the silence between them this mechanicalness makes K– uneasy, nervous. Dag grins slightly, to himself, lifts the vodka to his lips, throws his head back, and drinks it down.
“I have been thinking,” Dag says. “A bad man does good things to forget that he is bad.” Looking down he refills his glass. “And a good man does bad things to remind him that he is good.” He reaches across and refills K–’s glass. “I am a bad man,” he says, gesturing with the bottle and meeting K–’s eyes. “And you,” he says, with a smile and pointing the bottle at K–, “you are a good man.” Replacing the bottle on the table he adds, “It is funny, no?”
“Funny?” K– asks.
“You and I,” he says, gesturing with his hand. “Like day and night.”
Everything Is So Political Page 6
