My Part of Her

by Javad Djavahery

  Then, one morning, they came to get me while I was sleeping, with a feverishness, a nervousness that presaged nothing good, like in the early days of my incarceration. It happened sometimes, when a comrade was grabbed and interrogated, revealing a few names, casting an unexpected spotlight on a corner of shadow, where another person like me was holed up quietly. So we were back to the good old methods, the slaps and insults, the cable blows on the soles of our feet. It usually didn’t go further than that. A few rough hours, nothing more. But, this time, things felt more serious. The guards didn’t leave me the time to get dressed and, after handing me a hood, they led me across a good part of the prison, which was unusual. What was happening? Had a large fish fallen into the net? Most likely, but who? For a long time, there hadn’t been any large fish swimming in the troubled waters of the country. They were dead, incarcerated, or in exile. They sat me on a metallic chair, in the middle of an empty room, where they left me for a few long minutes. Then I heard scraps of conversation, and soon the sound of footsteps in the hallway. The door opened. Several people entered the room. Instinctively, I readied myself for the blows. Instead, I heard another pair of footsteps, more discreet, more muted, a friction of plastic sandals on the floor. I knew that sound well. The footsteps of a prisoner. They stopped near me. “Take off your hood” they ordered me. I obeyed. Almost as soon as I had revealed my face, they commanded me to hide it again. “You know him?” asked a voice. The question was directed at another prisoner. A barely audible “yes” was spoken. “Louder!” bellowed the same voice. There was a moment of silence, heavy, unending, after which I heard a resounding “Yes!” Strong, resolute, cutting. It was the voice of a woman. Of Niloufar.

  Perhaps you have had similar experiences? It’s in those moments that you realize everything you’ve done in your life had no other purpose than to lead you to that exact moment, that exact place. Each day of your life was drawing you nearer to it, preparing you for it. In a certain way, even your birth predestined you for it. And voilà, there you are!

  That’s when I saw, from beneath my flour sack whose thick fabric was permeated with the scent of all those who had worn it before me, a mix of sweat and the odors of scalp and dried blood, that’s when I saw the feet of the prisoner who was standing before me. And that sight froze me with fear. In the thick black socks, in the compulsory bottle-green sandals, I glimpsed swollen ankles and deformed shins. But where were the slender legs, the thin joints, of Niloufar?

  “You know him then?” the man asked again. “Yes,” the voice repeated, tired. “And how do you know him?” insisted the interrogator. “How do I know him?” repeated the prisoner with an arrogance that was absolutely Niloufar’s. A few seconds passed, before she added in a tone full of disdain: “He’s my cousin.” And, without her saying it, I heard the implied “dickhead” addressed to the man.

  The wet smack of a hand slapping a face made me jump. Then other blows followed, sounds of footsteps, creaking of chairs, shouts. Niloufar seemed not to want to let it happen and yelled insults without worrying about the consequences.

  When it was calm again, someone asked me to stand up and face the wall, before tearing off the hood. The light made me close my eyes for a few moments. Then I opened them again and turned around. I wanted to see Niloufar, I wanted to see my work, the fruit of my machinations. She was mine once again. My God, what had they done to her? She had a devastated face, hollowed by fatigue, her skin wrung dry and her gaze empty. Our eyes met and remained fixed on each other’s for an amount of time I wouldn’t be able to describe—a second, a minute, an eternity. Then, on her impassive face, which displayed neither fear, nor hatred, nor anything, an expression appeared, like a smile, that uncoiled over her blue lips. It was almost a laugh, her former laugh, intact. She was still the “Nilou” of my memories. I couldn’t wrest my eyes from her, deaf to the cries addressed to me, to the blows that were now raining down on me. Perhaps I was seeing her for the last time. Then I saw her lower her eyes. My cheeks were burning. How many times had I been slapped? I didn’t know. But I felt nothing. I lowered my head, too. In the silence, I could make out her breath, the same breath she had when she resurfaced from a long dive, triumphant, a seashell in her hand.

  There was a commotion around us. People were coming and going constantly in the room, which was packed. And yet the count was not complete. They were waiting for someone. He was on the way, he would arrive in just a moment. I tried for a few seconds to forget that Niloufar was at my side, to gather my spirits. Clearly, she had not yet confessed anything. The freshness of her wounds, the vigor with which she had rebelled just now, reinforced my hypothesis. She was hiding something from them, but what? A name? An address? They wanted to make her talk through any means necessary. They were searching for her weak points, a crack in the wall that she had put up around herself. And that crack was me. At least, that’s what they thought. If not, what was I doing there?

  As I would learn later, Niloufar had been arrested in the house of a sympathizer. She had hidden there, even though she knew that the house was no longer a secure hiding place. But she hadn’t had a choice. She was sick, eroded by a fever, prone to bleeding. They had found her in the bed, soaked with sweat and blood. Despite her state, she had managed to throw herself out of the car driving her to prison. She had run along several streets, crossed several blocks of houses, and, in the end, had jumped a wall, nearly succeeding in shaking off the militias, but was denounced by a Hezbollahi who had seen her pass. And so Niloufar was nabbed in a dead end, exhausted, betrayed by her sick body and by a man who was, by a stroke of bad luck, on the wrong side.

  The background noise suddenly changed. Everything became quieter, as if someone had lowered the volume of the room. Even Niloufar had awoken from her semi-consciousness. I hadn’t been mistaken. Someone arrived, a guest of high rank, even, judging by the length of bows addressed to him. I heard a name repeated several times: “Brother Saleh,” then “Sardar Saleh.” Why would a high-ranking member of the Pasdaran have traveled here? When he entered, he started to bound around the room. All that could be heard were his footsteps, whose curious rhythm evoked the gait of a crippled person. Then the footsteps drew nearer to me. He stopped moving when he got to me. Head lowered, facing the wall, I couldn’t see anything but his khaki pants and his impeccably waxed military shoes. His body was nearly touching mine. He smelled clean, like a mausoleum, a mix of freshly washed sheets, rosewater, and jasmine. Then the sound of footsteps started again as he walked toward Niloufar. Slowly. He lingered near her for a moment, before starting to pace again. The silence was disturbed only by a few distant, fearful whisperings. Niloufar had awoken. Her breathing had changed, like a freshly tuned violin. I sensed her stand up straight, then turn toward me, as if to assure herself that I was still there.

  Sardar Saleh. Where had I heard that name? Who was this man? No doubt one of the former lords that the war had fabricated, one of those poor guys who come from nothing, modest teachers, taxi drivers, even bicycle repairmen, which accident, chance, or fortune had placed at the head of thousands of men. Then, once the war was over, they were at the height of power, they had been transformed into businessmen, mayors of big cities, prefects, governors. Curses in disguise for a society trying to reestablish peace.

  For how long did he pace behind us? I couldn’t tell you. Time seemed to stand still. Suddenly, a high voice, squeaky and authoritative, rung out. It wasn’t addressing us but the others. He wanted to know the location and date of Niloufar’s arrest. Then he asked a few questions regarding the state of her health. He asked if a doctor had examined her. Annoyed by the response, he swore, or, at least, cried out what could be called Quranic blasphemy, a particular exclamation used by the clergy or dignitaries of high rank. And he started pacing the room again. He approached me, got very close. His hand touched the bottom of my face. It was soft, plump, and warm. He then exerted a light pressure on my chin and lifted my head so I could see him. The man was large. He w
as wearing the uniform of officers of the Pasdaran army. His shirt was perfectly white, buttoned all the way to the top. I didn’t dare look at his face, I could only see the lower half, with his gray beard, carefully clipped. He lifted my head a bit more. Then I made eye contact with him, fleetingly but sufficiently for his unusual face to imprint on my memory. He was wearing a pair of black glasses, not sunglasses, but reading glasses with tinted lenses, for people with photophobia. His forehead was marred by a deep scar, a diagonal gash through the right eyebrow and visible even behind the dark lens of his glasses; it gave a threatening look to his face, which was barely softened by a light fold at the corner of his lips that seemed like the beginning of a smile but was in reality another scar.

  For a moment, I had the impression that I had seen him before—even that he was someone I knew. I was almost certain. He stared at me for a moment, as if he were searching for something in my features. “Can you please tell me what your exact relationship is with Mademoiselle Niloufar Sedaghat?” he murmured in my ear in a clear, calm, almost respectful voice. I answered that Mademoiselle Sedaghat was my cousin. I didn’t want to say any more about it: emphasizing our familial relation seemed sufficient to me, and inoffensive. But I was interrupted, and the beginnings of a smile floating on his face finally appeared. “That, I already know,” he said. “I’d like for you to tell me about the nature of your relationship.” I felt that I was losing my footing. “What relationship?” I asked him to specify, as if I didn’t understand what he was insinuating. He began again, in a slightly agitated voice: “During the years ’78 and ’79, then the years that followed the revolution, you regularly went to the house of Monsieur and Madame Sedaghat, the parents of the mademoiselle. Can you tell me the reason?” I had to tell him something. I searched, but nothing came to mind. I could have told him that the Doctor was depressed, and I was taking care of his affairs, or else that Niloufar’s mother had offered to give me piano lessons. Niloufar would have understood, she could have built on it. But I remained silent.

  Faced with my silence, the man moved away from me and turned toward Niloufar. She was enveloped in a shapeless and dirty chador, beige, torn in places, made of a fabric with indecipherable patterns. The siren of the Caspian seemed far, so far away. She had raised her head and was looking at the man in charge with the eyes of a wounded fawn. They stared at each other for a moment. “Dear mademoiselle,” Sardar Saleh suddenly said, without raising his voice, “describe for me your relationship with this man.” As I had, she responded that I was a family member, that it was normal for members of the same family to visit each other, and that was all she had to say.

  The limping giant acquiesced. The young woman’s response seemed to conform to his expectations. Then he walked away. I heard him talking to another person. A moment later, the prison’s head doctor entered. After a brief examination, he decided to take Niloufar for a more in-depth auscultation. Was that a good sign? Or the beginning of the end? The water that Muslims give the sheep to drink before slitting their throats? In any event, the room emptied. They had forgotten me, facing the wall, with a chair to my right. I remained seated and I waited.

  I was alone for a good hour, perhaps longer. Then the room filled back up again. And the “tap, taap, tap, taap,” of the cripple began again. They stood me up. I realized that I could turn my head, that I could look at the others. I couldn’t help interpreting this as a bad sign. They had changed the layout of the chairs. Now I was facing the center of the room. Four men were in front of me. Sardar Saleh was standing near the door, arms crossed over his chest. He was looking at his underlings, pensive. He was waiting for something. I observed him discreetly. There was a strange, enigmatic je ne sais quoi about him. His features were blurred, as if the scars had scrambled them. Furthermore, he had to be younger than he seemed in his elegant uniform. Even the physical power he emanated seemed artificial. And his limp seemed to be less of a handicap than a nervous tic.

  They brought Niloufar back in. She was walking slowly, stumbling slightly. White bandages encased her ankles, spotted here and there with the purple stains of the disinfectant. They had cleaned her face. They sat her next to me.

  In the meantime, a table had been brought out, and a few folders placed on top of them, likely pieces of evidence, traces of our former existence, proof of our guilt. What had happened for us to deserve all this pomp, all this ceremony? The response to these questions was no doubt there, in front of us.

  Suddenly, the room emptied, except for Sardar Saleh and an armed guard, who remained standing near the door. So this would be a three-player game. Let’s get it over with, I said to myself, seeing the lame giant approach, then stand facing us, upright in his polished shoes. His eyes were on Niloufar as he walked toward me. There was something in his hand. It was an envelope containing a notebook. A small notebook, a hundred pages. I recognized it immediately, its blue plastic cover. He placed it on my knees.

  “Are you the author of these theses?”

  He was talking to me.

  “Go on, look!” He ordered me.

  I had no choice but to open it. From its uniform, tight lines, I recognized Niloufar’s writing. It covered entire pages.

  “So? Do you recognize it?”

  Then I understood. Nilou had written everything, logged everything. The debates that I had led in their house, my discussions with Cyrus and the representative of the organization, which she must have listened to at the door, even our nightly exchanges, when, in her bedroom, she would ask me questions that I answered endlessly, for the sole pleasure of remaining near her, reveling in the sight of her shoulders, the scent of her hair, the gleam of her teeth. She had committed everything to memory, and then, patiently and meticulously, had transcribed everything in the blue notebook. But for what reason? For a book-length manifesto? A revolutionary manual? Did she think that by doing so she could destroy the old world and bring about a new one? Poor girl!

  I might have been the only person on earth to have understood her eternal anguish. I knew that she had suffered in her own way, not from poverty or hunger, but from luxury, opulence. Deep down, she didn’t want to change the world, but change worlds. She would have preferred a humble and honest father, rather than her powerful and arrogant one, a loving and simple mother, rather than her indifferent, elegant one. She would even have swapped her racing dog for a stray or a gutter cat. Her revolutionary fundamentalism stemmed from that, from her shame, her guilt, her regret. A sort of orthodoxy whose matrix was my words, the Marxist exegesis according to me, my fake engagement, my lies. So much deceit, draped in knowledgeable expressions and references, recycled again in theses and theories. I had helped her secretly fabricate the perfect anti-Chamkhaleh. I’ve already told you, what happened would never have happened without the contributions of us all. The worst crimes are committed with ideas; weapons only serve to fix them in blood.

  I pretended to read a few lines. Then I raised my head. I had made my decision. I said I didn’t know who had written these texts. That it wasn’t me, in any case. Sardar Saleh’s face took on a sardonic expression. As if he had been expecting that response.

  “We should believe her then, if I’m understanding you correctly,” he said, looking at me with an almost complicit eye. “She’s the one who wrote them, is that right?”

  Why ask me questions to which he seemed to already know the answer? As if he were expecting nothing other than my consent to send Niloufar to the gallows. She remained silent and impassive, like a sphinx, as if what was happening was of no concern to her, wasn’t worthy of her attention.

  Then the giant turned toward the table and grabbed another object, which he handed to me, saying: “And this? Do you recognize it? Is it yours?”

  Of course I recognized it! How could I forget? It was during the effervescence of the revolt, at the moment of the shah’s fall. In our town and its surroundings, all the police stations, the precincts, and the barracks had fallen to the hands of the revolutionary com
mittee, which I had been a part of then, with the religious. To avoid conflict, the aforementioned committee wanted to stop the spread of weapons. Suddenly, a comrade grabbed my arm. “What about Chamkhaleh?” Shit! We had completely forgotten: Chamkhaleh had a gendarme barracks with twenty men. We rushed there immediately. Behind its locked doors and its high walls covered with barbed wire, the brick building seemed empty. Everything led us to believe that it had been abandoned; the only thing left behind, the royal flag flapping in the middle of the courtyard. We were almost at the entry gate when the bullets exploded through the air. Warning shots. From inside the barracks, someone ordered us not to come any closer. His accent betrayed him. It was the Azerbaijani commander of the barracks, the same one who had come in person to arrest poor Mohamad-Réza at the Doctor’s house.

  You see, I had to return to Chamkhaleh once more. As if everything that would happen and affect my fucking life would bring me back one way or another to that place. Once more, I found myself there, at the edge of the Caspian Sea. The sky was low, the wind was blowing in gusts, crumpling the lion’s mane on the flag hoisted on the flagpole, that lion that was turning red, unaware that the saber he was brandishing was already broken, and that the sun he was carrying on his back had just set forever.

  We had tried to reason with the commander. I explained to him that it was over, that the king had fallen, that the army had aligned with the new regime… It was useless. He had given the order to his soldiers to fire at whoever entered the barracks. This went on for a little while. He finally agreed to surrender, on the condition that the new authorities granted safe passage, to him and to his men. But those new authorities were not yet in place. After several hours of negotiations, we ended up going to look for the imam of our town, the Friday preacher, a mullah influential enough for him to agree to surrender beneath his authority. I’ll never forget that moment. The commander came out first. He emptied the magazine of his Uzi by firing into the air, then approached me with the firm gait of an officer and gave me a military salute. A real salute, with the stomping of the boots and puffed chest. The whole shebang. His uniform was impeccable, but his tired, red, and badly shaven face was drowned in tears. After standing immobile for a few moments, he removed his service weapon from his sheath, kissed it, and handed it to me, crying: “Long live the king!” It was his last valiant act as an officer of the royal army. I squeezed the cold metal of the pistol in my hand. On its butt was engraved, in gold letters, the phrase that he had just uttered: “Long live the king!” Coming back from Chamkhaleh, that night, we brought the revolutionary committee the weapons seized from the barracks. All the weapons except for one. The one that I was now holding in my hands: the Azerbaijani commander’s Beretta, in an evidence envelope, with its “Long live the king!” engraved in gold letters on the butt.