Divided Loyalties Page 9

  I soon gave up the thought of having a child with you. Instead, I decided to film you, to have all of you on camera, the same as I had my whole family — my parents and five siblings. Then I could look at you even if they arrested you again, could have what was left of you all for myself, could have all of the man you’d become, taut skin hanging on bone, rolling over in our bed.

  It could have been a perfect movie, my artistic masterpiece, but then you saw the camera’s shadow when you moved out of one of your nightmares toward me. You took the camera for a gun aimed at you and shouted. You took me for a warden and shouted again, louder than I’d ever heard someone scream, even those women lined up along the Evin prison wall.

  You yelled so loud that I was afraid your bones would shatter into splinters on the bed. You thought they’d come to take you back to “the coffin,” to one of those boxes in which they made prisoners at Ghezel Hesar sit for months, crouched. To one of those boxes that smelled of urine, blood, and rotting flesh. To one of those boxes from which most prisoners were sent straight to the psychiatric ward at Amin-Abaad. During those long stretches in the coffin, you would lose track of everything, even your own name.

  During your long imprisonment, I had also lost track. Within the walls of my room, I lost track of life. I was suspended between heaven and earth, hanging on to anything, to a thin rope of faith I knew could give way at any moment. I had also forgotten who I was, until one day, when I came back from visiting you, clad in black from head to toe, I opened the door to our apartment and caught a glimpse of myself in our wedding mirror. Only then did I know that I was a widow, an old wretched widow who would never give birth to a child.

  After the night when you almost destroyed my camera, you did not come back to our bed. You slept one time on the roof, another time on the balcony, even once in a hole in our yard, burying yourself in the ground. I slept at your side between the cold sheets, shivering and feeling like an orphan. It seemed to me that you were suffering from something immense. Was it what they had done to you and other inmates in the prison or some kind of guilt? I had heard about prisoners who became what was known as tavvab, repentant. They gave in under the pressure and renounced their beliefs on camera in the presence of fellow inmates. Some even went as far as to spy on their comrades for the interrogators or collaborate with wardens to torture others.

  I could never bring myself to ask how you survived. I didn’t care if you were one of the snitches. I didn’t want to know anything about what you had done while you were in prison. That’s why I stopped communicating with Ahmad’s wife. You didn’t contact anyone either. I knew this much: they had made you sign a letter stating that you wouldn’t involve yourself in political activities and would not get in touch with any of your former inmates or their families. You had to go to the Islamic Revolution Committee in our neighborhood every month for two years and report your whereabouts. I thought once you were recovered, you’d be entirely mine.

  One night, a few weeks later, you unexpectedly slipped back into my embrace. I kissed your body when you were sleeping deeply. Was it due to a newfound faith in the goddess of love, manifested in me, that your health and appetite improved? You started going out, doing errands and shopping. I left extra money on the table so you could buy yourself whatever you liked. I had saved that money for this day, for the day you would once again live under one roof with me. The more you became the Arman I knew, the more I became myself, a Sedighe who fell asleep easily, had pleasant dreams, and woke up refreshed and motivated to go to work and make a living for us. I had a recurring dream that made me think things would be sunny again in my life. I was a child on a carousel, holding the bar with one hand while clutching in the other a banana-flavored ice cream. My eyes were glowing with excitement, my mouth open.

  This dream’s sweet sensation lasted throughout the work day and kept me going despite my dislike of my job as a secretary. The worst were the nights I had to go out to film weddings or birthday parties. But whenever I said I was going to ask a colleague to fill in for me, you said, “Don’t.” Stupid me. How could I be so naive? You were not concerned about me losing my job but about having enough time alone to talk to another woman on the phone. I should have sensed that something was going wrong in my life when one night in my dream I fell off the carousel.

  I might never have known about your relationship if that rainy-night wedding hadn’t been cancelled unexpectedly. That night, I came home early and heard your voice from the hallway. You didn’t realize I was back. Engrossed in talking to another woman, in romancing her, you noticed my presence only when my shadow fell over the phone.

  After that, I once again became the miserable woman I’d been during your absence. You didn’t care. You insisted that I was mistaken, that there was nothing immoral about giving advice to your friend’s girlfriend. Every time I implored you to stop interfering with Mehrdaad’s relationship you told me I was being hysterical.

  “I must save her,” you would repeat with indifference. “She is oppressed.”

  “Forget her! I want you to save our love,” I cried.

  “What do you want from us?”

  “Us? What do you mean, ‘us’?”

  “She and I,” you said, your voice calm, composed.

  I jumped up and started beating you with my fist. “I want you to save our love!”

  You pushed me back. “I don’t love you.”

  I stared.

  “Do you hear me? I don’t love you anymore. It’s over.”

  Finally, one night, I gave voice to the suspicion I’d held inside for a long time. “You were one of those tavvabs, weren’t you? You sold out your friends to the wardens to save your own skin. You made a false oath that you believed in Khoda and whipped Islam into the inmates. You are not a hero but a betrayer, a cheater.” Still in shock from the hurt I had just inflicted, I barely registered the scream that emerged from my mouth, followed by even more devastating words: “I hate you. I wish you hadn’t survived!”

  You should know I did not mean what I said. I didn’t mean any of the things I did to you next, either. I asked the telephone company to disconnect the phone. I stopped giving you money. I ate my food at work, hoping you were tortured by the sight of an empty fridge. I called Mehrdaad and told him you were involved with his girlfriend. Then came my last blow. When you came home late — yet again — I stood in the doorway and screamed, “Go back to where you were!” You took one step forward but stopped when I said, “Tell her, whatever her name is, that she can provide for you from now on.”

  You looked into the room behind me, pointing at our wedding mirror on the wall.

  “Look at yourself. Jealousy has gotten the better of you.”

  I refused to turn my head, and instead kept my gaze on you.

  “You look like a monster.”

  “Save me from the monster, Arman. Kill the beast and save the beauty.” I laughed nervously to keep myself from falling on my knees in humiliation.

  “How?”

  The words poured from my mouth on their own. “Make love to me before leaving. I want a child with you.”

  You looked away from the mirror and straight at me. “You are beyond saving.” This time it was you who laughed out loud.

  * * *

  In my head, Arman continues laughing as the scene in which he is leaving our home is replaced with another: the final scene of our graduation production back in 1978. Farhad has finished digging a canal through Mount Bisotoun, the epic task his rival King Khosro of Persia has assigned him, thinking no man would be able to accomplish it. Farhad can now go to Khosro and claim Shirin. But unexpectedly, a messenger arrives to tell him Shirin is dead. Unaware that the news is false, Farhad instantly drops dead. This was King Khosro’s ploy to discourage Farhad from finishing the task and cause him to forget about Shirin, the woman Khosro wanted for himself. As Shirin, the Armenian princess, I am positioned at a
far corner of the stage on the top balcony of my palace, looking down at Arman, who is lying flat at the center of the stage under the red light. Playing the dead Farhad, his arms are spread and his open eyes are fixed on the ceiling. Tears start trickling down my face. But why is Arman laughing? His laughter has a strange echo, similar to the times I heard it coming from the other room while he talked on the phone with Aazin.

  With tears filling my eyes, I look around. I am back on Valiasr Street, wearing a black chador, standing among pedestrians waiting for the light to change. How long have I been standing here? How many red lights? And why am I here? I check to see if Arman is still there. I remember that the light had turned green but the couple hadn’t moved forward. I had planted my feet and tried to remain in place against the crowd rushing to cross the intersection to Revolution Street.

  In a sea of strangers, I spot them: Arman and his new woman, the one I came to see. The entire time I was remembering my past with Arman — the time that felt like the span of a life to me — has been only a few seconds, not even enough for the light to change. And apparently they’ve been so focused on each other that they didn’t realize I was standing only a few steps away from them.

  Six months ago, Arman turned his back on me and left. Six months ago, I went inside and smashed our wedding mirror. And here we are today, among a new crowd of people waiting for the light to turn green. As the tide pushes me away, I cast a last look at him. Even though he stands there, alive, with the red light illuminating his long brow, he looks like the dead Farhad lying on the stage. It dawns on me that the war inside me has finally ended. All of those clashes I’ve remembered while standing at this intersection have ended, and the children inside my head have stopped their screaming. Like Farhad, Arman made a mistake, taking something fake as real — and, as a result, he dropped dead. Like Princess Shirin of Armenia who waited for Farhad, I waited for Arman to finish his struggle and come back to me. When he didn’t, I lamented for him. My face is still a bit wet, but it is starting to dry. I need to leave the past behind now and move forward, continuing with a life in which Arman no longer has a place.

  The streetlight turns green. My feet, still charged with my past intention to chase Arman, automatically carry me forward; my eyes, still wanting to assess Aazin, inadvertently seek her form. Yet I can no longer summon the image of my fingerprints on Arman’s face, left after slapping him on the cheek in front of my replacement — something I’d been imagining for months and was going to do today. Even Mehrdaad’s voice in my head begins to fade, the voice that insisted I should go and see with my own eyes that Aazin is nothing special: “Arman is a fool. He does not deserve you. You need a real man who knows your worth, a man who knows you are a rare diamond.” It is not only Mehrdaad’s beguiling voice that is fading but also my own, the brooding one that is trying to convince me to give in to Mehrdaad’s talk and stay with him for the night. My fists have unclenched and my heart is no longer beating hard for Arman. He is officially dead in the drama that is my life. So what’s the point in chasing him now, in showing myself to Aazin, the woman who is there to complement him with her decorative light?

  I feel like someone newly released from prison. I am ready to go straight home, which is in the opposite direction from the flow of the crowd. I command my feet to stop in the middle of the intersection. Then, paying no attention to the angry faces and grumbles of people who call me crazy, I release the rubber band that fixes the black chador around my head, remove the garment from my body, and drop it at my feet on the asphalt. I still have on my green scarf and my long gray coat. I stamp on the chador when the wind tries to lift it up and drag it along with the crowd.

  The light turns yellow. Most people have already made it to the other side of Valiasr Street. Some move left toward Student Park, and some, like Arman and Aazin, continue to the right. They walk hand in hand toward the City Theater, with its distinct circular shape and monochromatic gem facade that always reminds me of a wedding ring. As I turn to make my way back to the sidewalk before the yellow light turns red, their figures, captured in my eyes as they recede into the distance, fade like images on undeveloped film left out in the sun.

  The Gordian Knot

  The worst is the situation of that captive [aseer] whose captor has left him for good.

  — from a poem by Hazin Lahiji

  Today is Thursday, the last work day of the week, and the clock at Pari’s office at the Telecommunication Company of Iran reads 11:45 a.m. Pari leafs through the file in her hand for the tenth time, but pays no attention to what she is reading. Since she arrived at work today, her mind has been busy with something else. She is thinking about her former husband, Anoosh.

  She’d heard the news on the radio while she was getting dressed to go to work exactly one week ago. There would be an exchange of the first group of prisoners of war at the Iran–Iraq border city of Qasr-e ­Shirin at noon the following day, Friday, August 17, the day of mass prayer. Standing naked, Pari paused to listen to her heart, which had suddenly woken up and was throbbing with love for Anoosh, who had been captured while they were still married.

  The war had ended almost two years ago, in July 1988, when Khomeini was shown on TV — his head slightly lowered, his gaze slanted, and his piercing eyes half-hidden under bushy eyebrows — saying in a grim voice that he approved the United Nations resolution, even though accepting a proposed ceasefire with Iraq was more deadly than taking poison. “Having submitted myself to God’s will, I now drink this hemlock,” he asserted. Nonetheless, Saddam Hussein had not allowed the exchange to happen until this hot August.

  Pari continues to pretend that she is studying the file in her hand until her colleague, Mrs. Hekmati, asks from across the room, “You’re still working on that contract? Aren’t you supposed to leave at noon?” Mrs. Maleki, an older colleague who is sitting at the other end of the room, joins the conversation. “You should go prepare yourself and help your mother. If it were me, I would have taken the whole day off, not only the last two hours.”

  “Yes, it’s almost time for me to go,” Pari mumbles. “But no one is going to show up until six. And I dropped in at my mother’s last night, but there was nothing left for me to do. She’d already prepared everything.”

  Mrs. Hekmati laughs sarcastically. “She seems more excited than you are. She’s called four times this morning.”

  Her humor triggers another comment from Mrs. Maleki. “I’ll be the same. On the day a girl is born, her mother begins counting the days to her wedding. Pari, you never had a child, so you can’t fully understand. I’ve already told my daughter that after she graduates from university, she has one month to get married.”

  Pari is the only one who doesn’t laugh at Mrs. Maleki’s impatience. “It’s too early to talk about a wedding,” she says. “They come tonight to propose. I still have time to say no.”

  “Why ever would you say no?” Mrs. Maleki gives a short shriek. She fans herself with one of the files. “Don’t do this to your poor mother!”

  “I agree — don’t!” Mrs. Hekmati speaks as if she were advising her younger sister. Perhaps she thinks that being a mother gives her seniority over Pari. She is no longer laughing and has put on a stern face. Her tone changes from humorous and playful to serious and reprimanding. “Pari, be wise. You are already thirty-six; the clock has started ticking. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He is not like your other suitors, who were old or wanted you as a second wife, or those you didn’t know. We all know him.”

  “The chief engineer for one of our top contractors,” Mrs. Maleki announces from the end of the room. She continues to fan herself frantically. “You’re lucky. All of the young, single girls in the engineering department are dumbfounded as to why he’s opted for a woman his own age from the contract department, a woman who is not an engineer. And they don’t even know this woman has been married once before.”

  She stands up on her
thick legs, drops the file on top of the others scattered on her desk, and shuffles forward to Pari. “Please don’t get offended. I’m not trying to be mean.” When she reaches Pari’s desk, she shrieks again, this time louder than before. “You look unusually flushed.” She takes the file from Pari’s hand, bends over her, and reaches to pull up her wimple-like veil, remove it from around her face, and make it hang loose on her head. “Lean back and relax.” She fans Pari’s neck with a file as she addresses Mrs. Hekmati, who watches them like an inspector. “Please watch the door. Some contractors come even during lunch and prayer time. The Iranian ones are worse. They barge in without knocking.”

  Pari is annoyed by her concern. And she is annoyed by the pictures hanging on the wall over Mr. Maleki’s desk, which she can’t help but notice as she endures the tilted chair and fanning by the persistent Mrs. Hekmati. The faces of Supreme Leader Kahmenei and the former Supreme Leader Khomeini, who’d called the war “bliss,” bring up memories Pari doesn’t want to recall at this particular moment.

  “You’re too stressed out,” Mrs. Maleki decides. “Like a girl who is getting married for the first time. It’s not good to look too excited in front of the suitor and his family.”

  Offended by the remark, Pari sits up straight and gently pushes her arm away. “I already said I am not sure I’m going to say yes.”

  The anger in her voice drives the concerned Mrs. Maleki a step back. Pari looks over at Mrs. Hekmati’s desk, which is as organized as the desk of an investigator. And exactly like an investigator, the woman is inspecting Pari’s moves. “Maybe Pari is excited for somebody else. She is a secretive one. We should ask her mother.”

  Before Pari can respond, the phone on her desk rings. It must be her mother. “Please tell her I left the office and will be at her place soon.” She grabs her purse and heads toward the door.