Censoring an Iranian Love Story (18 page)

Dara confesses:

“You Iranian women have always been more creative and courageous than us men.”

Sara laughs and says:

“But that isn’t the entire story. One day I have to tell you about the time we put different-color buttons on our black coveralls.”

As though she has suddenly remembered something, Sara stops laughing and anxiously looks around. Pity that it isn’t possible, but if Dara could see her bedroom, he would see thick and thin lines in different colors painted on its walls, like formless drawings by children before they become trapped by shapes and when they simply and freely like colors.

Involuntarily, they both stop in front of a street peddler’s collection of books spread out on the sidewalk. Tehran is again lost in time. It is not clear whether the sun is dawning or setting above the city. Sara jokingly asks the old man with long white hair:

“Sir, do you have
The Blind Owl
?”

Sitting on a stack of books, the old man bitterly answers:

“Oh, lady! Why are you looking for
The Blind Owl
? We are all blind owls.”

“God forbid! Don’t be so morbid.”

The old man stares obstinately into Sara’s eyes. His pleasant face is familiar to Dara. His books are a strange combination of old and new thrown haphazardly on the ground. Planck’s book on quantum physics, Khayyám’s
Rubaiyat,
Stephen Hawking’s
A Brief History of Time, Bees and Refuting Marx’s Theories,
the biography of that mercenary Saddam Hussein,
One Thousand and One Nights, Modern Iranian Poetry,
Moamar Qaddafi’s
The Green Book,
Popper’s
Open Society and Its Enemies,
Sternberg’s
The Psychology of Love, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes, The Three Musketeers, Seven Effective Ways to Quit Opium,
Borges’s
Labyrinths, The Islamic Guide to Sex, Zen,
Simone de Beauvoir’s
The Second Sex,
Rumi’s
Ghazals, Existentialism, Palestine, Seven Ways to Summon Ghosts, One Hundred Years of Solitude,
Baudelaire’s
Flowers of Evil…

Seeing the translation of Baudelaire’s poetry, Dara suddenly remembers who the old man is. He is shocked. He did not expect to see Iran’s great romantic poet in such a state. Before the revolution, in literary and women’s magazines that were now bought and sold in secret, Dara had seen the poet’s special sections and his photograph—a sad-looking man with long disheveled hair, a cigarette between his fingers, his forehead resting on his hand, his eyes staring at a point away from the camera—and next to his large photograph his
erotic
love poems
, all in praise of the bodies of his multitude of lovers who had all thought they would be his last. After the revolution, none of his books had received a permit to be printed or reprinted
.

Dara asks:

“Are you not Mr. N. V. Wine?”

This was the poet’s pseudonym.

The old man, still staring at Sara’s face
appraisingly and
with admiration, angrily replies:

“I used to be … Now, I rue the day I ever wrote poetry.”

On the crowded sidewalk people are drawn to the brightly lit shopwindows and the wares of all the other peddlers except this one.

The old poet turns to Sara and says:

“If you are interested in old handwritten books, I have an edition from five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred years ago. It is from my own personal library. I’ll sell it to you for next to nothing.”

He gets up from the stack of books. Only then do Sara and Dara see that some fifteen tomes with old gold-hammered leather bindings have made up his seat. The books emit an ancient and lost echo.

The old man invites Sara to his side. He opens one of the handwritten volumes and hands it to her
in such a way that his fingers brush against hers. Dara sees the old man’s caressing hand reluctantly, longingly, separate from Sara’s hand
… The book’s pages are made of Samarkand paper that with the passage of time has turned yellow and brittle, and each page is embellished by gold paisley illuminations. Sara carefully leafs through the book. A full-page miniature drawing appears before her eyes. Rare shades of azure, vermilion, and ocher shine on her face and the tiny beads of sweat above her lips.

“Beautiful young lady, this handwritten narrative in verse
of Khosrow and Shirin
dates back to five hundred and thirty-eight years ago … Do you know
Khosrow and Shirin
?”

Mesmerized, Sara can only nod.

The old man, pretending to want to look at the miniature, brings his head close to that part of Sara’s neck visible from beneath the knot of her headscarf and inhales deeply. Sara hears the sound of that long breath, but she does not pull back.

Surprised, Dara says:

“If this book is authentic, it is worth ten or twenty million tumans. Perhaps much much more …”

The old poet,
still intoxicated by the scent of Sara’s body and
angry at Dara’s interruptions, without looking at him growls:

“I have never in my life owned anything fake. If I find the person who truly wants this book, I will sell it to him or her for a pittance. Girl, do you want it?”

Sara stares into the old man’s eyes. It is the first time Dara has seen such a look in her eyes. He freezes in horror. In those large black eyes, respect, ancient bewitchment,
desire,
the last gaze of a sacrificial lamb, greed, the rage of a woman raped, and other unknown emotions have created an alchemy.

Dara pleads:

“Sara, let’s go.”

Sara, still staring into the old man’s eyes, says:

“Why are you giving away your precious possession?”

The poet bitterly says:

“
This country no longer needs poets and books.
Just tell me, do you want it,
pretty
girl?”

It seems the handwritten book is transmitting an irresistible magical power to Sara’s body.

“Yes … How much do you want for it?”

“I don’t want money.”

“Then what do you want?”

And still their eyes remain locked.

Dara shouts:

“Sara … !”

“Are you sure you want it?”

“I said yes. What do I have to give for it?”

The old man looks at the lock of hair that has escaped Sara’s headscarf…
and whispers:

“Your headscarf … Right now.”

Sara slams the book shut. A halo of golden dust envelops her hands.

“Here?”

“Right here, right now … If you don’t have the guts, get out of here.”

Sara looks at the people on the sidewalk, at the stores, and at an infuriated Dara. This is the most
Indecent Proposal
to make to an Iranian girl like Sara on a sidewalk of the Islamic Republic. Without seeing, without touching, one can speculate that at this very moment sweat is seething between Sara’s breasts and along her inner thighs.

“Do you understand what you are asking? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“Even if I were to be ashamed, a girl like you shouldn’t be. Will you take it off or not?”

“I will be disgraced.”

“That is exactly what I want. Now make up your mind.”

Dara begs:

“No, Sara … No …”

Sara puts the book under her arm and raises her hand toward the knot of her headscarf. Now, there is belligerence in her eyes. The old man looks into those eyes with a lust risen from the grave.

“No, Sara. Don’t even think about it! Don’t ruin us!”

In one swift move Sara rips the scarf off her head and throws it at the old man. Among the passersby on that crowded sidewalk, the few who are looking their way see with disbelieving eyes the black luster of unleashed hair with a sense of déjà vu in the restlessness of their lackluster days. Petrified, Dara looks around. If the police or the patrols from the Campaign Against Social Corruption see this girl who has dared remove her headscarf on the street, they will quickly and brutally throw her in the car and take her away. Sara, as though spellbound, clutching the book to her bosom, still makes no move to leave that place. The number of people who have noticed her gradually increases. Men with lecherous looks and euphoric smiles circle around them, a few make rude remarks. Dara looks at the old man with loathing, but the old poet no longer sees him, or anyone else. He is holding the headscarf to his nose. And at last, drained and overcome by a wave of delirium, he sits down on his stack of handwritten books.

Dara yells:

“Sara, let’s go!”

He steps on the books spread on the ground and grabs onto Sara, who like a paralyzed rabbit is standing there staring at the wolves circling her.

“You crazy girl! What have you done!”

Dara grabs hold of Sara’s sleeve and drags her behind him. With his arm and shoulders he cuts through the circle of men, and half running he takes Sara with him. While surrounded by those men, they were at least safe from the eyes of the patrols driving by. Now the passersby are shocked at the sight of the two of them in that state. Frightened, a few even make way for them. In the inferno of his mind Dara searches for an escape. He has an idea. He opens the book and puts it on Sara’s head and yells at her to hold it there. Running, they leave behind the men who are seeing them off with vulgar gibes. They reach a women’s clothing store. Dara shoves Sara inside.

A few of the loafers who have seen Sara without a headscarf walk over to the store and peek through the window. But Dara’s face is so full of rage and his fists so uncompromising that the men are forced to go on their way. In Iran it is forbidden for men to enter stores that among other things sell ladies’ undergarments, even if the man is a customer’s husband. Of course, some of these stores illicitly sell extremely sexy underwear that even sex shops in Amsterdam do not offer. Dara, like a sentry, stands waiting at the door until his Sara walks out wearing a new headscarf. Her eyes have a look more mystifying than ever, but at least one can see the blaze of victory in them. She shifts the handwritten book under her arm and briskly asks:

“Well, what should we do now?”

Dara does not answer. If one of his fanatic ancestors were there instead of him, with his eyes blinded by blood, he would now be gnawing at his thick double-hilted mustache with wrath and pondering ways in which to behead the woman who has so squandered his honor. However, not only does Dara not have a thick double-hilted mustache, he even shaves his rather sparse beard. As a result, the extent of his anger is to bark back:

“Nothing … You have to go home.”

He hails a taxi for her. Sara is still so intoxicated by the handwritten book that she pays no attention to Dara’s anger. He slams the car door shut and through the window shouts:

“If you love me, burn it.”

“In your dreams.”

Well. You, who have read this Iranian love story up to this point, know very well that I cannot include the scene in which Sara takes off her headscarf and the ensuing events in my story and hand it over to Mr. Petrovich. The censorship apparatus will most certainly stamp the scene as provoking and injurious to public chastity. Even worse, there is also the possibility of a political interpretation of the scene. An interpretation that was not in my conscious mind, but now that I put myself in Mr. Petrovich’s shoes and read the story from his perspective, I do see it.

The political accusation will be that this scene openly encourages Iranian girls to take off their headscarves on the street. And worse, that it does not show the girl who has committed this vulgar act being arrested, punished, and sitting in prison regretting her actions. Even worse yet, with the assistance of her stupid boyfriend, the girl happily returns home.

Graver than this politico-headscarfy interpretation is that I, the writer, may be accused of alluding to one of the popular slogans of the early years of the revolution. The slogan that members of the Party of God shouted while facing a demonstration by a group of Iranian women opposed to wearing headscarves and chadors: “Headscarves or head slaps …”

The demonstration was broken up, but the battle cry lived on, and contrary to the libertarian slogans popular in those days, the wearing of headscarves and chadors became mandatory in Iran.

What’s more, Sara’s descarfing scene can be found guilty of showing support for the antihijab measures taken by a former dictator king.

How?

Ask so that I can explain:

Once upon a time in Iran, some seventy years ago, a dictator king who wanted to dictate over a country so that it would become more like Western countries, banned the Islamic form of dress, or hijab, and ordered Iranian ladies to take off their headscarves and chadors. Following this decree, the police would stop women who had come out onto the street wearing headscarves and chadors and they would beat them over the head with batons so that they would take off their hijab.

As an Iranian man, I am ashamed of myself, because on neither occasion was I able to take any action in defense of my grandmother, mother, sister, wife, and daughter.

Therefore, I cannot have Sara running around the streets of Tehran with no headscarf. But I really like this scene. If I were a sapless Iranian writer, I would write the scene like this: