Rooftops of Tehran (19 page)

All of his books were destroyed except this one, this special gift that is in my possession now. I will never part with it. All the kids in the alley should hear the story of
The Gadfly
. They should all know Doctor the way I do. If I can do nothing else for him, I can tell everyone that Doctor was a revolutionary who was not afraid of losing his life. All who knew him should be proud of their association with him. They should feel special because it’s not often that our paths cross with those of real heroes. I will tell everyone that the SAVAK has forbidden us to mourn him, out of fear that it may inspire us to live in a way that would make his death worthwhile.

 

The SAVAK arrests a few of Doctor’s university pals, claiming that he identified them as participants in anti-regime activities. In spite of these fabricated accusations, stories of Doctor’s bravery flood the neighborhood.

“He wouldn’t let them blindfold him,” one of the neighbors says.

“He kept yelling, ‘Death to the Shah!’ until they shot him,” another boasts.

Everyone knows that the real cause of Doctor’s arrest and execution will stay a mystery forever. The SAVAK will never release the real reason. In the absence of facts, speculation and rumors cover a range of explanations, from his involvement in a plot to overthrow the Shah to simply being a student activist. I tell Ahmed that I think his personal friendship with Golesorkhi—the Red Rose—must have played a role in his execution. “If asked about his friend,” I say, “he would’ve been just as defiant: a red rose himself destroyed by the SAVAK.” Then I tell Ahmed, for the first time, that Doctor was the person posting the posters of red roses all over the neighborhood the night of Golesorkhi’s broadcast trial.

“Wow!” Ahmed shakes his head in amazement. “How come you never told me this before?” Before I have a chance to respond, he adds, “Never mind. I probably would’ve done the same thing.”

I would love to do something special for Doctor, but can’t think of a worthwhile way to commemorate his death without violating the SAVAK’s instructions. As I’m thinking of the night I caught Doctor distributing the posters of the Red Rose, a thought flashes through my head, something that Ahmed would mastermind. I pace back and forth in my room all night until I finally make a decision and go out to the spot in the alley where Doctor was first struck, where his blood was first spilled.

The next morning I count the allowance money I have saved up and realize that I need to borrow money from Ahmed. He agrees to lend it to me without asking the reason for it. I go to a nursery and buy a rosebush and some fertilizer, bring them home in a taxi, and take everything to the basement without anyone seeing. In the basement I find an old rusted shovel and a pair of gardening gloves. I find the hose that my mom uses to water our plants, and connect it to a faucet close to the door. Late that night after I’m sure everyone is asleep, I go to the spot and dig a hole about thirty centimeters deep and forty centimeters wide. I make sure that the soil is dry and spread five centimeters of manure before setting the roots in the hole and covering it back up with the dirt. I water the plant well to make sure that the backfilled soil settles well around the roots, then I collect my tools and disappear into the house.

I sleep like a baby that night. The next morning I run downstairs and out into the alley. Everyone in the neighborhood has gathered around the plant, and they’re all talking at the same time.

“Who planted this?”

“Why?”

“Yes, why a red rose?”

“Why here? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh, a red rose! Remember the posters?”

“The posters? Oh, yes, the posters, I remember the posters.”

“Red is the color of passion and the color of revolution.”

“Red is also the color of love.”

“And the color of blood.”

Suddenly everyone quiets down as they remember that this is where Doctor’s blood was spilled, and a reverent silence fills the air. Ahmed turns and looks at me. He doesn’t say anything but his mute stare speaks volumes—after all, we Persians are masters of silent communication. I go inside the house and come back with a watering pot.

“We must take turns caring for this bush,” someone says in the crowd, as I water the plant.

“Yes, we must,” everyone agrees. “For Doctor.”

The Width of the Alley

No one knows of Mr. Mehrbaan’s status in prison. Mrs. Mehrbaan comes to our house every other day to spend time with my parents. She looks older than the first time I saw her, when the color of her dress, shoes, and purse matched, when her makeup was thoughtfully applied, and when her hair was clean and nicely groomed. Nowadays, she seems not to care very much about her appearance. She cries constantly, and speculates about her husband’s physical and mental condition in prison. My mother does her best to provide comfort, and gives her a special herb tea designed to battle depression.

“It tastes bitter,” Mrs. Mehrbaan complains politely.

“The more bitter the taste, the stronger its healing power,” my mother explains, encouraging her friend to finish the drink.

Mrs. Mehrbaan says that being away from her husband is more difficult this time because she was getting used to having him around. They used to talk with regret about the lost years; little did they know that he was going to be gone again. How long will it be this time? He is not young anymore, and given his heart condition, God only knows if he can tolerate the mental and physical abuse that prisoners are subjected to on a daily basis.

What a waste this all is, Mrs. Mehrbaan continues. Everyone knows that the Shah will never be overthrown. What the opposition needs to do is find a way into the government and influence the decisions and the laws that impact those affected by the injustice. A revolution is out of the question, so why bother? She adds that Mr. Mehrbaan used to express serious concerns about the new breed of prisoners in the SAVAK’s jails. He had told her that he was troubled by the strong religious overtones in the thinking and philosophy of the younger revolutionaries. He believed that the rise of religious fundamentalism would create insurmountable new barriers to attaining democracy in Iran. My dad nods and says that Mr. Mehrbaan was always accurate in his analysis of political situations.

One evening, during the course of conversation, my mother inadvertently mentions Doctor’s situation. I am sitting only a few meters away from Mrs. Mehrbaan, and I see her face wash pale while ridges of concern jump from her forehead, as if a sudden shock has been administered to her body. She hangs her head, takes a few short, abrupt breaths, then falls over. I catch her right before her face hits the ground. My father scolds my mother for mentioning Doctor as he rushes toward us. “Good catch, son,” he yells out. “Let’s take her to the bedroom.” Her body is limp and droopy, and her arms dangle in the air as I carry her to the bedroom. She’s heavy but I’m determined to carry her without the help of my father, who’s just a step behind us. My mother runs to the kitchen to get one of her natural remedies. My heart is pounding, and I’m sure that Mrs. Mehrbaan is dead from a heart attack.

The muscles in her face collapse, leaving her skin waxy and creased. Her lips turn blue, as if she is not getting any oxygen. I lay her on the bed and put my arm under her neck, trying to keep her head up. My mother comes back with hot water and sugar, and uses a teaspoon to feed the liquid to Mrs. Mehrbaan. My parents talk over each other, issuing orders while fanning her with a newspaper, spraying cold water in her face, and telling me to hold her head up.

Mrs. Mehrbaan regains consciousness within a few seconds, and begins to sob bitterly as she curses the Shah, his family, his SAVAK, the Americans and the British who support him and keep him in power.

When I go to bed, I struggle to fall asleep, worrying about Mr. Mehrbaan and his fate in the Shah’s prison. Are they beating him up right now? Are they burning his skin again like they did the last time? Is he screaming? Crying for mercy? Or is he defiant and resolute in his hatred of the regime, like the Red Rose was, like Doctor probably was? I wish Ahmed would show up with his cigarettes.

When I finally fall asleep, I dream of the night they took Doctor away. I see the man with the radio. His eyes are staring, locked on me, his lips whispering into the radio, and his fist crashing into Doctor’s cheek. I see his predatory eyes again, and again, and again. His eyebrows are thin. His forehead is wrinkled and his long hair is combed back neatly. I hate him. I want to run downstairs and stop him from kicking Doctor, but I can’t move.

Then it’s Doctor’s eyes staring at me. He must be wondering where the getaway plane is, why I’m not sacrificing myself to save him and Zari, as Humphrey Bogart did in
Casablanca
. He must be wondering why I gave him away. The man with the radio blows me a kiss. I open my mouth, and my voice is ripped from its silence as I scream at the top of my lungs.

 

October is usually mild in Tehran, but this year it’s been particularly cold. Although it’s no longer possible to sleep on the roof, Ahmed and I still spend a lot of time up there. The colder the weather is, the quieter our alley, and the more peaceful our retreat into the depth of our souls to find answers to what seems utterly incomprehensible and unfair. I sense a change in Faheemeh, Ahmed, and myself. We’ve grown closer. Every day after Ahmed and I get out of our classes, we rush to Faheemeh’s school to walk her home. We spend hours pacing the streets together, sometimes without speaking a single word, and yet at the end of the day we have a hard time saying good-bye. When we do talk, it’s always about a future far, far away, a time when all of us are grown-ups, prosperous, educated, and traveling around the world. None of us wants to be present in the aftermath of Doctor’s death.

When we talk, we discuss Doctor’s parents, the SAVAK’s ruthlessness, and the fact that it seems as if someone has sprinkled the dust of death over our neighborhood. We complain about the vulnerability of life, the absence of decency, and the seeming permanence of evil.

I never mention Zari, but Faheemeh senses what I’m not saying. She says that Zari spends most of her time at Doctor’s house nursing his mother, who everyone says is “incurably insane.”

“The poor woman doesn’t eat anything, and doesn’t talk,” Faheemeh reports. “All day long she sits still and stares at the door, as if she’s waiting for Doctor’s arrival. She hugs one of Doctor’s shirts, smells it, presses it against her cheeks, and quietly cries.” Faheemeh adds that she is worried about the impact of all this on Zari’s spirit. “I think she blames herself, as if she should have known about Doctor’s activities and stopped him. She says she never paid attention to what he was doing. Anytime he tried to discuss it with her she dismissed it as political talk, which she hated.”

“How can she blame herself?” I whisper, thinking that I should be blamed for everything.

“She can’t believe how naïve she was about the Shah and the SAVAK,” Faheemeh continues. “She used to argue with Doctor that the SAVAK organization probably didn’t even exist, that it was, for the most part, the product of the university students’ active imagination. That poor thing, she wishes she could take all that back.”

One day, after we say good-bye to Faheemeh, Ahmed says that we should continue our walk because walking clears the mind and helps us see the big picture.

We walk for hours, and I feel that for the first time in my life I’m absorbing the universe around me: the narrow alleys; the earthen, unpaved roads; the ugly, lifeless television antennas on the roofs; and the mazelike way in which our alleys weave through each other. I notice the unusual loudness of life around us: children playing football, mothers calling them, cars with broken mufflers passing by, their horns honking. The craziness of it all reminds me of how our alley used to be before Doctor was taken away. Life, as I remember it, was like a colorful musical projected onto a movie screen. Now it’s more like an old black-and-white photograph turned yellowish and creased.

On our way home, Ahmed stops at the corner of an alley and looks at the street sign on the wall.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says, and continues walking. At the next corner he stops again and looks at the sign for the next alley.

“What?” I ask again.

“Have you noticed how most of our streets and alleys are named after the Shah’s family members?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Most of these signs also tell you the size of each alley or street,” he says, a perplexed look on his face.

“What do you mean?”

“Look—this street is called the Twenty Meters of Reza Pahlavi, meaning that this street is twenty meters wide. That street is the Twenty-one Meters of Farah.” He looks at another sign, and starts to laugh. “This one is the Four Meters of Darabi. Darabi is not a member of the Shah’s immediate family, so his metric allocation is smaller.” He points to a large street several blocks away and says, “That one is the Sixty Meters of Shahpour. He’s the oldest brother of the Shah, so he gets the big number.”

I have no idea where Ahmed is going with this.

“Why do we need to know the size of each alley and street?” Ahmed asks.

I suggest that the size must be a factor in determining the value of the properties in each neighborhood. Ahmed’s expression tells me that he knows I’m guessing.

“Are these measurements correct?” he asks. “Our alley is the Ten Meters of Shahnaz. Do you really think our alley is ten meters wide?”

“I don’t know,” I answer.

“I doubt it,” he says, a worried look on his face. “What if it’s not? We should measure the width of our alley.”

“Why?”

“Well, what if our alley isn’t ten meters wide?”

“Who cares?”

“I care,” he says, his voice charged with emotion. “This could have a devastating effect on property values, you know?”