Censoring an Iranian Love Story Read online

  “Hello Sara,

  “As I mark these purple dots, I pray that you will discover my secret code. That day when you were asking the librarian for The Blind Owl, I was there. For a long time now, whenever you go to the library, I am there, too. The card catalogs don’t allow me to see your face, but from between their legs I can see your shoes. I know all your shoes very well. I have given each pair a name. For example, your brown shoes that have a scratch on them, perhaps from a barbed wire or the thorn of a rosebush, are Rainy, because you wear them on rainy days. That library doesn’t have The Blind Owl. It doesn’t have many of the other great novels either. According to the new librarian, they have weeded out all the immoral novels from the shelves. I had a small library of my own at home which I treasured. But then I started peddling books near your house so that I could give you The Blind Owl. To make sure people believed I was really a street peddler, I had to sell many of my books. I sold my One Hundred Years of Solitude, I sold Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby, and Slaughterhouse-Five … They even bought Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities from me. I sold the collected poems of Lorca, Neruda, and Forough. But I put such a high price on The Blind Owl that people laughed at me. If this letter is of no value to you, at least value this book. To break free from our hypocrisy, its writer fled to Paris and committed suicide there. I wish I was as powerful a writer as he was, so that I could write a beautiful and extraordinary letter to you. If I could write a letter to you that no man in love has ever written, I would want nothing more of my life, and death would be easy for me … Please don’t be scared. Just as I have been in love with you for a very long time and you have never noticed me, trust that you will never sense my presence unless you yourself allow it. Next Thursday, when you go to the public library, borrow The Little Prince if you like …”

  Sara tried to remember the young man’s face, or at least his voice. But strangely, she had no image of him in her head. It was as though a hand had erased it.

  Sara borrowed The Little Prince. In her first reading she didn’t grasp much of the beautiful story because her entire attention was focused on breaking the code of the letter contained in the book. That letter read:

  “Hello Sara,

  “Why have you started to suddenly turn around and look behind you ever since you read my letter? You will never recognize me among the people on the sidewalk. I have studied makeup. The day you bought the book from me I had really changed my face.

  “I am always very far from you. But following you, even at a distance, gives me the pleasure of knowing that I breathe the air you have exhaled. Sometimes, of course not often, I walk toward you from the opposite side of the street so that I can catch a glimpse of your face, to see whether you are happy or sad. I know all the expressions of your face. I can even tell by the way your long beautiful fingers hold your books whether you are tired or full of energy. Nights when I wander the streets, I sometimes pass by your big house. Don’t worry, I don’t stop. Not even for a second. I just walk by and look up at your window. I don’t like its heavy curtains. Why do you keep them drawn most of the time? Open them. Let the moon shine into your room. The ultramarine moonlight will create a beautiful new color on the walls. At night, when the light is turned on in your room and I know you are there, your room becomes my star. But this one star is different from all the other stars in the sky for me, because there I have a red rose that is different from all the other red roses in the world for me, and with all my heart I wish it happiness. I learned this from The Little Prince. Now that I have someone in my life for whom I wish happiness with all my being, even if I am never to be a part of that happiness, my life has found a beautiful new meaning. Now I can at last cope with people. I have even grown to like them, because I think among them there are people whom you like and who make you happy … It doesn’t matter who I am and what my name is. I used to be a student at Tehran University, too. I studied filmmaking. But I was expelled. As for my name, just pretend it is Dara. It is an alias that the writer who will one day write about my life will conjure up without giving it much thought. They will not hire me at any company or factory. I cover my expenses with the little money I earn painting houses. Whenever I paint a wall, I first write your name on it in ultramarine blue, and then I cover it with the color the wall is supposed to be. Just last month, I was painting a newly built house and the contractor showed up unexpectedly. He saw how all the walls had SARA written on them … We had a fight. He fired me … I will write the next letter in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.The people who decide which books belong in libraries sometimes miss a few, or maybe they don’t understand these types of books. If you would like to write back, mark the letters in this book in blue ink. If not, in the Dracula letter I will let you know which book will have my next letter …”

  Sara had to wait two weeks to borrow Dracula because someone had already checked it out of the library. She read the third letter, but she didn’t write back. Whoever was writing these letters really meant what he said and moved so ghostlike on the fringes of Sara’s life that despite her curiosity she couldn’t guess his identity. Sometimes, after walking home along her regular route from the university or the library, she would run up to her room and from the narrow opening in the heavy curtains she would look out to see who was following her. Pedestrians, young and old, walked by, but none of them showed any interest in her window … For seven consecutive nights Sara sat by the window and peered out at the sidewalk. But to no avail.

  Sara liked the story of Dracula.

  “Hello Sara,

  “I really like your sneakers, the ones with the blue stripes. Your beautiful stride has a wonderful weightlessness to it when you wear them. I have named them Shirin Walking on Water, and sometimes I call them Ophelia. Has anything changed at the university that they now allow you to wear colorful shoes? Sometimes when I follow you down the sidewalk, I try to step in your footsteps.

  “I wish I had the powers of Count Dracula. Not so that I could come up to your bedroom at night and suck your blood, but so that I could protect you for the rest of your life without you ever knowing.

  “The supervisor at the public library has grown suspicious of me. He threatened that if I don’t watch myself he will have the patrols from the Campaign Against Social Corruption arrest me. I didn’t react to any of his insults. I was so angry my blood was boiling, but I even managed to apologize to him. If I were a Dracula I would have drunk his blood. So now when you leave the library, I wait awhile, and then I run to catch up with you somewhere near your home. I wish I could come to your class at the university and just sit in a corner and watch you. But at the university they consider people like me to be vulgar and filthy monsters. In Francis Ford Coppola’s film version of Dracula, which you can easily find on the black market, there is a scene in which Dracula, in love, turns Mina’s teardrops into emeralds in the palm of his hand. Even if I was once a hateful beast, even if I was once a Dracula, I have changed since I got to know you. I found a strand of your hair in the pages of The Little Prince. I don’t believe it was there on purpose, but it is now my treasure … This single strand of black hair means the world to me. You are my Shirin. I only wish I were your Farhad. I wish I had a mountain to carve into a castle for you with nothing but a pickax. Borrow Khosrow and Shirin.”

  In many Iranian mystical poems, some of which date back almost a thousand years, the Sufi poet—most classical Iranian poets were Sufis— speaks of an earthly heavenly beloved, a beloved who can be a woman and yet is a representation of God. He uses many words to liken his beloved’s beauties to nature, fruits, and flowers; of course not directly, but by using familiar similes. It starts with her figure, which is often likened to a cypress tree. To understand this Iranian simile, do not bring to mind the extreme tallness of a cypress tree; instead look at the wideness of its bottom and the narrowness of its top. Then our poet will compare his beloved’s eyes to narcissus flowers or to the eyes of a gazelle, and if they are Oriental eyes, he will compare them
to almonds. Her eyebrows, he will compare to bows that let fly the arrows of her eyelashes toward her lover’s heart. Her lips, if they are thin, he will compare to a narrow wisp often woven of silk, and if they are plump, he will compare them to rubies that of course are as sweet as sugar. Then the poet will liken his beloved’s breasts to pomegranates. The Iranian Sufi poet does not normally travel any farther down and self-censors the rest of his similes, allowing the reader’s imagination to travel south on its own. The few who have dared travel below their beloved’s breasts have again used the language of nature and erotic foods. Evidently, in those days Iranians were not familiar with the banana, or with the orchid, or for that matter with the flower in the film The Wall. About nine centuries ago, Nizami, a great Iranian poet, created two beautiful yet strange scenes in a famous romantic poem called Khosrow and Shirin. This narrative in verse is the love story of Khosrow, one of the greatest kings of Persia, and an Armenian princess named Shirin. Shirin has undressed and is bathing in a pond. Khosrow is out hunting and by chance arrives at the pond and starts ogling Shirin from behind the bushes:

  A bride he saw as ripe as the full moon…

  …

  In cerulean water like a flower she sat,

  in cerulean silk up to her navel wrapped

  ….

  From that flower’s substance the entire pond,

  an almond blossom an almond at its heart

  ….

  To each side her tresses she combed,

  violets crowning a blossom she combed

  ….

  She a treasure chest its treasure pure gold,

  her wavy tresses a snake atop the chest coiled

  ….

  From the gatekeeper’s hand has fallen the gardengate key,

  her pomegranate breasts in the garden revealed

  ….

  Unaware of the king’s gaze that jasmine lingered,

  for the view of her narcissus the hyacinth hindered.

  …

  When the moon from the dark cloud emerged,

  Shirin’s eyes the king discerned.

  …

  But this that pool of sugar saw no means,

  than her hair like the night to spread upon the mist.

  …

  In this romance, as in all romances, there are many incidents and events that impede Shirin and Khosrow from meeting each other and from being alone together away from the eyes of the fiercely devout who behaved much like modern-day censors.

  Finally, however, Shirin arrives in Madayen, her beloved’s capital city …

  In those days, Madayen was the wealthiest and the most splendid capital city in the world. Remnants of the massive arched roof of its royal palace can still be found in Iraq—I mean that country that was once part of the Persian Empire and that today, because of the unrelenting war there, those Americans whose knowledge of geography is not very good no longer mistake for Iran.

  A long time has passed since Shirin and Khosrow met and fell in love, but they still haven’t done anything. On their long-awaited wedding night, Shirin lectures Khosrow: After all the wine you have drunk in your life, on this one night do not drink. However, by early afternoon, from the intense excitement of consummating their marriage, Khosrow starts to drink. By nightfall, completely drunk, he waits for Shirin to walk through the doors of the nuptial chamber bathed, made up, perfumed, and wearing a negligee that the fashion-setting Victoria’s Secret has yet to dream up … Imagine the nuptial chamber, not with your own strong and scientific imagination, but with the unscientific and idiotic imagination of a film such as Oliver Stone’s Alexander. Imagine the chamber with an Egyptian-Arabic-Indian-Iranian-Chinese decor, with a bed that has so much gold or emeralds or diamonds strewn on it that there is no room to lie down. In one corner there is an Indian Shiva, somewhere else there is the figure of Ra, the Egyptian deity, and in yet another corner smoke rises from a Chinese incense burner. And there, in the middle of the bed, lies Khosrow, the emperor of Persia, all sprawled out. I cannot find an Iranian imagery for Khosrow; therefore, like those Hollywood movies that jumble everything together, I will compare him to Ganesha, the Hindu patron of arts and sciences and the god of intellect and wisdom whom I like very much. Ganesha has an elephant’s head and a human body. He loves sweets, and in Farsi the name Shirin means “sweet.” But I have chosen this simile because Ganesha’s trunk is likely to bear similarities to Khosrow’s manly trunk.

  Regardless of the elephant’s trunk, when Shirin realizes that Khosrow is drunk on this historic night, out of mischief, she sends her stepmother into the nuptial chamber instead of going in herself. The description of the old woman is thus:

  Like a wolf, not a young wolf but an old one, with a pair of sagging breasts that resemble two sheepskin sacs, an old hump on her back, her face as wrinkled as an Indian walnut, her mouth as wide as a grave and with only a couple of yellow teeth in it, and no eyelashes on her eyes … The old woman enters the room. Khosrow, drunk, is taken aback. What is this? How did pretty Shirin suddenly turn into this? He concludes that it is because of his inebriated state that he sees Shirin like this, and he gets his hooks into her. The old woman screams out in pain, Shirin save me! Shirin enters the room and Khosrow realizes his mistake.

  Here, the poet again offers a lengthy description of Shirin’s beauties. He compares her body to all sorts of flowers and all sorts of rare sweets and foods. Of course, from the standpoint of literary ingenuity and poetic creativity, the descriptions are truly rich and beautiful.

  The poet writes that Shirin’s lips and teeth are of the same essence as love. Her lips have never seen teeth, nor have her teeth ever seen lips. This half couplet offers one example of the ambiguities of Iranian literature, because one can derive various interpretations from it. Perhaps Shirin’s lips are so plump and protruding that they do not touch her teeth. Or perhaps they are, as we say in Farsi, like a finely tapered braid and so thin that no teeth could bite into them. In other words, this half couplet could imply that no man has ever bitten Shirin’s lips, or that her lips have never touched a man’s teeth, or even that her teeth have never bitten a man’s lips. Do you think there is any better way to describe a woman’s virginity than to suggest that she has never experienced a stolen kiss?

  In olden days and current times, when Iranian men search for a spouse, they search for a woman whose lips have never touched teeth and whose teeth have never touched lips. And when they seek a lover, they want someone with extensive experience in biting. Unfortunately, oftentimes either they don’t find her or they end up with her opposite …

  In subsequent verses Shirin’s body is progressively thus described:

  Her face resembling flowers … The front and back of her body akin to soft white ermine, and her fingers reminiscent of ten elongated ermine tails … Her body milk and honey, her eyebrows arches stretching as far as her earlobes, and the curve of her double chin draped down to her shoulders.

  Given the information the poet offers, we know that Shirin is from Armenia, and given that Iranian men generally prefer fair-skinned blonds, women from Armenia—which at times was and at times was not part of Iran—were and remain symbols of beauty. However, given the similes I have described, this Shirin is definitely not this century’s fashion.

  In any case, the old woman escapes from the room and Shirin appears before Khosrow. Now, Khosrow’s eyes widen at the sight of all that beauty and sex appeal. This, in fact, is the story’s climax. Khosrow and Shirin is made up of sixty-five hundred verses. Approximately four-fifths of it recounts how Khosrow heard praise of Shirin’s beauty and desired her, how Shirin traveled to Iran from Armenia, how they met, how they fell in love, and how eager they were to fall into each other’s arms. The verses also relate how an innocent man named Farhad, ill treated and poor, who did not possess the position, power, or sexual where withal of the emperor Khosrow, falls in love with Shirin, how the romantic affair turns into a love triangle, how Farhad in demonstrating the magnitude of h
is love for Shirin—or perhaps to exhibit his manly prowess—begins to carve a passageway in a massive mountain with only a pickax. Which one of her two lovers do you think Shirin should have picked: the sleeping drunk or the mountain-carver?

  Throughout these verses, numerous obstacles and incidents and even separations bar Khosrow and Shirin from lying in each other’s arms. But after all is said and done, like all lovers across the world, be they in Mogadishu or Sarajevo, in Tehran or Baghdad or Paris, at last Khosrow and Shirin come together on that long-awaited night and they start planting flowers and drinking milk sweetened with honey … In other words, the poet has composed fifty-two hundred verses and developed scores of incidents before Khosrow and Shirin finally join in the nuptial chamber and make love.

  Can you guess what happens on this night?

  In a half couplet, the poet suggests that when Khosrow perceives Shirin’s sensuality, he turns into a beast that has seen the new moon—or, were we to find metaphors consistent with Anglo-Saxon culture, he turns into a werewolf who has seen the full moon.

  Guess!

  Please do not refer to your own personal experiences.

  I suspect you have guessed wrong. No, Khosrow does not attack Shirin. Instead he flops down on the bed and falls asleep. Yes, precisely at that tender and fateful moment …

  Now I’m thinking that perhaps one reason Macedonian, Arab, Turk, Mongol, Afghan, and English invaders could so easily and effectively occupy the magnificent empires of Iran was exactly this. Our kings had the habit of falling asleep precisely at tender and fateful moments, moments when they had to be men, to be strong, to be hard, and to occupy something small and sweet, and by the time they woke up, all was lost, and not only their kingdom but their wives, slaves, and sisters had been occupied.