Reading Lolita In Tehran Part 17

"People usually deserve what they get," said Reza, biting into his ham and cheese. I gave him a reproachful look. "I mean it," he said. "If we are prepared to be duped by every so-called election-we all know they aren't real elections when only Muslims with impeccable revolutionary credentials, chosen by the Council of Guardians and approved by the Supreme Leader, can become candidates. Anyway, the point is that as long as we accept this charade called elections and hope that some Rafsanjani or Khatami can save us, we deserve our later disenchantments."

"But this frustration is not one-sided," my magician added. "How do you think Mr. Khamenei feels"-he turned a quizzical eye to me and raised an eyebrow-"to see your Mitra and Sanaz going on their merry way and corrupting good Muslim girls like Ya.s.si and Mahs.h.i.+d in the bargain? Or hearing their former radical revolutionaries quoting Kant and Spinoza instead of Islamic sources? And then we have our president's daughter, peddling votes by promising to give women the right to ride bicycles in public parks."

"But all of this is so ridiculous," I said.

"It might be ridiculous to you," he said, "but it is not very funny to this president and his followers, who have to win the hearts and minds of the children of the revolution by promising them-at least implicitly-access to all things Western. And still," he added with relish, "these young people listen more to Michael Jackson and read your Nabokov with more enjoyment and enthusiasm than you and I ever did in our decadent youth.

"Besides, what are you worrying about anyway?" he said. "You'll be leaving us and our problems very soon."

"I won't be leaving either you or your problems," I said. "I'm counting on you to keep me posted."

"No, I won't," he said. "We won't communicate once you go."

In response to my startled look, he said, "Call it self-defense or cowardice; I don't want to be in touch with those of my friends who are lucky enough to leave."

"But you encouraged me," I said, bewildered by what I was hearing.

"Well, yes, that's another matter. But anyway, these are my rules. Seldom seen, soon forgotten; out of sight, out of mind and all that. A chap needs to protect himself."

He did everything in his power to help me leave, and yet when he saw that I was finally leaving, when it all came out well in the end, he was not happy with me. Was he disenchanted? Did he think my departure was a comment of sorts on those I was leaving behind?

20.

I was on the phone when Na.s.srin arrived. Negar, who had opened the door, kept shouting, quite unnecessarily, Mom, Mom, Na.s.srin is here! A few minutes later a shy Na.s.srin entered, standing by the door as if already regretting her visit. I gestured for her to wait for me in the living room. I'll have to call you later, I told my friend. One of my girls is here to see me. Girls? she said-she knew very well what I meant. Students, I said. Students! Get a life, woman. Why don't you return to teaching? But I am teaching. You know what I mean. By the way, talking of your students, your Azin is going to drive me crazy. That girl doesn't know her own mind-either that or she's playing a game I don't understand. She's worried about her daughter, I said hurriedly. But listen, I really have to go. I'll call you later.

When I entered the living room, Na.s.srin was staring at the birds-of-paradise and chewing her nails with the distracted focus of a professional nail chewer. I should have guessed before that she belonged to the category of people who bite their nails, I remember thinking-she must have exercised a great deal of restraint in cla.s.s.

At the sound of my voice, she turned around abruptly and impulsively hid her hands behind her back. To cover the awkwardness she had brought into the room, I asked her what she wanted to drink. Nothing, thank you. She had not taken her robe off, only unb.u.t.toned it, revealing the outlines of a white s.h.i.+rt tucked into a pair of black corduroys. She was wearing Reeboks and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked like a pretty girl, young and fragile, like any other girl from any other part of the world. She s.h.i.+fted restlessly from one leg to another, reminding me of the first time I had seen her, almost sixteen years earlier. Na.s.srin, stand still for a moment, I said quietly. Better yet, sit. Sit down, please-no, let's go downstairs to my office; it's more private.

I was trying to delay what she had come to tell me. We made a stop in the kitchen. I handed her the fruit bowl and put a jug of water, two gla.s.ses and some plates on a tray. On our way down the stairs, she caught me: I'm going away, she said. I knew from experience that I should not throw her any further off balance by showing too much surprise. Where are you going? To London, to live with my sister for a while. And what about Ramin? We had reached my office. She waited for me to open the door, s.h.i.+fting her weight from one leg to another, as if neither leg would take responsibility for its burden. I could tell by her pale color and the stunned expression on her face that I had asked the wrong question. I'm done with him, she muttered as we entered the room.

How are you leaving? I asked her once we had sat down, she with her back to the window and I slumped on the couch against the wall with its large painting-much too large for the small room-of the Tehran mountains. Smugglers, she said. They still won't issue me a pa.s.sport. I'll have to make my way to Turkey by land and wait for my brother-in-law to pick me up.

When? In about a week or so, she said. I'm not sure of the exact date; they will let me know. You will know through Mahs.h.i.+d, she added after a pause. She's the only one in our cla.s.s who knows.

Is anyone going with you? No. My father's against it. The only thing he finally agreed to do was help pay for part of the trip. My sister is taking care of the rest-she calls it my rescue operation. My father says if I insist on going ahead with this crazy plan, I'm on my own. To him these people, no matter what we think of them, they're our people. He lost one daughter, now this other one. He says first it was the cla.s.s, and now this. I thought he didn't know about the cla.s.s, I said. Apparently, he did; he too was keeping up appearances.

She rubbed her hands obsessively and refrained from looking at me directly. This was Na.s.srin, or to be honest, this was the two of us together: sharing the most intimate moments with a shrug, pretending they were not intimate. It wasn't courage that motivated this casual, impersonal manner of treating so much pain; it was a special brand of cowardice, a destructive defense mechanism, forcing others to listen to the most horrendous experiences and yet denying them the moment of empathy: don't feel sorry for me; nothing is too big for me to handle. This is nothing, nothing really.

She told me that of all the years she had spent in jail, all the years of the war, this period of adjustment had been the hardest for her. At first she had thought she needed to leave only for a while. But gradually she had realized that she just wanted to leave. They would not issue her a pa.s.sport, so she would have to go illegally, and that suited her fine.

I acted as if we were talking about a normal trip, a routine visit to her older sister in London-it's far too wet at this time of year; do ask them to take you to the Globe. . . . And why did you end it with Ramin? I could not stop myself from asking her. Was he opposed to your move, or did he inspire it? No, he, he-well, he knew how much I wanted to leave, because of this illness I have, you know, from my jail time. We, my sister, my mother and I, have been thinking for a long time that there might be a better way of handling it over there. I never asked her what exactly the illness was.

At first Ramin, he's an honorable man-a genuine grin brought back for a brief glimpse her girlishness-agreed that I should go, but he thought we should at least be engaged. I waited for her to continue. But then, well, then I broke it up. Na.s.srin? She paused and lowered her head, concentrating on her hands. She said, very fast: He was . . . he is no better than the others. Do you remember that line you read from Bellow about people emptying their garbage of thought all over you? Again she smiled. Well, that's Ramin and his intellectual friends for you.

This was too much, even for an experienced evader like myself. Taking a sip of water, as we know from novels, is a good way of gaining time. What do you mean no better than the others? Which others?

My uncle was cruder, she said slowly. You know, more like Mr. Nahvi. Ramin was different. He had read Derrida; he had watched Bergman and Kiarostami. No, he didn't touch me; in fact he was very careful not to touch me. It was worse. I can't explain, it was his eyes. His eyes? The way he looked at people, at other women. You could always tell, she said. She lowered her head miserably, her fingers touching one another. Ramin thought there was a difference between the girls that you were s.e.xually attracted to and the girls you married-a girl who'd share your intellectual life with you, a girl you'd respect. Respect, Respect, she said again, with a great deal of anger. she said again, with a great deal of anger. Respect Respect was the word he used. He respected me. I was his Simone de Beauvoir, minus the s.e.x part. And he was too much of a coward to just go and have s.e.x with others. So he looked at them. It got to the point where he'd look at my older sister while he was talking to me. He just looked. He stared at women in the way . . . in the way my uncle touched me. was the word he used. He respected me. I was his Simone de Beauvoir, minus the s.e.x part. And he was too much of a coward to just go and have s.e.x with others. So he looked at them. It got to the point where he'd look at my older sister while he was talking to me. He just looked. He stared at women in the way . . . in the way my uncle touched me.

I felt sorry for Na.s.srin and, oddly, for Ramin too. I felt that he too needed help-he too needed to know more about himself, his needs and desires. Couldn't she see that he was not like her uncle? Perhaps it was too much to ask of her to sympathize with Ramin. She was quite ruthless to him; she had convinced herself she couldn't afford any feelings there. She had told him they were through, had made it clear that in her eyes, he was no better than the men he criticized and despised. At least you know where you stand with Ayatollah Khamenei, but these others, the ones with all sorts of claims and politically correct ideas-they were the worst. You want to save mankind, she had told him, you and your b.l.o.o.d.y Arendt. Why don't you start by saving yourself from your s.e.xual problems? Find a prost.i.tute. Stop looking at my sister.

Whenever I think of Na.s.srin, I always begin and end with that day in my room when she told me she was leaving. It was evening. Outside, the sky was the color of dusk-not dark, not light, not even gray. Rain was coming down in heavy sheets, the drops hanging from the bare brown leaves of the pear tree.

She said, "I am going away." She said she was twenty-seven now and didn't know what it meant to live. She had always thought that life in jail would be the hardest, but it hadn't been. She brushed a few strands of hair from her face. She said, There, in jail, I like the rest of them thought we would be killed and that would be the end, or we would live, we would live and get out, and begin all over. She said, There, in jail, we dreamed of just being outside, free, but when I came out, I discovered that I missed the sense of solidarity we had in jail, the sense of purpose, the way we tried to share memories and food. She said, More than anything else, I miss the hope. In jail, we had the hope that we might get out, go to college, have fun, go to movies. I am twenty-seven. I don't know what it means to love. I don't want to be secret and hidden forever. I want to know, to know who this Na.s.srin is. You'd call it the ordeal of freedom, I guess, she said, smiling.

21.

Na.s.srin had asked me to tell the cla.s.s about her departure. She couldn't face them-it was too intolerable. Better just to leave without good-byes. How should I break the news to them? "Na.s.srin won't be coming to cla.s.s anymore." The statement was simple enough; it was how you said it, where you put the emphasis, that counted. I said it abruptly and rather crudely, forcing everyone into a stunned silence. I registered Ya.s.si's nervous t.i.tter, Azin's startled glance and the quick exchange of looks between Sanaz and Mitra.

"Where is she now?" asked Mitra after a long pause.

"I don't know," I said. "We have to ask Mahs.h.i.+d."

"Na.s.srin left for the border two days ago," Mahs.h.i.+d quietly informed us. "She's waiting for the smugglers to get in touch with her, so by next week she should be riding a camel or a donkey or a jeep across the desert."

"Not Without My Daughter," said Ya.s.si with an uneasy giggle. "I'm so sorry," she said, putting her hand to her mouth. "I feel so terrible."

For a while everyone speculated about Na.s.srin's journey: the perils of traveling from the Turkish border, her loneliness, her future options. "Let's not talk about her as if she's dead," said Azin. "She's much better off where she's going, and we should be happy for her." Mahs.h.i.+d threw her a sharp glance. But Azin was right. What else could we have wished for her?

The person who reacted most strongly, not to Na.s.srin's departure but to my own now that Na.s.srin's sudden vanis.h.i.+ng act had made concrete the threat of separation, was the one who identified with me most-Manna.

"This cla.s.s will be over very soon anyway," she said without looking at anyone. "Na.s.srin has gotten the message from Dr. Nafisi." What message? "That we should all leave."

I was rather startled by the bitterness of her accusation. I felt guilty enough on my own, as if my decision to leave was a betrayal of some promise I had made to them. (Guilt has become part of your makeup. You felt guilty even while you had no notion of leaving, my magician said later, when I complained to him.) "Don't be silly," Azin said, turning to Manna, her voice full of reproach. "It isn't her fault if you feel trapped living here."

"I am not being silly," said Manna savagely, "and, yes, I do feel trapped. Why shouldn't I?"

Azin's hand went to her bag, perhaps to fish out a cigarette, and came out empty. "How could you? You talk as if it's all Mrs. Nafisi's fault," she said to Manna, her hand shaking.

"No, let Manna explain what she means," I said.

"Perhaps she means . . ." Sanaz started lamely.

"I can explain myself, thank you," said Manna crossly. "I mean, you set up a model for us"-she turned to me-"that staying here is useless, that we should all leave if we want to make something of ourselves."

"That's not true," I told her with some irritation. "I never suggested that my experience should be yours. You can't follow me in everything, Manna. I mean each one of us has to do what's best for her. That's all the advice I can give you."

"The only way I can convince myself that it's okay for you to leave us here," said Manna (I remember she said to leave us here leave us here), "is that I know if I had half a chance, I would too. I would leave everything," she said as an afterthought. Even Nima? "Especially Nima," she shot back with a wicked little smile. "I am not like Mahs.h.i.+d. I don't think any of us has a duty to stay. We have only one life to live."

For so many years now I had acted as their confessor. They'd poured out their heartaches, their troubles, as if I never had any troubles of my own to cope with, as if I lived under a magical spell that allowed me to avoid all the pitfalls and hards.h.i.+ps not just of life in the Islamic Republic but of life in general. And now they wanted me to carry the burden of their choices as well. People's choices were their own. The only way you could help them was if you knew what they wanted. How could you tell someone what she should want? (Nima would call later that night. "Manna is afraid you don't like her anymore," he said half jokingly. "She asked me to call.") Other people's sorrows and joys have a way of reminding us of our own; we partly empathize with them because we ask ourselves: What about me? What does that say about my life, my pains, my anguish? For us, Na.s.srin's departure entailed a genuine concern for her, and anxieties and hopes for her new life. We also, for the moment at least, were shocked by the pain of missing her, of envisioning the cla.s.s without her. But in the end we finally turned back towards ourselves, remembering our own hopes and anxieties in light of her decision to leave.

Mitra was the first to express her own anxieties. Lately, I had observed an anger and bitterness in her that was all the more alarming because it was so unprecedented. She had started to raise her voice in her diaries and notes, beginning with her account of her visit with her husband to Syria. The first thing that struck her was the humiliations Iranians suffered, quite meekly, at the Damascus airport, where they were segregated into a separate line and searched like criminals. Yet what had shocked her most were her sensations in the streets of Damascus, where she had walked freely, hand in hand with Hamid, wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans. She described the feel of the wind and the sun on her hair and her skin-it was always the same sensation that was so startling. It had been the same with me and would be so later with Ya.s.si and Manna.

In the Damascus airport she had been humiliated by what she was a.s.sumed to be, and when she returned home, she felt angry because of what she could have been. She was angry for the years she had missed, for her lost portion of the sun and wind, for the walks she had not taken with Hamid. The thing about it, she had said with wonder, was that walking with him like that had suddenly transformed him into a stranger. This was a new context for their relations.h.i.+p; she had become a stranger even to herself. Was this the same Mitra, she asked herself, this woman in jeans and a tangerine T-s.h.i.+rt walking in the sun with a good-looking young man by her side? Who was this woman, and could she learn to incorporate her into her life if she were to live in Canada?

"You mean you don't have any sense of belonging here?" Mahs.h.i.+d asked, looking defiantly at Mitra. "I seem to be the only one who feels she owes something to this place."

"I can't live with this constant fear," said Mitra, "with having to worry all the time about the way I dress or walk. Things that come naturally to me are considered sinful, so how am I supposed to act?"

"But you know what is expected of you, you know the laws," said Mahs.h.i.+d. "This is nothing new. What has changed? Why is it bothering you so much more now?"

"Maybe for you, it is easier," said Sanaz, but Mahs.h.i.+d did not let her continue.

"You think I have it easy?" she said, turning a sharp eye towards Sanaz. "Do you think only people like you suffer in this country? You don't even know what fear is. Just because of my faith and the fact that I wear the veil, you think that I don't feel threatened? You think I don't feel fear? It's rather superficial, isn't it, to think that the only kind of fear is your kind, your kind," she said with a rare show of bitterness.

"I didn't mean that," said Sanaz more gently. "The fact that we know about these laws, the fact that they are familiar, doesn't make them any better. It doesn't mean that we don't feel the pressure and the fear. But for you, at least, wearing the veil is natural; it's your religion, your choice."

"My choice," said Mahs.h.i.+d with a laugh. "What else do I have but my religion, and if I lose that . . ." She left her sentence unfinished, and turned her gaze once more to the ground, murmuring, "I'm sorry. I got too emotional."

"I know what Mahs.h.i.+d's talking about," Ya.s.si broke in. "The worst fear you can have is losing your faith. Because then you're not accepted by anyone-not by those who consider themselves secular or by people of your own faith. It's terrible. Mahs.h.i.+d and I have been talking about that, about how ever since we could remember, our religion has defined every single action we've taken. If one day I lose my faith, it will be like dying and having to start new again in a world without guarantees."

My heart went out to Mahs.h.i.+d, sitting there trying to look composed, her face flushed, strong emotions like thin veins moving under her pale skin. Mahs.h.i.+d, I thought, more than my more secular students, has the most troubling questions about religion. In her cla.s.s diary and papers, with a rage as restrained as her smile, she reviewed and questioned minute details of life under Islamic law. Mahs.h.i.+d later wrote in her cla.s.s diary: "Both Ya.s.si and I know that we have been losing our faith. We have been questioning it with every move. During the Shah's time, it was different. I felt I was in the minority and I had to guard my faith against all odds. Now that my religion is in power, I feel more helpless than ever before, and more alienated." She wrote about how ever since she could remember, she had been told that life in the land of infidels was pure h.e.l.l. She had been promised that all would be different under a just Islamic rule. Islamic rule! It was a pageant of hypocrisy and shame. She wrote about how at work her male superiors never look her in the eye, about how in movies even a six-year-old girl must wear a scarf and cannot play with boys. Although she wore the veil, she described the pain of being required to wear it, calling it a mask behind which women were forced to hide. She talked about all of this coldly, furiously, always with a question mark after each point.

"This decision to leave was a difficult one," I said, feeling for the first time that I was ready to speak to them honestly about what I was doing and what it meant. "I had to go through many torturous deliberations. I even contemplated leaving Bijan." (You did? Bijan asked me later, when I recounted our conversation to him. You never told me.) This had the effect of diverting them momentarily from their anger and frustrations. I told them about my own fears, about waking up at night feeling as if I were choking, as if I would never be able to get out, about the dizzy spells and nausea and pacing around the apartment at all hours of the night. For the first time I opened up to them, talking about my own feelings and emotions, and it seemed to have an oddly soothing effect on them. By the time Azin suddenly jumped up, remembering that today was her turn to visit her daughter-named after my own Negar-who now lived temporarily with her husband's family, we felt lighter. We joked about Sanaz's various gentleman callers and Ya.s.si's attempts to lose some weight.

Before they left, Mahs.h.i.+d picked up a little parcel she had brought with her. She said, "I have something for you. Na.s.srin sends her regards. She asked me to give this to you." She handed me a thick folder and a bundle of notes. I have the folder here on this other desk, in this other office, right now. It is brilliantly colored: white with bright bubble-gum-orange stripes and three cartoon characters. In vivid green and purple characters it says: Be Seeing You in Fabulous Florida. Things Go Better with Suns.h.i.+ne! Be Seeing You in Fabulous Florida. Things Go Better with Suns.h.i.+ne! Inside the folder, Na.s.srin had transcribed every word of my cla.s.ses during my last three terms at Allameh, neatly written in her handwriting, with headings and subheadings. All the sentences and anecdotes were recorded. James, Austen, Fielding, Bronte, Poe, Twain-all of them were there. She left behind nothing else-no photograph, and no personal note-except for one line on the last page of the folder: Inside the folder, Na.s.srin had transcribed every word of my cla.s.ses during my last three terms at Allameh, neatly written in her handwriting, with headings and subheadings. All the sentences and anecdotes were recorded. James, Austen, Fielding, Bronte, Poe, Twain-all of them were there. She left behind nothing else-no photograph, and no personal note-except for one line on the last page of the folder: I still owe you a paper on Gatsby. I still owe you a paper on Gatsby.

22.

Living in the Islamic Republic is like having s.e.x with a man you loathe, I said to Bijan that evening after the Thursday cla.s.s. He had come home to find me sitting in my customary chair in the living room, Na.s.srin's folder on my lap, my students' notes scattered on the table and beside them a dish of melting coffee ice cream. Boy, you must be feeling rotten, he said after a glance at the ice cream. He took a seat opposite me and said, Don't just let that sentence hang in the air. Explain a little.

Well, it's like this: if you're forced into having s.e.x with someone you dislike, you make your mind blank-you pretend to be somewhere else, you tend to forget your body, you hate your body. That's what we do over here. We are constantly pretending to be somewhere else-we either plan it or dream it. Ever since my girls left this afternoon, I have been thinking of this issue.

Bijan and I had become surprisingly closer after our period of arguments, which had been heated and painful. Bijan was most articulate in his silences. Through him I had learned the many moods and nuances of silence: the angry silence and the disapproving one; the appreciative silence and the loving one. Sometimes his silences acc.u.mulated and overflowed into torrents of words, but recently we had found ourselves talking for long stretches. It all started when we both decided to describe to each other how we felt about Iran. For the first time, we began seeing the matter through each other's eyes. Now that he had begun to dismantle his life in Iran, he needed to articulate and share his thoughts and emotions. We spent long hours talking about our feelings, our ideas of home-for me portable, for him more traditional and rooted.

I told him in detail about the arguments we had had in cla.s.s that day. After they left, I couldn't get rid of this idea of s.e.xual molestation. I said, I keep tormenting myself with the thought that that's how Manna must feel.

Bijan didn't respond-he seemed to be waiting for me to elaborate-but suddenly I had nothing more to say. Feeling a little lighter, I stretched and picked at a few pistachio nuts. Have you ever noticed, I said, cracking a nut, how strange it is when you look in that mirror on the opposite wall that instead of seeing yourself, you see the trees and the mountains, as if you have magically willed yourself away?

Yes, as a matter of fact I have, he said, going into the kitchen for his usual vodka, but I haven't lost sleep over it. You, however, must have been thinking about it day and night, he added, placing his gla.s.s and a new dish of pistachio nuts on the table. As for your most eloquent a.n.a.logy, your girls must resent the fact that while you're leaving this guy behind, they have to keep sleeping with him-some of them, at least, he said, taking a sip of his drink. He looked at his gla.s.s speculatively. I'm going to miss this, you know. You have to admit, we've got the best bootleg vodka in the world.

Cutting through his speculations on the merits of our vodka, I said, Going away isn't going to help as much as you think. The memory stays with you, and the stain. It's not something you slough off once you leave.

I have two things to say to that, he said. First, none of us can avoid being contaminated by the world's evils; it's all a matter of what att.i.tude you take towards them. And second, you always talk about the effect of "these people" on you. Have you ever thought about your effect on them? I looked at him with some skepticism. This relations.h.i.+p is not equal in both good and bad ways, he continued. They have the power to kill us or flog us, but all of this only reminds them of their weakness. They must be scared out of their wits to see what's happening to their own former comrades, and to their children.

23.

It was a warm summer day, about a fortnight after my conversation with Bijan. I had taken refuge in a coffee shop. It was really a pastry shop, one of the very few that still remained from my childhood. It had great piroshki for which people stood in long lines, and near the entrance, next to the large French windows, two or three small tables. I was sitting at one of these with a cafe glace cafe glace in front of me. I took out my pen and paper and, staring into the air, started to write. This staring into the air and writing had become my forte, especially in those last few months in Tehran. in front of me. I took out my pen and paper and, staring into the air, started to write. This staring into the air and writing had become my forte, especially in those last few months in Tehran.

Suddenly I noticed in the long line of people waiting for piroshki a face that seemed familiar, but not so familiar that I could place it. A woman was looking at me, more like staring. She smiled and, giving up her precious place in line, came towards me. Dr. Nafisi, she said. Don't you remember me? Clearly, she was a former student. Her voice was familiar, but I could not place her. She reminded me of my cla.s.ses on James and Austen, and gradually her ghost took shape in my memory and hovered into focus alongside her present self and I recognized Miss Ruhi, whom I had not seen for some years. I would have recognized her more quickly if she had been dressed in a chador that emphasized her small upturned nose and defensive smile.

She was dressed in black, but not in a chador, and had curled a long black scarf around her neck, fastened with a silvery pin that seemed to quiver like a spider's web against the black cloth. Her makeup was pale, and a few strands of dark brown hair showed from under the scarf. I kept remembering her other face, the austere one, so withdrawn that her lips seemed constantly pursed. I noticed now that she was not plain, as I had believed her to be.

She lingered by my table. I asked her, since she had lost her coveted place in the line, to sit down and have a coffee with me. She hesitated and then perched herself precariously on the edge of the chair. After college, she had become active in one of the militia organizations, but she'd left it after a short while. They didn't care much for English literature, you know, she said with a smile. . . . And then she had been married for two years. She said she missed her college years. At the time, she had often wondered why she continued with English literature, why she didn't find something useful-here she smiled-and now she was glad she had continued. She felt she had something others did not. Do you remember our discussions of Wuthering Heights Wuthering Heights?

Yes, I remembered them, and as we talked I remembered her more clearly too; images chased away her present unfamiliar face and replaced it with another, now also unfamiliar. I returned in my mind to that cla.s.sroom, on the fourth floor, to the third-or was it the fourth?-row near the aisle. I can just about pick out two faces, almost identical in their bland disapproval, taking notes. They were there when I entered the cla.s.s and would linger after I left. Most of the others looked on them with suspicion. They were quite active in the Muslim Students' a.s.sociation and did not mix well even with the more liberal elements in the Islamic Jihad, like Mr. Forsati.

I remember her. I remember that particular discussion of Wuthering Heights, Wuthering Heights, because I remember how Miss Ruhi had unglued herself from her friend and followed me out of the cla.s.sroom, pus.h.i.+ng me almost into a corner of the hall. She leapt at me and spluttered out her indignation over the immorality of Catherine and Heathcliff. There was so much pa.s.sion in her words-I had been taken aback. What was she talking about? because I remember how Miss Ruhi had unglued herself from her friend and followed me out of the cla.s.sroom, pus.h.i.+ng me almost into a corner of the hall. She leapt at me and spluttered out her indignation over the immorality of Catherine and Heathcliff. There was so much pa.s.sion in her words-I had been taken aback. What was she talking about?

I was not about to put another novel on trial. I told her it was immoral to talk about a great novel in this manner, that characters were not vehicles for pedantic moral imperatives, that reading a novel was not an exercise in censure. She said something about other professors, their delicacy in censoring even the word wine wine out of the stories they taught, lest it offend the Islamic sensibilities of their students. Yes, I thought, and they have been stuck teaching out of the stories they taught, lest it offend the Islamic sensibilities of their students. Yes, I thought, and they have been stuck teaching The Pearl. The Pearl. I told her she could drop the cla.s.s or take the matter to higher authorities, that this was the way it would be in my cla.s.s and that I would continue to teach what I taught. I left her there in the darkened corner of that very long hallway. Though I saw her afterward, in my mind I left her there forever. And now she had excavated herself and polished up her image. I told her she could drop the cla.s.s or take the matter to higher authorities, that this was the way it would be in my cla.s.s and that I would continue to teach what I taught. I left her there in the darkened corner of that very long hallway. Though I saw her afterward, in my mind I left her there forever. And now she had excavated herself and polished up her image.

She had also objected to Daisy Miller: Daisy Miller: she found Daisy not only immoral but foolish and "unreasonable." But then, despite our differences and her obvious disapproval of the novels I taught, she had enrolled in my cla.s.s again the following year. There were rumors that she was having an affair with one of the big shots in the Muslim Students' a.s.sociation. Na.s.srin was always bringing these rumors to my attention, trying to prove how hypocritical "these people" were. she found Daisy not only immoral but foolish and "unreasonable." But then, despite our differences and her obvious disapproval of the novels I taught, she had enrolled in my cla.s.s again the following year. There were rumors that she was having an affair with one of the big shots in the Muslim Students' a.s.sociation. Na.s.srin was always bringing these rumors to my attention, trying to prove how hypocritical "these people" were.

She said now that she missed college. It didn't seem like much at the time, but later she noticed how much she missed it. She missed the films we watched together and the cla.s.s discussions. Do you remember your Dear Jane Society? I was puzzled-how did she know about that? It was a joke shared by me and a handful of my students. She said, I always wanted to be in on it. I always thought it would be a great deal of fun. I really liked Jane Austen-if you only knew how many girls swooned over Darcy! I said, I didn't know you were allowed to have a heart in your group. She said, Believe it or not, we fell in and out of love all the time.

She had tried to study Arabic and had translated some short stories and poems from English into Persian-for herself, she added as an afterthought. She used the Persian expression "for my own heart." After a pause she added, And then I got married and now have a daughter. I wondered if she had married the man of our rumors; he was a man I had no fond memories of.

I asked her how old her daughter was. She said, Eleven months, and, after a pause, with a playful shadow of a smile: I named her after you. After me? I mean, she has a different name on her birth certificate-she is called Fahimeh, after a favorite aunt who died young-but I have a secret name for her. I call her Daisy. She said she had hesitated between Daisy and Lizzy. She had finally settled on Daisy. Lizzy was the one she had dreamed of, but marrying Mr. Darcy was too much wishful thinking. Why Daisy? Don't you remember Daisy Miller? Haven't you heard that if you give your child a name with a meaning she will become like her namesake? I want my daughter to be what I never was-like Daisy. You know, courageous.

Daisy was the character my female students most identified with. Some of them became obsessed. Later, in my workshop, they would go back to her time and again, speaking of her courage, something they felt they had lacked. Mahs.h.i.+d and Mitra spoke of her with regret in their writings; like Winterbourne, they felt they were bound to make a mistake about her. When she rose to say good-bye, I looked at her with some hesitation and said, May I ask you a rather personal question? You said you were married. And your husband? I married someone outside the university, she said. He is in computers. And open-minded, she added with a smile.

She had to go, she had an eleven-month-old daughter with a secret name waiting for her at home. You know, I didn't think about it then, but we did have fun, she said. All the fuss we made over these writers, as if what they said was a matter of life and death to us-James and Bronte and Nabokov and Jane Austen.

24.

Certain memories, like the imaginary balloons Ya.s.si made with her delicate hands when she was happy, rise from somewhere in the depths of what we call memory. Like balloons, these memories are light and bright and irretrievable, despite the "air sadness" (Bellow's term) surrounding them. During my last weeks in Iran, my girls and I met, in addition to Thursdays, on other days in different parts of town. We even went shopping together, as I had decided I had to buy presents for friends and family in America.

I went into my favorite cafe one afternoon, looking for my girls, but could not find them. I waylaid a waiter, an ancient one, his black trousers a little too short, carrying a tray of pastries and two steaming cups of coffee, and asked him if he had seen a handful of young girls come through. Are they unaccompanied? he asked. I looked at him in surprise. Why, yes. I suppose they are unaccompanied. Well then, they must be in the back room. He nodded to my left, where the main restaurant was. You know the rules, he said. Unaccompanied women cannot sit in this section.