(Autumn 1980\u2013Summer 1988)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A dog runs to fetch his bone. Suddenly, he freezes. The screen goes blank, and then across it appear a few words in the largest possible typeface accompanied by the threatening voice of the narrator. \u2018Dear citizens, the sound that you are about to hear is the Red Alarm, meaning that we are being attacked by air. You should turn off the lights and begin moving towards your shelters NOW!\u2019 Then the alarm began, deafening and continuous, and our hearts leapt into our mouths. Mum clutched little Golnar, grabbed the torch and began to run towards the stairs. Dad leapt up to turn off the lights while Madar pulled me by the hand towards the cellar, whispering prayers in Arabic. The blasts began before I could reach the stairs; the sound made my knees tremble and slowed my reflexes. It was the anti-aircraft missiles shooting in the air at random to keep away the Iraqi planes. Dad joined us, took my other hand and shouted angrily, \u2018Be a man, Arash! Your sister needs you downstairs!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tried, I tried very hard to overcome the invincible fear within me, I tried hard to be the man Dad expected me to be but I couldn\u2019t. I felt like throwing up. I didn\u2019t want to die under tons of rubble: I was only 10. I was not supposed to be running for my life: I was supposed to wait and see if the dog finally got his bone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once we were in the cellar, the fear was replaced by a sense of expectation. We were in the dark; I couldn\u2019t see but I could hear. I heard Dad struggling to light the candles we had been stocking in the cellar since the air raids began. I could hear Madar whispering in Arabic: \u2018Allah is the protecting guardian of those who believe. He bringeth them out of darkness into light . . .\u2019 I could hear Golnar sobbing and Mum trying to catch her breath. Through the thick walls of the cellar I could also hear the muffled sound of the blasts. Above all, I could hear the pounding of my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad managed to light the candles and turn on his radio. We listened to military marches while we waited for the threat to pass. The war was not \u2018cool\u2019, not like those films which hailed it as an opportunity for the valiant to prove themselves and which always ended with the death of the bad guys. I wasn\u2019t feeling valiant at all. My knees wouldn\u2019t stop trembling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad decided to distract us with a game, a traditional one. The first person recites a verse from a Persian poet and the second has to recite another that begins with the last letter of the previous one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad: \u2018I wish there was a place for me to unload \/ Or a final ending to this longest road\u2019 (Khayyam).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mum: \u2018Dead is whoever does not live by love \/ Bury him by my command even if he breathes\u2019 (Hafiz)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I: \u2018Seek no kindness of those full of hate \/ People of the mosque with the church debate\u2019 (Hafiz).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This took my mind off the crisis but it didn\u2019t help four-year-old Golnar; she didn\u2019t know any poetry and found it hard to stop crying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, after what seemed an age, the narrator\u2019s voice interrupted the military marches on the radio. \u2018Dear citizens, we are happy to announce that the threat has passed and the sound you are about to hear is the White Alarm. You can now leave your shelters and return to your habitations.\u2019 We heaved a sigh of relief. We would live another night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Iranian Army was considerably weakened and most of its experienced commanders had been executed. Hence, Saddam Hussein considered this an opportune moment to attack Iran and seize control of the Persian Gulf. Casting aside the 1975 agreement between Iran and Iraq that had ended the war between them and resolved their border disputes, he declared war. Announcing that the Iraqi army would reach Tehran in three days, he launched a full-scale attack. Iran, caught by surprise, couldn\u2019t react quickly enough and several cities in the southwest were captured, most notably Khorramshahr, one of the most strategic sites in the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Khomeini retaliated by appointing Bani-Sadr as his Commander-in-Chief and declaring that there was no shortage of manpower in Iran. The people were asked to join the Basij and fight against the invaders: \u2018A country that has 20 million young people has 20 million soldiers.\u2019 This was the beginning of the institutionalization of the Basij, an army of volunteer militiamen formed a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hundreds of thousands enrolled; after two weeks of training, they were sent to the front to stop the Iraqi advance. Although the newly formed Basij and the Revolutionary Guards had very little training, they surprised Saddam Hussein with their courage. Thousands of them died in the first weeks, fighting heavily armed Iraqis with their bare hands, among them a 13-year-old boy who tied several grenades to his body and ran under a tank as it rolled into the city. The tank exploded and blocked the way for other tanks for a while. It was then that Khomeini called upon the nation to follow the young martyr\u2019s example. \u2018Our leader is this 13-year-old child who, with his little heart that is worth more than hundreds of tongues and pens, threw himself with his grenades under the tank of the enemy and destroyed it, and drank from the chalice of martyrdom.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly, disputes over the structure of the government faded away as the war took over the nation. Saddam didn\u2019t expect such a firm resistance and the war that was expected to last only three days turned into eight bitter years of incessant fighting and destroyed the resources of both countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The bombing of the cities; news of the front dominating all conversation; teachers continually emphasizing the greatness of our soldiers\u2019 sacrifice and the importance of our support; the military marches played on TV all day; pleas for donations for the soldiers; buses and trucks rushing through the streets, collecting offerings from the people and ferrying volunteer soldiers to the front; the government\u2019s increasing pressure on women to wear the hijab; trying to understand how to divide a three-figure number by a two-figure one in class; my classmates discussing the latest films they had watched on their Betamax video players; listening to them and yearning for a time when we could have one as well; Mum beginning to teach the fifth grade in a school in North Tehran . . . that was my life in 1980.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then it happened. The Cultural Revolution wasn\u2019t over for us. The expulsion of university lecturers and professors had begun and Dad, Dean of Faculty and Senior Lecturer, was clearly not an advocate of the Islamic government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once again, it was a while before I understood the cause for the new tension at home. Some of it I overheard as Dad discussed the situation with his friend Hormoz, another lecturer at the Iran University of Science and Technology. The most painful part was that they were being tried by their students, now turned into Islamic hardliners. Actively involved in these trials and bearing witness to the \u2018un-Islamic tendencies\u2019 of the lecturers was a young man whose name may now ring a few bells. He had charted his course and nothing was to get in the way. Twenty years later, he would be one of the most talked about political figures in the world: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t know him at the time but I knew his supervisor, Hamid Behbahani, who was Dad\u2019s colleague and friend. A senior lecturer in Transport and Traffic, he went on to become Minister of Transport in Ahmadinejad\u2019s cabinet. He seemed a decent enough man at the time, and not an Islamist at all. He had just completed his PhD in the US and, unlike the pro Khomeini lecturers, he shaved and wore a tie. As soon as the Cultural Revolution began, however, he changed. He decided to follow the rightful objectives of the Islamic Revolution, claiming to be repenting his sinful past. Apparently, his repentance bore fruit: he moved up the political ladder fairly swiftly and, eventually, became a minister. Ironically, he seems to have been a more honest person during his \u2018sinful past\u2019. He was accused of plagiarism in 2009 after one of his papers was published in an international journal. Naturally, this caused a scandal in academic circles. Though Behbahani always remained respectful towards Dad, it was obvious when he was questioned that their friendship was over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trials were ruthless and handed out a variety of sentences. Some of the professors and lecturers were expelled without any chance of appeal; others were demoted; yet others acquitted. Hormoz was expelled because of his ties with the Tudeh Communist Party. But Dad\u2019s case was more complicated. Everyone knew him as a sceptic but no one could prove his ties with any communist, monarchist or pro-Western front. Then, one of his students stepped in to testify that he was a communist. The jury was told that Dr Hejazi had said in one of his classes that engineers had to think not only about the economic justifications of their decisions but also about the impact of their efforts on society. This, according to the student, amounted to communism. And the judge agreed. Right through the trials Dad never hesitated to defend democracy and his liberal ideas but he never accepted the accusation of being a communist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The atmosphere in our house was terrible. Dad tried hard to hide his fear of losing the only job he loved but he couldn\u2019t control his nerves, couldn\u2019t stop grumbling or fussing or shouting at us for the simplest mistakes. Mum spent her time studying the textbooks she had been assigned for her fifth graders, as she had no background in teaching and teacher texts were unavailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uncle Muhammad, who worked for National TV, was facing a similar ordeal: National TV, too, was undergoing the same \u2018cleansing\u2019 process. Uncle Muhammad had already published several books expounding his socialist ideas. His wife and daughter had left Iran for France a few months earlier but he decided to stay, saying, as he always did: \u2018A lamp should bring light to the home before it shines elsewhere.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stayed with us: he couldn\u2019t afford to rent a place while paying for his family in France. Neither could he stay with my grandparents. Hadj-Agha refused to accept him: first, because he had obvious socialist beliefs; and second, because he had married an Armenian Christian woman. Hadj-Agha could never accept having a non-Muslim daughter-in-law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the night before Dad\u2019s last trial session, and he had to prepare his final defence. He began to write but he was too devastated to put his thoughts to paper. Under the circumstances, it was extremely difficult to defend the ideals for which he had fought so hard: freedom and democracy. He paced about the living room in a state of great nervous agitation and Golnar and I realized he was best left alone. Mum tried to be there for him but Dad preferred to be on his own. Then he began striding about the house, shouting, swearing and cursing at every single step he had taken for this Revolution, punching the walls, grinding his teeth and holding his head between his hands. I took Golnar to the garden and tried to distract her. By the time Mum called us in, I had managed to convince Golnar that our garden concealed a hidden treasure which we could find if we first drew a map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we went inside, Mum and Dad were dressed up, ready to go out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Can you take care of your sister until Uncle Muhammad comes?\u2019 Mum asked, \u2018He should be home any minute.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Of course,\u2019 I answered, a remark that couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. I had no idea what to do if the Red Alarm went off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Where are you going?\u2019 I asked, hesitantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Dad needs to go out. We have to take care of an important matter.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Can I come too, Mummy?\u2019 asked Golnar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018No darling,\u2019 Mum answered, caressing her hair, \u2018Children aren\u2019t allowed there.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I turned on the TV. The children\u2019s program was about to begin. I decided to do my homework while I waited, an essay on the life of Iranian villagers near the Caspian Sea where winter would never come and where people worked all day, either fishing or in the rice fields, and where the houses were built on frames that prevented the damp soil from ruining their foundations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the children\u2019s program began, I put aside my homework and tried to watch the story of the two brothers fighting over a ball. But I couldn\u2019t concentrate. What would happen tomorrow? What was Dad writing in his defence? And why did he throw it away? I left Golnar in front of the TV and crept into Dad\u2019s office to look for his papers. I heard the door of the house open and then Uncle Muhammad talking to Golnar but I carried on searching. I finally found Dad\u2019s papers in the dustbin but they weren\u2019t his defence: they were poetry. I knew Dad wrote a poem once in a while but I couldn\u2019t understand why he was doing so on such an important night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember a verse:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bodies of our own offspring
we are forced to devour.<\/pre>\n\n\n\nWhen I left the room to greet Uncle Muhammad, he wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Where did Uncle go, Golnar?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018He left,\u2019 she answered, her eyes fixed on the screen. \u2018To look for Mum and Dad, I think.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we were alone again and I was in charge: a 10-year-old boy guarding his sister against all the evils of the world. If there was an air raid I would have to pick her up and run to the cellar. That I could do. But where had everyone gone? What if they didn\u2019t return? We knew that Dad may not return at all. Those at the front could be killed, and those in the cities could be arrested. I tried to convince myself that they wouldn\u2019t arrest Dad a day before his trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nothing happened, though. Mum and Dad returned after an hour and Uncle Muhammad a little later, holding two gift-wrapped boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Happy birthday, Golnar!\u2019 he shouted as he gave her one of the boxes. Then, as the rest of us stood there, gaping, he handed the other box to me. \u2018And this is for you Arash, so that you don\u2019t feel left out!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smiling, Golnar kissed Uncle Muhammad and began to unwrap her present while Mum and Dad continued to look bewildered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Why didn\u2019t you tell me, Pari?\u2019 Uncle asked Mum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What didn\u2019t I tell you?\u2019 she asked, with raised eyebrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018That it\u2019s Golnar\u2019s birthday today!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018But, it isn\u2019t. Not for another six months,\u2019 said Dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then it was Uncle\u2019s turn to gape in astonishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It isn\u2019t? But Golnar said it was!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Golnar shook her head. \u2018I didn\u2019t say it was my birthday, I said, \u201cI think Mum and Dad have gone to buy me a birthday present!\u201d \u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mum frowned. \u2018And why would you say that?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You said you were going to do something important, and that I wasn\u2019t supposed to go with you. That means that you wanted to buy me a present and surprise me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, what could be more important than buying Golnar a birthday present six months before her birthday!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone burst out laughing. I hadn\u2019t heard genuine laughter in our home for months and this came as such a relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We immediately decided to buy a cake from the shop around the corner and celebrate Golnar\u2019s four-and-a-half-year birthday. A huge burden seemed to have been lifted from Dad\u2019s shoulders; he even brought out some home-made vodka from the cellar. I was, meanwhile, completely immersed in the Persian dictionary\u2014my first\u2014that I had just received from Uncle Muhammad. I think he bought it to stop my incessant questions about the meanings of difficult words and phrases such as \u2018social reform\u2019, \u2018imperialism\u2019, \u2018sovereignty of the jurisprudent\u2019, \u2018scrutiny\u2019 and so on. That dictionary became my bedside companion for many years, satisfying my passion for words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, when Dad came home from the trial his eyes were sparkling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I kicked their arses!\u2019 he declared. \u2018Last night, when Golnar said that the most important thing we could do was buy her a present, I was so relieved! She was right!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mum wasn\u2019t sure if \u2018kicking their arses\u2019 was the best strategy for Dad and whether it really deserved such a wide grin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What happened, Jalal?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I told them: if they sack me, they\u2019ll be doing me a great favour because then I can spend more time with my family, I can set up a private consultancy that will be much more lucrative than teaching, or I can easily go back to England since I already have job offers from there.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018And what did they say?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018They were taken aback. I said I didn\u2019t care if I was sacked. It was they who would have to answer to the academic world for firing one of the only Iranian scientists in material sciences who had papers in peer-reviewed international journals.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You didn\u2019t say anything about your ideology?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I just said that I was being tried because I believed in freedom, and that I will continue believing in it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then he looked into my eyes and finished his story. \u2018Arash, remember, never become too attached to anything and never become too detached from what you love. And . . . never be a coward.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When it came to making the final decision, no one quite dared expel Dad. He was a distinguished academic who had become a member of the Academy of Science before he was 40. It would be bad publicity for the Revolution. But he was demoted from Dean of Faculty to Senior Lecturer. Dad didn\u2019t mind; he never really wanted to be a manager; he only wanted to teach and carry on with his research. Some of the students who had testified against him, when they realized he was going to remain an influential figure in the university, tried to make up for their betrayal. But Dad told them never to talk to him except for matters related to their studies, though he promised that he wouldn\u2019t be vengeful. He wasn\u2019t. He loved his students, even the ones who turned out to be traitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the Cultural Revolution did succeed in sacking several prominent lecturers. For the rest, Ahmadinejad decided to finish the mission when he seized the presidency for his second term in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uncle Muhammad was also expelled and soon informed by a friend in high places that he was under observation. He was advised to leave the country before an arrest warrant could be issued. He could not ignore the warning this time and immediately left for France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He never returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
By 1981, the war was entering a new phase. Every day we heard about the conflicts between President Bani-Sadr, who believed in strengthening the Iranian Army and limiting the power of the unorganized army of the Revolutionary Guard, and Khamenei, Rafsanjani, Beheshti and Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Rajaii, who insisted on the inadequacy of conventional military strategy and the need for the full participation of the Guard. On the other hand, the leaders of the People\u2019s Mujahideen were beginning to question the increasing power and authority of Khomeini and the other clerics. The war would make little progress with so much internal division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Khomeini was openly critical of Bani-Sadr\u2019s strategy and preferred to support the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij rather than the Iranian Army. Bani-Sadr obviously opposed this stand, and that was the beginning of his downfall. Khomeini officially ordered Bani-Sadr to support the Revolutionary Guard. Bani Sadr was politically isolated. Although he attempted to join forces with the People\u2019s Mujahideen, it was too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We children really thought that we had a say in all this. We were divided into two groups: those who supported Bani-Sadr; and those who supported Rajaii. None of us really knew why we had chosen one or the other: we had no idea about the real source of this conflict. But it was exciting to \u2018play\u2019 politics. During our breaks, our groups took up position on opposite sides of the yard and screamed slogans in support of our preferred leader. I didn\u2019t know which one to support, so I moved between the two groups and my vote could easily be bought with a bit of candy or half a sandwich. This proved to be lucrative business as each group tried hard to recruit more supporters. Instead of supporting our favourite football teams, we supported our favourite politicians. The supporters of Rajaii said he was a true believer in Imam Khomeini and the ideals of the Islamic Republic and that Bani-Sadr was a traitor and a coward. The advocates of Bani-Sadr shouted that he had the votes of the people and 11 million votes meant he had the right to rule the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I ate a lot of free sandwiches at that time but then the headmaster forbade political demonstrations in school and I went back to bringing my own sandwiches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In June 1981, Khomeini reclaimed the power of Commander-in-Chief. This was the signal for Bani-Sadr\u2019s opponents to attack. Bani-Sadr escaped the police who had come to arrest him on a charge of treason. After a few days, he was impeached and disqualified in the Islamic Parliament in his absence. After a month of living in hiding, Bani-Sadr and Rajavi, the leader of the People\u2019s Mujahideen, fled the country and ended up in Paris. It was only later that Rajavi settled in Iraq with his supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the final bullet in the head of our dying democracy and the official launch of the reign of terror: the government outlawed all political parties except its own, the Islamic Republic Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Why do I remember all this? Because we children were ineluctably doomed to know what was going on in our country. But we were also confused. We weren\u2019t entirely sure that believing in Khomeini was the right path; even as 10-year-olds we could understand and condemn the violence that came next; even we could feel the terror spreading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahmadreza was a 16-year-old boy and a neighbour of my Aunt Sediqeh. Whenever Madar came to Tehran to visit us, she would spend a few days with Aunt Sediqeh before returning to Qom. Whenever I could, I accompanied her; there, I would spend time with my cousins Kazem, Soussan, Soheila and their neighbour Ahmadreza. He was our mentor and the neighbourhood favourite. He was finishing high school and his range of interests and knowledge was considerable. After a game of football in the street, he would buy us ice cream and talk to us about everything, from his problems in studying geometry and biology to explaining how a wind was created. Sometimes we sat on the doorstep as he read to us and then quizzed us about what we had just heard. A faint moustache was making an appearance; a beard seemed far off. He was funny, energetic, kind and wise, and everyone anticipated a bright future for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the middle of June, 1981. I had finished my exams and the summer holidays had just begun. Elementary school was over and, in the long break before I began junior high, I was free to go with Madar to Aunt Sediqeh\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we arrived, my excitement dissolved into anxiety as soon as I saw the tearful faces of the neighbours standing at their doors as well as two uniformed Committee members strolling in the street, asking everyone to go home. Madar took my hand and dragged me towards Aunt Sediqeh\u2019s house but no one opened the door. One of the neighbours, a woman in a black chador, her eyes red from crying, came to us and whispered that my aunt and all the children were at Ahmadreza\u2019s house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What\u2019s happened? Why is everyone crying?\u2019 asked Madar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Ahmadreza . . .\u2019 the woman sobbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What\u2019s happened to Ahmadreza? Is he ill?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She looked around to see if the two Committee members were watching, then whispered, \u2018He was executed last night.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Madar slumped to the street and began to wail. I simply stood there, aghast. Why would someone execute a schoolboy? It couldn\u2019t be true. And then I remembered Azadeh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We went to Ahmadreza\u2019s house. Aunt Sediqeh hugged Madar, sobbing. Kazem and Soussan had been crying silently; they grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to the corner where we all sat beside my other cousin, Soheila. Almost the same age as Ahmadreza, she had been his sweetheart. We all knew it. He\u2019d follow her around with lovesick eyes even though she was not allowed to return his affections. It was a traditional neighbourhood and it would have been considered immodest for a girl to be \u2018involved\u2019 with a boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soheila was sitting in the corner, staring into space. Every now and then a tear would fall, tracing a wet path along her dry cheek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahmadreza\u2019s mother was wailing and cursing everything and everyone, including Imam Khomeini, Ayatollah Guillani, the Jurisprudent Judge, and Asadollah Ladjevardi, Head of Tehran\u2019s Revolutionary Court and chief of Evin Jail where Ahmadreza had been executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Soheila, what happened?\u2019 I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soheila said nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Soheila, it can\u2019t be true!\u2019 I cried. \u2018Ahmadreza was the best! What will happen to you now?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This question finally penetrated her silence. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing, regretting never having told Ahmadreza how much she adored him, how much she loved to hold his hand, even if only for a second. Later, I came to know that Soheila had always dreamt about the day when Ahmadreza would finally come home with his family and ask for her hand . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We listened to taped recitations from the Quran:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the sun is folded up;
When the stars fall, losing their lustre;
When the mountains vanish;
. . .
When the oceans boil over with a swell;
When the souls are sorted out
And when the girl is asked
For what sin she was slain . . .<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\u2018My heart is broken, Arash . . .\u2019 said Soheila finally and began to weep. I sat there with her and we cried together for what seemed like an age. Time had stopped, and we felt that we could bear the loss as long as we could shed tears for him. But then came a time when all our tears ran dry. Soheila took our hands and we silently left Ahmadreza\u2019s house forever. There was a photograph of him on the table, surrounded by black candles; his eyes seemed to follow Soheila with so much desire, as if he were trying to say, \u2018Don\u2019t go Soheila, at least wait until the candles have burnt out . . .\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soheila explained everything to me that night. Ahmadreza had been a supporter of the People\u2019s Mujahideen. Though it had a significant number of official members, its main power lay in the support from the youth who were, quite simply and in most cases, fond of its revolutionary rhetoric. The People\u2019s Mujahideen had also been a key supporter of Khomeini during the Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few days after the impeachment of Bani-Sadr and his going into hiding, supporters of the People\u2019s Mujahideen had organized a huge demonstration in the streets. But the crowds were confronted by a massive police crackdown. Most of its leaders had already fled Iran; those in the streets were mainly its young supporters. Thousands were arrested during that demonstration on 20 June 1981; hundreds were condemned to death in collective trials and executed within hours. There was no question of either providing them with legal help or of allowing them a chance to appeal. Later, when a foreign reporter asked Ladjevardi why they had been deprived of their rights, he answered: \u2018The crimes of these people are so clear that no lawyer would dare to defend them. Were they to do so, they, too, would be charged with the same offence.\u2019 It was then that Ladjevardi was awarded the title of \u2018Hangman\u2019 by the people. Many years later, after he had retired, he was killed by an anonymous assassin\u2019s bullet. People felt no sorrow or regret when they heard the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next day, the names of all the executed prisoners were published in the afternoon newspapers and it was only then that hundreds of families discovered their loss. More names were published the day after and yet more the day after that; this went on for some time. Families with missing children formed long queues at the news-stands every afternoon, waiting to buy the paper and skim fearfully through the names of the hundreds who had been executed the night before, searching for mention of their children. A woman breathed a sigh of relief: although her 16-year-old daughter was still missing, at least her name was not on the list. Another woman shrieked and fell to the ground, having come across the name of her son. People gathered. Some shouted in anger, others tried to silence them lest a policeman arrested them, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The boys were shot instantly; the girls were given a few more hours. Islamic law forbids the killing of virgins. Therefore, each girl was forcefully married to one of the guards. After he had raped his new wife, she was eligible for execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years later, I had an employee, Ali, who had been a guard in Evin Prison in the 1980s. After a nervous breakdown, he had picked a fight with Ladjevardi and hence been sacked. He recounted many blood-curdling tales from that time, repeatedly asking for God\u2019s forgiveness as he did so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018They usually executed them in batches,\u2019 he once told me, while we drove to Isfahan on a business trip. \u2018I was one of the guards who had to be present during the executions, although I wasn\u2019t in the firing squad. One night, about 24 young prisoners from death row were to be shot. When the squad began to fire, a 17-year-old girl who, miraculously, hadn\u2019t been hit, threw herself to the ground and feigned death as she lay there in the blood of her slaughtered peers. To save the bullets, the victims didn\u2019t receive a coup de gr\u00e2ce, and because of time constraints and the sheer speed and volume of the executions, no doctor was brought in to verify whether the youngsters were really dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018They put the bodies in a huge trailer to take them to the cemetery. I was asked to escort it in a police car, and a city truck moved behind the trailer to wash the road clean of the blood seeping from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018When we reached the cemetery, we found a mass grave dug and waiting for the bodies. The girl had escaped as soon as the trailer had stopped. But overwhelmed and paralyzed by the darkness of the huge graveyard, she simply squatted behind a bush and waited for us to leave.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ali slowed down the car and wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018She didn\u2019t know there\u2019d be a body count.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked at him, surprised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018The officer accompanying the trailer soon found out about a missing body and he realized what might have happened. He sent all the guards to look for her. They found her soon enough and dragged her towards the grave while she howled and begged the officer to spare her life.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked him to pull over. It was too risky being driven with those trembling hands. He obeyed and took a large gulp from his bottle of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You don\u2019t have to tell me this, you know,\u2019 I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018No, no! I have to, now that I\u2019ve begun.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He took a deep breath and finished the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018The guards kept her standing over the grave. The officer took out his gun and pointed it at the poor girl\u2019s forehead. I was watching, and she turned towards me and begged: \u201cPlease . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018That was her last word. A blast . . . and she fell, like a young tree cut down, into the pit.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ali\u2019s lips were trembling. He took another gulp of water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I simply stood there, watching. She had been raped and beaten. She had seen her friends die around her. She had faced the darkness of the graveyard. She had looked into the eyes of her executioner . . . And she had looked at me and asked for my help . . . She was only 17. My daughter is 17 now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I wish I had said something . . . I wish I had protected her . . . I wish I had died trying to save her life . . . But I simply stood there and watched. That\u2019s why I\u2019m never going to see a good day again.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He told me he rarely slept without seeing those imploring eyes in his nightmares. He suffered from an anxiety disorder so acute that it could only be quelled with opium. His wife and children had left him and he had never managed to find a proper job since he left the police force\u2014until I employed him as the company\u2019s driver. And this misery followed him to his death: one day, he simply drove his motorbike into a few cement-filled barrels placed across the street as traffic barriers. Comatose for two weeks after that, when he finally regained consciousness he could recognize no one and was completely paralyzed. He died a few months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahmadreza\u2019s family never got a chance to say goodbye to him, not even to his body which was buried secretly. They only received his clothes, his wallet and his will, and that too after they had paid the cost of the bullets used for his execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soheila eventually recovered from the trauma. She studied hard and became a successful GP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But she never married.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thousands were executed and thousands more were sentenced to 7\u201310 years\u2019 imprisonment. No country condemned these arbitrary executions at the time. Reagan was designing his Star Wars defence initiative while the rest of the world was steeling itself for what was to become the final decade of the Cold War. In the meantime, Iranian youth were being massacred, either by their own government or while trying to defend their country against Saddam Hussein (who thought he was destined to repeat the Arab conquest of the Persian Empire). The world remained silent. And there were no camcorders then to provide the international media with journalistic scoops. No one cared about the collective murder of these juvenile prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The people of Iran said nothing either. It was as if the country had been reduced to silence. Parents silently watched their children being butchered and didn\u2019t take a single step to stop it, largely out of fear for their remaining children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The executions went on for several years. Ayatollah Guillani signed the death sentence of his own two sons, who were supporters of the People\u2019s Mujahideen, without a moment\u2019s hesitation. \u2018The Revolution will no longer tolerate any opposition,\u2019 he announced to anyone who cared to listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overnight and in retaliation, the People\u2019s Mujahideen turned into a terrorist group. On 27 June, Khamenei, Khomeini\u2019s delegate in the Supreme Council of Defence, survived an explosion from a bomb hidden in a tape recorder and placed beside him at a press conference. His right arm was permanently paralyzed. The following day a bomb exploded in the general assembly of the Islamic Republic Party and killed Muhammad Beheshti, one of Bani-Sadr\u2019s most feared opponents, along with 90-odd other members, each a prominent political figure. Khomeini declared that nothing would change: \u2018Kill us. It will simply awaken our nation.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A presidential election was held in less than a month\u2019s time and, on 15 August 1981, Prime Minister Rajaii, supported by Khamenei and Rafsanjani, became President without much competition. But he was destined to be so for only 15 days. On 30 August, Prime Minister Javad Bahonar and he were killed in another explosion, this time in his office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The People\u2019s Mujahideen accepted responsibility for this attack as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the next election, Khamenei, promoted to the rank of \u2018living martyr\u2019 on account of the failed assassination, won the election to become Iran\u2019s third president in a single year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Ahmadreza\u2019s death marked a turning point in my life. I lost my faith in the Revolution and in religion. I stopped praying, fasting and observing my religious duties. I came to the conclusion that Khomeini was definitely not sent by God. Even if he had been, this God was nowhere close to being either merciful or compassionate. When someone loses his faith, he is confronted by a confusing range of emotions: on the one hand he feels a sense of liberation but on the other he feels alone and isolated. In my case, I had to continue living a dual life: a public life at school where I pretended to be a wholehearted supporter of the Revolution; and a personal one at home where I was to discover a world of diversity and variety that would have been lost to me had I obeyed the strict instructions and censorship of the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Madar, too, could no longer see Khomeini\u2019s face in the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
In the summer of 1981, after our final exams, our school announced that all the fifth graders due to begin junior high the following year had to go to summer school. The classes began about 15 days after the death of Ahmadreza but by now I had become so familiar with death that it no longer held its old mysteries or terrors. We had all lost members of our families, either during the Revolution, in the purges afterwards or in the war. We had grown desensitized; the word \u2018death\u2019 no longer disturbed us, neither did the news of the delivery of yet another dead body to the neighbourhood. We were the children of the Revolution, preparing ourselves to defend it when the time came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contrary to my parents\u2019 idea, summer school was not about preparing for junior high at all. In accordance with a quote by Prophet Muhammad, parents and teachers were encouraged to teach their children archery and swimming in preparation for the jihad, the holy war. The regime had decided to interpret \u2018archery\u2019 as \u2018military training\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had to be in school every morning at 8. The day began with Quran classes: we were taught how to read the verses correctly, how to translate them and understand their true meaning. Those who were thought to have good voices were forced to take extra classes in recitation, and in the music that accompanied the verses during the readings. I never had a good voice; so I was spared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the Quran classes we had Islamic training, where we learnt about the Sharia, its law and practice. We were taught how to fast, how to pray and how to enter the lavatories with our left feet first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then we had political classes: the teachers taught us, 11-year-old children, that America was the Great Satan, Israel the embodiment of evil on earth and Saddam Hussein the envoy of the Devil sent to destroy Islam. We were told that the executed had been \u2018corrupters on earth\u2019; they had waged war against God and execution was the minimum punishment they deserved. We were also taught to spy on our parents, friends and family and encouraged to inform our teachers if we noticed our older siblings indulging in any suspicious activities. We were also told about the advantages of martyrdom, the highest honour for a Muslim, and that we had to pay the utmost respect to our compatriots being martyred in the war against Iraq. We were encouraged to nurture an exclusive desire: to join them as soon as possible. Our teacher convinced us that if we were fortunate enough to be killed on the battlefield while fighting for Islam, then our spirits would be received on the spot by houris, beautiful women who resided in Paradise and whose job was to provide every conceivable sexual pleasure for those who were privileged enough to enter Heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to our teacher, the exquisite houris would embrace us and, even while we were still soaring to Heaven, begin to make love to us. This language was not specific to our teacher but was common propaganda. Now that all potential competition had been wiped out, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij had entered the war, body and soul. But because of the sanctions against Iran that deprived them of modern artillery against the Iraqi troops armed to the teeth with the latest in military hardware, a completely new strategy was devised: soldiers became the living shields that guarded the country, forming barriers of flesh against the barrage of the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than a million people, between 13 and 60 years of age, but mainly in the 16\u201325 group, volunteered to go to the front to fight the \u2018heretic Saddamists\u2019,: the Iraqi army, as it had been labelled by our government. Most of them received only two weeks\u2019 military training before they were dispatched to the front with Russian AK-47s, wearing Basij uniforms and sporting headbands that bore the slogan \u2018O Hussein\u2019. Like Imam Hussein, they were ready for martyrdom. The commanders used them as human shields against the advanced Iraqi artillery. When Iraq\u2019s ground forces attacked, they would be confronted by thousands of soldiers who weren\u2019t afraid to die. The Iraqis would open fire, the young Iranians would fall to the ground and thousands more would step up to take their place. The more the Iraqis killed, the more volunteers joined the Basij. The new strategy did indeed work a lot better than Bani-Sadr\u2019s plans for conventional warfare. The Iraqi army was paralyzed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unexpected attacks across the border took Saddam by surprise. How could it happen? The Iraqis ensured that the land taken from Iran was made impregnable: they planted thousands of landmines along a new and deadly border that stretched for 1,458 km between Iran and Iraq. There was no way of clearing those mines. We didn\u2019t have sophisticated minesweeping equipment, true but we had soldiers. A lot of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The night before that attack, the volunteers gathered for communal prayers. After their prayers, they listened to stories about Imam Hussein and his followers and their courage. Though they knew they would die, they fought against evil until their very last breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Operations were to begin early in the morning. The first task was to clear a path through the minefield for the tanks and the troops. It was then that the commander would appear before the troops and give a sermon on the joys of martyrdom, the pleasures of being accepted into God\u2019s presence. Then he would ask for volunteers to run through the minefield, thus triggering off the mines and clearing the way for the tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surprisingly, there was no shortage of volunteers. Soldiers fought to be chosen as one of the martyrs-to-be. So much so that the commander was almost spoilt for choice. The shouts of joy from the Chosen Ones echoed through the battlefield. Those who were left out would cry and implore to be sent instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Chosen Ones said goodbye to their compatriots, asked for their sins to be forgiven, handed over their last will and testament to a trusted friend and then waited for the order to go forward, their eyes glowing and their faces shining with joy. The \u2018testaments\u2019 all followed the same pattern. First, praises to Allah and the Hidden Imam and Khomeini for giving them the privilege of martyrdom. Then, a request to friends and families to be loyal to the ideals of the Revolution and Imam Khomeini. And, finally, mention of more mundane matters, such as debts that needed to be cleared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commander reassured them of their instant reception by the houris, and then gave the order to proceed. Almost all the volunteers would be killed. At the very least, they would lose a leg. But the vital path would be opened up in the fastest and most effective minesweeping operation ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story of the houris was supported by another legend. Much in the manner of the odd UFO spotted in the sky, rumours of an extraordinary sight began to spread among the troops. A man, in a white mask and cape, and riding on a white horse, appeared before the soldiers and led the Iranian Basij to victory against the Iraqi infidels. All the soldiers were convinced that it was the Hidden Imam himself, although no two persons could come up with the same description. Even Imam Khomeini implied in his speeches that these sightings were authentic. \u2018Our army is fighting the American Saddam under the Hidden Imam\u2019s support. Our nation will conquer the world of heresy by the grace of the Hidden Imam\u2019s flag . . .\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Al-Mahdi, the Hidden Imam, himself was fighting for us, wouldn\u2019t it be sacrilege for us to not join him? But it didn\u2019t last long. The sightings of the mysterious white horseman grew less frequent and the story of the houris faded away. There was no need for them any more: enough blood had been shed to incite every man to fight for his country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the faces of the cities had changed. At the entrance to each alley you would find a hijlah, literally a \u2018wedding bed\u2019 but, in fact, a memorial stand with the photograph of a young soldier who had just been killed at the front. Set up near their homes by their families, these had to remain for 40 days after the death of the loved one, especially if she or he had died young. The local authorities were kept busy too, changing the names of the streets and alleys to honour the war martyrs: Shahid (martyr) Salehi, Shahid Fakouri, Shahid Hassani, Shahid this, Shahid that and Shahid the other . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you walk in Tehran today, it will be difficult to find a road, a street, even a tiny alley, that doesn\u2019t bear a martyr\u2019s name. Sometimes disputes broke out among the inhabitants of that street or alley over the choice of martyr for its name: which family would have the honour of seeing their son\u2019s name up on the wall? People no longer cared about Paradise; it was dignity, revenge and the feeling that they were responsible for the safety of their families that pulled them like magnets to the front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ironically, most of those who took over the Revolutionary Guard after the war, and the majority of those who claim to be members of the Basij today, have never been to war. Those who did so were killed, maimed or lost their health or their minds. They bore not the slightest resemblance to the Basij who shot Neda and the others, nor to those who tortured and raped the detainees. Had it not been for the courage and sacrifice of the real warriors, none of us would have lived to see this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were all being prepared for martyrdom that summer and most of us couldn\u2019t wait till we had the chance to meet our houris, even though we were still a few years away from puberty and wouldn\u2019t have known what to do with the beautiful women had we met them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the afternoons at our summer school, it was either military training or swimming lessons. Military training entailed how to use, dismantle, clean and mount assault rifles; target practice; learning to be part of a unit; war strategy; and hand-to-hand combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The swimming lessons were not as aggressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
All Iranians hate the 1980s. It was not only that death and the fear of death pervaded the hearts and minds of us all but also that time itself seemed to have stopped. The sanctions against Iran combined with the steep fall in the price of oil and the high costs of the war had reduced the country to a miserable state. Its remaining resources were spent in buying weapons on the international black market (no country was permitted to sell arms to us directly). The economy was plummeting and many would have starved if it hadn\u2019t been for the strategic planning of Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Mousavi. He decided to ration everything so that no one would be left with nothing. Milk, bread, cigarettes, eggs, meat, chicken, rice, oil, petrol: everything that could be was rationed. And it worked. The worst side effect was the long hours in queues to buy the things we needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those who still had money began to leave for the US or Europe or any country in the world that would accept them. In less than a year, about 4 million Iranians emigrated. Those who didn\u2019t have the money to do so tried to send their young sons away to avoid conscription. For the law had been changed and as soon as a boy reached the age of 15, he was not allowed to leave the country; conscription was mandatory, as was being sent to the front at 18. The statistics therefore were devastating: one in three sent to the front was killed. Families were prepared to sell everything they had to give their sons a chance outside Iran. There were also those families whose sons were already 15 or a little older. Amir was one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amir was the son of my father\u2019s friend Ahmad. They had both been students at the University of Birmingham. Amir was four years older than I. After the war flared up, his parents tried hard to send him away before he turned 15 but they failed to get a visa for the UK in time. There were financial issues too. They couldn\u2019t afford to pay for his journey and upkeep in the UK. Before they could sort everything out, it was time for Amir\u2019s fifteenth birthday. Their time had run out. And Amir no longer had the right to hold a valid passport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One night, Amir and his parents came over to seek Dad\u2019s advice. Amir was devastated at the knowledge that he was no longer able to leave the country. His mother said he had stopped eating, talking, studying, even watching TV. He was also having recurrent nightmares about going to the front and dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad spent hours trying to talk to Amir but he couldn\u2019t stop crying. Dad told him that a real man wouldn\u2019t cry in fear lest the others consider him a coward. But Amir didn\u2019t care; he didn\u2019t mind being a coward as long as he stayed alive. I was getting really annoyed and bored. There were a million people at the front, around the same age as Amir, fighting with their bare hands. They were giving up everything, their future, their safety, their arms and legs and lives, to keep us safe and to prevent the enemy from destroying our country. And this young man, who wouldn\u2019t even be asked to go to the front for another three years, was sitting here and crying because he was having nightmares about a summons from the army. I was disgusted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad tried telling him that the war might even be over in three years but Amir\u2019s tears refused to stop. \u2018What if it\u2019s not?\u2019 No one could reason with him; and now that I look back, despite the resentment I felt at the time, I think perhaps his fear was justified: not everyone is supposed to be a warrior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They finally left quite late that night, clutching a cucumber in case they came across the night guards. Soon after, Amir sank into depression and threatened to commit suicide. The psychiatrists warned his parents that something terrible might happen if they didn\u2019t send him abroad as soon as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amir\u2019s father sold his car, converted all his savings into cash and then negotiated a deal with a smuggler who charged them a fortune. Amir took nothing with him but a rucksack and the huge amount of cash his parents had given him. He bade farewell to them and set off on his illegal journey across the border. The smugglers took him by car to a place near the border and then handed him over to another team. They walked for days in the mountains of Azerbaijan, slept in tents and did not light fires lest they attract the attention of the hundreds of border patrol officers who were under orders to shoot anyone who tried to escape. They crept among the herds of sheep and moved ever closer to the border. At the frontier they bribed one of the patrols to let them cross and, after a few weeks, Amir was finally on Turkish soil. The smugglers arranged his transport to the UK where he claimed asylum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an ironical turn of events, Amir\u2019s father found he could no longer live on the low salary he received as a civil servant and decided to set up his own enterprise in order to raise enough money for the huge expenses of his son. Luckily it took off and in a few years he became a very rich man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, not all of those several thousand families who tried to smuggle their children out of Iran enjoyed the same good fortune. Hundreds were robbed, left alone in the mountains or murdered by the smugglers for their cash. Some were shot or arrested by the police, others were mugged in Turkey. I remember wondering why Amir preferred to face the unknown dangers instead of accepting the more familiar fate: of going to the front in three years and trying to help his country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when I turned 15 myself, I understood. It wasn\u2019t the fear of death or war as it was the longing for freedom that made Amir want to leave Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that made all the risks worthwhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Nothing can be all bad or all gloomy. There\u2019s always a ray of light, even at life\u2019s darkest moments. From what I\u2019ve described so far, our life at the time may be summarized thus: war, fear of death, oppression, execution, military training, lack of individual freedom, no entertainment, inquisition, boredom, waiting for many hours in many queues . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s not the whole story. We had our diversions too. First of all, in a society starved of entertainment, the numerous queues outside the shops became a chance to socialize. As the eldest child in the family, I was in charge of waiting in most of the queues. Only when Madar stayed with us did I escape this task; she volunteered to replace me in the lines. Boys and girls, ordinarily seized by the police if they walked or talked together, had a chance to meet and talk in the queues; soon, the queues turned into a rendezvous for lovers. Women had a chance to find \u2018proper\u2019 spouses for their children; men had a chance to debate current political events. As the police never suffered the indignity of queuing, some of these discussions turned into heated debates on the legitimacy of the government. Men would begin to shout at one another, trying to prove their point. These quarrels turned into an ongoing social event. Wherever there were no policemen in sight, people would start a debate: in the queues, in the doctors\u2019 waiting rooms, in the taxis, on the bus . . . until it became unbearable and you would see the sign \u2018No Political Debates\u2019 put up by irritated shop-owners, taxi-drivers and bakers, who were tired of these never-ending discussions that led nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The young boys and girls were not to enjoy their freedom for long. The police were quick to respond to these \u2018illegal interactions\u2019 in the queues and separated the lines into one for the men and another for the women. Not that it helped much, for the boys and girls always found a way to sidle up to one another and begin a conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This wasn\u2019t our only entertainment. Dad, a little concerned about the kind of education I was getting at summer school, tried to arrange other forms of \u2018edutainment\u2019 that could counter the brainwashing. One of them was discussing books. Every week, Mum, Dad and I decided on a novel. And on Friday mornings\u2014our weekend\u2014we discussed it around the breakfast table. It was a time-consuming but rewarding form of entertainment, a primitive form of the book club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another was the book Heliat-ol Motaghin(\u2018The Ornaments of the Righteous\u2019). Written by one of the most prominent Shiite clerics in the sixteenth century, the ruling mullahs considered it recommended reading for every believer. We, too, read a chapter every night after dinner but our purpose was rather different: it was not so much a source of Islamic manners as it was an encyclopaedia of jokes. It kept us in stitches for hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It is not recommended that virtuous Muslims wear clothes of wool; clothes of cotton are recommended.\u2019 \u2018You must wear your underwear while seated. Woe to whoever wears his underwear while standing, as he will face sadness in the next three days.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018When you take off your clothes, you must say: \u201cIn the name of Allah\u201d. If you do not, the Jinn might wear them.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Whoever wears shoes will be safe from tuberculosis.\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t drink water while you are standing.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t have intercourse with your wives on Wednesday nights.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t talk while you are having sex because the conceived child will be born mute.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018A rug left in the corner is better than a woman who cannot bear children.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t have sex under a fruit-bearing tree, because the child conceived will grow up to be a hangman.\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t let your moustache grow long lest it become the den of Satan.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t lie on your back in the bathroom.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t say hello to people from other religions unless they greet you first. Don\u2019t shake hands with them and, if you do, wash your hands afterwards.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Laughing too much kills your heart.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t keep dogs as pets.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chess, backgammon, board games and cards were other ways of passing the time. All of these had been banned after the Revolution as a pretext for gambling, a cardinal sin in Islam. But people didn\u2019t care; they only had to be careful to keep it secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something else that made our life tolerable in those days was jokes. Iranians are master jokers, especially in the telling of political jokes. They can create a joke out of the most surprising and improbable incident, particularly if stupidity is involved. After the Revolution, the butt of the national joke-making machine was Ayatollah Montazeri, vice-leader of the Revolution. He, unlike Khomeini, was a simple person with a good heart and thus easily incorporated into popular jokes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once Montazeri visited the Louvre Museum in Paris. The curator gave him a pair of shoes and said, \u2018In order to show you our utmost respect, we are offering you the shoes of Louis XVI of France?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Montazeri put on the shoes and said, \u2018Thank you very much but these shoes are a little tight. Would you please give me the shoes of Louis XVII.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Montazeri was on his way to Tehran on a helicopter. After a while he asked the man sitting beside him, \u2018Are you feeling hot, Sir?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018No,\u2019 the man answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Captain,\u2019 Montazeri shouted to the pilot, \u2018none of us are feeling hot. Would you please turn off the fan on top? The noise is disturbing us!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had no pubs, bars or restaurants to go to but what we did have was time to travel. Iran is the land of holidays: Thursdays and Fridays are the weekends but that\u2019s not all: we have 13 days of Norouz and another 20 days through the year dedicated to religious ceremonies, either mourning for the anniversary of the death of the Prophet and the Shiite Imams or celebrating their birthdays or other religious events such as Fitir (the first day after the end of Ramadan), Qurban (celebrating the day when God asked Abraham to sacrifice a lamb instead of his son, according to the Islamic tradition) or Qadir (the day when, according to the Shiites, the Prophet appointed Ali his successor). There is another holiday commemorating the anniversary of the Revolution, one the anniversary of the nationalization of oil, one mourning the martyrs of the Revolution. Later, one more mourning the death of Khomeini although that was not until 1989. And that\u2019s still not all: a working day between two holidays is usually included in the holiday. Out of the 365 days in a year, we work for only 220\u2014a little more than seven months!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad used these holidays as an opportunity to open our eyes to our own country. We usually travelled in our old Peugeot 304 for the brand-new Ford had been sold to cover day-to-day expenses. Thanks to those trips I am familiar with almost every corner of Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the most beautiful places we went to was, of course, the Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea has a lasting effect even on those who have seen it only once. The drive twists up to 10,000 feet through the snow-covered mountains of Alborz. The roads are narrow and dangerous, inclining either to the stone face of the mountain on one side or down into the vast and mist covered pits on the other. If you travel in any season other than summer, you are likely to drive almost the entire way through the clouds that crown the Alborz. Up in those mountains you are filled with a sense of immense loneliness and more than a little fear, as also by a sense of freedom. The Alborz are crowned by Damavand, the Olympus of Iran, and you cannot pass it without feeling an overwhelming sense of humility, especially if you know the stories associated with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Iranian mythology, the evil King Zahak is chained in a cave in the heart of Mount Damavand, waiting for the time of his release when he will destroy life on earth. It was also from this peak that Arash the Archer shot his last arrow. Legend has it that he is still there, waiting to help those who have lost their way in the mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s hard not to be awed by Damavand, a mountain painted white with snow, its peak obscured by clouds. No wonder the Iranians believed it to be the abode of Mithra or Mehr, the Aryan God of Light and Covenants, and the starting point of his daily journey around the world on his fiery chariot. It was also believed to be where the mythical king and sage Kay Khusro, my favourite Iranian mythological character, disappeared after defeating the arch-enemy of Iran. I think of him whenever I look at Damavand, and now, sadly, at its photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prince Kay Khusro was born at a time of brutal wars between Iran and its neighbouring country, Turan. The struggle had been carrying on for centuries. As the son of Prince Siy\u00e2vash he was destined to be involved in the violence. Siy\u00e2vash, trying to bring peace to both lands, had left Iran for Turan. There, he married the daughter of Afrasiab, King of Turan, and built a utopia. Siy\u00e2vash succeeded in stopping the war for a few years but then Afrasiab, poisoned by paranoia, ordered the execution of Siy\u00e2vash and his daughter Farangis who was, by then, pregnant with Kay Khusro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Siy\u00e2vash was killed but Farangis survived. Kay Khusro was born in Turan and grew up among the shepherds until he was summoned back to Afrasiab\u2019s court and received as a prince.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a few years, an Iranian hero ventured on a quest to find the son of Siy\u00e2vash and bring him back to Iran to become the rightful king. When Kay Khusro heard the story of his grandfather\u2019s atrocities and the cruel death of his father, he fled Turan, his birthplace, and became king of Iran. He then led the army of Iran in the wars between Iran and Turan and finally, after many years, defeated and slew Afrasiab and ended the war once and for all. But he refused to occupy Turan and returned to Iran. Then, having seen how power corrupted and how it had polluted the judgement and consciousness of those who possessed it, he renounced his throne. He had caused the death of everyone he loved in his pursuit of justice and peace: his grandfather, his uncle, his friends and his godfather. Power was not worth such a terrible price and, like Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata, he embarked on a journey towards Mount Damavand. He disappeared among the peaks and all his companions died. It is said that he will come back at the end of time to lead the Army of Light in the final battle between Good and Evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Westerners, although its origins lie far earlier, the story may be a reminder of the legend of King Arthur. There are also many parallels with the Mahabharata and these stories probably share the same origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many years later I wrote Kay Khusro, a novel. In it, the time has come for Kay Khusro to reveal himself and wage war against Evil. But he, wandering through history, is tired. He has neither the will to fight nor the desire to live. But he cannot die. A young woman finds him and takes care of him and, in return, Kay Khusro takes her back to the time when he was forced to wage war against his grandfather and his motherland. The novel was published, ironically, only a few days after Neda\u2019s death, when I had already left Iran in anticipation of arrest. Shall I share the same destiny as Kay Khusro who was forced to flee his motherland? My bones tremble at the very idea . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I feel a sense of unity with my roots whenever I see Alborz. Most Iranians will take advantage of any excuse to drive once more among those cloud-draped peaks. The southern side of the Sierra, facing Tehran, is almost bare except for a few plantations here and there. But when you reach the peak and begin your downward journey, everything changes in a matter of minutes. Before you know it, the snow along the mountainside is replaced by menacing dark forests. This is the path to the everlasting paradise of the North, the strip of land confined by the Caspian Sea in the north and the Alborz in the south, where winter never comes and the air is filled with a pleasant humidity very different from the stifling variety one finds by other seas. The air is clear and possessed of a healing power. Even in your saddest times, a whiff of it and you feel a sense of joy seeping into your skin. In my imagination the Garden of Eden was a place perhaps very like the North, if not the North itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there is the sea itself. Swimming in it was a unique experience, although less so after the Revolution when men and women were no longer allowed to swim together. While men were allowed unrestricted access, women could swim only in designated areas, concealed by huge black curtains. Families could no longer go for a swim together. Mum told me that when she wanted to swim in the women\u2019s area in her swimming costume, the female guard told her to wear a T-shirt over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Why? Isn\u2019t this area for women only?\u2019 Mum had asked. \u2018It is indeed,\u2019 the guard answered, \u2018but should you drown and be carried away by the water, the lifeguards who look for you will be men. You don\u2019t want to be in an inappropriate outfit that reveals your body.\u2019 Mum laughed as she told us the story and guessed she would probably be past caring what she was wearing by then!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I also had a chance to visit other places, like the ancient ruins of Persepolis and the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the first Persian Emperor from 2,500 years ago. It was impossible to feel anything but nostalgia in those places. Cyrus and his successors, Kambys and Darius, created the largest empire the earth has ever seen, stretching across Egypt, Libya, Mesopotamia and many other parts of Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I stood before the tomb of Cyrus, Dad told me that Alexander, whose invasion had brought an end to the Persian Empire, burnt everything in Iran until he reached the tomb of Cyrus. He intended to destroy it, too, but curiosity overcame him and he decided to visit the final resting place of the Great Cyrus, the inspiration for the Greek writer Xenophon\u2019s recently published Cyropaedi<\/em>, a biographical paean in praise of Cyrus. On arriving at the tomb, he read the inscription, Cyrus\u2019 last testament:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
O man, whoever thou art, from wheresoever\nthou cometh, for I know thou shalt come,\nI am Cyrus, who founded the empire of the \nPersians. Grudge me not, therefore, this\nlittle earth that covers my body.<\/pre>\n\n\n\nAt these words, Alexander was ashamed of the destruction he had wrought in Iran and decided to bring it to a halt. It was already too late for Persepolis, the huge palace of the Achaemenid kings. The palace, the gardens and the unrivalled library of 40,000 books\u2014a summary of all human knowledge at the time\u2014were razed to the ground. It took the Iranians nearly a thousand years to rebuild the library. By the end of the Sassanid Empire (seventh century AD) it had again become one of the world\u2019s largest but, sadly, it was destroyed again, this time by Arab invaders. According to many historians, Caliph Omar declared: \u2018If the contents of these books are in accordance with the Quran then we don\u2019t need them, and if they contradict it, they should be destroyed. Either way, these books have to go.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Iranians are still proud of that era of ancient glory and are perhaps a trifle over-zealous in expounding its triumphs and virtues. Perhaps it\u2019s because some foreign force has thrown up an obstruction whenever Iranians have tried to establish their proper place in the world and its history. First it was the Greeks, then came the Arabs, then the Mongols, the Turks, the Russians and, indeed, even the Shah himself. Tales of our ancient glory serve as a symbolic reminder of who we were, what we believed in and how much we have contributed to the progress of human history. Now it\u2019s the fundamentalist religious regime which is trying to strip us of our true identity. In defence, therefore, we are beginning to revive the ancient symbols of a more auspicious time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also paid more than one visit to Isfahan and its magnificent architecture conceived at a time when architecture was considered the most transcendent form of art among Muslims. We visited the golden shrine of Imam Reza in Mashad; faraway Bakhtiari and Qashqai villages in the deserts, the homes of nomadic pastoralists; and, of course, Dehaghan, the village of my grandfather before he moved to Tehran and before my father was born. We belonged to one of these nomadic tribes who at some point in history decided to stop migrating and inhabited Dehaghan, a fertile plane between the mountains that lay waiting to be cultivated. My grandfather and his brother, Uncle Habib, who was killed during the Revolution, came to begin a new life in Tehran around 1915.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad, a founder of the Iranian Foundry men\u2019s Society, one of the first scientific societies formed after the Revolution, also took me on a visit to the war zone along with a group of foundry engineers. They had been invited to inspect the Iranian fleet of US-manufactured warships and to discuss whether replacement rudders and propellers could be made in Iran itself. Sanctions prevented the import of spare parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad didn\u2019t tell Mum where we were going for she would never have allowed it. But Dad strongly believed that I, too, needed to see the war zone. We travelled via Ahvaz to Imam Khomeini port, a crucial and immensely important location that was Iran\u2019s closest port to Iraq. We passed by Shush, site of the ancient city of Susa and now within the occupied province of Khuzestan but we couldn\u2019t get to it through the barbed wire that demarcated the war zone. I could see the tanks and the troops in the distance but we didn\u2019t linger long; an Iraqi attack could happen at any time and it always began with the bombing of roads leading to the Iranian front. Nothing serious happened that day, though. Dad\u2019s group visited the site, decided that it was possible to manufacture the propellers and returned to Tehran to begin the design process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All that travel broadened my mind and I have always appreciated Dad\u2019s efforts to make me see my country better. I continued with my travels through Iran right up to the day when I was forced to leave. Iran is a land of great diversity with different ethnic groups, languages, dialects, professions and religions living in harmony; where you can ski in the morning and bathe in the sea in the afternoon and find yourself on the sands of the desert the day after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I may never see the North nor breathe its healing air nor drive up the winding roads of Alborz nor feel that life is truly worth living as I sip the ice-cold water from a spring amid the remorseless heat of the never-ending desert. But I don\u2019t ever have to feel that I never knew my homeland. I feel pain and regret, of course, but what is life worth without pain and regrets?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Autumn 1981<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Despite the excitement of beginning my first year in junior high school, I was distressed and under considerable pressure. A lot had happened during the summer and I wasn\u2019t the same person any more. I no longer believed in the ideals of the Revolution and I knew I was going to face an even more controlled environment. The hijab had become obligatory for women everywhere and men were not allowed to wear short-sleeved shirts. The Committee patrols roamed the city and arrested women who still resisted covering their hair. They were backed by an over-zealous crowd of fanatics who had decided that they could take the law into their own hands; they unleashed chaos in the city with their knives and buckets of black paint. The knives were used to hurt or threaten women who didn\u2019t wear headscarves or whose hijab wasn\u2019t completely covering their hair; the paint was used to paint the arms of those men who wore short sleeved shirts. The patrols had another mission: to make sure that no officially unrelated boys and girls appeared outdoors together. According to the Sharia, only siblings and spouses were allowed to go out together, although first cousins were sometimes allowed as well. Anything else was considered a manifestation of \u2018moral corruption\u2019 and was intolerable to the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This decision had created a dramatic, and in many instances comic, situation. Naturally, boys and girls wanted to meet and mingle and no law could control the instincts that attracted the sexes. All that the teenagers really wanted was a chance to step out with a friend of the opposite sex, take a walk, go to a park, have a coffee or an ice cream, and, in extreme cases, hold hands. And they did so, despite the regimentation. The most frightening sight for a boy and girl walking together was a glimpse of Tharallah (\u2018blood of God\u2019, a title originally used for Imam Hussein) Patrols\u2019 four-wheel-drive Nissans. These vans were constantly on the move around the city, usually carrying two male and two female officers, looking for incidents of \u2018moral corruption\u2019. The seized were treated differently, according to the extent of the \u2018felony\u2019 and according to the officers\u2019 judgement; they could let the person off with a verbal warning or they could insist on an arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Married couples always carried a copy of their marriage certificate, in case they were stopped and questioned. Brothers and sisters always carried their birth certificates, to prove they were born of the same parents and were indeed siblings. The problem lay in unmarried couples going out together. They would have to spend a lot of time memorizing one another\u2019s family history. Seized by the Tharallah, they would claim to be either siblings or cousins. To verify their claims, the officers would question them individually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You say you\u2019re his sister. What\u2019s your mother\u2019s name?\u2019 \u2018Where do you live?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What pictures have you got on the wall of the living room?\u2019 \u2018When was the last time you went to see your grandmother?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What does your dad do after dinner?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What colour are your dinner plates?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If they gave the same answers, they would be released. God forbid that they gave different ones. They would be arrested on the spot and kept in detention until their parents claimed them; sometimes, they were even forced to pay a fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Public workplaces were forced to implement a \u2018selection policy\u2019 (gozinesh) before hiring a new employee. Each of the shortlisted candidates had to undergo a verbal or written exam to test their Islamic and political knowledge. If they cleared the exam, the employers were allowed to hire them; if not, no matter how suitable the applicant was in all other respects, no public organization was allowed to employ him or her. This \u2018selection\u2019 soon entered popular culture through our jokes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Who killed Imam Hussein?\u2019
\u2018I swear by God, Sir, it wasn\u2019t me!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u2018Do you know the Twelve Imams?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes, of course.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Tell me their first names!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018We\u2019re not on a first-name basis yet.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Would you enter the restroom with your right foot or left foot?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018If it helps in hiring me, I\u2019ll enter with my head!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Tell me three names that end with Allah.\u2019
\u2018Roohallah, Nasrollah and Cinderella!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe unfortunate consequence of these \u2018selections\u2019 was that they deprived thousands of employment simply because they didn\u2019t know the correct method of entering the lavatory! There were even stricter rules at school. Our hair was not allowed to grow longer than an inch and we weren\u2019t allowed to wear jeans or sneakers, both symbols of Western culture. Expensive clothes weren\u2019t exactly illegal but they were frowned upon as was the possession of fancy stationary or even a stylish satchel. Nevertheless, it was much easier for us boys than it was for the girls. They were not allowed to grow their nails nor use any kind of make-up; they could not wear jeans or coats or any other clothes that hinted at their figure nor any colours other than black, gray and dark blue. The cuffs of their trousers could not be too tight and plucking eyebrows or removing facial hair was an unforgivable crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t care. In fact, I was almost happy with the new dress code for boys since it meant that I wouldn\u2019t feel like an outsider\u2014because of my simple clothes\u2014in my upper-class school. What really repelled me was the pretence of believing in the Revolution and the Sharia. Any hesitation in responding to religious questions, rousing the slightest suspicion among the Tutors of Islamic Manners about my loyalty to the Islamic Republic or the Supreme Leader or giving any impression that I belonged to a family with lax Islamic foundations would result in my expulsion from school or place my parents in jeopardy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, I was raised in a family in which dishonesty was considered the ultimate vice or dishonour. That principle had been engraved upon my subconscious since I was a child and I wasn\u2019t sure that I could succeed in this game of pretence. Having witnessed my father\u2019s trial, the expulsion of Uncle Hormoz and the plight of a lot of other friends, I knew that it was a matter of life and death. I also remembered losing Ahmadreza to the firing squad because he, too, hadn\u2019t hidden his beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I finally decided to damn it all to hell. It was a new school and no one knew me. From the very first day, I followed a two-pronged strategy: frequented the prayer hall and prayed at noon. I enrolled in extracurricular Islamic classes at the Islamic Manners Department. I also became a member of the school\u2019s Islamic Association. At the same time, I studied hard and made friends. I would not come under too much scrutiny were I considered a good student. I also knew that if I could build a strong circle of friends irrespective of their class or background, then no one would hate me enough to spy on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My strategy worked. My religious efforts endeared me to the Islamic Manners Department and I soon came to be known as one of the most intelligent students in the school. In reality, it had less to do with intelligence and more to do with hard work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, by inviting all the outcasts to join our circle, my close friend Farhad and I succeeded in breaking the practice of gangs and exclusive groups who picked on those less privileged in one way or another: those who were physically weaker or overweight or poor. We turned the class into a unified body of friends who supported one another, no matter what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there was a downside to all this. I got so carried away that my main objective\u2014to remain invisible\u2014was forgotten. I had become so popular among the students and the teachers that I was unanimously voted class rep. That popularity felt so good that I completely forgot its beginnings as a strategy for survival. Now I had a responsibility towards maintaining our solidarity. I was convinced that I was the champion of the underprivileged and I had to make sure that I deserved the trust of those who had voted for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I was out of ideas. It was a school after all. After the hours spent in class or in Islamic activities, there wasn\u2019t much time for anything else. Then I happened to watch a film that proved inspirational. I don\u2019t remember the title; made in Yugoslavia, it was about a class of children, almost our age, who had formed a cooperative. I began planning our own cooperative the moment the film ended. I discussed it with Dad. He was excited and stayed up all night with me, developing the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next day, I requested my classmates to stay behind after school. I then gave them a long speech about my idea and we put it to a vote. It was a unanimous victory. We formed a central committee and began implementing the plan right away. Within the week we had officially launched \u2018The Class 1\/3 Cooperative\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea was simple: we would take care of one another. Everyone contributed a few pennies to the class fund every week and we appointed one of the students as the \u2018Banker\u2019 to keep track of every contribution. By the end of the year we promised to reimburse everyone. The fund was used to give loans to those students who were in serious financial trouble and who couldn\u2019t afford to buy their stationary, or who had to walk long distances to and from school because they didn\u2019t have money for the bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also formed a consultancy group, headed by Farhad, from among the brightest students. They were to give tutorials to those students who needed help with their lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was yet another group dedicated to environmental issues long before the environmental crisis made the headlines. We collected scrap paper from around school, in the streets or at home, and sold it to the recyclers. The income went into the fund which, after a while, grew substantial enough to pay for such treats as birthday presents for students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
News of our cooperative spread like wildfire and we were chosen as the best class only three months into the year. In the meantime, I attended my prayers and asked my classmates to do the same every afternoon. I remembered what had happened to Aunt Marjaneh and I certainly didn\u2019t want to be considered a socialist or leftist. The Islamic Manners Tutors couldn\u2019t hide their joy at the sight of an entire class voluntarily appearing at the prayer hall, and they loved me for having such a positive influence on my classmates. At the end of the first term we were told that we were going to receive the highest honour possible for any Iranian: we had been invited to the residence of Imam Khomeini, to listen to one of his speeches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I must confess that I was excited at the prospect of another chance to meet the man I had once adored. Despite all the news of executions and imprisonments, I had never succeeded in convincing myself that Khomeini himself was responsible for those crimes. I had seen him and I was sure that a man as kind and as intelligent as he would never do such a thing to the people, to those who had given him their unstinting support. I couldn\u2019t blame him for Ahmadreza\u2019s death, no matter how hard I tried; I felt that, had he known, he would have stopped the executions. Meeting him was one of the best memories of my childhood. Now I had an opportunity to meet him again and make sure that I hadn\u2019t been wrong about him all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Khomeini lived in a large house in a district called Jamaran in North Tehran. From several miles off, all the roads were controlled by the special guards and our Islamic Manners Tutor had to show an authorization before being allowed through. When we reached his home, we were taken into a room for a security check. We handed over our belts, shoes, wallets, watches, keys and glasses and were then further searched by the security officers. Only then were we allowed to enter the meeting hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had already seen the hall several times on TV since it was from here that the Imam gave those lengthy speeches that were broadcast almost daily. It seemed smaller than I had imagined. We were asked to sit on the floor and wait for him to come. We weren\u2019t alone; students from several schools arrived in clusters. The girls were taken upstairs and made to sit on a balcony above us. A man with a huge beard appeared and explained what we were supposed to do. I, as the rep, had to make sure that our class behaved according to his instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the Imam appeared on a balcony and began to wave at us. This was the sign we had been waiting for. All of us rose to our feet and, throwing our fists in the air, began to shout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
O KHOMEINI, YOU ARE MY SOUL!
O KHOMEINI, THE DESTROYER OF IDOLS! We repeated this slogan for precisely two minutes until the bearded man motioned for silence and for us to sit down.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Imam sat on his chair and began his speech. And I found myself completely unable to pay any attention to what he was saying: he was so very boring. Not a word beyond what he had been repeating these last three years: the US was our main enemy, Israel was Satan\u2019s representative on earth, we had to keep our solidarity, Islam was our only refuge, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the only righteous government in the world, the Iranian soldiers fighting the evil Saddam were the true warriors of God, the martyrs of the war were the highest honours a nation could receive, we were all preparing the path for the coming of the Hidden Imam and so on and on and on . . . I tried to look at him but from that distance I couldn\u2019t see his face. His eyes were downcast right through the speech and I wondered why he didn\u2019t look at his audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every once in a while we received the \u2018sign\u2019\u2014someone would shout, \u2018TAKBIR!\u2019 whenever the Imam said something important (such as \u2018We will defeat the world of heresy with the power of Islam\u2019). The sign meant we had to shout: \u2018Allah-o Akbar! Khomeini is the Leader! Death to those against the Rule of the Jurisprudent! Death to America! Death to the Soviets! Death to Israel! Death to the Hypocrites! Death to Saddam!\u2019 And then, just as suddenly, fall silent again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I coordinated the class, I shouted the slogans, I gave the signs. But I only had one thing on my mind: to get close to the Imam and look into his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All at once I had an idea and I shared it with a friend sitting beside me. I knew about the secret security guards but I believed they wouldn\u2019t be too harsh. Not that I cared about them: I had to see the Imam and I was ready to bear the consequences. We knew when the speech was nearing its end: the Imam began to wrap up with a few verses from the Quran and a prayer for the nation and the warriors of Islam. According to our instructions, as soon as he said, \u2018Vassalam-o alaikom va rahmatollah va barakatehi,\u2019 (Peace upon you as well as God\u2019s compassion and blessing), we were to stand up and shout our slogans for the last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was then that I gave the signal to my friend. While the audience was busy shouting and Khomeini was waving from the top of the balcony before rising to leave, my friend and I wriggled through the crowd until we were directly beneath him. Then my friend held his two hands together to give me a leg up and, in an instant, I was standing on his shoulders, climbing my way up to the Imam. My friend pushed me up with what seemed to me to be superhuman strength while I was using all of my own to pull myself up. Suddenly, my arms were seized in a pincer grip and, before I realized what was happening, I was standing on the balcony only a few steps away from the Imam. The man who had pulled me up was of intimidating proportions and I could tell from the look in his eyes that I was in serious trouble. But the cameras were on us and broadcasting the scene live on TV so he let go of my arms quickly enough. My acrobatic feat had startled the Imam and he stood for a few seconds with his right arm frozen in a wave. There was no time to lose. A couple of steps and I was in front of him. He turned to look at me and I, my heart almost leaping out of my mouth, looked into his eyes and said, \u2018Hello! I\u2019m Arash.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know why I expected him to remember me. I had grown up since my last visit, and he had seen so many people over the course of these last three years. But being forgotten wasn\u2019t what bothered me. He stuck out his hand. At first I thought he wanted to pat my shoulder and shake my hand, as he had the first time I met him. But no, his hand was turned downward, a clear sign that I was supposed to kiss it. I looked into his eyes again but saw no trace of the sparkle that had enchanted me that first time. I looked around me. The crowd was still shouting their slogans. I had no choice: I bent and kissed his ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My tutor came forward after the Imam had left the balcony trying to apologize for my inappropriate behaviour and promising that I would be punished. But the chief of Khomeini\u2019s household said that it was perfectly all right; that my unexpected behaviour had lent a certain human touch to the ceremony; that everyone would love to see how the Iranian children would do anything to kiss the hand of their beloved Leader. They suggested that I be encouraged and rewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t care either way. I had not only lost Uncle Habib, Azadeh, Ahmadreza and Uncle Muhammad but also the Leader I adored. That was the last tie between me and the Revolution. I hated myself for my hypocrisy, for betraying myself and for betraying the cherished memory of the wise man who had once taught me not to bow before anyone other than God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I couldn\u2019t pull out of the Islamic Association at school for that would raise too much suspicion. But I decided to use my influence and prevent my classmates from being brainwashed. The first thought that came into my head was to use my parents\u2019 strategy: get them to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The libraries in the schools had been \u2018purged\u2019 of every book that was deemed \u2018inappropriate\u2019. Ours had only religious books and \u2018approved\u2019 fiction and non-fiction: hundreds of volumes of the Quran, individual chapters (surahs) of the Quran, prayer books, books by the official writers of the system, stories about the lives of the prophets and Imams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was time the students broadened their horizons. We found a broken bookshelf in a ruin outside school and dragged it into class. We bought a lock for it out of our fund and then I made an official announcement: the next step in getting closer to the ideals of the Revolution was to act according to a saying of the Prophet: \u2018One hour of reading is more blissful than 70 hours of prayer.\u2019 I asked everyone to bring a good book from home and donate it to our library; whenever they wanted their books back, they would be returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In less than a week we had more than a hundred books. I contributed quite a bit by donating those I had most enjoyed reading: the ones by Tolstoy, Stevenson, Twain, Nesbit and some on the history of science which Dad had given me. Every student could borrow two books a week if he were a donor and one if he weren\u2019t. We also decided to write short stories instead of our usual essays during our creative-writing classes, fed up as we were with the standard topics placed before us: \u2018Which is better, Knowledge or Wealth?\u2019 \u2018Describe an Autumn Day.\u2019 \u2018What Should We Do to Help the Revolution?\u2019 \u2018Your Love for Imam Khomeini: Describe It!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dark clouds loomed over our fates in less than a month. Apparently, this time I had gone too far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first storm was raised by our teacher of creative writing. We had been told to write about \u2018Bravery\u2019 and I had written a short story about a sheep dog. One day, a shepherd got lost and a pack of wolves attacked his flock of sheep. His sheepdog herded them towards the village while he tried to keep back the wolves. He fought hard and was finally wounded and killed. But, by then, the sheep had already reached the village and were saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My teacher didn\u2019t like the story. He claimed I had plagiarized it, which made me furious. \u2018Why do you think I have stolen this story?\u2019 I shouted, \u2018I\u2019ve written it myself!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018An 11-year-old cannot possibly have written it!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You have to prove I stole it. Where did you read this story?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I don\u2019t know where but it\u2019s definitely not by YOU!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was beginning to lose his temper but changed tack soon enough. \u2018And you weren\u2019t asked to write a story. You were asked to write about bravery!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018This is bravery, isn\u2019t it?\u2019 I responded, \u2018Giving up your life to save the others\u2019!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the teacher wasn\u2019t interested in my opinion. He gave me 10 out of 20 and asked me to sit down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t realize there was a conspiracy afoot until two weeks later when I was summoned by the Tutor of Islamic Manners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018We haven\u2019t authorized the setting up of a library in your class,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018But we simply wanted to encourage our classmates to read more books!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018There\u2019s the school library if they want to read.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018But there are a lot of good books in our class library that aren\u2019t available in the school library.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018There is a good reason for that,\u2019 he smiled, \u2018They aren\u2019t good books.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t know what to say. I had only just realized the enormity of what I had done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018This book, for example, War and Peace<\/em> by the communist Tolstoy.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was my turn to smile, \u2018Tolstoy wasn\u2019t a communist.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018He was. All Russian authors are communists.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018But he died long before the Communist Revolution!\u2019 I insisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The teacher raised his eyes and looked straight into mine: \u2018And why do you know so much about the Communist Revolution? Perhaps you are a communist? Perhaps your parents are communists?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh God! I had ruined everything!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018No, no. I am a true believer in Islam and the Revolution.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He raised his eyebrows. \u2018Then why do you have this book about this cursed Darwin and his stupid theory of evolution in your library?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Darwin? Stupid?\u2019 I hadn\u2019t known that Darwin was a forbidden topic too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes, Darwin claims that our ancestors were monkeys. That\u2019s stupid!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018But . . .\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Whereas the Holy Quran teaches us that Allah created Adam and Eve from clay. Darwin is going to burn in hell for corrupting the minds of people.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I decided that silence was the best strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Listen, Arash. It is never too late to correct your mistakes. Next week we will have a nice book-burning ceremony in our courtyard. You can invite your classmates to bring all the inappropriate books and we will celebrate the destruction of heretic ideas.\u2019 He handed me a list. \u2018These are the books in your library that have to be destroyed. The rest you can keep.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em>, Tom Sawyer<\/em>, Treasure Island<\/em>, War and Peace<\/em>, 1001 Nights<\/em>, The Little Black Fish<\/em> and, of course, Fahrenheit 451<\/em> were only a few of the titles that were sentenced to be burnt at the stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I cried all night. I couldn\u2019t believe that we were going to have an actual book-burning ceremony. When I had read about the book burnings in Nazi Germany I had thought they were a myth. No one could celebrate burning books. But now . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had to save the books no matter what. I got together my classmates and told them that we had to shut down our library as a result of \u2018technical problems\u2019 with the school; that everyone should take their books back. When the Tutor of Islamic Manners came to our class at the end of the week to collect the doomed books he found the bookshelf empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This bit of cleverness on my part didn\u2019t entirely avert the threat. The Tutor didn\u2019t say anything but that was the end of his support for the class and for me. He bided his time, waiting for his turn to catch me out. And so he did, a month before the final school exams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I\u2019ve been checking on you, and I\u2019m concerned about your loyalty to the Revolution,\u2019 he said as I stood before him in his room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fear overwhelmed me and I found myself unable to say a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You could be a spy of one of our numerous enemies.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018But . . . I am not! I am loyal . . . !\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Well,\u2019 he said, holding out a sheet of paper, \u2018this is your chance to prove it. We need to know about the students\u2019 families and you will help us to do so.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked at the sheet of paper: it contained a list of religious and political questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Any child brought up in a proper Islamic environment will know the answers to these questions. If they don\u2019t, we will know that their families are not faithful to the Revolution and we will act accordingly.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was supposed to spy on my classmates!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You will ask each of them the questions and record each of their answers.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had no choice but to agree. Later, I could try and come up with a way out of this horrible situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018All right, Sir, I\u2019ll work on it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He smiled, and I knew it wasn\u2019t over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018There\u2019s something else.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What else?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018After the final exams, a caravan of schoolboys is being sent to the front to join our valiant Basij. We want YOU to be on that caravan.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018ME?!\u2019 My knees began to tremble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes, this way you will prove your loyalty,\u2019 he answered, handing me another sheet of paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Ask your father to sign this approval form. You\u2019ve had enough military training and you\u2019ll receive more when you enlist.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He laughed when he saw the fear in my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t worry, you youngsters won\u2019t participate in any operations. You won\u2019t have to fight. You\u2019ll help in the kitchen and can come back in time for the next academic year.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was time I talked with Dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad decided to act, and act fast. First, he came to our school and talked to the headmaster who was a decent man. He asked him not to bother me before my exams were over. Then he moved heaven and earth, including contacting all his friends in high places, to get me out of the impasse. As soon as I had finished my last exam, he had me transferred to another school before the Tutor of Islamic Manners could find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You will remain silent here!\u2019 said Dad, with \u2018the look\u2019 in his eyes. \u2018No more heroic activities! No more libraries! No more cooperatives! No more pretentious behaviour! And no more HYPOCRISY! You will stick to studying and friends and sports!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw Farhad again, 18 years later. When I didn\u2019t return to school the following year, my friends were told that I had failed all my exams and been expelled. Apparently, the Islamic Manners Department was so furious with my getting away that the school decided to ruin my \u2018leader\u2019 image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as Farhad said, it didn\u2019t really matter. \u2018When I heard that you\u2019d become a publisher, I thought it was inevitable. You were always concerned with making other people read!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
During the summer of 1982, Mum, who believed I really needed some time off, insisted I take tennis lessons. She thought I\u2019d got too involved with studying and reading and that I needed to think more about some sort of physical training. But, only a day before I was to begin my tennis lessons I received an offer from my grandfather Hadj-Agha: Would I come and work for him during the summer holidays?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps I made a mistake by saying yes to him. Perhaps I lost my only chance at learning how to play tennis and thereby joining the bourgeoisie. My friends and the children of my family friends went skiing every winter but my parents couldn\u2019t afford the kit. So I missed what was for many Iranians the best opportunity for some fun in an environment rather more liberal than that of our daily lives. Tennis was an alternative opportunity and my parents were offering it to me. Had I chosen tennis over bookselling that summer I am convinced that my life would have turned out completely different. Tennis and skiing were social markers that differentiated the upper classes from the rest, the elite from the mob, the happy from the striving and, of course, the complacent from the fighters. I wanted to be a fighter. And Dad had asked me not to be a hypocrite. Pretending to a class and lifestyle different from my own would be the absolute manifestation of hypocrisy. The decision to work for Hadj-Agha had another, more significant, effect on my life: I fell in love with the business of books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My day began early in the morning. I had to take the bus and be at the shop by 9. Then Hadj-Agha\u2019s assistant would unlock the door. My job was to look after a stand of discounted books outside the shop, mainly novels and books for children. Most of the sales happened in the afternoon, so I usually had all morning to sit on my stool and read or watch the passers-by; a highly educational pastime, especially when I decided to play Sherlock Holmes and guess their identities. I soon developed a good sense of the character of every stranger who went by, merely through a combination of their behaviour and their clothes. I could tell if someone in an old coat was poor or simply careless about his appearance; sometimes, I could even tell how much money he had in his pockets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afternoons inside the shop were just as interesting. Hadj Agha was against electronic calculators and preferred that I do the sums by hand. Hence, my arithmetic skills swiftly improved and I could soon calculate any discount without putting pen to paper. I also learnt how to negotiate. When the customers saw me, they assumed I would be easy to bargain with. But when they realized I had read every book on the stand and that I could explain why each book was an important buy, and a good one at that discounted price, they would inevitably end up making a purchase. Soon I ran out of my stock of discounted books and I asked Hadj-Agha to order more. His main intention in hiring me had been to help him get rid of his unsold stock. When he realized how lucrative the sale of discounted books could be, he decided to expand. And this time he offered me a place inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was officially a bookseller\u2014and a successful one, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This job gave me the opportunity to engage in long religious discussions with Hadj-Agha even though I was no longer religious. I raised such a lot of questions that sometimes he would be quite furious with me. I was finally asked to stop talking nonsense or else I would be fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also gave me the chance to meet several of the mullahs who came there. I would listen to Hadj-Agha\u2019s heated discussions with them, especially when he, very carefully, criticized the idea of the Rule of the Jurisprudent. One day I heard him telling a mullah: \u2018God asked the Twelfth Imam to go into Occultation. It means that God didn\u2019t want him to rule the Muslims for the time being. This concept can be interpreted to mean that God didn\u2019t want the State to be mixed up with Religion until the time is right for it to be so. In the meantime, the people should be ruled by the laws of man and religion should be practised individually, as a private matter. I believe Shia Islam is the most secular religion in the world!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mullahs obviously disagreed, although with the utmost respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I hadn\u2019t worked for Hadj-Agha that summer I would perhaps have not been able to set up a publishing house many years later nor turn it into one of the most innovative and successful publishing companies in Iran. Destiny plays its own tricks. That summer, all I wanted to do was work and make some money. And overcome my frustrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Throughout 1982 and 1983, silence was my language at my new school. I studied hard, I made one or two friends, I didn\u2019t participate in any of the collective or extracurricular activities unless I was forced to. My family really wanted me to take up sports; so I enrolled in a karate class near school and took lessons three afternoons a week. Something within me had died. I had lost my ambition, my motivation, my drive to change the world and my appetite for socializing. Karate was the one thing that gave meaning to my life. It was an individual pursuit and no teamwork was involved unless there was a competition and our club was participating. I think I made quite rapid progress. I learnt how to master my body and thoughts, how to be tough and to withstand\u2014as well as inflict\u2014punches and kicks, I learnt how to study my opponent and how to be patient until he showed his weakness, and I learnt how to play with the fear I could sense in my opponent, no matter who and how strong he was. I was promoted to yellow belt and then to orange belt but a blow below my abdomen put me in hospital for two days. Thereafter my parents, concerned about the lack of safety precautions in class, wouldn\u2019t let me continue. That was the end of my martial arts life though not of my enthusiasm for them. I practised at home for a while but it was difficult without an instructor and soon I gave up; although I did watch every single martial arts film I could get hold of, no matter how mindless it may have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time, the only outlet left to schoolboys for an expression of our individuality was our hairstyles. But the following year, at the height of the 1980s\u2019 craze for fancy hair, we were suddenly told by the headmaster that we had to shave our heads. I resisted for a few days; I loved my hair and thought of myself as a little Samson, much more secure with my long locks. But after I was prevented from entering school one morning I was forced to give in: I went to a barber\u2019s shop and surrendered myself to the razor\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The loss of my hair had a devastating effect on me. It had been the last sign of my individuality, and its absence pushed me further into my corner of solitude and isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Mum\u2019s troubles were just beginning. She had been transferred and was now working as a librarian at a girls\u2019 high school. There, she was facing the same problems I had with my small class library but on a much bigger scale. She was given a list of the books that needed to be \u2018purged\u2019 from the library\u2014 books sentenced to the flames\u2014and she was trying hard to save a few. But this wasn\u2019t the only thing that was destroying her. The primary cause of her suffering was the periodic police raids carried out on the school and the arrest of students who were branded \u2018anti-Revolutionary\u2019, either communists or supporters of the People\u2019s Mujahideen. She began to object to the arrests but only succeeded in further compromising her own situation. Her actions raised the suspicions of the Islamic Department and they began to exert pressure. Had it not been for the reopening of the universities that allowed students to return to their courses, she would have been in even greater trouble. As it was, she instantly resigned and returned to her studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the end of 1983, we moved to a new and much smaller house. We could no longer afford the rent on the large house and, in any case, the owner had returned from abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
1982<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 24 May 1982, after several years of fear and sorrow, a wave of joy swept the country. \u2018Khorramshahr is liberated!\u2019 This announcement didn\u2019t have quite the same effect on the public as \u2018The Shah is Gone!\u2019 but the joy was comparable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Khorramshahr was one of the last and most strategic Iranian territories still occupied by Iraqi forces. Iran had taken the offensive and, with the support of millions of untrained volunteer Basijis at the front, had succeeded in forcing the Iraqi armies to retreat from most of the occupied lands, which now included the port city of Khorramshahr in Khuzestan province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saddam Hussein was now forced to retreat behind the official border as well as to confess that continuing the war was no longer plausible. The latest defeats had left the Iraqi army too demoralized and damaged. At the same time, Israel had invaded Lebanon. Saddam Hussein suggested to Khomeini that they should stop fighting and send their armies to help the Lebanese and the Palestinians. Backed by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the Persian Gulf, he even offered Iran US$70 billion by way of war reparations and the complete evacuation of his forces from Iranian territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A complete and total victory seemed in sight for the Iranian troops who had fought with nothing more than their old-fashioned rifles and their bare hands. They had sacrificed their lives, their limbs, their families and their youth in defence of their homeland. Now the enemy was offering a truce. Peace seemed so close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Khomeini was intoxicated with the idea of a total victory. He had destroyed all his potential competitors within Iran; he had gained immense popularity among the young as the \u2018Father of the Nation\u2019; and, as the Vicar of the Hidden Imam, the Shia considered him the holiest man on earth. Now, the retreat of Saddam Hussein could prove his righteousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was at this moment that he made the biggest mistake of his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To the surprise of everyone in the country, even his closest friends, Khomeini declared that the liberation of Palestine from the occupation of the Israelis would not be possible until Iraq had been liberated from Saddam Hussein. Therefore, Iran would not accept the truce unless Saddam Hussein was arrested and tried; the government of Iraq paid US$150 billion by way of war reparations and released all the imprisoned Shia in Iraq. Declaring \u2018The road to Quds [Jerusalem] passes through Karbala,\u2019 Khomeini further insisted that Karbala and Najaf, two of the most sacred cities for the Shia and located in southern Iraq, must first be liberated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But after a few days he changed his mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018There are no conditions except that the regime in Baghdad must fall and be replaced by an Islamic Republic.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This decision turned a defensive war into an absurd, ideological one that continued for another six years, during which up to a million Iranian soldiers were killed, hundreds of thousands more maimed or rendered homeless and the Iranian economy shattered. It would take years to rebuild the country. Iraq fared no better, with an estimated 160,000\u2013240,000 dead and 375,000 casualties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I thought things couldn\u2019t possibly get worse nor life any gloomier when another series of blows fell across our fortunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hormoz and Reza Company, Dad\u2019s close friends who had been expelled from university two years earlier for their affiliation with the Tudeh Communist Party, were at home when I returned from school one day in February 1983. They were playing backgammon and chatting and everything seemed \u2018normal\u2019, although I knew that was far from the truth. Dad never came home so early and Hormoz and Reza had suddenly appeared in our house after several months\u2019 absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I said hello, left them and waited for Mum to come home from university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She, too, returned earlier than usual. I asked her what was going on. She motioned for me to be quiet and said she\u2019d explain later. Then she joined Dad and his friends. I went to my room and tried to help Golnar who had recently begun school and was learning the alphabet and numbers. A little later I was called to join the grown-ups for tea and I noticed that the three men were working hard at repairing something while they chatted. It was our toaster! It had been broken for a while and a new one was not to be found in the shops; Iranian industries were not producing toasters and they couldn\u2019t be imported either because of a combination of customs regulations and sanctions. Dad was in love with toasted bread. Both his friends were electrical engineers: it made sense to ask them to try and fix it. It also gave me an excuse to stick around: I, too, wanted to learn how to fix a toaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the atmosphere was too tense. All of the leaders of the Tudeh Party had been arrested during the past two days and now the police were looking for all other members and affiliates on the grounds that they were spying for the KGB. Hussein, another mutual friend, had already been arrested and Hormoz and Reza knew they were being pursued. Although Dad had never been a supporter of the Tudeh Party\u2014rather, he was one of its more serious critics\u2014they had turned to him for help because they could no longer trust anyone within the Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They stayed until late. Hormoz stayed overnight. Despite Dad\u2019s insistence Reza Company would not. He claimed there were important matters he needed to take care of before making his decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just before he left, he asked Mum for a plastic bag into which he carefully put all the pieces of the toaster. Then he handed it to Mum and said, \u2018Well, Pari, I think I\u2019ll need to come back in a few days with my tools. I can\u2019t fix it without them, and I need to buy a spare part for it as well.\u2019 He laughed. We all knew there was nothing wrong with Dad\u2019s tools. It was the anxiety that prevented him from concentrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He never returned to finish the job: he was arrested as soon as he got home. That was the last time I ever saw him. The disconnected pieces of the toaster remained in our cupboard for many years, a symbol of the lives that had come apart after the Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hormoz fled the country through the mountains, entrusting his wife and two children to Dad. I never saw him again either. It took his wife and their two children six months to get their passports and another six months to get visas to Germany, where Hormoz had finally ended his journey. During that time they had no contact with Hormoz other than a few phone calls every couple of months, less than two minutes long and made from public phone booths. They also had enormous financial problems; all their savings had been used up after Hormoz\u2019s dismissal from university, and his wife had been fired because she was married to a \u2018traitor\u2019 and had not filed for divorce. The night before their departure, she called Dad and thanked him for everything he had done for them in Hormoz\u2019s absence. Dad offered to take them to the airport but she declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By now Dad had lost most of his friends. Hussein and Reza Company were sentenced to seven years in prison and Hormoz was in exile. A few years later, just before Hormoz died of cancer, Dad and he met for one night in Germany, the better part of which they spent drinking and smoking and telling jokes. Just like old times. As if nothing had happened. They bade farewell in the morning, knowing that it was the last time they were seeing one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hussein\u2019s wife didn\u2019t have the luxury of joining her husband. She, too, lost her job at university but, after a year of knocking on every possible door, was recruited again by the order of Prime Minister Mousavi in 1984. She took care of her son on her minimal income for the seven years her husband spent in prison, and she never ceased to support Hussein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Over the next few months, 5,000 leaders and members of the Tudeh Party were arrested. Most of the leaders were paraded on TV, confessing to the crimes deemed most atrocious by the Islamic Republic: spying for the KGB, propagating mistrust towards the regime, corrupting the minds of the young with destructive ideas, treason, subversion and conspiracy to overthrow the regime. A year later, one of the most influential members and ideologues of the Party\u2019s Central Committee, Ehsan Tabari, announced that, after reading the works of great Islamic thinkers in prison, he was now \u2018repudiating\u2019 the works he had written over the past 40 years. According to Ervand Abrahamian in his Tortured Confessions, Tabari realized that his entire life\u2019s work had been \u2018defective\u2019, \u2018damaging\u2019 and \u2018totally spurious\u2019 because it had all been based on unreliable thinkers: Freemasons nourished by the Pahlavis, secularists, Western liberals and Marxists linked to imperialism and Zionism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were rumours about these confessions being made under torture. Most of the activists had been members of the Tudeh Party for many years and had endured long-term imprisonment during the Shah\u2019s regime. But they had never confessed to spying or treason. Now Tabari, after 50 years of being a party theoretician and the author of several books defending Marxism and defying religion, was repenting and declaring himself a strong believer in Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the death of Khomeini and the ascension of Khamenei to the position of Supreme Leader in 1989, Noureddin Kianoori, Secretary General of the Tudeh Party, wrote him a letter which became available to the public only 20 years later. In it he describes the tortures endured by him, his family and other members of the party; how his daughter and wife had been tortured in front of him and how he had been beaten, chained up and forced to witness the execution of his friends. He simply wanted the new Leader to know what was going on in Iranian prisons, assuming that he would care. Khamenei never responded, and it was soon evident that he was going to follow the legacy of his predecessor to the letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tudeh\u2019s top leaders were sentenced to long-term imprisonment; the second tier of membership was executed; others were sentenced to between 7 and 10 years. This was the end of the Party: the last vestiges of plurality in Iranian society were wiped out. Now Iran had only one party and that wasn\u2019t even a registered one: \u2018There is no Party but Hezbollah (Party of God); there is no leader but Ruhollah [Khomeini].\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Imagine yourself in an Orwellian environment. There is a war going on that you no longer believe in but you are being trained every day for the honour of being one of its martyrs. Your childhood friends have all left the country. You have never had a chance to discover the opposite sex. You are not allowed to express any signs of individuality lest you arouse suspicions. Anyone around you who dared criticize the regime is in prison or in exile or has been executed. There is a formidable horror hanging over every tomorrow. What have you got to help you cling to your sanity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I want a VCR!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the first time I had asked Dad for anything in many years, and I knew it wasn\u2019t a reasonable request. Nearly a year ago, the sale of VCRs had been banned in Iran and the video clubs all shut down. But I really wanted one. I had lost confidence in my schoolmates, karate no longer interested me, I couldn\u2019t participate in any extracurricular activities, the TV showed nothing but Khomeini\u2019s speeches and I had grown horribly afraid after the arrest of Reza Company and Hussein and the exile of Hormoz. Films offered the only escape route; and I think that I would have lost my mind if Dad had not agreed to buy a VCR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew our financial situation wasn\u2019t very good, and I knew that Dad was under observation for any suspicious activities. But I wanted that VCR and, to my surprise, Dad agreed. I don\u2019t know if it was to gratify the only wish I had expressed in the last three years or if he, too, needed some diversion for his exhausted mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting hold of one wasn\u2019t easy. You had to locate a smuggler and he wouldn\u2019t answer your call unless you were recommended by a \u2018safe\u2019 source. And the options were limited: a second-hand T-7 or T-20 Sony Betamax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most important thing was the price: about Rls 1,200,000, roughly US$2,000. In other words, a fortune. And it had to be paid in cash. Dad\u2019s salary had recently been increased to about US$600 a month, ever since his promotion to Reader because of his immense scientific contributions, his books and his papers which had been published in several prestigious international journals. Even with the raise he could only afford to pay the rent and daily running costs of the home. I had no idea how he was planning to pay for a VCR; when I heard the price, I found myself embarrassed to have asked for it at all. But he was determined to buy one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The smuggler told Dad that he would come to our home at night, during Khomeini\u2019s TV appearance. That was when the roads and streets were under the least surveillance since the police dutifully watched their leader. All four of us sat in the living room, excited, listening to Khomeini\u2019s speech and trying not to look at the clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the sound of the doorbell Dad opened the door. A middle-aged man, his hair brown and his moustache extending from one ear to the other, came in, looking around carefully. The first sign of anything suspicious and he would leave. Then he saw us, smiled and greeted everyone and sat down, putting the carton he was carrying on the table. Unwrapping the black plastic bag from around it, he brought forth the box of a T-20 Sony Betamax. I was almost faint with excitement: I had dreamt about this moment for many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Would you please install it for us, sir?\u2019 asked Dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Of course,\u2019 the smuggler answered with a smile, \u2018but first the money.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad brought out his briefcase, pulled out a bundle of banknotes, counted them carefully and handed them over. When I saw the look in his eyes, reflecting all his financial concerns, his worries about paying the rent, I wanted to cry out, \u2018Dad, forget about it. I don\u2019t want it anymore.\u2019 But I couldn\u2019t. I wanted that VCR. For the first time in my life, I wanted something so badly that I couldn\u2019t care less about the rent, the electricity, gas, food, clothing . . . I said nothing but I have not forgotten that look on Dad\u2019s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My journey into the world of cinema had begun. I borrowed as many films as I could from friends and family. One of Dad\u2019s friends gave me five which made my life worthwhile and I still remember them: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom<\/em>, Magnum Force<\/em>, Buona Serra Mrs. Campbell<\/em>, Rocky<\/em> and First Blood<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could never have believed that life could be so delightful. I watched the films a thousand times over. I memorized every left hook Rocky received from Apollo, shouting every time with anxiety, hoping that this time Rocky would win. After I\u2019d memorized the entire film, I got bored with it and began watching only the last 15 minutes, the fight between Rocky and Apollo. I\u2019ve lost count of how many times I watched it. I grew angry that Apollo won the match on points although Rocky had fought so hard. Until I discovered the truth: it wasn\u2019t the win that Rocky was after. Not being knocked out for one more round: that was his ambition. And that was what I had to do. Make sure that I wasn\u2019t knocked out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watching films became far more important than school work. After a year, we could afford to rent videos and Dad called a distributor who came every week and loaned us five films. We didn\u2019t have any choice in the number since, for security reasons, he couldn\u2019t carry more than five at a time. He hid them in his long coat, especially tailored with five large pockets that could hold the cassettes without being visible. I could watch 250 films a year. We watched the demonstration copies of the latest Hollywood releases even before they were screened in the US. It was the only thing that made me feel that life was still worth living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when I finished junior high and prepared myself for senior high, my life in limbo was over. I had to face several new challenges, the most important of which was survival: to survive the knockout for just one more round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
There weren\u2019t enough high schools in Tehran back in 1984. Most of the teachers were untrained students who had joined the education system during the Cultural Revolution and had decided to stay on rather than return to university. There were few schools with qualified and experienced staff, and it was absolutely important for Dad that I enrol in one of them. We had finally settled on Razi High School, formerly the Lyc\u00e9e Franco-Iranian Razi. The name of the school had been changed from Razi (after the Iranian physician who discovered Ethanol and distilled it for medicinal purposes) to Shohada (martyrs) but everyone still called it Razi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t easy to get in: the number of applicants far exceeded the number of seats. Despite the fact that it was a public, and therefore free, school, only those who volunteered to \u2018donate\u2019 a large sum to the school\u2019s funds or those recommended by people with influence were accepted. We didn\u2019t have any money; so Dad asked one of his friends in the Ministry of Higher Education to write a recommendation for me. My grades in junior high helped as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For senior high school we had to opt for a specific direction in our course of studies: Maths and Physics; Experimental Sciences; Human Sciences; or Professional Training. There was another option available but only for girls: Housekeeping, during which they learnt how to cook, sew, take care of future husbands and children and how to keep the house clean. I chose Maths and Physics, although I should have chosen Experimental Sciences since I was planning to go to medical school. If it were left to me I\u2019d have chosen Human Sciences as that has always been my passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Things were about to get serious. We were only four years away from the National University entrance exam or the Concours. Every year, more than a million graduates, of whom 50 per cent were girls, appeared for the National University entrance exam but only about 100,000 of them were accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once, in the biology class, in the first year of senior high, our teacher gave us a long and boring lecture on how different plants were fertilized. After a bet with my friend, I raised my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes, Arash,\u2019 the teacher said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Excuse me, Sir,\u2019 I exclaimed, \u2018I\u2019m intrigued. Why are we supposed to know these things? Does it in any way help us in our future careers or personal life?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had expected quite a violent reaction. Teachers usually didn\u2019t tolerate doubts about their lessons. But he simply smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Well, there\u2019s the simplest explanation in the world,\u2019 he chuckled, \u2018If you don\u2019t learn what I\u2019m teaching you, you will not pass the Concours.\u2019 Then he stopped smiling. \u2018If you don\u2019t pass the Concours, you have to do your military service, and you know what that means . . .\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, everyone knew but he explained nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Before you know it a street will be named after you because you will have become a martyr.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was right. Out of those 100,000 places offered by the universities, 40,000 were kept for former Basij members who had returned from the front or those who had lost a father, brother or son in the war. Fifty per cent of the applicants were usually boys, who were then conscripted and sent to the front if they didn\u2019t succeed in getting into higher education courses. The odds of being killed were one in three. This simple statistic was enough to create enormous anxiety in all of us who were beginning high school. Only 30,000 of the boys would be able to go to university. 470,000 others had to go to the war, of whom 156,000 would die. One thing was for sure: in this life-or-death competition, only the best would survive. It was only then that I understood why my friend Amir had been so petrified and so anxious to get out of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there was a more serious and more immediate challenge staring me in the face. I had just reached puberty. The male hormones pumping into my veins were pushing me not so much towards survival as they were towards sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Tehran is a large city, the largest in the Middle East and the sixteenth largest in the world. Knowing that I may never see Tehran again makes my heart bleed, although it is the same feeling that makes me appreciate its mysteries. It was in senior high that I really got to know Tehran; until then, I only knew the districts where I lived or where I went to school. When I turned 15, my fears of the unknown gradually turned into a craving for adventure. Exploring the streets with my friends became a daily thrill, second only to finding a girlfriend, of course. Having a girlfriend had assumed extreme importance and whoever had succeeded in acquiring one was considered a hero. However, it was easier said than done. We had almost no opportunities to meet girls, let alone build the simplest forms of friendship with them. I say \u2018almost no opportunity\u2019 since we had devised a variety of ways of overcoming this hurdle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first solution and the easiest one was the old-fashioned way: convince a friend who had a girlfriend to convince her to convince another girl to meet you. But not all my friends had girlfriends, and I wasn\u2019t rich enough to bribe any others with a pizza from the canteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another was telephone dating. Both boys and girls used this long-range communication to connect back then since they had no Internet or Skype, no chat rooms, no online forums, no email and no Facebook or Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the most adventurous way of meeting girls was the \u2018street chase\u2019 game. There was a high school for girls about two miles away from ours. After school, we\u2019d linger in the street until the girls began to appear on their way home. Then we\u2019d choose the most interesting group, usually the one that showed the slightest interest\u2014a look, a smile, even a meaningful frown \u2014and then the long walk would begin. Walking on opposite sides of the street\u2014we didn\u2019t want to be spotted by the police patrols\u2014we\u2019d begin by talking loudly, trying to attract their attention, and then gradually draw closer. If the girls were not interested, they\u2019d quicken their steps, a move that told us to go to hell. But if they were, they continued at a leisurely pace and we drew closer and closer until we were able to exchange a few words. That was it, unless a boy in our group and a girl in theirs grew more interested and exchanged phone numbers; otherwise the game ended as soon as the girls began to say their goodbyes and take their separate ways home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I loved the adventure, although I never tried to find a girlfriend through these street games. Rather, they gave me the opportunity to stay on the streets, meet people and explore unknown districts and alleys in Tehran. The city was my real girlfriend, a warm city, full of mystery, full of the unknown. Confined in the north by the enchanting Alborz Mountains and in the south by the endless desert, it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. This huge metropolis was not much more than a village when the first ruler of the Qajar dynasty, 200 years ago, decided to make it the capital of Iran because of its unique strategic location. Since then, the city has continued to grow, both in area and in the size of its population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is also a city of paradoxes. Because of the huge migration from other places in Iran, you can find extremely \u2018rich\u2019 people settled happily in the \u2018poor\u2019 areas where they can identify with the culture; and you can also see people now come down in the world but still living in posh neighbourhoods. There was no such thing as town planning when the city began to grow and it\u2019s hard to say whether any district has an identity of its own. The city is made up of vast numbers of blocks of buildings standing beside one another and each possessed of very little aesthetic value. But if you have lived here long enough, Tehran will open up and show you her inner beauty. And that was what I glimpsed on our long walks and journeys through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes we walked north along the popular Vali-Asr Avenue where one could see the large number of trees planted by the Shah\u2019s father, ending in the beautiful old and narrow roads of Darakeh, a small village that got absorbed by the city in the course of its unplanned expansion. We had to cross Darakeh whenever we wanted to go to the Alborz Mountains for a long trek. Although we had to pass the gates of hell\u2014Evin Prison\u2014 before we were allowed to enter that paradise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every Friday we went to the mountains. I hung on to this liberating tradition for more than six years, until the mountains, too, were haunted by Committee members and the police. Many young people discovered that the Alborz Mountains offered an opportunity to meet in a freer, less oppressive environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one who is ignorant of captivity can enjoy freedom. It\u2019s not enough to know that you are free to do whatever you want. For the first time in their history, since the 2009 post-election protests in Iran and the police crackdown, the Iranian people have made sure that everyone living in freedom in any part of the planet knows about what is happening in Iran. Neda and many others died while trying to break the walls of their prison, not with their fists but with their lives. Their eyes were gazing at a distant future where they could live free of all restrictions. I no longer feel that Neda\u2019s dying gaze was asking \u2018How did it come to this?\u2019 Rather, I feel her trying to say, \u2018Look! All of you living free without knowing what freedom is, look! All of you taking what you have for granted, look! Freedom is the most precious gift in the world. Somewhere in the world, under a sky the same colour as yours, there\u2019s a young girl ready to die to win what you already have. Enjoy your freedom, appreciate it, I am dying to make sure that you will never forget that you are free.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neda brought a gift to the entire world: a message of joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same was true of us whenever we went to the Leopard\u2019s Den (Palang Chall), high in the Alborz, via the village of Darakeh. We had to cross a long road that passed the haunting landscape of Evin Prison, a sight that sent shivers down our spines. A long wall across the mountain showed us the extent of the prison. No one could say how many people had been executed behind that gloomy wall, how many were rotting in solitary cells, how many were shrieking for help while being tortured to confess to crimes they had never committed. I usually held my breath to slow my pounding heart until the prison was out of sight. Then, as if that terror did not exist, the road turned into a small alley confined on either side by clay walls and covered by the green leaves of mulberry trees, a dusty street that made you feel that time had stood still for 200 years and that your life was not stained with a myriad shades of fear. The place had no memory of the Russian Tsar\u2019s invasion of Iran nor of the two world wars and Tehran\u2019s occupation by British and Russian troops, the coup by the Shah, aided by the US, against his own people in the 1950s, the Revolution and the bloodbath, the hundreds of executions that had taken place just around the corner, the thousands of bombs that had fallen from Iraqi planes onto the land, the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who had died defending the borders of their country. None of this. Darakeh had no memory; there was no past nor any future. Only the road towards the cloud-covered heights. It was during these weekly mountain treks that I learnt how to enjoy the present; how not to think of the destination but only of the journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A huge group of us, boys and girls, met there every week. We walked along the narrow paths, climbed the rocks and had our breakfast in a restaurant on top of the mountain. The scrambled eggs and sausages after our long climb was the ultimate pleasure. We talked, we laughed, we had serious literary or philosophical discussions, we chatted about music without a care in the world. As if no policemen were lurking at the foot of the mountain to make sure we acted according to Islamic Good Manners or to see that the girls were keeping their hijabs intact. I made a lot of friends up there, although I have had no news from any of them over the years. After a few years, the police realized the mountains had to be patrolled. Each week we lost at least one member of our group until only I remained. Eventually the loneliness of the mountain became unbearable and I, too, gave up. We did revive our excursions after Khatami won the election in 1997. But I was too busy at the time and I couldn\u2019t afford to lose a day in the mountains. When I did, I found that a new generation\u2014Neda\u2019s generation\u2014had emerged and claimed the mountain for their own. Our mountain was theirs now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, unlike us, they would never have to give it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I also discovered the power of music in my first year of high school. All of a sudden, a wave of smuggled cassettes made its way into the country. There was both Iranian pop\u2014banned since the early days of the Revolution\u2014and Western pop and rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of Iran\u2019s pop musicians had fled to the US immediately after the Revolution; there they had reconvened and continued to produce their music. Los Angeles formed the heart of this activity and cassettes smuggled out of there began to warm up the secret parties of Iran. I, however, was more interested in Western music. It was in 1983 that I first heard Pink Floyd\u2019s \u2018The Wall\u2019, a song that changed many lives. I thought Roger Waters should have written the song for us Iranians, since I couldn\u2019t understand why someone educated in a liberal system in the UK should complain about not wanting \u2018thought control\u2019. Nevertheless, being one of the few boys at school who knew English well enough to make sense of the words, I was forced by my friends to transcribe the lyrics from the low-quality recordings to which we had access. There was no way for us to locate the original lyrics and, given the poor quality of the recordings, I\u2019m not sure I did a very good job. Michael Jackson had just become the biggest hit on the pop scene, Madonna was on her way to becoming the queen of pop and breakdancing had overtaken Iranian schoolboys and girls, as it had everywhere else in the world. Anyone who didn\u2019t know how to breakdance was immediately an outcast. At home, I must have watched Breakin<\/em>\u2019, the cult classic, at least a hundred times as well as spent endless hours in front of the mirror, practising Michael Jackson\u2019s moonwalk. I never became a particularly good dancer but I learnt enough to be eligible for an initiation into my classmates\u2019 secret society. We\u2019d close the doors and curtain off the classroom in- between classes and challenge one another to dance. This was our main diversion at school until our secret society was discovered. The leader was expelled and the rest of us received serious warnings: if we were seen dancing again, we would be expelled too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But we really didn\u2019t care anymore. All of us felt that our days were already numbered. The war had reached its peak and we were convinced that we\u2019d soon be sent to the front and die there. There was nothing we could do to delay this death other than study and get into university. We had unconsciously written off \u2018the future\u2019: it didn\u2019t exist. And when the future doesn\u2019t exist and you are too young to have a past to cling to, you are left with only the present. And one of the most important aspects of living in the present and not looking towards the future is that the word \u2018consequences\u2019 ceases to exist. That\u2019s why we had turned into daredevils who would do anything for a moment of excitement; anything for the thrill of knowing that we were challenging a tyrannical system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And while we, the little blind mice, tried to challenge the mad elephant of a regime at the same time as we groped our way amid the mountain of books on Chemistry, Physics, Literature, Algebra, Geometry, Islamic \u2018Insights\u2019, Arabic, English and Biology, time flew by and the new year drew closer. New Year\u2019s Eve 1985 marked the date when I would no longer be allowed to hold a passport to leave the country. As soon as I turned 15, I would be \u2018on call\u2019 in case the army needed me, even though 15 was still three years short of the legal age for military service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Mum and Dad fought over me constantly. Mum insisted I leave the country while there was still time; Uncle Muhammad, who lived in Paris, had offered to take care of me. Dad, however, believed that a 15-year-old boy needed a family more than anything. He was certain I\u2019d pass the Concours successfully and would not be packed off to the front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was not sure what I wanted. I was scared at the thought of the front; the Concours terrified me too. And the freedom I would enjoy in France was definitely tempting. At the same time, I didn\u2019t want to be a coward like Amir. There were millions of boys in the same situation. Then again, a lot of my friends had already left or were preparing to leave before the New Year and I really envied them. Whenever Mum and Dad quarrelled over me, I only grew more confused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I know Arash doesn\u2019t want to leave Iran,\u2019 said Dad. \u2018It\u2019s his country, isn\u2019t it, Arash?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Don\u2019t put words into his mouth!\u2019 Mum would say, before I had a chance to open my mouth. \u2018I\u2019m sure he wants to leave. Don\u2019t you, Arash?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I trusted both of them, and I was sure neither of them had the slightest idea about what I really wanted. I didn\u2019t want to go to the war, nor did I want to be sent out into the unknown world alone. I wanted all of us to leave: Mum, Dad, Golnar and I. But that was out of question. Dad would never agree to leave Iran. He loved his country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, they reached a compromise. We would go to Turkey during the Norouz holidays. There, we would decide. If we agreed that I was better off in Iran then we would return together. If not, I would stay back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing my father and his stubborn nature, I was sure that this was only his way of keeping Mum quiet for a while. I think Mum knew that, too, but perhaps she thought she would be able to convince Dad when we saw that freedom was possible and I could live a life without horror and war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was so sure we\u2019d all return together that I didn\u2019t say goodbye to any of my friends. We took the coach to Turkey; after many hours of driving, we arrived at the border an hour before midnight. We joined the long queue of travellers who wanted to get through the ordeal of passport control and enter Turkey. We were told it usually took several hours before the Iranian passport control officers could check the backgrounds of all the passengers and let them cross the border to wait in yet another lengthy queue behind the booths of the Turkish passport control. However, I alone had a unique problem: if I didn\u2019t cross the border before midnight, I could no longer leave the country. Dad began anxiously to explain the situation to every person ahead of us in the queue, imploring them to give up their places. Although they were all exhausted after their long trips, they all allowed us to go ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the passport control officer took our passports, checked my age and looked at his watch it was 11:57. Almost a hundred people had gathered behind us, waiting to see if I could cross the border in time. \u2018Let the boy go!\u2019 shouted some of them while others patted Dad\u2019s shoulder to keep him calm. \u2018The background check will take at least 15 minutes,\u2019 the passport police finally told Dad: \u2018There\u2019s no way your son can make it in time.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dad was furious, biting his lips to stop the words from leaping out. Mum had frozen, and I realized I was the only one who could speak. \u2018Officer, if you kindly put that exit stamp on my passport in time, I promise you that I will wait in No Man\u2019s Land until you have checked my background.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The officer chuckled and looked at me over the top of his glasses. \u2018What horrible crime could you have committed anyway, young boy?\u2019 he said, stamping my passport. \u2018No need to wait in No Man\u2019s Land.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crowd burst into applause and cheers as we stepped over the border and entered No Man\u2019s Land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was free . . . for two weeks at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
After waiting for many hours in the long queue outside Turkish customs we crossed the snow and mud of the border. It was 2 in the morning when we finally got into our coach again, this time on Turkish soil. The moment I climbed back into the coach the difference was apparent. Despite the wet clothes, the muddy boots and the exhausted faces, it was obvious we had entered another land. Women were removing their headscarves and putting on make-up, and men were insisting the driver take them instantly to a supermarket to buy alcohol. Since everyone had had a really hard time at the border, the driver agreed to take us to a bar nearby so that we could wash and have coffee or a drink. Moreover, everyone in the bus insisted we celebrate the New Year as well as my escape in the nick of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the first time I had ever been inside a bar. Everyone ordered beer, bottles of vodka or whatever spirits they could get their hands on. They all insisted\u2014since I no longer needed to do military service\u2014I be allowed to drink a pint, or at least have a sip. And I did, excited at the thought of telling my friends that I had drunk beer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the party was soon over and the driver summoned us to the coach. It was time to go. Everyone got in with their bottles. And then the real party began. The driver took out an illegal cassette of Persian pop music and played it while the passengers drank and danced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were in the middle of nowhere, driving through the dark along the twisted, snow-covered mountain roads near Erzurum, close to Mount Ararat. We were all dancing and singing, happy to have left the land of restrictions. I, feeling the warmth of alcohol coursing through my veins for the very first time, had no idea I was drunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was pitch black outside. There was a steep drop on the left and a wall of rock and snow on the right. The road was frozen. I didn\u2019t care. For the first time in my life, I was not worried about a thing and I believed I had earned it. I simply sat there, soaking in the sight and sounds of song and dance and revelling in the kind of happiness that lasts for a brief time. Then, as if to show us once more that everything in life is temporary, it passes away, leaving behind traces of a pleasant memory, the hope to carry on and the promise that, some day, it will be back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our trip from Tehran to Istanbul took four days, most of it through Turkey. After the initial outburst of joy, most of the journey was dominated by the unbearable sounds of the Iranian passengers drinking day and night, singing and dancing, intoxicated with their new\u2014and temporary\u2014freedom. No matter how much I enjoyed this freedom, I resented being on that coach. The first day of celebration was exciting but soon I grew bored. I was curious to see everything I could in this new country, in the outside world; I thought it might be my last chance to see a place in the world other than my own . . . And Turkey was such a beautiful country. However, until we said our goodbyes at the Istanbul coach station and took a taxi to our hotel, there was no chance to discover any of it. But then, as soon as we had settled in our room, the mysterious and enchanting atmosphere of Istanbul beckoned me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Istanbul is, in my opinion, not the most beautiful capital in the world but certainly the most exotic. As soon as you enter the city, you can feel and smell its unique quality. The only city in the world located on two different continents, Istanbul is, literally and virtually, the bridge between the East and the West, between Asia and Europe. And it has reconciled the paradoxical attributes of these two continents: the exotic, fairy-tale ambience full of modesty and Oriental warmth on the one hand, where any of the young lads passing by could be Aladdin with his magic lamp, and the modern, Western lifestyle on the other, with its aspiration of \u2018progress\u2019 for all. This grew even more obvious when you noticed that the young Aladdin was not clutching a magic lamp but a Walkman playing Michael Jackson or Madonna. Walking along the narrow Oriental-style alleys that open into modern highways creates a certain feeling in the soul that compels one never to forget Istanbul. The Western bars sit right beside traditional coffee houses, and modern skyscrapers beside the 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine church transformed into a mosque after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The church-mosque itself shows how different identities can merge to create a new one, the very paradoxical identity of Istanbul. In ancient Greek, Istanbul means \u2018the city\u2019. And what an appropriate name. As if trying to mark the very essence of a utopia that no one has ever defined in the literature on the subject: the convergence of paradoxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t want to lose any time: I wanted to see everything while Mum and Dad debated my fate. I knew the outcome in advance and I didn\u2019t want to waste any time. We went from street to street; we took a boat and crossed the famous Bosphorus Strait that marks the boundary between Asia and Europe and stepped into the Asian part of the city. We walked in the traditional Bazaar, where Dad bought the latest fashionable jeans for Golnar and me; we ate delicious kofta while Dad smoked the narguile; and we all listened to Turkish pop songs played on the latest stereo systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before I knew it, our time was over and we were on the same coach, going back along the same road with the same travel companions. They were all astonished when they saw me on the bus and couldn\u2019t believe that after all the stress and strain of getting me out of Iran I was on the way back. And voluntarily too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Arash loves his country,\u2019 Dad explained proudly \u2018he has no reason to leave it. He wants to stay with his family.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
True, I loved my country but I had very good reasons for leaving it too. For one thing, I didn\u2019t want to die or lose a leg running across a minefield, shouting \u2018Allah-o Akbar\u2019. Nor did I want to look over my shoulder after every two steps in case a Committee patrol appeared out of nowhere to seize me because of my hairstyle, my new jeans or the Michael Jackson\u2019s Greatest Hits cassette. I had bought the cassette in Istanbul hoping to be able to smuggle it across the border and impress my friends back in Tehran by being the one who owned the only original Jacko tape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dancing and drinking resumed on the coach, although this time something was different. When we left Iran, the celebration had been by way of an explosion of several year\u2019s suppressed need for fun, released in all too short a time. On the way back, the dances and the songs had a touch of sorrow and nostalgia. It was the dying breath of that freedom: glimpsed, enjoyed and now to be lost once more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time I wasn\u2019t disgusted at all. My heart bled at the sight of those young boys and girls approaching what they called \u2018the prison\u2019 even as they sang songs about the beauties of their homeland. A woman, about 26 years old, with long black hair and beautiful, sad eyes, wearing a white T-shirt and tight jeans, stood in the middle of the bus and asked everyone to be silent for a moment. Then she spoke. \u2018Listen, friends, I always dreamt of becoming a singer. I had joined the Opera of Tehran after graduating from high school when the Revolution happened and women were banned from singing. Now I\u2019m only able to sing when I\u2019m alone.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She stopped to catch her breath. The whole bus was listening in silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Now that we are approaching the border,\u2019 she continued after a slug from the bottle of vodka in her hand, \u2018I\u2019ve got the feeling that I will never have the chance to sing in public again. Will you be the only audience I will ever have? Will you let me imagine that this small coach on this slippery road is my stage and you are my public? Will you clap for me when I finish?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one spoke. Her romantic little speech had left everyone speechless. She took the silence as consent, gave the bottle to her friend, opened her arms and began to sing a song by Dariush, the famous Iranian singer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amidst all these alleys, connected to each other, Why is our old alley, the dead-end alley?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The entire coach burst into tears, not only because of the lyrics but also because of the enchanting and heavenly voice that suddenly filled the bus. The intense emotion of her performance and the tears running down her face created an effect that none of us would ever forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amidst all these alleys, connected to each other, Our old alley is the dead-end alley.
The clay wall of a dried garden,
Full of memorial poems,
Stands between us and the great river,
Always flowing, like existence itself.
The sound of the river is always in our ears,
It is the lullaby for the sweet dreams of the children. But this alley, whatever it is, is the alley of our memories,
If it\u2019s thirsty, if it\u2019s dry, it is ours, it is our alley. We were born in this alley, we are spreading roots in this alley,
And someday, just like Grandpa, we will die in this alley.
But we are in love with the river as well,
We can\u2019t wait behind the wall,
We have been thirsty all our lives,
We shouldn\u2019t just sing the songs of regret,
Take my tired hand,
Let\u2019s bring down the clay wall,
One day, some day, sooner or later,
Together we will reach the great river,
We will bathe our thirsty bodies
In the clear pure water of the river . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe coach fell silent, breaking into applause only when the tears had dried. The last few hours of the trip were spent in silence as everyone tried to finish the last drops of vodka before we arrived at the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That song enlightened me. I didn\u2019t cry. I didn\u2019t sob. While we were crossing the border, I was extremely worried about my Michael Jackson cassette. I had given it to the driver who had promised he\u2019d smuggle it in for me. At the same time, my mind was elsewhere. I had just realized why Azadeh, Uncle Habib and Ahmadreza had died; why Hormoz was never going to see his friends again; why Reza Company and Hussein were in prison, why those young men volunteered to run over the mines; and why Dad had insisted I return to Iran. If everyone gave up, who would tear down the clay wall between the great river and us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I stepped over the border and re-entered Iran, I had already made up my mind. I would never think again about abandoning our little dead-end alley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Other than studying and spending time out with friends, the most important event in my first year at senior high was having my first girlfriend. I met her in the old-fashioned way: my friend Kaveh and his girlfriend arranged a meeting. We met on a bus; it was the only place we could talk freely without being persecuted by the Tharallah Patrol in their 4WD Nissans (nicknamed \u20184 Welgard-e Daiouth\u2019, loosely translated as \u2018Four Wandering Dicks\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was a beautiful girl, tall, fair and blue-eyed, qualities uncommon in the Middle East. She said that her great-great-grandfather was Russian, hence her unusual colouring. She also explained that her parents were overprotective and would never allow her to meet a boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The four of us tried to sit in a coffee shop at some point for a coffee and chat but the owner threw us out: the Committee would shut down his business if they found out he allowed unmarried couples in his cafe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We began to walk in the streets and quiet alleys, trying to find out more about one another. Trying to be charming and amusing yet staying constantly on the alert is not easy. If we spotted the shadow of a 4WD patrol, we would separate and walk alone, pretending that we had nothing to do with one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After an hour or two, we decided we liked one another and exchanged phone numbers. She explained that I must never call her but that she would call me whenever her parents were not home. Then we went our separate ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our secret phone calls and dates went on for two years, during which we fell in love. Was it the real thing or only an infatuation? How could we tell? None of us had had the opportunity of meeting anyone of the opposite sex and we thought our relationship was unique. Whatever the truth of the matter, it was the most beautiful feeling. Whenever she had a chance, she called me and we talked for as long as possible. Sometimes, when her parents were not at home, she invited me over for a chat. More than once we lost track of the time and were almost caught by her mother. But we always managed to save ourselves in the nick of time. She\u2019d hide me in the basement and I would leave the house as soon as an opportunity presented itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I was experiencing my first romantic encounter, the country was still at war. One by one, my schoolmates dropped out to volunteer for the Basij and go to the front. The soldiers were exhausted, the sanctions had devastated the economy, the price of oil was dropping fast and Prime Minister Mousavi was trying hard to find some balance between the low GNP, providing for the essential needs of society and putting enough funds aside for military equipment and the cost of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He did a brilliant job. No one starved and the army, superior in numbers despite its lack of proper artillery, stood up to the better-equipped Iraqi forces. The war had turned into an exhausting war of attrition, consuming lives and resources on both sides. Iraq received support from the USSR, France, the UK, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the US; the only countries that the gaze of the gazelle<\/p>\n\n\n\n
supporting Iran were North Korea, Libya and China. However, over the previous two years, the army had launched several offensives, most of which had failed. Iran was never to repeat the feat of liberating Khorramshahr. It did, however, retaliate with its own missile attacks on Iraqi cities after Iraqi air raids on Iranian cities. This counter-attack succeeded in putting an end to the \u2018war of the cities\u2019 for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the meantime, Khomeini insisted on continuing the war until Saddam Hussein was successfully overthrown. \u2018It is our belief that Saddam wishes to return Islam to blasphemy and polytheism,\u2019 he said, \u2018if America is victorious . . . and grants victory to Saddam, Islam will receive such a blow . . . that it will not be able to raise its head for a long time. The issue is one of Islam versus blasphemy, and not of Iran versus Iraq.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Khomeini\u2019s propaganda wasn\u2019t as effective as in the early days of the Revolution; people knew he could have ended the war two years ago. But when, at the end of 1984, Saddam upped the ante, the situation changed. He began with another massive air and missile campaign against Iranian towns, including Tehran. This was followed by attacks on Iranian tankers, oil refineries and terminals. By the time he began to use chemical weapons against Iranian troops, the people of Iran had had enough. Once more, they rallied to the support of the troops, to their own children at the frontline. A new wave of volunteers moved into the war zone. US President Ronald Reagan had already said that the US \u2018would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran,\u2019 and this, too, fanned the flames of hatred. The Iranians believed the US had always intervened in Iranian affairs, and this latest declaration further renewed support for the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Khatami was Minister of Culture at the time and everyone was aware of his liberal ideas on freedom of speech and his resistance to any form of censorship. He failed to secure freedom for the media and the only available sources of information were three state-owned newspapers and TV. We had no access to any other information; even BBC Radio was hard to get because of the enormous jamming waves sent out by the government. However, Khatami was successful in resisting any censorship on books, and that provided us with a chance to get hold of several brilliant translations of international literature, a gift that we took for granted at the time but which, too, was not to last for long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Ebrahim left early in the autumn of 1985 to enrol in the Basij and went to the front after two weeks\u2019 military training. He was religious but not a zealot. We were good friends and he put up with all our rebellious activities. He was two years older than the rest of us, but, because he was Jafar\u2019s cousin, we often spent time together. He always left at the sound of the azan to join the rest of the students in the prayer hall. I had given up going to the prayer hall ever since I had confronted my conscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ebrahim wasn\u2019t the only one who went to the war from our school. Every week the authorities came to enrol Basiji from among the students. They told all the 15-year-olds that they no longer needed their parents\u2019 approval: in Islam, 15 is considered the age of majority for boys. Every week we had a farewell ceremony for our friends who were going off to war. When it was Ebrahim\u2019s turn to leave, he hugged each us and asked us to forgive him for any unintended hurt he may have caused us. I was trying hard not to cry. We all knew he was walking to his doom. He had only received two weeks\u2019 training and even he knew that the odds against his return were very high. The Basij were usually the frontline of any offensive. However, his eyes were shining. I had never seen so much joy on a person\u2019s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was not long before he returned: in a coffin, only two months after he set out. Another friend who had been with him at the time told us that he had been shot in his stomach in an intelligence-gathering mission. Why had they sent a 16-year-old boy to gather intelligence? The answer escapes me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His funeral procession began from the schoolyard. We all followed his coffin. Some of the students were crying; we, his closest friends, could not. As soon as he left, we knew that we had lost him forever. When you lose someone so dear to you, the sorrow runs so deep that tears do not come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our Islamic Manners teacher, Mr Moradi, couldn\u2019t stop weeping. He was one of our most hated teachers. Always nosing into the students\u2019 affairs, always threatening to disapprove our entrance to university if we didn\u2019t follow the rules, if we wore jeans, if we didn\u2019t cut our hair short, if we didn\u2019t pray . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now he was genuinely upset. As Ebrahim\u2019s friends, we had been given the privilege of walking immediately behind the coffin. Immersed in sorrow as I was, I could feel his torment as he walked beside us. \u2018How graceful has God been to Ebrahim!\u2019 I heard him murmur, \u2018How lucky he has been to receive the highest honour of being a martyr!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I felt an uncontrollable rage bubbling up within me and could stay silent no longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It wasn\u2019t luck, Mr Moradi!\u2019 I shouted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He turned to me in astonishment, his eyes red from grief. Everyone around us fell silent. The coffin continued its way on the shoulders of the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018He made a choice! If you think you envy him, why don\u2019t you volunteer to go to war instead of staying and encouraging teenagers to go . . . instead of torturing us with your threats?\u2019 the gaze of the gazelle<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I realized I had better shut up, it was already too late. My friends pulled me away before I could say any more but not before I had seen the look in Mr Moradi\u2019s eyes, swollen from crying. That look made my blood turn cold. I knew how vengeful he was. Everyone knew that he would never forget, that he would never forgive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all went to Behesht-e Zahra, the public cemetery, on the buses provided by the school. We were there when Ebrahim\u2019s body was washed and shrouded. We buried our friend, came back home and went back to school the next day as if nothing had happened. Our hearts were hardening already. But something had changed. Mr Moradi didn\u2019t come to the school that day or the day after. While we were attending Ebrahim\u2019s wake at the mosque, I looked around to see if I could spot Mr Moradi and apologize to him for my rudeness. But he wasn\u2019t there, which was most unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ebrahim\u2019s was neither the first nor the last funeral we attended that year. Most of our friends who had gone to the front returned home in less than three months: dead. But Mr Moradi was still missing. I asked about him but no one knew where he was and I slowly grew more and more relieved. Perhaps he had been transferred; if so, I could stop worrying about retribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Moradi came back five months later, also in a coffin. The ceremony began from the schoolyard once more and ended beside his freshly dug grave at Behesht-e Zahra. Apparently he had enrolled in the Basij the day after Ebrahim\u2019s funeral. I couldn\u2019t help thinking I was responsible. Had I sent him to his death? That sense of guilt has never left me. Mr Moradi, the teacher I hated the most, taught me the most important lesson of my life: that words can kill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A street was named after Ebrahim shortly after his death but Mr Moradi was deprived of the privilege. By the time he died, we were running out of streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Moradi, who was from a small village far from Tehran, had no one to make sure he was remembered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I was forced to break up with my girlfriend. Her parents found out about us and compelled us to end the friendship. Then, worried about their daughter indulging in another such relationship, they made her drop out of school and marry an older man. All my attempts at convincing them to let her attend school were in vain. They hung up on me when I telephoned and threw me out of the house. Finally, her mother threatened to call the police if I didn\u2019t stay away. That was the end of that. Ladan tried to call me a few times, crying, begging me to marry her so that her parents wouldn\u2019t make her marry that hateful old man. But I couldn\u2019t marry her: I was only 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never saw her again. But 20 years later, when I had become a well-known writer and publisher, she sent me a letter. She had two children and lived with her husband in a small town far from Tehran. She had finally managed to finish high school, 20 years later. She knew the diploma would be of no use because her husband wouldn\u2019t let her work or go to university. She explained that she had done this only for me; she was sure that I would never have recovered from the guilt of bringing about the end of her education. She was right. But even knowing that she had finally finished high school was no consolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next two years passed in much the same way: secret parties, studying, attending friend\u2019s funerals, school trying to brainwash the students, the students trying not to be brainwashed . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One important thing happened, though: I bought my first computer, a ZX spectrum computer with 48 kilobytes of RAM and no hard drive. The world of computers mesmerized me instantly. Instead of studying, I spent most of my free time learning BASIC and playing computer games. I must have been one of the first users of personal computers in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Boom! We heard the sound of the explosion just as we reached the cellar. It was March 1988. The sound was so close. Another house was destroyed. Madar began to pray, calling on the Prophet and naming all the Imams and saints one by one. We all heaved sighs of relief. We had survived another rocket attack and some other family had died. We were sorry for them but there was no time for compassion. It would take the Iraqis only a few hours before they launched another missile at Tehran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Iraqis had relaunched the \u2018war of the cities\u2019. The first missile landed in Tehran immediately before New Year\u2019s Eve, Norouz. The Iraqi army had not made any advance on land and Saddam had therefore decided on a diabolical strategy. He began by using cyanide bombs in the second wave of his chemical attacks against Iranian troops and even against his own people, the Kurdish villagers of Halabja. Thousands of civilians were massacred in the blink of an eye and thousands more suffered long-term effects from which most died over the next few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was followed by a new series of missile attacks, every few hours, against the major Iranian cities. It wasn\u2019t like the aerial bombing of the cities in 1980 at the start of the war. There was no time for anyone to seek refuge in a shelter. When TV or radio announced the Red Alert, it was only a matter of seconds before we heard the explosions that destroyed houses and left dead bodies in their wake. Iran began a counter-attack on Baghdad and the other major Iraqi cities within its range. The citizens realized with sinking hearts this war of the cities could go on for a long time. They began to leave the cities for the small villages outside Tehran, particularly in the North, where they were protected from the Iraqi missiles by the high mountains of the Alborz. Schools, universities and public offices were shut down so that everyone could run for their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would have been my fault had anything happened to us at that time. The more Mum and Dad insisted that we leave Tehran, the more I resisted. The National University entrance exam was only three months away and I was by no means prepared. My time over the past three years had been spent in rebellion rather than in preparation. I told Mum and Dad that the next three months were my only chance at catching up; I was staying in Tehran no matter what. My room was in the basement and I felt I\u2019d be safe there. I encouraged them to leave me behind and go North. They didn\u2019t agree, of course. Even Madar left her home in Qom and joined us, to make sure that we were all right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I spent the next three months studying under siege. People were dying all around me, the Iranian troops were exhausted by the Iraqi chemical attacks and the US Navy had recently entered the war on the Iraqi side, bombing Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two days after I attended the Concours, the US navy shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft and killed all 290 passengers, including 66 children. The US claimed to have mistaken it for a warplane. No one in Iran believed this story, even for a minute, the gaze of the gazelle<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and it came as the final blow against the fragile forces of Iran. On 20 August 1988, Khomeini declared that Iran would accept UN Security Council Resolution 598 on a ceasefire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom . . . Unhappy am I that I still survive . . . Taking this decision is deadlier than drinking from a chalice full of poison. I submitted myself to Allah\u2019s will and took this drink for His satisfaction . . . You know that I had made this pact with you, to fight to my last drop of blood and my last breath but my decision today is only based on expediency discernment. I have defaulted on all my promises, only hoping for God\u2019s forgiveness, and if I had any honour, I have now traded it with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I heard the news of the ceasefire from Dad. I was standing in front of the door of our house, waiting for a friend. Suddenly, Dad\u2019s dark-blue Peugeot 304 turned into the narrow alley and screeched to a halt. He jumped out of the car, flushed with excitement and smiling from ear to ear. Crushing me in a bear hug, he shouted: \u2018Arash, the war is over!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had an acute sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. We were replaying a scene from 10 years ago, when Dad jumped out of the same car and shouted to me that the Shah was gone. I didn\u2019t know whether to be excited or worried. The last time I had seen Dad so happy, things hadn\u2019t turned out quite the way he\u2019d hoped. The Shah was gone and the first instalment of Dad\u2019s dream was fulfilled but that had led to the establishment of another tyranny, far more cruel than that of the Shah and with a million deaths to its credit so far. What would happen now? Dad\u2019s dreams usually came true but usually also with dire consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The war was over but we had lost a lot: so many friends gone and so many horrors witnessed. It was hard for us to be completely happy. The war had taken away part of my youth. We were neither happy nor sad. We were confused. No one could be quite sure that the future would be any brighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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