I’m sitting on the dark gray wool sofa, body closed tight, tense as can be, across from the TV. I watch with eyes wide open, red from a combination of no sleep and excessive staring at the bright rectangle that transports me right into the streets of my birth town, Tehran. I wonder how what I am witnessing could even be possible?
Ferdosi Square, Tehran, 1957
Details of the Pazyryk Carpet
2
I turn to my Dad, sitting on the matching dark gray wool love seat to my right. Once again, he has come to my aid as he always does. His shoulders, still broad, are now curved inward a bit, from a combination of old age and the weight of the pain he has been carrying for decades. These are the shoulders that used to carry me around the house so that I would forget the pain from my wounds whenever I would fall and injure my knees or elbows, a common and almost daily incident. I was a super active child. His perfect shaped head, not too round and not too oblong with well-groomed white hair blending so well with his bald spot, is held in the palm of his left hand now, resting against the arm of the love seat. His eyebrows, still not completely white, are locked in a tight knot. These are the eyebrows my mom fell in love with. She said they resembled a pair of perfectly shaped swords. Now, the swords are engaged in a duel, frozen in horror and sadness. Unlike me, Dad is not staring at the TV. Instead, his dark eyes are fixed on the patterns of the Persian carpet under his feet – the same patterns that taught me harmony, balance, color, and most importantly anticipation.
My dad when he was young with his sword-shape eyebrows
Persian Carpets
Pazyryk Carpet - Made in 5th century BC - Discovered in Pazyryk, Siberia.
“What is it, Dad? Why aren’t you watching? Is this too painful for you?” I want to ask him but the words don’t leave my mouth. It’s all in my head.
During the last couple of weeks, I have gone from cloud nine to the pit of the Earth; from being an ultimate optimist to an absolute pessimistic soul. I have felt all my dreams and wishes for my birth country secure in my hand, so accessible I could taste them, only to have them snatched away from me. Words such as absolute devastation wouldn’t even begin to describe my state of being. I am a fool, I tell myself. I should have known better. After all, this isn’t the first time I am facing such calamity.
I look at Dad again, still no sign of him being interested in what appears on the silver screen. My heart drops, for him it has been at least one additional time, I remind myself. Unlike me, witnessing the events from the other side of the globe, Dad was there, not only in the streets, but there, in the thick of it all. He was an amazing man, one who stood for his principles and paid for it dearly. The world is not made for people like my dad and the ones who are being clubbed on the screen this very moment.
My dad entered the army when he was only twenty and rose quickly in rank. He was strict and yet very reasonable. No matter how much he disagreed with you, it was possible to get him to change his mind if you could prove your point. Unlike many fathers, my dad never allowed himself to use his parental privileges, take a shortcut, and just say no to me. Instead he sat me down and we debated the issue logically. Often he won the argument, but because I was given the opportunity to debate my side of the issue, and because he was fair, I never felt powerless or forced to do what I was told. This quality, fairness and standing up for the truth regardless of the outcome, was what got him into trouble, and me later in my life. Dad never talked about it to me. My grandmother mentioned it once or twice, when she was alive, but back then I was too young to really understand.
I wonder if I can ask Dad about it now that I am the same age he was back when it happened. It seems that history is toying with us once again. But asking him about it would be selfish of me and unfair to him - so much pain, so much despair, and a sea of lost hope.
Tehran 1953
Tehran 1953:: Somethings never change!
Tehran 2009 :: They just get bigger
Tehran 2009 :: ... and bigger.
Achaemenid Gold Earring
I hear something outside in the balcony.
Two doves, as white as snow, and beautiful, have perched on our railing. Doves often make me smile. They remind me of my childhood, and the long nights when my great aunt was visiting. Ezy, as we called her, was a great storyteller with a thousand tales. With her around we felt like the king in the 1001 nights. She was our own Shahrzad.
“Tell us another one”, we would plead.
Ezy never refused, never complained that she was too tired. We stayed up well past midnight while she told us story after story. Many of her stories included doves as part of the cast. The great white doves in her stories could speak, but only to each other. It was as if they were the storyteller’s special helper. It seemed the doves had a specific mission; they would offer us bits of information that the hero and heroines didn’t have access to, but were going to learn later in the story. A clever invention of the old storytellers, which made us feel smarter than the cast. The story doves always came in twos, and they were always sisters. Smart, clever, and intelligent sisters.
White Story Doves
Now, a set of white doves are sitting on our balcony, looking at me in that funny way only doves do, moving their tiny heads from one side to another. I stare right back at them.
“Hello”, I whisper, “Can you tell me what happened at our house that summer day in 1953?” I smile. “You could if you were Persian Story Doves. But you are not from the stories. You are just doves.” I smile. “You could if you were Persian Story Doves. But you are just doves,” I say to myself. “You can’t even understand me, which is fair since I can’t understand you either.”
“A long, long time ago, when people were still good and kind, they were able to understand the language of animals,” my grandmother would tell us whenever she told stories, not as often as Ezy.
“But I guess the world is now changed and is filled with bad people who are not good enough to understand your tongue,” I say to the doves.