In the Walled Gardens (15 page)

We sat round the small table. Mr. Bashirian sat erect in the armchair by the gray-blue drapes, looking ashen. The journalist
kept smiling at him as if this would help, making little quips and asking me to translate. Mr. Bashirian rejects gratuitous
affability, and any such attempt brings out the worst in him.

“Mr. Bashirian’s favorite novel is Victor Hugo’s
Les Misérables,
” I volunteered.

The journalist beamed and was about to respond when Mr. Bashirian said under his breath, “Why tell him I like some French
book without mentioning Hafez and Sa‘adi?”

“It’s just a book.”

“Ask if he’s familiar with Enayat or Al-Ahmad.”

“We’re not here to be confrontational.”

“Ask him.”

“Maybe if you said something in French?”

“You said you’d translate.”

The journalist watched this exchange warily, probably longing for his own translator to capture nuance, the full scoop.

“My friend wants to know if you’re familiar with any of our authors, such as Enayat or Al-Ahmad?” I said.

“No, no. Are they available in French? I’d be most interested.”

When I translated this, Mr. Bashirian said, “See! I told you. He knows nothing about our intellectual life. Yet he expects
me to know about his. Otherwise he’d think me ignorant. An idiot.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s obvious.”

“Shall I translate what you said?”

He shook his head. All three of us were already getting on one another’s nerves. Mr. Bashirian was a hostile participant;
I’d arranged the interview and was apprehensive about the entire event.

The journalist leaned forward, holding his notepad, like a doctor with an unwell patient. He said, a shade too earnestly,
“Tell me about your son.”

“He’s in Komiteh Prison,” said Mr. Bashirian tersely.

“Has SAVAK admitted this?”

“Of course not officially. Not yet.”

“How did he get there?”

“He was arrested!”

“Is he a political activist?”

“He’s a student.”

“Why was he arrested?”

“You think I know? Every day I ask myself from the moment I wake up, What did he ever do to deserve this?”

“How did they take him?”

“The army trucks were called into Aryamehr University. They herded in rioting students at gunpoint. I think Peyman got swept
up with the rest.”

Mr. Bashirian stopped suddenly.

“So then?”

“That was one-thirty in the afternoon. He was late getting home that night. I’d left dinner on the table. I started worrying.
He always called. A little after eleven the doorbell rang. Peyman had a key. No one rings our doorbell so late. His friend
Kazem was at the door. He said he’d seen Peyman being pushed into a truck. Then he left.”

“Is he a leftist?”

“Who — the friend?”

“Your son.”

“He’s studying to be an engineer.”

“What happened next?”

“I stayed up all night, pacing. Certain it was some terrible mistake.”

“When had you last seen him?”

“That morning at breakfast. He had tea and rinsed his glass and left it by the sink. He was going to buy bread in the evening.
He needed a haircut. That’s the last thing I remember about him.”

“Is he a guerrilla? Like the men at Siahkal?”

“What, Siahkal?” said Mr. Bashirian indignantly. “They were a handful of terrorists in the jungle four years ago! What does
that have to do with my son?”

“Is he a Marxist or a Maoist?”

“Why should he be?”

“Couldn’t he be part of something you’re not aware of?”

“Like what? I live for him. He’s all I’ve got. I cook and sew and clean and shop and I’ve watched him grow up.”

The journalist turned to me. “Your friend feels insulted whenever I insinuate the term
leftist
about his son.”

I shrugged.

“No, no! He resents the question. He finds it offensive.”

“Of course, he’s a civil servant!” I said. “Leftists are considered treasonous. They’re not part of the mainstream of our
culture as they are in France. But — well, I should let him respond.”

“My son’s no Communist, if that’s what you mean!” said Mr. Bashirian. “He loves his country. He wouldn’t betray it.”

“No political affiliations?” asked the journalist.

“He’s never been trouble to me in any way. He wouldn’t make trouble. It’s not like him to cause grief or indignity.”

“Holding a political belief is no indignity,” said the journalist.

That struck me in a big way, as it did Mr. Bashirian.

“He’s in prison for nothing,” repeated Kamal Bashirian.

“He’s a prisoner of conscience, yes?”

“You ask again if he’s political. How many times shall I tell you? He studied so hard he barely had time for anything else.”

The journalist threw a sidelong glance at me. “What did he do for fun?”

“Fun?” said Mr. Bashirian. “What fun? He studied.”

“Did his friends tell you anything?” the journalist asked.

“The one who came by that night, he calls regularly. But there’s nothing left to say. Several of them used to come to the
house to study for exams. They stayed until all hours, and I fed them. That’s a tough university. My son passed all his exams
with flying colors. The others looked up to him.”

“Who’s the friend who calls?”

“Kazem — he’s a nice boy, religious, very composed. He belongs to an association of Islamic students. He came to see me with
a girl. She was nervous. In fact, high-strung. Several of their friends were taken that day. They’ve disappeared.”

“Did the girl say anything?”

“She had tears in her eyes when she spoke of Peyman. She was angry.”

“What about?”

“She detests the regime.”

The journalist’s eyes sparkled. “Really?”

“She said a lot of things in anger. She’s young. She thinks she has all the answers. Thinks she can save the world. What do
you expect?”

“She’s his girlfriend?”

“My son’s not the lovesick type!”

“What was she angry about?”

“Censorship. The meaningless propaganda of the system, so remote from the people. The mindless westernization of our society.
The fascist overtones of the Rastakhiz Party. The hyped nonsense of the White Revolution. I don’t know. The student arrests.
She went on and on. Very indignant, very angry.”

“Did your son ever speak that way?”

“He’s quiet. Nearly withdrawn. He likes to take pictures. I showed Ms. Mosharraf some of them. He’s much better with a camera
than with words. SAVAK took his albums when they came to the house. And some letters.”

“What was in the albums?”

“Photos of his travels. I think there’s something there they want to use against him.”

“Like what?”

“Something. Otherwise why would they take them?”

“Is there something in the letters?”

“He wrote me wherever he went about the color of the sky, the fishermen of the Gulf, the plants of the desert. He took pride
in such things. I treasure them. I’ve devoted my life to him.”

“If he’s as withdrawn as you say, he might have been withholding information from you.”

Mr. Bashirian turned to me. “There he goes again. And they accuse us of believing in conspiracies. They’re no different!”

I did not translate this.

The journalist smiled blankly, shrugged. “Tell me about your son’s friend — the one who calls you.”

“He’s a scholarship boy from Kerman. Quiet but intense. His father’s nearly illiterate and owns a grocery store back there.
The boy used to come often for dinner. So shy at first that he always hung his head. Completely lost when he came to Tehran.
Recently he looks like he’s found a new sense of purpose.”

“What does he think?”

“How should I know?”

“You’ve never spoken to him?”

“Of course I have.”

“Anything political?”

“Well, once. He was at the house, waiting for Peyman. There were just the two of us. He told me we’ve gone from feudalism
to a society enslaved by Western capitalism. He spoke politely. He said there’s only one great enemy: imperialism and its
local collaborators, who rule through propaganda and terror. Like SAVAK — a secret police trained by the CIA and Israeli Mossad
against its own people. He said we’ve lost our self-respect and identity, and that only Islam can restore that to us. Because
Islam inspires a sense of duty and struggle and self-sacrifice.”

“An Islamic Marxist?”

“There was no talk of Marxism.”

“Perhaps he was being tactful,” the journalist said, not without irony. “What about the girl who visited you?”

“She seemed quite fond of my son. I don’t know. She was nice to come. No one else did. She stayed late. She kept talking.
She wouldn’t stop. In the end I got tired. She was very excitable. Quite outspoken about the regime. Fearless, actually, to
say such things.”

“Like what?”

“Well, she called them —” Mr. Bashirian paused, reconsidering. “She said they’re monsters and rapists and bloodsuckers and
. . . torturers.”

The journalist leaned forward, taut with attention. “Interesting . . .”

Mr. Bashirian sat back, stony.

The journalist jotted things down. Then he mentioned one of our writers in exile, released from prison after sixty-four days,
thanks to international pressure. The journalist smiled at Mr. Bashirian as if to say this interview could do the same for
Peyman. “It’s damning stuff he’s written abroad about the regime and its torture chambers.”

Mr. Bashirian and I hadn’t heard about the articles.

“I met him in Europe,” the journalist said. “He’s consumed with rage and loathing. He speaks ferociously.”

Mr. Bashirian said, “That’s what they want to hear about us abroad?”

“He’s a cultured man, an intellectual. With a scathing commentary about the evils of your history and kingship all the way
from Cyrus the Great” — the journalist referred to some notes — “through Anoushiravan and Yaghoub-e-Leis and Shah Abbas and
Agha Mohammad Khan and Reza Shah to the present. In fact, he calls them murderers and monsters! Each and every one.”

“Really?” said Mr. Bashirian, red-faced. “We can’t do anything right!”

The journalist threw up his hands, as if to say it wasn’t his fault all our illustrious kings had turned out monstrous. He
quoted in-criminating excerpts from his notes, edifying us in an aggressive fashion. Mr. Bashirian looked more and more uncomfortable
by the second.

“Your compatriot.” The journalist shrugged. “I’m just quoting.”

“Has he got anything to recommend?” said Mr. Bashirian. “Anything constructive? Criticizing is a religion for us.”

“Tell me, then,” the journalist asked him. “What do you think?”

Mr. Bashirian went blank. “It’s not what I think that’s important.”

An awkward pause followed, then moments of silence beyond decency. His answer hovered like a pathetic affliction. The journalist
was stretching time for effect, toying with Mr. Bashirian to make a point.

“To be perfectly objective,” the journalist said finally, “his facts check out. I think he makes a good case for this terrible
despotic trend in your history —”

“You should talk, as a European!” Mr. Bashirian snapped back. “Your history’s pillaging and murdering and colonizing others
over whom you’ve built your cities and museums and mighty industrial world. You lecture us with your two-faced humanism. Your
exploitations have ravaged the world!”

I’d never seen Mr. Bashirian like this.

“Of course, anything disparaging about
us
is always convincing!” he continued, breathless. “Every time we slander and disgrace and slash ourselves to pieces, it’s
interesting to you. It’s what you want to believe. It confirms all your darkest suspicions about us in the first place —”

Mr. Bashirian’s voice broke off. His hands were trembling.

The journalist shook his head. “Look here, SAVAK has taken your son. He’s in prison. You say they’ve —”

“You think I don’t know what you want?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Please! You want me to make a fool of myself by spilling out my guts or to watch me dig my way out of this great big historical
hole of ours by confirming what some writer told you in Europe!”

“I only mentioned him because —”

Mr. Bashirian was seething. “He’s the perfect example of the treachery of our intelligentsia. I’m dumbfounded you find him
a remarkable source. That you have such bad judgment! You mean you’re all that gullible? It’s the worst kind of indignity
I’ve ever heard — damning the entire history of a country. It’s self-serving and cowardly and pathetic. You think that’s daring?
You think that’s intellectual? It’s downright vindictive. A detestable way to make a point. If this man was imprisoned, so
is my son! I love my son. You don’t understand. I worship the very dust he walks on. But I’m not going to tear down my whole
way of life, my entire heritage, to make cheap and repulsive points. Not now or ever.
Qu’est-ce que vous pensez? Qu’on est des sauvages et des idiots?
” Mr. Bashirian was suddenly speaking in broken French.
“C’est ça! C’est ça que vous cherchez?”
He got up abruptly, jolting the table.

“Time for me to go,” he said to me in Persian. “I’m leaving.”

I rose. “Wait, I’m leaving with you.”

The journalist stared in bewilderment. Mr. Bashirian looked out of the window at the tarred flat roofs of the city.

“My friend feels he can’t continue this interview,” I said.

“Why? Look — there’s been a misunderstanding. Please ask him to —”

Mr. Bashirian was making his way to the door. He grabbed the handle, yanked it open, stepped out, disappeared down the hall.

The journalist turned to me. “You stay at least. We can talk more reasonably, you and I. He’s being irrational. He’s too emotional.
At least you and I speak the same language —”

“And what language is that?”

Abandoning inconsequential words of etiquette, I rushed down the hall. Mr. Bashirian was waiting by the bank of elevators,
impatiently pressing the Down button. Neither of us said a word.

Going down in the elevator, he kept shaking his head bitterly. I was waiting for him to say something, but instead I felt
him pull away, a hostile, disquieting estrangement.