Читать книгу Farewell Shiraz - Cyrus Kadivar - Страница 14

3

Dream City

Grandfather Mohammad often reminded us that as a young man he had found scant entertainment in Shiraz. In this city of dreams the youth would roam the streets looking for something to do. Usually they would stare up at the night sky to watch the fireworks display on the shah’s birthday or attend the religious passion plays held during the holy month of Muharram. There were camel fights and horse races in the main square. Once, my grandfather attended the trial of a man accused of killing several prostitutes and burying them in his garden. Judged insane, he was sentenced to death. The prisoner was brought to the main square and offered a smoke and a slice of melon. A half-hour later he was swinging from the gallows as a mob cheered and distributed sweets.

On Thursdays my grandfather would visit the bathhouse, spending hours being washed and massaged before shopping at the Vakil Bazaar. On Fridays he went to pray at the Shah Cheraq Mosque. One spring day, during the Nowruz holidays, my grandfather went to the Hafezieh in the Musalla Gardens for a picnic. In those days the resting place of Hafez was a modest place in an unkempt garden. That afternoon, my grandfather met a poet and writer called Lotfali Suratgar. The two men shared a passion for Persian literature and became good friends. Suratgar was the son of a local artist and a few years older than my grandfather. A typical Shirazi, gregarious, free-spirited, and a bon vivant, Suratgar lived with his two sisters, taught classical poetry at a college, and edited a literary newsletter. He loved to joke.

One day, eager to show the serious Mohammad a good time, Suratgar took my grandfather to a vineyard in the foothills where he boasted that the wine of Shiraz was the best in the world. For centuries the Jews of Shiraz had supplied wine to kings, princes, and poets. The two thousand Jews in town were known as “Esther’s Children,” tracing their ancestry to the age of Xerxes. In recent times a Muslim religious leader had incited an attack on the Jewish quarter following false claims that a rabbi had ritually killed a Muslim girl. Islamic fanatics had retaliated by murdering twelve Jews and injuring another fifty while a mob looted the entire Jewish quarter. Zoroastrians, Christian Armenians, and Baha’is had also been the target of much violence by the mob.

“Thank God and Reza Shah those days are over,” Suratgar told Mohammad. The Shirazi Jews, like other minorities, now lived better than before, working as artisans, musicians, and peddlers, but also as teachers, dentists, merchants, and moneylenders. There were several synagogues next to mosques, temples, and churches. That day, as Suratgar inspected the vines, he seemed fixated with the way the thick-skinned black grapes were carefully harvested and turned to juice. “The ideal place to drink wine is at the Hafezieh at night under a full moon,” he told my grandfather. Suratgar had a Jewish friend who held clandestine parties there, bringing wine, tar players, and dancing girls for his Muslim clients. My grandfather had a better idea. He knew a place with a teahouse and outstanding views of the town and the Quran Gate.

Together they rode their horses up a hill toward Baba Kuhi, where they met a white-bearded Sufi dervish who kindly offered them tea. Nothing in Persia was done without the taking of a fal, or omen. For a few coppers the old man produced his well-thumbed manuscript copy of the Divan, the collected works of the poet Hafez, and, after an invocation to the spirit of Hafez, thrust his knife into the closed volume between the leaves. Randomly he picked a poem and recited it to the anxious inquirers. To their relief the two Shirazis heard a passage favorable to their wishes. “You will always be friends,” was the message in the poem. That afternoon, Suratgar opened a bottle of kholar wine. They drank and talked about finding a woman to love and their dreams and aspirations.

Suratgar was already planning to go to England, where he had won a scholarship to study literature, and joked about finding an English wife. My grandfather had a more pressing matter on his mind that day. To catch up with advanced countries, Reza Shah, an admirer of Atatürk, had decreed that all men not serving in the military, especially civil servants, were to discard their old clothes and adopt western dress. Before being employed at the Shiraz Bureau of Land Registration and Public Acts attached to the Dadgostari, the Justice Ministry, my grandfather had dutifully gone to a tailor and been fitted up for a suit copied from a French catalogue. He also purchased the compulsory Pahlavi cap. Now he was expected to change his family name, after a law under Reza Shah had been passed ordering that every citizen adopt a new surname devoid of lengthy titles. He was at a loss.

“What should I call myself?” he asked. Scatching his head, Suratgar came up with a name that was close to kadkhoda, a village headman. In the end my grandfather chose Kadivar—meaning a man of the land, a country squire. The next day my grandfather registered his new name and received his shenas-nameh, or identity card, with his photograph stamped inside.

A year after Suratgar left town for England my grandfather began looking for a wife. At twenty-four Mohammad was an eligible bachelor. His mother and sister felt it was time that he settled down with a nice girl. There was something alluring in the way the dark-eyed Shirazi girls looked at men, flirting from behind their veils. How did one actually meet and talk to them without getting arrested?

It was Aminollah Khan who came to his rescue. He had recently befriended a nobleman after selling him a horse. Both men often went hunting ducks and geese near a lake outside Shiraz. One late afternoon as they rode back together, Prince Sharif ol-Sultan told him that he was planning to marry off his daughter. Sharif ol-Sultan had an impressive pedigree. His father, Sharif ol-Hokama, had been a court physician to the shah’s son, Zil-es-Sultan, the overlord of Isfahan and Fars. His mother had been raised in the Zil’s harem. Once the governor of Abadeh and Eglid, Sharif ol-Sultan had lost all his privileges and former titles when Reza Shah came to power. Now he took opium to forget.

A widower with his fortune under threat, Prince Sharif ol-Sultan had one asset he could be proud of, and that was his eldest daughter, Sheherzad, my grandmother. There were tears in his eyes when he spoke of her. Educated privately, Sheherzad was a bright girl for her age, Sharif ol-Sultan revealed. Not only could the girl recite the Holy Quran by heart, but she had lovely handwriting in Persian, Turkish, and Arabic. She had picked up a little French and was also good at mathematics. Since the prince’s wife had passed away, his daughter acted as the khanoum, the lady of the house, and everybody—the cook, the maids, the two male servants, the coachman, and the doorkeeper who slept in a guardhouse near the wooden gate—obeyed her as they did her father. Sheherzad was strict but never cruel to her servants and adored her nanny, a black Ethiopian woman. My grandmother also looked after her younger brother and sister, Mohammad Khan and Anis Khanoum. When Aminollah Khan repeated all this to his son, he was jubilant.

My grandmother often recalled how she had first seen my grandfather at a party held at her father’s house. One evening her impatient suitor had paid a visit with Aminollah Khan to ask for her hand in a ritual known as khasteh-gari. Pipes were offered and coffee served. Glancing at my grandfather from behind a curtain with her younger brother and sister, she had judged him too old. In October 1929, Sheherzad was barely fifteen. She missed her mother, Kobra Khanoum, an aristocratic woman who had died of cholera. The thought of marriage terrified her. That night while the musicians played in the garden under a brilliant half-moon, Aminollah Khan and Prince Sharif ol-Sultan discussed the dowry and the marriage settlement. They both agreed that joining the two families could only strengthen them.

A week later, my grandfather returned, this time bearing many gifts. Sheherzad appeared briefly without her veil and wore an emerald-green silk dress with gold buttons and pink slippers. Demurely, she offered her suitor tea and sweetmeats. My grandfather found Sharif ol-Sultan’s daughter to his liking. She was slender, with long, black hair, a becoming pallor, an exquisite heart-shaped face, and lively brown eyes. My grandmother did not speak a word to my grandfather that day. When her father later asked the reason for her reticent behavior, she exploded that she was not ready for marriage to a man ten years older than she. Prince Sharif ol-Sultan was furious, as he feared a scandal, but his stubborn daughter was adamant. She announced that she would make up her mind only after her fiancé had written to her.

Never one to give up, Mohammad spent the next two months composing lovely poems using a wooden ink pen and special paper. Each time he placed a rose petal in the envelope before posting it to Sheherzad. In time my grandmother’s attitude softened. In the autumn, a glorious season in Shiraz, she agreed to join him for walks at the Bagh-e Delgosha Garden and the Hafezieh until she agreed to marry the romantic lawyer, but only if he promised to be kind to her. The legal marriage ceremony known as aghd took place at her father’s house in the presence of the Friday Imam. A sheep was sacrificed in their honor. In December 1929 the aroosi, or consummation of the marriage, went ahead without a hitch in the company of family and friends.

The couple were seated in front of the sofreh-aghd, the traditional wedding spread. Mohammad lifted the white veil covering his bride’s face. Sheherzad, in a white dress, blushed when he cast his eyes on her. They kissed the holy book and tasted a finger of honey, a symbolic gesture to herald a sweet life together. Proud of her Qajar roots, the bride displayed the few treasures inherited by her late mother, which included a fine wardrobe, lacquer boxes, and jewels. My grandfather offered his wife a turquoise ring, a shawl, a silver mirror, candelabra, and boxes of dates from his rural hometown. The elaborate formalities over, the couple retired to their bedroom. Incense was burned. The older women offered prayers in the hope that the union, God willing, would produce a healthy son.

Once they were husband and wife, my grandparents made their home at Sharif ol-Sultan’s house, a big, two-story rectangular building. Luxurious by local standards, it stood near the bazaar and the Shah Cheraq Mosque. The sound of the coppersmiths at work or the call to prayer drifted melodiously from the streets and into the courtyard. In the main hall, lit by oil lamps at night, was a big cage filled with hundreds of bulbuls that sang at dusk and daybreak. The arched windows in the main rooms of the house opened to the south to let in as much sunshine as possible in the winter and spring. In the summer and autumn huge white curtains were half-lowered to provide shade and coolness. In the small garden was a very old birch tree bending over a blue-tiled pool with a fountain.

There were also the servants’ quarters, a large kitchen, a water reservoir, and a storeroom in the basement to keep spices, flour, and sugar. A well-stocked stable held five horses and a carriage. Every room in the house, my grandmother would later tell me, was decorated in Qajar style with the usual mirrors, rugs, and florid mural paintings. The niches in the walls were filled with wooden inlaid khatam boxes, glassware, pottery, pen cases, porcelain figurines, and silver plates. On the walls hung ancient muskets and daggers. Books were always treated with consideration in Persia, and my grandfather had found Sharif ol-Sultan’s old library a place of wonder, filled with maps, family deeds, and medical texts belonging to Sharif ol-Hokama, photograph albums, and astrological charts. An entire wall contained elaborate, leather-bound tomes. Some of the books were hand-painted, generally with representations of birds and flowers. It was here in the library that my grandmother broke the news to her husband that she was bearing his child. Nine months later, on September 12, 1930, she gave birth to my father at the Christian Missionary Hospital.

The boy was delivered by an English midwife. His joyful parents named him Kayomars after the mythological king in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and added an obscure religious middle name, Ruhollah, meaning ‘Spirit of God.’ The names chosen for my father, and his place and date of birth, were written inside a small copy of the Quran. My father had vague recollections of his early years growing up in Shiraz. Mohammad Kadivar was absent most of the time, busy practicing law. During his career, my grandfather often made trips to far-flung places like Behbahan and Abadan, where he mediated in land disputes. He was always guarded by soldiers in case they ran into hostile khans and tribesmen. My grandmother lived in fear that her husband would end up being killed and was relieved when he stopped going to the hinterlands.

Sheherzad Khanoum was a strong and devoted wife and mother. She constantly spoiled her precious boy. She spoon-fed and cradled him, and sang him to sleep with Persian lullabies. When her son got ill she called a family doctor who ran a private clinic. An only child, my father had his own wet nurse, and several cousins as playmates. When he was old enough he was put in a nursery while my grandmother began teaching at a girls’ school. Once her lessons were over she would rush home with a box of colored chalks and a tiny blackboard on which my father practiced his writing with her. Determined to raise my father as a good Muslim, my grandmother would read him passages from the holy book and regale him with religious stories.

Father still recalled with horror how, at the age of three, his parents had summoned the local barber to shave his head and have him circumcised. My grandmother’s attachment to God and Islam grew after she lost her second child, a boy, to diphtheria. In later years she instructed her son with the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad and Imam Ali, the Shi‘i saint. Kayomars Khan was only four when he was taught to pray five times a day with his parents, and to observe Ramadan and other religious holidays. Once a year, thousands of men marched through the streets of Shiraz near the mosques and the main bazaar to mark the emotional days of Tassua and Ashura during Muharram. My grandfather forbade his son to watch these street processions, where men of all ages beat themselves with heavy chains and cut themselves on the head with swords.

At home my grandmother would invite an itinerant preacher, a rowzeh-khoon they called him, to recount the story of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Hossein and his seventy-two Shi‘i followers by the army of the wicked Yazid, the Sunni Umayyad caliph. On such occasions, my grandfather would retire to his room with his son and teach him about Hafez, whose works were replete with criticism of the Sufis and the hypocritical mullahs. He also initiated my father into the works of Saadi, Rumi, Khayyam, Ferdowsi, and other great and well-known poets. Sharif ol-Sultan had no patience for such things. By then he was dying of stomach cancer.

My father was never close to his maternal grandfather and had painful memories of him. He often recalled how each time he misbehaved, the old prince would beat him with his silver-topped cane or have him tied to a tree. His feelings for his paternal grandfather were something else. After the death of Prince Sharif ol-Sultan, Aminollah Khan played a greater role in my father’s life. Every autumn, winter, spring, and summer, when not overseeing his fertile lands and date plantations or collecting taxes in Fasa, or hunting birds and gazelles, Aminollah Khan visited his son’s home in Shiraz.

Father always spoke of him as his hero. He was still an impressive man with a white mustache and sharp gaze. His face was hard and daunting. The only time anyone saw him smiling was when his grandson ran into the room and hugged him. One September day in 1935, Aminollah Khan decided to celebrate his grandson’s fifth birthday by taking him to the studio of an Armenian photographer on Manuchehri Street. After some pleasantries the eager photographer asked his client and my father to pose in the courtyard next to the geranium pots. Wearing his chapeau, three-piece suit, and shiny black shoes, the giant Aminollah Khan sat down on a chair, his large hands folded and resting on his knees. Standing beside him was his tiny grandson, looking slightly bewildered in a new suit, bow tie, and cap. The Armenian adjusted the camera lens. A flash and it was all over. The black-and-white photograph became a much-loved family souvenir. A month later my grandparents dismissed their servants after selling Sharif ol-Sultan’s house and left Shiraz for Khuzestan by car, taking my father with them. In Ahwaz they boarded a train to Tehran, where my grandfather had been offered a position at the Ministry of Justice.

The Trans-National Iranian Railways were part of Reza Shah’s strategy to link up the country. During the long trip the locomotive broke down in a tunnel. Screaming passengers climbed through the windows to escape the fumes. My father and his parents waited for hours under the sun until the engineers solved the problem. At last the train was fixed and was soon chugging along through the empty desert toward a brave new world. Evoking the Tehran of his youth, my father would tell us that it used to be known as “the Paris of the East.” He often related his first impressions of the big city with a degree of nostalgia.