Читать книгу Farewell Shiraz - Cyrus Kadivar - Страница 9

PROLOGUE

Cairo, October 1999

The taxi smelled of dust, petrol, and stale tobacco, a jumble of aromas to match the confused sounds issuing from the car’s radio, the rhythm of Arabic music barely discernible above the static. Driving me was Sayed, a middle-aged Egyptian with frizzy gray hair and dark eyes. For a moment he studied me in the rearview mirror. “You Inglisi?” he asked. “I am half-Persian and half-French but was born in America,” I replied. The driver looked surprised.

“So you are Irani?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. My height and European features did not strike him as typically Iranian. “You could say that I am an exile,” I said, grinning. My driver frowned, confused but rather satisfied, when he learned that I lived in London and was here on a short visit. “Where do you want to go?” he asked, lighting a cigarette. “To a mosque,” I said, absentmindedly unfolding my map. “We have many beautiful ones. . . . Which one do you want to see?” Sayed asked, exhaling smoke.

I leaned forward, coughing. “Do you know the Rifa‘i Mosque, next to the Sultan Hassan?” The driver’s eyes lit up. He turned the radio off and said, “Of course I know! Shah is there. . . . I take you now?” I nodded pensively. “Yes . . . yes, please,” I whispered. My jubilant taxi driver took to the wheel and off we went. There was an admirable and terrifying quality in the way he navigated his ramshackle vehicle through the potholed streets. Through the intense brightness I observed the lively crowds in the spice and fruit markets, the laughing children, the old men playing backgammon or smoking their hookahs. Even in autumn the sun could be hot. I rolled down the side window to let in some air.

Everything, even the smells, was disarmingly foreign yet oddly familiar, enough to remind me of my childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran, a time when life had seemed simple and blissful. During the bumpy ride I kept thinking of what had led me to this, the dust and the traffic, all the chaos of eternal Cairo. Ostensibly I had come to write an article for an émigré newspaper on the Rifa‘i Mosque, where the last emperor of Iran lay buried. In reality I had a sentimental reason to visit this place. Since leaving my homeland at the age of sixteen in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution I had traveled the world, but now, aged thirty-six, here I was in a strange land, coming full circle to face the past.

The taxi sped along the Nile Corniche and entered the crowded labyrinth at the Khan al-Khalili Bazaar. Weaving slowly through the traffic we headed toward Midan al-Qala, adjacent to the Citadel, and finally found ourselves outside the Rifa‘i Mosque with its immense walls that stretched upward from the rising heat, the minarets wavering dizzily against the sky like arms lifted toward heaven. Removing my sunglasses, I blinked as my gaze climbed above them. Sayed straightened in his leather seat. “Amazing place, yes?” he asked proudly. “Stunning,” I gasped, as my shoes scraped the uneven, baked sidewalk.

Hurriedly I made my way alongside the imposing walls. A lizard darted across the courtyard. Having lived in the west for so long, I was unaccustomed to the infernal heat. My clothes felt sticky and sweat beaded on my forehead. I climbed the wide, stony steps. By the entrance of the mosque stood a holy man, his head bowed in silent meditation. He reminded me of the wandering dervishes of Iran. As custom dictated, I removed my shoes. Then I entered the dim, hushed interior of the mosque. Despite the humidity, the stone floor was cool and soothing under my feet.

A sense of excitement—anticipation tinged with apprehension—engulfed me. I glanced around with wonder, taking in the dome above and the exquisitely detailed marble inlays. A young lad approached me with a confident smile: “You want guide? I am Hani.” I accepted. He obviously made a living showing Iranians around the place. The boy led me toward an intricately latticed partition. We entered a vast, empty prayer hall covered with rows of red, blue, and cream silk Persian carpets.

Walking through the lengthy hall we passed the derelict tombs of Egypt’s former royal family. To my left a tall door stood half-open, tantalizing. For a moment I paused, as if what lay beyond was something forbidden, even supernatural. Hesitantly, I stepped inside. Scrolled across the multicolored splendor of the marbled walls were Quranic verses in gold calligraphy. In the near-empty room, a raised plinth, which looked absurdly simple amid such finery, lay in one corner, beneath an Imperial Iranian flag. It was almost noon and soon the call of the muezzin would fill my ears.

A mosque attendant in flowing robes strode across the expansive room and pushed open a large window. Sunlight turned the expanse of green stone to a pale jade. I stood over the tombstone. Emblazoned upon its surface was the Pahlavi crest and a pair of lions facing each other, with raised swords. Here lay Mohammad Reza Shah, the King of Kings, Light of the Aryans. Was this all that remained of his “Great Civilization”? There was something about this place that evoked strong emotions, long supressed.

I felt overwhelmed by the shadow of the past, as though the emperor’s restless ghost were everywhere: in the walls, in the floor, in the air I breathed. Kneeling down, I lit an orange-scented candle, placed one hand on the royal tombstone, and recited a short prayer for the soul of my late king. After the fall of my country to Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters there was a lot to reflect upon when considering Mohammad Reza Shah’s place in history, his achievements, and his failures. With his demise, Iran and my life had changed forever. It was Hani who proudly reminded me how the late President Sadat had stood by his friend at a time when the world had turned its back on him.

When, at the end of eighteen months of exile, the deposed Shah of Iran passed away in a hospital overlooking the Pyramids, it seemed that all of Cairo had attended his state funeral, which began at the Abdin Palace and ended three miles away at the Rifa‘i Mosque where, two decades later, his mortal remains now lay in a temporary burial chamber. The sense of peace and contemplation that filled me was suddenly interrupted by a group of noisy tourists and a handful of expatriate Iranians taking souvenir photographs and placing wreaths of flowers in the room.

The midday prayers, amplified by speakers, resonated throughout the mosque. When it was over, Hani followed me toward the exit, where the holy man I had spotted earlier was limping toward me on his crutches. I offered him alms but to my surprise he refused. Hani tried to explain to me that the old man was a member of a Sufi order. The man looked at me with searching eyes then said something in Arabic. I looked at Hani and he quickly translated: “Nobody should be buried away from the land of his birth. Inshallah, your shah will one day be reburied in Iran. On that day you will find your country again.”

Outside, Sayed gestured at me through the sunshine and I got back into the taxi. As we drove away in a cloud of dust I shut my eyes, but despite the intense fatigue, many years of accumulated memories and emotions swept through my mind. Unanswered questions echoed in my head but the loudest was, “How had our country been lost?” Leaving the Rifa‘i Mosque behind, I felt ready to face the past with greater objectivity and an intensified passion to uncover the truth. In doing so I wanted to exorcise what I could only term a Persian tragedy with its share of heroes and villains.

There was, of course, no way of knowing at the time that in attempting to find the answers to my questions and reconstructing events, I was embarking upon a ten-year odyssey, both personal and historic. Along the way I would meet a varied cast of exiles and witnesses to the fall of the shah and would be forced to confront all that had been forsaken: a way of life, my lost youth, and unfulfilled dreams and aspirations for my homeland. Maybe this was the only way to find closure. Upon arriving in front of my hotel in downtown Cairo, I got out of the taxi and paid my driver.

“I hope you find what you are looking for,” Sayed said before driving away. When he had gone I looked up. High above me was the blue sky with that distinctive quality of light so unique to the Mediterranean and Near East. On that hot afternoon everything came into focus. A welcoming breeze shook the dusty leaves of a solitary tree. The words of the dervish resonated through my heart and soul: “You will find your country again.”

Near my hotel was a shop, filled with tiny yellow and red birds in gold and wooden cages trilling without a care in the world. It had been a fulfilling day but inside me something had been unlocked. I realized that despite the years of soul-searching I had not been able to properly mourn all that had been lost. Nostalgia for a forgotten world and my beloved city of Shiraz flooded my senses.