Читать книгу Bibi's Rainbow: Hilarious Ordeals of Assimilation - Majid Amini - Страница 7

February 22, 1979, an ominous day when the revolution triumphed and toppled the Shah and his thirty-seven year dictatorial regime. His brutal regime crumbled down so quickly, as if it were a house of cards; and the men who supported the cards to keep them upright all morphed to ghosts, scattered to the winds by the savagery of the revolution. That gloomy day will undoubtedly remain in the minds of all Iranians as an unforgettable event―for only a few months after the revolution, in contrast to all other revolutions, except for the opportunist mullahs, who right away seized the power, no one was spared from its devastating effects. It also altered Mike’s life irreversibly.

From February 22nd to June 25th of the following year, which was the gloomiest day of Mike’s life, when he was forced to escape the country, he had to lie low by hiding from the notorious Revolutionary Guards, staying in different houses with relatives and close friends, those whom he could unquestionably trust. Possessed by fear and suspicion, he moved from one house to another, almost every night, while remaining incommunicado with his family. Like a gambler in a high stakes poker game, he was fatalistically risking his life by refusing to leave the country, not because he was emotionally unable to break with his family and his homeland, but because he was historically convinced that Iran was strategically too valuable for the United States to tolerate it being governed by a bunch of backward mullahs who would eventually make Iran chaotic and unmanageable enough that it would inevitably fall into the Soviet Union’s lap. He was certain that history would definitely repeat itself, that sooner rather than later, the events of the C.I.A. coup d’état of 1953 would be repeated and the Shah would return to his throne once again. But the political events that followed the revolution demolished his hope. When 52 of the American embassy personnel were taken hostage by a group of radicals, and with the war between Iran and Iraq raging, Mike’s optimistic prediction evaporated into thin air; and his hopes for the return of the good old days were dashed. This awakening to reality coupled with the fact that he was running out of people whom he could trust forced him to reluctantly make his move sooner than he was prepared to, both logically and personally.

Oh what an unforgettable night! That sleepless night of unbelievable tantalizing pleasure blended with teasing guilt that he had spent with his thirty-two-year-old cousin, Parisa. If he hadn’t married Noshin, Parisa was the girl he would have been predestined to share his life with. Their parents chose them for each other when they were only toddlers. But Mike has never denied to himself that he disregarded tradition and his feelings and married into a class of fame and fortune to secure his future. Miraculously, his social and economic class also changed overnight. It was common knowledge among the Yazdy clan, friends and associates that Mike’s marriage to Noshin broke Parisa’s heart, drove her to a deep depression. The unpredictable event was so overwhelming for Parisa that it forced her to leave Iran. She went to Vienna, Austria for a new life shortly afterward where she attended university and achieved a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern literature. She remained in Europe by accepting a teaching position at the University of Vienna where she taught and became a political activist against the Shah’s regime for many years. Only when the message of personal freedom and social justice for all promised by the revolution reached Europe did idealist Parisa return to Iran with the intention of making a difference in the lives of her people in the absence of the toppled despot.

Mike hadn’t seen her for many years, and most of his memories of her had faded in his mind like the bright colors of a Persian rug loses it glitters as time marches on. He had only vague fragmented images of her in the shadowy labyrinths of his mind. He could only remember some of her features with a few hints of the Orient―her sparkling almond-shaped dark eyes, long wavy raven-black hair and an ivory white, smoothly curved neck.

In those bygone days, Parisa had been a young witty girl, tall, buxom with sexy legs and an attractive symmetrical body, whose eyes laughed before her lips would blossom into a smile. Whenever their eyes met in family gatherings, there was always a sudden change in her demeanor―from a playful, often silly girl to a young woman dreaming irresistibly sensuous thoughts. With eyes sumptuously radiating lust, she would invitingly lock her gaze on his, undoubtedly with the intention of holding him captive until his total submission. Knowing surely that sooner or later she would be exclusively his, untouched and pure, he never allowed himself to accept any of those generous invitations to indulge himself.

Years later when Parisa returned to Iran from Austria, Mike was warned by his nephew Amir, only a day in advance that Parisa had changed. Now she was often impulsive, sometimes cranky, behaving entirely differently than the clam and composed Parisa who had left for Europe years ago. Amir was concerned that Parisa might inform the authorities and turn Mike in to avenge his rejection of her many years ago. But driven by an irresistible weird sense of curiosity and a longing for her that had never totally disappeared, Mike ignored Amir’s warning and decided to go to Parisa’s small apartment. When she left Iran, Mike had reluctantly accepted that her departure possibly meant that he might never see her again. But now in the perplexity of his chaotic life he had a second chance to resolve the old misunderstanding between them and surely to clear his conscience, a sort of redeeming himself, by explaining to her his reasons for changing his mind and marrying Noshin. Or was he merely curious to see whether or not she would once again gaze at him invitingly with her dreamy eyes? It never occurred to him that most men feel the urge to visit their past and contemplate the game of “what ifs” when they face danger and confront mortality.

When Mike arrived at Parisa’s place, it was already dark, an hour before the curfew, when the city was getting ready to fall into its nightly eerie silence with only ghosts of its ancient history roamed its streets. With unsteady hand, anxious mind, and quivering heart, he knocked on the door of her apartment on the third floor of a building. After several apprehensive moments the door opened and he was greeted with nervous kisses on both cheeks. But the affectionate hug that followed gave him the distinct impression that she wanted to remain in his arms a bit longer than was politely required. After she invited him inside, he was surprised to see she had set a cozy table with two candles, wine glasses and two red roses. The fragrance of several burning amber sticks around the exquisitely furnished living room, and the soft traditional Persian music in the background, gave the place a romantic atmosphere that strangely enhanced his nervousness. When Parisa noticed the look of astonishment coming over Mike’s face, she explained, “I thought, since it will be your last night in Tehran, it would be nice to have our traditional dish.”

Unable to improvise a response, Mike smiled awkwardly. Although there were some (barely noticeable) traces of lost youthful luster on Parisa’s face, she had compensated by accentuating her natural graces. Approaching her forties, it seemed she had acquired noticeably a different kind of beauty than before. Her shapely body and complexion showed that she had been taking care of herself very well. Surprisingly, her eyes remained unchanged, dreamy and unruffled as before. She was so disturbingly quiet that it forced him wonder what she could be actually thinking. Was she covering some undercurrent of anger, some sentiment of retribution underneath all that calmness? The question crossed his mind.

With bright blue beads, silver jewelry, and tiny ornaments hanging all over her curvaceous body, she talked and behaved unlike any other Iranian women he had ever met.

Sitting across from each other at last, under the dancing light of the burning candles, they enjoyed the delicious food she had prepared and lavishly served. She had cooked his favorite gourmet dish of sautéed eggplant and fillet of lamb, simmered in peeled tomato and sour grape sauce over steamed fluffy white rice. There was also a bottle of rare Rezaeih vintage red wine. As they emptied their wine glasses, he noticed that he was being targeted with the Parisa’s invitingly sensuous sparkling and captivating eyes that he remembered from years ago. She hasn’t lost it. He thought.

After dinner, they moved to the comfort of the couch and continued sipping their wine, talking about every possible subject except their own family affairs, with Mike deliberately avoiding any reference to his marriage, and not even once did he mention his wife’s name, Noshin. He didn’t ask about her personal life, nor did she inquire about his family. But he couldn’t block the thought that popped into his mind with a big question mark. Is this only the innocent gesture of a close relative that she is expressing with her eyes and body language? He had no answer.

She appeared mysterious, refined, now and then, explicitly romantic, philosophical, and full of poetry. With dreamy sweet eyes brimming with romance, she recites selected verses eloquently: romantic from Sa’adie and Hafez of Shiraz, mystical from Rumi, and philosophical from old Omar Khayyam. Under influence of wine, having lost her shyness, she even sang two lovely quatrains of Khayyam Rubayyat with a vibrant beautiful voice.

The trace of melancholy in her low voice, the implication of the verses she chose to sing, the romantically lit room and the music of the guitar in the background opened a gate in Mike’s mind to a rush of more questions. Is she trying to let me know what I’ve been missing all these years? Or is she trying to impress upon me that she’s a modern European woman, a feminist? Has she ever housed the love of a man in her heart? What if I’ll be the one, even if only for one night?

He was surprised by the rapture caused by the subsequent thought that flashed through his mind as he glanced sideways at her. He couldn’t help but wonder what his fingers would find under her loose dress―untapped grandeur of a heavenly beauty and delight, or residues of despair, anger, pain and timeless guilt.

He was pleased to be so close to her, but nervous about his urge to touch her, especially with the impression she was giving that his marriage with Noshin was water under the bridge, with no hard feelings.

Since he had to wake up at dawn, he reluctantly went to bed in the second bedroom shortly before one past midnight. The amount of wine he had consumed fortunately clogged the rush of questions in his mind and instead put him to sleep shortly after he laid his head on the pillow.

Sleeping on his side, he was unable to tell whose fingers were caressing his face from behind. As he turned, the moonlight coming through the window helped him to see the vivid image of Parisa next to him, appearing as if she were in a trance. Utterly startled and confused, he was momentarily at a loss for words. He wondered whether he should object to her presence, remain silently passive, or welcome her strange approach, her initiative. Whatever thoughts he had in his mind remained unspoken as she placed her hand on his lips, gently demanding him to remain silent. She then replaced her hand with a soft kiss, and soon exchanged it for a prolonged one that conveyed her passion. The slight power to stop her from going any further seemed to have deserted him. Her approach seemed raw, aggressive, and daring, yet alluring. He liked it immensely.

Prolonging the agonizing sense of anticipation, she leisurely proceeded to peel off her nightgown. It was unbelievably exotic and surreal as if in a dream. Immersed in the unspoken intensity of her desire for him, she then guided his hands over her bare breasts, as if she had been starved for a man’s touch. She methodically helped him remove his clothes.

That wonderful night, undoubtedly to remain unforgettable in their many lonely days to come, seemed to have no intention of reaching dawn. Nothing puzzled him. His mind was void―lacking guilt or any speck of remorse, let alone a scream of reprimand for what he willingly allowed to happen. Immersed with the sweet taste of pleasure, a sort of drunkenness and the novelty of a high that he had never experienced before, the thought that he was a married man with children didn’t even enter his mind. Even the euphoric sensation he had experienced smoking opium for the first time and made love to Noshin afterward did not compare to this exhilarating sensation.

Just few moments before dawn, he watched Parisa, nude, shamelessly, tiptoed out of his bed, without the exchange of even one word between them.

He woke up to the distressing sound of an alarm clock at exactly six in the morning. As he was dressing, he didn’t know how to face Parisa or what to say to her, even though he felt he has many things to tell her, especially now that the invisible partition between them had been removed.

He found her bedroom door closed and was surprised that it was locked. Standing behind her closed door debating, he didn’t know whether he should feel sad or relieved, happy or shamed. But as soon as the residue of last night’s ecstasy refreshed his mind, he wanted more of her, uninhibited, naked, like last night, but verbal. But one look at his wristwatch, he knew he was running out of time. His desire for her suddenly was replaced by fear, forcing him to move on or lose his chance of ever escaping the madness of the revolution and certain death. With all sorts of thoughts crisscrossing his mind, he paused behind her bedroom door for a moment. Even knowing the chance of ever seeing her again was remote, he decided to let the dream-like sexual encounter between them remain an unspoken mystery a secret, wrapped and buried in the dark shroud of that room.

He poured himself a glass of water from the kitchen’s faucet and downed a ten milligrams Valium. Just before leaving, Parisa’s handwritten note on the kitchen table attracted his attention. On closer look, much to his astonishment, it was inscribed artistically as if it were written by a professional calligrapher. It read, “My lovely cousin, last night we consummated a marriage that was made in heaven long ago. The pleasure I gave you was a sowghat [gift] by which I hope you will remember me fondly in your long journey.”

He carefully folded the note and placed it in his jacket pocket, treating it as if it were the most precious document someone had ever honored him with. He did so perhaps because he felt it was a license for his freedom from the guilt he had been carrying with him all these years. Before leaving her apartment, he looked around trying to etch the image of that room in his mind to remind him of the wonderful night he had spent with someone so close yet so oddly distanced for so many years.

When Mike stepped out of Parisa’s apartment that early morning, the overflowing joy in his mind prevented him from accurately assessing the price tag for his recklessness. He was oblivious to the fact that even if last night’s irresponsible action didn’t push his marriage over the cliff it would ultimately turn his relationship with his wife into nothing more than a peaceful indifference.

June 2, 1981 is a date that Mike shall never be able to erase it from his memory if he lives to be hundred, and he is dead certain that the details of its events will even remain with him if there is life after death. That was the awesome day when he had to leave where he was born and where every fiber of his being was woven there. An ominous determinant day, for if he would have stayed a day longer, his life certainly would have become imminently endangered.

A few days prior to his ultimate departure, he had arranged a deal with a fast-talking wheeler-dealer, the head of smuggling ring working with the elite members of the Revolutionary Guards, and paid handsomely for his safe passage across the border into Turkey. He was to be picked up at a designated place in northeast Tehran and driven to the last mountain town on the Iranian side. From there someone would guide him across the rugged mountains to the border and the safety of Arzeroom in Turkey.

He was picked up by three fierce-looking young uniformed men in an old military jeep and driven all the way to the city of Salmas in total silence. They did not even ask him his name. On the corner of a desolate street, under cover of darkness, he was delivered to a young tall Kurdish guide, with provisions for a three-day hike across the mountain. The young guide was a talkative pleasant man who entertained him with Kurdish songs whenever he could stop talking long enough to sing one.

With little hope but an awful lot of anxiety, Mike was reluctantly on his way to leave the wonderful and exciting life he had known prior to the revolution and to embark upon a journey driven by fear and shadowed by a sense of impossibility, with no guarantee he would ever be happy beyond Iran’s border.

Reviewing the delightful memory of what had happened in Parisa’s apartment the past night, every bit and piece of it, helped calm his nerves and ease his fear on the trip to the city of Salmas, the last town before he would begin his hike towards the Iran-Turkish border. During the three hellish unforgettable days and two nights that it took him to reach the border, there were times when he thought he was not going to survive the ordeal. But finally his long torturous journey ended in a small apartment in Istanbul, Turkey, where he had made plans to wait for his family to join him if they could possibly obtain government permission to leave.

He avoided the crowded streets of Istanbul as much as he could, but with the many Iranians escaping to Turkey, secret agent included among them, it was becoming practically impossible to remain anonymous. Maybe it was the sheer paranoia exacerbated by his loneliness that made him feel the agents of the mullahs’ regime were constantly following and about to catch up with him. When his panic grew unmanageably strong and finally got the better of him; he could no longer stand another day in Istanbul. With a heavy heart, he left Turkey quietly, boarding the international train for Paris. Wearing old clothes, sitting in the third class section, he tried to wrap himself in a blanket of anonymity.

In recent history, Paris has kept the honor of remaining an enormous metropolitan garbage can, a bottomless pit―a refugee center, where revolutions can dump their victims. It had become a sanctuary for many officials of the Shah’s regime, and that was where Mike decided to patiently wait for his family to join him.

Unlike some of the unfortunate elites of the Shah regime who were unable to funnel out much of their wealth prior to the revolution and ended up having miserable lives in exile, Mike, in perhaps one of the wisest moves of his life, had transferred twelve and a half million dollars into a bank account in Switzerland during the days when money was pouring every which way into his pockets. If that sum of money couldn’t bring back his glorious past, at least it could prevent him from falling into a pit of depression. That chunk of money was becoming very handy in helping him to withstand the atrocities of the revolution at a safe distance; secure, hoping things would eventually turn back to normal at home. If not, he could relocate and reestablish his family, preferably somewhere in the United States.

It took over two more adventurous years before he could safely get the rest of his family out of Iran and bring them to Paris. That included his mother-in-law, Naghmeh, his father, Ferdous, and an old nanny, Bibi. Bibi had accompanied Noshin as another piece of her dowry after her wedding, a dowry, which included a fully furnished house in Tehran, a villa on the shore of the Caspian Sea, jewelry and money, and soon after, a lucrative position in the government.

Mike was alone, lonely, and bored, with no responsibilities, a lot of time on his hands, and a lot of money stashed away in his bank account. Those tempting attractions, glaring tantalizingly at him, finally did the trick; they smashed through Mike’s walls of moral defenses where Parisa had already left a sizable crack. Late one night in a lonely café, brimmed to his eyeballs with wine and with maddening temptations buzzing in his head, he came much closer to a voluptuous French “working” woman than any married man should―a woman who later that night generously exhibited more lewdness than any other woman he had ever known, including his cousin, Parisa. She performed so many exotic and exciting tricks with her nude body that by the time dawn arrived; Mike was freed from his moral bondage, a freedom that, unknown to him at the time, carried a hefty price tag.

His days and nights of the first six months in Paris, were spent in the company of people like himself, the elite of the last regime who, like Cubans in Miami, were having good times while waiting for the regime to change back home. The continuation of disastrous events in post-revolution Iran, the social and political upheavals that followed, gradually chipped away the optimistic view of the cream of the crop of the last regime. The more Mike’s hope for returning home faded away, the less he could resist the temptation to see Parisa at least once again. He would glance at Parisa’s note often, so many times that, after awhile, the paper disintegrated and her words become barely legible, but they were etched in his mind. When he finally called her, it didn’t take any innovative words of encouragement for her to agree to join him for a week in Paris. Oh, what a remarkable week that turned out to be!

Having an affair with her didn’t put any notable scratch, or even a dent on his conscience. After all, with every word on Parisa’s note well memorized, he consciously started to believe she was his rightful wife―if not legally and religiously, at least culturally, and that helped him to alleviate his guilt.

Every three months or so, Parisa would fly to Paris to be with him, to save him from loneliness, and to compensate herself for the happiness she felt she was denied when Mike chose Noshin over her. Carefree, they roamed the south of France, Venice, Monaco, and all the other places that help lovers energize themselves, acting as if they were newlyweds.

It was during those two years in France, in the absence of his family that Mike tasted the good life of bachelorhood to its fullest extent, and the joy of having a second wife, to compensate for his unadventurous life before his marriage. By the time his family arrived in Paris, Mike had made the acquaintance of an American embassy worker who moonlighted as a document forger. He provided Mike with green cards for his entire family at ten thousand dollars a shot.

He brought his family straight to Beverly Hills, “the shining city upon a hill,” a city that attracts the world’s richest like Mecca draws the devout Muslims, where most of the cream of the crop of the Shah’s regime in Iran had been settling down since the mullahs had consolidated their powerful grip on Iran. He thought it was only on the sidewalks of Beverly Hills that he could live his life free of fear and paranoia, where he could forget his past by living in a country that didn’t have any history in comparison to his. He wanted to settle down badly and get on with living, to give his children the best education his wealth could provide. He wanted to have a life that could satisfy all his senses: have a happy family life raising his children properly while enjoying everything a free society could offer.

As for Grandma Naghmeh and Grandpa Ferdous, both physically moved to America all right, undoubtedly with intentions of trying hardest to live normal lives. But mentally the ordeal of adjusting to this new way of life in America proved far more difficult than they had imagined. They behaved as if their minds were left back in Iran. Coming from one of the oldest societies with its etiquette and traditions designed for every conceivable facet of life from cradle to grave, and now trying to survive in a country where everybody longs to be left alone to do their own things, was proving to be too much for the Yazdy elders to manage.

This reality, this almost proven sociological rule that so painfully applies to the vast majority of other emigrants, for some mysterious reason, didn’t apply to old Bibi. She didn’t allow the Western culture to sweep her away and immediately convert her into a genuine American. Instead, she remained somebody special, someone exceptionally herself. Bibi wasn’t in the business of trading her identity, of abandoning her Eastern way of life and becoming a full-fledged American instantly. She was an unassigned ambassador from Iran with a mission to enlighten the Americans about the exotic beauty of her native land and to open-mindedly prepared to be oriented and enlightened by the freshness of slightly over two-hundred years old America’s extraordinary culture.

Before even landing on American soil, Mike subconsciously wanted to discard any of his mental baggage that contained anything resembling Iran. He wanted to arrive in America like a blank page of paper so that he could chart a brand new destiny for himself. He didn’t even give a thought to the possibility that he might end up a chameleon changing color to blend into his new environment, or like a silkworm, metamorphosing into somebody brand new. Mike was experienced; he had performed this act once before, changed to match his new environment―when he opportunely married Noshin. The morning he stepped out of his honeymoon bedroom, he became a different man, no longer belonging to the same class that he was born into. His behavior and even the selection of words to express his thoughts changed, and as a consequence, he eventually became a stranger to the rest of his family.

He purchased an ostentatious house for three and a half million dollars on Elm Street in Beverly Hills and two of the latest-model European cars, a Mercedes Benz and a BMW. Mike, young, adaptable and eager to assimilate, was ready to let the good times roll in this new world. However, for most of the older generation of Iranians who were forced to become refugees in America after the revolution, handling their dual loyalties was often confusing and difficult. Mike was also destined to experience some difficulties. He wasn’t aware that America sometimes asks the new emigrant for disloyalty to his homeland in order to prove his love for America.

Of the two options that a free enterprise society provides an emigrant―to live so you can be, or to live just to consume and accumulate―Mike purposely selected the latter, maybe because he didn’t know better. He hunkered down to make his fortune by entertaining the thought of investing a large portion of his cash assets into the real estate market, which was booming unbelievably at the time. A fast-talking, wheeler-dealer blond and blue-eyed real estate agent, Robert Fisher, became his exclusive financial advisor. On advice from Robert, Mike purchased several large parcels of prime land in the Palmdale area. He was told there was a plan to relocate the Los Angeles international airport to that desert town. He was convinced that as soon as that plan was implemented, the value of his land would skyrocket, and he would become richer than he had ever dreamed, without even moving a finger. Only the Los Angeles airport remained where it was, and Palmdale continued to be a dusty hot desert town. Within the course of five short years during which he kept investing unwisely, here and there, he was swindled of all his investments by a bunch of shysters and two-bit con men. Meanwhile, his taste for the good life, women and gambling drew him to Las Vegas like a magnet. As he became addicted to more women with more sexual tricks up their sleeves, he would come up with innovative excuses for going to Sin City without his wife and staying longer each time. The small gap between him and Noshin, which was first created by his separation from her in Iran immediately after the revolution and that had widened by his departure to Europe, increased to an enormous gulf by his unquenchable thirst for the good life in the first several years after he migrated to America.

It is getting late. He feels he has been living in the past longer than he should. He knows he must abandon his reverie and quickly return to the present. He leaves a ten-dollar tip for Julie and lets his half-numb legs carry him to his car, taking him home to face his other set of problems.

On the way home, no matter how hard he tries to resist revisiting his past, the good old days, and concentrate on his present, he is strangely unable to. But for some unknown reason, only a few minutes later, like the excruciating pain of an open wound that surely returns as the effect of the painkiller wears off, the unpleasant events of post-revolution in Iran mercilessly attack him. And then mysteriously his past fast-forwards to the present, to his ailing wife, Noshin, and how beautiful and attractive she was, and how agonizingly she currently exists in a vegetative state of mind, body and spirit.