Читать книгу The Lost Civilization of Suolucidir - Susan Daitch - Страница 9

“History my foot, it’s money!”

Shirley Pemberton

Passport to Pimlico, 1949

A MAN ON A MOTORBIKE, rolls of carpeting stacked behind him, cut off another biker who toppled over, hitting the curb. Cylinders wrapped in brown paper spilled from the back of the bike rolling into traffic, some, tied with twine, came undone and streamed red, gray, and blue into the road. The injured cyclist managed to stand, and a fight ensued. I watched along with a group of men leaning against the glass window of a kebab joint, listening to them argue in Farsi with a smattering of Arabic words. Whose fault was it really? The carpet man has a knife. Look out. Was that other fellow in the proper lane? Perhaps he turned a bit to the right when he shouldn’t have. I could have been anywhere, maybe, but I had arrived in Tehran. Shouting insults, one of the two combatants, limping, managed to get back on his bike and drive off. The other sat on the curb and waited for help. Fight over, the men discussed a public hanging that was to take place later in the day. A convicted murderer would be suspended via crane. I listened to their conversation a bit longer, then made my way back to the hotel.

The university archive was on the outskirts, some distance from my hotel. Flattening the letter I’d received on archive stationery I memorized the number and made my first call in order to make an appointment to view the scroll the Nieumachers had found on the site on the outskirts of Zahedan, the document that, according to Sidonie’s field notes, was the remains of detailed records of daily life in the city of Suolucidir. I’d written to the director of the archive, and our correspondence was part of the basis on which I was able to obtain funding for the trip. In his letter Dr. Haronian assured me the Zahedan scroll was accessible and available for inspection.

I hoped my Farsi didn’t betray an American accent. It was something I’d worked very hard on, and though I was often told my accent was undetectable, you never know how you really sound with any consistency or when in a difficult situation. I practiced a few lines before I picked up the telephone, then dialed. It was with a great deal of anticipation I listened to the clicks of the Tehrani dial tone. Soon I would finally be able to see the only physical proof I knew of that confirmed the existence of Suolucidir. After many rings a man picked up, saying only hello, not stating the name of the archive as businesses usually do in the west. For an instant I wondered if I had the wrong number.

“I’d like to speak to Dr. Haronian.”

Some shuffling that sounded like boxes being moved came through the line, the scratching sound of cardboard pushed across a gritty, unswept floor. I looked out at the street while I waited, half expecting to see a person leaning against a wall looking up at me, but the street was empty except for a woman carrying a bag with branches of dates poking out the top of it. Across the narrow street I could make out a room filled with blue TV light. A man came to the window, looked up, noticed me, and pulled the curtains shut. Finally a man got on the line.

“This is Mr. Bastani, at your service. I’m sorry to tell you Dr. Haronian is no longer at the institute. He’s retired.” As far as I knew, Haronian was not very old, so I was surprised to hear he was no longer at the archive.

“I have letters from him.” I immediately regretted blurting this out. If Haronian was gone, there was nothing I could do about it, and so I tried to take a more conciliatory tone. “Are you his replacement?”

“No. I’m just answering the telephone in the interim.” Bastiani didn’t know where the former archivist had gone, so it was impossible for him to give me a forwarding address.

“Can I speak to Dr. Haronian’s replacement?”

“No one has yet been appointed.”

Pacing the carpet, one foot after the next, I tried to pull something out of my brain to prolong the interrogation before the line was cut off. One foot covered the border pattern of linked diamond shapes, the other was planted solidly in the middle of a quatrefoil design. I asked Bastani if he could help me, then, in viewing the Suolucidir Scroll. Dr. Haronian, with whom I’d been corresponding for nearly a year had assured me it would be possible to spend some time studying them, as much time as I wanted, in fact. This accessibility was critical to my funding from the Zafar Institute. Without access to the Suolucidir relics, I felt like a fraud.

“The Suolucidir Scroll? We have no such documents. I’m familiar with our entire collection.” He paused, and I heard the sounds of a match striking, then Bastani inhaling. He was smoking a cigarette. In an archive? The idea that I had misdialed again occurred to me. It was the wrong number, and some knucklehead was playing along as a kind of impromptu prank. I hung up and carefully redialed the number, but the same affectless voice of Mr. Bastani answered. I mumbled about a lost connection, sorry.

“The Zahedan Scroll. It could be archived under the name of the site where they were found.”

“Zahedan? There’s nothing here Zahedani. Zahedan is a city of dust.”

“They could be filed under the city’s former name, Duzdab.” Duzdab meant the Watering Place of Thieves. When Reza Shah came to power he changed the name to Zahedan, which means place of noble people.

“If you like, arrangements might be made for you to view some scrolls from Susa. This I could fix for you. Susa, the town where the Hammurabi Stele was kept until it was removed to Paris, as you know. These items are very old and can be viewed for only two hours on Monday afternoons.”

I explained that as interesting as these might be, they were of no use to me for my current project. The Nieumacher Parchments, I asked again. Could they be filed as the Nieumacher Parchments? I could hear Bastani laughing.

“Why would we call anything here by such a name? Our archive goes back to the time of Darius and beyond, but includes nothing Germanic. You haven’t told me why you want to see our archives. We aren’t a museum. We don’t ordinarily open to random passersby, even if they have a letter from the late Dr. Haronian.”

“He’s dead?”

“No, I meant the former Dr. Haronian is no longer working here, as I told you.”

I explained my research, what I was looking for, but Bastani then asked me if I had a girlfriend or sisters? This he would like to know about, and had they accompanied me to Tehran? Even if I had sisters, why would I bring them with me?

“You have girlfriends then?” He repeated. “Maybe several.” This was a statement, not a question.

“No.”

“That’s unfortunate.” He paused, inhaling and exhaling smoke. “You can’t just walk into the archives,” he said. “I don’t care who you think wrote to you saying this is possible.”

I mentioned a sum of money. It wasn’t much, but it was all I could offer him. For a moment neither of us spoke. I walked over to the window of my hotel room and twirled the cord around my index finger. Finally the man on the other end of the phone told me that until such time as Dr. Haronian’s successor was chosen, it would be impossible to view any of the archives. To do so, for whatever stated urgency, would be considered a grave security risk. People, even foreigners, have disappeared for less. When I asked when the next director would be at his desk, Bastani had no idea, nor would he tell me if he did.

The door to a shop across the street was locked. The shopkeeper vaguely looked up at the array of windows presented by my hotel, but he didn’t appear to be watching anyone in particular. I heard more shuffling noises from the phone receiver, then the line went dead. I dialed one more time. No one picked up.

That was to be my last conversation with Mr. Bastani. In the morning I packed my bags. I was anxious to press on to Zahedan and the site of Suolucidir itself, if I could find it, leaving the study of the scroll for my return trip, despite the knowledge that reversing the order of reading, then excavating would be far less useful. During the excavation of Esther’s Tomb in Hamadan in 1971, in the hurry to build a new temple that would attract visitors, all kinds of ancient significant objects were tossed out. On the one hand I understand at a certain point the bathtub is full and overflowing, you can’t hold on to and read everything; on the other hand the lost museum is something to be mourned, no? It was possible I’d never see the Nieumacher relics. There was nothing I could do about it.