Censoring an Iranian Love Story (23 page)

It doesn’t take too much effort for a writer to open the trunk of a car belonging to a character in his story. Incidentally, since the age of sixteen, I have longed to have a late-model BMW, and I confess that I, like many others, have a BMW complex. In any case, it takes me all of five seconds to take a screwdriver out of my pocket and break the lock on the trunk. I leave the trunk open, and as I walk away, with that same screwdriver, I scratch an end-to-end line along the side of the car. I whistle as I go so that Sara’s father can do the sensible thing without the inconvenience of a witness. Even if Dara still doesn’t know why he always carries his grandmother’s silk handkerchief in his pocket, I now understand why, this morning, I involuntarily put a screwdriver in my pocket as I left the house.

Now I have something important to do. I must somehow cross paths with Mr. Petrovich. Just last night, as I was writing, I put my head down on my desk to rest my eyes a little. There was a large poster of Dostoyevsky on the wall behind me. In this famous painting of the writer’s bust, Dostoyevsky’s glazed and insanity-stricken eyes stare at some point outside the painting’s frame. I, with my eyes closed, was struggling to see Dara’s sad face after he hears about Sara’s suitor. Suddenly, I thought I heard the sound of a glass object grinding inside a dry and gritty cavity. I swung around and saw that Dostoyevsky’s eyes had turned toward my handwritten pages and were reading what I had written from over my shoulder. But those eyes were neither glazed nor tortured, and they seemed more familiar than Dostoyevsky’s eyes. I froze; I realized that the eyes belonged to none other than Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor in
The Brothers Karamazov;
in other words, that same high priest and investigator of the trial of Jesus who, with the most precise scholastic reasoning, somehow accuses Jesus of sedition and sentences him to death.

If only all the horrors in the world were this simple and unimaginative. No, those were not the eyes of the Grand Inquisitor. Drained, I slumped back in my chair. I turned the pages of my story over and said:

“How are you, Mr. Petrovich?”

I woke up. I looked at my watch. My eyes had closed for only a few seconds. I was relieved that the scene was only a fleeting nightmare. But my joy was short-lived. I noticed that the cigarette I had been holding was stubbed out and lay crushed in the ashtray. I never stub out my cigarettes because they usually burn to the end sitting in the ashtray and snuff out, or I extinguish them gently and with respect. Just then I remembered that on the border of sleep and wakefulness, I had sensed someone behind me. He had leaned forward and in a fatherly manner had taken the cigarette out from between my fingers, and while reading the last page of my story and its crossed-out sentences, he had crushed it in the ashtray with disgust …

That night, after scratching Sinbad’s car, I quickly walked to a state-run cultural center where, as an exception, they had allowed an Iranian poet to give a lecture. As I had expected, Mr. Petrovich was there. He was sitting in the last row, and with eyes that could read deep into people’s minds he was staring at the face of Iran’s olden-days poet. The poet’s speech was about censorship. For five minutes, in a gentle and edifying tone, he spoke about the harms of censorship, and then he announced that he had recently made a great discovery. A discovery that would see contemporary Iranian literature rapidly gain fame throughout the world, get translated into different languages, produce best sellers, and, at last, secure the Nobel Prize, if not for him, then for another Iranian poet or writer. This great poet’s discovery was that censorship drives a poet or a writer to abstain from superficiality and to instead delve into the layers and depths of love and relationships and achieve a level of creativity that Western poets and writers cannot even dream of.

I had opted to sit where I was sure to be in Mr. Petrovich’s field of vision. Toward the end of the lecture, when I felt the weight of his eyes on the back of my neck, I knew my plan had worked. After the lecture, I leisurely left the hall. Tehran had again lost track of time, and the ghosts of past winters had laid siege to the city—it was snowing. Large snow -flakes, not blackened by soot, filled the footprints of passersby who had passed by on the fallen snow, and I knew that soon they would fill my footprints, too. Have you ever listened to the sound of your footsteps on snow? Isn’t it mysterious? Isn’t there a measure of crushing and being crushed in it?

I had been walking for scarcely ten minutes when I heard Mr. Petrovich call me from behind.

“Where are you going?”

By now my hair had turned whiter than forty-nine years warranted, and consequently, the snow covering my hair made little change in my appearance. Yet, it seemed as though time had left Mr. Petrovich untouched, except for his eyes, which had become sharper and more chastising. I stood still while he caught up with me.

“I don’t know. I was just walking. Maybe there is a sandwich shop open and I can have some dinner.”

“Then you must have been making fun of the government directive that forces cafés and restaurants to close at eleven o’clock.”

I admire Mr. Petrovich’s ability to read people’s hidden thoughts. It is an ability far superior to the sorrow writers feel when incredulously they manage to read a few seconds of the hidden thoughts of the one they love.

I said:

“You said it, not me.”

He laughed.

“Forget it, Mr. Writer! Wise up! You who consider yourself to be so clever because you can divert people’s thoughts away from subjects that you don’t like, and toward subjects that you do like, should put all your cleverness to work when you are with me. Don’t make pointless comments and don’t tell stupid lies … Tell me, why did you come to the cultural center tonight? I know you don’t like this poet guy. Did you want to see me?”

Only then did I realize what a cold and dark night it was.

Most of the streetlamps were out, and most of the windows were dark. There were only the sounds of our feet and the
whish
of the falling snow.

“How is your story coming along?”

“Sometimes it moves along, sometimes it falls down. When it falls, I fall with it.”

“Last week I was having lunch with a friend who works at one of the sensitive ministries, and our talk dragged on to you writers. Have you heard the latest joke about writers?”

I couldn’t hide my delight at learning that Mr. Petrovich is keen on jokes, too. In the light from a window, I saw a torn piece of carpet on the sidewalk. The snow was coating its shades of azure and crimson.

“It has often happened, and will often happen, that one of you, thinking he is smarter than us, secretly writes something or hides an innuendo in his writings, and then he is thrilled thinking that he has pulled a fast one. Up to this point it isn’t funny. What’s funny is that we know all along what he has done or is doing, but we don’t react, we let him do what he wants. In other words, we let him assume we are stupid. Sometimes, without his knowledge, we even help him put his plan into action … Which one of us do you think is smarter in this intelligence contest?”

“But the writer doesn’t have anything to hide, because at the end, all he wants is to have his work published. I think writers are the most naked people in the world.”

“Stop it, stop it… You want to play mind games with me, too?! There are some writers who send their writings overseas, supposedly in secret, to have them published under cowardly pseudonyms in periodicals and on Web sites opposed to the revolution; there are other writers who pretend to write a harmless love story, and by taking advantage of the innocence of love, they hide political inferences behind symbols and metaphors. But I am talking about writers who are even more clever.”

I realized that although Mr. Petrovich is still as mistrusting of literature as he was in those bygone years, his knowledge has broadened.

I said:

“In my opinion, if a writer has any objective other than writing a beautiful story, he will not become a good writer.”

“Excellent. That is exactly what my argument is. I say, sit down and write nice stories, stories that will make your country proud. Tell me, do you want to give a lecture about your thoughts on this subject at the cultural center? We can invite a large crowd, and the next day nice critiques of your theory will appear in newspapers and magazines. You’ll become famous.”

“No. Not at all. First of all, the moment I voice my opinion, some of the ideologically predisposed political activists will start rumors that you have paid me off to encourage writers to write shallow, nonprotesting, noncommitted stories. Second, I think a perfect and beautiful story is the most dangerous story.”

“I think you are a really stupid writer.”

“Thank you. I use the term ‘dimwit’ to describe myself.”

“Look here. There is a place where a large number of literature experts—real experts, not these second-string critics—are busy working seriously and meticulously. They know all of you better than you know yourselves. Even more important, they have thoroughly researched your private lives and the style, syntax, and structure of your stories, and they have input their findings into special software that we purchased from a Western country. If you write a story and publish it under a pseudonym, the next day the expert responsible for your work will be able to determine that it is your work, from its words, style, and structure. If he doesn’t want to go to too much trouble, he will simply input some information in the computer program, such as a few key words, and extract your name.”

I was biting my lips for fear that in my incredible state of shock I would make a sound. It was snowing more heavily, and the cold wind gusting from the end of the street was beating the snowflakes against my face. Mr. Petrovich chuckled sarcastically and continued:

“Now you are probably thinking how important and precious you writers must be for such an elaborate system to have been set up for you.”

“No … Quite the opposite. I am sorry, but I am actually amused that all these experts, systems, and software are for a bunch of miserable writers and poets, ninety percent of whom are completely preoccupied with how they are going to feed their family and come up with tomorrow’s rent.”

“You see! You see! Then when I call you stupid, you take offense; you make fun of me and say that I should call you dimwit … Dimwit! These experts are only working on your works as an exercise. The main stage of their work will be to examine and identify works by the famous and important writers of the world … Forget it. All I meant to say is that, after all these years, you still don’t know your best critic. If he were to publish his reviews and critiques of your work, you would very quickly become famous. Who knows, you may even win the Nobel Prize. Do you want me to arrange a meeting with him?”

My heart sank. I said:

“No, please. I am not after fame at all. Honestly, I mostly write for my own pleasure.”

“Wasn’t it only two weeks ago that you were telling your friend on the telephone that if you get the one-million-dollar reward for the Nobel Prize, the first thing you will do is buy a Porsche and drive along the mountain roads in Italy?”

My knees gave way and I fell. It was a good opportunity to catch my breath and collect my thoughts. I said:

“Ah, this damned snow … I’m sorry. I slipped.”

Looming over me, Mr. Petrovich stared at me for a while and then reached down to help me get up. I said:

“Sir, my friend and I were making fun of those people who are dying to win the Nobel Prize. First of all, I love BMWs, not Porsches. Second, ever since I saw how jealous people scratch BMWs with screwdrivers, I have been thinking that it is better for me to fantasize about having a Harley-Davidson instead.”

“An American motorcycle?”

“Harley-Davidson is American?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“So I’ll exchange it for a Yamaha.”

We were crossing the bridge where Sara and Dara had torn up the spell for hatred. By then I was covered with snow and freezing. But as usual, Mr. Petrovich was striding along looking dignified and stately. I could see the snowflakes changing direction as soon as they reached his proximity. The end of the bridge was swallowed up in fog. I asked:

“Do you think Dara is a good name for a fictitious character?”

“It depends on the character. Is he the protagonist, antagonist, or narrator? But if you are looking for a name that in translation would be pronounceable for a foreign reader, then why don’t you name him Daniel?”

My knees froze. A few feet away, suspended in the air, menacing clusters of fog were waiting. There was a hint of purple somewhere deep inside them. I wanted to turn around and walk away without saying goodbye. But Mr. Petrovich’s presence had robbed me of all power of will and strength of anger. The bitter chill crept up my sides and in between my teeth. We entered the fog clusters. Now there was again only the sound of our feet and the
whish
of the snow still falling. A shadow darker than the night approached us. A frail and haggard figure. It blocked our way. He first looked at Mr. Petrovich, and then he fixed his eyes, two cubes of very old ice, on my eyes. It was him! The same man from beneath whose cloak many of the world’s writers have emerged: Gogol’s Akaky Akakievich.

He asked:

“Have you seen the thief who stole my cloak?”

BITTER WATER

O
n this snowy night, Dara is sitting at the window of his room feeling sad. He feels he was a small pile of snow that Sara with her beautiful hands had delicately and compassionately made into a small snowman, she had caressed it, and then, squish, she had crushed it under her foot. Hearing the sound of the snowman being squashed, Dara angrily punches the wall and curses at himself.

“You fucking dimwit!”

Right here, I come face-to-face with another problem in writing my love story. In stories that go to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance to receive publishing permits, there should be no foul language uttered by the characters, especially popular curse words associated with the primary sexual organs and auxiliary sexual organs. Now imagine that in one of your stories you have a foulmouthed thug, and you want to develop this character. Let’s suppose you have reached a scene in Iran in which the thug character has grabbed a polite character by the collar and is picking a fight with him. What would you do?

In an age when every day stressed and troubled people in all corners of the world get into fights over small and petty issues and shout vulgarities at each other, and bystanders become their censors, characters in Iranian stories, in the most critical moments, in climaxes such as fights and brawls, and even on occasions when they are killing each other, can only go so far as:
Rude idiot… Snitch… Jackass … Cheeky … I’m going to slap you …
This is in direct contrast to American films in which during similarly critical climaxes, or even in the course of revelries and romantic interludes, words such as
Shit… Asshole … Son of a bitch …
and
Fuck you …
fly from the lips of characters to the farthest limits of the movie screen. I know polite American television channels have found an effective method of censoring these foul words even when dealing with rap songs. It is that bleep sound that suddenly pops up in the middle of what the character or the rapper is saying. These bleeps may be effective in movies, and they may render rap songs more acceptable, but they are not a solution for us Iranian writers. How in the world can we put the blare of a bleep in the mouths of characters in our stories?

Please do not tell me that those three infamous dots “…” will solve the problem.

No, they will not… Ask me why and I will say:

The use of these three dots is very dangerous to any story. In fact, it is like gaining access to nuclear energy with which one can either produce electricity to light streetlamps so that ghosts from the stories of Gogol and Bram Stoker, and ghosts from the
One Thousand and One Nights,
cannot go roaming around so easily, or use it to build a nuclear bomb. Readers, however, are generally not interested in lighting lamps on streets inhabited by ghosts. I mean the moment a reader, especially an Iranian one, sees these three villainous dots, a reaction similar to the chain reaction triggered by nuclear fission of the uranium atom takes place in his mind, and it results in the release of terrifying nuclear energy. When readers see these three dots, control of their imagination is no longer in the hands of the writer, nor is it in the hands of Mr. Petrovich. For example, it is possible that at some point Sinbad will discover the existence of our love story’s Dara and will realize that Dara’s love is what is keeping Sara from saying yes to his marriage proposal. One night, Sinbad could grab Dara in a dark corner of his neighborhood, throw him against the wall, and say:

“Hey chicken! Get out of Sara’s life or I will have you sent to where even the Angel of Death won’t find you.”

Dara could sneer and say:

“…”

And the writer’s intended words would be “to my balls,” but the rude reader could interpret the three dots as “tell my balls to go play racquetball with your ass,” which in Iran, even for homosexuals, would be a vulgar insult… Or Dara could tell Sara:

“Open your … and …”

The deleted sentence would be:

“Open your thirsty lips and suppress my desire.”

Meaning, for example, let your lips tell me that our heavenly love should not turn into pure lust. However, the reader’s nuclear-enriched imagination will reconstruct the sentence as such:

“Open your thirsty thighs and with your pink scissors circumcise me once again!”

Or the reverse, Dara could write to Sara:

“In the glow of the candle, hand … shadow … flames …”

The romantic reader could assume the sentence to be:

“In the glow of the candle, I will wrap my hand around the shadow of your waist, I will dance the tango with you, desiring the blue of the Mediterranean I shall kiss the shadow of your wine-stained lips, I will become a shadow, I will dissolve in your shadow, we shall fly to the Mediterranean where on the beach, on the golden sand, we shall light a fire with our celestial love, and in the blaze of its flames our shadows will part, we will find physical form, we will become two red roses with our stems intertwined, our thorns piercing each other, dancing in the breeze.”

And Stalin could read the same three dots as:

“In the glow of the candle, I write by hand the draft of the antigovernment communiqué as shadows of spies lurk behind the window, and tomorrow the flames of the people’s rage and hatred shall reduce this tyrannical regime to ashes, and on the bloody eve of victory I know what I must do with you dissenting writers and poets, traitors to the doctrine of the revolution.”

It is thus that Iranian writers have become the most polite, the most impolite, the most romantic, the most pornographic, the most political, the most socialist realist, and the most postmodern writers in the world. I just don’t know in which school of story writing I should categorize Iranian stories in which thugs, similar to the gravedigger in
Hamlet,
speak literary and philosophical words.

Therefore, when Dara curses at himself with the same words that I have uttered in front of Mr. Petrovich, I cross out
“fucking dimwit”
and I write:

Dara punches the wall and says to himself:

“You idiot!”

He is only then realizing that Sara is a very complicated person. But still he cannot believe that she would conceal the existence of her suitor from him. The first thought that crosses the mind of a man in love, such as Dara, is that his beloved has duped him, and now, to make her wealthy suitor jealous and to push him to quickly set a wedding date, she is talking about this poor lovelorn man and they are laughing at him …

The truth is that I too am surprised that Sara, this character that I have created, has suddenly become so complicated. But I tell myself, “You are a nobody in this world. According to all the religious books, Eve managed to surprise all the angels and Satan, too.”

In any case, while anxiously waiting for Sara’s telephone call so that he could at least hear an explanation from her own lips, quietly, so that his parents would not wake up, Dara went downstairs from his bedroom on the second floor. This old house has a small front yard surrounded by high walls. In the corner of the yard there is a small flower patch in which an old jasmine bush has grown thick and run deep roots. Ignoring the cold and the falling snow, Dara knelt down beside the jasmine bush and quickly dug through the snow and dirt and pulled out a package wrapped in plastic. Back in his room, he unwrapped the package and took out a bottle half filled with a colorless liquid.

Right here, as if on a dark snowy night I have walked into a dead-end alley and have run headfirst into the dead-end wall, I run into another problem.

What successful love story do you know of in which the abandoned and tormented lover who has learned of the presence of a wealthy suitor in his beloved’s life does not knock back a few drinks to console himself? Mr. Petrovich, however, does not under any circumstances allow characters in Iranian stories to drink alcohol—just like all those characters in dubbed foreign films screened in Iran who only order milk or orange juice in bars, and we see bartenders bring them gold-colored milk or burgundy orange juice.

Mr. X asks:

“What color is it?”

The expert on matters offensive to morality says:

“It is some shade of brownish gold … some sort of burnt gold … It’s hard to tell. It seems this damned whiskey has a very unique color.”

The scene in
Scent of a Woman
in which Al Pacino playing Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade has taken his drink from the flight attendant and has raised it to his lips is frozen on the screen, and the debate continues.

The expert on matters offensive to morality says:

“Sir, I told you from the start that this film is not worth deliberating over. It is filled with unethical teachings and vulgar language from start to finish.”

The expert on cinematic affairs angrily objects:

“Don’t prejudge the film like this.”

The expert on matters offensive to morality continues with his protests.

“The guy keeps saying don’t prejudge, don’t prejudge. My good man! Can’t you see that this film is riddled with problems? And it all starts with its title
—Scent of a Woman.
We can call it
Scent of Eve.
This way it will have some religious undertones.”

“Do you even know what you are saying? Your suggestion will only make the problem twofold. It will be an insult to Eve as well.”

“Boo! Boo! Brother, what insult? Have you forgotten the hell Eve put us through?”

The expert on cinematic affairs who has completely lost his temper yells:

“Please stop! This film is about the tenderness of the human soul, it is about the fact that this miserable blind man …”

He stops himself the instant he realizes what a horrible thing he has said. But it is too late. Mr. X orders him to be thrown out of the room.

The screening continues with no rash decisions about the film’s continued existence. Shot by shot all is described to Mr. X, and scene by scene they proceed. Finally, they reach the scene in which Al Pacino sits behind the wheel of a Ferrari and wants to drive around the streets of New York.

The expert on matters offensive to morality snidely says:

“These American directors have lost their minds. How could this blind asshole …”

He immediately realizes that he is repeating the same insult as the expert on cinematic affairs. He corrects himself:

“If I were in his place, instead of driving a Ferrari, I would sit at the helm of a Topolof airplane and gallivant around the sky.”

Mr. X says:

“In that case you wouldn’t be gallivanting for long. Don’t you know that every year two or three of our Topolofs crash?”

The expert on anti-American affairs says:

“It would have been a great film if this lieutenant colonel would sit at the helm of an airplane and crash it into a high-rise. Like that …”

The expert on cinematic affairs, who could not give up watching a good film on the big screen and has all the while continued watching from the narrow opening of the door, can’t hold his tongue and blurts out:

“As a matter of fact, if those guys had seen this movie, perhaps they would have never killed themselves and so many other innocent people.”

To ingratiate himself, the expert on matters offensive to morality shouts:

“Sir! Did you see, sir? This guy didn’t leave … He’s been watching through the door.”

Fed up, Mr. X says:

“You just noticed him?! I could hear his breathing all along. Come in and stop all these irrelevant arguments, let’s see what happens in the movie.”

And the lieutenant colonel, shouting “Hoo-ha,” drives through the intersections. Mr. X, motionless, barely breathing, eyes closed, is sitting at the edge of his seat with his ear turned to the speaker as if it is he who is sitting next to the lieutenant colonel and relishing the speed of the Ferrari instead of that young boy.

Thus, the Ferrari scene, with no pauses and no explanations, continues up to the point when a police officer stops the lieutenant colonel and asks for his driver’s license. Mr. X leans back in his seat. A green halo has suddenly appeared around his head. With the air of a holy man he speaks out:

“I think none of you has really understood this film. This film is about the art of seeing. The art of seeing things that are hidden behind the things you see that you don’t see. In a way, this film is in praise of the art of cinema and cinema’s angle of view in that, amid the profusion of clichéd, blind, and paper-thin lives of seemingly seeing people, it can focus on a different life and a strange character … And then with the art of cinema, to show how blind all the drivers, police officers, family members, and school principals are. But in this film, even this different life and this strange character are not what is important. This film is showing us the cinematic art of seeing. If I were this film’s director, I would have named the film
Scent of Cinema,
or
Scent of Art…
Play the film again from the beginning and all of you get out, I want to watch it alone.”

We return to our story and the bitter discussion of alcoholic beverages.

I remind you that, in general, we Iranians have an affinity for surprising the world. Centuries ago, it was one of our people, a great scientist, who discovered alcohol. And now it is we who have contrived thousands of rules, laws, and means of deterrence to prevent the consumption of alcohol, to such an extent that the toil, trouble, and cost of implementing these laws are far greater than the harm done to society by a bunch of drinking nonbelievers. We may someday do the same with respect to enriching uranium.

It is in this fashion that, seven hundred years ago, the poet whose ghost we saw at the Internet café time and again used the word “wine” in his poems. In Mr. Petrovich’s estimation, that poet’s wine is a mystical and heavenly wine, and in today’s corrupt world, the likes of me do not deserve to have our stories’ characters drink mystical wine. But this is not all that important to me. What is important is that in Iranian stories, even the most vile, the most malicious, and the most nonbelieving characters are not allowed to have a drink or two to show how wicked they are, not even if they are members of the Iranian Mafia. Not even if they are thugs, professional racketeers, or cutthroats fettered neither by Islam nor by any other human and moral principles. It is thus that characters in Iranian stories not only have no weaknesses and flaws, but year after year they become more saintly.