Strange Times, My Dear Read online

  Written in 1995, “The Mirror” is from Seven Men, Seven Stories, published in Tehran by Rahiyan-e Andisheh Press in 1999.

  THE MIRROR

  It had not yet crossed the mind of the man walking down the street that he should remember it had been fifteen years since he had looked at himself in the mirror. Neither did he have any reason to recall that it had been nearly as long since he had heard himself laugh. And he certainly would not have remembered that he had lost his identity card, had it not been announced on the radio that all “dear citizens” must renew them — that the expiring cards should be mailed in right away, so the new ones could be sent out within the requisite four weeks. After the announcement, the thought had crossed his mind to look for the old one: it was then that he remembered he had lost it.

  But the only way he was able to figure out that it had been thirteen years since he had lost it was to remember that the last time he had had to deal with his identity card was some thirteen years ago (or was it thirty-three years ago? — at a much earlier time, on a historical day); he had put the card in the inside pocket of his raincoat so that he could, for the first and only time in his life, go to the polling booth, show his identity card, and have it stamped on one of its pages. Since then, there had been no reason for him to remember where he might have left the card or wonder if he had lost it. Now another historical occasion had arisen, one that once again required the use of his identity card; and it was lost. At first he thought he might have left the card in the pocket of the raincoat, but it wasn’t there. Then it occurred to him that perhaps he had put it in the safe, but no ... it wasn’t there, either.

  He walked down to the end of the alley, boarded the bus, and went straight to the Personal Records Office. Once at the Office, he was not given a clear answer, so he went back home; but when he got home, he remembered that — apparently — he had been told to get his neighbors to attest to his identity in writing and bring it in as proof. Yes, that was it. That was what he had been told. But how to formulate the citation?

  He sat on the chair in front of his desk and pulled out a pencil and some paper. Well. . . it had to read, “We, the undersigned, testify that the identity card belonging to Mr. _has been lost without a trace.” Using a calligraphy pen, he made a clean copy of what he had written, left the house, and went straight to the grocer’s where he did his weekly shopping. But the grocer, not wanting any trouble, said he did not know his name, because up to now, it had never crossed the grocer’s mind to ask. “Especially since you yourself have left a blank on the citation where your name should be!” Yes, that was right.

  He should have gone directly to the dry cleaner’s first, because he’d been having his suit and shirt cleaned there every year for New Year’s, and he would have been given a receipt. Yet — although the dry cleaner had a powerful memory and was able to recognize all his customers, if not by name then by face — he could not place the man! He said he was sorry, rarely had he had the pleasure of meeting him. “Could you please give me your blessed name?”

  Please! This is too much.

  “Or at least a receipt. The problem will be solved when you bring in one of our receipts, which you undoubtedly have at home.”

  Yes, the receipt. There, on the piece of paper, they noted one’s name, the date the clothes were brought in, even the number of items. But the receipt . . . why should a customer keep the receipt after the clothes have been picked up? No, that wouldn’t work.

  Where else, to whom could he go?

  To the bakery. The bakery was in the same row of shops. He bought his bread there every week. But what time was it now? The baker's assistant was sitting on the floor against the wall, resting. “We’re finished baking for the day, sir.”

  So the man turned back and walked home along the wall, holding the piece of paper he’d torn out of a school notebook.

  Standing behind the window in his room, he stared for a while at the algae floating on the surface of the pond, but he couldn’t remember anything. Then, by dusk — or perhaps it was already evening — it occurred to him that he should head back to the Personal Records Office with his pockets full and bribe the man in charge of the archives to set aside an hour after work to help track down his identity card. This, at least, was a possibility, wasn’t it? Yes . . . why not, after all, shouldn’t it be?

  He reached an agreement with the old man, who was smoking cheap cigarettes out of a long cigarette holder held at the corner of his mouth, that they would go down to the cellar and look through the archives. It was perhaps an hour or so after they had their afternoon tea that they went down and began their search. The man who had lost his identity card had been smart enough to bring along a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches he had bought on his way to the Office. That way, it would not be a problem if they had to hang around the archives after hours. Once there, the seriousness with which the old man rolled up his sleeves and peered into the cabinet files from behind his thick glasses assured the man that he would not leave the archives department disappointed — especially after he himself began to help and gradually became familiar with the files.

  After they had gone through the letter A, the old man straightened up, asked for another cigarette, and took the B files out of the cabinet. “What did you say your blessed name is?” he asked.

  “I didn’t say,” the man replied.

  “Yes,” said the archivist, “I believe that you did tell me your name, and your family name. It was when we were in the teahouse.” “No, no, no . . .” said the man.

  “How could you possibly not have said anything?” asked the archivist.

  “No, no, no . . .” said the man.

  “Well,” said the archivist, taking off his glasses. “It’s not too late. There are many more letters to go through; you can tell me now.”

  “Strange, isn’t it?” said the man. “I’ve been wasting your time. I apologize. I forgot to tell you what the real problem is. I ... no matter how hard I try, I cannot remember my own name. I haven’t heard it for a long while. I thought maybe . . . maybe I could get hold of an identity card?”

  “Of course,” said the archivist, putting on his glasses again. “Of course, there must be a way. But why do you insist that you must —”

  “No reason,” said the man. “No reason at all. Just like that. . . Why don’t we forget the whole thing? Why does it matter, anyway?”

  “Whatever you wish,” said the archivist, “but I can also understand the problem of forgetfulness and senility. I myself have suffered from it from time to time. Still, there are ways, if you insist on having an identity card.”

  “What ways?” the man responded quickly.

  “It costs a little,” said the archivist. “If there are no real problems, there are solutions. I know someone who does this kind of work. I can take you to him. But it’s your decision, and you have to make up your mind right away: if we are going we must get there before dark.”

  The two men left the Office and turned into the alley that led to the main street, and from there caught the bus to the neighborhood the archivist knew like the back of his hand. The building was long and low, with a slight bend in its facade, like the sheath of an old dagger. An old man, wrapped in a cloak and sitting in front of the shop, greeted the archivist and showed him and his customer to the back of the shop, where, walking past rows and rows of old or used objects, he led them straight to an alcove hidden behind a dirty curtain. He pulled the curtain to one side and opened an old chest. There, he showed the men a huge pile of identity cards.

  “It depends,” the archivist said, “it really depends on what kind of identity card you want. These days it’s very common for people to lose their names, or their identity cards, or both. Now, what would you like to be? A king? Or a pauper? We have everything. Only the rates are different. Even there, we’ll take into consideration your circumstances. Some people shut their eyes and pick a card, like in a lottery. It all depends on what your taste is. Where would you
like to have been born? Where would you like to have been raised? What occupation? What face or image would you like to have? Everything is possible. Will you make your own choice or shall I draw a lot for you? If it’s to be lottery style, you could draw the identity card of an officer, an iron merchant, an automobile showroom owner, a landowner, a business owner, or a government contractor. You should not worry at all. This is perfectly normal. For instance, this bundle of cards marked with an X are for Special Services, but I don’t think they would suit you, given your age. This other bundle is for the media — for instance, giving you a permit to publish a weekly paper or, let’s say, to produce a television program. As for your name, what would you like your name to be? Hassan, Hossein, Buzarjomehr . . . ? A name from the Shahnameh? It all depends on what kind of name you like. What kind of name do you like?”

  The man who had lost his identity card remained silent and thoughtful for a few minutes, then said, “I have troubled you. Still, if it’s no problem, could you please look around and find me an identity card of someone who has died? Is that possible?”

  “Nothing is impossible,” said the archivist. “That is even cheaper.”

  “Thank you, thank you.”

  As they stepped outside, the old shopkeeper had started to cough as he stood up, looking, it seemed, for the long hook with which to pull down the shutter. In between coughs, he was telling the two customers standing by the counter to come back tomorrow “because there was no electricity at the back of the shop.”

  And . . . the thought crossed the mind of the man who had lost his identity card that he had not laughed for some thirteen years. And now that he had begun to laugh, he suddenly felt that his teeth were peeling away, falling out, dropping down along his legs and landing on the tips of his shoes. He also felt that, one by one, a piece of his jawbone, an eyelid, his fingernails, were falling off his body. It occurred to him that perhaps it was time for him, if he did get home and did walk into his room, to go straight to the mantelpiece and take one look — one last look — at himself in the mirror.

  — Translated by Hossein Shahidi

  Hushang Golshiri

  Born in Esfahan in 1937, Hushang Golshiri grew up in the south of Iran in the city of Abadan. Returning to Esfahan to pursue his education, he graduated from the University of Esfahan with a degree in Persian language, and became a teacher. He began to write and publish fiction in journals in the late 1950s. In the 1960s he established Jong-e Esfahan, a literary journal, which quickly became celebrated as the most important journal published outside the capital. His first collection of short stories, As Always, was published in 1968, followed by his most successful and famous novel, Prince Ehtejab. About the decadence of the ruling class as seen through the memories of a dying prince, it was made into a popular movie in 1974, directed by Bahman Farmanara. Golshiri was arrested and imprisoned after the film was shown because his criticism of the prince was construed as an attack on the Shah’s regime.

  Other works published before the revolution include Kristine and Kid (1971), My Little Prayer Room (1975), and The Shepherd’s Lost Lamb (1977). After the revolution, he published The Fifth Innocent (1980), The Armory (1983), The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon (1984), Five Treasures (1989), and Mirrors with Doors (1997). Golshiri was an able critic and a tireless teacher of literature and writing. Many among the young generation of writers today participated in his writing seminars and workshops. He died in the year 2000, at the age of sixty-three. Two of Golshiri’s novels, Shazdeh Ehtejab and Christine and Kid, are currently being translated and will be published in English.

  “The Victory Chronicle of the Magi,” written just after the revolution, is a complex rendition of the experience of the common man and his ultimate betrayal by the revolution. Golshiri deliberately weaves contradiction, rumor, and ambiguity to show how the meaning of revolution and being revolutionary shifted as the popular movement to remove the Shah became more and more controlled by Islamist factions to become another form of repression. With the interesting, ambiguous usage of “we said” and “they said” Golshiri introduces different voices and perspectives, and shows how people cling to their perceptions of shifting realities, often believing what they want to believe rather than registering the tragic facts.

  A note of explanation about the title: Pir-e Moghan — the old Magus, or the elderly Zoroastrian tavern keeper — is a frequently used image in classical Persian poetry, particularly the poetry of Hafez. The old tavern keeper represents wisdom and sincerity and honesty, in contrast to the hypocritical followers of religion, who profess belief and piety, but lie, cheat, and hurt others.

  THE VICTORY CHRONICLE

  OF THE MAGI

  Finally, we started doing it, too. The windows of the cinema had already been broken. People had thrown a couple of rocks and the large panels of glass had shattered into tiny pieces. When we couldn’t find anything better to break, we smashed the neon signs above the doorways. The banks had tight security. A couple of cops were always there, with revolvers and G-3s, though no one could imagine them shooting at a bunch of ten- or twelve-year-old kids.

  The rocks made it through the metal security bars and grrrring . . . The glass shattered all over the floor. We were doing okay up to this point. Only a few of us got hurt. A boy holding a slingshot — the son of Hassan Agha the cloth merchant — got shot right in the middle of his forehead. The taverns and the statue of the Shah in the middle of the main square were still untouched.

  But we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. We knew most of the tavern keepers; we greeted them in the street. Besides, they were just regular people, like us, in a small town like ours with a single park, a few recently planted trees, and some rundown benches used mostly by retired people. In the late afternoon, the fountains around the four corners of the square were turned on, and the benches filled with older men holding canes and wearing felt hats.

  It wasn’t till the Moharram mourning days when finally two taverns — and they weren’t even open for business — got their windows smashed.1 After that, we felt we could do whatever we wanted. We began with the Majidiyeh tavern. Customers fled as soon as we showed up and made some noise. We passed the liquor bottles from one person to the next, like they were bricks, and broke them on the edge of the curb.

  Ali Agha was screaming: “Why are you breaking them, you infidels? You could have told me to close my shop.” He grabbed one of us: “Hassan, my boy, why don’t you tell them to stop? Don’t let them ruin me.”

  Suddenly someone — I don’t know who it was — punched Ali Agha in the face, smack on his bony nose and black teeth. Ali Agha had just been saying to him: “Why you? Just last night you were

  Ali Agha’s nose and mouth were covered with blood. He knelt down by the gutter overflowing with booze and wine, and sobbed.

  So for a couple of days, this is all we did. But Barat’s tavern was still open for business. Even when they brought in a flatbed truck and pulled down the statue in the middle of Shah Square with a lot of pomp, not one person threw a good-for-nothing rock at Barat’s full length window panels.

  Barat was one of us. He was from our town. He was an old hand at this sort of battle. He’d even been to prison. He’d brought the eighteen-wheeler truck himself. Some people tied a rope to the horse’s hoof and started pulling it. They began swinging at the base of the statue with pickaxes. But the horse was still standing on two hooves. When Barat jumped out of the truck, we made way for him, clasped our hands and hoisted him to the top of the base. Then he managed to crawl up one of the horse’s legs, grab the tail, and sit behind the rider. Pulling himself up the rider’s arm, he managed to slide over and sit on the horse’s mane. He undid the shawl he wore around his waist and let it hang down. Someone tied a hammer to it and Barat hoisted. At last, he stood up. He held on to the rider’s arm with one hand, and raised the hammer in the other hand. He turned around and looked at us from up there. And we, so many of us, as far as the eye could see, were stand
ing and looking at him. What could he do with a hammer?

  Barat turned around, lifted the hammer, and brought it down hard on the rider’s nose. There was a spark but the nose didn’t budge. He pounded again, and again. From the other side of the square, armed soldiers began to pour out of a side street. The news traveled from mouth to mouth till it reached the statue where Barat was. He continued to pound, but the nose remained just the same. He started to hammer away at the brim of the hat, hitting it again and again. But now we weren’t looking at Barat anymore. We stepped aside to make way for the soldiers, and we watched them as they raised their guns and aimed at our foreheads. For sure, Barat had seen it too. He yelled out: “Hurry up, give me the cable!”

  We stretched out the towing cable and tied it to Barat’s shawl, which was still hanging down. We heard gunshots as a shower of bullets passed just above our heads. The crowd heaved backward and swung back into place again. With the next round of bullets, the crowd stretched out, spilled over, and poured into the back streets. Now the guns were pointing at the statue. Two people had fallen at the base. They were the men who had climbed up to hoist the cable. But Barat was still there. His back was to the rider as he sat astride the mane, holding the bridle in one hand and the towing cable in the other. He leaned over to put the cable around the horses leg, which was raised up to the blue sky. The soldiers started to move. By now, we could just hear their footsteps since we, all of us, were hiding, here and there, in the bend of an alley, in the gutters lining the streets, and in the few stores that remained open on the square.

  That’s when we heard Barat’s voice. We heard him yell: “Come on, move it!”