For example, if a girl answered her doorbell and was wearing a red top, she was generally
mischievous and willing. Armed with this folk wisdom, I devised another plan. I dubbed
it Operation Looking for Mr Rezaei.
We had to find a neighbourhood far away from our own home—then simply go around ringing
doorbells. If a girl in a red top opened the door, voila! If not, no worries. We’d
just move along to the next home.
Rezaei was a popular name, the equivalent of Smith in Australia. For this reason,
it was perfect. If, by chance, we asked for a Mr Rezaei and got one, we’d simply
say we were looking for a different person—the fat Mr Rezaei, the skinny Mr Rezaei,
older, younger, shorter, taller, all depending on the situation.
Girls who didn’t wear red tops, we knew, could be smart and dangerous. If they smelled
a rat, they could just yell ‘Dad! Perverts at the door.’ We figured we’d cross this
bridge when we
came to it. If, on the other hand, a girl answered wearing red? We’d
treat that door like it was the Pearly Gates, plunging ahead and asking straight
away if she was ‘willing and keen’.
I went over the plan for weeks, getting my cousins bold and excited. On game day,
I gave a long motivational speech, talking up our chances of success.
We met a lot more men than we’d anticipated.
Moustache after moustache, beard after beard. By the time evening rolled around,
we were despondent.
So my cousins lost faith in me. But I was undeterred, and kept Operation Looking
for Mr Rezaei flying solo.
Then one night, finally, when I was out door-knocking zealously and alone, a girl
with large dark eyes answered, a loose scarf on her head. And to my enchantment,
a bright red jumper.
‘What do you want?’ she asked me, in a matter-of-fact tone.
I was freaked out, but I remembered: plunge ahead. Stick to the plan.
‘Are you willing?’ I asked, sounding nervous and overeager.
She grinned. Her smile could’ve melted the snow off the Khezr Mountain.
‘My dad’s making tea, but yes, I’m up for it,’ she replied—so casual, she was even
popping gum.
She didn’t fix her scarf to make it cover her hair; it danced in waves over her face,
making me tickle with excitement. So I extended my arm and offered her my sweaty
palm. She grabbed it. We stared at each other for a stolen moment.
Her hand was soft, then it was gone. She smiled again and closed the door. I collapsed,
grinning, against the wall of the alley.
I’d made contact, skin to skin. I couldn’t wait to tell my cousins. That was all
we’d wanted, after all.
Standing there in the alley, I brought my palm up to my nostrils. The girl’s hand
was still on it; it smelled like cinnamon.
I breathed deeply.
It was a life-giving sensation.
The success of this encounter was the exception to the rule; in general, Operation
Looking for Mr Rezaei had a low conversion rate. Nothing for it but to roll out another
plan. I did not know whether to call this one Plan C or D or E. Who knew what letter
we were at by now?
Cinemas all over the world are closely associated with romantic rendezvous of every
kind. Lucky for our souls, my cousins and I lived in Qom, where cinemas were safely
partitioned into two halves: Male and Female.
‘Okay,’ I said to Mehdi and Musty, devising the plan out loud. ‘So we hang around
outside the cinema on a Friday’—the most popular family day—‘and wait to see if there
are any parents who’ve brought girls with them…’
Mehdi looked worried, but Musty was hooked. ‘Where is this going, Os?’ he asked.
‘God willing, you’re going to say: we will sit next to the girls and pretend we’re
part of their family?’
I gaped at him. He’d taken the plan right out of my mouth.
We headed to the cinema and found our marks: a family of five, the parents, a young
boy and two girls in their teens.
We loitered a while, knowing we had to get the timing perfect. Entezami officers
were on the street, scrutinising us openly. The family joined the queue and just
like that, we slipped in behind them: a family plus three hoodlums, or a family of
eight? To complete the picture, I sidled up to the father and introduced myself,
all friendly.
‘We only come to the movies once a month,’ I told him chattily. ‘Most of our time
is spent at the mosque.’
He was an older man, all grey-haired and stiff.
‘Too many wayward children out and about these days,’ I pressed.
The old man just grumbled.
Well, we didn’t need to sell it to him, specifically. We just needed to sell it.
And to all outside appearances, I was talking to my father. We couldn’t believe it.
The plan had worked. The daughters looked at us furtively, eyes twinkling. They were
onto us, of course, but so much the better. They didn’t mind.
We wandered into the cinema with them, playing it as cool as possible. But there
were no Entezami in here.
And we were just about to sit down casually beside the daughters when their father
turned around and grabbed me by the collar.
‘Listen, son. I’m with the Monkerat, but it’s my day off,’ he said. ‘I want to enjoy
the movie, and I don’t want my wife and children to see me violent. So consider yourselves
lucky and get lost.’
Not all of the
hawza
lectures were about relations between men and women. Some of
them were about relations between men and men. Gay people were not people: this was
very clear. One day, I saw one of them hanged in a public courtyard.
The noose was hanging low to the ground, anchored by a crane. The condemned was a
young man in his late twenties. He stood there in his spectacles, and a prisoner’s
uniform. On his face there was a resigned expression.
The Entezami officer read out the charges to the gathering throng—it was a strong
crowd, masses and masses of people.
The condemned was tall and lanky, but it was the glasses I couldn’t get past. They
just weren’t something I associated with a homosexual. He spent his time bonking
men, not reading
like normal people. He didn’t need the glasses. And they made him
human.
Deep down, I felt the tickling knowledge that he
was
a human, and because he was
a human, that he shouldn’t die.
He was asked, as was the custom, if he had any last words. He politely asked the
officer if he could set his hands free, momentarily, so he could raise them to the
heavens and pray.
‘God will look upon repentance favourably,’ the Entezami officer said, and agreed
to the condemned man’s request.
Once freed, the condemned man, surrounded by a dozen officers, used his hands to
pull his pants down and expose his bottom to the crowd. The officer stood up, unholstered
his revolver, and shot a full round into the man’s head.
The glasses shattered into his face. Blood fountained from his temple. The snow was
crazed with a thousand random splotches, all different shapes and sizes, but all
the same dark red.
The astonished crowd was silent, except for the man’s mother, whose wailing echoed
through the courtyard for eternity. It did not stop, but was soon drowned beneath
the wave of religious chanting—the entire crowd, passionate, approving.
One day, my cousins and I conferred and decided to take an extended break from our
corrupt behaviours. For all our rebellious spirit, we felt terrible, even monstrous.
We’d taken fun to an aberrant level. We had gone astray.
As the children of clerics, we knew just what our decadence could lead to. Looking
at girls’ hair, knocking on strangers’ doors, infiltrating families at the movies,
masturbating at the barbershop…how low would we sink next? Might we actually kiss
a girl? God! We needed a time-out to reflect upon our sullied souls, and emerge renewed.
So I spent countless days and nights reading up on Islamic jurisprudence, cloistered
at home. I went to the holy shrine and sought forgiveness and repented. I began to
visit the graves of the martyrs every Friday, and read the Koran to brighten their
souls.
Due to chemical conditions in the adolescent body, this reclusion didn’t last beyond
two months. I was a Muslim in my heart—but the same heart that felt so Muslim pumped
hot blood through my body, rendering me pagan.
I accepted a compromise, deciding that my soul was Muslim but my body was 100 per
cent agnostic. It knew nothing of Thou Shalt Not, nor of the Holy Text. All its knowledges
were governed by the art of fornication. My soul needed a good dose of repentance.
My body needed a good dose of romp.
Accordingly, I closed the Koran, rounded up my cousins, and explained my latest plan—Plan
F, G, H, whatever.
That stubborn desert heat was back. That’s why they called it stubborn. The city
of Qom had turned into a furnace.
We gathered once more outside the holy shrine—this time beside the payphones, which
were segregated, like everything: men on the right, women on the left. All around
us, more wholesome kids were cracking eggs on the sidewalk, cooking them on the
large, flat stones for fun.
I had now employed the services of my younger brother, Moe Greene, who had started
moving up our adolescent ranks. Moe had been a great warrior and comrade of mine
since an early age, and was thereby my most trustworthy relation.
Today, he was required to secrete a cache of Bin Laden rockets inside a garbage can
across the road. I had carefully choreographed our foursome’s movements:
The other thing I needed to do during the chaos was call our home phone number from
the
men’s
booth, then leave a pen and paper atop the phone.
The idea was this: after all the madness—the out-of-order sign; the explosion across
the street—the girls would naturally be forced to use the men’s booth. Because I’d
already dialled our home phone, any girl who entered would themselves have access
to my number on redial.
As soon as a girl approached the booth, I’d line up behind her. This would appear
legitimate. It was the men’s booth, after all. Safe and confident, I’d lean close
to her hijab and whisper, ‘Hit redial!’ If she was anywhere near as daring, she would
do as I’d asked, causing my home phone number to come up on the screen. She would
then use the pen and paper I’d provided to write down my number, pocketing it for
later use. Mum never picked up the phone, and Dad was in Australia. So when she called
back later, I’d be the one picking up the phone.
It was elaborate, but life in Qom called for elaborate measures. If anything, this
guaranteed against failure.
Still, I was sweating, badly. I was worried about the sign hidden under my shirt—what
if the sweat rendered it illegible?
Musty was already in the shade beneath the minaret, where the Entezami officers liked
to park themselves. Mehdi looked about to die from anxiety, and Moe looked so high
I could’ve sworn he’d eaten pure octane for breakfast.
Musty started to natter away. I looked across to Moe. He beamed a smile and headed
to the bins, match and lighter in hand. Mehdi signalled a possible Monkerat at my
two o’clock; I waited, but then I saw the thug spit at a freshly painted wall, a
reasonable sign that he was not an undercover officer.
People walked past us rapidly, busy with their days, all ready to write and wipe
the next chapter of their lives and then:
BANG!
The noise of the explosions filled the street.
God bless you, Moe, you truly are
the brother of my dreams.
The chaos and the mayhem were too beautiful. There was
smoke, there was fire. The street felt under attack. I ran to the phone booth to
execute my end of the deal. I saw Moe smiling, resigned to the fact he was about
to be belted. His smile widened as the three officers prepared to take him down.
He gestured at me—victory!—and his eyes said:
We did it, bro
.
That’s when I pulled the plug on the operation.
I could not do it. I couldn’t go through with the plan—not when my little bro was
about to have his bones cracked in.
I ran to the site of the explosion and drew the officers’ attention, abusing them
with every name that came into my head.
‘Stop it, you dirty donkeys, you hairy camels! Leave him alone! Pick on someone your
own size, you two-legged mountain goats!’
They considered my suggestions.
They implemented them in due course.
Tehran, Iran, 2013: four days until visa expires
The chartered plane gets into Tehran just after midnight. I choose a cabbie without
arguing the price and tell him, ‘Take me somewhere cheap.’
‘How cheap?’ he asks me, snapping gum—a driver with an attitude. ‘Beetles-on-the-floor
cheap, mice-in-the-walls cheap, druggies-fighting-next-door cheap?’
‘Not that cheap,’ I say wearily.
He drops me at a strip of 24/7 motels. Before he goes, I enquire discreetly about
‘the drugs’, thinking I could use something to help me stay awake and alert—there’s
no time to sleep but a handful of hours here and there.
‘I’ve got prescription stuff, mainly. Codeine, Tramadol, Oxy…’
‘Oxy’s too strong,’ I say. ‘It’s like morphine.’
‘It’s an opiate! It’s good for you, my friend.’
His tramadies are 200,000 tomans for a box of twenty-four. I do some mental arithmetic—$70
Australian. What the fuck am
I doing? I don’t need Tramadol. I’ve never had them
before—but I do read, and what I’ve read is they give you a sustained, relaxing high.
He guarantees they’re clean, and downs a tablet right in front of me, just to prove
his point.
‘Truck drivers use this all the time. You’ll be as beast as a Mack with one of these.’
I check the time and accept the offer. Worried how the box might look if anybody
finds it, I unpack it and stash the strips in my backpack. I hand the box back to
the driver. ‘God be with you,’ he coughs. I find a decent room. It’s way past three.
My head is a minefield. I see a trio of cockroaches near the bed shake their antennae,
perhaps over my purchase, and I fall asleep.
◆ ◆ ◆
Four hours later, I wake up and take a shower. I can’t put off telling my family
anymore.
I call Moe Greene, my tough younger bro. I ask him to round up the family and put
me on speakerphone.
I still dance around it, until Mum gets sick of me. ‘Why are you calling?’ she says.
‘My blood’s dried up. Just spit out what’s on your mind.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll make this quick. There’s no easy way to say this, but I think
you should read the
Fatiha
. Dad’s passed away.’
I hear a loud scream. Then the sound of my sisters crying. I can’t bear it.
‘Listen, I only have a minute here. I have to go, there’s so much to do, but I promise
you I will bring him back. I love you all.’
‘Please! Wait!’ Mum says, in deep agony. ‘Tell me he is just sick, in hospital. Tell
me he’ll be okay.’
‘No, Mum. He’s been dead for three days.’
More screams, more crying.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. I wanted to have everything in order.’ I hang up
the phone and head out.
I don’t want to think about what my family is going through—it will just slow me
down. Luckily, my hunger is drowning out my thoughts. I find a small breakfast joint
and order.
◆ ◆ ◆
I call the Australian Embassy. I speak in English—and the lovely lady tells me I
can come in anytime.
‘Do you mean the young cleric?’ she asks. She recognises Dad from his trips back
to Iran over the years. He had come and gone to complete his PhDs, publish his books
and for pilgrimage over the years—although this trip had come after many years away.
I confirm it’s him, and tell her I can be there in an hour.
At the gates, I’m met by a guard with a machine gun.
I show him Dad’s passport. ‘This isn’t an Australian passport,’ he says. ‘And where
is yours?’
‘Dude, this
is
an Australian passport. I’ve called them already—’
‘They don’t give appointments here.’
‘So check with them.’
‘Show me your passport.’
‘My passport is in Mashhad.’
‘Why is it in Mashhad? You don’t have a Mashhadi accent at all. Are you lying?’
A black car with tinted windows pulls up. An Iranian man opens the door; two Westerners
exit. They look 100 per cent Australian: pale white men in suits. Best of all, they’re
speaking with my accent.
‘Mate!’ I yell. They look over, but just nod and walk in.
The guard taunts me. ‘You are nothing to them.’
I must admit, I don’t look my best. My clothes haven’t been changed in days. My facial
hair’s out of control. Maybe I’m insane in thinking people might see me as anything
other than a street rat.
I beg the guard to just call in and check if I am lying. I offer him 100,000 in Iranian
money—about a week’s wage. I place a large banknote in his hands. He checks to see
if the note is fake. When he realises it’s real, he almost drools. He buzzes in:
‘There is an
Arab
to see the ambassador.’ I want to strangle him. I call over his
shoulder, in English, that I’m an Australian citizen, seeking help for an emergency.
The gate buzzes open.
It’s a quick affair inside. Dad’s passport is taken. The first page is cut with scissors
and handed back to me. I’m given instruction on what form the cargo needs to take,
instruction on the embalmment process. I’m told to translate important papers using
the official services and given a number to call if I need help, even after hours.
I take a taxi to a translator’s office, where I’m greeted by a short lady with a
slight hunch.
‘How fast do you want them done?’ she asks, in Farsi.
‘I need to be back in Mashhad tonight.’
‘What makes you think I’ll have time to finish them today?’
‘I’ll pay extra.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? What kind of an answer is that?’
‘I’m from here. I grew up in Iran.’
‘But your name is Arab.’ She examines me from behind her specs.
‘I’m an Australian citizen.’
‘Do you speak English?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why don’t you translate them yourself?’
‘They need to be official.’ But I switch to English, to demonstrate. ‘What’s with
you people? Your culture is rich with poets and painters. Full of history and all
that’s left is a sad, unhelpful bunch in a stinking polluted city, more worried about
where my great-grandfather’s from than about how you can help me.’
‘Wow. Your English is good,’ she says. I pause. She smiles.
‘Can you do this for me? Please?’ I beg. ‘If you can read the papers, you can see
I lost my dad two days ago.’
‘Okay, go. Come back in two hours. Exactly two hours.’
She’s as good as her word.
◆ ◆ ◆
I catch a car to Qom, the city of blood and uprising. I still have my belongings
in the apartment where we had been staying, and I have to pack up and pay for the
stay.
The car arrives at 6 pm—to Qom central, the shrine. I kiss the door and walk into
the grand yard. I ablute in the icy water by the fountain and head inside to rest
and reflect.
I can’t think too much about Dad’s death, but I do think about Dad. What he was doing.
How
he was doing. How he is lying among the dead right now, waiting to rest. I ask
Imam Reza’s sister, Ma’sooma, for help. I tell her I’m not terribly religious, but
if she has the power to pull thousands of pilgrims by the hour, then I beg her to
send some my way, and push me forward.
My stomach sends me to the toilet to remind me I’m still a human being. I squat inside
the cubicle, deep in thought.
Will I ever be able to smile again?
I wonder.
Will
I ever go back to telling my jokes?
Almost seraphically, the gent in the cubicle
next door lets rip the most feral fart, long and loud and infinite. When he’s
done,
he discharges another short five-second blitz just for good measure. His sounds of
joy and anguish as he tries to release are the perfect cover for my schoolboy giggles.
I leave the toilet, thanking God for showing me that life comes down to this. If
Yasser Arafat had told a good fart joke when negotiating with the Israelis, he might
even have ended up achieving peace.
◆ ◆ ◆
I’ve packed up, paid the rent and I now wait in the bus terminal, leaving Qom for
Mashhad again.
It was due at nine-thirty but it’s already 10 pm. I ask him what time he thinks we’ll
get there. The driver tells me our ETA is eight tomorrow morning, but we’ve got at
least a thousand kilometres to cover.
I call up my memory of
The Castle
. I tell him he’s dreaming.
‘Can’t rush,’ he tells me. ‘We’ll get there when we get there. Maybe we’ll have an
accident. Maybe we’ll never get there. Where’s all your anxiety going to go then?’
At 11.20 pm, we finally have departure. Everyone chants a good-luck verse and the
tension drops. But not for me.