the killing of an arab- a novel--first 4 chapters- hooshang danesh
TRANSCRIPT
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8/9/2019 the Killing of an Arab- a Novel--First 4 Chapters- Hooshang Danesh
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The Killing of an ArabNovel
Hooshang Danesh
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Copyrights 2010 by HooshangDanesh
All rights reserved. No part of this bookmay be reproduced or transmitted in anyform or by any means, electronic, ormechanical, including photocopying,recording, or by any information storageand retrieval system, without permissionin writing from the copyright owner. Thisis a work of fiction, any resemblance to
actual people is coincidental.
First Edition
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Chapter One: Contact
We are video-chatting, my friend and I. He is
married and lives in Amsterdam. He is not
Dutch, but were both rootless, and restless--
doctors, we can go anywhere.
He is amazed by the on-line availability of
medical texts in States. He is picking my brains,
like hes suddenly been dropped into a virtualtoy-store, and theres no way out of there.
What else you got?
Nothing, that would interest you!
Just tell me what you got, will you?
Look: I have Atlas of Endometriosis, 3rd
Edition!
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Send the file, Ill take it.
Youll take it? You are a Psychiatrist for Gods
sake!
Im married though, you never know!
Send her to a gynecologist, are you mad ?
Look , I like to collect text-books, they are free,arent they?
Theyll sit on your hard disk forever!
Let me worry about that.
Ok, its sent.
He looks exasperated, sitting in front of the
webcam. His hair standing upright on his head,
been slept on . Its a Sunday, he looks disheveled.
I can hear his kids in the background.
You should see the way you look--like a
frenzied mad dog!
Just because I like to keep up with
information?
He just likes to hoard things. A genuine pack-
rat.
What else you got?
He is relentless. Its getting comical.
This one couldnt possibly interest you at all-so
dont bother me about it.
Let me be the judge of that-you act like you
own these files.
I should let him have it, its like a Greek tragedy.
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Back in med-school, hed started collecting
antiques. He would, in the middle of term drive
to some far-out county for the thin promise of
finding a 19th-century table lamp.You want to know what its called?
Go-ahead, try to humiliate me! Chuckles. He
is incensed, I can hear it in his tone.
Its: Oxford dictionary of clinical dentistry, 430
pages.
I cant stop laughing now, its hilarious.
Ill take it.
He cant back down. His forehead is stuck in the
shadows of the camera, pale and immobile. I
cant make-out his face anymore. He is
dissolving in the shadows, unrecognizable,
Coming right up!
I like to be able to talk sensibly with my
dentist! He offers as an explanation.
He wants to rationalize things: but hoarding is
absurd..
The whole planet is afflicted with what you
got. I want to say, but I dont. Instead I say:
It took you too long to come up with that
explanation, it
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doesnt count--remember: your mothers house?
Once he took me home to meet his mother, the
house stank of cats, and defeated carpeting.
Card-board boxes of all sizes, were piled from
floor to the ceiling, and there was this thin
narrow passage, right in through them, you hadto tip-toe your way through, or fall flat on your
ass. And where there were no boxes, there were
piles of yellowing old news papers, some of them
dating back to 60s. Hed looked curiously at me
and asked:
It looks pretty bad, ha? Like he wasnt quite
sure.
And Id mumbled: Yes. Not sure, whats
expected of me, and also in a shock.
Ive seen worse! Hed said flatly, dismissingly,
but with a tinge of anger.
And wed left it at that.
Few years later, he casually told me his uncle
and wife were being evicted from their Long
Beach home by the department of Health
services.
But why?
A neighbor reported them-they had collected so
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much junk, all the windows were shut up, there
was no light coming in through the house, and
the house stank the neighborhood.
How could they live like that, I mean what do
they do for a living, how do they support
themselves?They both work for the post office.
Pause.
Theyve been working for the post office for
twenty-five years!
Oh.
I am not sure what--but something is thinly
logical about that explanation. I mean: post
office, order, sorting things out, and its
malignancy: never letting go of anything.
The picture from Amsterdam breaks. He moves
out of its field chasing one of his kids out of the
room. He apparently closes the door to his study.
Because theyre just faint obscure noises now ,
like they were thrown down a well.
How is life there?
We like it here, theres so much going on, and
then theres a peacefulness here too, living isnt
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So diluted. I dont think we could live in States
anymore, we would probably need a house three
times this.
Remember my uncle and his wife?
The pack-rats?Yeah.
I think I finally know why?
Why?
Its all the Wal-marts, and the Chinese.
No, its deeper than that. I think,
but let it go.
The door to his study must have been opened,
tiny voices rise like birds in thorn-they want
attention-and I see two of them behind him, on
the ground directionless, running in small rapid
circles. Like toys on fresh battery.
You better go.
He is reluctant.
Ring again, if you have something for me.
It occurs to me that he uses hoarding to make
contact, human contact.
I want to say: object relations have become
torn apart, like stars, planets nudged out of
motion.
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But I must dash-off. Im chasing objects as well.
Life is a lot busier here in Los Angeles.
We both wave goodbye, and just as Im about tocut the video off, I have another video-chat
invitation.
I dont recognize the signature. Its vague. But
my memory is inefficient these days. There is
just so much I can store in my cells: so to cache
anything new, something else must always be
reduced in significance-Im not sure what I can
afford to condense anymore. Everything seems
vital.
I type:
Hi, do we know each other?
Yes. Response is in English.
Where?
Pause.
She is typing a response.
Nous avons recontre de la conference!
I have to think. Translate. Conference?
Quest conference?
She is typing.
Medicins san frontiers-a Paris.
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Doctors without borders.
Oh, oui.
I connect the video, and there she is: Samar Ben
Mahmoud..
Just as pretty as when we met in Paris. Onlyolder, something vague building around her
eyes--no hijab (head cover), smiling wide with
that familiar innocence, same pearly white teeth,
and cracks in her eyes like pools of light. Back
in Paris shed stood out like something wild and
uncommon. With a full-length black skirt that
didnt quite match anything else she wore, or
match Paris for that matter. And her briefcase,
like something unexpected, thrown in the mix,
and shed looked worn by its weight--and its
unfamiliar language of close-fisted masculinity. I
remember I noticed her feet first. She was
wearing a strappy open-toed pair. I was struck
by how pretty, and milky they were. And then
the hands she stretched out to meet mine, soft,
long, exquisite. Why was she there?
What are you here for. She must know some
English. Everyone pretends to, a bit.
Etes-vous un medicin?
No.
She isnt a doctor. Doctors dont carry
briefcases.
Je suis un avocet.Quest-ce avocet? No English at all? I
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probably look disappointed.
Lawyer, lawyer, danglais. She repeats in a
happy tone, like shes just discovered it in a
giddy corner of her brain. She has very bright
expressive eyes. I want to tell her she looks like
Juliette Binoche-but Ive forgotten what she
looks like-its just a beautiful name. And only anexcuse for a complement.
We exchange eye contact again. Her eyes are
dipped in jars of honey.
Je travaille sur l'obtention de l'eau des
villages diffrents en Afrique.
votre franais n'est pas bonne?
aucun.
votre niveau d'anglais?
Pause.
Ecote?
Pavillon de la Finlande est proche
Voulez-vous y aller pied?
I want to take her away. To a tourist spot next
door. She stands out here, conspicuously
splintered. The Finnish woods might have her
scents. Scents of roots and foliage with nests.
We walk to the pavilion de Finland, its almost
next door-its a modern piece. I am exhausted
with French architecture. They all have the
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same autocracy, everything repeats itself like a
knock-knock joke. She walks along me. She has
a funny child-like walk. She swings to the left
and right, it reminds me of a windshield wiper.
And she smiles uncontrollably.
She is either playful naturally, or my curiosity
has made her coquettish. I seem to stare afterher, with fondness, and with a look like Im
making an arrangement of her in mind.
Like I plan to put her in a vase.
We have a great deal of fun that day, she likes to
try French pastries and chocolate. And likes to
beg me to share some with her. There is
something matronly, willowy about that. But I
have strict rule against sugars and cholesterol.
She doesnt mind showing she disapproves of my
rules.
We come to have these forays into Paris every
day, for the next seven days of conference. We
are attracted to each others company. Nothing
around us exists directly during these dates, but
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as extensions of some vague filament of
happiness. When I finally have her alone in myhotel room, in a clear day you can see across
miles of rooftops. She refuses to make love.
Though she is very aroused. She trembles at
every touch. Her face reposes with discovered
new feelings ? I cant tell. She says she is a
virgin!
I have to be married first. She says coyly,
reserved, while panting with sexual excitement.Or my father will kill me. There is a look of
terror in her eyes. Is it real? I take heed though.
Had I not taken notice of this expression, we
might have gone all the way-but the severity of
that thought! She is a Muslim. She would have
been killed? In retrospect, I think the thought
must have both excited and trapped me there
and then in a way I am yet, unable to explain.
We exchanged e-mails next day. It was the last
day of conference, and it seemed the
appropriate, modern thing to do. Though
I couldnt have imagined the thought of wanting
to murder her someday then, as now.
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She said she lives in Tamanrasset. A town on the
borders of Sahara-- 2000 kilometers south of
Algiers.
You should come, and talk to my father.
Her English had improved a lot in seven days.
I think she meant I should marry her-that is if I
want: her love (or does she mean sex?)
I meant to tell her we dont do things that way.That there are many factors in love.
That things arent quite as common or concrete
as the father -approval -racket. But all the while
thinking: does her ways turn
father-abstinence, -- marriage into
complicated mysterious, and pleasure-finding
things ? I Know her temperature was higher
pitched than most girls Id met. Perhaps hijab
was invented by women after all? I know women
who would pay dearly to have their libido
pitched this heavenly sharp.
And now, after two months, here she is on
skype. Without a hijab-her hair is dyed a
brownish color. Its short and looks attractive
around the symmetry of her face. She is wearing
a summer dress, something with straps over her
shoulders and her breasts are large winged
objects inside. I know how they feel. How they
can tremble like sea in desert, I know the rotund
shape of her nipples. Something had to be chased
out of my brain to preserve the memory of their
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What?
Do you like my dress? She repeats it as though
I can be hard of hearing.
She stands in front of camera now., showing off
the dress.Its what happy careless women would wear if
they were strolling down a beach somewhere. Its
ornamented with tiny flowers. Its stylish. She
has good taste.
I say its pretty. I mean it.
She says: I have good taste.
I say approvingly like a husband: I know
azizam.
Azizam is an affectionate Persian term, it means
honey, dear. Its like habibi in their language.
Is the dress a glimpse of what she is like inside?
Carelessness of summer-unguarded, indifferent.
There and then I begin to think of her as a wife.
There is something very unexpected, and calm
about her.
I see her fit anywhere in the world. Our world.
I feel happy, privileged by her existence?
You look great.
Thank you honey. I like that word honey.
It occurs to me that words of affection like:
azizam or honey must have certain sounds, andlyricism in them. Binding. Movements away
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from the remote- into smoother hoards of life.
It feel as though with honey her pretty dress
will come off her body the way it never did in
Paris. Though I was allowed to touch, and tease
her- Ive never seen her naked.
But here, 10,000 miles or more away--She looks
ready to throw them down like feathers in the
wind. Is it the rebelliousness of internet?
Or is this the reunion of a river that began in
Paris? Or million years ago?
I dont know quite want to say:
Can I see your breasts? Im sure I cant say
that. Even distance doesnt reduce how unusual
that sounds to me. I know Id really have to want
her first.
And I know Ill be saying it for her sake. To me
seeing them from here is like conducting a
mantle of music far away in an attic. Their scents
are out of reach, their shifting weight. The
orchestra would be missing major footsteps. But
she must know I desire them. That I am
speechless. Id felt them-- made them sway, and
felt their nipples harden in between my fingers,
like frozen things.
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But that terror in her eyes: My father will
kill me. I want to ask: is it easier here. Is a
simple webcam enough to shake away the
foundation of family/religion? Has this religionexisted for the cold indefinite solitude of
appearances only?
I notice her room. Its small. The webcam is
slanted to her right to show her thinly profile.
Behind her is a dresser, painted white like the
rest of the room, it absorbs light in goblets and
drops them around her in fits of grey. She wears
a headphone with a microphone, she whispers
carefully, everyone in the house must be sleep.
She lives with her parents of course. And the
door to her room is closed. And her clothes are
piled orderly and neat on the dresser.
I know I dont wish to see her naked. Touching
her in Paris had almost meant love, this here
could drive me into insanity. (And it does.)
I say Ill see her again tomorrow?
She nods her head.
She blows kisses, as we sign off.
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A taste remains just under my skin. Something
subterranean, something from some other world.
Later on I dream of her breasts stirred. Of their
terrifying wind.
In the morning, I try to forget her, it feels like
being infected by the pure essence of objects. Iknow I want her scattered warmth. But I know
seeing them without touch is a soliloquy,
touching them without love is object-less, empty.
It will be like the thick fruit that breaks and
falls. And no ones to pick it.
But Id underestimated her. Underestimated
myself. And underestimated the threat of being
submerged in the sterile sorrow of aloneness.
Objectless.
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Chapter Two: The Eyes Have it.-17-
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She calls back the next day. Its almost midnightthere in Tamanrasset. And its the beginning of
evening here in Los Angeles. The day will settle
in dark mountain hollows soon. We will almost
share the night together.
I hear the rapid Spanish dialect of the neighbors
in my headphone. The world is hushed on her
side of the world-except the occasional barking
of a lonely dog , and the sounds of roosters, orare they chickens? No one would know around
here.
I like to ask her personal things like does she
have a boyfriend. And why a pretty woman like
her is yet unmarried. In fact I do ask that.
Comment etes-vous pas marie?
She looks shocked by the question. They are
unused to directness, or is it reality?
Vous netes pas marie ni.
She means I am not married either.
I want to say: but Im not an Algerian Muslim
woman aged thirty. But its all too obvious.
Il ya quelquun?
Speak English please.
did you have someone?
Yes, but he married a girl with money. I loved
him.
And just as she says this, tears come out of her
eyes. She is quick to dry them by a lonely finger.
Its so solitary, I think.
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I want to be empathic.
I am sorry, who was he?
No, its the past-why go to the past, why?
I like to say: but its you who is crying about it!
But then Im neither a woman, nor a romantic.
There are gender and cultural issues here.
I murmur mutant to myself.
She wants to change the subject again:
How about you, you arent married yet, why?
You havent found anyone?
She asks almost accusingly.
I dont have anyone?
I think sadly to myself: But I want to say we
have something called: fuckbuddies. People who
like each other, go for casual sex. But I know this
fuckbuddy thing is neither in the zeitgeist nor in
the collective consciousness. And never been
practiced by me. Ive just heard of it. It cant
really talk about something Ive only heard of!
You look beautiful tonight.
I want to say you look like a silent territory-like
your Sahara-like pure water has slept in you.
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But I can neither translate it, nor her English
can pick it up. We have to fall on something
terrestrial, something not words but with their
potency and tenderness.
And I think this is where her pale, pale skin
comes in, like a trick of waving silt by a magician
and doves will fly out.
Its inevitable that her clothes will come off.
I think.
If we sit her and there, night after night for
weeks, in wrathful peace, nothing would stir us
as much as her pale flesh seen. Nothing in her
world can forbid it yet, religion always play
catch up to the majesty of thirst.
We should sit in our own blue bonfires, and
watch the passing of blood over our extended
wings.
I want to express. Should I tell her Im a poet
too?
A clear wind from near my Pacific ocean to her
silent, solitary Sahara, How quickly my mind has
turned on itself. Im changing my thoughts,
inhibitions, restraints.
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The thing really needs my perusal, her daring,
and the rightness of our reflection.
Its all there. I think.
So I begin to softly seduce, the most willing
object. Her readiness is in every dress she puts
on for the next few days. The florid flows of tiny
colors in the distance. They all want to bedropped in her 30-year-old hands and slap the
moon in the face. I would have said.
In how she texts: I am going to take a shower,
and be with you in ten minutes. In the way she
turns the camera to show the whiteness of her
bare legs. The slope of her eyebrows in the view.
The silent agreement of the universe.
. One night I ask :
Arent you sleepy?
No.
You sure!
Yes, Im sure, I want to talk to you more,
everyone in the house is sleep?
Are they?
The door to your room closed?
Yes, see.
She walks to the single door and turns the lock
clock-wise.
See?
We are co-conspirators now..
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.Can I see more of you-I think were ready.No, we cant-we have to be married first.
She repeats it like a mantra.
But how can we know if we can be married?
I dont understand?
Tomorrow night?
May be!But you have felt me in Paris-you know me
already!
But we are 10000 miles or more away- we
almost have to become closer or die apart?
Die?
Alright Im exaggerating a bit but only the
spirit can move this distance alone, and only the
spirit makes the call!
I seem more vague to myself.
Yes, I know.
Tomorrow night.
What do you want to see?
Everything at once,
I think were just desiring to be close. I say
convinced.
We have talked so muchand we will run out
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of words someday, and then what?.
I want to fall into some dream of silence, and
take root.
I want to say, but cant, even if she knows
English well? Though it isnt vague to meanymore.
She is silent. I know she repeats the words to
herself for understanding. But listens more to
the music, so it reaches her. She moves the
microphone closer to her mouth.
I think her hands are so pretty.
Yes?
Pause.
And yours, your skin?
In the rigthtness of your reflection.
The poet in me.
pause
Are you falling in love with me?
I think Im falling into all possible, thats
something.
I repeat, hoping she catches their scents.
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Your voice is so nice.
Pause.
Votre voix.
I understand. I say, and see the swaying
towers, like spiders, they will turn the moon into
a star.
Then her bare skin begins to cover the camera,
the whole of the solitude.
They look like roots of water.
Everything remains still, and persists at another
limit.
Her breasts look the way theyd felt. But its like
they are covered by more mystery, and made
even more voluptuous.. She rubs her nipples
round and round, like Id done. Her fingers are
slimmer than mine. And for a time, she looks
absorbed in some memory.
It cant be mine?.
I think a voice might have been brave enough to
say that in my head.
And she sways under my skin this way, a
subterranean river. And its not like I get goose-
bumps, erection, or rapid heart beat. Whatever
this is, its more stealth. Its as much a mystery
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to me, as movement, stillness, or the geometry of
things are. But I think and dream of nothing
else but her for hours after we sign off, until she
connects on again. And we barely talk except:
I ask her to marry me.
She agrees.
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Chapter Three: The Shape of
my Heart.
Moments after we wave goodnight, and only an
hour after our engagement is set final. I go
looking through drawers , and old boxes, for my
grandmothers diamond ring. I know Ive always
had it. Always assure of its existence, though notlooking for it at all. Its always sat there,
somewhere, like a rare unguarded treasure. Oh,
not because of its price, its only a half-carat
diamond ring, princess cut, on aged white gold..
Its an antique . Shed said before she passed
away:
You only give this to a woman you are going to
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Like shed suspected I might be careless with its
allegiance, and then looked at me as though, the
thought of my marriage had suddenlyinvigorated her. It must have meant continuity,
endlessness to her. She must have known that it
exists, then and there.
I often wonder if she was the one who poisoned
me with these thin innocent thoughts of love,
marriage?
Never mind that now.
Shed died two days later in sleep at the oldpeoples home in north of Tehran.
Not really a nursing home. Shed never been ill.
But where shed been surrounded by people her
own few generations. Women and men she
talked to often. People who had lived lives
similar to hers. Old doctors, college professors,
inventors, nurses.
I know their society had been rich and
confirming. Their own generations must have
thought of erecting these places themselves.
Orderly, clean, spacious rooms with views of
Persian gardens, rituals: tea every hour, word
puzzles, and talk of poetry and of classics.
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Id been there many times. Shed liked to show
me off. I liked to do the same. She looked healthy
vibrant, and sometimes energetic as a little girl.
No one had ever seemed depressed, or ill there.
Just aging well, and social in the Persian way:
like everyday is Nourooz (new yesr): presents,
eloquence, the perfect symmetry of things, like in
Persian rugs, like the universe somehow makessense and geometry is its testament.
And their earned luxuries: their satellite dishes
like little deflated things arranged conspicuously
asymmetric on balconies. (they werent allowed
by the illegal government who frightened, would
naturally jump at the sounds of birds chirping.)
The Voice of America in one room, BBC in the
other. They trusted the state run TV and radio,
even less than the young people did.
Silent agreement over the outside distant world
of rape and mayhem. Silent prayers for the
extinction of akhunds as they called the clerics
(the enemy).. And always poetry at the
beginning, and in the end. Like destiny is like
geometry too, and somehow it must always
repeat and rhyme in one form or shape. Only
then they weaved and sang like young boys and
girls the truth about the world, and everyone
trembled then before this swirling mystery.
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And the saddest thing for me then as now: the
remembrance of things past. That inevitable
sense of nostalgia.
The nostalgia had always wanted me to run out,elsewhere, elsewhere. But one by one they had
picked up this revulsion in me, they seemed to
have the keenest senses, and left the nostalgia out
of our conversations. Like it was an uneven
number in the grace of our meetings.
But where did I pick up these thoughts of love
and murder?
It couldnt have been the religion in them. None
was a devout Muslim . They may all have been
born into it, but with all the hardships of present
Iran. These people were sick of this new-old-
religion-racket.
My grandfather, God bless his soul, had upon
moving into the big city, ages ago, been
persuaded by a friend into Bahaism, a
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perfect peaceful nave branch off Islam, I dont
know much more about them. But their
ritualistic meetings and socializations been
too autocratic and ceremonial to be
comprehensible to me as young boy. I was
reading Crime and Punishment then, and was
content with that sort of meaning. Everyone else
seemed to take things too seriously, or do I meansuperficially? My dear grandfather, after
taking me to a Bahai meeting (which had lasted
a ghastly 3 hours) looked me in the eyes, and
there and then abandoned thoughts of
converting me, I think in my 14 year- old eyes ,
he must have clearly seen the natures beast in
me. He must have seen that no amount of talk
about love and peace could drive the beast
out.
And with the same rebelliousness, I assume, my
grandmother had defected from Bahaism after
his death. No, shed remained respectful to him,
all through his love and peace phase of life, she
must have been a beautiful pretender. But
shortly after his death, she went to India and
became a devotee of a 70-year-old Indian guru
named startlingly: Sri Sri Baba. And she
remained a devoted follower, until hoards of
grown young
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men, his eminences former followers, came out
of closets in numbers and accused him of having
had raped them in their childhood. Their stories
entirely believable. She left this guru feeling
indignant and confused.
And she never mentioned this period of her lifeto anyone. And if I were slightly playful, joking
about this pedophile. She would stare at me
hurt,, with her round black eyes, pleading me
silently to stop. And I would.
-
But for different reasons, everyone in the
fashionable old peoples home was a silent
objector to the religion scam. Though none ever
really warned me about the deception, the
conceit, or I wouldnt have become the perfect
murderer I slowly am.
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Chapter Four: Surprise.
I said I have a surprise for you. I think I was
more excited than Id ever been. More excited
than the time I got my first bike-more so thananytime Ive bought roses or presents for
anyone.
The ring laid perfectly still on the Persian rug in
its velvety box, I thought the world of it-strident,
thin and lugubrious, it whistled hurry at me.
What surprise.?
She sounded tired like always. She said she
worked 8 hours at her job, and came home towash and cook, and help her mother with
chores.. She never was free before 10:30 at night.
Its a wonderful surprise. I said.
Whats a surprise? I think the eagerness in
my voice, and the mysterious word: surprise,
frightened her.
A surprise is a good thing.
Oh. She exclaims, a tired timid smile lights her
eyes for seconds, like she is ready to put up with
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this surprise business. It occurs to me that the
surprise notion may be an entirely alien thingto her. That nothing suddenly thrust upon you
can be that welcome in her world. And that
perhaps somewhere inside her she is expecting
bad news?
No, I assure you, youll really like this!
I feel I have to really convince her with this.
Ok, what is it?
She clasps her hands in that childish way shehas. It reminds me of her walk, the playfulness;
shes taking her time to mature.
Its a ring, an engagement ring, for you!
You have it already?
Yes its right here, look!
I take it out of its velvet bed. It sparkles with
blueness. Like Ive lit a lantern in the room. She
stares at it, asks me to hold it close to the
camera. She is awake, restful, measuring things.
For me?
Who else , why, we are engaged now.
But you said you cant come to Tamanrasset for
another 2 months?
I know Ill mail it to you.
How? Theyll steal it!
No, I know a courier service, theyll deliver it to
your door.
Make sure I have to sign for it.
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she says with legal authority.
Ok.
Its beautiful. How did you get it?
Its a long story.
Perhaps I dont want to remember my
Grandmother at this point.
Perhaps she ought to have warned me with not
just her eyes,. But words, even tears, aboutrecklessness, treachery, love.
And perhaps she ought not have left me with a
jewel to plan a future, but a strapping dagger,
something ominous and intimidating.
Samira is over the moon that night. Every few
moments she asks me to put the ring right back
in front of the camera and turn it like its on fire,
and the rings reflection looks condensed, in her
attentiveness, like its become the union of nights
elements, and you feel as though an assumption
is posted behind every object in the universe, and
this ones clearly sustained by a minor star.
And her clothes dont just come off her body
that night, they vanish like a spell and everything
becomes a curve that circles us into the closest
distance. And I, an intelligent being myself,
survive a night of worship?
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She doesnt ask me to make any promises, she
doesnt even ask whether or not I will post the
ring later or sooner. By the dawn there in
Tamanrasset, she falls into sleep. With the lights
and the camera left on. Her legs far apart, like
shed been interrupted in the middle of a dance.
I jump into bed myself, assured that love or a
religion has taken over me entirely. And I dream
of a great forest surrounding us. Of objects
incomprehensibly inseparable and lost. And of
their union, and collective echo, somewhere,
where Im not allowed.
As soon as I wake up, I instantly recall past
conversations at the old peoples home in
Tehran. Someone or other had on more
occasions tried to explain the foreign religion
of Islam. They liked to do that. To blame it all on
Arabs. The history apparently went something
like this: Arabs spiritual impulses before
Muhammad were entirely absent or lukewarm.
That they worshipped idols, their objects of
devotion had to be seen by eye, and touched by
hands or it couldnt exist at all!!
They couldnt imagine God , can you believe
that?
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Well what does that mean?
You ought to learn more, before you ask
anything,, thats all were saying.
I read.
The different nomads had different idols, And
they performed ceremonies in nude around
these idols. A famous object was known as Al-Lat, she was a cubic rock!!
But the current object of worship in Mecca is a
huge cubic rock!
Old Muhammad, may he rest in peace, really
tried.
She (Al-Lat) was venerated by Qurayshies.
Muhammad changed a great of that, I tell you
son, but that a meteor hitting the desert
venerated as a larger holy object?
The old folks raised their eyebrows in a tight
circle of empathy! As in:
The mysteries you dont know boy!
Do you know as we speak an Islamic republic is
arresting women not too far these walls for
dressing not constrictively enough. I mean they
want the scarf tight enough to literally
strangulate us.
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That was the voice of my own grandmother.
What does have to do with the price of rice?
My grandson is not an idiot, he just pretends tobe.
Look, old Muhammad had his hands full. I
mean some nomadic Arabs worshipped stones
made in the shape of phallus, and do you know
most frequent appeal to their object-gods?
What?
Guess.
I cant.
Their most frequent appeal to stone idols was
to settle the legitimacy of their children.
You mean they slept with one another a lot?
Call it what you like, but it sure sounds like
they fucked each others wife or concubines and
frequently.
Frequently?
They come home, after a long trip, and the wife
or whatever is pregnant, they would go to the
stone god temple, and draw arrows.
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At the time I had pointed out that if they
performed their ceremonies in nude, around
object gods, and childrens legitimacy were
frequently questioned, then Freud, would call
Hijab: Reaction-Formation. I had exclaimed
this with great enthusiasm. But the old folks
cared less for Freud than for Islam or Arabs.
I read on.
In: Kitab al-Asnam (the book of idols)
everything the old Persians murmured is
supported: the old Arabs worshiped objects
created, rather than the creator.
This by sidelines reminded me of my friends
exile to Amsterdam and his family of pack-rats,
his moms house, the postal workers being
evicted for hoarding etc.
Arabs called these object-worship temples:
Kabah. And they circumbutated the Kabah in
a state of nudity?
You must tell them.
Tell who?
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