Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [101]
It was during this time that, while reading certain writers, I unconsciously took up pencil and paper again. I had never wholly given up my pleasurable undergraduate habit of underlining passages and taking notes. Most of my notes on Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Wuthering Heights, Madame Bovary and Tom Jones were made on these sleepless nights, when oddly enough my concentration was high, fueled perhaps by the effort to ignore the all-engrossing threat of bombs and rockets.
I had just begun Daisy Miller and was reading about that Europeanized young American, Winterbourne, who meets in Switzerland the enchanting and enigmatic Miss Daisy Miller. Winterbourne is fascinated by this beautiful—to some, shallow and vulgar; to others, innocent and fresh—young American woman, but he cannot decide if she is a “flirt” or a “nice” girl. The plot centers on Winterbourne’s vacillations between Daisy, with her defiance of the rules of nicety, and his aristocratic aunt and her community of snobbish Americans, who decide to ignore her. The scene I was reading takes place after Daisy asks Winterbourne to introduce her to his aunt. Winterbourne tries to inform her, as delicately as he can, that his aunt will not see her. “Miss Daisy Miller stopped, and stood looking at him. Her prettiness was still visible in the darkness; she was opening and closing her enormous fan. ‘She doesn’t want to know me!’ she said suddenly. ‘Why don’t you say so?’ ”
I heard the sound of another explosion. I felt thirsty, but could not make myself get up and get a drink. Then two more explosions. I read on, my eyes sometimes drifting from the book to the darkened hall. I am afraid of the dark, but the war and its explosions had made that fear insignificant. And in a scene I will always remember—not only because of that night—Daisy tells Winterbourne: “ ‘You needn’t be afraid. I am not afraid!’ And she gave a little laugh. Winterbourne fancied there was a tremor in her voice; he was touched, shocked, mortified by it. ‘My dear young lady,’ he protested, ‘she knows no one. It’s her wretched health.’ The young girl walked on a few steps, laughing still. ‘You needn’t be afraid,’ she repeated.”
There is so much courage in that sentence, and irony in the fact that what Winterbourne was afraid of was not his aunt but Miss Daisy Miller’s charms. For a moment I believe I really was diverted from the explosions, and I did manage to draw a line around the words You needn’t be afraid.
As I continued to read, three things happened almost simultaneously. My daughter called me from her room, the phone rang and I heard a knock at the hall door. I picked up one candle and moved towards the phone, telling Negar I would be with her in a second. At that moment, the hall door opened and my mother, holding a candle, entered, saying, Are you okay? Don’t be afraid! Almost every night after the explosions, my mother came in with her candle; her action had taken on the form of a ritual. She went to my daughter’s room and I answered the phone. It was a friend; she also wanted to know if we were okay. It sounded to them as if the explosions had come from our part of the city. This had also become a ritual, to call friends and family to make sure they were safe, knowing that your own relief implied someone else’s death.
During these nights of interchanging red and white sirens, I unconsciously mapped out my future career. Throughout these endless nights of reading I concentrated only on fiction, and when I started to teach again, I found I had already prepared my two courses