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By Root 1298 0

on the novel. Over the next decade and a half, more than anything else, I thought, wrote about and taught fiction. These readings made me curious about the origins of the novel and what I came to understand as its basically democratic structure. And I became curious as to why the realistic novel was never truly successful in our country. If a sound can be preserved in the same manner as a leaf or a butterfly, I would say that within the pages of my Pride and Prejudice, that most polyphonic of all novels, and my Daisy Miller is hidden like an autumn leaf the sound of the red siren.

12

There were the sirens and the mechanical voice that commanded you to attention, the sandbags in the streets and bombs usually early in the morning or after midnight; there were long or short periods of calm in between the bombings and their resumption, and there were Austen and James and the different classrooms on the fourth floor of the building that housed the Faculty of Persian and Foreign Languages and Literature. Two rows of classrooms were situated on either side of the long and narrow hall. On one side they opened to a view of the not so distant mountains, and on the other to the rather sad and lovely garden, always a little neglected, with a small ornamental pool and a chipped statue in the middle. Around the pool were circles and squares of shrubs and flowers, surrounded by trees. The flowers appeared to have grown randomly: beautiful roses, large dahlias and daffodils. Always it seemed to me that the garden belonged not to the university but to the pages of a Hawthorne novel.

I developed a ritual in preparation for my public appearance. I was careful not to wear any makeup. The contours and lines of my body would disappear as I slipped on my T-shirt and baggy black trousers, a comfortable half-size too big for me, and over them my long black robe and the black scarf that coiled around my neck. Last, I put my books and notes in my bag. I would stuff my bag with far too many books and notes, most of them unnecessary, but I took them with me anyway, like a safety net.

Somehow the distance between my home and the university has become hazy in my memory. Suddenly and magically, without passing the green gate and the guard, without passing the glass entrance door to the building with signs denouncing Western culture, I am inside the Faculty of Persian and Foreign Languages and Literature, standing at the bottom of the stairs.

As I walk up the stairs, I try to ignore the posters and notices pasted haphazardly on the walls. They are mainly black-and-white photographs of the war with Iraq, and slogans denouncing the Great Satan, namely America, and the emissaries of that Satan. Quotations from Ayatollah Khomeini—WHETHER WE KILL OR ARE KILLED WE SHALL BE VICTORIOUS! OUR UNIVERSITIES MUST BE ISLAMIZED! THIS WAR HAS BEEN A DIVINE BLESSING FOR US!—accompany the pictures.

I could never get over my resentment of those faded photographs, hanging neglected and forlorn on the cream-colored walls. Somehow these shabby posters and their slogans interfered with my work; they made me forget that I was at the university to teach literature. There were reprimands posted about the color of our uniforms, codes of conduct, but never a notice about a talk, a film or a book.

13

About two weeks into my second semester of teaching at Allameh, as soon as I opened the door to my office, I noticed on the floor an envelope that had been pushed under the door. I still have both the envelope and the yellowing piece of paper I found inside, folded once to fit. My name and address at the university is typed, but on the piece of paper there is only one line, childish and as obscene as its message: The adulterous Nafisi should be expelled. This was the welcoming gift I received on my formal return to academia.

Later that day, I spoke to the head of the department. The president had also received a note, with a similar message. I wondered why they told me this. I knew and they knew that the word adulterous, like all other words confiscated by the regime,