Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [126]
So the Kid had borrowed a car from a friend and was standing there with his sniffling aunt. He couldn’t imagine leaving him with the aunt to take care of the corpse and decided to go with them, despite the Kid’s strong protestations. He had thought of me and called my house, but there was no answer. No, he had not thought of calling Reza or any other friend. He had gotten into the car with the Kid.
They drove to the back of the hospital, and there, the corpse, already wrapped in a white shroud, was given to them. They each took hold of one end and put the corpse in the trunk of the car. They then proceeded to drive to a garden he had heard of outside Tehran for the burial. They worried they might be stopped—what would they tell the militia? How would they prevent them from opening the trunk? The Kid worried about the car. After all, it belonged to his friend and he didn’t want to drag innocent people into this. Innocent people! my magician cried out. Can you imagine feeling guilty about trying to bury your grandmother, to give her any kind of burial, never mind a decent one?
I wanted to touch him, but the experience had put him outside of our reach: he was still there in that car, driving towards the garden. There were many such instances, when expressions of sympathy could not be exchanged. What do you say to someone who is telling you about the rape and murder of virgins—I’m sorry, I feel your pain? My magician and Nassrin were of the type who did not want sympathy; they expected us to understand and to tailor our empathy to the shape of their grief. Of course, with him it was worse: he felt guilt and anger.
They drove down the same highway they had taken so many times, towards the Caspian Sea. The land, the trees, the mountains, slipped by and the aunt did not say a word; she just sat in the back, and from time to time they heard her sniffles and snorts. The men could not talk about anything real; they made halfhearted small talk about last year’s Oscars.
The garden looked like any other garden; behind the mud-brick walls, he could see the tall trees inside. They honked. An old man opened the gate and they were led inside. They were shown a few plots with headstones; two freshly dug plots were ready. Families of the dead had to perform the final ritual of washing the corpse and putting it in the shroud. The Kid and his aunt went into a small building, and my magician sat there holding a small bouquet of daffodils and narcissus he had bought along the way. The rest went by quickly, like a dream: placing the body in the ground, throwing earth over it, standing by the freshly dug grave for a few moments and leaving the flowers behind. The Kid paid the old man. They got back into the car and drove straight to his apartment, and now here I am, at your service. Looking at me, a sudden kindness blossomed in his eyes. And I apologize, he said. How thoughtless of me not to have thought of what you would feel.
We sat there for a little while longer. If we talked, I don’t remember. Then I got up and said, Could you call me a taxi please, and he did. When the doorbell rang, it took me a while to put on my robe and then the scarf and to find my bag and say good-bye. We had not talked about the object of my visit—it all seemed rather pointless. Of course, there would be tomorrow and I would call again and arrange another visit and we would talk. For now, I kissed both of them on the cheek, thanked Reza and hurried down the stairs to the waiting car.
28
Two nights before the announcement of the first cease-fire in the war of cities, a few friends came over to watch John Ford’s Mogambo.