Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [173]
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There is a term in Persian, “the patient stone,” which is often used in times of anxiety and turbulence. Supposedly, a person pours out all his troubles and woes into the stone. It will listen and absorb his pains and secrets, and this way he will be cured. Sometimes the stone can no longer endure its burden and then it bursts. My magician was not my “patient stone,” although he never told his own story—he claimed people were not interested in that. Yet he spent sleepless nights listening to and absorbing others’ troubles and woes, and to me his advice was that I should leave: leave and write my own story and teach my own class.
Perhaps he saw what was happening to me more clearly than I did. What I now realize is that, ironically, the more attached I became to my class and to my students, the more detached I became from Iran. The more I discovered the lyrical quality of our lives, the more my own life became a web of fiction. All of this I can now formulate and talk about with some degree of clarity, but it was not at all clear then. It was much more complicated.
As I trace the route to his apartment, the twists and turns, and pass once more the old tree opposite his house, I am struck by a sudden thought: memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.
We sit again with Reza around the same round dining table, under the painting of green trees, talking and eating lunch, the forbidden ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Our magician does not drink. He refuses to compromise with the counterfeits: the bootleg videos and wine, censored novels and films. He does not watch television, nor does he go to the movies. To watch a beloved film on video is anathema to him, although he obtains tapes of his favorite movies for us. Today he has brought us homemade wine, its color a sinful pale pink, poured into five vinegar bottles. Later, I take the wine home and drink it. Something has gone wrong and the wine tastes like vinegar, though I do not tell him.
The hot subject of the day was Mohammad Khatami and his recent candidacy. Khatami, mainly known to intellectuals for his brief stint as minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance, had within a few weeks become a household name. In buses and taxis, at parties and at work, everyone talked about Khatami, whom it was our moral duty to vote for. It was not enough that for over seventeen years the clerics had announced that voting was not just a duty but a religious duty; we ourselves had now adopted the same stance. There were fights and ruptures in friendships over this matter.
That day as I was walking to my magician’s house, struggling with my scarf and trying to keep it around my neck, I noticed a campaign poster for Khatami on the opposite wall. There was a big picture of the candidate ornamented in huge letters: IRAN HAS FALLEN IN LOVE AGAIN. Oh no, I said to myself despondently—not again.
As we sat around my magician’s table, the site of so many stories we told or created, I was telling them about the posters. We love our family, our lovers, our friends, but do we have to fall in love with our politicians? Even in my class we’re fighting over him. Manna can’t see how anyone could vote for him; she says it doesn’t make much difference to her if she can wear a lighter-color scarf or let a bit more hair show. Sanaz says that given a choice between bad and worse, you choose the bad, and Manna shoots back that she doesn’t want a nicer jail warden—she wants to be out of jail. Azin says, This guy wants the rule of law?