Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [175]
I was trying to delay what she had come to tell me. We made a stop in the kitchen. I handed her the fruit bowl and put a jug of water, two glasses and some plates on a tray. On our way down the stairs, she caught me: I’m going away, she said. I knew from experience that I should not throw her any further off balance by showing too much surprise. Where are you going? To London, to live with my sister for a while. And what about Ramin? We had reached my office. She waited for me to open the door, shifting her weight from one leg to another, as if neither leg would take responsibility for its burden. I could tell by her pale color and the stunned expression on her face that I had asked the wrong question. I’m done with him, she muttered as we entered the room.
How are you leaving? I asked her once we had sat down, she with her back to the window and I slumped on the couch against the wall with its large painting—much too large for the small room—of the Tehran mountains. Smugglers, she said. They still won’t issue me a passport. I’ll have to make my way to Turkey by land and wait for my brother-in-law to pick me up.
When? In about a week or so, she said. I’m not sure of the exact date; they will let me know. You will know through Mahshid, she added after a pause. She’s the only one in our class who knows.
Is anyone going with you? No. My father’s against it. The only thing he finally agreed to do was help pay for part of the trip. My sister is taking care of the rest—she calls it my rescue operation. My father says if I insist on going ahead with this crazy plan, I’m on my own. To him these people, no matter what we think of them, they’re our people. He lost one daughter, now this other one. He says first it was the class, and now this. I thought he didn’t know about the class, I said. Apparently, he did; he too was keeping up appearances.
She rubbed her hands obsessively and refrained from looking at me directly. This was Nassrin, or to be honest, this was the two of us together: sharing the most intimate moments with a shrug, pretending they were not intimate. It wasn’t courage that motivated this casual, impersonal manner of treating so much pain; it was a special brand of cowardice, a destructive defense mechanism, forcing others to listen to the most horrendous experiences and yet denying them the moment of empathy: don’t feel sorry for me; nothing is too big for me to handle. This is nothing, nothing really.
She told me that of all the years she had spent in jail, all the years of the war, this period of adjustment had been the hardest for her. At first she had thought she needed to leave only for a while. But gradually she had realized that she just wanted to leave. They would not issue her a passport, so she would have to go illegally, and that suited her fine.
I acted as if we were talking about a normal trip, a routine visit to her older sister in London—it’s far too wet at this time of year; do ask them to take you to the Globe. . . . And why did you end it with Ramin? I could not stop myself from asking her. Was he opposed to your move, or did he inspire it? No, he, he—well, he knew how much I wanted to leave, because of this illness I have, you know, from my jail time. We, my sister, my mother and I, have been thinking for a long time that there might be a better way of handling it over there. I never asked her what exactly the illness was.
At first Ramin, he’s an honorable