Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [178]
Mitra was the first to express her own anxieties. Lately, I had observed an anger and bitterness in her that was all the more alarming because it was so unprecedented. She had started to raise her voice in her diaries and notes, beginning with her account of her visit with her husband to Syria. The first thing that struck her was the humiliations Iranians suffered, quite meekly, at the Damascus airport, where they were segregated into a separate line and searched like criminals. Yet what had shocked her most were her sensations in the streets of Damascus, where she had walked freely, hand in hand with Hamid, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She described the feel of the wind and the sun on her hair and her skin—it was always the same sensation that was so startling. It had been the same with me and would be so later with Yassi and Manna.
In the Damascus airport she had been humiliated by what she was assumed to be, and when she returned home, she felt angry because of what she could have been. She was angry for the years she had missed, for her lost portion of the sun and wind, for the walks she had not taken with Hamid. The thing about it, she had said with wonder, was that walking with him like that had suddenly transformed him into a stranger. This was a new context for their relationship; she had become a stranger even to herself. Was this the same Mitra, she asked herself, this woman in jeans and a tangerine T-shirt walking in the sun with a good-looking young man by her side? Who was this woman, and could she learn to incorporate her into her life if she were to live in Canada?
“You mean you don’t have any sense of belonging here?” Mahshid asked, looking defiantly at Mitra. “I seem to be the only one who feels she owes something to this place.”
“I can’t live with this constant fear,” said Mitra, “with having to worry all the time about the way I dress or walk. Things that come naturally to me are considered sinful, so how am I supposed to act?”
“But you know what is expected of you, you know the laws,” said Mahshid. “This is nothing new. What has changed? Why is it bothering you so much more now?”
“Maybe for you, it is easier,” said Sanaz, but Mahshid did not let her continue.
“You think I have it easy?” she said, turning a sharp eye towards Sanaz. “Do you think only people like you suffer in this country? You don’t even know what fear is. Just because of my faith and the fact that I wear the veil, you think that I don’t feel threatened? You think I don’t feel fear? It’s rather superficial, isn’t it, to think that the only kind of fear is your kind,” she said with a rare show of bitterness.
“I didn’t mean that,” said Sanaz more gently. “The fact that we know about these laws, the fact that they are familiar, doesn’t make them any better. It doesn’t mean that we don’t feel the pressure and the fear. But for you, at least, wearing the veil is natural; it’s your religion, your choice.”
“My choice,” said Mahshid with a laugh. “What else do I have but my religion, and if I lose that . . .” She left her sentence unfinished, and turned her gaze once more to the ground, murmuring, “I’m sorry. I got too emotional.”
“I know what Mahshid’s talking about,” Yassi broke in. “The worst fear you can have is losing your faith. Because then you’re not accepted by anyone—not by those who consider themselves secular or by people of your own faith. It’s terrible. Mahshid and I have been talking about that, about how ever since we could remember, our religion has defined every single action we’ve taken. If one day I lose my faith, it will be like dying and having to start new again in a world without guarantees.”
My heart went out to Mahshid, sitting there trying to look composed, her face flushed, strong emotions like thin