Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [62]
The following day, there was a short report in The Oklahoma Daily. More than the report, it was the way so many students reacted that frightened me. In the coffee shops, in the student union, even in the sunny streets of Norman, whenever the political Iranian students met they carried on heated discussions. Many quoted Comrade Stalin approvingly, spouting lines from a fashionable book, A Brief History of the Bolshevik Party or some such, about the need to destroy once and for all the Trotskyites, the White Guards, the termites and poisonous rats who were bent on destroying the revolution.
Sitting in the student union drinking coffee or Coke, our comrades, disturbing the next table’s flirtations, flared up and defended the right of the masses to torture and physically eliminate their oppressors. I still remember one of them, a chubby guy with a soft, boyish face, the outlines of his round belly protruding from under his navy blue woolen sweater. He refused to sit down and, towering over our table, swinging a glass of Coke precariously in one hand, he argued that there were two kinds of torture, two kinds of killing—those committed by the enemy and those by the friends of the people. It was okay to murder enemies.
I could tell Mr. Bahri, now eternally bending towards me in some urgent argument: listen, be careful what you wish for. Be careful with your dreams; one day they may just come true. I could have told him to learn from Gatsby, from the lonely, isolated Gatsby, who also tried to retrieve his past and give flesh and blood to a fancy, a dream that was never meant to be more than a dream. He was killed, left at the bottom of the swimming pool, as lonely in death as in life. I know you most probably have not read the book to the end, you have been so busy with your political activities, but let me tell you the ending anyway—you seem to be in need of knowing. Gatsby is killed. He is killed for a crime Daisy committed, running over Tom’s mistress in Gatsby’s yellow car. Tom fingered Gatsby to the bereaved husband, who killed Gatsby as he lay floating in his swimming pool waiting for Daisy to call. Could my former comrades have predicted that one day they would be tried in a Revolutionary Court, tortured and killed as traitors and spies? Could they, Mr. Bahri? I can tell you with complete confidence that they could not. Not in their wildest dreams.
14
I left Mahtab and her friends, but those memories could not easily be left behind: they pursued me like mischievous beggars to the protest meeting. Two distinct and hostile groups had formed among the protesters, eyeing each other suspiciously. The first, smaller group consisted mainly of government workers and housewives. They were there instinctively, because their interests were at stake. They were clearly not used to demonstrations: they stood together in a huddle, uncertain and resentful. Then there were the intellectuals like myself, who did know a thing or two about demonstrations, and the usual hecklers, shouting obscenities and brandishing slogans. Two of them took photographs of the crowd, jumping menacingly from side to side. We covered our faces and shouted back.
Soon the number of vigilantes increased. They gathered in small groups and began moving towards us. The police fired a few perfunctory shots into the air while men with knives, clubs and stones approached us. Instead of protecting the women, the police started to disperse us, pushing some with the butt of their guns and ordering the “sisters” to make no trouble and go home. There was a feeling of desperate anger in the air, thick with taunting jeers. The meeting continued despite the provocations.
A few nights later, another protest was convened at the Polytechnic University. A huge crowd had gathered in the auditorium by the time I arrived, laughing and talking. As one of the speakers—a tall, stately woman wearing a long, sturdy skirt, her long hair tied