Reading Lolita in Tehran_ A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi [67]
I told Nassrin she could come to my class on one condition: at the end of term, she would have to write a fifteen-page paper on Gatsby. She paused as she always did, as if she didn’t quite have sufficient words at her command. Her responses were always reluctant and forced; one felt almost guilty for making her talk. Nassrin demurred at first, and then she said: I’m not that good. You don’t need to be good, I said. And I’m sure you are—after all, you’re spending your free time here. I don’t want a scholarly paper; I want you to write your own impressions. Tell me in your own words what Gatsby means to you. She was looking at the tip of her shoes, and she muttered that she would try.
From then on, every time I came to class I would look for Nassrin, who usually followed Mahtab and sat beside her. She would be busy taking notes all through the session, and she even came a few times when Mahtab did not show up. Then suddenly she stopped coming, until the last class, when I saw her sitting in a corner, busying herself with the notes she scribbled.
Once I had agreed to accept my young intruder, I left them both and continued. I needed to stop by the department office before class to pick up a book Dr. A had left for me. When I entered the classroom that afternoon, I felt a charged silence follow me in. The room was full; only one or two students were absent—and Mr. Bahri, whose activities, or disapproval, had kept him away. Zarrin was laughing and swapping notes with Vida, and Mr. Nyazi stood in a corner talking to two other Muslim students, who repaired to their seats when they caught sight of me. Mahtab was sitting beside her new recruit, whispering to her conspiratorially.
I spoke briefly about the next week’s assignment and proceeded to set the trial in motion. First I called forth Mr. Farzan, the judge, and asked him to take his seat in my usual chair, behind the desk. He sauntered up to the front of the class with an ill-disguised air of self-satisfaction. A chair was placed near the judge for the witnesses. I sat beside Zarrin on the left side of the room, by the large window, and Mr. Nyazi sat with some of his friends on the other side, by the wall. The judge called the session to order. And so began the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran versus The Great Gatsby.
Mr. Nyazi was called to state his case against the defendant. Instead of standing, he moved his chair to the center of the room and started to read in a monotonous voice from his paper. The judge sat uncomfortably behind my desk and appeared to be mesmerized by Mr. Nyazi. Every once in a while he blinked rather violently.
A few months ago, I was finally cleaning up my old files and I came across Mr. Nyazi’s paper, written in immaculate handwriting. It began with “In the Name of God,” words that later became mandatory on all official letterheads and in all public talks. Mr. Nyazi picked up the pages of his paper one by one, gripping rather than holding them, as if afraid that they might try to escape his hold. “Islam is the only religion in the world that has assigned a special sacred role to literature in guiding man to a godly life,” he intoned. “This becomes clear when we consider that the Koran, God’s own word, is the Prophet’s miracle. Through the Word you can heal or you can destroy. You can guide or you can corrupt. That is why the Word can belong to Satan or to God.
“Imam Khomeini has relegated a great task to our poets and writers,” he droned on triumphantly, laying down one page and picking up another. “He has given them a sacred mission, much more exalted than that of the materialistic writers in the West. If our Imam is the shepherd who guides the flock to its pasture, then the writers are the faithful watchdogs who must lead according to the shepherd’s dictates.”
A giggle could be heard from the back of