Writing
Persian pearls - fragments
An Iranian Travel Log
by Imola Nagy
Part Two of Three
Enormous waves of rock glitter in the immaculate sky. Actually, the sky is
like a perfect metal sheet, looking sturdier than the ocean of rocks. This
is not unlike the Persian miniatures, where the elements are given an unexpected
texture, different from what is natural to them. Everything seems to be shifting
shape. The clouds are carved out of rocks; the trees are clouds; the mountains
are dense smoke. Dry rocks clatter under my feet like shattered pottery along
the path of water-worshipper pagan madonnas. I stop at the last teahouse hanging
on the steep mountainside. I recline Greek style on the carpeted bench and
listen to the gurgling fountain, and drink a lot of tea.
Drifting, I notice a couple of women climbing the steep mountains in black, head-to-toe chador, and using only one hand on the cableway. A few donkeys, my favorites, and some “lightly” dressed young people pass by, searching for freedom. Elsewhere, a tiny dot moves along the flaming rock carpet, a lonely man who wandered off the road. The whole world seems an oven, but in the middle of it there is a long waterfall. Somewhere near the invisible source of the waterfall, on the top of a nearly perpendicular wall, is the Palace of the Lion, one of the best restaurants of Tehran. But you cannot make it up there without your lover. I feel as if the rocks are disappearing from under my feet as I head back to the city. I take off my headscarf; my body becomes “unbearably light.” A nuclear physicist accompanies me, down the mountain. Back at the base, he offers me a ride home. He promptly gets into a traffic jam. I can barely forgive him, even though I never met anyone who pronounced more empathetically the names of the fruits. Aalu – plum, ghilaas – cherry, sib – apple, gholaabi – pear, gherdu – nut, kishmish – raisin, anaar – pomegranate, khiaar – cucumber (though not a fruit, in the desert it is considered a delicacy and not a simple vegetable).
One evening I’m drinking white wine with a bright old man and his family. It is the only wine I will have in Iran. He says I look like a Persian woman, with the exception that I’m beautiful. It’s a sweet joke. He seems like a free spirit who chooses to be in Tehran, but could just as well be in New York or Budapest or Bombay. I don’t say anything. I don’t have to, and that is bliss. The old man is like a light breeze; everyone around him is vibrant. I get the full treatment too. He creates ambience, his wife comforts us with earthly goods, his son plays guitar and dumbak, his daughter-in-law clasps her hands, twiddles her fingers, and granddaughter, enchanting, with her fair hair in two long braids, dances and shines like a little star. We enjoy each other’s company and it is eerily easy to accept their invitation to spend the night there.
Shaad – happy, ghamnaakh – sad, arusi – wedding, borj – building, dake – newspaper stand, daarukhaane – pharmacy, mu – hair. I can’t sleep during the night. A huge star looks right into my room. Or could it be Jupiter? We spend the morning on the balcony among wild flowers and tall sunflowers and a giant, bright-green parrot that interrupts our slow conversation every now and then. Even the parrot enjoys freedom of speech and the right to be silent. “You see,”says the old man to me “this is my life, nothing exciting, like yours in Brooklyn.” I don’t tell him, that there is no peace and no serenity in Brooklyn, only a small and tortured love.
My first long trip outside of Tehran is toward the east. Near the Afghan border is Mashad, one of the most sacred cities of Shi’ite Islam. Emam Reza, the Eighth Emam is entombed here. Only recently have tourists been allowed in the mosque. Since I am in chador for this occasion, the matter of tourism is moot. It is clear that I’m not a Muslim, especially when I clumsily let my chador fall off at the checkpoint. The security guard, a woman, tells me I look good in chador. This long strip of black cloth could be quite elegant were it not obligatory, making us into a homogenous flock of crows. Withal, it flows after me as I walk under great arches, gates, halls, golden domes lavishly decorated inside and outside with tiny, sharp mosaics of shards of mirror and shiny gold and silver or with famous hand-painted tiles from Esfahan. Vines, birds, flowers and abstract, endlessly intertwining geometrical forms alternate with many different styles of astonishing Islamic calligraphy. Each courtyard has a big, elaborate fountain with copper cups provided for drinking the icy water. Many pilgrims are resting, eating, sleeping and praying outside. You can tell a poor man by his shoes, and so Muslims never wear their shoes in the house of God, where all men are equal. Twelve million pilgrims come here every year, mostly but not oly from Iran. For most of them this is the only monumental architecture they ever see in their lives.
As we approach the center of the building complex the crowd gets denser. The tomb is situated in the innermost chamber, in a glass cage with gilded bars filled with the most variegated offerings. A boisterous sea of flesh surrounds it. Women and men, separated by a glass wall, are pressed up against each other, almost on the top of each other, trying hysterically to reach the tomb, to touch the tomb. The air vibrates with cries and sighs and whining and praying. Before the knot in my throat suffocates me, I reach the nearest courtyard. The Sun is rising. We choose the brightest time of the day to be here. What does the sunset bring? Birds are zigzagging like visible echoes in the open courtyards. We, sorrowful shadows, walk from one courtyard to the other, until we loose our way. I am not in a hurry anymore. Ever-lighter inertia brings me further east.
It is uncanny. I arrive in Neishapour just as an article comes out in the New York Times: Neishapour has become the sister-city to my home city of Kolozsvar in Transylvania. The great Persian poet Omar Khajjam was from Neishapour, as was the lesser-known Farid al-Din Attar. Attar’s tomb is outside the city, in the middle of a man-made oasis in the desert. It is a simple marble tomb inside an azure dome. The word azure comes from Persian, as does paradise. Attar’s small edifice has a door on each side, facing the four cardinal directions. Each door is open, so that a light breeze crosses the room, nothing you can feel outside. The calligraphy of Attar’s poetry is carved on the walls and creates a perfect balance and visual counterpart to the trees framed in the open doors. An old man, a homeless troubadour, sits at the south-facing door, reciting Attar, waiting for donations. I lie down on the lawn; the lawnmowers keep a polite distance from me. Peace and quiet descends. Only one thought crosses my mind, lightly like the rustling of the ancient trees: I have arrived at the end of the world.
The heat is at its peak when we arrive at the tomb of Omar Khajjam. It stands in an enormous garden, next to a big mosque, as if Khajjam were not enough by himself, or, closer to truth, he would be too much by himself. Most of the visitors are strictly dressed believers, and I would love to recite some true, wine-loving poetry for them. Of course, if they would look around a little, instead of treating the tomb like some miraculous altar, they could still read his poetry. It is painted on the tall, curved, turquoise rhombuses that make the elements of the modern architecture of Khajjam’s tomb. Here is one of the famous quatrains (ruba?): “Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky / I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry, / ‘Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup / Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.’” (Edward Fitzgerald’s rendition). I escape into the teahouse and little adjacent shops, buy four clay wine jugs and happily imagine myself drinking red wine from them in Brooklyn. As of now I settle with saffron tea – pure, aromatic, red-gold fluid. Khajjam is far away: beyond time, beyond compassion. Still, it seems too early to give up my dreams; I change my itinerary and travel south.
The “Beautiful City of Esfahan” is also called “Half of the World”. So I am fortunate to see half of the world in one place, 450 miles south of Tehran. In the 15th century this was the capital of Iran. There is a monumental square in the center of Esfahan, surrounded by royal palaces, theaters, mosques and one of the oldest bazaars in the country. I find a perfect guide, a friend of a friend, a young bazaari (shopkeeper) who besides English is fluent in Japanese. Only the bazaaris know their ways around this labyrinth-cave-town with high, vaulted ceilings.That’s where the saying comes from: in case of fire follow a bazaari. There is nothing rectangular, linear and predictable in the bazaar. In fifteen minutes I am lost; the time it takes for my eyes to become saturated by the unrelenting visual feast. At the core of the bazaar there is a 500-year-old bathhouse in reconstruction. I admire the enthusiasm of those simple, humble, Afghan-looking craftsmen working here. They know perfectly the value of their work and they want to show me every intricate detail of the bathhouse: dressing rooms, pools, massage rooms, fountains, wells, cow-driven water pumps, frescoes – the art of water. From stone, clay and dust, I invoke the water, and follow it from the deep wells, through the pools, to the roof and back into the capillaries of this giant, aquatic communicating vessel. And in all this there is the din of craftsmen: spice makers, tile painters, carpet repairers, copper smiths, miniaturists. Some of the craftsmen look as old as their crafts, and the ancient smells of their shaded shops attest to that. Monotonous, repetitive sounds, sometimes quite loud, as with the coppersmiths, fill the air. They are busy at work, but tranquil, meditative, selfless.
The Zayanderood, Esfahan’s main river, dried out for the first time ever this year. Some of the world’s oldest and most beautiful bridges stand here on dry soil. The Sio-Se-Pol (Thirty-three Bridge), with its 33 arches and 405 years, looks like a line of camels stalled in the desert. In its bays are teahouses, secret rendezvous places, junky retreats, dark alleys. People swarm around the dry river. The gardens and alleys on its banks are the biggest attraction for locals. In the meantime, I saw my first rice field a ways down the river, where there is still some water in the riverbed. They say every city is a self-sustaining vegetable and fruit producer, which is quite remarkable given the harsh conditions. Three-quarters of the country is impenetrable mountains and barren deserts. And Persians eat a lot of vegetables and herbs. They use ancient technologies, no computerized irrigation systems or genetic engineering. Every fruit and vegetable keeps its natural taste and fragrance. There is always a huge plate in the middle of the table at meals filled with whole stems of fresh basil, scallion, cilantro, green peppers, green parsley leaves and many other green leaves that I’ve never seen before.
