ELEGY FOR THE LOST
TALES FROM IRAN
Translated from the French
by Alice Anugraham
ELEGY FOR THE LOST
Tales from Iran
Copyright © Michael Robinson, 2021
Publication: June 2023
Published in Canada by Bayeux Arts Digital - Traditional Publishing 2403, 510 6th Avenue, S.E. Calgary, Canada T2G 1L7
www.bayeux.com
Cover design by Parvin Dehghan
Book design by Lumina Datamatics
Cover photograph by Anonymous
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Elegy for the lost: tales from Iran / Sanaz Safari; translated from the French by Alice Anugraham.
Names: Safari, Sanaz, author. | Anugraham, Alice, translator.
Description: Les Go sa ns de la triste patrie
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20230578128 | Canadiana (ebook) 20230579221 | ISBN 9781778750113 (softcover) | ISBN 9781778750120 (Kindle)
Subjects: LCGFT: Short stories.
Classification: LCC PK6562.29.A33 E4413 2024 | DDC 891/.5534—dc23
The ongoing publishing activities of Bayeux Arts Digital - Traditional Publishing under its varied imprints are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Alberta, Alberta Multimedia Development Fund, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.
Printed in Canada
Dedication
IN MEMORY OF THE BRAVE & THE FREE
I wanted to tell Alice that because of the recent events in Iran and with the new slogan for the revolution “Woman, life, freedom”, I intend to dedicate the English translation of my book “Les Goˉsaˉns de la triste patrie”, to the martyrs of the current uprising in Iran. In this context I think especially of Aida Rostami , a physician who, if they had let her live, she would be thirty-seven years old this year, like me. This book tells the many stories of brave men and women who have fought and lost their lives for freedom. These narratives are not fictitious, these are the stories of those men and women who should be remembered.
This morning, on May 19, 2023, three more of our protesters were hanged in the prison of Isfahan. Innocent as always, they were tried under false charges and under severe torture, they confessed to crimes they never committed before they were brutally killed. This regime feeds off the blood of its victims and seeks to take more lives every day in order to gain control and assert their authority.
I often wonder and ask myself: “How many of these teenagers and young people killed over these forty-four years of oppression, who were lovingly brought up and nurtured by their families
and friends, warmed by a kiss, by a loving touch, to be murdered in inhuman ways and unfeelingly deposited in the cold soil?”
And we, who are seemingly indifferent but who are nevertheless overcome by sorrow, loss, grief, depression and uncertainty…, we feel helpless under the repression and the fear that swirls around us. How long will we watch our friends surrender themselves to the predatory claws of these blood suckers?
How well we know that like leprosy, which gradually takes over the human body and deforms it completely, in the same manner- fear, pain, loneliness and anonymity will surely destroy the human body and soul, sooner or later! So, how long should we keep silent? This silence that steals away our very being, our souls and keeps us from our responsibilities and duties as sensitive human beings.
To my martyred friends: Your voices will always remain with us! Many of us have heard your cries and a few among us have responded in some form or the other. The others have passed by and remained silent. However, I don’t blame them, I don’t accuse them for their silence as I can understand the power of fear! But for me, the burden of this pain weighs heavily on me, especially when I remember your last words: “Don’t let them kill us, we need your help.”
I hope that the anger and hatred which has been spread by this killing machine and which has spread over these many, many years will come to an end soon! All we need is to keep our righteous anger so that we never forget and we never forgive. The more we hold on to this anger, the more we will overcome our fears; it is because we are indebted to all those who lost their lives, their eyes, their properties and their families on the hard road to freedom.
I dedicate this book to the memory of Saleh Mirhashemi, Majid Kazemi, Saeid Yaghoubi and so many others, and let me not forget the numerous missing people; their names are many and then there are so many unknown martyrs. It is impossible to name each one of them, as it is beyond the scope of this book to mention every act of sacrifice and each name.
Sanaz Safari October, 2023
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
Maya Angelou, from ‘The Caged Bird’
Hunchbacks Like Me
For Mohsen Shekari and the Afkari brothers. Among the many people who lost their lives in the 2022 freedom movement, Mohsen Shekari was the first person to be executed. He was killed only after 75 days of detention and without a fair trial. Mohsen was only 22 years old, a simple innocent barista.
Thealarm clock in Mr. Hunchback’s bedroom struck six in the morning; however, since the use of the word “Why” in all its possible and not-so-possible forms had been forbidden in the language, and in all its variations, time had lost its meaning for him.
Seated on the bed, Mr. Hunchback looked around his apartment. A square medium-sized room on the sixth floor of a partially run-down building, which served both as the bedroom and as the living room, with a small bathroom and kitchen, that could accommodate only one person. All his life Mr. Hunchback had tried to live the way he wanted to, free from anything superfluous;
2 Elegy for the Lost
he always looked for a simple life without any worries. Except for a bed, a small table with two chairs, a couch, a canvas to paint along with its easel and a few brushes, there was nothing of importance in his room.
The porcelain vase on the table, adorned with Persian miniatures, disappeared day by day under the weight of the dust. He no longer put any sunflowers nor any narcissus of Shiraz in it. In any case, if the disastrous day had never come, Mr. Hunchback would have continued with his daily life as an ordinary person.
Before he lost his job, Mr . Hunchback was a lamplighter. He was responsible for lighting the public roads in six districts of the city of Apollo . Since the old mayor did not wish to modernize the lighting system, he had never replaced the warmth and mellow beauty of the colours that appeared in the light of the oil lanterns with gas lamps.
Every evening around six o’clock, Mr. Hunchback began lighting the lamps. One day while standing under one of these lanterns, he met a strange man for the first time, who would later become his dearest friend.
“Christ who spoke of peace and humanity, who opposed repression and war and invited people to come together in unity, always wore a yellow robe. This man may have been unlucky during his lifetime, and he still felt a deep pain. Misunderstood
Hunchbacks Like Me 3 and abandoned by the people he loved dearly, he was condemned to loneliness and desperate wandering. But his robe, his yellow robe, was of an exceptional yellow colour, a rare yellow.”
Mr. Hunchback looked at this strange man who spoke passionately of Christ and who was dressed like the villagers who wore their best clothes to come into town. He was so surprised by what he saw that he was speechless. Who was this man so interested in the yellow colour of Christ’s robe and who looked more like the nineteenth-century villagers he had seen in the movies?
– My name is Vincent and I’m an artist! Under the light of these lanterns, I was able to find many of my favourite colours. You can’t imagine the yellow colour of the violets and... the reddish yellow of the women’s skirts when the lamps are shining. In any case, you are a lamplighter, aren’t you?
Mr. Hunchback, who until then had remained stunned, finally moved his lips and replied “yes” in a dry tone. Vincent’s hazel eyes sparkled.
– So, you are an artist, my friend! Come, I’ll buy you a drink!
And he followed him without uttering a word… That evening onwards, they met each other frequently under the lanterns. Mr. Hunchback
4 Elegy for the Lost
did the lighting work and Vincent tried to find the most moving colours according to his skill. They would then dine together and Vincent would mix the colours on the palette and sketch his first drawings.
While observing the people around, Mr. Hunchback had noticed that Vincent’s face and his absolutely old-fashioned clothes did not surprise them. No one looked at him as he walked down the street or when he spoke aloud of humanity’s anguish and the yellow colour of Christ’s robe. Perhaps no one saw his imaginary friend…
Of course, before the day of the disaster, Mr. Hunchback had no hump on his back. He was a charming, shapely man with a perfectly straight back. It all began the day the word “Why” was banned. Which day? What date? He no longer remembered the date, nor the day of the formation of the first hump on his bent back. In the dusty weather the countdown of lost days seemed pointless.
On that day, Mr. Hunchback woke up as usual at six o’clock in the morning. It was winter and it was still dark. He suddenly heard strange noises coming from outside: “Attention, attention! In the name of the splendid authority of the city of Apollo, from now onwards the word “Why” in all its linguistic forms is banned from the written and spoken language. His Majesty and the sole royal
Hunchbacks Like Me 5 power of Apollo, wants the people to participate in this campaign to silence the “Why”. For those who do not respect this divine order, the consequences will be terrible.”
The heralds did not mention what the consequences of insubordination would be. Watching the people through the window, Mr. Hunchback saw astonished faces that looked more like question marks.
“How is it possible? Can other interrogative words be substituted?” they wondered.
At first, this warning seemed like a senseless joke, but on the following day, when news of the mayor’s resignation was published in the daily papers, people realized that this crazy joke could actually be a warning.
Within a week, the “Why” had completely disappeared. All books were gathered to be checked. A large amount of paper pulp was made from old books and newspapers that included this word.
The day after “Why” was silenced, at six o’clock sharp, Mr. Hunchback sat down on the bed with his back deformed by a hump. It was indeed the result of his insubordination. Gas streetlights had been substituted by oil lamps, and as for Mr. Hunchback, his part of that substitution was a hump that had blossomed right in the middle of his back because he had just asked himself: “Why?” So, lamplighters were no longer required...
Elegy for the Lost
From that day onwards, anyone who uttered the word “Why” felt an uncontrollable itch on the back, and the sprouting of a hump. The size of the hump depended on the intensity and the ardour with which the word “Why” was uttered; but the story did not end here. Dedicated agents fully trained to identify hunchbacks were employed. Anyone who was discovered as a hunchback was hanged from the gas lamps. The punishment for a hunchback anywhere was execution and death. Many women and men were hanged as soon as the last “y” of the word “Why” had barely left their lips. Hunchbacked convicts were made to wear a solid yellow coloured robe before they were executed.
Although Mr. Hunchback had been able to escape the piercing gaze of the vigilantes by taking refuge in his apartment, he was one of the most unfortunate victims of this misfortune. The only thing that connected him to the outside world was the window of his room. During this period, he felt a deep sense of bewilderment that he had totally forgotten his friend, Vincent.
Because of his mountainous back, Mr. Hunchback could not sleep comfortably at night. He stared at the ceiling and breathed with great difficulty. On the one hand the fear of saying “Why”, and on the other hand, the weight of the hump, aggravated his worry and his grief.
Hunchbacks Like Me 7
He frequently asked himself what his sin was. He suddenly felt the blood rush to his head as he repeatedly reviewed the unanswered questions. The veins in his head were beginning to swell without exploding. It was a kind of continuous swelling, accompanied by pain and intense heat that seemed to surge from his eyes. His veins did not rupture but were swelling without bleeding. The hump on his back was like a big snake that was coiling around him and at each moment seemed to constrict its coils for an indefinite period of time. The continuous feeling of suffocation never left him in peace. In his apartment he was the prisoner of a hump that distinguished him from the others…
Vincent returned, but it seemed as if he was no longer the same Vincent. His hair had turned pale and his luminous hazel eyes had lost their sparkle. He brought along with him an unfinished canvas on an easel and some brushes. Mr. Hunchback looked into his friend’s hollow eyes and asked him where he had been all these days and if he was feeling well. Vincent said nothing. He had indeed become a shadow of his former self and Mr. Hunchback could no longer feel his presence. He only stared mindlessly at the ceiling. Vincent no longer talked about the portrait of the Italian woman nor the bitter yellow colour of Christ’s robe, nor of anything else…
8 Elegy for the Lost
My name is Mr. Hunchback. Since a long time, I have been a prisoner in my apartment. Vincent is still silent. He left the portrait of the Italian woman unfinished, without colouring her scarf. Every day I can see the vigilantes through the window, checking every neighbourhood and house in the city with sophisticated telescopes. I’ve just realized that I mustn’t imagine the word “Why” even in my head. The last time I tried it, I saw another hump forming. So, I decided to block my thoughts. Today two more people were hanged from the lamp post near my apartment. One was the prostitute who lived on Sixth Street. I had known her, she used to bring me bread and vegetables, and the other was the opera singer. I can no longer tolerate these walls. I feel the walls closing in on me every day to crush me. I am an ordinary person. All my life I have only wanted to eat a sandwich under the Statue of Liberty when I would retire. I have always wanted to take pictures on Abbey Road where The Beatles had walked by on a day in spring. “Why?”, “Why?”, “Why?”. I see myself swelling up like a balloon. The humps are spread out and invade my body. I think they have seen and identified me through the telescopes...
Hunchbacks Like Me 9
The guards push me with difficulty. I’ve become round and heavy now ... it’s hard to walk ... even move! However, I’m ready to explode! Vincent follows me. After a long silence he finally tells me: “I have found my favourite yellow.” I don’t know how, but that’s exactly what he said. The noose tightens steadily around my neck, like a snake eager to coil itself around its prey, like the walls closing around someone as if to crush him. There are many things I don’t know, but there is one thing that I know very well: “History is full of simple, innocent hunchbacks like me!”