Here it is, and I’ve saved it alongside the Farsi so they’re kept together.
Haleh Tajadod, the Iranian writer and researcher, wrote this in her book More Iranian, about her husband Jean-Claude Carrière — the French screenwriter and actor, from whose screenplays more than a hundred important and enduring films and television works were made, including six of Luis Buñuel’s great films: once Jean-Claude was coming down the steps of the courtyard when suddenly he turned back, looked at the building, and said: “If one day I am forced to leave this house, with what gaze shall I say goodbye to it?”
When I read this passage quoted from Mrs. Tajadod, I made a vow to myself: as long as I live, I will stand in the way of that gaze…
I do not know how far I kept that vow.
Yes, my dear father!
In the first months after the “pain of forgetting” took hold of you, you would ask after our mother. You would ask: “What is your mother’s phone number?”
We would say: “Mom died many years ago…”
You would not be convinced. In those days we did not know what answer to give to someone with Alzheimer’s. Your doctor said that people with forgetting, strangely enough, have very active feelings. And we did not know.
Again and again you would say: “This is not my home…”
We would answer: “No! You are mistaken, father!”
We had a tenant, and we would show you the lease and say: “Look! Read it! Beside the name of the owner of the house it says: Mohammad Mahdavi of Hazaveh.”
You would not believe it! You would grow angry!
You would say: “This is not my home! Take me to my own home!”
And we did not know how to agree with you. We would put you in your car, you would see a few streets, and we would come back home again. Your haunt was Mr. Afshar’s rice shop. Toward the end, when you went there, you were silent.
Quiet.
Silence is the last resting place. Silence is the end of conversation.
Many times you asked us to take you to the village where you were born, Hazaveh (the birthplace of Amir Kabir). We all set off together. Were you searching for your childhood through the window of your eyes? Were you trying to rediscover your mother? Were you calling for your sister? Did you miss your other sister? Did you want your brother?…
It was as if you could not take in that no one is here, that everyone has gone to the sky, that everyone has drowned in the boundless sea of springs and summers.
Once you insisted: “Give me your mother’s phone number…” You scolded us — what kind of children are you, that you cannot find a single number for your mother! You said: “Then how do the dead find each other in the sky?” And we did not know what to answer. And we did not know how someone who knows the distant past so well can be a stranger to the recent past.
A few times you would not take your medicine. You had the urge to leave. Many times you said: “I am tired…” Were you looking for old friends?
I look at the photographs of your youth. Back then you wore a military uniform. You were strong. You were orderly. Everything in the house had its place.
You were in Bushehr.
You were in Dalaki.
You were in Ashtian.
You were in Aran and Bidgol and Qamsar, and dozens of other places.
The people of Hazaveh village called you “Sergeant Mamad.”
Once you told us that when you went to Bushehr in those far-off years, you saw a palm tree for the first time. You had joined the gendarmerie, and at the start of your service you stood guard by the sea, and once you told us that you were so tired you had fallen asleep. Beside the waves of the sea. Beside the dates of the south, your rifle on your shoulder. The duty officer had come upon you and scolded you. You had been put under arrest.
Now you are freed from years of suffering. Now you sleep in peace. Beside the sky. With no officer to scold you. With no arrest. Death is sleeping on soft, rain-washed silk.
Now you have gone. You have found our mother’s phone number. Beside your brother, your sisters, your mother Naneh Masoumeh, and beside your father, Agha Mostafa.
I think to myself: does a person have the power to stand in the way of that gaze?
We had only just learned what to do. To pretend, for instance, that our mother was on her way. To pretend the house was somewhere else. To say that one day, after all, all pains will be forgotten. That one day even forgetting will be forgotten.
— Yes, father, we learned too late.
