My Father's Notebook (21 page)

If we drove all night, we’d be at Safar’s before sunrise. Safar’s Café is where the climbers meet, eat breakfast and form groups before starting up the mountain.

I’d already climbed Mount Damavand three times, but never in the winter. I was afraid that the café would be closed and there wouldn’t be any climbers.

I saw a distant light and felt hopeful. At least Safar’s was open. My father was quiet. He couldn’t see the point of climbing a mountain for the fun of it.

There had to be a goal. You climbed a mountain to get to another place or to meet someone. Or you went up one side of the mountain and came down the other because a woman was waiting for you. He wanted to know why we were making the climb in all this snow.

I told him that we were going to try and reach the top. “But it’s a difficult mountain. Have you ever climbed with ropes?”

“A couple of times,” my father said. “You’re the one who taught me how.”

He was right. I’d forgotten. Once, when I was a student, I’d tried to scale a difficult wall on Saffron Mountain with him.

I heard the buzz of voices before I even opened the door to the café. To my surprise, Safar’s was as crowded as it usually was in the spring. That was a relief. “Come on in,” I gestured to my father. “Sit down.” But there were no empty chairs.

Where had all these people come from? Why were they making the climb in the middle of winter? Surely they
couldn’t all be members of the party, hoping to escape reality for a few days?

It was so pleasant that you forgot the war and the imams. It was as if you’d closed your eyes for a moment and when you opened them again, you found yourself in another country, or on another planet.

The café smelled of fresh tea, fresh bread and dates.

People usually climbed the mountain in groups; nobody climbed alone. If you were by yourself, you went to Safar’s and asked to join a group, which accepted you unhesitatingly.

I put down my backpack and introduced myself. I let it be known that I wanted to make the climb with my father and that we would prefer to join a group of experienced climbers, because he was a deaf-mute.

My father was surprised to find such a warm and friendly café in the middle of the snow. He felt happy and comfortable. Everyone went over to him, shook his hand and wished him luck with the climb. He thought all those young men and women were friends of mine.

One group promptly found two chairs for us. My father sat down and I went off to get our breakfast: omelette, dates, real butter, fresh bread, tea and sugar. Just what climbers need.

It was still dark when the groups left the café, one by one. The groups made sure to stay fairly close together, since they knew they’d need each other’s help in the cold.

We climbed up to 3,000 feet, where, following an old tradition, we waited for the sun to rise. My father stood next to me. He didn’t understand why everyone was staring at the sky.

Suddenly, the sun’s first golden arrow pierced the darkness. Silence. Then there was a second arrow, and a third, and all at once a whole shaft of light. Finally, the sun burst into flames behind the top of Mount Damavand like a golden crown. My astonished father looked at me, then at the sun
and finally at the mountain, looming over us like a solid mass of snow.

As soon as Mount Damavand had revealed itself to us in all its archaic beauty, we burst into a well-known song:

You have to climb Mount Damavand to experience it for yourself. The eternal snow, the biting cold on your skin, the colour and smell of the ancient volcano, the thick layer of ice.

We climbed on in silence. With only a few short breaks, we could probably reach 15,000 feet by sunset. There we could pitch camp, spend the night and prepare for the difficult climb ahead.

But before we got to 15,000 feet, we’d have to scale a few tricky ice walls with spikes and ropes. Fortunately, my father and I were with a group of very experienced climbers. They took my father under their wing, so I didn’t have to look after him by myself. They were patient with him. He climbed like an old mountain goat, which made the climbers chuckle. They got a kick out of his old-fashioned methods.

Once we pitched camp, he was no longer dependent on me. In fact, he didn’t even have time to sit next to me. Everyone wanted him in their group, so they could talk to him around the campfire.

“We need an interpreter, Ishmael. Can you come and sit over here?” someone called.

I didn’t feel well. This time, the thin air was making me
dizzy. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t just crawl into my sleeping bag and abandon those millions of pearls in the sky.

Besides, now that the party had been dealt a crushing blow, I wanted to think quietly about my future: What would happen when I went back to Tehran? The party might have been decapitated, but it wasn’t dead. We had lost, but we weren’t vanquished.

First, however, I had to reach the top of Mount Damavand.

It was a cold, short night. We got up before the sun rose. I couldn’t eat or drink. Even the thought of food made me sick.

We started the climb, in groups, while it was still dark. I was worried about my father. The higher we climbed, the thinner the air became. The moment I noticed that he couldn’t go any further, I’d take him down to the first-aid tent.

As fate would have it, however, I was the one who needed help. After a while, I felt too weak either to climb properly or to look after my father.

“Will somebody please take care of my father?” I called in a faint voice.

“Your father’s doing fine,” I heard the leader of the group say. “Look after yourself.”

After a while, my mind went blank.

My father, the party, the movement, the mullahs—everything was erased. My previous climbs had gone all right, but this time I felt incredibly weak. I kept my eyes glued to the brown hiking boots of the man in front of me and tried to follow his footsteps.

At some point, my legs almost gave out. An inner voice,
however, urged me not to fall, not to lose sight of those boots, but to keep going, keep going, keep going.

Mount Damavand had me in its clutches. It had suddenly turned into a giant and I was a sparrow—a weak sparrow in the palm of its hand. How long did I have to keep going? How many steps did I still have to take? That was all I could think of. The world was standing still, but I had to keep moving, to keep climbing. One more step, then another, and another.

All of a sudden there was silence. For a moment I heard nothing at all, then only faint sounds, sing-song words.

Summoning every ounce of my strength, I could hear that people were singing. I smelled the familiar odour of sulphur: the volcano. Then I went deaf again and it got dark—totally dark. I fell.

Apparently, I passed out the moment I set foot on the rim of the bowl-shaped volcano. The experienced mountain climbers knew I needed immediate medical attention. It was a while before I opened my eyes and realised where I was. Someone helped me to my feet and steadied me. My father.

I leaned against a rock. My fellow climbers were putting flags on the rock and taking pictures. In fact, I have one of those snapshots here on my bookshelf. You can’t see that we’re standing at the top, at 18,934 feet. It looks as if we’re posed next to just any old rock. My eyes are closed and my father looks proud.

If you look at the snapshot without knowing the story behind it, you notice a strange thing: I look as sick as a dog, but my father is glowing with happiness. In fact, I was leaning against the rock and doing my best to keep from passing out again, so I could look at my father, who was mesmerised by the view.

He was looking in astonishment at a band of blue in the distance. I didn’t have enough energy to explain that it was
the Caspian Sea—the sea that lay between us and the Soviet Union. He admired a faint, dark-green stripe on the horizon, without knowing that it was the largest forest in Persia.

I wanted to tell him to look at the view behind us, where a chain of mountains stretched out to the end of the world, but I was too weak. I nodded off again and the world fell silent.

If they hadn’t carried me quickly down to a lower elevation, I might never have woken up.

The next time I opened my eyes, I was lying on the ground. Somebody helped me to my feet. I’d been carried to the first-aid tent, but fortunately I didn’t need any more medical attention. The natural oxygen was already doing its work and my body was starting to function normally.

At 13,000 feet, I was able to walk on my own again, though my father walked beside me, keeping an eye on me. “How was it up there?” I asked him.

He smiled. I could tell that he was worried about me. I put my arm around his waist, kissed the top of his head and said, “I’m fine. Soon I’ll be walking like I always do.”

“What a wonderful father!” everyone exclaimed. “We’re enjoying his company so much!”

We had to keep moving so as not to catch cold. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before, which was why I’d run out of energy. Still, I did my best to keep up with the rest. After about five hours we arrived at a shepherd’s hut, where tea was always available for the climbers, and where you could buy bread, milk and butter at reasonable prices.

Soon the group would reach the foot of the mountain, rest in Safar’s Café for a while and then head home. I knew I didn’t feel strong enough to drive.

Luckily, you could always rely on mountain climbers to help out. They arranged for my father and me to spend the night in the shepherd’s hut, so I could regain my strength.

We hugged each other goodbye. Everyone shook my father’s hand, took one last snapshot and left.

I’ll never forget the night we spent in that hut. It was as if my father knew that I’d never again have a chance to get so much rest.

That evening, the elderly shepherd, using every gesture under the sun, had a conversation with my father. Then he turned to me and said, “I know how you can get your strength back. You need to take a bath. Your father, too.”

“Here? A bath?”

“I have a magic bath. Actually, it’s only supposed to be used by shepherds, but you’re a decent boy, you respect your father. Come, I’ll show you. Damavand gives back what it takes.”

After a fifteen-minute walk through the crunching snow, the shepherd held up an oil lamp. “In here. This way.”

We followed him through an opening in the rocks leading into a cave. Then, guided only by the faint light of the oil lamp, we walked about a hundred yards into the cave’s inky depths. I could smell the sulphur from the volcano.

“Wait here,” said the shepherd.

He put the oil lamp on a ledge.

“Now come look!”

I took a few steps forward, leaned over and saw a pool of steaming water.

“Feel it!” the shepherd said.

I stuck my hand in the water.

“Oh, nice and hot.”

“I’ll leave you to your bath,” the shepherd said, “and come back for you in an hour.” He left.

In the yellowish glow of the oil lamp, the cave seemed magical. My father helped me into the bath, then carefully got in himself.

I wanted to stay there for ever.

The Dutch poet Rutger Kopland knows what he’s talking about when it comes to mountains. I now live in the polder, but I know that I left myself, or rather
us
, back in the mountains, just as acciden tally as all the rest. 

Mount Damavand had become a memory. One of my dreams had come true and I felt good.

The trip had helped me to think things through. I resigned myself to my fate and opted for my fatherland. I drove back to Tehran with my father. Then I took him to the bus station and bought him a ticket. “This bus is going directly to Senejan. You don’t have to change buses. The driver knows where you’re supposed to get out. It’ll be a long time before we see each other again. Have a good trip and give my love to everyone.”

“Can you phone us?” he signed.

“Not for a while.”

“Will you be coming to see me in the shop?”

“No.”

Only then did he understand why I’d been so anxious to go to Mount Damavand with him. He looked as though he thought we’d never see each other again. I took back my words. “I don’t know, I’ll try to come for a visit.”

I hugged him and the bus left.

Two days later I had an appointment to meet my contact person. Had he been arrested? Had he gone into hiding? Had he fled the country? All I could do was hope he’d show up.

We had a secret code. I was supposed to drive past a certain school once a week and check the fence on which the students chalked their graffiti. If the word
salaam
was scrawled on the
fence, it meant that all was well and I was to meet him at the appointed place. If the word wasn’t there, I was to try and find it on the wall of another school. If it wasn’t on that wall, either, I knew that I was in danger. In that case I was supposed to go into hiding immediately and report to another place two days later to meet a new contact person.

Fortunately, the word
salaam
was on the fence.
Salaam
—greetings, hope and best wishes, all rolled into one.

We embraced. “
Salaam
, comrade!
Salaam
!” It was as if there’d been an earthquake and your friend had been pulled out of the rubble without a scratch.

In a café, he told me his story. The party had been wiped out. Nothing was left of the leadership. We no longer had a national committee. A small central committee had been formed, but we’d have to work in total secrecy. Nevertheless, we needed to show the imams that the movement was still alive.

The next day I was informed of my new duties. The party no longer had a printing press. My job would be to publish the party newspaper, though on a smaller scale. It was up to me to make the arrangements.

What arrangements? There was almost nothing to arrange. All we had was an old stencil machine, stashed away in a salvage yard somewhere outside Tehran.

I was to fetch the machine, repair it and get to work.

Where was I to keep the thing?

At home, in my own flat. Safa and my little girl would serve as a front.

Involving my family in the printing operation was not the wisest thing to do, but it was pointless to refuse or protest. Who would I protest to? Myself?

I was to run off 3,000 copies of a news sheet once a week and deliver them to another contact person. Under normal circumstances, this would have been impossible, but these
weren’t normal circumstances. We were ready to fight the clerics with our bare hands.

Still, the hardest part was yet to come. Freedom fighters place great demands on themselves when the need arises. In my case, the hardest part would be having to work out of my own flat.

I considered the drawbacks. How would I get that heavy machine up to the fifth floor without being seen? What if someone came out of one of the apartments and asked, “What’s that?” Even if I got it safely upstairs, an antiquated machine like that was bound to make a lot of noise.

What I dreaded most, however, was having to tell my wife about it when she came back from Kermanshah.

I briefly fought an inner battle. I had to choose or, rather, I had no choice. I chose the movement, which meant leaving my family in the lurch. Setting aside my doubts, I phoned my wife and told her that we wouldn’t be able to see each other for a long time.

Women have always surprised me. I thought my wife might object, might say it was out of the question, that she wanted to come home and that I couldn’t involve everything and everybody in my wild dreams. I thought she’d say, “Forget it, I’m coming home.”

But she didn’t. I sensed that she was crying. For whom? Herself? Our daughter? She had the right to a normal life. And yet I knew my wife was also crying for me, since she was the only witness to my dreams.

My wife was a normal woman who embraced life and wanted a peaceful existence. I couldn’t give her that. Not then, at any rate. Later on I did, when she moved to Holland, but by that time she’d paid a high price: she would never be able to go home again.

I drove out of town to pick up the stencil machine. After about an hour I arrived at the salvage yard, where various people were poking through wrecked cars in search of parts. Since I had no reason to go into the office, I walked directly to the shed at the far end and pushed open the door. It was dark inside. I lit a match and turned on the light.

The stencil machine was in the corner, covered with a thick layer of dust and grime. I wrapped it in an old blanket. It was too heavy to lift, so I dragged it across the ground to my car.

What were we doing? What was
I
doing? This wasn’t an act of resistance—it was a suicide mission. At any moment, a couple of men from the secret police might stop me and yell, “Hands up!”

I was reminded of Don Quixote. He tilted at windmills; I wrestled with my stencil machine.

When I reached the car, I looked around for help. A young man happened to be passing by.

Together we lifted the machine and put it in the trunk. Then I locked the car and walked to a teahouse at the edge of the village. After all, I couldn’t carry the thing up to my flat in broad daylight.

Late that night, when everyone was in bed, I hoisted the heavy machine onto my back and staggered up to our apartment, one step at a time. It was risky. I was terrified that one of our neighbours would open a door and see me on the stairs, but no one did.

In the bedroom, I eased the machine off my back and set it down on the bed. I tried to straighten up again, but couldn’t. Movement of any kind was out of the question, so I spent the next quarter of an hour bent over, on my knees, until the pain subsided.

To this day I’m still plagued by backache. Sometimes, when I’ve been sitting at my computer for too long, I feel a jab of pain when I try to stand up. I have to hunch my shoulders, then slowly straighten my back.

I put the stencil machine in the wardrobe and tried to insulate it so the noise couldn’t be heard outside. It didn’t help. The entire wardrobe jiggled and bounced, and the din echoed around the room.

The whole thing was a disaster. The machine hadn’t been designed to run off so many copies. It might do for a country schoolhouse that needed only twenty or thirty copies a week, but not for me.

The paper got stuck, the ink leaked and the roller squirted ink all over the place. The stencil tore easily, and whenever that happened, I had to type up a new one.

I could put up with all of this, but not with the racket. It was the kind of noise that would make people ask, “What’s that man doing in there?”

How long could I turn on the radio or the vacuum cleaner to mask the noise? I’d print a couple of hundred pages, then run out to see if the neighbours had noticed anything. Day after day I hid behind the curtains, watching until our next-door neighbour had left for work and his wife and their two children had gone off for their daily visit to her mother. As soon as they were gone, I’d race to the wardrobe and begin stencilling like mad in an attempt to catch up on the backlog.

Safa and I had deliberately kept our contact with the neighbours to a minimum. Still, they might wonder where she was: “Hey, we haven’t seen the wife for ages,” or “What’s our neighbour up to, he’s at home alone a lot of the time.”

During the day, I closed the curtains and pretended I wasn’t at home. Sometimes I didn’t leave the flat for days.

If I knew the neighbours were away, I ran the machine on electricity, but in the evenings I had to work it manually. I
switched on the nightlight and churned out copies until morning. Then I delivered the news sheets to my contact person and received the next assignment.

Buying paper and ink was also a dangerous undertaking. Paper had become scarce during the war and the mullahs had seized control of printing supplies. You could only buy them in a special store in the mosque, which also sold vital foodstuffs, such as rice, sugar, cooking oil and tea. Not only did your request have to be approved by your local imam, but your purchase was supervised by a couple of bearded fundamentalists.

So, I bought paper and ink on the black market, where you often paid ten times the going rate.

The first two months, the printing went well and I finished the news sheets on time. Fear, however, gradually took hold of me. I slept badly. I had terrible nightmares and woke up every morning with a headache.

We were banging our heads against the walls of the mullahs, presumably to let them know that we were still alive and not afraid of them. And yet I was afraid. Not of being killed, but of having them break my spirit so much that I’d be prepared to kneel before them.

In reality, our resistance was having little effect. I no longer believed in what I was doing, and that scared me, too.

I kept going, but reality was stronger than I was. Every time I went out of the door, I was hoping, deep in my heart, that I’d never have to return. I didn’t even care if I had a car accident and ended up in the hospital.

I did my best, though. I cranked out the news sheets and delivered them on schedule every time. Then one night I ground to a halt, just like the stencil machine. I just couldn’t take it any more.

I explained the situation to my contact person. He didn’t understand. I had the feeling that he was looking at me with contempt. He must have thought I was trying to save my own skin, now that things had got dangerous.

I told him that our resistance was ineffective, that we should accept the fact that the mullahs had won and save our strength for later. As much as I believed in the party and was prepared to sacrifice myself, I had to conclude that our current methods weren’t working.

He said he would pass my advice on to the central committee.

A week later I heard what I expected to hear: the committee didn’t agree. If I wanted to quit, my name would be put on the non-active list and I would have to sever all ties with the party.

Sever all ties? That wasn’t what I wanted. I couldn’t opt for a safe life while my comrades continued to battle the mullahs. How could I just sit there, comfortably watching TV with my wife and child, while an imam announced that “The police have arrested the last of God’s enemies. A stencil machine was found in their hiding place.”

It was too late for me to lead an ordinary, bourgeois life. My comrades were right: we had to say no to the mullahs who had brought the Iranian people to their knees. We had to say no, to shout no! Even if no one heard us now, because sooner or later we would be heard.

Now that I had made my opinion known to the party, I felt better. I went back to work.

Six weeks later, I drove to the usual place to deliver the news sheets to my contact person, but he didn’t turn up. He was supposed to be waiting for me by the phone box in the loading zone behind the Tehran bazaar.

Normally, when I saw him, I parked my car in the lorry-loading
area, got out and opened the boot, as if I were an ordinary businessman. My contact person then wheeled a cart over to the car and took the boxes from me.

This time, however, he wasn’t there. I drove around the car park for a second time, just to make sure. There was still no sign of him.

Yesterday afternoon, everything had been OK. The word
salaam
had been written on the fence. If something had happened, it must have happened after that.