The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines (13 page)

At 4:30
A.M
., on February 28, 1979, I left Iran. Like thousands of other Iranians departing the country every day, I, too, thought that I would return after the turmoil had ceased, possibly in only a few weeks. Surely I’d be home again.

20

Border Patrol

M
ahdi kept advising me to hide my jewels while leaving Iran. “Keep them underneath the car or beneath the backseat while going through the border,” he said. He told me that if they were found I would go to jail for smuggling my own jewelry, which included some very valuable pieces handed down to me from my mother and other gifts from my husband.

Mahdi was right. No one was allowed to take any kind of valuable items outside the country without declaring it at the border. They were considered national heritage and were not permitted to leave the country. And those who did not obey the law had their valuables confiscated by armed guards at the border and were often jailed.

A prominent doctor and his wife had been busted. She had hidden her seven-carat diamond wedding ring in her bra. After being thoroughly searched by two female police, who found the ring, she was told that the diamond was an Iranian treasure and belonged to the people of Iran. She had to turn it in before leaving.

“You idiots,” she screamed. “The real treasure is my husband, a great doctor who is leaving you! Here, take it.” She then tossed the ring into the air.

I had no intention of hiding my jewels. My instinct told me to place the bag in an obvious place: the glove compartment. I assumed I would not be punished for not mentioning the jewels if they were not hidden.

WE DROVE THIRTY
miles per hour along treacherous roads. It took Mahdi, Aydin, and me days to reach the border with Turkey. The revolution had spread to the small towns and tiny villages. We slept in various hotels to avoid the curfew.

The scene at the border was chaotic. There were thousands of cars, bumper to bumper, filled with Iranians claiming they were going to Turkey for a short visit.

We arrived at the checkpoint before sunset. The border officers had us stand by the car while they searched it thoroughly. The first place they looked was indeed underneath the car. The second was the backseat and under the front seats, and then the trunk. They looked at every corner, inch by inch. My heart was going to stop. I could have never imagined that one day I would be in danger for stealing my own jewelry.

After some time, they finally left the car and ordered us to drive off. At last we were free to leave. We sat straight in the car and drove away slowly, stunned by the fact that no one, absolutely no one, had paid any attention to the glove compartment.

The sun was setting and the road was icy. Mahdi was driving, with Aydin next to him in the front seat. I sat in the back to look at my birth country through the rear window as I left it behind.

That is my Persia, I thought, the land of great poets and philosophers such as Omar Khayyam, Firdawsi, and Rumi. It was the land of one thousand and one nights. The moon would remain forever that blue.

Farewell, I said to myself.

ONCE IN TURKEY,
all I could think of was that I was being given the chance of living in peace again. Freedom and democracy were the only ideas that could distract me from crying as we drove down Turkey’s snowy roads.

It was hard to figure out what our immediate future had in store for us. But we had seen what was happening in Iran. I had no intention of hiding who I was or losing my career as an actress. I could not afford to wait. And I happened to be right.

Well-known female and male actors who stayed in Iran and had to obey the revolutionary government were mostly interrogated and banned from acting for the rest of their lives. They were considered to be
taghoti
, or “the filthy rich.” Some elderly actors were later pardoned by the regime and some managed to appear in small roles in Iranian films after twenty or more years. A couple of them died young, of heart attacks or brain strokes, having lost their hope and zest for life. When there is no hope there is no life. A few left Iran eventually, of which only a handful became successful abroad.

I remember arriving in Istanbul on a cold sunny day. The Iranian revolution had had a tremendous effect on Turkey. The Turkish government, too, had imposed a curfew, so we could drive only during the day and again stayed at random hotels at night. Our plan was to go to London, where I could stay with my aunt, by way of Yugoslavia and Germany.

We left Istanbul two days later and started heading toward Yugoslavia, but Mahdi could no longer drive. He was extremely sick with a kidney infection and could not sit up straight. I had to drive—since Aydin didn’t—and I found it funny that I had hardly driven in the city, let alone on country roads, and now I had to drive this strange international route. I did not even know how to park a car, yet I was driving one.

No matter how much I loved adventure, I was tired and homesick when we arrived in Yugoslavia. I was still praying that the Shah would return soon so we could make a U-turn and go home. But I had no choice but to move ahead, something I have never forgotten since I left my birth country.

SINCE MAHDI WAS
not feeling well, we decided to rest for two days in Yugoslavia. Our original plan was to go to Germany next, but Germany had officially announced that it now required visas for Iranians. Until then, none of the European countries had required visas for Iranians. Now the only way to get to England was to go through Italy and France, before they, too, required visas for us. The European governments were reevaluating their relationships with Iran by the minute while also trying to maintain a profitable oil connection with the revolutionary government.

We were on the road before we knew it. Mahdi was lying on the backseat again, I was driving, and Aydin was reading the map. We managed to get ourselves to Italy and decided that, no matter what, we would visit Venice. We knew that it might be our final chance to spend a few days together, and we could also let Mahdi rest.

Venice exuded love. Two days there was a luxury. It was like taking a break in the middle of a hurricane. For the first time in a couple of months, I was feeling safe and sane again. The three of us were enjoying a certain kind of happiness that does not come about until you’ve experienced the worst.

Having observed and absorbed the beauty of ordinary life once again made us realize how one takes life for granted in a peaceful and seminormal environment.

Aydin told me years later that he would never forget the eve of our arrival in Venice: “We were looking for a hotel. You were walking ahead of us in your long Russian fox coat. You had your backpack on, and your long brown curly hair was scattered over your shoulders. ‘Look at her,’ I said to Mahdi. ‘Is she not a combination of all the contradictions?’ Mahdi smiled, you disappeared in the fog, people were calling each other in the fog and all I could hear was an Italian man calling to his friend, ‘Alberto, Alberto. . . .’ ”

MAHDI WAS BEGINNING
to feel better, and we had to keep going, heading south to France. Though we were dying to know what was happening back home, there was still no news coming out of Iran. We did not have access to a television, nor did we speak French. The Ayatollah had shut down communication with the outside world, and foreign reporters were not welcome.

The French-Italian border was in chaos due to the high number of tourists traveling through it. It took hours to get to the checkpoint. The French officers did a thorough search and asked us to step into their office. It turned out that they were suspicious of the painting that Aydin had done of me. They actually thought it was a real iconic painting being smuggled into France with its face covered in wood. We had waited several hours for it to be examined by their experts before we were released.

We stayed a night in Nice, in the south of France, in a typical bed-and-breakfast, which looked like a miniature watchtower, in a semiround and narrow three-story building with spiral staircases, facing the ocean.

Next up was Paris. We arrived early in the morning, and the first thing we did was park our car on the Champs-Élysées and go to a movie,
Superman
, in a movie theater that was once bombed by the terrorist Carlos.

After the movie we realized that our car was gone. We told the local police and found out that our car had been towed. We decided to pick it up on our way to London the next day, knowing we would face the same problem again if we were to drive the car around town.

We checked into a nice hotel we knew of in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Aydin told me in private that Mahdi wanted to visit Pigalle, a tourist district with lots of sex shops and prostitutes on the side streets, but he needed Aydin to translate for him. I was not supposed to know.

They left, and I took a walk and eventually met Aydin and a couple of our friends, now expatriates, at our favorite place, Café de Flore, around the corner from our hotel.

Everybody was skeptical. They believed that whatever was happening in Iran was not going to end soon. One friend suggested I stay in Paris. I told him I preferred to live in London; I had traveled to London a couple of times and was familiar with its culture. Besides, my aunt lived part-time in London and I was hoping to stay with her first and then find a place of my own.

The next day we hopped a cab to the tow pound. We showed our passports and received a ticket, which we paid in cash.

“Where are you from?” asked the policeman, who had read the morning news.

“We are from Iran,” said Aydin.

“
Poohhh, Iran terminé
” (“Iran is finished”), said the police officer. We looked at each other in disbelief. Just what did he mean? We learned the army had at last joined the revolutionary government by announcing its loyalty to the Islamic revolution.

Up until then, our only hope was that the army would remain independent. It was obvious which side the country was shifting to, namely Muslim fundamentalism with the Ayatollah Khomeini as the supreme leader of Iran.

None of us felt like talking. The turning point of our lives had arrived and we had entered a new era.

Mahdi once asked me what I would do if I could not get financial help from my parents or Aydin. I said, “I would wash dishes, but I would be free when I am washing dishes and waiting on tables, or taking orders from hungry customers.”

We left Paris knowing the bridges that connected us to the past were falling one by one. Mahdi was worried he and Aydin might get into trouble when they went back. He was pacing back and forth, speculating about what might happen.

Aydin was quiet, but I could see he was worried, too. “I have lived a clean life and have done a lot for my country. Nobody can deny that. I love my country, and I am going back to it,” he said.

I felt bad for putting Aydin in such a horrible position. But it was too late. We were already in Calais, about to embark on a gigantic ship that would take us and my car to England.

We arrived in London in the early afternoon, and it was dark already.

We got ourselves a nice room, close to where my aunt lived. I called her early the next day, but she did not answer. My mother had told me that my aunt was going to London a few days before I left Iran. She should have been in London by now, unless something had kept her back.

I did not want to call my parents and put them and my brothers in harm’s way or have them worry about me. I had no clue what was happening to them but did not want to add to their misery.

Finally I phoned a friend I had met in London on my first trip to England with my mother back in 1971, when we vacationed and shopped. I asked his advice on finding a good place for me to stay. Ian, a young gentleman in his late twenties, had a great sense of humor and loved Woody Allen as much as I did. He had visited Iran right before the revolution and had to return to London when the turmoil started.

He gladly offered me a place to stay on the top floor of his house. It was a large room with a view of Fulham Road at the heart of London, in a charming three-story house on a street full of idyllic town houses. I did not know what to say. His generosity made me feel like crying. He became upset when Aydin mentioned renting the room and insisted there would be no charge.

I strongly believed I would be able to take care of myself, at least for a while, until things got back to normal.

AYDIN AND MAHDI
left after four days. Aydin and I kissed each other in a way that was similar to when I kissed him on his way to the office, pretending we would see each other soon, though our hearts were telling us we may not be able to see each other for a while. I had done my best to convince him and Mahdi to stay longer. Aydin was a great painter and also a great restorer, especially of calligraphy, and could find a good job in London. But Aydin was as determined to go back as I was determined to move ahead. They left and flew back to Iran; the airport was once again open.