The Alley of Love and Yellow Jasmines (9 page)

I will never forget the scene at our home when we got there.

As we opened the door, we could see an old lamp lying on the table, the antique embroidery gone, and the door to our bedroom wide open.

“My calligraphy collection!” Aydin cried.

We rushed to the bedroom and found it a mess. Aydin’s suits and my clothes were scattered everywhere. My jewelry and his calligraphy collection were both gone.

We called the police and were told that they would send someone over in two days, when the long holiday was over. I asked them about the thief’s fingerprints, and they said the fingerprints would not disappear.

“Just don’t touch anything,” they said.

We sat in the hallway, speechless. I looked at Aydin, and he seemed like a warrior who had lost his sword.

We called Shamim Bahar, an old friend of Aydin’s. Shamim was a true thinker by any measure, and the kind of friend who would be right there to help us.

Before his arrival, I decided to sit down and write the names of our visitors, associates, and even friends—anyone who had been in our apartment—on a piece of paper.

There was no sign of forced entry. In fact, nothing was broken, and besides, what kind of a burglar knew what those handwritten pieces were?

Aydin helped me eliminate those on my list who obviously could not have committed the crime. Finally the names of our chief suspects were left on the paper.

There were two people: Shirin’s husband and the son of the prominent jeweler. They were both addicted to drugs and needed the money badly. And the son of the jeweler had access to buyers who would want the collection and the jewelry.

Aydin was skeptical. He thought I had read too many Sherlock Holmes stories. But I felt certain that they had done it. We called for a cab when Shamim got there, and the three of us started the search for our suspects. I didn’t know where Shirin’s husband lived, but I knew very well where the other guy lived. His family’s mansion was in a posh neighborhood in northern Tehran.

We told the cabdriver what had happened, and he got excited.

“So, we are now looking for the bad guy? Ha, just like in James Bond movies?” he asked.

We got to the jeweler’s house at three in the morning. I asked everybody to sit in the car and wait for me. After all, I had known this guy since we were teenagers. I rang the bell a few times, and when I did not get any response I started banging on the tall, green iron doors.

Then I heard a commotion and the doors opened. My suspect stood behind his sister, shivering like a sick bird. I told him I’d rather talk to him alone, and he took me to his room.

Still shivering, he sat next to the heater. I looked at him for a while and then said, “Why? Why did you do it? Our neighbors have seen you.” I bluffed. “You know my uncle is in the police department? Think of your poor father. I promise you I will not press charges against you, nor will I ever mention your name, if you tell me the truth.”

He confessed: “It was Shirin’s husband’s idea.” They had synchronized their watches to meet at a certain time and waited on the corner until we left our home. Then they got in with a key that had been copied from the one I had lent to Shirin while she was staying with us. He said he was supposed to find buyers for the stolen goods, but none of the stuff was at his place. He could not bring it home for fear his father might become suspicious.

He said he did not know where Shirin’s husband lived, but we both knew he lived (for now) close to the Volkswagen showroom in downtown Tehran. He drew a map of the area, as he remembered it, and I left him alone. To say the least he was no longer my friend, and I never saw him again.

Aydin was stunned, as were Shamim and the driver. Our next stop was the showroom. I tried to remember the night we gave Shirin’s husband a ride and I had noticed a flower shop around the corner.

That was it. We drove closer to the flower shop. There was a policeman on duty outside the showroom. We told him what had happened and asked him to watch for Shirin’s husband, in case he saw us and decided to run away. Then I asked the driver to park on the other side of the alley and to keep an eye on the situation. I stepped into the dark alley, hoping to find the building he lived in, and I did.

He was sheepish and started apologizing right away. He said he did not know what got into him. I told him I was willing to forget about the whole thing if he gave me my stuff back, including the key to our house. He did so right away. He gave me back everything that they had stolen, and we never pressed charges, nor mentioned their names ever again.

I got back to the cab with our belongings, and everybody was happy—except the policeman, who was hoping to arrest the guy and make a name for himself. We tipped him and got home at six-thirty in the morning. It was not only the longest night of the year but also the longest night of my life.

We slept peacefully into the next day, knowing everything was back in its rightful place.

OUR FIRST LANDLORDS
had sold the complex to a man named Mr. Manafi. He was a fanatical Muslim. His wife was home most of the time but did not come to the door or show her face to strangers. She was only allowed to go out with him covered in a chador, also known as a
hijab
.

One morning Aydin was stopped by our new landlord on his way to work.

“You and your wife had a blast last night, did you not, Mr. Aghdashloo? We kept hearing all the commotions through the walls till morning and could not sleep,” he said.

Aydin was deeply offended. But we had certainly grown out of our sweet little apartment and needed a bigger place. So we started shopping around, mostly in northern Tehran, where the weather was cooler and the houses were more secluded.

13

Home Sweet Home

A
ydin and I moved into our own house in northern Tehran in 1974. It was a cozy three-bedroom abode with a charming front yard accentuated by a small round fountain in the middle. A huge basement and a small but lovely backyard were great bonuses.

The moment I saw the house, I knew I was going to ask Aydin to add a second floor for his mom. She was getting older, and Aydin was literally the light of her life. Living together would have made our lives easier. She would be able to be with Aydin at all times, and he would not have to make the long commute to her place every other day.

Aydin’s mother, Nahid, moved into the second floor next to his atelier and extensive library, which now contained three thousand books, most of them leather bound. Mrs. Nahid, as I used to call her, was truly an angel. She was petite, very pale and skinny, with a pair of blue-green eyes, and dyed black hair. Her unique beauty and elegance made her stand out at the age of seventy-five.

Every morning she put on light makeup and a nice simple dress, as though she were going somewhere. She was kind and liberal and did not mind having me hang around in my pajamas.

Aydin was still working at the advertising agency and would come home early. He would chat with me and his mom for a while and then retire to his atelier, where he would paint and read. I loved sitting next to him sometimes, watching him paint with the utmost precision. I’d wash his brushes and observe his sorcery as he’d dissolve a small piece of gold paper in a special liquid or water and turn it into pure gold paint, which he used to give that authentic and majestic look to his icons. Aydin was an alchemist.

Living in a house required a daily housemaid, and we found a great one. Her name was Zari, and we called her Mrs. Zari. She was in her midthirties and had two young children. She was religious, wore
hijabs
, and prayed a few times a day. At six feet, she was uncommonly tall for an Iranian woman. But she was pretty, feminine, round and plump, with a pair of bright eyes that went perfectly with her smile.

She lived in the area and could walk to our house, rather than stay over. I preferred a daily helper who could cook, too. But Aydin decided to hire a real cook. His name was Hassan, a young man in his twenties, who was extremely shy and religious.

The moment Mrs. Zari walked into my life, I knew I did not have to worry about anything. She took care of me and the house. She made sure that I ate my breakfast. She looked over my wardrobe and took care of all the cleaning and ironing. Then she would run around the house to make sure everything was in proper order.

MEANWHILE ASHUR WAS
invited to stage a play at the Persepolis Art Festival in 1976, for which he wrote
Tonight, There Is Moonlight
, a seven-act play revolving around a corrupt pope and his slaves.

The stage was built in the shape of a huge cross, and the audience sat along its sides. Ashur played a tyrannical pope, taking after Velázquez’s
Portrait of Pope Innocent X
, and we, the members of the workshop, played his slaves. I played the mediator, the pope’s angel.

The role earned me a great review in
Plays and Players
, a prestigious magazine in the United Kingdom. A few European and American journalists and critics had traveled to the festival as well. It was the first time my work had been seen by foreigners.

TEHRAN WAS STILL
under construction just as the Shah had pointed out to me years before. More old houses were demolished in favor of apartment buildings. More mansions were erected in northern Tehran, and there were thousands of high-end new cars on the roads, driving on newly built highways and renovated boulevards.

More luxurious hotels, restaurants, galleries, cinemas, and private clubs were opening; public parks were growing and so was the number of people walking through them. Aydin had introduced me to his friend Kamran and his wife, Shahla, an architect graduate. Shahla and I had a lot in common and became eternal friends overnight. With the 1973 oil crisis, the Middle East accumulated enormous wealth after OPEC increased oil prices drastically. They were getting back at the industrial powers, including the United States, to regain control of their vital commodity.

The Shah was happy to have taken a step toward the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry by joining OPEC and proud to have proven his loyalty to the United States and Europe by refusing to join OPEC in the first place. In 1974 the price of oil doubled in less than a year to $40 per barrel. (Today it costs $107 a barrel.) The Shah was never more popular in his lifetime, both inside and outside Iran.

Iranians were savoring the moment. We, too, were swept up in the current.

14

Pot Lady

B
y this time my oldest brother, Shahram, was in school at the National University of Iran studying architecture. He would eventually go to Oxford to get his Ph.D. and later practice architecture in England. Shahriar, the frog dissector on the beach, was now at the National University of Iran as well, working toward a doctorate in medicine. My younger brother was not interested in a particular career. He was a straight-A student in high school and declared, “I’m just going to be an ordinary man.” My mother and father were now in their late forties and finally, after a two-year embargo—my father was aghast that I had become an actor—they came to see my plays and were quite pleased by my performances.

I WAS INVITED
by the “Kids of the Street” theater group, which was pretty well known for its depiction of real life on the streets of Iran, to be in one of their plays. It was headed by Ishmael Khalag, who wrote and directed his own material.

Khalag was a phenomenon. He came from the slums and learned playwriting in the slum teahouses, an aged version of today’s star box, where the ill-fated men gathered to rest, chat, and smoke hookah or hand roll cigarettes. He focused on the faces of the poor and heard their stories. Khalag was very humble, despite all the great reviews he received.

He invited me to portray the lead in his play
The Pot Lady and Mash Rahim
. It had been running successfully in the workshop’s repertoire for years. This was my first truly Iranian play, portraying a real woman from the gutter. It takes place in a teahouse, where a street vendor, a bricklayer, and an onion seller are the regular customers.