Iranian Dream - Continued

In his college years, he used to read a lot of novels. He had devised a systematic approach to reading nonfiction, dividing the world literature into several linguistic regions: Russian, French, English, German, and, of course, Persian. He had started with Russian literature and had covered such great writers as Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Boris Pasternak, and Mikhail Sholokhof. With his breath held in his chest in awe, he had relived the relived the experiences of the characters of “War and Peace,” “Crime and Punishment,” Diary of a Madman,” and many other Russian Novels.

Then he had embarked on French literature. For over a year he had toiled in the coalmines of Northern France with Etienne of Emile Zola’s “Germinal;” he had experienced the bottomless pit of poverty with Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean of “Les Miserables;” and he had stood side by side with Meursault of Albert Camus’ “L’ Etranger” in his existentially perilous experience of free will. His encounter with German literature had taken quite an unexpected course, introducing him to philosophy. He was already familiar with “Doctor Faustus” through Christopher Marlow, but it was Goethe’s “Faust” that put him face to face with deeper questions about the nature and purpose of life. Indeed, it was German literature that had kindled his interest in reading nonfiction in an area of knowledge that he used to refer to as bullshit – philosophy.

And then suddenly, his happy times with literature – fiction or nonfiction – had been abruptly interrupted when he had been drafted into the army after he had completed his four-year college program. His sleepless nights, now, allowed him once again to resume his love affair with nonfiction. This time, he plunged himself into English literature. For him, English literature was anything written in English on the European or American side of the Anglo-Saxon world, regardless of whether the writer was British, Irish, Scottish, or American. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” had been given to him many years back by an Australian guy, whom he had met while he managed the Farsi language school at Sarcheshmeh Copper Mining Company in Rafsanjan and taught Farsi to a group of foreigners.

Sarcheshmeh was an open-pit copper mine, which had suddenly gained great significance when Salvador Allande had nationalized the Chilean copper industry. Almost overnight, American companies that had been thrown out of Chile, rushed personnel and resources into this remote southeastern corner of the Iranian Central Desert in their effort to isolate Allande and substitute Chilean copper in the world markets with cheap Iranian copper, or at least the promise of it.

Anaconda was the American company that had been contracted by the Iranian government to run the operations in Sarcheshmeh. Although Anaconda’s personnel were chiefly American, there were quite many Chilean, Russian, British, French, and Australian engineers and metallurgists that had been recruited to work in Iran. Since it was difficult to teach the Iranian workers of the mine to communicate in the many languages that this motley group of specialists spoke, it was decided that the easiest way was to try to teach them Farsi. Hamid was assigned to run the Farsi language school in Sarcheshmeh through Shokouh’s English Institute. That is where he had met the Australian guy, who had introduced him to Tolkien and “The Lord of the Rings.” He had found it quite a feat at the time. But now, during his insomniac nights, right after Niloo and the kids fell asleep in the single room that they could keep warm, he would turn on the bedside lamp and plunge himself into the mysterious world of Hobbits and elves and goblins.

Later, he relived Faust through Oscar Wilde’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray,” traveling deep into the darkest corners of the labyrinth, which is the human mind.

With George Orwell, he journeyed to “Catalonia,” visited the “Animal Farm,” and traveled to “1984,” which was now a future in the past. As he read the “Animal Farm,” he could not help but notice how promises that are expediently made to the public in the process of a revolution can be conveniently excluded when they no longer serve the Machiavellian purposes of the leaders of the revolution. He was amazed by the striking resemblance of the tyrannical governance in “1984” to what was going on around him in the Islamic Republic.

Aldus Huxley’s “A Brave New World” blew him out. It was eye opening. It taught him that one could feel free while in effect deprived of true freedom. It taught him how absence of awareness coupled up with physical content equals blissful ignorance. Masses that are blissfully ignorant happily submit to their rulers. In such an atmosphere, the desire to be different equates the will for freedom. Since everyone else is happy and content with the status quo, however, such non-conformity is viewed as abnormality and anomaly that is subversive and must be eradicated.

Work was no longer rewarding. His ideas were no longer received warmly. They were coldly heard and revengefully discarded. It was disheartening to see that someone else took credit for the very ideas that were so coldly rejected at meetings a week or two after Hamid had initially put them forth.

The war with Iraq seemed to have reached a turning point where, for the first time, Iranian Armed forces appeared to be putting the Iraqis on the defensive. The battle for Khorramshahr had been won. The Iraqi army had been pushed back across the Arvandrood – the part where the Tigris and Euphrates meet and pour into the Persian Gulf – into Iraqi territory. On their pursuit, the Iranian army, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Baseejis – the unofficial Islamic paramilitary forces that Khomeini referred to as the twenty-million-man army – had captured Far island and seriously threatened Basra, Iraq’s largest port city on the Persian Gulf. Saddam Hussein, who had previously used chemical weapons on the Iranians on a smaller scale, now started to bomb the Iranian positions with every mustard gas bomb that he had in his arsenal. Arial pictures of the battlefields depicted large areas of the southern Iran-Iraq border covered with a thick, lethal cloud that did not rain but death on every living thing that happened to be in the area. Tehran’s hospitals were filled with victims of chemical weapons, young men, sometimes in their early teens, whose faces and bodies had been unrecognizably charred as a result of exposure to chemical agents; men under plastic covers whose lungs had been irreparably damaged by the mustard gas.

Almost on a daily basis, tens of flag-covered coffins were paraded in the streets as hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people angrily chanted anti Iraqi, anti American, and anti Israeli slogans.

It is amazing how a common enemy can unite people, who may otherwise have opposing stances. Suddenly, even Hamid had become a staunch proponent of coalescing with the Islamic fundamentalists to defeat their common enemy, Iraq. If the United States had had any role at all in persuading Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in the first place, if the Americans were assisting Iraq in this invasion, as many believed they did, this must have been one of the worst foreign policy decisions ever made by an American administration, unless, of course, their true intention had been to strengthen the foundations of the Islamic Republic and prolong its rule over Iranians. Who knows? There are so many conspiracy theories out there, and each sounds so legitimate and reasonable that one is perpetually perplexed as to what the actual truth behind the events might be.




Time went by very slowly. Days at work were long and tedious with little incentive to do anything and the constant fear of persecution at the hands of the envious people, who wanted to make sure that Hamid would go down and stay down. He sat there at the small desk in the humble office that had now been given him trying hard to engage himself in some work that might take his mind off the listlessness and the paranoia that was gnawing at his soul while impatiently awaiting the working day to come to an end.

He had been offered to teach a class of Islamic scholars at an Islamic school – Ayatollah Motahhari School of Religious studies. This school was headed by Ayatollah Emami Kashani, a permanent member of the Council of Elites, a group of highest ranking ayatollahs trusted with the responsibility of appointing the leader of the Islamic Republic in case something happened to Ayatollah Khomeini, who had led the successful anti Shah Movement and was now the self-appointed leader. Hamid accepted the offer with delight simply because it kept him out of the school for three hours every day. He also accepted to tutor the Ayatollah’s son, who had secured a scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education and was scheduled to attend some college in England. Hamid was hoping that his acquaintance such a powerful and influential member of the regime would insure him against any harm his adversaries may want to cause him. After all, one phone call from this Ayatollah was enough to save a person from the noose of imminent hanging.

Why the students at this college needed to learn English remained a mystery to Hamid. One theory was that the regime intended to purge its consular missions around the world from the elements that had stayed on from the Shah’s time and replace them with its trusted and loyal adherents. If you asked the students themselves why they were studying English, the almost unanimous response was that you can neutralize your enemies’ plots only if you get to know your enemies well. Whatever the reason, Hamid was now teaching these guys for three hour every day and tutoring the Ayatollah’s son for two hours every other day. He was well liked by the Ayatollah, who frequently asked for him to go to his office after the class and translate an article or two from the Time or Newsweek magazines. This kept him away from the school, which had now turned into the source of his stress and anxiety, even longer.

It was late Fall in 1985. Tehran’s pale and sickly sun was hardly able to put a dent in the precocious cold that harbingered a bleak winter. The toxic gases emitted by the multitude of old and dilapidated automobiles, the smoke from the kerosene heaters and gasoil burning central heating units of houses, apartment complexes, and government buildings, coupled up with the exhaust from the many antiquated factories in the outskirts of the city caused a pollution which was trapped by the range of the mountains that sat majestically on the northern side of the city creating a murky inversion whose impact was exacerbated by the absence of the slightest breeze. Days slowly came to their end in a never-ending succession of demonstrations and parades around flag-wrapped coffins, which kept coming from the battlefronts. And when darkness engulfed the sprawling metropolis, nights presaged the death lottery, which sent people flying to the countryside to spend the night in their cars in anticipation of Iraqi air raids. Whose house will it be tonight? Where will the blind bombs land tonight? The greatest fear of all, though, was that Saddam Hussein might want to unleash his chemical arsenal on Iranian cities including Tehran. Radios and TV stations constantly warned people to be prepared for a chemical air raid.

Depression, anxiety, and paranoia continued to plague Hamid. His only sources of solace were the time that he spent with Rosa and Ramin before they went to bed in the evening, the books that he read in the meager shimmer of a reading lamp after everyone fell asleep, and the warm thought of Akabi, who was still in Larnaca with his husband and children awaiting their US visas.

It was at this time when Mohammad Sadighian, an old associate of Hamid from before the Revolution came back to Tehran from Italy to visit with his relatives. Before the Revolution, Mohammad had been among the teachers that liked and admired Hamid. Hamid had always been a polarizing figure. There had always been those that greatly admired him and his talents, and those who, for some reason or another, but mostly because they were jealous of him, just did not like him. Mohammad was among the first group. But maybe not! Mohammad was one of those guys who are able to maintain a cordial rapport with everyone. He did not care who was right or who was wrong. Most likely, it was his ability to get along with everyone regardless of what their beliefs were that had landed him a government job with the Ministry of Industries. A couple of years after the Revolution, Mohammad had been able to get a job with a government organization, which was created to oversee and manage the newly nationalized industries. While working there, he had managed to put himself in the good graces of the deputy executive manager of the organization through giving him private English lessons.

The Organization for Development of Nationalized Industries had offices in most major European cities through which it purchased and imported machinery and spare parts that were needed by the industries that it oversaw and managed. Most of these offices operated as privately owned and funded companies registered under the laws of the host country in which they were set up. Though the overt purpose of these companies was procurement of equipment and spare parts for Iranian non military factories, in effect they were the façade of a more overt operation whose main objective was to obtain weapons, ammunitions, and spare parts for the Iranian military machine in the black market. Due to the weapons embargo enforced by the United Nation, Iran was not able to purchase its military merchandise from the markets of Western European countries.

The employees of these companies were generally the nationals of the host country but the managing director was always an employee of the Organization assigned to the job by the deputy executive manager of the Organization, the very person whom Mohammad happened to give English lessons to. After the Revolution, the Mullahs and the Islamic fundamentalists that had taken over the government jobs had embarked on a campaign of purging state offices and administrations from the remnants of the Shah appointed technocrats and installing their own people in those positions. Although Mohammad was, in no way, a fanatic Muslim, his amicable attitude and willingness to be compliant and pleasing won him friends among people of opposing ideologies. He could agreeably listen to one person talk disagreeably about another, yet not be swayed positively or negatively when he had to deal with either one. He was not driven by what he heard from others. Rather, he was relentlessly focused on his own interests and goals. So when he saw his interest in working his way into the good graces of the deputy executive manager of the Organization for the Development of Nationalized Industries, a very religious man and a close ally and confidant of Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Mousavi, he did not hesitate to go out of his way to please. At first, the English lessons were limited to a couple of hours during office hours in the deputy executive manager’s office two or three day a week. Soon, though, Mohammad was going his boss’s home, a near mansion at the foot of the mountains north of Tehran, and gave him and his two children English lessons without charging them a penny. Two years later, when a manager’s position became available in one of the companies affiliated with the Organization in Milan, Italy, the deputy executive manager did not hesitate to offer the job to Mohammad:

- Do you speak Italian?
- No Sir, I don’t.
- Well then, you’d better start learning because I’m sending you to Milan.

And this is how Mohammad got the Milan job. Two months later, he was in Milan on a work visa, and soon after, his wife and children had joined him.

Mohammad and Hamid had never been best of friends. Hamid did not approve of Mohammad’s desire to befriend everyone. He believed in a principle which dictated that ‘the friend of your enemy is your enemy.” But Mohammad had always respected Hamid greatly, and, despite his relationship with people that Hamid did not necessarily have a high opinion of, had always remained amicable to Hamid.

Mohammad was now back in Tehran on one of his regular trips to report to the Organization, and to visit his family. Every time he was back in Tehran, he always made sure to stop by Shokouh’s and visit with his old associates there. When he saw Hamid, he could not hide his surprise at how down and depressed Hamid looked.

- What the hell is wrong with you? You look like shit. What’s been going on?
- Oh, not much! I’ve been going through some rough times at work. How’s your family, Mo?
- Everyone’s good. The kids have learned more Italian than I. they make fun of my mistakes. But we can talk about that when I come to your place to see Niloo and the kids. You do want to invite me for a dinner, don’t you?

And he did not wait for Hamid’s response. He continued:

- For now, let’s do something to cheer you up! How about a trip to Italy?

A trip to Italy? It sounded great. But it was almost impossible for an Iranian to get a visa to a European country. After the revolution, so many Iranians had sought refugee status in European countries and the US that these countries now refused to issue any more visas to Iranians unless they could prove that they were well established in Iran, owned a home or a business, and absolutely had to make the trip for business, for health purposes, or to visit with a family member. In seconds, after Mohammad’s suggestion, in his mind, Hamid reviewed all the possibilities that a trip to Italy could offer. Since the United States did not have diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic, Hamid would have to go to a neighboring country such as Turkey or the United Arab Emirates to apply for a US visa. The problem was that there were so many Iranian US visa applicants going to the US consulates in these countries that it often took days before a person could get inside for an interview. This was because Turkey did not require a visa from Iranians, and it was relatively easy to get a visa to go to the UAE. If he could go to Italy, he could apply for a US visa at the American Consular Mission in Milan. He would know in no time if he could travel to the States and unite with Akabi or not.

- Is this a suggestion or an offer? Are you inviting me to Italy? I’m sure Zeeba will be happy to see you. We can have you for a couple of weeks.

Zeeba was Mohammad’s wife.

- But how can I get a visa? Do you want to come to Italy for a vacation?
- Sure! Who wouldn’t?
- Don’t worry about the visa. I can send you a business invitation through our company; or, better yet, I can have a major Italian company like Franco Pecchioli invite you on business. Cheer up!
- Will you do that for me? You’re not just talking Mo, are you?
- No pal! I’m telling you; if you’re serious about taking a vacation to Italy, you can count on me. Start packing up!

Suddenly, a bright sun of hope rose from behind the black clouds of despair. Suddenly, the dream of holding tight that beloved body whose fragrance still filled up his nostrils was one step closer to realizing.

The days that followed were no longer as morose and dismal as the ones that he had left behind. Melancholic and paranoiac thoughts, which gnawed at his soul day in and day out, were now replaced with hopeful thoughts. And yearning prayers replaced pessimism. He had previously talked to Niloo about his plans to leave the country to get a US visa. He had talked to her about his intention to take the children to the USA. He had convinced her that there would be little or no future for Rosa and Ramin in Iran.

- What do they want to be? Look at our lives! Do you think this war is ever going to end? They will never end this war. If this one ends, they’ll pick up a fight with Turkey. Next is Afghanistan, or Pakistan. They see the continuation of their existence in constant conflict. Listen to their slogans! Is there a single country on the face of earth they haven’t wished death for? Down with America! Down with England! Down with Israel! Down with Russia! Look what they have done to the country! Death and devastation are the only gifts they have brought us. Have you read 1984? They act like they have just walked out of George Orwell’s 1984 and assumed the reins of power. There’s got to be a war going on somewhere so they can quell people’s liberties in the name of security. Look at Ramin! What’s he going to be in this God forsaken country? As soon as he finished high school, he’ll be drafted into the army; and before you know it, they’ll send him to the battlefronts. Look at all these flag wrapped coffins that they parade in the streets every day. Each one of these is an innocent Ramin, someone’s son, who was ripped away from his family either by force or through brainwashing propaganda, and sent away to die in vain for a false cause, for a lie! Do you think Rosa’s future will be any brighter than Ramin’s? Do you expect me to raise a daughter so that one day she can marry a man, who would have power of life and death over her? Do you expect her to become a second hand citizen forever doomed to stay behind all these layers of clothes in the name of religion. We’re raising her to believe that she is equal to everyone else in the society, and soon she will find herself in the tight noose of a patriarchy that expects submissiveness and obedience from women. How do you think she will come to terms with this double standard? No, I’m not about to let my children face the bleak future that this Islamic Republic has drawn for them. I am taking them to freedom. It may take some time; but then, nothing comes without a price. The price that we have to pay is a couple of years of separation. I’ll go and pave the way for the children and you to join me.

What he did not tell Niloo was that his future plans did not include her. Strangely though, Niloo did not envision herself in Hamid’s dreams either. It was as if she was seeking a peaceful and quiet way out of this marriage, too. Her mother’s persuasions seemed to have influenced her.

- You can still get out of this marriage, you know? Let him have his kids. Leave him and come back to your family. Your father and I will forgive you. Just think of the future that you’ll have.

Niloo’s father, Colonel Vajdi, was a retired army colonel, and her mother was a hairdresser, who owned her own hairdressing and beauty parlor. They were quite well-to-do. Now, of course, Colonel and Mrs. Vajdi were not Niloo’s true parents. Soon after their marriage, they had found out that Mrs. Vajdi could not have children. They had adopted Niloo from a very poor family in Mazandran, a northern province of Iran by the Caspian sea, in exchange for a small amount of money. At the time, it was quite customary for rich Iranian families, who could not have children of their own, to buy an infant from poor villagers. Frequently, girl children were put up for sale because they were thought of as liabilities. Boys were assets; they would grow up to help their family on the farm. They would marry and bring their brides into the household, who could then help with the chores and increase the family’s net worth by bringing in a dowry. Girls, on the other hand, ultimately belonged to another family – their future husband’s family. You had to feed them, clothes them, even spend money sending them to school those days, and then make sure they were given a sizable dowry so that you could marry them off to someone. It was all an investment that promised no returns. Many poor villagers, therefore, were willing to trade their daughters for a small amount of money. Some of these girls ended up working as domestics for their whole life in the household of their urban, so-called adoptive families. Many were forced into prostitution in brothels and bought and sold and sex slaves. And a few lucky ones wound up as truly loved, adopted children. Niloo appeared to be one of the lucky ones, though some of the stories that she recounted about her childhood seemed to reveal that during her early childhood, she had been occasionally treated by the Vajdis as a maid servant, or even worse, that she might have been sexually abused by Colonel Vajdi. Who knows? Niloo seldom spoke about that part of her life, which got Hamid thinking that there were things that she didn’t want him to know. At one point, she had said some things that had caused Hamid to believe that she might have actually been sexually molested. Later, though, she had vehemently denied those implications.

When Niloo and Hamid got married despite Niloo’s stepparents’ strong discontent, they had told Niloo that they were disowning her and depriving her of their inheritance. After they had been finally married in spite of the disagreements from Niloo’s parents, Hamid had overheard Niloo’s stepmom telling her that it was still not late to return:

- Just leave him! What have you seen in this guy? He’s not handsome. He’s not rich. He doesn’t come from a noble family. It’s not too late! I’ll talk to the colonel and convince him to put you back into his will. We’re old. How much longer do you think your Dad and I may live? You will have our fortune, all the houses, the Chaloos property, the lots in Karaj; everything will be yours. Come back to your family.

The persuasions had never ceased even after the children had been born. Niloo had never seriously acted upon them, but, every time she and Hamid happened to have an altercation about something, she could not help but consider what her mother kept telling her. Now that Hamid was talking about going abroad, she thought it would be a safe way of getting out of her commitment without feeling too guilty.

The next two months went by in a flash. Soon after Mohammad returned to Italy, he had Sacmi, an Italian company specialized in the manufacturing of single and double channel roller kilns and other ceramic and porcelain production materials and machinery telex a letter of invitation in Hamid’s behalf to the Italian Consular Mission in Tehran. A copy of the telex was also mailed out to Hamid. Mohammad had fulfilled his end of the bargain. Now it was up to Hamid to prove to the consulate that he was affiliated with an Iranian trades company, which planned to purchase some equipment and machinery from Sacme for their clients in the Iranian porcelain and ceramic industries.

This was easy. A friend of Hamid had a registered trades company and was willing to provide letters stating that his company was sending Hamid to visit Sacme in Italy, and that he was authorized to enter into preliminary negotiations with them regarding the purchase of equipment, tools, and machinery. This interest was in fact real. Hamid’s friend, Ali Moradi, who owned the trades company, did, indeed, want to experiment with the import of machinery and equipment for ceramic and porcelain factories. Most of the machinery that these factories were currently using were old ones inherited to them from before the revolution, and the demand for replacing them with new and more modern machinery was quite great. Front load kilns manufactured by Sacme were specially in demand.

In the days that followed, Hamid sold his car and a couple of Persian rugs. He raised enough money to buy his round trip ticket to Milan. He also purchased a round trip ticket from Milan to Seattle. Obviously, he did not intend to use the return ticket, but having a return ticket was one of the conditions of a visa. Then on a cold Monday morning, right after the consulate’s Christmas holidays, he put on his nicest suit, wore a tie, which was entirely against the Islamic dress code for men, and went down to the Italian consulate to take his place in the line of applicants who also hoped to get visas.

The Italian embassy and Consular Mission in Tehran are ironically located in a narrow alley way of France Street. When he got there, there were already five other people in the line. He expected a much longer line but later learned that the consulate issued only business visas on Mondays. “I thought there would be a lot more people here. I guess it’s my lucky day,” he said to the person in front of him in the line.

- You’ve got to see the line on Tuesdays when they issue tourist and visitors visas. People sleep here from the night before. So what are you going to Italy for?
- I have an invitation from Sacme to look at their new front load kilns.

By this time, Hamid had taught himself quite a lot about the ceramic and porcelain industries. He was able to answer many technical questions about different kinds of kilns, molds, glazing materials, etc. over the past few weeks, he had given up his adventures into the literary world of novels and stories and had immersed himself into literature on ceramic and tile manufacturing. He had been told that the visa officer at the Italian Consulate might test his knowledge of the area of industries for which he was traveling to Italy. In reality though, it happened to be much easier than he had thought.

As he was waiting for his turn to go inside for the visa interview, a Revolutionary Guards’ truck pulled up. One of the guards got out of the truck and walked directly towards Hamid.

- Are you waiting here to get a visa?

“Yes,” responded Hamid completely taken aback.

- Well, you might want to give this to the consul as a gift from us!

He said this as he cut Hamid’s tie in half with a pair of scissors and put the cut half on Hamid’s palm. He then headed back toward the truck as he and the other three guardsmen were jeering loudly and triumphantly.

For a moment, Hamid was dumbfounded and unable to speak. Other people in the line were uttering angry remarks displaying their disdain with what had just happened:

- Bastards!
- Uncivilized villains!
- Can you believe that these scoundrels are running the country? No wonder we are as miserable as we are! A nation that is run by these bastards could not be any better than what we are today. Look at us! We have to stand here in the cold for hours before we can get a visa interview. Even then there’s no guarantee that we can get a visa. Before the Revolution, all you needed was a passport. You could get on the plane and go any country in Europe without a visa. You were respected everywhere. They would let you in delightfully. No questions asked! Look what these bastards have done to us.

Hamid was staring at the cut half of his tie. He was still in a state of shock when the consulate door opened, and someone from inside said, “Sir, Mr. Kyani, can you come this way, please?” as he pointed in Hamid’s direction.

- Who? Me?
- Yes, sir, you! You can come inside now.
- But it’s not my turn!

“Non ce problema!” said the person who was asking him to come inside in Italian. He then translated himself, “It’s not a problem, sir! You can come in. The consul will see you now!”

Obviously they had witnessed what had happened outside the consulate doors through their security cameras. The only question Hamid was asked was how long he planned to stay in Italy.

- Ten to fifteen days.
- Enjoy your trip to Italy. Have you been to our country before?
- About sixteen years ago! I drove through Northern Italy to Yugoslavia. I was on my way back to Iran in a car that I had purchased in France. It was a memorable trip.

It had been his first car, the first car that he actually owned, though, prior to making this trip to Europe and buying it, he had been driving a friend’s VW bug for about a year. The bug belonged to Jamshid Navai, whose sister and Hamid had been dating for a while. When Jamshid had been arrested for his political views and locked up in the Evin prison, his car had been abandoned somewhere north of Tehran. Panti gave Hamid the keys and asked him to go pick it up. For as long as Panti and Hamid continued to date, Hamid drove the bug. About a year after he started college, Hamid had saved enough money to buy his own car. Everyone said that it would be cheaper to go to Europe, but a car, and drive it back to Iran. They said it would be both fun and economical.

At the time, Hamid had a couple of friends – a married couple – who had travelled this route before and knew their way around in Europe. The three of them had flown to Paris, where Hamid purchased a tomato red Peugeot 104, and then drove back to Iran through southern Germany, northern Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The only leg of the journey that they had been warned about was Turkey. Not only were the roads in Turkey notoriously bad, but the Turks generally held a grudge against their eastern neighbor, Iran, which had been thriving at a rapid pace thanks to the oil revenue, while the Turks struggled with an unprecedented inflation and a double digit unemployment rate. Going through the customs at the border driving into Turkey from Bulgaria had not been much of a challenge. Hamid’s well-travelled friends had already warned him to make sure that the customs officer would find a fifty-dollar bill tucked in the pages of his passport when he handed it to him for an entry visa. The difficult part was driving through the farmlands that spanned across Turkey from Ankara to the Iranian border. There had been many reports of farmers and peasants throwing rocks at the brand new automobiles transiting through Turkey on their way to Iran. As you drove through the countryside, you could see farmers standing on the roadside bringing their index and middle fingers to their lips in a smoking gesture. They asked for cigarettes from the passing cars. If you were smart enough to throw out a couple of cigarettes their way, you could drive through safely. If you ignored their demand, you could have rocks hurled at your brand new European car; or you could have spades and rakes landing on your hood. Knowing this, Hamid and his friends had saved the empty packs of all the cigarettes that they had smoked throughout their journey. They had filled them up with crumbled newspaper. As these Turkish farmers, they would throw an empty cigarette pack out of the car window. You could see the peasants racing to get the pack. By the time they found out that the packs were empty, they were long gone.

- Well, Mr. Kyani, we wish you a successful trip to Milan. You have a thirty-day visa. It should be enough for anu business negotiations or possible transactions.

Thanks to the tie that the Revolutionary guardsmen had cut off, hamid got his Italian visa without any difficulty.




Milan was as beautiful as it had been sixteen years ago when Hamid and his married friends had driven to it in his spanking new, tomato red, Peugeot 104. The Duomo Cathedral sat majestically at the central square, which was now surrounded by tall buildings that housed department stores, government offices, and private companies. Even on those late January days, when the city had not yet awakened from its winter slumber, every evening, the square came to life with musicians, street painters, the wondrous fire eater, and all kinds of street vendors.

On the third day of his stay with Mohammad and his family, Hamid went to the US consulate to apply for a US visa. He wanted to get it out of the way and simply enjoy the rest of his stay in Italy. He needed to know as quickly as possible whether he could materialize his dream of going to the United States and uniting with Akabi or whether he had to go back to Iran and attempt to adapt to the life in the Islamic Republic. It was not so much a choice which he had any power of making. It was entirely outside the realm of his deliberate options. It wasn’t like coming to a fork in the road and being able to make an advertent choice which road to take. It was more like putting your hand in a bag and putting a card or a marble out on which your future had been inscribed.

The US consular office was located on Via Principe Amedeo, on the fifth – or maybe the sixth, Hamid did not quite remember – of a tall building. Up until the minute he walked out of the elevator and into the lobby of the consulate office, he was quite calm and composed. He was a little pensive but not at all anxious. When he stepped into the rather large waiting area of the visa office, his heart started pounding. There were several rows of seats and, right in front of them, was a wall with four glass windows through which visa officers conducted their interviews with visa applicants. The dominant color of the walls and the office furniture in the waiting area was a combination of different shades of blue starting from baby blue to navy blue all the way to sapphire blue. The combined effect of these blue shades was a cold chill that suddenly ran down Hamid’s spine. He could not tell why. He was quite prepared for the interview. He had everything that was needed: a letter of invitation from his brother, his roundtrip ticket to Mt. Vernon, where his brother lived, letters from Shokouh’s and Ali Moradi’s trading company indicating that he was a well established professional back in Iran, and about $3000 in cash to prove that he could pay for his expenses during his stay in the United States. He had not seen his brother, Farid, for over eight years. He just wanted to have a visit with his brother and return to Iran.

- Why do you need to travel to the US?
- I haven’t seen my brother in eight years. I just want to have a visit with him.




Farid and Hamid had never been on the best of terms. Farid had left Iran with his wife a year before the revolution. He and his wife had left for Spokane in Washington on student visas to study at Eastern Washington University. Hamid was not entirely happy that their father had accepted to pay Farid’s tuition and all the expenses of his journey and stay in the United States. He had not asked his father for money since he got his teaching job at the Air Force Language Center. He had never expected any help from his father. But this should not mean that his father could completely wash his hands off any responsibility toward him and simply spend all his money on Farid, especially since Farid was now tagging his wife along, her expenses also fell on their father. This was not fair.

- Son, Farid is your brother. If he complete his education and comes back here, he will be the pride of the family. He will be your brother. You will be as proud of him as everyone else.
- Why can’t you send me to the US?
- But you’re a successful person here. You have a good job. You’re making good money. You’ve guaranteed your future. You don’t need my help. Do you need help? Do you need money? Tell me son, and I’ll help you if you do.

Hamid did not need any help from his father, but at the same time, he didn’t think that Farid and his wife deserved all this help and attention from his father. “Why shouldn’t they stay here and become successful as I have,” he thought. It was not fait to him or to his younger brother. He hated Farid’s wife. She was such a big showoff.

A year after they had left Iran, the Revolution happened. About six months after the Revolution, they returned to Iran namely because they missed the family, but mainly because they wanted to get more money from Dad. They got all the money that they could get and never returned again. Back in the States, with the money that they had gotten from Dad, which was all his life savings, they bought a house, they financed a couple of cars, and a year later, right after their baby girl was born, they had a big fight over Farid cheating with an American girl, who later became his wife, and divorced. The house had to be sold in the divorce settlement, the cars were repossessed, and Farid had to declare bankruptcy. Thankfully, by this time, Farid had completed his graduate MBA class at Eastern Washington University, so Dad didn’t have to send him money any longer.

Once Farid and Mina – Farid’s wife - were divorced, Mina left Spokane with their baby girl and went to her brother in Phoenix. Farid never saw his daughter again. A couple of months later, he married Angela, the American girl, over whom he had divorced Mina. He seldom called to see how or what the rest of the family was doing in Iran. He called only when he needed money. Somehow, even with an MBA, he was never able to secure a decent job in Spokane. As long as the money was coming from Iran, he did not even attempt to find a job. At first, his excuse was that he was still on a student visa and did not have a labor authorization permit. When he married Angela, he applied for resident status through marriage to an American citizen and soon afterwards received his Green Card. Even then, though, he never seriously looked for a job. He worked as a ski patrol in Mt Spokane ski resort during the winter months but entirely depended on food stamps and cash assistance that Angela was able to get from the Department of Health and Social Services because she already had a daughter from her first marriage and was now pregnant with their first child.

In 1982, one day, the phone rang at Hamid’s parents’ home. It was Angela. She was calling to tell them that Farid was sick in the hospital with meningitis, and that they needed money for the hospital bills. Hamid’s parents did not speak English but somehow they had been able to give Angela Hamid’s number in Babolsar, so she could call and talk to him. And this was the first time that Hamid talked to Angela.

- Farid is really sick. You should come here for a visit maybe. There’s no guarantee that he will leave the hospital alive. Even if he does, there’s a good chance that he may be disabled for life.
- You do know that it is very difficult for any one of us to get a visa to the United States.
- I know. He has told me. But the main reason why I am calling is that we need money for his hospital bills.
- How much do you think you will need?
- The bills are running upward of $15000, and we do not come up with some cash, they will stop his treatment.

Farid had a feeling that somebody was there beside Angela telling her exactly what to say. But at the time, he was a lot more concerned with his brother’s health and well being to be able to think about anything else. Nor did he know that they would not throw anyone out of the hospital in the US just because they were not able to come up with cash.

- Well, Angela, I’ll tell Dad exactly what you have told me, and we’ll see what we can do. It was really nice talking to you. You guys should try to call us more often and not only when you need something.
- You’re right. It’s all Farid’s fault. To his credit, though, he is always talking about you guys. He loves you very much. Making phone calls to Iran is so expensive, and we are not rich people.
- I can understand, but all you have to do is ring us up and simply say that you want us to call you back. I’m not going to keep you on the phone any longer. You must have already spent quite a lot of money talking to me. I’ll talk to Dad right after I hang up with you. Say hi to Farid for me.

Hamid called his father and gave him the news.

Hamid and his father co-owned the house in Babolsar in which Hamid and Niloo had been living since after the Revolution. It was a Spanish type villa in a township close to Babolsar. Besides wanting to keep a low profile, the other reason why Hamid had chosen to live in Babolsar was that he did not have to pay rent. Furthermore, most of the vacant villas in this township had been confiscated by the Islamic government under the pretext that their owners did not need them, or they would be living in them. The Islamic regime did not recognize the right to own a cottage on the beach. Either you lived in the house or it would be confiscated and leased at a low rent to a family who needed a place to live. Now that Farid needed money in the United States, Hamid’s father wanted to sell the villa and send his half of the money to the US.

- But the market is so bad at this time, Dad. It’s not a sellers’ market. We’ll lose money if we sell now.
- Son, Farid needs money. He is out there all by himself with no-one to help him. Does he know anyone there? Does he have family there? Who can he go to? We are the only people he can count on. I have to do this, son.

In no longer than a month, the villa was sold and the money, including Hamid’s share, was sent to Farid so that he could pay his hospital bills. It was only later – years later – that Hamid found out that the whole meningitis thing was a scam to get money. Farid had never been sick.




- Have you ever been to the States before?
- Yes, once in 1974.

It had been right after his military service. He had been drafted into the army as a second lieutenant after he had graduated from college. Once boot camp had been over, he had been assigned as a translator/interpreter to the ARMISH/MAAG, which was the title under which the US military advisors operated in Iran. The person to whom he reported was a US army major – a Major Hoffmaster – who was part of a group of US advisors in charge of computerizing the Iranian Army Logistics. What they were trying to put in place was a system, which could track US military cargo from the port of departure to the port of delivery and later to its depot in Iran. So many errors had been made in the past with the delivery of military cargo to Iran that a computerized tracking system had become absolutely vital. Ammunition purchased by Iran had been unloaded in Taiwan. Tanks headed for Iran had been delivered to Mexico. And cargo long thought as lost or missing had turned up in military depot in Saudi Arabia. This had to stop. That’s where Major Hoffmaster came in. Computerization of Iranian Army logistics would allow for the tracking of military cargo at every given point of time. The last place where a cargo had been tracked would then be the first place to look for it in case it went missing and did not make it to its destination in Iran. Hamid’s job was to travel with Major Hoffmaster and his crew to various land, sea, and air ports of entry throughout the country and translates what local army logistics personnel said about their standard operating procedure when they received US military cargo.