Ali Bader - The Tobacco Keeper

Jehan was therefore always confused and tense in front of him, for she had no idea how to deal with him. But she later understood that the man was truly sick, and not just with her. He was a bundle of contradictions and fantasies. Jehan later learned that her respectable husband liked to sleep with prostitutes and had never felt that sex was in any way connected with love. Only prostitutes could arouse him. During this period, Ismail made the acquaintance of an Armenian prostitute in Al-Karkh called Beatrice. She found happiness in being his slave and in submitting to his whims and his desire to dominate. In turn, he found enhanced erotic pleasure in her submissiveness. The things he loved most about her were her stupidity, her sensuality and her lust for sex, drink and food. For him she represented pure carnal pleasure. Everybody knew that he used to beat her so hard that his hands would be bruised. The following day, Beatrice would walk on the street with the cuts and bruises he had inflicted on her. She became pregnant several times and each time he asked her with the utmost indifference to have an abortion.

Hurting Beatrice wasn’t enough for Ismail. He also went to great lengths to wound his wife, Jehan, by letting her know of his relationship with the Armenian prostitute. He made fun of her and humiliated her in front of his guests. He even threatened to leave her for the whore. At night, though, he cried at her feet and implored her like a child to comfort him.

So much for Ismail, Haidar Salman’s father-in-law, and his diverse affairs and contradictions. Were the people around him not right, then, to wonder where Haidar Salman had learned of the date of the coup? Could Ismail have been the source of the warning? Due to his wide contacts with merchants related to various international intelligence agencies, he must have known of the date of the coup. Or we could say that Haidar, with his marked analytical abilities, had simply predicted the event? He had always stated that if we gave legitimacy to arms, the bloodshed would not stop. Could we say also that the second character in Tobacco Shop had outstanding intuitive abilities?

Haidar Salman was once again in Tehran.

He couldn’t stay long inside the stone house with its wooden façade and poplar trees. He couldn’t stay in the beautiful house located in north Tehran, where he’d met Tahira for the first time a few years earlier. It was bitterly cold on that February day. Tehran was completely covered with snow and he felt moody and confused. What could he possibly do? At noon, Tahira called him. Her faint, sickly voice entreated him to travel to Moscow. She seemed to be in the depths of desperation as her tone of voice, her tears and entreaties indicated. She was overwhelmed by despair because she hadn’t received any reassuring letters from him. ‘You didn’t even call me when you arrived in Tehran,’ she complained tearfully.

‘Please forgive me. The events of the coup left me no time to call.’

No excuses could possibly convince her. She sobbed and sobbed, reproaching him for remaining in the country after the outbreak of anarchy. She begged him to join her in Moscow.

Moscow, he felt, would mean a real release from the state of depression into which he had sunk during the past few days. It would free him from the fear of death and torture, and would take him back to music, which brought so much joy and happiness to his heart. All he wanted to know at that moment was news of Nahida al-Said, who he was so anxious about. His hands and lips trembled with apprehension for her. But it was impossible for him to receive detailed news in Tehran. He spent two weeks filling in paperwork for his trip to Moscow, but because there were no direct flights from Tehran to Moscow on account of the Shah’s close ties with the West, he had to go via Prague or Budapest. There was also the SAVAK’s strict monitoring of the Iraqis living in Tehran, particularly those arriving after the coup. But finally he managed to evade them and left for Moscow, taking Hussein with him.

His wife trembled with joy as she stood wrapped in her fur coat. Her face was sallow and her body emaciated. As soon as she set eyes on her family, she cried out loud. The news from Baghdad had talked of bloodbaths.

Haidar took off his woollen coat and tossed it on the chair opposite. He dialled Kakeh Hameh’s number. The latter’s voice sounded faint over the line, as though he were a prisoner. Kakeh Hameh told him that Nahida al-Said had been hanged at the hands of the insurgents. Hekmat Aziz and his wife had also been murdered on the escape route to Basra. Haidar’s hand shook so much that he dropped the receiver. He cupped his hands to his face and broke into bitter tears.

He wrote the following passage to Farida: ‘With the help of the Tudeh Party, dozens of people managed to slip across the border with Iran into Soviet territory. Some of those who tried to enter the Soviet Union via the Caspian Sea died from the storms that capsized their boats. It’s worth noting that some Iranian opposition organizations, realizing the nature of the coup, offered to shelter the fugitives. These included the Melli Iran Party, which was nationalist and was part of the National Front led by the late nationalist leader Dr Mohammad Mosaddegh.’

From Moscow, Haidar wrote a long and significant letter to Farida. This was dated 23 March 1963, that is, more than a month after his escape from Iraq. He mentioned many details and referred to several important events. He believed that his views on the people, the rabble, on populism, mob mentality, revolution and the culture of coups had been proven correct by the latest coup and by the insurgents themselves. In other words, one coup engendered another, which in turn caused yet another, ad infinitum. Then he described in great detail the frightful events, including the image of the murdered leader lying on the floor of the broadcasting building, dressed in the same yellowish khaki suit and looking exactly the same as the day Haidar had seen him walking among the frenzied masses who crowded around his car to greet him.

‘The faces were distorted by love and the mouths gaped open repulsively; the same faces that were disfigured by anger and indignation as they murdered, lynched and hanged in the name of the new revolution.’

One of the puzzling facts of Haidar Salman’s life was that Tahira and Hussein returned to Baghdad while he stayed on in Moscow. Three months after his arrival, Tahira returned with her son to the house in Al-Karradah. According to Kakeh Hameh, it was her father, Ismail, who asked her to go back to Baghdad. In the meantime, Haidar Salman spent all his time developing his musical skills, composing the symphony he’d been dreaming of and giving concerts in Moscow and the other republics. He played in a small music institute near his apartment. He followed a strict regime of practice that extended from the early morning until the evening. By working like a slave, he tried to avoid thinking about anything. He felt utterly devastated by the colossal events that were taking place, especially the image of Nahida al-Said’s hanging, which he couldn’t banish from his mind.

One day, the fat, middle-aged, Russian director of the institute stopped him in the middle of the corridor. ‘Wouldn’t it be better Mr Haidar,’ she said, ‘if you practised the more technically challenging works of Schönberg?’ To this he had no response, for he didn’t care whose music he played. He played incessantly and unthinkingly, without paying much attention to the composer. True, he developed his skills and prepared for a number of concerts in Moscow and elsewhere. But he was a fugitive from the events around him, which he could neither comprehend nor decipher. Work was a form of escape from the images that haunted him. One day, he left early to go home. He walked slowly out of the building, buffeted by the wind. A large puddle left from the previous night’s heavy rain stood in his way. He skipped over it to avoid stepping in, without looking at the faces of the men and women coming from the building. He saw only their muddy boots, shabby trousers and wet coats. Before reaching the door to his apartment, he stopped in his tracks and lifted his head. The first phrase of the composition he wished to create leapt into his mind. Henceforth, he realized that he was looking for an untraditional form and was trying to avoid using old forms such as the sonata. He was looking to recombine the raw material of melody to inspire listeners and transport them to broader horizons. He was looking for an orchestral texture that was colourful and a harmonic language that was unique, employing counterpoint as an essential base in the harmonic structure, far from traditional forms.