Shahriar Mandanipour: Censoring an Iranian Love Story

“I am always very far from you. But following you, even at a distance, gives me the pleasure of knowing that I breathe the air you have exhaled. Sometimes, of course not often, I walk toward you from the opposite side of the street so that I can catch a glimpse of your face, to see whether you are happy or sad. I know all the expressions of your face. I can even tell by the way your long beautiful fingers hold your books whether you are tired or full of energy. Nights when I wander the streets, I sometimes pass by your big house. Don’t worry, I don’t stop. Not even for a second. I just walk by and look up at your window. I don’t like its heavy curtains. Why do you keep them drawn most of the time? Open them. Let the moon shine into your room. The ultramarine moonlight will create a beautiful new color on the walls. At night, when the light is turned on in your room and I know you are there, your room becomes my star. But this one star is different from all the other stars in the sky for me, because there I have a red rose that is different from all the other red roses in the world for me, and with all my heart I wish it happiness. I learned this from The Little Prince. Now that I have someone in my life for whom I wish happiness with all my being, even if I am never to be a part of that happiness, my life has found a beautiful new meaning. Now I can at last cope with people. I have even grown to like them, because I think among them there are people whom you like and who make you happy … It doesn’t matter who I am and what my name is. I used to be a student at Tehran University, too. I studied filmmaking. But I was expelled. As for my name, just pretend it is Dara. It is an alias that the writer who will one day write about my life will conjure up without giving it much thought. They will not hire me at any company or factory. I cover my expenses with the little money I earn painting houses. Whenever I paint a wall, I first write your name on it in ultramarine blue, and then I cover it with the color the wall is supposed to be. Just last month, I was painting a newly built house and the contractor showed up unexpectedly. He saw how all the walls had SARA written on them … We had a fight. He fired me … I will write the next letter in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The people who decide which books belong in libraries sometimes miss a few, or maybe they don’t understand these types of books. If you would like to write back, mark the letters in this book in blue ink. If not, in the Dracula letter I will let you know which book will have my next letter …”

Sara had to wait two weeks to borrow Dracula because someone had already checked it out of the library. She read the third letter, but she didn’t write back. Whoever was writing these letters really meant what he said and moved so ghostlike on the fringes of Sara’s life that despite her curiosity she couldn’t guess his identity. Sometimes, after walking home along her regular route from the university or the library, she would run up to her room and from the narrow opening in the heavy curtains she would look out to see who was following her. Pedestrians, young and old, walked by, but none of them showed any interest in her window … For seven consecutive nights Sara sat by the window and peered out at the sidewalk. But to no avail.

Sara liked the story of Dracula.

“Hello Sara,

“I really like your sneakers, the ones with the blue stripes. Your beautiful stride has a wonderful weightlessness to it when you wear them. I have named them Shirin Walking on Water, and sometimes I call them Ophelia. Has anything changed at the university that they now allow you to wear colorful shoes? Sometimes when I follow you down the sidewalk, I try to step in your footsteps.

“I wish I had the powers of Count Dracula. Not so that I could come up to your bedroom at night and suck your blood, but so that I could protect you for the rest of your life without you ever knowing.

“The supervisor at the public library has grown suspicious of me. He threatened that if I don’t watch myself he will have the patrols from the Campaign Against Social Corruption arrest me. I didn’t react to any of his insults. I was so angry my blood was boiling, but I even managed to apologize to him. If I were a Dracula I would have drunk his blood. So now when you leave the library, I wait awhile, and then I run to catch up with you somewhere near your home. I wish I could come to your class at the university and just sit in a corner and watch you. But at the university they consider people like me to be vulgar and filthy monsters. In Francis Ford Coppola’s film version of Dracula, which you can easily find on the black market, there is a scene in which Dracula, in love, turns Mina’s teardrops into emeralds in the palm of his hand. Even if I was once a hateful beast, even if I was once a Dracula, I have changed since I got to know you. I found a strand of your hair in the pages of The Little Prince. I don’t believe it was there on purpose, but it is now my treasure … This single strand of black hair means the world to me. You are my Shirin. I only wish I were your Farhad. I wish I had a mountain to carve into a castle for you with nothing but a pickax. Borrow Khosrow and Shirin.”

In many Iranian mystical poems, some of which date back almost a thousand years, the Sufi poet — most classical Iranian poets were Sufis— speaks of an earthly heavenly beloved, a beloved who can be a woman and yet is a representation of God. He uses many words to liken his beloved’s beauties to nature, fruits, and flowers; of course not directly, but by using familiar similes. It starts with her figure, which is often likened to a cypress tree. To understand this Iranian simile, do not bring to mind the extreme tallness of a cypress tree; instead look at the wideness of its bottom and the narrowness of its top. Then our poet will compare his beloved’s eyes to narcissus flowers or to the eyes of a gazelle, and if they are Oriental eyes, he will compare them to almonds. Her eyebrows, he will compare to bows that let fly the arrows of her eyelashes toward her lover’s heart. Her lips, if they are thin, he will compare to a narrow wisp often woven of silk, and if they are plump, he will compare them to rubies that of course are as sweet as sugar. Then the poet will liken his beloved’s breasts to pomegranates. The Iranian Sufi poet does not normally travel any farther down and self-censors the rest of his similes, allowing the reader’s imagination to travel south on its own. The few who have dared travel below their beloved’s breasts have again used the language of nature and erotic foods. Evidently, in those days Iranians were not familiar with the banana, or with the orchid, or for that matter with the flower in the film The Wall. About nine centuries ago, Nizami, a great Iranian poet, created two beautiful yet strange scenes in a famous romantic poem called Khosrow and Shirin. This narrative in verse is the love story of Khosrow, one of the greatest kings of Persia, and an Armenian princess named Shirin. Shirin has undressed and is bathing in a pond. Khosrow is out hunting and by chance arrives at the pond and starts ogling Shirin from behind the bushes: A bride he saw as ripe as the full moon…

…

In cerulean water like a flower she sat,

in cerulean silk up to her navel wrapped

….

From that flower’s substance the entire pond,

an almond blossom an almond at its heart

….

To each side her tresses she combed,

violets crowning a blossom she combed

….

She a treasure chest its treasure pure gold,

her wavy tresses a snake atop the chest coiled