Khan-Agha, another tale

Persian

Thursday, December 26, 2008

I was in metro, thinking about Khan-Agha, to whom I bid farewell today at Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery. To the one who couldn’t bear more, what we call life.

A young boy with a bag full of pocket tissue paper came into the car: Ladies! it’s just 200 tomans (40 cents). It’s very cheap; 200 tomans won’t make you poor.

…

And the women bought some tissue paper from him. The woman who was sitting beside me asked him: 

-Where are you from?

He said, with his eager face:

-I’m from Mashhad

-Where’s your father?

-He’s working as a labourer.

-Do you go to school?

-Yes, I go to night school.

-Which grade are you in?

-Second.

-High school?

-No, because I started school late. I couldn’t go earlier.

As he was talking, he sold tissue paper and put the money in his pocket. He dropped a banknote. Someone pointed to it; the other one said: a cheapjack should take care of his money; another said: get yourself a bag so that you don’t lose your money; and the boy said: I should buy a waist bag.  

The woman beside me who was watching this scene said: Attaboy! This is what a young boy should be. Young boys these days just think about their hairstyle, eyebrows and their look. They don’t know what earning means, they just spend. This is a man! He will soon be a man. Bravo!

I was thinking: Yes, he will soon be a man; but why should he be a man soon? Is it good to be man soon? When should he be a child then?

Khan-Agha soon became a man, very soon, when he sold tea in the park; the very moment when he wanted to remain a child, he became a man; the very moment when he wanted to remain an adolescent, he became an adult. The time when he wanted to be happy and dance, he became a man. The time when he wanted to fall in love and give another taste to his life, he became a man, a man that the society wanted him to be; a man that the traditions wanted him to be. He became a man... a man... he became a man without even wanting to become a man. He became something that he didn’t want but realised that he didn’t want to be what he was, so he decided not to be. He didn’t reach where he wanted but shattered what he didn’t want. This was the only way he knew or maybe the only way that was left for him.

Siavash

Persian

He was sitting on a bench in the classroom. His legs not long enough to reach the floor, they were dangling in the air. One of his hands was on the desk as he rested his head upon it. He wore a shirt, two size bigger than him. His other hand went into the pocket of his shirt, every now and then to bring out some nuts to eat. I was rehearsing a play with the children in the class while he was sitting just like that. He was looking down, not at us, but he was there. If I told the children to close their eyes and imagine, I could see that Siavash also closed his eyes while his mouth was moving as he chewed his nuts and imagined...

Siavash was such a little child, maybe 3 or 4 when I saw him. He smelled alcohol in the mornings back then. He couldn’t walk steadily and staggered. He was very naughty; even the older kids couldn’t handle him. Sometimes Siavash smelled opium; the same days that he sat calmly at the desk, his legs dangled in the air, his eyes closed as he imagined...

Siavash was one of the Iranian children. One of those who sometimes was and sometimes wasn’t there. The days that he was there, he smelled strange, played impishly... he sometimes delved into his dreams in the theatre class. Sometimes I wished that after saying ‘imagine...’ a cloud appeared above Siavash’s head. I wished I could see that cloud unraveling what was inside the mind of this 5-year-old kid, what was he imagining?

Siavash was and was not there. When he grew up, he became the ringleader, managed to gather some kids as followers and clamoured in the neighbourhood; he had become master. Not only he smelled strange, but also did strange deeds. Nevertheless nothing made this kid less sweet. His hands were always wounded. Sometimes the wound was so deep that he wrapped it with a rag; other times it was just on the surface and he left it open. He said: “it will heal itself.”

There was a knife scar on his face; tiny marks here and there but there was a major scar marked by a knife.

 

One day, close to the New Year, he entered the school wearing a loose red garment, his face blackened as he was holding a tom-tom and a tambourine. He had become ‘Haaji-Firouz’; he played out of tune, laughed and sang. His red cloth was too big for him. He had come to show his new occupation. Siavash played in the middle of the streets, at the crossroads and in the alleys. He played and sang; he stopped the cars and danced. His daily practice was to play tom-tom and caper about here and there. He gathered with his friends and practiced. One played, another danced. Sometimes they went to the streets in a group, sometimes alone. At nights, there were more cars, more traffic. It was New Year’s Eve. Siavash danced between the cars, played his tom-tom and made people laugh.

Siavash daydreams... he wears his red garment; he has a tom-tom; he sings; he dances... Siavash still smells strange. The clouds above his head are dark; it’s not clear what is going on in them... I want to close my eyes one day and shout out loud: Imagine...

Siavash has closed his eyes; he’s five years old; he puts his hand in his pocket on the sly; his legs dangle in the air...they don’t reach the ground; they just dangle in the air. The wound on his hand was very deep; the surface wounds on his face were healed but the scars had remained.

Mrs. Karimi

Persian
When she told me that she had studied theatre at Tehran University, my eyes bulged! I could neither refrain from being surprised nor even from expressing it. She said: ‘I studied theatre. I’m married and have a kid. I was lucky that I could get a card.’ 

Khavar-Shahr is a quarter inhabited by Afghans, situated near Khavaran road in the southeast of Tehran. It is inhabited by Afghans because it’s cheap compared to other regions of the city. Also, because of its factories where men, women and even children can work. Mrs. Karimi however has established an independent school in this area. A warehouse that used to be a factory but then became useless. With the efforts of Mrs. Karimi and her persistence and chaffer with the owner of the warehouse, the warehouse turned into a place for the children of Khavar-Shahr to gather.

During the winters of Tehran, warming the warehouse is the most challenging thing to do. There are two oil heaters that don’t warm up enough. Three classes are held in the warehouse simultaneously. These so-called classes are separated from each other by plastic curtains. In each section, they laid an old carpet on which the kids can do their homework. There is also a blackboard set on a chair. The teachers are the young girls who live in the area and help Mrs. Karimi to hold the classes. If you close your eyes and just listen to the teachers and the students, it sounds like a melody; harmonious and rhythmic; without a conductor; the first teacher, the third one and then the second; with or even without this sequence. The teachers never talk simultaneously. Even the students ask questions, recite their lessons in a harmonious pattern.

Mrs. Karimi says that if even these classes don’t exist, these kids don’t have a place to study or play; they will get wasted in the lamp factories or on the farm fields around.

At the beginning of each month, the owner of the warehouse puts in an appearance, walks around, grumbles and wants to raise the rent. Mrs. Karimi then repeats her explanations that this place is for kids. Supplication is hidden in her words when she implores him not to raise the rent, for the sake of the rewards in this life and hereafter; for the prayers these children will have for him... or maybe for awakening his conscience... for Mrs. Karimi’s being lost all alone under the burden of these kids being ignored.

The school closed; in fact they shut it down. Even if the owner of the warehouse had accepted each time despite the pressures to let the school go on, there are always other owners... It’s here that the supplications of Mrs. Karimi turns into protest and the protest results in her arrest and imprisonment.

Mrs. Karimi has a husband and a kid. She says: ‘How much can my husband accept or tolerate this situation? The parents of those children were waiting at the lockup all the time. They came, left and protested so many times that they let go of me.’ She smiles as she says this, as if she’s recalling a sweet, far memory; as if she knows that it would never happen again; like an experience in youth.

Jahangol

Persian

There were two or three of them in the football pitch, passing the ball among themselves. The sound of Iranian LA pop music, came from far. I was sitting near the pitch, waiting for everyone to gather. The sound of music got closer. I turned back and saw them for the first time.

Masoud is twelve years old. He says: ‘I came here by container from Liverpool. The driver stopped and I went to the bathroom.’ He shrugs his shoulder, cracks up and continues: ‘As soon as I got off, the police arrested me. Now I’m not allowed to leave the city.’ Matin cuffed him on the head and says: ‘Did you really have to get off and have a crap?’ Matin is a bit in a temper. He says: ‘Anyone who messes with me, I’ll kick his butt.’ He tells me: ‘I lose my marbles fast.’ Ghasem pats him on the shoulder and says: ‘Matin makes us omelette the nights when he feels good.’ Amin says: ‘ Ghasem is a Kurdish Iraqi, the rest of us are all Afghans. I’m the only Iranian among them.’ He looks at me and says: ‘Don’t goof up! we hammered out a deal to say that we’re all Iranians. All of them shake their head and say: ‘They won’t deport Iranians but if you’re from anywhere else, they will send you back to your country at once.’

Amin had learned Kurdish and Pashto and was friend with everyone. All were friends with each other. The ones from Kenya with this group and this group among themselves, all of them. They played football sanely without quarreling, without swearing. Everyone was careful not to get the others hot under the collar. It was there that I fathomed human relationships. The first night I thought to myself, why do I get surprised? Wouldn’t I myself, act entirely differently if I saw Amin, Matin or any one of those youth in Iran? If any of them was in a taxi, I wouldn’t get in; if he passed me by in the street, I would move away; if he was behind me, I would slow down to let him advance in front of me so that I could make sure he was not chasing after me... It was then that I perceived the depth of my everyday prejudgements and it deeply unsettled me.

Among all those with whom I was acquainted, Jahangol was the only one who never went to the pitch to practice passing the ball. Jahangol was a juvenile with the face of a forty-year-old man. He didn’t speak Persian; he only knew Pashto. He rarely looked at anyone or anything. He used to sit in a corner and scrutinized everywhere. Some nights, those youth played music on their mobiles and we all danced around the pitch or in the sport club. Alone, together, one to one; all the dances in the world, all the invented dances or the dances we invented; every kind of music; every kind of leap, every kind of joy. I always tried to bring Jahangol in but he only clapped his hands, laughed and took a stealthy look. He never wanted to participate. His story was mysterious to me and I could rarely get Amin to translate his words for me.

Some days Amin called and asked me to go to the sport club and play table football. Some days he said: ‘Tesco has started its sales. We’re going there to buy some stuff. Come with us.’ One day he told me on the bridge: ‘Throw your passport here in the water and never go back.’ The river was running slowly like a worn-out snake. A part of it was shining. We sat and our feet were hanging on the surface of the water. Masoud smiled. The wind messed up our hair. Jahangol held the sack of milk and macaroni in his hand just like he was holding a kitten and then he hid his head between his arms. Amin showed us the photos on his mobile right there and said: ‘ Shiraz is my life, I’m nothing without my Shiraz.’ When we stood up to walk, he gave me his handset and said: ‘Come see the video of the execution that I showed to my lawyer yesterday.’ When we were alone, he said: ‘I’m telling this only to you; I’m not seventeen, I’m twenty one; but if they understand that I’m over eighteen, they will force me out tomorrow.’ I asked him: ‘How come they haven’t realized so far?’ He said: ‘I was deported from England three times. Every time I returned. Every time I somehow threw myself  on the ship. You have to place yourself between the onion gunnysacks such that when they lift them up to throw them in the container, they wouldn’t be able to see you.’ He moved his hand on his tattooed arm and said: ‘The last time I jumped below the container, between the wheels. I grabbed at the edge. The bloody ship travelled nonstop for three hours. I was bone-tired. It finally stopped before my hand got loose. I jumped down and walked alone on the road. My ear was bleeding, I didn’t know where I was until I saw the cars on the road and the drivers who sat on the right. It was then that I realized I was in England.’ He stood and stared at an unknown spot on the floor. He then said: ‘The police stopped me and took me to the police station. There, I told them that I was seventeen. They looked at my teeth and said that it was impossible yet I insisted and they opened a file for me.’

Sometimes when one thinks of a time in the past, a word, an image or a person comes into one’s mind. The person of that time for me was not Amin but Jahangol. The image of that time was the daring mien of the kids who grabbed hold of the bar below a container for hours, thousands of miles away from home, alone, in the hope of a better life. Whereas the words of that time for me, is the talk I had with Amin on a summer evening during the sunset. On the way back from the sport club, Amin said: ‘Jahangol just looks innocent.’ I said carelessly and insensitively: ‘Yeah, I know. He can commit thousands of crimes or even kill if he has to.’ I didn’t feel ashamed of myself at that moment. A few moments after I said goodbye to Amin and turned into the alley that led to the dorm, my own words reverberated in my ear. I thought to myself, why did I say such a thing? That night I wrote in my notebook: I, who had written about Jahangol in the last few pages, hadn’t even written this about him: that if you looked at his face, you could see things you didn’t want to see in an adult’s face, let alone a child’s face. I hadn’t written cuz I didn’t want it to be true. I had said those words out loud to Amin maybe because his words reminded me of the few lines that I had written about Jahangol but had crossed out later. Sometimes words, images and the people of a time coincide with each other. It is then that the envy of not insisting and not perceiving, wriggles around your neck, just like a river, writhing slowly.  

Khorshid

Persian
Khorshid has shaved her head. In fact, Khorshid’s mother decided that she should shave her head. That’s why this little girl drew my attention from the beginning, with her strange eyes and curious look.

In the southwest of Tehran, somewhere behind Nematabad outpost, around one hundred meters from the asphalt road which passes from Dolatabad, there are huts made of thatch and wood. They were previously habitations of the workers of the brick kilns. Now that these kilns are no longer in use, these huts are shelters for Afghans in this region. There were three or four kilns in this zone which are unused and now only these huts have remained as habitations.   

Men go to work during the day; to any work; a simple worker in construction could be the best example. Women are at home with their children in the daytime. Children’s playground are the sandy hills around the dwellings, the unused kilns and the gravel roads behind the huts. Khorshid’s house is on top of a sandy hill, above the kiln. A few unstable muddy steps which leads down, connects the houses to a larger area with only one water tap.

Khorshid doesn’t speak; she just smiles; she sometimes smiles. When she smiles, a dimple appears on one side of her face, her eyes squint and pucker. Khorshid is maybe five years old. She plays with other children on the sandy hills and screams. Some of the mothers are near the water tap, washing clothes, others are gathered around the pickup truck which enters the area near the kiln.

From among twelve mothers, ten accepted to attend classes in adult school. Although they have complicated relationships among themselves and although they may run into each other near the water tap, they accept to have the classes in their homes.

During the classes, the mothers make the shoes that they need to deliver by the end of the week. Their hands move around, leading the needle in and out of the shoes without the women even looking at them. The children listen to stories. Some of them are painting with pastel on paper. Mostafa is ten years old and he’s in the third grade. He studies in an autonomous school near the kilns but his sister had to stay home because of the high cost of the school. She helps her mother.

Khorshid is always the first one who comes out of the house when she hears me. She’s moderately intelligent yet she’s got curious eyes. She doesn’t talk much but listens. Sometimes when I think she didn't understand something, I ask her about it and when she answers me with her calm demeanour, I feel relieved that she listens well.

Every Tuesday, before arriving at the kilns, I tell myself ‘I hope it’s one of their good days; I hope they still have a motivation to listen; I hope sowing the shoes ends earlier today...’ I think to myself, a woman who does the housework, from washing, cooking, taking care of her children, to making shoes for a living, a woman who sees sandy hills and huts as the first image that appears in front of her eyes the moment she wakes up, a woman who doesn’t know if she has to migrate back to Afghanistan with her husband... why, why this woman should have any motivation to listen to my words? What motivations could she possibly have? But every Tuesday that I walk back from the gravel road behind the huts, I see myself smiling; then I think, building a human relationship doesn’t need any motivation. There is a force which pushes me and pushes those women to listen to each other; to smile; to jest; to have them make fun of me; to learn from one another and to drink green tea with each other.

Khorshid’s mother didn’t participate after the second class. I realized this when I was talking to Khorshid's father. He was looking at the floor and suddenly left while I was still speaking with him. Khorshid is five years old but sometimes she has to take care of her little sister at home. She has to make her meal. On Tuesdays though, Khorshid is free to come and paint, read poems and listen to stories. But what if there is no more Tuesdays when Khorshid is grown up and when her father doesn’t like her going to the autonomous school?

Khorshid has shaved her head. In fact, Khorshid’s mother decided that she should shave her head. She is different from other kids.

Asef

Persian

First take

Nazgol jumps in the air; as she turns the volume up on TV, she says: listen to this news, this is my student’s idea. Nazgol and I laugh cuz tomorrow we have to tell Asef that they have stolen his idea. Nazgol asked others to be quiet but they laughed cuz she wanted to tell them about making a humongous tank. While I was photocopying exam questions, I hear Asef from behind the pigsty we had transformed into a class; he’s reciting his golden phrase: ‘One day I will make the most gigantic unmanned tank in the world.’ Nazgol has come to take the exam papers. She’s flat, she looks at me and says: Do you hear what he says?

Second take

Everyone has two manikins, one is the Iranian “self” and the other is the Afghan “self”. They have to wear clothes on their manikins and talk about their characters. Asef drew a skeleton on the cloth he wore on his Iranian self, spiked his hair, trimmed his eyebrows thin and drew a vicious grin on his lips. He wrote: ‘I am unidentified in Iran, my Iranian self is a bad boy who doesn’t respect anyone. If I stay in Iran five more years, my Iranian self becomes an unruly and crude boy.’ His Afghan self has a side part hair, long sleeves with a big grin and a bubble out of his mouth which says: ‘forgive me Afghanistan for I could not help you in these years.’ Fatemeh looks at Asef’s manikin and says: ‘Miss! Asef wants to crush America.’ Asef says: ‘I want to organize world’s largest army, I want to die with bomb and bullet.’ Fatemeh asks: ‘You mean you wanna become a martyr?’ Asef says: ‘No, I want to be killed with a bomb before an American chops my head off with his blunt knife.’ He turns to me and says: ‘Cuz you die instantly with bomb and missile.’

Third take
I’m standing on the stairs at the entrance of the yard as I shout: ‘Get out! Pour out everything that weighs on your heart, pour them out on these empty walls.’ All of them have a coloured chalk in their hand. All of them are excited. I go inside. When I come out, I see Asef standing on the ladder. He’s writing something, which turns out to be: ‘Afghanistan! I love you, I love you so much.’ When he sees me, he asks uncertainly: ‘I wrote this, is it ok?’ I shrug my shoulder and say: ‘What’s the problem?’ He looks at the local women who came out of the kitchen and says hesitantly: ‘I don’t know.’ The local women don’t seem to care. Maybe it’s because they can’t read his handwriting or maybe because they can’t read at all. They pat me on my shoulder, laugh at each other and say: ‘How beautiful this wall has become!’ From the next day, they all pass between the walls and go to the kitchen. From the next day, every child who wants to drink water, passes between the walls to go to the drinking fountain. From the next day, we all stagger in the yard between the children’s paintings and writings. From the next day, Asef becomes a little, just a little calm. One day as he was going to the class, he suddenly stops, stares at me and says: ‘They caught my dad and sent him back to Afghanistan. Now my mother and I are alone.’

Fourth take
It’s like magic. If it weren’t, no one would carve one’s name on a bench or a tree. If it weren’t, no one would write slogans on the walls. If it weren’t, no one would publish books. Pouring out is magic, documenting is  magic and so is immortality. Whenever I think of war, -no matter where in this world- of weary people with dusty kit bags, torn shoes and angry faces, the image of Asef comes in front of my eyes. It’s been two years; he disappeared in June, out of the blue. Maybe he’s back to Afghanistan with his mother, maybe not. Sometimes I see the 11-year-old Asef in Milad; in Milad and in tens of other kids, that because of this war, want to make the most gigantic tank in the world.  

Khan-Agha

Persian

It was 2007 or may be 2006 that I started creative drama classes in the institute and we had commenced a drama: ‘My Father Got Lost In Letters’. The rehearsals had become very intense. The kids had become tired but nevertheless enjoyed. From the very first days of class, I had to search for two of them, Shiriali and Khan-Aghaplaying who played football in ‘Darvaze-Ghar’ (a place in the south Tehran, notorious for its atmosphere of drug addicts and drug dealers who involved even children in drug dealing. Instead of grass, its football field is covered with used syringes.) If they were not in the streets, it meant that they had gone to play a momentous game in ‘Harandi’ stadium, in the same neighbourhood.

Disputing with these two kids during the course of two years class was in vain. In 2006 the rehearsals became intense and so did the kids’ coursework but still and all, we all had a good feeling of being with each other; we wanted the rehearsals to continue more and more. Even the kids didn’t complain about our repetitions and remarks. From the time Naval said that we could play at Arasbaran Cultural Center, it seemed everyone was given a new hope and energy; they were indefatigable in carrying on the rehearsals. None of us wanted the days to end or to leave the run-through, although the kids were busier those days.

The kids had to attend classes, practice session, and after that they had to go to market for work. At that time Shiriali collected cartons in the market and Khan-Agha worked in a carpet weaving workshop. Khan-Agha was 15. Like so many other kids, he also had come from Afghanistan years ago; he was smuggled by land. He has worked since he was much younger. The days when his face was not glowing from the excitement of football game and he was not as mischievous, his look got lost and his countenance deep, just like a middle-aged man. Wrinkles appeared around his eyes as he moved his big hands over his hair. If he realized that I was looking at him, he hid his eyes.

When I came back from Afghanistan, Naval and the kids were ready to perform the play. As usual, Khan-Agha hadn’t attended half of the rehearsals and so his role had changed. Not long after the performance, we heard the news that he had gotten married. It was Farkhondeh who told me; they were the same age and classmates. When she was telling me, it was as if she wanted to say it out loud to someone so that she could believe it herself. She said that his friends had given their all for his wedding. The girl was his relative who had come from Shiraz and is younger than Khan-Agha. I then thought how his name befitted this kid, our youthful khan.

The rehearsals carried on for further performances but Khan-Agha didn’t come to class anymore. The kids saw him from time to time and said that he was working hard since he had to support his family. I thought of the weaving factory and other places he could be; the market, on the streets or pulling handcart. I thought of his gambler father, of his wife who’s expecting him at home.

It was 2007 or 2008... The performances in Arasbaran Cultural Center had come to an end. Shafiq called me. It was he who came to the rehearsals instead of Khan-Agha. He told me: Khan-Agha hanged himself!

‘Hanged himself!’ I couldn’t assimilate these two words. I hadn’t heard it so closely hitherto. Was it in the weaving workshop? From the window? My mind wandered... It was full of unanswered questions, or maybe not, full of questions I knew the answer of; questions every one of us knew the answer of, even these kids.
And I was thinking these kids are more mature than their age... way more mature...