The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
The man had said:
— Perhaps I ought to tell you why, after all these years, I still call myself a monarchist.
Lena said nothing.
The woman in red sat up straight.
And I decided to shut up for a few minutes, which, knowing myself, was no small historical transformation.
The donkey sat opposite the man, ears pricked.
— Go ahead. The floor is yours.
The man looked at me.
— Will you promise not to interrupt?
— I promise.
He pointed at the donkey.
— And him?
— I can’t guarantee anything on his behalf. He acts independently.
The woman in red laughed.
The man was quiet for a few moments.
Then he began:
— I didn’t grow up in a political family.
We waited.
— My father was an office worker and my mother a housewife. We didn’t lead a particularly luxurious life. An ordinary home, an ordinary car, school, family gatherings, the occasional summer trip.
He paused.
— When I think of those years now, the Shah isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.
— What is? asked Lena.
— My father.
I had not expected that answer.
He continued:
— He got up early, shaved, and the radio was on. My mother poured the tea. I was supposed to get ready for school. I was always late.
He smiled.
— My father used to say, ‘Your lateness will be the ruin of you one day.’
— Was it? I asked.
He looked at me.
— Sorry. I was meant to be quiet.
The woman in red laughed.
So did the man.
— No. I’m still running late.
— Your father had it right, then.
— Khalo! said Lena.
— All right. I’m finished now.
The man looked back at the window.
— Then the revolution happened. Everything changed. My father grew old very quickly. Not that he suddenly gained years. He aged in another way.
— What do you mean? asked the woman in red.
— I don’t know. It was as if the world he knew had been pulled from beneath his feet.
Something stirred inside me when he said that.
But I stayed quiet.
— Then I came here. Years passed. My parents died. The house was sold. Many other people from those days went away too. Now, when someone speaks badly of that period, I sometimes feel as if they’re speaking badly of my father.
— Could it be that what you’re defending isn’t only a political system? Lena asked gently.
He looked at her.
— What do you mean?
— Perhaps part of it is a defence of a life that no longer exists.
The man said nothing.
I watched him in the mirror.
Lena continued:
— People don’t only keep facts from the past. They keep other people, smells, sounds and a feeling of safety.
— And their own youth, added the woman in red.
He looked at her.
— Sometimes we don’t miss an era of history. We miss the people we were in that era.
— That’s a dangerous thing to say, I told her.
— Why? asked the man.
— Because if it’s true, half of Iranians’ political arguments ought to be settled over a family photo album instead of on television.
The woman in red laughed.
Lena smiled.
Even the man laughed.
The donkey brayed.
— He’s probably missing his own days as a foal.
— But it isn’t all nostalgia, the man said.
— Of course it isn’t.
This time I was serious.
— People can make political judgements about a period of history. We’re not saying that anyone who defends the past only does so because they were young then. If we did, we wouldn’t be having a political discussion. We’d be cobbling together some amateur psychology.
— Exactly, said Lena. — We need to distinguish memory from history without dismissing either.
— What’s the difference? asked the man.
— Memory asks, ‘What did I experience?’ History asks, ‘What happened?’
— And the two don’t always match exactly, said the woman in red.
— For example? asked the man.
— One family may have had a stable life in a certain period while another family experienced that same period completely differently. Both memories are real. Neither gives a complete picture of society on its own.
— Prison is another example, I said.
Everyone fell silent.
— Someone going about their ordinary life outside a prison may genuinely not have known what was happening only a few streets away.
— I didn’t know about many things at the time, the man said.
— I believe you.
He looked at me, perhaps expecting an attack.
— You can’t have memories of something you never knew about.
— But you can investigate it later, Lena said.
— That’s right.
— And you think I haven’t? the man asked.
— I don’t know.
I paused.
— And I’ve learnt that ‘I don’t know’ is sometimes the most respectful answer in the world.
The man smiled.
The donkey brayed.
— Except when someone asks whether you have a ticket.
The woman in red laughed.
For a few seconds, the rain stopped.
Then it began again.
— So you think I’m a monarchist because I miss my father? the man asked.
— No.
— Then why?
— It isn’t my job to decide why you’re a monarchist. You have to answer that yourself.
I paused.
— But Lena has raised a good question: how much of the picture any of us has of the past is history, and how much is our own life?
— What about you? he asked.
— What about me?
— How much does your memory affect your politics?
It was a good question.
This time I could not call on the donkey to save me.
— A lot.
Lena looked at me.
— A very great deal.
The man smiled.
— I’ve finally caught you.
— Don’t get too excited. The interrogation isn’t over yet.
— Let him answer, said the woman in red.
— My memory isn’t impartial either. Nobody’s memory is a CCTV camera. It selects. It enlarges some things and pushes others back. It keeps certain voices even after fifty years.
— Which is why documents matter, said Lena.
— Documents, statistics, newspapers, letters, different people’s accounts, historical research: we need all of them. If we leave history only to memory, each of us will build a country of our own.
— Perhaps that’s what we’ve done, said the man.
— What have we done?
— Each of us has made an Iran that exists only in our heads.
His words stayed in the bus.
— And then we argue about which Iran is real, the woman in red said softly.
— When the real society was far more contradictory than any of our memories, said Lena.
The donkey brayed.
— Why are you so sure? Were you even in Iran then?
The man laughed.
Then he ran a hand through his hair.
— Can I tell you something?
— Go on.
— Sometimes I watch old films of Tehran on the internet.
— And?
— The streets, the cars, the shops, the people…
He paused.
— And I look for myself.
— Yourself? asked the woman in red.
— I know it’s ridiculous. But I watch in case a boy passes in front of the camera for an instant and turns out to be me.
Nobody laughed now.
— I even know I probably won’t be there. But I still watch.
— Perhaps you aren’t looking for yourself, the woman in red said very quietly.
— What am I looking for, then?
— A time that hadn’t ended yet.
The man lowered his head.
Rain struck the bus roof.
For a few moments, politics had got off the bus.
There was no Shah.
No revolution.
No leftist.
No monarchist.
Only a few people who had left parts of their lives somewhere and were now looking for them years later.
The donkey suddenly brayed.
We all turned round.
— Thank goodness. It was getting a bit too human in here.
A gentle laugh passed through the bus.
The monarchist bent down and stroked the donkey’s neck.
The donkey did not pull away.
— Be careful, I said.
— Why?
— That’s the first stage of recruitment into the organisation.
Lena laughed.
— Perhaps he’s a monarchist himself, said the man.
— I doubt it.
— Why?
I looked at the donkey.
— He doesn’t mind a crown. It’s a king he objects to.
Laughter rose around us.
— What’s the difference? asked the man.
— He has no objection if the crown is on his own head.
Even Lena doubled over laughing.
The bus went on.
A few minutes later the man said:
— Khalo.
— Yes?
— A question.
— Here we go again.
— It’s serious.
— Ask it.
— If memory is this selective, how do we tell whether we’re coming to know the past or merely watching ourselves in it?
This time I had no answer at once.
Lena was silent too.
The woman in red put her book on her knees.
Even the donkey waited.
I looked at the wet street ahead.
— Perhaps by being willing to set our own memory beside the memory of someone who lived through things from precisely the opposite side.
— So I read your account, and you read mine?
— More than read them.
— What else?
— Allow for the possibility that part of the truth lies somewhere outside our own memory.
The bus reached a crossroads.
The light turned red and I stopped.
On the pavement a young man held up his phone and filmed the street in the rain.
The monarchist watched him through the window.
— Perhaps in forty years’ time someone will watch that video and look for themselves.
— Probably.
— And think everything was better in those days.
— Probably.
— Even if it wasn’t?
The light turned green.
I pressed the accelerator.
— Especially if they were young then.
The man laughed.
The woman in red laughed too.
Lena rested her head against the window.
The donkey brayed.
And the bus moved on again.
But this time, instead of remaining behind us, the past seemed to have climbed onto the upper deck and was travelling with us in silence.
To be continued…
Naser Kamali
London, my small, cosy room.
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