The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
The bus moved quietly through London’s streets. The woman in red’s words still lingered inside it. Her mischievous smile, which usually gathered one corner of her face, had given way to silence.
Lena looked at her. She said nothing. She simply rose and sat beside her. The woman in red lowered her head a little, and Lena put an arm around her shoulders. That was all. No analysis, questions or philosophy. Sometimes a person needs a hand on their shoulder more than a hundred sentences.
I watched them in the mirror. The woman in red’s eyes were wet. She tried to smile, but her usual smile would not quite form.
I do not know why her tears suddenly took me back to my mother’s memorial, to the day I stood before everyone reading something I had written. I thought I could finish it. At one point my voice broke. The words were still on the paper, but I could no longer see them properly. The tears came and I could not stop them.
In that moment politics meant nothing. Nor did beliefs or any of the names we give one another in life. There was only a son who had lost his mother.
Later, someone who called himself a monarchist asked me in surprise, ‘Do communists have feelings and cry as well?’
I do not know whether he meant it as a joke, a jibe or a genuine question. But it stayed with me. How can a political label grow so large that the human being behind it vanishes?
Communist. Monarchist. Religious. Liberal. Revolutionary. Counter-revolutionary. Refugee. Migrant. Sometimes we only have to stick one word on somebody’s forehead to imagine we know their whole life.
I looked again at the woman in red, then Lena, then the monarchist. I understood why the memory of my mother’s memorial had come back just then. A monarchist had once been surprised to see a communist cry. I did not want to make the same mistake in reverse today. I did not want to imagine I already knew a man’s whole life because he called himself a monarchist. The label said what he called himself now. It did not tell us how he had got here.
As I thought about that, Lena turned her head. I saw her quickly wipe the corner of her eye too, as though she did not want anyone to notice.
‘Lena, why are you…?’
‘Why am I what?’ she said at once.
‘Nothing.’
The woman in red, her eyes still wet, said, ‘Khalo, sometimes nothing happens if you don’t speak.’
‘I’m practising.’
The donkey brayed.
‘Learn from him. He’s been quiet for ages,’ said the newcomer.
‘When he does speak, everybody understands him.’
A little laughter ran through the bus, enough to ease the heaviness for a few seconds. Coco was resting beside the newcomer, who stroked her head. Her eyes were half closed, as though our political and romantic discussions mattered nothing to her.
Lena returned to her own seat. After a short silence she looked towards the monarchist.
‘I think it’s your turn now.’
He shifted. ‘My turn for what?’
‘A confession,’ said the woman in red.
He laughed. ‘Is this a court?’
‘A bus for now,’ I said. ‘We can turn it into a court if we need to.’
‘No confession or trial,’ Lena said. ‘A memory.’
‘Which memory?’
‘One of yours.’
He said nothing for a few moments. ‘Where should I begin?’
‘Wherever you think it begins.’
He looked out. The street was wet and car lights stretched across the tarmac.
‘I came to London before that revolt in fifty-seven,’ he said at last.
The woman in red was about to interrupt. Lena gestured for her to wait.
‘For now I won’t argue with you over the word “revolt”,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Thank you.’
‘But I’ll remember it.’
‘I knew you would.’
‘Let him tell his story. You can each give the event whatever name you choose afterwards,’ Lena said.
He took a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t escaping. I wasn’t a prisoner, under pursuit or in political trouble. I came to study. My family was comfortably off. I was meant to get my education and return to Iran. At first London wasn’t exile, refuge or even migration in the sense we’re discussing today. It was a period in my life, as if I had gone away to university for a few years before going home.’
‘Didn’t you miss Iran?’ asked the newcomer.
‘Of course. But it was different. Homesickness has one shape when you think you can go back whenever you wish, and another when you’re no longer sure you can return.’
Lena nodded quietly.
‘In those years, London meant university and youth to me: classes, friends, cinema, music, streets, meeting people from different countries. But one thing could not be avoided: politics. It was everywhere among Iranian students. Even if you didn’t want to get involved, it would appear before you sooner or later. Somebody handed you a leaflet. Somebody invited you to a meeting. Someone spoke of political prisoners, someone of the Confederation, the Shah, America or revolution. Sometimes all you wanted was a cup of tea, but by the time it had gone cold, the government had been overthrown as well!’
We all laughed.
‘Were you politically active yourself?’ Lena asked.
‘No.’
‘Not at all?’
‘Not in that sense. I’d been to some meetings, was friends with politically active people and argued with them, but I didn’t belong to an organisation opposing the Shah.’ He paused. ‘Quite the opposite. I supported him then.’
‘There we are at last,’ said the woman in red.
‘Have I ever hidden it?’
‘No. I only wanted to be sure the wrong story hadn’t boarded the bus.’
He laughed. ‘My family saw the Pahlavi government favourably, and I grew up with their view. As I saw it then, the Shah was taking the country towards development and modernisation. I saw stability, building projects, universities, roads and development plans. At least that was the picture I had.’
Lena said nothing.
‘I know what you’re about to say,’ he told her.
‘Nothing.’
‘Your silence is more dangerous.’
The woman in red laughed.
‘Some of my friends were completely opposed to the Shah, some very seriously. We argued for hours. They talked about political prisoners, SAVAK, repression and political freedom. I talked about development, stability and a country that was changing. They said, “Development without freedom isn’t enough.” I said, “A country that wants to progress needs stability first.” The arguments never ended. But at the time I honestly thought much of what the opposition said was exaggerated.’
‘You thought they were lying?’ asked the newcomer.
He thought. ‘Sometimes, yes. Or at least making more of the truth than was there. When they spoke of prison and torture, I wondered whether all of it could possibly be true. It did not fit the country I thought I knew.’
‘Had you seen anything yourself?’ Lena asked.
‘No.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps that is the point. I hadn’t seen it. My family hadn’t been directly affected either. Our lives went on. So it was easy to think that something I had never witnessed might not be as serious as others said.’
He was quiet for a moment. ‘Now I understand that my experience was not everybody’s.’
The woman in red did not make a joke.
‘I did not understand it then. I knew my Iran. My politically active friends knew another. We talked about the same country as though it were two different places. One friend was deeply involved in politics. Our arguments could get heated. I’d ask, “Do you imagine the moment the Shah goes, Iran will become paradise?” He’d answer, “At least the people will decide their own future.” I’d say, “You don’t know what you’re destroying.” And he’d say, “Perhaps you don’t know what you’re defending.”’
‘Your friend had a good way with words,’ said the woman in red.
‘He did.’
‘Are you still in touch?’ Lena asked.
He paused. ‘I’ll come to that later.’
She did not press him.
‘Gradually news arrived from Iran: protests, demonstrations, clashes. Each time I thought it would end. The government would regain control; after a few weeks things would settle. Then came another report. Meetings grew busier, arguments sharper, and I still thought the government could not fall. It was beyond my imagination. The Shah was part of the structure of the country to me, like a building that has always stood there and you never expect to find gone the following morning.’
‘What did your family in Iran say?’ asked the newcomer.
‘At first: “Don’t worry.” Then: “Wait for now.” Then: “Perhaps you had better not return just yet.” That “not just yet” was a strange thing to hear. I had come here in order to return. The whole plan was study, qualification, home. Suddenly, for the first time, returning had a question mark beside it.’
His voice softened. ‘When you leave believing you’ll return in a few years, you pack a different sort of suitcase. You leave so much behind because you think the separation is temporary: friends, a house, family, streets, even some relationships. “I’ll be back in a few years,” you say. If a few years becomes something with no end in sight, you realise you did not take some of those goodbyes seriously enough.’
Lena watched him.
‘I was not an exile yet, or a refugee. Nobody had driven me out. But little by little I was no longer the student certain of going home after graduating. I was caught between two states.’
‘Neither here nor there,’ said the woman in red.
‘More or less. London was no longer just university. Iran was no longer simply the home I could return to whenever I wished. Every day I followed the news and sometimes argued with those same political friends. They said the government’s days were numbered. I said that was impossible.
‘One of them told me, “You still don’t understand what’s happening.” I said, “And you don’t understand what may replace this structure if it falls.” He replied, “Whatever comes, the people will decide.” I said, “I hope you never regret those words.”’
He fell silent. For a few moments nobody spoke, not even the woman in red, not even me or the donkey.
Then he said, ‘And what I thought impossible happened.’
‘The fall of the Pahlavi government?’ Lena asked.
‘Yes.’
The woman in red leaned forward. ‘What did you feel that day?’
He gazed at the window for a while. London’s streets passed slowly by.
‘That is another story.’
‘We’re stopping there?’
‘For this part, yes.’
‘It was just getting interesting,’ I said.
‘Didn’t you promise not to interrupt?’
‘That promise was for the next part!’
Everyone laughed. The donkey brayed too.
‘See? Even he’s on your side,’ the man said.
‘No. He’s one of my oldest political opponents.’
‘At last, some genuine opposition on this bus,’ said the woman in red.
We laughed again. Yet a large question remained behind the laughter. The man who had arrived in London to study before the revolution had not finished his story. We had learnt where he came from. We did not yet know what happened to him after the world he knew collapsed, or what the passing years preserved in his mind, what they broke and what he could never put aside.
The bus went on. He turned back to the window. This time nobody asked another question. Some stories must stop where their owners want them to, until they are ready to begin again.
Naser Kamali
London, in a quiet corner.
Translator’s notes
- ‘Fifty-seven’: The monarchist means 1357 in the Iranian calendar, corresponding to the 1978–79 revolution. His choice of ‘revolt’ reflects his own viewpoint.
- SAVAK: The intelligence and security organisation under the Pahlavi monarchy.
- The Confederation: A reference to the Confederation of Iranian Students, an opposition movement among students abroad.
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