Haidar Salman stopped going out with Pari. He would walk the streets aimlessly. He let his beard grow long and buttoned his shirt at the top in the manner of the Islamists. He continued to watch the demonstrations, conflicts and civil unrest until the Mujahideen Khalq Organization declared an armed struggle, which made it impossible for him to go out. So he would watch the streets from the window of his room. On 20 June at four o’clock in the afternoon the Mujahideen Khalq took to the streets to begin the armed revolution. They attacked some government buildings in Tehran and other cities. The Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Committees stood against them, and before darkness fell they had succeeded in defeating and dispersing them in Tehran and other cities.
He wrote to Farida: ‘There are fires everywhere. Buildings, cars, offices, theatres, headquarters and houses are on fire. Fights, assassinations and executions are taking place. In Iranian Kurdistan, where the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan controls large areas, there have been firefights with the authorities. The party has allied itself with Banisadr and has begun expanding its sphere of influence.’
One day, he was surprised to be contacted by Farrah Nikdahar, one of the young people connected with Fida-e Khalq, an organization specializing mainly in assassinations. Farrah wanted to meet him at Naderi Café on Wali al-Asr Street. He was extremely civil and courteous. He was also clean-shaven, with long dark hair. His eyes looked remarkably serene.
A book in Persian and a few newspapers lay on the table.
‘We know you well. You’re the leftist composer, Haidar Salman. I’ve been sent by Reza Shaltoki.’
Shaltoki was a leftist officer who’d spent more than twenty-five years in the Shah’s prisons and had been tortured mercilessly by the SAVAK.
‘What exactly do you want from me?’
He smiled. ‘On the contrary, we ask you what you want from us. Hassan Qazlaji has been murdered by the Revolutionary Guards. You’d asked him for something, and we’ll do it instead.’
‘I want to get out of here.’
‘Where do you want to go? We can guarantee your exit from Tehran to the country of your choice.’
‘Syria. Damascus. The closest place to Baghdad. I need to try to get to Iraq.’
The following day, Haidar told his host Mohammad Taqi that he wished to move to another house. Mohammad Taqi felt that Haidar Salman might be worried about living under the roof of a man known by the Revolutionary Guards to support the liberals. ‘This is your home,’ he told him. ‘Any time you wish to come, you’ll be most welcome.’
When Pari came home that evening, she learned from her mother that Salman was planning to leave the house.
During the night, she went up to his room. He was so totally engrossed in his writing that he didn’t notice her come in. She caught him in the act of writing with invisible ink. He sat near the bed, with his suitcase packed and placed in the corner. He took off his scarf and gave it to her. With tearful eyes, she took off her own shawl and fell into his arms, kissing him and crying. She showered his lips with kisses and melted in his embrace.
She stood up slowly, her hair falling luxuriantly on both sides of her face. She took off her jacket, her dark eyes sparkling and her breath heaving. She took off her shirt and trousers. She took his shirt and threw it aside while he took off his trousers himself. She wrapped herself around him, her belly white and her hips warm. She then began to move her belly towards him. In a final bending motion that seemed like dancing, she took off her knickers and threw them on the sofa. Her arms reached out to embrace him, her elbows bent, her torso motionless, her pelvis shaking. Her body produced a faint noise as it rubbed against his. He ran his hands over her firm body, bronze buttocks and smooth pubic area. She spoke some words in Persian that he didn’t understand. Their eyes met with an increasing intensity until they fell onto the bed, drenched in sweat.
On the following day, he found a small apartment on the second floor of a two-storey building near Revolution Square. He obtained a ration card from the mosque. The woollen collar of his dark coat was speckled with dandruff. In his left hand he carried a suitcase tied with rope. His shirt cuffs were not clean and he was utterly exhausted. The small room he’d rented echoed with the sound of emptiness. He sat in a corner that had no windows. An unmade bed, a tattered rug, a small paraffin cooker, a pot and a frying pan, as well as his suitcase, were the only objects in the room. After untying the rope he took a sheet and a blanket out of the suitcase and spread them beneath the dusty window. Without a pillow or a quilt he settled down to sleep. The room seemed like a cave. The ceiling lamp reflected off the cold floor. He had nothing with him except his suitcase and a book on contemporary art that he’d bought at a bookshop on Wali al-Asr Street. He felt that his life was without meaning or value. He curled up facing a bare wall that was splattered with paint.
In a couple of days, he was contacted. The organization had got him the passport of a man who’d died in a car accident a few days earlier. It was in the name of Kamal Medhat Hassan, an Iraqi merchant married to a woman from Mosul called Nadia al-Amiry. She had married him a year earlier and was now living in Damascus. She had been the widow of a Syrian called Mohammad Aqla from Hama, who’d been killed in the confrontations between the Islamists and the state. That was all he knew about his new identity.
A journalist came by and dropped the passport in the tank of one of the toilets at the Royal Park Hotel in the north of the Iranian capital. Haidar picked it up a short while later, to avoid it being discovered.
As soon as he read his new name and saw his photograph and date and place of birth in the passport, he felt that the persona of Haidar Salman had vanished without a trace. Suddenly he felt so alienated from it that it seemed to have been imposed on him. He had a far greater sense of identification with the new character of Kamal Medhat.
VIII Tobacco keeper
From Kamal Medhat’s life (1933–2006)
‘Oh! I know him. He is the tobacco keeper, devoid of metaphysics.
The tobacco keeper goes back to his shop driven by a divine instinct.’
Spartan wars and the end of romanticism and love
He entered Damascus with the new name of Kamal Medhat and a new passport with a new date and place of birth. This was his third character, the personality that corresponded to Álvaro de Campos from the poem Tobacco Shop. It was the sensual character of the tobacco keeper, the man obsessed with gratifying the senses of taste and touch, the person wishing to live in a stupor off the two previous characters and soar in a world of smoke, pleasure and sex. In every corner of his soul there was an altar to a different god. But would the shadows of the previous two characters vanish for good? Never.
The strength of the new character lay in the fact that although it stood in contrast to the earlier characters, it depended on them and often overlapped. This was the source of Kamal Medhat’s strength. Although he lived in a state of isolation and nihilism, his personality was more solid than the other two. Pessoa created a clear biography for this character. Álvaro de Campos was born on 15 October 1890 in Portuguese Tavera. After studying marine engineering in Glasgow, he travelled to the East to find pleasure, relaxation and laziness. He justified the trip on the grounds of his relentless search for opium to take back home. For the East, opium represented consolation for its honour. Like Álvaro, Kamal Medhat had a well-defined biography. Born in Mosul in 1933, he became a well-known merchant who frequently travelled to Iran and back. He was a man who indulged in enjoyment and pleasure. It would not be surprising, then, if the authorities in Damascus suspected him of bringing a quantity of opium with him from Iran.