Escape From Paradise. Majid MD Amini
in high-rises, and to consume Western products as much as possible.
The new push toward the gate of the “Great Civilization” promised by the Shah gathered more momentum. Now, the entire nation was passionately in love with their latest model cars and their TV sets. The younger generation of the affluent was trying to live in the fast lane by showing a great appetite for the glory of rock ’n’ roll. Iran had to import it, like everything else, so her youth could dance to its beat, the beat that represented the rhythm and lifestyle of an industrial nation, not of an old agricultural society with a culture almost as old as the history of man. TV shows were popular only if they exhibited sex, twisting bodies, shaking buttocks and breasts of women, wearing shiny revealing dresses. The music and lyrics were no longer important. The more impudent the song, the more demand there was for it, and Zee-Zee provided it on TV for the entire nation.
In the absence of any feeling, Zee-Zee’s second marriage was based solely on economic necessity. Her new husband took care of her debts, bought her things to replace those goods she was forced to sell, took her around the world and even provided her with drugs. Regardless of all these possessions and consumption, she remained unhappy. Soon her husband got tired of dishing out all that cash and getting nothing in return. It resulted in another messy, publicized divorce with a much larger settlement than the previous one, and more headlines, to satisfy the erroneous curiosity of a nation destined to plunge into the chaos.
Zee-Zee's price for each performance rose even higher, to thirty thousand Tomans for a few songs. There wasn't a night turning to dawn that she didn't appear on TV, an unhappy young woman with a forced smile on her lips exhibiting the only thing she thought she had to offer: her well-shaped body covered with not much fabric and a mask of sexuality on her otherwise sad face. She was the outstanding artist of the “Great Civilization.” She was the symbol of a true artist, a model of womanhood, an example of progress – a typical European doll.
The nature of the profession in which she was so deeply immersed had offered her no wisdom to distinguish the difference between love and lust, true friendship and self-indulgent sexual desire. Taking care of her urgent need for emotional security and saving herself from brutal attacks of loneliness, she thought she was in love with a musician and his music – a drug addict. She married him. And when his presence didn’t fill the void, she spent hours in solitude, smoking taryak in his absence. She continued doing so with him. She desperately needed the blanket of taryak’s sedation to cover her misery. Soon, to no surprise of either of them, their relationship soured and broke down, resulting in yet another divorce and more headlines.
Six months before the revolution, her business slowed down as nightclubs lost their customers. Many were ordered to shut their doors by the government to appease the demands of the religious leaders. With no income, Zee-Zee resorted to Helen’s way of making ends meet, by allowing men to purchase the right to the warmth of her cozy bed with their cold cash. She knew well that when they left they wouldn’t leave even one drop of love, or an ounce of caring, as the going price for the joy they received, not even as a little souvenir under her pillow.
Chapter Five
The ripples of discontent grew into dangerous waves of rebellion. Unaware of its adverse effects, the regime-owned television station aired government propaganda in an effort to deceive and calm the dissident and discontented masses. An old society with its ancient values was in the process of violently re-evaluating the results of its amateurish participation in the game of modernism.
Zee-Zee was confined to the four walls of her home during the turbulent days that led to the bloody revolution of February 22, 1979. The constant horrifying sounds of guns in the streets at night, which shattered the silence of the government’s imposed curfew, frightened her. The nightly horror forced her to numb herself with more taryak. Only under the influence of that magical substance could she convince herself that the whole “escapade” would soon be over, that the people wanted only good times, and that she would soon show them real good times again. She couldn't have been more wrong.
The breeze of discontentment changed to the wind of hatred and revenge, and soon became an unexpected hurricane of madness and destruction. All hell broke loose. All the social and political policies that the Shah had artificially glued together in his thirty-three years of despotic reign proved to be flimsy, and disintegrated rapidly. The revolution, heretofore unimaginable in the minds of the ruling class, took place; the pendulum swung.
There was nothing for her to do, except to stand on the sidelines, confused, bewildered, and frightened. She missed every day of her past life, the good old times. She was tired of agonizing over the tragedies in her present life, and anxious and worried about what the future might have in store for her. With only her sorrow as her company, she went on living, surviving, hoping for the speedy passage of this hurricane.
Overnight, the Shah’s vision of a society, a “Great Civilization,” foolishly perceived as heaven by only a few, was turned upside down and transposed into hell. By the time the Islamists took over, their leader, an old holy man, who was received like an angel by many, promised that he would surely invert the country’s future to a pristine paradise in this life and the next for all generations to come.
Three weeks after the revolution, hordes of unleashed wolves roamed the lawless country for easy prey, to rip off whatever they could lay their hands on. Six Revolutionary Guards knocked on Zee-Zee’s door well past midnight. When petrified Zee-Zee refused to open the door, they broke it down and stormed in, oblivious to her objections, threats, and begging. They forced her to sit quietly in the corner of her living room as they carried on like an invading army, looting her home, taking antiques, expensive rugs, jewelry, mink coats, and even her cars. When they finished emptying her rooms, the two guards who stayed behind forcefully took her to her bedroom, tore her dress off and raped her. She sobbed and registered her defiance by shouting, “Why do you do this to me?”
“Why not, you stupid fuckin’ bitch?” one guard responded callously.
The second guard slapped her hard on the face and said, “Why not? You piece of trash! You think we’re less than those men you slept with before the revolution? It’s our turn now!!”
They finally left when the house was completely empty of valuables and she had nothing left but tears. Poor Zee-Zee had no understanding that the justice of revolution was to forcefully take from the “haves” and give it free to the “have nots.”
The next day, she called her previously influential friends for help; either they were not home or they refused to acknowledge her existence. Some even denied ever knowing her and that saddened her more and finally threw her into the claws of depression. In desperation, wearing no makeup, covering herself with a chador that belonged to her mother, she went to a local Revolutionary Committee, naively seeking justice from the same people who had perpetrated injustice upon her. She was permitted to see the headman, a young mullah. She was so engulfed in her own misery and anguish that she didn’t notice the expression on the mullah’s face, nor did she pay any attention to the fact that there was not a shred of kindness or humanity in his expression. He, indeed, portrayed himself as an insightful holy man of God, who listened sympathetically to her genuine sobbing and crying and promised to diligently investigate the matter himself. Indeed, he investigated the matter, by showing up alone the next night at her house and forcing her into bed. But before raping her to relieve himself, he first whispered a few incoherent Arabic sentences, conducting a temporary marriage, just making certain his act of rapping not only would be sinless, but sanctified. In return, he generously awarded her to stay in her house until her case came before another mullah in another committee.
Lonely, scared, disillusioned, and emotionally drained, with no glimmer of hope for an end to the madness and absurdity of the revolution and its aftermath in sight, she felt lost. In a confused heartless world, her wait-and-see-life was transformed into dark, frightful, and sleepless nights. As a prisoner of her own past and her present shame, powerless, she had plenty of time to think about her life.
Time marched on inexorably. Three and half months later, overwhelmed by fear, overpowered by the presence of so many guards with guns, trembling, she had