City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran

Karim Khan-e Zand Street, Tehran, April 2013

Amir needed to warn his friends of what the old man had told him. He sent a coded text message to Behzad. I’m watching football, it’s a great game. Which meant: Meet me by the bookshop.
The bookshop was on Karim Khan-e Zand Street, one in a line of bookshops that Amir and Bahar spent hours in. Over the last few years some had been shut down or raided, one had its windows smashed. The owner had been holding
literary nights and poetry readings in the shop, which had attracted artists, writers and human rights activists. The edareyeh amaaken, the security services in charge of public spaces, had issued warnings. When the owner of the bookshop complained, a judiciary representative turned up with a lorry and cleared the shelves of all the books.
In the window was a black and white poster of Woody Allen next to a stack of books about his films. The bestsellers were nearly always the self-help books. This particular bookshop prided itself on its more highbrow collection, and their surprise hit of the year was by Florence Scovel Shinn, an American born in the nineteenth century who wrote about metaphysical spirituality. The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People – Powerful Lessons in Personal Change came a close second. As with most bookshops in the city, in the fiction department nobody could outsell Haruki Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Behzad turned up looking frantic. They started to walk towards Vali Asr. Behzad told Amir that Mana had been arrested. And that they had been in touch with him. They knew about their meetings. They had called Amir a ‘known blogger’. Amir did not ask for too many details, for they were talking the cautious language of dissidents. ‘Clean everything. Get rid of your Facebook. And we’ve both got to get rid of our useless fucking blogs. They can read anything that’s on your hard disc, so get rid of your laptop.’
They walked all the way to the end of the road, turning on to Vali Asr Square, where the great road charges through it in an eruption of noise, fumes, traffic and people. Behzad flagged down one of the shared taxis that drive up and down Vali Asr picking up and dropping off passengers along the way. Amir took a bus south, getting off outside a billiard hall on the junction of Jomhouri Street.
As soon as he entered the flat his phone rang. Amir knew it would be the old man.
‘They’re closing in on your friends. I think you should let me in.’ ‘Don’t tell me you’re outside?’
‘Yes.’
The old man was a master manipulator. He was getting his way.
It took a while for the old man to make it up the stairs. Amir responded to his greeting of Salaam and led him to the sofa. It unsettled him that he was treating the old man as if he was just that, an old man, and not the killer who had signed his parents’ death warrant.
The old man sat down and sighed heavily, looking around the tiny apartment.
Then he said nothing. Just sat there with his head bowed.
‘I need some explanations. How do you know everything? Am I in danger?’ The old man finally looked up. His eyes were moist. ‘I can find things out.
You know I can’t tell you how. I advise you to stop your blog and your meetings because I have no power, there is nothing I can do if you get arrested. And you’re headed in that direction.’
‘I don’t want your help. I just want you out of my life.’ ‘I’m begging you to allow me to explain.’
Amir said nothing.
‘We believed what we were doing was the right thing. We believed your parents were enemies of God. We were surviving too, we were under attack. I did as I was told. I lost my way because I was lying to myself, lying to the world, and above all I was lying to God. He will judge me, I know that. I want to make this right, and I need your forgiveness.’
‘You’re just scared of God and of judgement day now you’re old and death’s not so far away, that’s why you want my forgiveness. You have no idea of the suffering you caused. I still feel ashamed, can you believe that? The pain will never leave. You have to live with your pain the way I have to live with mine.’
‘My guilt and my regrets have eaten me alive for years now, believe me. I am suffering.’
‘Let me tell you about regret – do you know what the biggest regret of my life is? That I didn’t hug my mother for longer the last time I ever saw her. How is that for regret?’
The old man fell to his knees. Amir could not stand to look at him, and he could not stand for him to see the tears that were now streaming down his own face.
‘I beg your forgiveness, I beg your forgiveness.’ The old man repeated the words over and over, like a mantra. His suffering did not make Amir feel better. The old man was struggling to stay upright on his knees. Wearily, Amir got up and helped him to his feet.
‘I don’t hate you; it’s past that. But I can never forgive you.’