try to do that and thought I was going to be prepared for it.
“But wait, I want to hear the story about the coup d’etat. I thought we agreed you would tell me the whole story, all of it,” I protest.
“Didn’t the two doves tell that story already? What’s the use of hearing the same story?”
“But I want to hear it from you, Mom.” She is slick but I am slicker – even though in reality “gullible” is a much better adjective for both of us.
“Velesh kon,” she says, tossing her head up with a slight turn to the left.
Loose translation would be “forget about it” or “let it go”. She is so good at pretending to be strong that it is often hard to know if she really doesn’t care about something or if she is trying to avoid more sorrow for both of us. The tiny sparkle of a newly formed teardrop in her eyes gives her away this time. I am thinking I will ignore her “velesh kon” and go back to the story, or perhaps jump to that awful summer afternoon in 1953 where so many people’s lives changed forever.
“It is a scorching afternoon, mid-summer,” I say in a broken voice, as I am not used to ignoring her wish.
“All of a sudden the floor of the kitchen gives in and Golabetoon falls into a deep, dark well.” Mom interrupts my story in her warm voice that falls and surrounds me like a waterfall.
She is speaking, finally with her voice instead of her eyes. It no longer matters what story she tells as long as she is using her voice. I keep silent to take it all in. I have been craving security for a long time.
“Golabetoon falls down and down for hours until she hits the ground.”
Mom is reminding me the story of Golabetoon. Her voice takes me back to my childhood and the house on Gorgaan Street where I remember hearing this story for the first time. Between 1953 and late 1960’s my parents moved a lot. Only recently have I been able to draw a link between their constant moves and my dad’s political history and the coup d’etat. The Gorgaan Street house is where we lived during the time I was three to five years old. It was a charming house with a yard, which had a small turquoise pond in the middle, full of little red and orange goldfish. As customary with most Iranian homes, the bathroom was separated from the toilet room, or the water closet. It was a large room with no windows – to help insulation – and that made the bathroom dark unless you turned the light on, but the switch was out of my little arm’s reach. Our bathroom had an air of mystery and a hint of spookiness, a quality that made the space rather exciting, as it was a place where my imagination could run wilder than anywhere else in the house. And perhaps Mom’s stories were triggers for making me feel excited about the bathroom. After all, my first memory of hearing the Golabetoon story is in the same bathroom while my mom was washing my hair.
The story of Golabetoon is about a girl who saves herself from a Deeve, an ugly and frightening creature, among the beasts common to Persian tales and mythology. Golabetoon is a beautiful young girl, as the girls and boys in stories often are – though my mom never emphasized beauty. Golabetoon is in the kitchen or in the bathroom, I don’t recall which, and suddenly she falls down a well, which miraculously opens to the underground and a paradise-like garden that belongs to a Deeve. Despite being frightened by the size and ugliness of the Deeve, the little girl, who is very polite – or perhaps this was my mother’s addition to encourage politeness in me - gathers her courage and says hello. The Deeve in return is surprised and rather delighted that a human being has said hello to him. He informs the girl that because of her politeness, he will spare her life and won’t eat her. Instead he asks the girl to come forward. The Deeve then puts his big ugly and heavy head on the girl’s lap and asks her to clean his head of fleas.
Here my mom had to explain to me what fleas were since I had never seen these creatures and didn’t know what it meant to look for them among the dirty hair on the Deeve’s head. Golabetoon becomes the Deeve’s slave, in charge of his fleas. For months she endures the messy, heavy, and smelly head on her lap and keeps quiet. She has no choice since if she protests the Deeve will devour her in one piece. But Golabetoon is smart and she pays attention to everything during her captivity. She learns about the Deeve’s habits and routines, including his daily naps. As time goes by and Golabetoon gains the Deeve’s trust, she begins a series of experiments to find out how fast the Deeve falls asleep and how deep is his sleep. According to Persian mythology, every Deeve has a bottle in which he keeps his life. The only way to kill a Deeve, as they are virtually indestructible and naturally immortal, is to break his life bottle (shish-e omr). Like every other Deeve, Golabetoon’s Deeve is very protective of his shih-e omr. He has hidden it carefully and wears the key to the hideout around his neck.
One night Golabetoon tricks the Deeve into believing a human being has entered the garden and is about to steal the Deeve’s treasure – all Deeves by default have a lot of money and jewelry, perhaps because they have been stealing from human beings unfortunate enough to cross paths with them. Golabetoon’s Deeve gets up to investigate the alleged robbery and that is when Golabetoon, who is following the Deeve without his knowledge, learns about the hideout of the Deeve’s shish-e omr.
One day after months of captivity, when the Deeve is sound asleep, Golabetoon takes the key from his neck and runs to the hideout. She finds the Deeve’s life bottle and smashes it into to the ground, breaking it into a thousand pieces. In an instant, the Deeve, who has woken up and is now chasing Golabetoon, turns into smoke and evaporates into thin air.
Golabetoon finds the master key and unlocks the cells freeing all others whom the Deeve had kept as prisoners. She then carries all the Deeve’s riches up the well to her own house.
Her family, who had assumed Golabetoon was dead, is beside themselves to see that not only she has survived but is now rich. They throw a huge party and invite the entire neighborhood. They celebrate for seven days and seven nights – a common custom in Persian culture.
At three or four years old I was not aware of all the interesting symbolism and references to issues such as gender and power in the Golabetoon story. For me the story offered pure excitement and a world of possibilities. I know of kids who hearing the same story were not comfortable in the bath or the kitchen for fear of falling into a similar well and facing a Deeve. Due to my mom’s storytelling technique – mixed with her gift for psychology – I had none of those fears. On the contrary, I wished that the floor of our bathroom or kitchen would give in on me one day. I couldn’t wait to fall into the well, which to me sounded like a gigantic slide. The possibility of outsmarting the big Deeve made the trip even more exciting. If Golbetoon had outsmarted the Deeve, I would have no problem doing the same thing I thought to myself. The only thing I had difficulty with was the Deeve’s dirty head, which I knew I would be disgusted by – my mom was super sensitive about cleanliness. Yet, I suppose the excitement of the adventure won over the disgust for me since at times I would walk around the bathroom or kitchen, my small heart beating like a bird, anticipating the floor giving in. I bet I would carry a set of doctor’s examination gloves with me to the kitchen or bath if I knew about them back then – they would make searching for flees among the Deeve’s disgusting hair less revolting.
“We still need you to be that courageous and excited...” Mom’s voice brings me back to the present.
“We? Who is we?” I ask Mom in the language of the eyes.
My mom’s eyes turn to an artwork on the wall next to me. It is one of my son’s works, referencing a story in The Shahnameh (the Book of Kings). The epic of Shahnameh by the poet Ferdowsi tells the mythical stories, as well as the history of Persia. It was written in1000AD in the form of poems in the Persian language. The Shahnameh was pivotal in reviving the Persian language, which was on the verge of extinction and being replaced by Arabic as a result of the Arab invasion of Persia a few centuries back.
The artwork shows a scene in which the broken Rostam, the mythical hero of Iran, is sitting next to his dying son, Sohrab. The
two had never met, therefore Rostam had accepted to fight with the young Sohrab who at the time was standing with the opposite army. Sohrab falls as the result of the battle and his poor father discovers he has killed his own son when he notices an emblem, which Rostam had given to Tahmineh, Sohrab’s mother when they first met.
“This is the problem, Mom! This is the story of us, the people of an ancient land. Other nations kill the old for the new. We sacrifice the young for the old. What is the use of admitting our mistake years or centuries later – the young are dead! We have done it over and over since Rostam’s days.” I close my eyes and try not to let my anger get out of hand.
“We did it when you were young in 1953. We did it in 1979, and at least a few times more since then. The prisons are full of young people and the tombs full of young bodies. This is too high of a price for holding on to the old and their values – the price of our youth’s blood. This is not fair.” I break down.
“We need the Aahangarz,” my son’s voice fills my head.
The Shahnameh tells us that Zahhak, whose father was an Arab ruler, is influenced by Ahriman (the devil) and kills his own father to overtake his kingdom. Ahriman comes