UA31316 Lumen Spring 2024 Final Digital - Flipbook - Page 38
Books
It had a large and high-ceiling iwan with six tall columns that
centred the entrance. A white balustrade bordered the iwan,
except for the middle where two sets of staircases like two sides of a
trapezoid, led from the iwan to the yard. The façade was coloured
in white with four vertical windows, wooden-framed and arched at
the top, located at two sides of a wooden door.
Forugh arrived later than I expected. People had been talking
about her and Ibrahim for a while now and perhaps she didn’t feel
comfortable being around his family. I saw her enter the yard from
my table near a round hoz, with a small fountain in the middle. She
stopped at Ibrahim’s table and had a brief exchange with him and
Fakhri (who responded to her gracefully), walked upstairs, passed
past two tables of fruits and pastry on the iwan, and entered
the house.
Through the open door I saw Lili, who was around twenty,
leave the living room (where people were dancing to 6/8 beats)
the moment Forugh stepped in, and join her parents at their table
in the rear.
I ambled around the garden with Siroos, a camera assistant
from the studio, and smoked a cigarette. He’d watched Psycho
recently and couldn’t stop talking about the famous shower scene,
the music, the jump cuts, the camera moving towards the plughole
only to exit the eye. “It’s such a strange feeling when you watch
a movie and, before it even ends, you already know that you’re
watching a classic, something that will go on
living long after you’re gone.” He killed his
cigarette and smashed it under his shoe.
Only Sound
Remains
When I returned to my table, a drunk man
with a loose tie and a sweat-stained shirt
joined me to catch his breath. “Why are you
sitting alone, young man? Go inside and
dance!” We chatted for a while. “Have some fun, life is too short.”
He rose to his feet. “It was as if yesterday, when I had my first kiss
in the basement of this house.” He winked at me.
Forugh, a glass of red wine in her hand, exited the house with
Kaveh, a teenager at the time, on her side. They stood together next
to an apple tree shaded white and pink with its blossoms. I could
tell from their gestures and cheerful faces that they were having a
friendly conversation. Soon after two men joined Forugh and
Kaveh. In a minute, the amiable conversation gave place to an
intense argument. I left my table to listen.
The following is an excerpt from recent University PhD graduate
Hossein Asgari’s first novel – Only Sound Remains. The title of the book
is drawn from a poem by Persian feminist poet Forugh Farrokhzad,
whose life, death and romances are central to the theme of the book,
which alternates its setting between Iran and Adelaide.
Working in the studio broadened my social life. I was invited to
parties that weren’t like any social gathering I’d seen before, which I
only attended to be near Forugh. Most people at those parties were
either liberals or leftist artists and thinkers and I felt uncomfortable
being surrounded by people with whom I had no connection either
intellectually or politically.
More-over, I found all the drinking and revealing dresses
offensive to my beliefs. I usually kept a glass of water with ice in my
hand. That stopped people from offering me drinks and spared me
from explaining that I didn’t drink alcohol, and risking judgmental
looks or sarcastic comments.
It was at a party, an engagement perhaps, when I met Ibrahim’s
family for the first time. Fakhri (his wife), Lili (his daughter), and
Kaveh (his son). The party was held in one of those houses with a
big garden at the north of Tehran, all demolished now and turned
into high-rise buildings.
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