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of Shahrzad
Part 11
By Eric J. Jerpe
April 9, 2004
iranian.com
IV: Embodiment of Justice
It was just before noon as the car approached Yazd from the north,
finishing up the long drive from Tehran begun two days previous.
Romeen drove on, determined to fulfill his mission of transporting
to the Appeals Court of the Yazd Chief Magistrate the shorter,
gray-haired, white-mustached man wearing glasses who was seated
next to him on the front passenger side, his father Amir. Romeen's
wife, Roxana, and his sister, Shahrzad, were seated in the
back.
Amir Sharifi, a High Court Judge in the days of
the Shah, was still involved in legal matters. Although his efforts
to preserve the
finer portions of secular law were usually thwarted by overseeing
clerics, Amir tried to mitigate his exasperation at the stifling
of genuine justice by inventing a profound statement: Law is the
wisdom of the few diluted by the foolishness of the many. As these
words of Amir's own making passed through his mind, the good
judge followed upon them by expressing his confidence aloud in
an attempt to assuage the anxieties of his son and daughter and
daughter-in-law: "I do believe I can get her released on
appeal."
"But is it too late?" responded Romeen in a defeatist tone. "For
five months she's been incarcerated. God knows what condition
she's in now."
Upon hearing these words, Shahrzad gently took hold
of Roxana's hand, silently telling her sister-in-law not to worry.
Dredging
up hope in Allah the Compassionate, Roxana repeated aloud what
Magi Porzand had said on the Mountain of the Sacred Spring: "Believe
in the subliminal manifestation of Divinity."
Romeen, alarmed by what he perceived as his wife's
mindset being gradually overtaken by superstition, inserted a pragmatic
vein: "If Magi Porzand could bring her from the Spiritual
Dimension to this Material Dimension, then why couldn't he
spring her from prison?"
"I can't answer that," said Roxana, "nor can I
fathom the way she appeared out of thin air."
"The hand is quicker than the eye," noted Romeen.
"If you had seen her in the mist," insisted Roxana,
"you'd be wondering too."
"The point is," inserted Amir, "now is the time
for an appeal to succeed. Look at what circumstances have wrought!
Farzaneh Kaboli performs traditional women's dance before
an all-female audience, whereupon she and her dancers are arrested;
later that same date, at the worst possible hour, the earthquake
of Bam strikes. The regime is every bit as inept in its response
to the natural disaster of Bam as it was thirteen years ago when
the earthquake of Gilan-Zanjan occurred. How many more glaring
revelations of the necessity for a changing of priorities do
we
need?"
"The regime did allow legislation for moving the
capital away from Tehran," credited Romeen.
"They show concern."
"Watch where you
spout your sarcasm," advised Amir to his son.
Romeen continued, but now without sarcasm: "Iran
is not only unstable politically, it's unstable geologically as
well.
I understand that science has to progress on all fronts, and
therefore one research reactor under the tightest quality control
does make
sense for Iran.
But sitting atop all these fault lines makes an
elaborate nuclear processing system much too precarious." Romeen
paused to reflect on the irony of the situation before adding,
"This Yazd desert, which includes the last Zoroastrian city in
Iran to
convert to Islam, also possesses one of Earth's richest deposits
of Uranium. Is that going to mean wealth or radiation poisoning?"
"Perhaps
it is best not to exploit this particular natural resource,"
suggested Amir. "In this day and age of global economy?" responded
Romeen. "Who's being sarcastic now?"
"Keep your mind on your driving,"
suggested Amir. They drove on in silence for awhile. As typical
of towns in the desert, the barren landscape gave way in quick
transition to an
urban environment. Romeen piloted his vehicle through ancient
and modern streets now more familiar to him, eventually arriving
at
the same Yazd hotel he and Roxana had stayed in last summer.
They checked in and, wasting no time, transported their luggage
to their
two rooms, one for Romeen and his father Amir, the other for
Roxana and her sister-in-law Shahrzad. Romeen was glad his sister
had insisted upon joining them in taking time off work to make
the journey; Roxana had been acting awfully distraught lately,
and sometimes Shahrzad could calm her down better than he could.
They freshened up in their rooms, bundled up for
the winter weather, then went together to the cafeteria. The four
of them ate a quick
lunch. There at the table, Judge Amir Sharifi laid out the details.
"Leave me off at the Magistrate's building. Give
me until Seven O'clock this evening. Then pick me up and I think
we
will be able to go and release this Shahrzad you met on Chek-chek
mountain." All three of the young Sharifis expressed their
trust in the capability of this head of the extended family.
The four departed the hotel grounds. Romeen drove
the group over to the side of town where the Magistrate's quarters
were
located. Arriving there around two o'clock, Romeen left his
father off at the front steps to the Appeals Court. Amir said good-bye
to his son and daughter and then to his daughter-in-law, admonishing
Roxana to be optimistic, reassuring her with a history lesson from
Persepolis.
"You have seen the tablets of the Achemenian Kings.
You know what the individual monarchs say on them. ‘I lord
over multitudes, yet I am answerable to Ahura Mazda for their welfare.'
In
the minds of the Ancient Persians, their kingdom was the embodiment
of justice, their king mandated by God to rule by decree."
Judge Sharifi held high his briefcase containing
legal documents, his way of saying there was no doubt of his winning
the case. He
walked up the steps to the entrance and showed his identification
cards to the security guards. They let him pass. He entered the
building.
Romeen drove off with Roxana and Shahrzad remaining
in the back seat.
"So, in five hours we return; by then," asserted
Shahrzad, "father will have obtained the Mystic Woman's release." "We must pray for it to be so," said Roxana.
"Pray to Allah or to Ahura Mazda?" asked Romeen,
testing his wife's state of mind.
"The Eternal Being is known by different names in
different languages," responded Roxana.
The drove across town in
the direction of the Fire Temple. As they approached the temple
via the narrow alleyway adjacent
to
it, Roxana
told Romeen to stop the car next to the Zoroastrian religious
store. He did so, keeping the engine running. Roxana
and Shahrzad got out of the car and rushed into the store.
It took only
minutes for them to buy a novelty item, rush out of the
store and get
back
into the car. Romeen drove off. The car threaded the
remainder of the alleyway onto a wider street. Romeen hunted for
a parking space, eventually found one, and parked the
car. >>> To
be continued >>> Previois
parts
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