|  Return
of Shahrzad
Part 8
By Eric J. Jerpe
March 6, 2004
iranian.com
Chapter III: Fire of Lamentation
In Iran, a country where much of the land is arid like the Southwest United States,
isolated patches of green are scrupulously maintained and venerated as though
they were sacred gifts from God. The word “paradise” comes from
the Persian language; it means “garden” and has the same etymological
root as the English word “perimeter.” The word was adopted by Greek
mercenaries in the court of Cyrus the Anointed One.
Dazzled by the copious
gardens of the King of Kings, they took their eye-witness accounts of lush
verdure and flowing streams back home with them to the hard soil of Greece,
where cultivation upon terraced fields was the usual way of growing crops.
In a synthesis of concepts, the vision of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
came into being. The fabled gardens were never found in any of
the archaeological
excavations of Babylon nor even mentioned in any cuneiform inscriptions,
yet numerous imitations of the wonder turned fantasy into reality,
as the Italian
Renaissance gardens Villa D’Este and Villa Lante so grandiosely attest. In the morning of their first full day in Yazd,
Romeen and Roxana walked through the hotel’s pleasant little garden, both feeling the characteristic Iranian
reverence for plantlife enclosures. In the blissful afterglow of amour, they
quoted memorized passages from the poetry of Hafez.
Romeen quoted: “At the rise of the day, look upon the beauty of flowers,
scent of their fragrance, and listen to the singing of birds.”
Roxana quoted: “Sip of wine and love in your company is to have new meaning
in life.”
Romeen shifted to the Rubiyat: “With earth’s first clay they did
the last man’s knead; And then of the last harvest sowed the seed; Yea,
the first morning of creation wrote, What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.”
Holding hands and wondering if conception might have
already occurred, the couple exited the garden and walked over
to the hotel restaurant. There they had a marvelous
breakfast of fruit and juice.
“There is much to see here in Yazd,” said
Romeen. “This city was mentioned
by Marco Polo in his Travels; therefore, it has a special fascination for Westerners
as the exotic place of Fire Temples and Towers of Silence.”
“Which shall we see first?” asked Roxana.
“Let’s save the Twin Towers for sunset,” answered
Romeen. “I’m
anxious to see the Fire of Lamentation.”
“And the ravishing Shahrzad,” said Roxana
with a giggle. She added, “Do
you really believe that the fire of Yazd has been burning since an ember was
retrieved from the fire that destroyed Persepolis?”
“That’s what the Magians claim,” said
Romeen. “Whether true
or not is irrelevant to what the fire represents: the irretrievable loss of
the ancient writings from Achaemenian times and before. An entire
library of sacred
texts was destroyed; only a small portion of it has survived. It is said that
the original Zoroastrian scriptures were of greater length than the Hebrew
Bible, and included a medical textbook that was the most scientifically
advanced of
its time. While the Jews can rightly say that the Hebrew Bible has influenced
the course of human events more than any other collection of books, either
directly through its own worth or indirectly through the worth
of its offshoots the Greek
Testament and the Arabic Koran, the Zoroastrians can only gaze at the Sacred
Flame and lament the loss of the Magian equivalent to the Bible.”
“How different would the world be today,” pondered
Roxana, “if the
Zoroastrian scriptures had been allowed to make their proper contribution to
the moral evolution of mankind?”
“Maybe Magi Porzand is right,” responded
Romeen, “and other universi
do exist. In one of them, Persepolis is not destroyed and the Zoroastrian
scriptures become the dominant Holy Book.”
“That’s not only the opinion of Magi
Porzand,” commented Roxana. “That’s
the opinion of the American Edgar Allen Poe in his treatise Eureka, his very
last work just before he died. There is an infinite or near-infinite number
of universi, each with its own deity.”
Romeen took Roxana’s words as confirmation and vented his fantasy:
“Alexander accepts the terms offered by Darius
the Third after the Persian defeat at the battle of Issus. The
upper region of the Euphrates river becomes the dividing
line between the two empires, with the Syrian-Arabian desert as no-man’s-land.
Roxana the daughter of Darius becomes the wife of Alexander, who then turns
west and unites all the lands of the Mediterranean into a single political
entity,
with a city close to its geographical center (perhaps Rome) as capital. The
Mediterranean and Persian Empires trade and prosper in peaceful coexistence.
The son of Alexander
and Roxana becomes King of the Mediterranean. Having been raised by his mother
in the spiritual values of Zoroastrianism, the King of the Mediterranean rules
wisely, and the faith of the Prophet of Iran becomes a world religion with
millions of adherents. History takes a different turn.”
“If not the history of the world, at least
the history of Iran,” said Roxana. “In
this universe, history has not been kind to Iran.”
“Are current events any less unkind?” ventured
Romeen.
The couple finished up their breakfast. They went
back to their room, freshened up, and finalized the details to
their course of action for the day. With Romeen
wearing suit-and-tie and Roxana clad in a dress and head-scarf, they exited
their room and walked over to the parking lot. They got in their
car and, with Romeen
driving, exited the hotel grounds and entered onto the Yazd streets.
Driving through the ancient city, Romeen again observed
the billboards depicting and honoring martyrs of the Iran-Iraq
war. But then he and his passenger saw
something neither of them had seen in a long time, something seldom seen in
Iran: a beggar. This particular beggar, walking through the jammed
traffic, going from
car to car asking for handouts, had only one arm, the obvious reason why his
begging was being tolerated.
A maimed one from the Iran-Iraq war, thought Romeen.
He stopped by the one-armed man, pulled some rials from his wallet,
and handed them to him. The poor unfortunate
graciously accepted the gift and gave thanks by gesture. Romeen drove on. This witnessing of a maimed one triggered a surge
of anti-Americanism in Romeen’s
mind. The instinctive blaming of the Americans for the horrible losses of the
eight-year bloodbath was the outgrowth of a variant of anti-Americanism peculiar
to Iranians. It was not a clash of differing values: quite the contrary. For
generations, Iranians had genuinely admired Americans and drawn inspiration from
the ideals in which the United States of America had been founded.
But then,
they felt a sense of betrayal by the society they had looked up to and tried
to emulate. For half-a-century, America’s intervening in Iranian affairs
had been disastrous for Iranians. The Reaganite policy had been particularly
cynical and imperialistic: America’s fueling of the Iran-Iraq carnage,
its providing of weapons and intelligence to both sides to keep the war alive
as long as possible (thereby undercutting OPEC and deflaying the price of oil)
had only served to strengthen the power of the mullahs. When threatened externally,
people tend to rally behind their government no matter how despotic it is.
Winding their way through Yazd streets, driver Romeen
and passenger Roxana eventually entered onto the alley they had
seen the previous night. Moving slowly, their
car passed by the Zoroastrian religious store, prompting Roxana to suggest, “Let’s
shop here after we see the Fire Temple.”
“Indeed,” agreed Romeen. “As good
Iranians, we should buy a Fravahar to show our patriotism.”
The vehicle moved through the alleyway, passing by
the Fire Temple on the left. Beyond the alley, in the wider street,
driver and passenger began looking for
a place to park. After a little time and effort, Romeen found a space and settled
his car into it. He parked the car and turned off the engine. Romeen and Roxana
exited the car, locked its doors, and walked towards the Fire Temple.
The newlyweds admired the well-kept grounds as they
walked by the masonry and plants leading to the temple. They felt
quite impressed by the one-story rectangular
building’s well-maintained exterior as they walked up its front steps.
The door was already wide open. They entered. >>> To
be continued >>> Previois
parts
* Send
this page to your friends
|
