Tavern Keeper

I'd like to share with you a bit of fiction by Houshang Golshiri, one of the most influential writers of Persian prose of the 20th century.

In 1978, (when I was just 19 years old), Golshiri travelled to the United States. This was the beginning of the Iranian revolution. On January 16 1979, the Shah left Iran. Shapour Bakhtiar, his new prime minister and the Supreme Army Councils couldn't control the situation in the country anymore. Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran on February 1, 1979...

"“Barat’s tavern was still open for business. Even when they brought in a flatbed truck and pulled down the statue in the middle of Shah Square with a lot of pomp, not one person threw a good-for-nothing rock at Barat’s full length window panels. Barat was one of us. He was from our town. He was an old hand at this sort of battle. He’d even been to prison. He’d brought the eighteen-wheeler truck himself. Some people tied a rope to the horse’s hoof and started pulling it. They began swinging at the base of the statue with pickaxes. But the horse was still standing on two hooves. When Barat jumped out of the truck, we made way for him, clasped our hands and hoisted him to the top of the base. Then he managed to crawl up one of the horse’s legs, grab the tail, and sit behind the rider. Pulling himself up the rider’s arm, he managed to slide over and sit on the horse’s mane. He undid the shawl he wore around his waist and let it hang down. Someone tied a hammer to it and Barat hoisted. At last, he stood up.

He held on to the rider’s arm with one hand, and raised the hammer in the other hand. He turned around and looked at us from up there. And we, so many of us, as far as the eye could see, were standing and looking at him. What could he do with a hammer? Barat turned around, lifted the hammer, and brought it down hard on the rider’s nose. There was a spark but the nose didn’t budge. He pounded again, and again. From the other side of the square, armed soldiers began to pour out of a side street. The news traveled from mouth to mouth till it reached the statue where Barat was. He continued to pound, but the nose remained just the same. He started to hammer away at the brim of the hat, hitting it again and again. But now we weren’t looking at Barat anymore. We stepped aside to make way for the soldiers, and we watched them as they raised their guns and aimed at our foreheads. For sure, Barat had seen it too.

He yelled out: “Hurry up, give me the cable!” We stretched out the towing cable and tied it to Barat’s shawl, which was still hanging down. We heard gunshots as a shower of bullets passed just above our heads. The crowd heaved backward and swung back into place again. With the next round of bullets, the crowd stretched out, spilled over, and poured into the back streets. Now the guns were pointing at the statue. Two people had fallen at the base. They were the men who had climbed up to hoist the cable. But Barat was still there. His back was to the rider as he sat astride the mane, holding the bridle in one hand and the towing cable in the other. He leaned over to put the cable around the horses leg, which was raised up to the blue sky. The soldiers started to move. By now, we could just hear their footsteps since we, all of us, were hiding, here and there, in the bend of an alley, in the gutters lining the streets, and in the few stores that remained open on the square.

That’s when we heard Barat’s voice. We heard him yell: “Come on, move it!” The commanding officer was now aiming his gun at him. Barat slid down the horse’s mane and yelled again: “Pull!” The cable tightened around the horse’s leg. The soldiers crouched down and aimed at the truck’s tires. But it was already too late. The horse and its rider had begun to tilt. They leaned over, and when they finally collapsed, the entire main square shook, and the water in the four fountains of the square spilled over the edges. The soldiers stood up. The crowd crouching in the gutters stood up, too. It all happened in one instant. We had seen that statue since we were kids, and now as the dust settled, we could see that it was gone — the horse erect on two legs, neighing; the rider, with his military cap, forever holding the horse’s bridle, forever galloping, no more. The base was now empty.

And there, in the middle of the square, lay the head of the rider, wedged in the stone pavement. The horse’s four limbs were pointing at the sky and trembling as though the animal was alive. The limbs shook, then seemed to search the ground for a firm footing, as if the horse was attempting to rise up, get the rider back on the saddle to hold the bridle, so that it could neigh and rise once again on its legs. We, all of us, emerged from the back alleys, jumped out of the stores, driven forward onto the streets, looking at our hands, our empty hands, when we saw Barat. He was standing there, on the base of the statue, his chest bare, and he was holding his shirt in his hand, his other hand on his waist. He was dancing and twirling his shirt over his head like a handkerchief, and he was shaking his lower body. No, the statue would not rise again. It had been toppled and the riders nose and hat were stuck deep in the pavement.

We said: God is great! We said: Death to the Shah! We said: Long live the people! And we began to dance. We danced like Barat, with or without a handkerchief, holding each other’s hands. It was finally over. The war was over. And the soldiers who were pointing guns at us were now only pretending to fight. We danced and we walked. Wherever we saw people bent over weeping, we grabbed their hands and twirled them around. If they pulled their hands away to wipe a tear, we kissed their half-open mouths. We knew the Shah wouldn’t come back. Suddenly we heard a shot. Where did it come from? The soldiers were facing us though their guns were at rest. The commanding officer was just holding his hat in his hand. Who was it, then? The base of the statue stood empty. Barat had been shot.

The soldiers were looking at us, showing us their empty hands. They stared at one another to see who had fired the shot. Suddenly, a shower of rocks began. The soldiers huddled together. Holding on to their guns, they began to retreat. Then, it was them again shooting, and they were not shooting in the air. They were aiming at us. A few of us fell, but we couldn’t stretch out and pour out into the back streets. Some of the soldiers stopped, put down their guns, and tossed away their hats. They were weeping. The rest were running, under a shower of rocks, toward the military vehicles that had begun to move. Barat had collapsed right there, at the base of the statue. He was covered with blood. We picked him up.

He just said: “My arm.” It was his right arm. It was broken, and blood was gushing from his shoulder. We lifted him up and ran through the passage that people opened up for us. That was the kind of guy Barat was. He was one of us, an old hand at resistance, and very headstrong. When they had to operate on him, we all lined up to donate blood: the line we formed went around the hospital and all the way up Majidiyeh Street. And on the day they released him, we all went along to bring him home, with much pomp and celebration. His tavern was closed and we didn’t want to him to go there. We said: “Stay home. Stay till your arm heals.” He said: “It will heal.” The bone in his arm had been shattered. It was in a cast.

But Barat was not one to stay put; after a couple of days, he undid the bandage around his shoulder, and the next thing we heard was that he was heading back to his store, with a pot under his arm. He even managed to open the metal gate with his left hand. We loved him. We didn’t want him to get into trouble. We went over and asked: “Barat, what are you doing?”

~ Hushang Golshiri, Strange Times, My Dear: Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature
Hushang Golshiri grew up in the south of Iran in the city of Abadan. His first collection of short stories, As Always, was published in 1968, followed by his most successful and famous novel, Prince Ehtejab. About the decadence of the ruling class as seen through the memories of a dying prince, it was made into a popular movie in 1974, directed by Bahman Farmanara. Golshiri was arrested and imprisoned after the film was shown because his criticism of the prince was construed as an attack on the Shah’s regime.

Golshiri deliberately weaves contradiction, rumor, and ambiguity to show how the meaning of revolution and being revolutionary shifted as the popular movement to remove the Shah became more and more controlled by Islamist factions to become another form of repression. With the interesting, ambiguous usage of “we said” and “they said” Golshiri introduces different voices and perspectives, and shows how people cling to their perceptions of shifting realities, often believing what they want to believe rather than registering the tragic facts.

[A note of explanation about the tavern keeper —a frequently used image in classical Persian poetry, particularly the poetry of Hafiz. The old tavern keeper represents wisdom and sincerity and honesty, in contrast to the hypocritical followers of religion, who profess belief and piety, but lie, cheat, and hurt others.]