All That Sat

The shot I thought was a blank must have been tear gas, or else the earth is spewing this thick mustard vapor in disgust. What I can’t fathom is why Angelo’s going toward it! Against my instinct, I follow him to the source of our contorted suffocation, only to realize the seasoned rioter‘s plan involves grabbing the fuming canister of blister off the ground with his bare hand and flinging it as far away as possible from the crowds. If only he knew he’d soon be in dire need of his best eye sight to find his soul mate, yet again. Two dozen coughs and spits later, we can breathe after a fashion, but to our chagrin, we’ve lost our queen Robin to the pandemonium unleashed in this insane game of street chess. Just a few minutes ago, she was regally lashing out at a nervous young man who -- presumably in an attempt to display Persian chivalry of some sort -- had dared urge Angelo to better protect his lady.

We slip into a house where the wide-eyed sympathizing owners help us regain composure. “Don’t you even think of washing up! Just let your own tears do the trick,” stresses my brother in arms, meticulously wiping all around my inflamed eye sockets with a damp cloth once he’s briefly dealt with his own temporary blindness and scorched hand. Our makeshift saviors appear to be in no need of profuse gestures of appreciation, which Angelo greatly appreciates as he dashes out the door with an almost palpable apprehension on his face belying the mustered-up tranquility. Left-brained and detached, I suggest moving forward and westerly, thinking Robin must have marched on to our original destination. But the pragmatic Romeo’s intuitive radar is fully functional by now and he begs to differ. We join a small band of frustrated protesters fleeing to the west seeking an unblocked entrance back into the main street, but he starts masterfully scuttling backward while scoping out every possible corner near and far, the way a rescue pilot would look for a life-long pal lost in the land of cannibals. Precious minutes are going by. And there! He’s spotted her amidst the haze of chaos. Incredulous and grateful, I embrace a relieved Juliet who’s walked her earlier talk dauntless and taken care of herself with flying colors, mostly green; there are tears again, but of a different persuasion this time. And I can’t help feeling inadequate for having mistaken other-worldly focus with resigned tranquility.

Now, a young man is taking turns blowing cigarette smoke into his wife's eyes and mine to counteract the corneal effects of a creative assortment of pepper gases fired by these huge monsters of anti-riot police clad in black armors, gas masks and shields. Are they even Iranian? Still disoriented after the over-diligent peace keepers of our town rained down sizeable rocks on us from across the road with no mercy whatsoever, we hear a cacophony of motorcycle roars and barbaric yawps over women's shrieks of terror and indignation. Within the columns of foul smoke rising from the dumpsters and car tires people have set on fire, I can barely make out ruffians disguised as the dreaded paramilitary Basij -- or is it the other way round? -- on blood-red dual-sport motorbikes waving their machetes toward the scattering bewildered groups of people and shouting bellicose Islamic mantras to invoke the powers of a Shiite figurehead, or something.

By 9.00 pm, I'm back home in my bathroom under a cold shower stream trying to get the CS gas residues and whatnot out of my eyes and out of my pores. My neighborhood, a lower middle-class suburb in the south east, is antithetically hushed, except for the occasional chants of "Allah 'O Akbar" cried out from the roof tops in defiance of the injustices inflicted on us by our Draconian brothers; indeed, what a great God! Will He at least be taking care of those brutally beaten up and humiliatingly dragged onto big black vans destination unknown?

Later that evening, covered in dust, ash and half-dried blood, I'm pressing a young girl's gushing wound inflicted by a baton to the head as hard as I can with one hand while grabbing on with the other to the end of the seat on a moped which is carrying the three of us to the nearest hospital. As we approach the entrance, far from a hero’s welcome, all we receive is menacing revolutionary guards rushing to arrest us. The driver takes a precarious U-turn to get away. Too fast. The bike collapses on us. I thought I've cushioned the blow with my right side, but the poor girl lets out such a shrill soul-penetrating shriek that I’m left with no doubt she’s broken an arm, to say the least. Somehow, we manage to get the bike back up and running before our cursing, bellowing pursuers reach us. Gee, they’re firing gun shots! Wringing my neck back to a painful angle, I can see they're actually shooting … not in the air, not to warn, but aiming at us! In the distance, someone’s shouting the British Embassy’s taking in the injured. But how to get there with elaborate road blocks set up on all intersections?

Curiously enough, at 4 pm the next day, an eerie silence has befallen everywhere. Apart from a few dark spots on the asphalt and the occasional smashed door of a building broken into last night by the “police” after their residents were seen harboring fugitives, there’s only a vague smirk on the face of the hundreds of guards strategically positioned at key points, and nothing else. All has gone calm miraculously. This is too surreal, even for a compulsive illusionist like myself.

On that Saturday, somewhere between Revolution Sq. and Liberty Sq. in the west central part of the great Tehran, we learned firsthand the excruciating truth about revolution and liberty. And Satyagraha … is best practiced whilst lounging on the couch with sugar lumps in your coffee and no lumps in your throat.

J-Che
Sep 2009, Tehran