Chimeras

By Donné Raffat

Hans Roosli, a young Swiss journalist on his
first assignment a broad, comes to Iran in
October, 1971, to cover the Shah’s celebration
of 2,500 years of the nation’s monarchy: an occasion that
triggers events leading to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
There he meets a thirteen year-old girl of privilege, Donya,
whose growing fascination for him impels him to return to
cover the revolution until his arrest and imprisonment. One
his release six years later, she is nowhere to be found.
The tale of his subsequent search for Donya is an
odyssey that takes Hans around the globe until, decades
later, they are finally reunited under strange and unexpected circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984536600

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Donné Raffat.

Library of Congress Control Number:              2018907370

ISBN:                  Hardcover                     978-1-9845-3662-4

                            Softcover                       978-1-9845-3661-7

                            eBook                            978-1-9845-3660-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 02/13/2018

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

775804

CONTENTS

THE FIRST CYCLE

ILLUSIONS

1     Emil

2     Donya

3     Protocol

4     Persepolis

5     Darband

6     Chimeras I

7     The Nameless Writer

8     Travels

9     Return To Iran

10   In Donya’s Garden

11   The Eighth Pavilion

12   Niavaran

13   Departure

14   Decisions

15   Insurrection

16   Revolution

17   Arrest And Imprisonment

18   Sonya

THE SECOND CYCLE

DELUSIONS

19   Mürren

20   Zürich

21   Hartmut In Honau

22   Paris

23   Chimeras Ii

24   Lugano

25   Intermission

26   Professor Hayim’s War Room

27   Solitude

28   Chillon Castle

29   Villa Diodati

30   The Appraisal

31   Professor Hayim Theorizes

32   Ainola

33   The Book Tour

34   1989

35   Hartmut In Leningrad

36   Eulogy For An Editor

37   Rushdie In Hiding

38   Martha Gellhorn

39   Amnesia

40   Loss

THE THIRD CYCLE

PHANTOMS

41   Havana

42   Martha’s Finca

43   Travel Reconsidered

44   After The Hurricane

45   Return To Mürren

46   Montevideo

47   Chimeras Iii

48   Nowhere

49   Wanderings

50   Elsewhere

51   In Place

52   Two Journalists

53   Turnabout

54   Aliza

55   The Stone Lady

56   Sequela

For

Ali and Anna Gheissari and Iraj and Sally Noorany

For all our good talks and meals over the years covered in this tale.

Take care, your worship, those things over there are not giants but windmills.

—Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes

(1547–1616)

Wen Gott Betrügt, Ist Wohl Betrogen.

(Whom God Deludes Is Well Deluded.)

—An old German proverb found in

a collection published by

Johannes Agricola (1494?–1566)

Stay, illusion.

—Hamlet

Shakespeare

the first cycle

ILLUSIONS

(1971)

1

EMIL

Tehran, July 1985

After my sudden release from prison, I was given three days to terminate my affairs in Tehran and to leave the country. That very night I telephoned Emil from the Swiss Embassy and arranged to meet him the following afternoon at our usual haunt on Avenue Lalezar. And so it came about that after six years and to the surprise of both of us, we were once again seated in the same coffee house and even at the same table as before.

From that standpoint, little seemed to have changed despite all the happenings. Emil looked older, with graying temples and mustache; but he was still slim and wearing, I could almost swear, the same grey suit he usually wore when he was coming from his office. But perhaps that was memory playing one of its old tricks, and I write this now after the passage, since then, of nearly three decades.

Our conversation, though, is still clear in my mind. After our talk about the occurrences since my arrest and the senseless ongoing war with Iraq, we finally turned back to more personal matters. I was the one who, on the spur, raised the question, with my own answer ready after his response. What was the one thing in his life he would have done differently?

Revolutions and war—and for me imprisonment—make people philosophical, but even then I was not ready for his prompt reply.

I would have been a better architect.

What? A better architect, after all the upheavals in our lives? No emigrating to another country, when he still had the chance and a fair measure of his youth? No prospect of starting a new life elsewhere with his young family? I asked him to explain.

He recounted his story, much of which I was familiar with. Following his training in Paris, he had returned home to set up the kind of business that would best support his family—aging parents included—always leaving for the future the occasion to branch out into the kind of work that he had been trained for and aspired to do. That, of course, was back in the era of the Shah, when contracts for the construction of buildings were readily available. Cities then were expanding, and he had taken advantage of that. Small schools, warehouses, standard office and apartment buildings—all these he had worked on and overseen to completion, while always hoping that a major project would come his way, despite the corruption involved in such dealings. Finally, one came through just before the revolution, even though it involved a good deal of government bribery: a bank building on the former Avenue Takhte-Jamshid, not far from the American Embassy. Did I remember that, he asked. I said I did, though I had not seen it. Its structure, he added, was of his own futurist design: multileveled and stepped, with angled windows, reflecting the diverse course the country was taking. At last, he had reached his goal but, alas, too late.

Too late? I responded. Emil, if you reached your goal, then what regret is there?

I will show you. You will see for yourself.

He got up to settle our bill, as there was no allowing me, a foreigner in his country—let alone one just out of prison—to part with so much as one rial in his company.

We left the coffee house, got into his car, and drove through the crowded streets, until we came to an alley where he found a parking spot. Then, walking along the avenue, we came upon a large space of flattened ground.

Behold my edifice? he declared. Early last spring it was destroyed by a scud missile. No one now remembers it. Only I do. What you see as rubble, I see as my masterpiece.

So taken aback was I that I never did tell Emil of my own response to my query.

2

DONYA

Tehran, October 1971

But to you, reader, I now will. I would have done my life entirely over to be back together again with my beloved Donya, who now exists no more (except in mind) than Emil’s magnificent structure. In that regard, both Emil and I may be defined by our loss. But therein, I maintain, also lies the broader aspect of this story. To address that, however, I need to restart this narrative at an earlier point.

In October 1971, I was a budding journalist working for the-then prestigious Swiss Review of World Affairs. I say the-then as that eminent weekly journal to which financiers and libraries around the world once subscribed is no longer in service, done in by the digital age on the eve of the new millennium.

At the time, I was leading a fairly pedestrian life in Zürich, rarely leaving my native country, when, to my surprise, I was assigned to cover an event that would normally have been given to one of my seniors. The event was the late Shah’s celebration of the 2,500 years of monarchy in Iran, which was due to take place in Persepolis in the middle of that month.

Why was I given such a major occasion to cover, after barely a year’s work on such an eminent journal? Because the man originally designated was suddenly felled by a serious illness, and no one else was available. So fortune plays a part at the very start of this story—and, frankly, in my view, never leaves it.

At twenty-five then and still undergoing monthly military training in our mountains, I knew little of Iran or that part of the world commonly referred to as The Middle East and even less of Persepolis. Was the Shah’s claim of 2,500 years of continuous Iranian monarchy true or a fabrication for political or promotional purposes? If true, that would have made Iran’s monarchy the oldest in the world, eclipsing those of Europe by well over a thousand years. I was awed at the task before me yet also wary of my gullibility.

At any rate, from Zürich I went on by Swissair to Beirut—a city I was later to see during its period of turmoil—then on to Tehran, where I was met at Mehrabad airport by an equally youthful Emil Jamal, who had just finished his studies in architecture at Tehran University and who, due to his command of European languages, was temporarily working for the government as a translator and guide for foreign visitors in the news media, before going on for his post-graduate training in Paris.

After greeting me at the airport with much charm and helpfulness and insisting on carrying my suitcase to his car (there were no luggage carts then), he proceeded to tell me that he had been forced by circumstances—namely, the traffic and the pressure of time—to come with two passengers whom he had been unable to drop off along the way. He hoped that I did not mind sharing the ride to my hotel. His French was even more fluent than mine and his apologies were eloquent.

Given my naïve wariness then, I was immediately suspicious: imagining two SAVAK agents assigned to follow me. Instead, when we reached the car, I found, in the back seat, with the windows down, two teenage girls in school uniform, who stepped out and were introduced to me as Sonya—Emil’s younger sister—and Donya, her classmate.

Sonya and Donya—what an odd twosome, I thought, like two peas in a pod. But two lovely peas, it must be added, both with large dark eyes and short brown hair framing their faces and given to laughing. At first, I could not tell which was which. But as we talked—in French—my eyes were gradually drawn to the taller one with the lower and less girlish voice.

What a delightful introduction to this ancient kingdom, I thought, after being dropped off at the old German Hotel, where my room had been booked. And what a surprisingly festive way to be greeted. Little did I know then that the taller schoolgirl with the lower voice, Donya, would, in time, become the romantic object—some would say fixation—of my life and imagination.

3

PROTOCOL

At the hotel there were two other journalists from what was then West Germany: one working for Der Spiegel and the other for Die Welt. Both were older than I and had been to Iran before, the one from Der Spiegel enough times to speak in Farsi. Over our supper that evening, I was told about the country and advised not to eat any green salad and to drink only bottled water.

The arrangement had been that all three of us would be picked up the next morning by Emil and driven to the Ministry of Information and Culture for an official briefing with other journalists, then given a tour of Tehran before going on the next day by Iran Air to Shiraz and Persepolis, all expenses paid by the government. But as my colleagues in the press were already familiar with the city, after the briefing at the ministry, both opted to go their own way, leaving me to be Emil’s sole passenger. That is how we came to know each other.

For you, Monsieur Roosli, I will give a special tour!

As mentioned, Emil was not only suave but spirited and now displayed a distinctly playful sense of humor. He was, after all, at heart an artist. So instead of touring the usual government sites and the exhibit of crown jewels (while avoiding such places as Evin Prison and the poorer southern part of the city, where the revolution to come was already in genesis), we roamed the bazaar, walked through his beloved Tehran University, with its bookstores and stalls across the street, and ended up having beer by the swimming pool of the attractively modern Hotel Vanak. In the process, I came to know more about him.

Emil was from an Assyrian Christian family that had long been settled in Iran, predating, he boasted, the advent of Islam. The older branch of his clan lived in Shiraz and the younger and more worldly one—meaning from his grandfather’s generation onward—in Tehran. That distinction made, there came, over more beer, story after story, closing with his ambition to continue his studies in France and his hope for the same for his adored sister Sonya, who was attending the elite Jeanne d’Arc school for girls in Tehran, where she had become close friends with her classmate Donya, who was from a rich and prominent secular Muslim family. On our way back to my hotel, he invited me to a group outing after our trip to Persepolis.

At the front desk, Emil was given the urgent message to call his supervisor (this was the age before people carried cell phones), following which he was told that my two fellow journalists would not be included in our next day’s traveling party.

Why is this chapter titled protocol? Because the two senior fellow journalists did not keep to it. As matters turned out, had they adhered to the prescribed schedule for the day instead of going their own way, the two journalists would not have been followed by SAVAK agents, intent on knowing their whereabouts, and subsequently detained and interrogated after they met with two dissident writers, who were later arrested. Der Spiegel and Die Welt may have been interested in reports on the opposition to the events at Persepolis, but the Swiss Review of World Affairs, with its focus on financial matters, was not.

Perhaps there is a moral in this: sometimes it pays to be the naivest person in a group.

At any rate, as a result of the detainment of my two fellow journalists, their two seats on the next morning’s flight to Shiraz were duly filled—thanks to Emil’s Machiavellian machinations—by Sonya and Donya.

4

PERSEPOLIS

I was unprepared for the spectacle and a good deal else at Persepolis. On the one hand, there were the magnificent remains of the Achaemenid capital still standing despite the destruction of Alexander and subsequent invaders; on the other, there was the presence of the huge makeshift tented city surrounding them. The one represented that which had been painstakingly built to last through the centuries, and the other was its present-day counterpart, gone up within months only to disappear after a two-day celebration, like a short-lived desert flower, sprouting after the rain. What better illustration of the contrast between the enduring and the ephemeral?

Emil, as I recall, was much taken by that and insisted on our touring the ancient site first in the relative cool of the day in order to linger over its masonry and splendid stone carvings, before going on to inspect the quarters of the tented city, which was, essentially, what I was sent there to cover.

From the comparatively small and compact ancient capital, one passed on to a sprawling world of not just opulence and excess but that of fantasy. In advance of the ceremony, accommodations there were being provided for some six hundred world leaders and dignitaries—not to omit the movie star Grace Kelly, who was to outshine them all in the news media—along with quarters for the squadrons of retainers and staff, to be transported to the site on the verge of the Dasht-e Kavir or Iran’s great Salt Desert. (There, I thought, it was not Alexander but the surrounding desert that was the more deserving of the epithet.) And beyond these, on the periphery, were the temporary barracks of the legions of troops already stationed there in preparation of their parade before all the guests and television cameras in the fighting garb of ancient warriors designed in Hollywood. Then still to come were the chefs, waiters, and sommeliers flown in from such places as Maxim’s in Paris and the Shah’s favorite hotel in St. Moritz. The list of such details could go on and perhaps later will. But for the purpose of this episode, I return to the main drift.

Midway in our walk through the often-photographed Courtyard of Darius the Great or Takht-e-Jamshid (yes, the name of the aforementioned avenue in Tehran on which Emil’s peerless structure had once stood), I felt a rumble in my stomach followed by a shooting sense of urgency for a bowel movement. How, despite all my precautions, had that come about, and where in that place to slip away to a toilet? As I walked on with Emil, Sonya, and Donya, all jabbering in excitement at their first view of the ruins, all I could think of was my need for relief.

Thus, it was I who cut our tour short and directed our group to return to the tented area, where a latrine was surely to be found.

But Hans, Emil protested, there is still more to be seen here!

Later, I replied. We could come back later.

Why could I have not simply told him of my plight? Had I been alone with him, as before, I would have; but in the presence of two such early teenage girls attending Catholic school, I was too embarrassed to do so. Reader, sometimes embarrassment can block out anything.

Fortunately, at that point, the bowel spasms just as suddenly subsided. So we were able to proceed, without rush, to the next part of the tour, which involved a look into the royal quarters, conveniently among the nearest ones to the ruins.

After the guard inspected our passes and bags, we were allowed to proceed on our own to the sumptuous living area, with its crystal chandelier dangling from the pointed ceiling. That is all I recall of the ornate furnishings, as once again I felt another rumble and the press of urgency.

Enough! I announced. That’s all I need to see. You stay here and we’ll catch up later!

Once more I was met with surprised looks and protests. But all three insisted that our group stay all together, especially since Emil was the one officially responsible. At the guard station, I could no longer contain myself.

Snatching my camera from my bag, I told the others to wait, while I returned to take a few photographs.

Back inside, I rushed to the nearest bathroom, whether that of His or Her Imperial Majesty, I could not tell, as all was spotless and bare but for an unopened roll of toilet paper. What followed was the release that occasions this writing. Never can I think of Persepolis or the Shah’s ceremony without, in some way, reliving my moment in that toilet. But, reader, this account of that episode is not yet ended.

When I rose to flush the toilet, there was not a sound or a trickle of water. Imagine my horror then when I discovered that the plumbing system had not been connected or turned on yet. And this was less than a week before the opening ceremony. So force majeure, I had to flee the place in the condition I had left it.

On rejoining the others, I could tell from their looks that they were now aware of the circumstances. The girls, to their credit, tactfully turned away, while Emil, sober-faced, consulted his watch.

As it’s nearly lunchtime, Hans, perhaps now we should return to your quarters. As you say, there is still later to cover the rest before we leave.

But cover it, alas, I was never able to do. Without having eaten any green salad or drunk anything but bottled water, I had somehow succumbed to that wretched ailment commonly known as Tehran Tummy. This, I later learned, was a variant of the equally vicious Delhi Belly—both being attacks of not just diarrhea but intestinal dysentery, for which medication is needed, along with drinking lots of boiled water and tea to flush out one’s system, before a gradual recovery.

As I lay on my cot, close to the toilet, in the Spartan tented quarters designated for foreign journalists, Emil and the girls resumed the tour we had started, afterward informing me of all they had seen, which was later duly incorporated into the report I submitted, once I was able to. After that, they returned to their own lodgings in Shiraz, where they were staying with the older branch of Emil’s family.

As for the damage done to the reputation of Swiss journalists, I cannot guess, having long since blanked my mind to it. But however bad, that must have been minimal compared with the fate of the guards at the Royal Pavilion.

5

DARBAND

The very name brings back the strongest of memories, even more, ones to offset those of Persepolis. Whereas those of Persepolis are such that one can never be fully rid of, those of Darband are the kind that one happily clings to and treasures. To specify:

The day before my return to Zürich, I was sufficiently recovered from my ordeal to be picked up from my hotel in Tehran by Emil and driven to his modest two-story house not far away. The invitation had originally been for me to have lunch with his family and then go on with them for an outing. But as I was still on a diet of biscuits and mineral water (like Lord Byron in his futile attempts to lose weight), I came only for the second part, for which I was told Donya would be joining us. The day being a Sunday, the girls’ school was closed.

After meeting what appeared to me then as Emil’s elderly parents and having the obligatory glass of scalding hot tea with them, we set off in the compact family Citroën for our destinations in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains, which stretched across the northern limits of the city. The drive took us up what was then Pahlavi Avenue, with its line of tall plane trees interspersed with long banners in the green, white, and red of the nation’s colors in celebration of the event at Persepolis. And as we proceeded, the range ahead, which from a distance had appeared through the smoggy haze as a uniform purplish-brown blur, came more distinctly into view, revealing its true tones and contour.

At the lush green suburb of Shemran, we turned off the main road and took narrow streets until we came to a large estate or baq—literally garden—inside which the house was hidden behind white plastered walls. At that point, Sonya hopped out of the back seat and rang the bell at a huge wooden gate, and Donya joined us, squeezing into the front seat between Emil and me.

The ride thereafter was a short one, taking us farther up and into the foothills. Where the road ended, we got out and walked. We were now beyond Shemran and its busy market square in Tajrish and in Darband. There were no demarcations or road signs, but all in our party except me knew exactly where we were and where we were heading.

We then climbed up a steep path next to a mountain stream: its waters flowing noisily over rocks and boulders, dividing, seemingly, an older, more traditional world from the newer and wealthier one. I was struck by that contrast even before I developed any thoughts about that. On the other side of the stream, at different levels, were the small, wooden teahouses, all with large brass samovars and outdoor tables and chairs under a canopy of overarching sycamore trees. Then on ours, adjacent to the path, were the grounds of the gleaming white Hotel Darband, built on a slope and with an array of outdoor stairways that brought to mind the paintings of Escher.

The air was cool and mountain fresh, and farther up were the peaks that would soon be covered in snow. Emil had said that Darband was Tehran’s counterpart to Switzerland, which he had never been to and which was why he had brought me there. I could see his point. Here was a place where nature, with its own sounds, stood above and apart from all below. For me, it was also one that one wished to see not just once in a lifetime but to revisit, possibly staying in the hotel, which, to my regret, I never did.

In brief, after my experience at Persepolis, Darband was the perfect place to come to, especially given the next stage in the sequence of happenings.

At the second or third wooden bridge over the water, Emil’s parents opted to step across and to wait for us at a teahouse. Our remaining foursome then went on toward one of the lower rises of Tow Chal, the mountain we were climbing, with Emil’s intent on our taking in its vista of the city. But along the way, I suddenly weakened and became wary of having a relapse of the condition from which I was recovering. So part way up, I bade the others to go on, while I waited for them on a boulder that had its own partial view of the city.

A debate then followed, resulting, to my surprise, with Donya’s decision to stay and keep me company, while Emil and Sonya continued their climb. I say surprise because I had never spoken with Donya individually, and I had always considered her as being inseparable from Sonya. So now the two of us strangers from different nations and cultures and—an even greater divide—generations—were seated atop the same rock.

She wanted to know about Switzerland and life in Europe, as opposed to mine in particular, which is different. But she also wanted to talk about herself and perhaps to someone from elsewhere—or anderswo, as we say in German—not just a term but a concept I will address later. Her dream, she said, was to see the world, which, she added, was the meaning of her name in Persian. Donya was the shortened form of Donyazad, meaning daughter of the world. The name, which was unusual and chosen by her literary merchant father, had been taken from The Thousand and One Nights, Donyazad being the younger sister of Scheherezad, the teller of many tales, which meant daughter of the city. Her father wished her to go beyond that confine, and so did she.

But she was also interested in me in an unexpected way that brought a smile to both our lips.

Why, she asked, had I chosen to be a journalist?

I reluctantly confessed that that, for me, was a better alternative than being stuck in teaching or working for a business firm.

So you are like Sinbad the Sailor! She laughed. You preferred a life of travel and adventure to staying at home.

I had never thought of myself as being as such, but, clearly, she had a different