Read Online Assassins of the Turquoise Palace by Roya Hakakian - Free Book Online
Authors: Roya Hakakian
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chiffon, against a picture of Noori;her hand, still adorned with her wedding band, stroked the frame and she looked into the distance, as if she were drifting into a dream. The next moment she had returned, alert, straightening herself and the flowers, dragging her index finger along the glass as if housekeeping could not be postponed and she simply had to dust. Her lips were moving to the words of the poem:
In the quiet, luminous space I have cried with you
For the sake of the living,
And in the dark cemetery I have sung with you
The most beautiful songs
Because this year’s dead
Were the most loving of the living . . .
Hundreds had come, mostly exiles who knew Noori personally, or of him through his television and radio interviews, or from his bylines. There were also many who did not know him at all. Nearly a million Iranians were living in exile by 1992, after the greatest exodus in the nation’s history. The majority were political refugees—some six thousand of whom had settled in Berlin. That morning, they had come to the cemetery because they shared the same tormented origin and traveled the same tormented trajectory. Noori’s history mirrored their own. In the aftermath of the coup in 1953 and the overthrow of the popular prime minister Mossadegh, many university students had headed west, where they founded the Iranian Student Confederation. With offices throughout Europe and the United States, the confederationwas the model of the democratic dream the coup had dashed. Scores of young progressives—secular and religious—came together to run the self-fashioned miniature republic in which every season was election season. They elected university representatives, who elected city representatives, who elected country representatives, who elected members of the international executive committee. They raised revenues from membership dues and printed annual budget reports, all according to the egalitarian bylaws they, themselves, had drafted. By the end of its existence in the late 1970s, the confederation had shaped a generation, from whose ranks the new political elite then emerged.
Dozens of graying members of the old confederation, idealists who had rebelled against one bad regime only to pave the way for one still more vicious, were standing at the foot of the stairs, solemnly listening. What pained them the most was not simply that they had become victims, but that they had bred their own executioners. Noori’s death was their burden. With the man they had come to bury, they would also bury a piece of their own past, a piece of themselves.
Noori was not all that they had lost. Trust was the other. In the week since the assassination they had pondered the details of that night, leading them to the certainty that their ranks had been infiltrated. One of their own had betrayed them. They were grieving Noori, the Kurds, and the irrevocable errors of their youth. They were also grieving their once undivided community, which was now broken. Fear had chased them out of Iran but had found them again in Berlin. Their safe haven was safe no more.
The procession began to move. Row after row, mourners holding photos, banners, and placards flowed forward until they arrived at the empty plot and circled it. There was a hush. A tall, broad-shouldered woman accompanying Shohreh unfurled an Iranian flag she had carried in a bag. What she did, what everyone did that day, was to follow their intuition, not a script. Quickly, a few arranged themselves behind the green, white, and red flag. Each grabbed a corner and stretched it along the length of the plot. Everyone was overcome by melancholy, but also with pride. For Noori was to be buried in Berlin’s Socialist cemetery beside some of Europe’s most notable rebels. A horn began to sound from the nearby woods. That its player was not in sight enhanced the majesty of the music. The melody was familiar to most as the beloved melody of their youth. Their lips began to
In the quiet, luminous space I have cried with you
For the sake of the living,
And in the dark cemetery I have sung with you
The most beautiful songs
Because this year’s dead
Were the most loving of the living . . .
Hundreds had come, mostly exiles who knew Noori personally, or of him through his television and radio interviews, or from his bylines. There were also many who did not know him at all. Nearly a million Iranians were living in exile by 1992, after the greatest exodus in the nation’s history. The majority were political refugees—some six thousand of whom had settled in Berlin. That morning, they had come to the cemetery because they shared the same tormented origin and traveled the same tormented trajectory. Noori’s history mirrored their own. In the aftermath of the coup in 1953 and the overthrow of the popular prime minister Mossadegh, many university students had headed west, where they founded the Iranian Student Confederation. With offices throughout Europe and the United States, the confederationwas the model of the democratic dream the coup had dashed. Scores of young progressives—secular and religious—came together to run the self-fashioned miniature republic in which every season was election season. They elected university representatives, who elected city representatives, who elected country representatives, who elected members of the international executive committee. They raised revenues from membership dues and printed annual budget reports, all according to the egalitarian bylaws they, themselves, had drafted. By the end of its existence in the late 1970s, the confederation had shaped a generation, from whose ranks the new political elite then emerged.
Dozens of graying members of the old confederation, idealists who had rebelled against one bad regime only to pave the way for one still more vicious, were standing at the foot of the stairs, solemnly listening. What pained them the most was not simply that they had become victims, but that they had bred their own executioners. Noori’s death was their burden. With the man they had come to bury, they would also bury a piece of their own past, a piece of themselves.
Noori was not all that they had lost. Trust was the other. In the week since the assassination they had pondered the details of that night, leading them to the certainty that their ranks had been infiltrated. One of their own had betrayed them. They were grieving Noori, the Kurds, and the irrevocable errors of their youth. They were also grieving their once undivided community, which was now broken. Fear had chased them out of Iran but had found them again in Berlin. Their safe haven was safe no more.
The procession began to move. Row after row, mourners holding photos, banners, and placards flowed forward until they arrived at the empty plot and circled it. There was a hush. A tall, broad-shouldered woman accompanying Shohreh unfurled an Iranian flag she had carried in a bag. What she did, what everyone did that day, was to follow their intuition, not a script. Quickly, a few arranged themselves behind the green, white, and red flag. Each grabbed a corner and stretched it along the length of the plot. Everyone was overcome by melancholy, but also with pride. For Noori was to be buried in Berlin’s Socialist cemetery beside some of Europe’s most notable rebels. A horn began to sound from the nearby woods. That its player was not in sight enhanced the majesty of the music. The melody was familiar to most as the beloved melody of their youth. Their lips began to
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