"This is not a good thing."
______________________
------------------ [excerpt from a new novel, You Belong to Me, by Colin Harrison] --------------
"This is not a good thing."
"We're going to have a talk with him."
If his nephew Ahmed were poor no one would care about this. "No, that is not a good idea, Amir. You say talk, but I know what that is. This kind of conversation turns into violence. You may offer him money to go away, if you like. I will pay."
"What about honor -- ?"
"Honor is a hat!"
"Uncle Hassan, I do not understand."
"It can be put on and knocked off and put on again! But you are too young to understand that!"
"Yes."
"No force, no violence! This is a private situation!" He remembered his heart and told himself to calm down. "Ahmed is an American corporate executive. At his level there is no tolerance for any kind of personal problem. There has been too much family involvement already, too much risk."
"As you wish."
Hassan hung up, worried he would be ignored. There hadn't been enough argument. His nephews were young and confused. They suffered the fallacy of perception: They thought because they perceived something, such as "family honor," that it actually existed.
They were inflamed by the constant news of war and terror in the Middle East, yet they lived in America and enjoyed its freedoms, the protection of its military, and the rule of law.
Their Westernization was so complete they did not feel it.
They paid for everything with American dollars,
ate American food,
drove German-branded cars built in America....
They followed the NFL.
They played war games on their phones, pretending to be badass mercenaries. They ate Mexican food.
And yet all the talk was about when the theocratic regime would fall so they could go home to a place they had never been:
Tehran in the seventies,
glitzy and cosmopolitan, casinos and theaters and hotels busy with oil money, an international, sophisticated city filled with Europeans and Americans smoking and drinking in the cafés, business and pleasure and espionage being conducted everywhere.
The Shah had believed in education, women's rights, the march of science.
But he was also politically repressive, and his family controlled the banks and construction companies, the hotels and the mining companies,
everything.
And when the revolution came, when Ayatollah Khomeini called for general strikes, when the statues of the Shah were being toppled and the CIA men disappeared, when the slitting of throats began, all the families that had been supported by the Shah, such as the Mehraz family, had to flee.
Now a million Iranians in Los Angeles sat waiting, like the rich Cubans in Miami, waiting for the restoration that would never come. History moved on, left you at the station holding a heavy suitcase and a worthless ticket.
A few of the Mehraz cousins ran illegal import/export businesses inside Iran. But all they really needed to do was tend to small questions -- an apartment building, a commercial lease -- because there was no war here for them to fight. They were soft and knew it and wanted to prove themselves worthy, as had the previous generation when Iran was stolen from the people who had stolen it originally.
And although the cousins had said they would keep Ahmed's involvement minimal, Hassan assumed that they would pester and prod him, to receive his approval. Ahmed was the one the family turned to now, the future leader of the family.
Time would show whether the clan stayed together.
Hassan doubted it could. His generation, the one that had arrived in the seventies and eighties, was dead or dying. What was left of the family was mostly scattered in Westwood, Brentwood, Beverly Hills. He himself couldn't keep the grandchildren straight.
They would be the first true Americans, the ones who were ten or eleven now. It took two generations to become Americans, through and through. And what was wrong with America?
His family had no idea how lucky they were.
The phone rang next to him again.
------------------ [end, excerpt] --------------
I heard of this novel because the New York Times Review of Books mentioned it. Then I went on Amazon and read part of it.
(A pretty generous amount is available for the customer to get a sense of what the book's like....)
That one part in the above excerpt about Cubans in Miami was sort of an "ah-hah moment" for me -- or maybe an "Oohh!" moment.
It has to do with the scene in All The President's Men where the Washington Post editor is trying to figure out "what they've got" with the Watergate break-in story and he says, "It could be crazy Cubans," in the book. (Blogged here, June 12, 2017)
In the movie he says, "Could just be crazy Cubans" .... and I used to have a comprehension-break with that line. (Why would it be "crazy Cubans" ... what was up with that idea? I really didn't know....)
But in the Harrison novel passage I typed in here, that part about Cubans in Miami kind of sheds some light on that concept:
------------- Now a million Iranians in Los Angeles sat waiting, like the rich Cubans in Miami, waiting for the restoration that would never come. History moved on, left you at the station holding a heavy suitcase and a worthless ticket. --------------
So apparently the Washington Post guy's reference to Cubans was to people living in America after a revolution in their original country, but maybe hoping the revolution would be -- reversed, so to speak, and they could hope to go back to -- prior glory, or whatever.
It makes one wonder if Prior Glory can be idealized in memory and imagination, polished to a high-dream shine by wishful thinking, resentment, and grouchy, neurotic mind-fuss ... (Things are never very good here; they were always better someplace else in the past, or would be better if we could get to a certain other thing in the future....
"...Jam to-morrow and jam yesterday -- but never jam today" ...)
_________________
The part where they are "left at the station holding a heavy suitcase and a worthless ticket" reminded me of the Rolling Stones recording of "Love in Vain" --
Well I followed her to the station
With a suitcase in my hand
Yeah, I followed her to the station
With a suitcase in my hand
Whoa, it's hard to tell, it's hard to tell
When all your love's in vain
When the train come in the station
I looked her in the eye
Well the train come in the station
And I looked her in the eye
Whoa, I felt so sad, so lonesome
That I could not help but cry
When the train left the station
It had two lights on behind
Yeah, when the train left the station
It had two lights on behind
Whoa, the blue light was my baby
And the red light was my mind
All my love was in vain
All my love's in vain
_______________
{"Love In Vain" - written by Robert Johnson; recorded by the Rolling Stones, producer - Jimmy Miller, 1969. Album: Let It Bleed}
> > > On Google, type in
The Rolling Stones, love in vain
and Play, on You Tube
-30-
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