|
Excerpt: The Story of the Belly Dancer
Sharyzad Sharifi, remembering how in the
many tales of the Thousand and One Nights the title was more
often a person’s occupation rather than a person’s name, asked
Anaheita, “What is your tale called?”
Anaheita answered, “The Story of the Belly
Dancer.”
For the first time, Porzand and the Sharifis
saw Anaheita smile. She rose to her feet, opened up her coat and
struck up the pose of a professional dancer. She stood there
posing for a few moments, then sat down again. Romeen, Roxana,
Sharyzad and Porzand listened attentively as Anaheita began
the Story of the Belly Dancer.
“I was born in Isfahan one year after the
revolution. My earliest memories are of the war years. When I
was quite little, my father died as a soldier in the war against
Iraq, leaving behind an impoverished wife and daughter. My
mother had it quite rough, struggling very hard to find odd jobs
to feed and clothe me.
“When I was ten, a rare opportunity presented
itself: a Turkish hotel owner visited Isfahan and took an
interest in my mother. He offered her employment at his hotel in
Turkey. She gladly accepted. Mother and I traveled overland to
the Aegean coast of Turkey. There in Kusadasi, a lovely beach
resort town close to many impressive archaeological sites, my
mother began work as a maid in our benefactor’s hotel.
“The next eight years of my life were pretty
good, even though we remained poor. I grew up in the idyllic
setting of Kusadasi, where jobs abounded during the summer. I
adapted to my new and much freer environment, perfecting my
Turkish, preserving my Persian, and learning English in school.
I took advantage of numerous interactions with tourists to
become fluent in English and to pick up smatterings of Greek,
French and German. Partly as a move to supplement the meager
family income and partly out of love for the art, I became a
proficient belly dancer. I got the chance to show off my skills
and earn a little money at hotel performances.
“I graduated from high school and spent one
last tourist season with friends and family in Kusadasi. Towards
the end of the summer, I was offered a contract to become a
member of a belly-dancing troupe headquartered in Istanbul. I
read the contract carefully; it looked good and I signed. Early
that autumn, I said good-bye to friends and family and departed
for Istanbul, there to begin a belly-dancing career that I
planned to happily work at for the next few years, in the
process making good money and having opportunities to travel. I
was determined to enjoy my years of youth.
“I became part of a sorority of belly dancers
and made many friends. I had a sequence of boyfriends, nice
flings but of the kind not meant to last. About half the time I
spent in Istanbul, the other half on tour. The longest tour was
for five months in the U.S.A. In Los Angeles, our performances
were captured on film and made into a movie, a feature
presenting dances of the harem-fantasy variety as well as
individual dances wherein each of us was allowed to exhibit what
she did best. A sizable number of VCR and DVD recordings were
made of this excellent movie. I was proud of these audio-visuals
and glad they were being produced in both the American and the
European formats. I took a sizable quantity of them back home to
Istanbul.
“Those were good times for me, but after
Nine-Eleven things began to go downhill. The terrorist attack
had devastating repercussions on the tourist trade in Turkey. We
always did our best to create a magnificent floorshow, but often
we would find ourselves performing in nightclubs with three out
of four tables empty. We were offered the chance to make some
music videos of the Britney Spears variety, and, being hard
pressed economically, we as a group accepted. We made several
overtly erotic dance music videos. I considered them
entertaining perhaps but not artistic; but then, neither did I
consider them pornographic, as they contained neither graphic
sex nor nudity.
“Four years after I joined the troupe, I
received a letter from my mother. She said she wanted to return
to Isfahan and spend the last days of her life there among
friends and relatives in the place where she had been born and
raised. This came as a shock to me, for I was unaware that my
mother had any serious medical problems. I immediately called
her up and requested (actually, I insisted) that she come to
Istanbul; I would pay her expenses.
“She came to Istanbul and stayed with me. I
took her to several doctors, and discovered that her liver was
rapidly deteriorating to the point where she probably did not
have much longer to live. Her only hope was a risky liver
transplant, which was very expensive and required her being on a
waiting list for a donor. I tried to talk my mother into taking
the chance, but she was adamantly opposed to that course of
action, regarding as obscene the very thought of having another
person’s organ transplanted inside her, foreign tissue prone to
rejection by the new host. She preferred to die peacefully among
relatives in the place of her pleasant childhood memories. I
eventually accepted my mother’s reasoning, not really knowing
how we could afford a liver transplant anyway.
“It was slack time for my dance troupe’s
employment; so, I told them that I had to leave for awhile and
return to Isfahan with my ailing mother. My friends all wished
me luck, and we said our good-byes with tears and kissing. One
month before the Roman New Year, I went with my mother to the
Istanbul airport. We both had Iranian passports; we were still
Iranian citizens. We flew to Tehran on Turkish Airways, and then
to Isfahan on Iran Air.
“I spent my mother’s last days with her in
the same place we had spent the first ten years of my life. I
renewed acquaintances with relatives I had not seen or heard
from in twelve years. They talked a lot about my father. I felt
both sadness and pride when I saw his picture on a billboard,
eulogizing him as a martyr who had died defending his country.
“I did some touring with my mother. Isfahan
is indeed a beautiful city, with its Safayeed Palace as a vision
of paradise, its Mosque as a reach to Heaven and a font of
spectacular acoustics, its bazaar as a friendly place where
merchants offer tea to prospective customers and sip with them
over a haggle.
“By this stage, my mother could hardly sit up
in a chair. I remember so vividly the winter solstice evening,
when together we witnessed sunset from one of the bridges over
the river. I prepared myself for the last good-bye.
“Not long after the Roman New Year, my mother
passed away. I attended her funeral overcome with emotion. I
spent a few more days in Isfahan, then bade farewell to
relatives and flew Iran Air to Tehran. I spent a portion of that
night in a hotel. I woke up early while it was still dark and
took a taxi to the airport for my flight to Istanbul.
“I sat in the lounge waiting to board the
Turkish Airways flight, looking forward to being able to change
from traditional garb to modern dress. I did not imagine that my
world was about to be turned upside down; but, indeed, that is
what happened when two men came up to me, showed me their police
credentials, and told me I was under arrest.
“‘Me! What for?’ I meekly responded.
“‘For the crime of pornography,’ one of them
answered.
“I could not believe my ears. I thought of
the belly dancer movie and the music videos I had appeared in,
but all my recorded performances had been done outside Iran and
presumably never shown inside Iran. True, Annette Funicello’s
bikini beach movies of forty years ago are considered
pornographic in Iran, but how could they prosecute me for
something done in a place where no laws had been broken?
“I went quietly with my captors to the police
station. I was locked up in a cell and told to await trial. I
requested to be allowed contact with my relatives in Isfahan,
but the request was denied. I spent what seemed to be an
interminable length of time in solitary confinement, unable to
sleep, hoping and praying that the whole matter would soon be
cleared up and I would be released.
“Eventually, the same two police officers who
had arrested me came and picked me up in my cell. They escorted
me outside to a car. I was driven a short distance to the
magistrate’s building, then escorted into the courtroom. There I
faced a turbaned judge.
“The prosecution pointed to a pile of VCR
tapes and demanded that I either acknowledge or deny involvement
in the production of said tapes. Portions of a tape were run,
and I discovered it to be a recording of the belly-dancing movie
made in California. Scenes depicting me, both dancing alone and
as part of the troupe, were shown in glaring detail. At the end
of the tape, a list of credits was given, and my name appeared,
identifying me as one of the dancers. The prosecution then
declared that I had blasphemously disgraced my father, a
prominent martyr for Islam, and therefore deserved the harshest
of punishments.
“Clearly, I could not deny my involvement.
But the defense attorney was quick to point out that these
pornographic tapes were made outside Iran, in a godless place
where there was no law against such decadence; also, there was
no evidence of my involvement in their being smuggled into Iran
and sold on the black market. The prosecution countered by
showing another tape, this one of a recent MTV video made in
Turkey. The tape revealed me performing sexually suggestive
dances, and also gave my name in the credits. The prosecution
reiterated the evil I had done to the memory of my martyred
father. The defense noted that such productions were not illegal
in the secular Republic of Turkey. The prosecution declared that
the tapes nonetheless violated Sunni morality and, while the
Turkish government was strictly committed to separation of
mosque and state, the Turkish people were still bound by Sharia.
The prosecution added that I was the only known link between
this pornography and its appearance in Iran.
“The judge closed the court session and
ordered me sent back to my cell. Before taking me there, the two
arresting officers took me into an interrogation room. There
they drilled me in the classic good cop, bad cop technique.
“The good cop said they were not interested
in incarcerating a pawn like me, but that they were determined
to break up an extensive pornography ring peddling VCR’s on the
black market. If I cooperated, and informed on the members of
this pornography ring, I could be released very soon. I replied
by telling the truth: I had no knowledge whatsoever about any
pornography ring and no idea at all as to how the tapes had been
smuggled into Iran. The bad cop responded by calling me a
‘filthy whore,’ and told me I was going to pay dearly for
fomenting insurrection within society.
“They returned me to my cell. I spent another
full day without sleep as I anxiously waited to learn my fate.
The light was always on and the cell was cut off from natural
sunlight, so I felt the torture of never knowing what time of
day it was.
“Finally, I was taken from my cell, driven to
the magistrate’s building, and brought once again into the
courtroom. I was forced to stand before the clerical judge, who
harshly lectured me on how the spreading corruption was
undermining the very fabric of society. After delivering his
tirade, he declared me guilty of the crime of pornography. I
fell to my knees, but the arresting officers forced me to stand
up again.
“‘You are hereby sentenced to a minimum of
one year in prison,’ pronounced the judge, ‘with your sentence
to be reviewed in one year.’ ”
“Devastated, I was taken back to my cell in a
state of shock. Alone, I cried and cried until no more tears
would come. Finally, I fell asleep, for the first time in days.
“After some time, I was awakened by the
arresting officers. Covered in a chador, I was taken out to a
car and driven several kilometers outside the city to a small
airfield. The two officers turned me over to another group of
police, and I was forced into a small airplane. Inside the plane
were another half-dozen imprisoned women, like me all covered up
in chadors. The plane took off.
“I had no idea where we were being sent but,
looking out the window, I could view the changing terrain and
realized we were heading south. Hours later, the plane landed in
a small, isolated airfield somewhere in the desert.
“We disembarked from the plane and were
driven to our final destination, a formidable women’s prison.
Although four of the guards were men, the highest-ranking prison
official was a woman. Individually, each of us was taken to this
warden for a formal processing into our place of confinement.
“The warden, a stone-faced middle-aged woman,
was the most mean-spirited witch I have ever met. She told me
right off the bat that if I showed even the slightest bit of
defiance or lack of cooperation I would spend the rest of my
life in these hellish surroundings. At that moment, my greatest
fear was that I would, in this place, become as ugly as her in
body and spirit.
“Upon completion of the processing, I was
sent to my cell. Exactly one year and one day ago, I began my
sentence for the crime of pornography. I had striven to make the
most of my youth; now, I was sure that my youth would be
squandered in the wasteland of incarceration.
“I went through sheer hell inside the prison
walls, whether alone or in the company of other lost-soul women.
In addition to the miserable conditions, I had a fear of being
raped by brute-male prison guards. Other women explained to me
that, while there would be no rape per se, the male guards did
sometimes take advantage of a woman’s desperation to coerce her
into granting sexual favors; if she refused, they made life even
more miserable for her. But all the guards were subordinate to
the witchy warden, who wielded her power in such a way that the
four male guards had to deal with her in order to obtain sex
from any of the female prisoners. Thus, the women’s prison
became a medieval Ottoman harem of backstabbing intrigue between
inmates, guards and the overseeing warden.
“Occasionally, I was called into the warden’s
office. She had studied my case carefully, and kept trying to
pry out of me information concerning the ‘great smuggling ring’
conspiracy. Quite submissively, I kept repeating that I knew
nothing about how the ‘pornographic’ tapes had been smuggled
into Iran. At one point, I broke down and cried. Her reaction to
my tears was to say, ‘Do you know what your crying does to me?
It makes me want to treat you worse.’ Gradually, I was so beaten
down in spirit that I lost even the will to plead innocence; I
would tell that stone-faced woman whatever she wanted to hear
even if it meant lying.
“Gnawing
away at my psyche was the uncertainty as to whether or not I
would be freed after one year. Prison guards kept dropping hints
that the only way I could gain my freedom would be to submit to
their carnal desires. I might have considered prostituting myself if
by so doing I could alleviate my suffering, but I had no
guarantee that such debasement would improve my situation at
all.
“At times I wanted to die. But then, seven
months after I first entered this inferno, a new inmate arrived
who re-instilled in me the will to live.”
Roxana interrupted Anaheita: “Scheherazade of
the Mountain of the Sacred Spring! What has happened to her?”
“Let her finish,” enjoined Romeen.
“The Scheherazade you speak of is in good
health at present,” informed Anaheita, adding, “but how long
will she remain so?” The belly dancer who had spent a year in
prison became noticeably agitated. She raised her arms in
supplication and petitioned the Almighty: “Eternal Being, please
save her! Take my life in her place if you must.”
The listeners gave Anaheita a few moments to
calm down before Romeen bade her to continue. The belly dancer
resumed the telling of her story.
“One day, I was asleep, dreaming of my home
in Istanbul, of being reunited with my friends, happy to be
free, when I awoke to find myself once again in my dingy
cubbyhole. I rubbed my eyes and, feeling the need to move around
a bit, entered into the common area. There I saw my familiar
cellmates gathered around a new inmate. She was stunningly
beautiful, and I say that as a belly dancer who was once
belonged to a bevy of beauty. I joined the others, and learned
that the new inmate’s name was Scheherazade.
“We all listened attentively as Scheherazade
told a story in the most melodious of voices. ‘There was once a
poor fisherman who cast his net into the sea but four times a
day….’ She went on to tell of the bottle the fisherman retrieved
and of the genie who had spent two thousand years imprisoned
within it. We could all relate to that theme, and remained a
captive audience as she recounted the tale in such glowing
detail that it mattered not if one had heard it before. We were
all so happy when the fisherman gave the genie a second chance.
“Day followed day, and one story flowed into
another. For some brief moments, we could escape from our
wretched state through the magic weaving of her storytelling.
One of the most interesting stories she told, forty sessions
long, was a futuristic fantasy none of us had ever heard before:
The Man Who Claimed to be God. I, as well as the others,
was amazed over the way she told the entire story, word for
word, in the most articulate manner without ever resorting to
written notes. Her memory was quite phenomenal.
“She not only related stories, she also
allowed each of us to tell the group her own individual story. I
am not sure how much fabrication entered into any one of these
personal stories, but the mystic woman had an uncanny ability to
detect falsehoods, drawing out the truth in a gentle way,
exposing inaccuracies without humiliating the speaker. When the
time came for me to tell my story, the Story of the Belly
Dancer, I told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth.
“We all were curious to hear Scheherazade’s
own personal story, and as the months passed she revealed to us
bits and pieces of her background. We learned that she came from
Chek-Chek, the Mountain of the Sacred Spring, and had been
arrested for Apostasy and Disturbing of Public Opinion. She
affirmed her adherence to the teachings of the Prophet of Iran,
and taught us fundamental precepts of Zoroastrianism. I cannot
speak for the others, but I myself derived inspiration from what
I learned of the Ancient Faith.
“We all grew to love her. And we all became
concerned for her welfare. We presumed that the male guards were
eager to prey on her, and warned her on numerous occasions
about this feature of life in a women’s prison staffed partially
by men. Yet her personal magnetism was so intense that she
managed to impress even the guards, bringing out whatever
goodness they had, causing them to respect her and feel ashamed
of themselves for having lustful inclinations towards this
Daughter of Angels.
“One person, however, even the mystic woman
could not redeem. The warden became aware of Scheherazade’s
capacity for charming people, and started to think of the woman
from the Sacred Spring as a challenge to her authority. The
warden had Scheherazade brought to her office, and there tried
to probe her weaknesses. In no uncertain terms, the witchy woman
let the angelic woman know that the duration of her sentence
depended upon the whims of the warden. I learned from prison
guards that, on the first drilling, Scheherazade showed no sign
whatsoever of being intimidated. She remained calm in the face
of threats, behaving as though she was under the protection of
some higher authority and unperturbed by the warden’s threats to
manipulate her sentence.
“This was an affront to the warden’s pride,
which she kept strong by engendering in others the fear of her
wrath. She became determined to break the spirit of her
prisoner. With increasing frequency, Scheherazade was brought
under guard to the warden’s office. The warden kept increasing
the various pressures, yet Scheherazade always remained calm and
mild-mannered, sometimes even smiling at her tormentor. I’ve
been told that, on one occasion, the warden thundered at the
Mystic Woman, ‘If you ever smile in my presence again, I will
cut out your lips from your mouth.’
“The one-year anniversary of the beginning of
my incarceration was approaching, with the outcome of my
sentence review uncertain. I spent more and more time with
Scheherazade, quite often alone with her, the two of us huddled
together in the cold prison room. I told her how the alternation
of hope and dread was tearing apart my psyche. She responded
with comforting concepts from Magian cosmology.
“‘There are two modes of existence: the
entity of Idea and the entity of Material. The Eternal Being
created the Ideal World as Perfect Possibility. It then created
the Physical World, enlisting our struggling species as
co-partners in Divine Creativity. In fits and starts, humanity
moves to transform this Physical World into the Ideal World via
the Path of Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds. The Spirit of
Good propels humanity towards the state of ideal perfection,
while the Spirit of Evil deviates humanity away from
actualization of Perfect Possibility. Our suffering is part of
this cosmic conflict.’”
Anaheita paused for a few moments, then
noted, “It is hard for me to imagine that it was only yesterday
when I last saw Scheherazade.” She shed a few tears before
resuming her story.
“The time had come for me to appear before
the warden to learn my fate, with possibilities ranging from
freedom to torture and death. I resolved to be brave.
“I entered
the warden’s office ready to accept what I could not change. To
my shocked surprise, the first thing the warden said to me was,
‘I have reviewed your case and have decided to set you free,
provided you sign legal documents admitting to your guilt.’
“My heart beating fast, I agreed to the
terms. One of the female guards presented me with both a legal
document and a copy of the belly dancing VCR I had appeared in.
I read the document, a confession of involvement in the
specified pornographic material, and with little or no
hesitation, I signed. The guard presented me with a second legal
document along with a VCR tape of the MTV video I had appeared
in. Again, I signed an admission of guilt.
“Then, I was presented with a third legal
document; unexpectedly, this third admission of guilt was
accompanied with a magazine. Looking at the cover, I observed a
photograph from the MTV video, revealing myself and other girls
of my troupe scantily clad in provocative poses. I remember
thinking, Whoever did the smuggling is trying maximize
profits by marketing to those without VCR’s. Almost
inadvertently, I opened the magazine and looked through the
still pictures. I could see that the opening pages were taken
from either the belly dancing or MTV videos; but, as I viewed
on, I began to see indications of photo doctoring. Some of the
girls in the still pictures were definitely not from the
corresponding video scenes. My initial reaction was a mild
distaste for the cheapening of what I had tried to do
professionally, but as I turned the pages I saw pictures far
more distressing. The photographs were of me totally naked,
dancing with other naked girls, some of them from my troupe and
some totally unknown to me.
“I knew immediately that these photographs
were doctored composites, presumably made with the intention of
faking incriminating evidence. I kept turning the pages, and the
pictures became more and more lewd. Graphic sex was portrayed,
and I was seen as one of the participants. Had I not just been
told that my release was imminent, I would then and there have
totally despaired of ever being set free.
“The greatest shock hit me as I viewed a
truly pornographic photograph with my face and body clearly
shown side-by-side with the portrayal of a completely naked
Scheherazade, the Mystic Woman herself.”
Gasps from the listeners prompted Anaheita to
pause for a few moments. Once the implications of a definite
frame-up had registered in their minds, Anaheita continued.
“In fear and submission, I protested, ‘This
cannot be. These photographs are forgeries. A photography expert
could analyze them and testify so.’
“‘So then,’ snarled the warden. ‘You will not
sign?’
“‘I-I-I can’t,’ I meekly responded. Quite
honestly, I was not thinking of myself. I was thinking of
Scheherazade, who was obviously the target of a conspiracy, and
of the fact that my confession could be used by the prosecution
to falsely convict Scheherazade of the crime of pornography.
“‘In that case,’ said the warden, ‘your
release is rescinded. After review, your sentence is now changed
to death by stoning.’
“I was speechless. It now dawned on me that
the warden was behind this planting of false evidence. I was her
means to get at the angelic one she was determined to destroy.
“The warden motioned to one of the guards. In
response, the guard clicked on the television set and placed a
VCR tape in it. She hit the play button, and the tape began.
“‘This is how we eliminate corruption in our
society!’ shouted the warden.
“I trembled as I watched the tape, which
initially had no accompanying sound. It showed an attractive
woman, about thirty years of age, being led by men and women
guards to a site somewhere in the desert. The men started
digging a hole in the ground. When the hole was deep enough, the
terrified woman was forced into it. The men began burying her in
the newly dug hole.
“‘Two years ago in Iran,’ the warden
informed, ‘we showed some mercy to this woman guilty of
appearing in a pornographic movie. We buried her only up to her
armpits. We won’t show that consideration to you. We’ll bury you
up to your neck.’
“The captors, each man and each woman among
them, picked up a lethal stone. Watching the soundless tape, it
was obvious that the woman was screaming to high heaven. But to
no avail. The first stone was thrown with significant force.
Despite the woman’s efforts to protect her face with her arms,
the stone hit the woman in the head. A second stone was thrown,
a third stone, and then the sound commenced just at the moment
the fourth stone smacked into her face.
“I couldn’t watch and I couldn’t turn away.
Stone after stone smashed into the woman. Eventually, her arms
were broken, and even their meager defense against the onslaught
was nullified. Her cries turned into death knells. Again and
again, the helpless victim was struck by deadly missiles thrown
by men and women both. Close-ups were shown of the horrible
effects of their assault: her once-pretty face pummeled to a
hideous pulp of bloodied flesh.
“‘This is what will happen to you, whore,’ declared the warden, ‘because you refuse to cooperate.’
“I thought,
I am going to die a horrible death!
Unable to take any more, I screamed, ‘I will
sign! I will sign!’”
Roxana interrupted the storytelling, shouting
forcefully, “Did you betray her? Did you betray her?”
Tears again came to Anaheita’s eyes as she
crumpled in posture. In a despairing voice, she answered, “I
did! I did! And I’m going to burn in Hell for it!”
Sharyzad nudged her
sister-in-law and said, “Calm down, Roxana. Let her finish.”
After a minute or so for
regaining composure, Anaheita resumed.
“I hesitated as I thought of what
would happen to the mystic woman, but I did sign, without even
asking for freedom in return. The female guard handed all three
signed legal documents to the warden. She looked them over,
nodded her head in approval, then said to the guard, ‘Take her
to her cell. Collect her belongings, give them to her and set
her free.’
“As I was being led away, the
warden declared, ‘She is to remain silent. If she speaks to
anyone, look her up in solitary confinement. Her release will be
rescinded.’
“I could hardly walk as I was
being returned to my cell. Not only did I say nothing to my
prison companions, I avoided even looking at them. I gathered up
my meager possessions and, carrying them in a sack, exited the
place of my confinement for the previous year. On the way out, I
saw Scheherazade. I could not refrain from staring at her for a
few moments; she stared at me in response. What she gleaned from
my facial expression I do not know, but her countenance seemed
to be silently saying to me, ‘It is all right, Anaheita. I
understand.’ For a moment, I wondered if maybe she was indeed an
Angel from Heaven. No human being could possibly be of such
goodness, even though equal measures of evil definitely exist in
others.
“Outside the prison walls, all
four of the male guards, each standing next to his respective
automobile, offered to put me up for the night. I thought,
Maybe I’ll be able to prostitute my way out of this country.
But I did not detest any of the four males as much as I detested
myself. I said to all of them, ‘Will any among you take me to
the Fire Temple and leave me there?’ One man raised his hand and
said yes; a second man did likewise, then a third and then the
fourth. I walked over to the first man who had assented to my
request and got into his car. He drove me to the Fire Temple.
“The man left me off at the Fire
Temple, giving me a phone number and offering assistance to get
me out of the country. He said good-bye and drove off. I entered
this building. I met with the mage, and was granted shelter.
I’ve been here since yesterday, praying to a God who looks down
upon me with contempt.”
So closed the Belly Dancer’s
Tale.
Looking directly at Anaheita, Porzand
solemnized, “May you be judged by God, but not by other people.”
|
