Let me describe for you how our embrace might’ve been depicted by the master miniaturists of Herat, if this tragic story of mine were one day recorded in a book. There are certain amazing illustrations that my father has shown me wherein the thrill of the script’s flow matches the swaying of the leaves, the wall ornamentation is echoed in the design of the border gilding and the joy of the swallow’s matchless wings piercing the picture’s border suggests the elation of the lovers. Exchanging glances from afar and tormenting each other with suggestive phrases, the lovers would be depicted so small, so far in the distance, that for a moment it’d seem like the story wasn’t about them at all, but had to do with the starry night, the dark trees, the exquisite palace where they met, its courtyard and its wonderful garden whose every leaf was lovingly and particularly rendered. If, however, one paid very close attention to the secret symmetry of the colours, which the miniaturist could only convey with total resignation to his art, and to the mysterious light infusing the entire painting, the careful observer would immediately see that the secret behind these illustrations is that they’re created by love itself. It’s as if a light were emanating from the lovers, from the very depths of illustration. And when Black and I embraced, well-being flooded the world in the very same manner.
Thank God I’ve seen enough of life to know that such well-being never lasts for long.
Once upon a time in my Iran phase one of the first films I watched was Abbas Kiarostami’s Through the Olive Trees. The movie starts simply, with a man standing in front of a tree. Then he says, “I’m Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, the actor who plays the director,” and the film seems less simple. To cut a long story short the movie is about the making of a fictional film about life after a non-fictional quake – about a couple who bury their families, then marry each other as they have no one else – and who should be cast as the couple but a schoolgirl, an orphan of the quake, and her suitor, an out-of-work bricklayer whom she won’t talk to. And the ending is a mystery: The schoolgirl still doesn’t talk to her suitor, who still doesn’t give up. He follows her down a hill, through olive trees and into an open field – but the camera doesn’t follow – and all the eye sees of him and her are smaller and smaller dots.
I’ve hoped it is a happy ending. Now I know: I’m sure I saw swaying leaves.
