Imam Khomeini had become their God. They did not know, nobody knew that when he would return victoriously to the country after the long exile, he would give them neither security, nor electricity, nor clean water, nor good education for their children, nor freedom of speech and press, nor real equality for women; but a dictatorship and totalitarian regime worse than anything they had seen or had been written in the history books.
It was December of 1978. Nobody would have guessed that in a few short months, these bearded, dirty, smelly, uneducated people would take over the government, and the Shah would leave Iranian people on their own and would fly out to save himself and his family. Persians were not told that he had cancer. Nobody knew that he would become like a gypsy after leaving the country, looking for somewhere to die until President Sadat, the president of Egypt, his friend, would shelter him and he finally would die there. Not much later than that President Sadat, himself was assassinated.
Neda soon realized, as she was contemplating, that it was not the right time for her to even think about politics, especially being a woman, curiously being as famous as she was.
"I'm very sorry. I just have an emergency. I must go to Pahlavi Street."
The man's face turned red. It was clear that he was dismayed by her using the name of the street "Pahlavi", which was the last name of soon to be deposed the Shah of Iran.
"Pahlavi is dead! Don't you know it? Don't you see it?"
She said in her speaking mind, "not yet"! Nevertheless, she suddenly understood her mistake. These rioters hated the Pahlavi's Dynasty and everything that they stood for. Neda had no particular ambition about the Pahlavi regime. They had given women and workers a small equality, so small that most of the time they were not even noticeable. The Shah's father, Reza Shah had ordered women many years back to remove their Hejabs (covering their hair and body). Neda could not call that freedom. Of course women could go to college or get a job; but majority of them had fathers, brothers, or husbands, who stopped them of achieving those goals. They forced them to arrange marriages. She preferred to wear Hejab as long as she was completely free. Perhaps the reason that she had so many enemies besides her fans was that she had broken all the barriers that men put on her way and claimed her freedom and the way of life since the very young age.
"Oh, please forgive me. I just have an emergency, very..."
The armed man broke in with a voice that had passed its prime:
"Aren't you..." He could not remember the name; but it was obvious that he had recognized her perhaps from a magazine article about her or a television interview!
She felt oppressed and stifled beneath the stare of the armed man with his unshaven face. He was wearing military fatigue; which he most definitely had stolen when they had captured all the garrisons. He now had his hand on the edge of her car window. Neda discerned that he had vaguely identified her, the greatest poetess of their time, the one that rumors about her flew on every directions. The only thing that people did not know about her and had stayed her secret was her nineteen years old daughter. Nobody knew that Arianna even existed. She was not sure to whom she owed that, to the black law of the land, the hypocrisy at the hospital, her father, or the father of her daughter?
Most Iranian men, even before Revolution, referred to her as an impure woman. They did not want their daughters or wives to buy her books or to read them. The women who chose to read her poetry, did it on their own risk and when their men were not around.
To Be Continued
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