ME AND GHITA NOERBY ALONE IN HER CAR THRU THE NIGHT

CHAPTER 2

I turned my head and saw her sitting in a very Persian tableau on a coagulated blood red carpet surrounded by pillows smoking one of her long and muy delgado cigarettes, eyelids half closed in aristocratic boredom, looking without seeing in the way people never do in real life, only on film, and I wondered if I was still part of that film and if, what role did I play, the servant or ... This is Iran, I thought, there are no rules, because all the rules are being constantly (but only slightly) broken down in the picture of the Tehran traffic where no one knows what is going to happen in the next moment, so everybody just goes on, fast forward, but ready to push the brakes at any next moment, each encounter is a tabula rasa, car versus car, or worse, car versus pedestrian, you just go, right out into the lights, still far too alive, but ready to die, and then the relief when you didn’t die, not this time, not in this encounter, but maybe the next, cause no one knows what the Other will do ... I slided out of my chair and went over to Thomas who sat at the long high kitchen table talking to a middle aged man around my age, but slightly fat and with a shining black moustache and eyes so sad like Marcello Mastroianni, the melancholic clown, and I sat down for a moment listening to their talk about women and the inevitable divorce that every upper middle class man has to face, also her in the Islamic Republic of Iran, just even earlier, cause they also marry very young, - hvad saa, Nielsen! Thomas said suddenly without even looking at me, - how is it going with your film star? and I just laughed and searched the messy table for something I could stuff into my mouth, - she is waiting for you, Nielsen, get up! go over and sit down with her! But off course that was the last thing I would want to do, I would rather go down the dark, cold and melancholic alley and right into the famous Evin prison at the end of the road and stay there for the next twenty years, - no no, I said, - never! And so I rose up and walked cross the room full of dancing and ridiculous sober teenagers and sat down by her side on the carpet and immediately she bowed her head slightly towards me, cigarette between teeth and thin smoke wavering between us, - last night I saw you in my dream, she whispered. – Oh, I said and coughed and nodded and tried to avoid the smoke from getting into my eyes, - I was in your shoulder, she whispered. – Yes, I said and nodded as if that was the most common place for people to be in their dreams, and at the same moment a young, athletic and outmost handsome young film director or tv producer or script writer bowed down and almost licked her feet while mumbling an endless series of praise in the language I don’t understand a word of, but nevertheless knew the complete slimy meaning of. She just laughed and threw her head backwards and leaned against the pillows, and he bowed once again and then moved backwards mumbling into the crowd. – It must be very ... I said not knowing what to say. - Oh, yes, she said and sighed and lit yet another of those long elegant cigarettes and opened her handbag and took out a thin black book, - I am also poet, she said and pointed her long bowing nail at the picture on the back (which here in Iran is, off course, the front), almost black on black, and she in a black chador and - behind a pair off glasses that obviously wasn’t hers, but just the sign of The Poet - eyes filled with pain on behalf of her people, so pathetic and very Iranian. She opened the book and sighed and started to read, or rather declamate in a painfilled whispering, and I listened and nodded and sighed and she sighed and softly closed the book and sighed once again and touched my hand and her skin was warm and soft and … - let’s go! she said. - What? I said, - where? – To another party, she whispered and wavered her hand towards the dancing mob as if in almost disgust, - in another part of the city. – But Thomas! I said, - what about Thomas! She looked round the room and immediately a younger and more average woman, maybe her courtisane, came over and kneeled down and listened and nodded and then rose up again, - let’s go! – But Thomas! I said and stood up in panic and went over to Thomas who was sitting among a group of teenagers, mostly girls off course, all deeply sunk into a landscape of pillows, his sharpangled blacksuited knees mounting over their heads, his arms waving and this creamy and floating smile he gets when he is beyond the half bottle of Absolut something. – Hjaelp! I said and tapped his shoulder, - please! – Hva saa, Nielsen! he said and looked up at me, (he looked up at me!), - Nielsen! he said to the mob, - this is, Nielsen! my best fiend, I hate him! he cried and made a grand gesture and almost tipped of the pillow and out onto the floor. – Please, I said, - we are leaving! – What? he said, - where? – To another party in another part of the city!