ME AND GHITA NOERBY IN TEHRAN

CHAPTER 1

Last night when the day was done with and we had given the last interview and had a sudden vision of our final appearance on the square of the revolution and planned the escape that would follow over the mountains me and Thomas were invited to a party in Northern Tehran and Thomas was still smelling from the half bottle of Absolute Mandarin he had had (or just had?) the night before and we arrived in a taxi in our suits and ties in one of these cold, melancholic, but beautiful dark alleys of disintegrating walls and sad and long ago trees, and the party was exactly as we had expected with Tuborg Beer in red cans and Absolute Cranberry and the girls and ladies all entering completely unveiled and you suddenly saw that they weren't really as beautiful as we had imagined when they were still in the streets under their scarfs and the rule of the mullahs, everything was one big disappointment, the music was loud and worse than just the usual mix of bad techno and persian pop with vocodervoice and no one obviously had any idea or vision of another form of society, just dreams about being themselves and enjoying an average upper middle class westerners life, and "everybody was really enjoying themselves", but I don't know how to enjoy myself, I have no idea how to do that or what it is, so I just started making sandwiches for all the themselvesenjoying Iranians, but not Thomas, cause he doesn't eat anything any longer, he just tries to get hold of yet another Absolute bottle of vodka, and instead of the good Iranian bread that the Iranians bake on hot stones off course the Iranian hostess had bought five plastic bags filled with lookalike or just wannabe baguettes, and as I tried to slice them open they just crumbled and I had to glue them with Iranian mayonaise, but in the end even the wannabebaguettes came to an end, but at that time it was only around eleven and so what should I do, where could I hide or just commit that inevitable suicide, I had no idea, so I just started eating, I took out the ham (yes, ham, yes, pigs meat, in The Islamic Republic of Iran), and chewed and swallowed one sandwich after the other, - look at Nielsen! Thomas shouted, - he is no good at parties, Nielsen, he is not really a human being! And at that very moment a not too young, but aristocratic and very charismatic lady entered the room and everybody started whispering to each other and the hostess came to me in the corner of the alttooopen kitchen where I tried to hide hand and mouth filled with deteriorating wannabebaguette and Iranian cream cheese and dying tomatoes, and she told me she wanted to introduce me to the most famous Iranian theatre and cinema actress and she had invited her just for me, yes, - just for you, Nielsen! she said all too loud, and the actress sat down at a table obviously just waiting for me to come and present myself and tell her how big an honor it was for me etceteraetcetera, but me I just kept on eating, even faster now in even more obvious panic, the dying tomatoeslices slipping between my fingers and onto the floor, but inevitably the sandwich came to an end with me, and so I licked my fingers and went to the table, the famous actress awaiting eyes only half open as if in aristocratic ennui, and she looked exactly like Ghita Noerby, the most famous and beloved actress of my homeland, known by everyone inside and completely unknown by anyone beyond the borders, exactly like this Iranian primadonna, - Bob Nielsen, I said, - khosh hollam as didanet, and she just sighed and looked down, and that's it, I thought and so I wanted to go, but I couldn't move, I stayed in the chair not knowing what else to do of my as always completely obsolete body, and none of us said anything and every twentieth second yet another young male film director or artist or student came to the table and bowed and said what an honor or what a great admirer of her art he was, her films, her presence on stage, and suddenly she rose up an walked out of the room and in the moment she passed my chair she whispered or rather: sighed: - I would like talk more with you, but not here, not all these peoples ...