The Story of Dotted Lines

I have never told this story in its entirety to anyone—not to my therapist, not to my closest friends, and not even to my family.

When my friends back home in Iran asked me why I was leaving, I made up a thousand different reasons. When my friends here in Istanbul asked me what happened and why I came, I gave them only obvious reasons. I told them that I couldn't stay any longer, that it was impossible for me to continue living there. I said that a part of me had died, that my ambition, courage, and hope for the future had dried up. But I didn't explain why. I couldn't connect the single moments into a coherent narrative. I've divulged bits and pieces of it to different people. Now, I want to tell this story to you and to anyone who cares to hear it.

One of those singular moments: I am sitting at the corner of Baharestan Square, a few hundred meters from the Book House of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. On my cell phone, I have the tracking number of the book I edited. I am telling a publisher friend that the acquaintance she introduced to me is gone. “Now what?” I ask. “What should I do now? Where should I go? Which room?” 

I have to find a certain lady in a certain room. They say that no one will see me with my long curly hair. I am wearing a formal shirt, though. I've tried to fix my hair. I am directed from the second floor to the third floor, from the third floor to the fourth floor, and from the west side of the fourth floor to the east side of the second floor. I am lost in the corridors. I keep saying the number of the book. I say, “I have come on behalf of the publishing house to talk about the censorship of the book.” 

I say, “I want to talk to ‘Momayyez’ himself.” He had read the book and decided that a scene should be removed. One character had shown the middle finger in his pocket to another character. We already had altered the middle finger to cursing in his heart. But the answer was clear, “No way.” They told me to submit a written letter to the system. I had already submitted a letter, but it remained unanswered. Eventually, we had to omit the anger completely.

For two years, I was the translation desk editor of the most popular literary magazine in Iran. At the beginning of every month, my job was to select stories from many submissions, send them to translators, edit the translations, discuss every word with the translator, and finalize the text. But the final text was not really final. We had to send it to "Momayyez" and wait a few days for him to read it and return it with some notes. The person in charge was a bald man who always spoke calmly, telling us to change certain parts of the text.

We had to make the kisses and sex into just intimacy, replace alcohol with drink, cover up the women's clothing a little, and make the political references in the stories more obscure and incomprehensible. Soon, even the words drink and intimacy were added to the blacklist. In the stories, people drank Coca-Cola and got drunk. A man and a woman—gays were completely out of the question—got intimate just by talking to each other. 

We fought over every single word. Despite our efforts, deep down we knew that the removal of words was not limited to a single word or sentence; it was extensive and systematic. Deleting a word changes a story's dynamic, and that changes human relations. Altering human relations impacts our perceptions of life and how we think about it. What was being removed was the most significant possibility that literature offers—the re-creation of an alternative life, a way of thinking about life, the imagination of a life denied, a window in a dim room to the open air. However, the air of freedom was absent. The only air was polluted and smoky. 

Censorship is a phenomenon that is both strange and not new. The deletions were never justified, and, more important, never had a serious alternative. But if you did not compromise, practically no magazine would be published.

Let me share another story, another one of those singular moments. You probably don’t know Nasser Taqvai. For me, he’s one of the best directors in the history of Iran. However, 22 years have passed since his last film, and he has several different projects that remain half-finished. A few years ago, the Cinematheque of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts held a tribute to Nasser Taqvai. They played one of his old movies, and then he himself, old and weak, came and spoke loudly and eloquently about Iranian artists. 

Before that, the moderator had introduced him, “Everyone, clap your hands in honor of dear Nasser Taqvai, who is here with us and has fought against censorship for years.” The moderator was the same bald man who censored our stories. He was a movie critic and encouraged the fight against censorship, and at the same time, he censored our magazine stories. Censorship is like Kafka's stories—judgments come suddenly from an unknown power—and we are Sisyphus pushing a stone. We, writers and artists, are forever striving against a force that seems determined to defeat us at every turn. Sometimes I wonder what Sisyphus was thinking the first time the stone rolled back downhill.

I already had written two books and translated several others, but it was my third work that held particular significance. A series of interconnected stories, it delved into the lives of isolated individuals who were oblivious to the fact that they were inexplicably linked. Craving a connection with another being to alleviate their loneliness, these characters were restricted by their own mental shackles, unable to perceive the limitless opportunities of the world beyond. 

As I committed my thoughts to paper, I was mindful that my words would be scrutinized by the Department of Islamic Culture and Guidance. Consequently, I was acutely aware of the "red lines" that must not be crossed, such as explicitly depicting sexual acts or introducing political undertones. Rules that every writer in every authoritarian system is aware of. 

One morning, I woke up from disturbed dreams to a phone call from my publisher. Little did I know that this call would shape the course of my life. The publisher told me that the "corrections" of my third book had arrived. I said, “Well, then the work will be done with some corrections?” 

“You should check for yourself,” my publisher said.

It was four pages. On top of it, they wrote to the publisher that the following texts should be changed or deleted to receive permission to publish the book:

A certain page, lines 9–11, "Hamid said..." must be deleted.

A certain page, such and such line. This phrase should be corrected or deleted.

So, I thought, how am I going to fit these omissions and corrections together and preserve my stories at the same time? Pages 80–102 had to be deleted. Page 80 would be the third page of one of the stories, and page 102 would be where the female character of the story fades away. 

In these crucial 22 pages, a bold woman entered the life of an isolated and shy man. The man and woman talked to each other (seriously, all they did was talk), and the essence of their relationship changed. 

They walked together. The man lived his life. The woman lived her life. The woman went to the man's house, and there they didn't know if they wanted to sleep together or not. I had arranged this whole scene in a way that it wouldn't come out artificially in the course of their conversation. Eventually, they didn't sleep together. The woman disappeared the next day. The man, in the absence of the power that had animated his life, wandered around the streets in confusion to find some sense of belonging.

The following week, I returned to the Baharestan building, wandering around in confusion to find someone who could help me. It's strange how memories can disintegrate. I remember walking from one room to another in the library building and then feeling confused in the surrounding streets afterward. I don't know how long I stayed, nor do I remember the exact order of our conversation, but I remember what happened there.

I stood in front of the room's door. A table blocked it so I couldn't enter. A woman dressed in a black “chador” stood behind a computer and talked to me. I had given her the code of my book, and she was looking half at the computer and half at me, probably reading from the "Momayyez" report. She told me to check the items and make corrections. I replied that they had asked me to delete 22 pages, but I didn't know how to make the changes. She pointed out that they had boundaries and had written them on the website. 

I knew she wanted me to revise the book again, and I told her that I had read the website carefully and followed the red line. She responded that there were many societal issues that we couldn't write about, such as not being able to put a woman with a "bad hijab" on the book cover. 

Hesitantly I asked if there was a way to fix the problem as if the problem were me. She said no, and then looked at her computer and said that my writing was admirable, but I needed to rewrite my book.

The next few days were a hazy mix of slumber and consciousness. I never admitted to anyone that in those few fleeting moments, as my rage mounted, so did my shame. I was nearly certain that I had uttered words demanding changes. Yet in my recollection, I saw myself as someone who stood frozen and speechless. I yearned to cry out, but I restrained myself. I had stifled my own voice.

But what was even worse was that I didn't recognize my own anger. I told myself that I should be honest with myself, that worse things had happened to many people, and that my book wasn't worth that much anyway. In the outside world, I don’t know what was lost. Inside myself, I had lost my sense of values. When I should have been brave, I was a coward. When I should have thought of an alternative, I stopped thinking altogether. 

I didn't write anything for two years. I haven't yet written a good story. In all my stories, I tried not to reveal the core of the story and the characters' feelings, instead focusing on the network of meanings and emotions. But now the core of my story was this: I couldn't defend myself; I couldn't console myself. Instead of brandishing my middle finger, I shifted it into curses inside my heart. My anger had turned into silence. Meaningless dotted lines in the middle of the story. I had lost the lines and lines of feelings and meanings. Like one of the helpless characters in my book who had lost their connection to the world, I was exiled inside myself.

Censorship constrains the realm of human expression, stifles creativity, and not only censors words but also thoughts. In solitary moments when readers seek a point of connection, they find themselves surrounded by dots that they must connect themselves. One cannot access voices that have been silenced. I too was left alone, dead silent. 

Before me was an unpredictable system that intentionally mixed signals and noise. To destabilize the stable, it must be unstable. It aims to confuse people. Without a clear boundary, anything can become a red line. Fighting against the red line becomes futile and exhausting, nearly impossible. 

Over the years, many Iranian directors and writers have attended foreign festivals and claimed that censorship in Iran is not severe and that we can still find ways to tell our stories. Some have even praised censorship for inspiring new forms of expression unique to Iranian storytelling. In an interview, director Taqvai pointed out that censorship may have contributed to the distinctive signature of Iranian cinema. 

However, many later discovered that negotiating with censorship was a dead end, and were either forced into exile or left to abandon their creative work. Their careers were left unfinished. But no one talks about those who were silenced, the stories that could not find a form of expression, and the ideas that remained unspoken. My book was one of those that was left unfinished. I could not find any other way to express myself. Eventually, I made the decision to leave the country to rediscover myself.

My book ended with the story of a young man who, after ending a relationship, desperately attempts to heal by forming a new relationship. On the day of the agreement between Iran and the West on the nuclear program and the lifting of sanctions, he goes to the house of a girl to keep her company during this historic moment. They watch the news together and witness the moment of agreement. As they get physically closer, the young man realizes that he is still raging and grieving and that he is still unable to tolerate intimacy. 

He leaves the house and joins the crowd in the streets who are celebrating and expressing their anger. This young man is the only character in the entire book who finds a connection to the outside world. He understands that the path to healing is not personal but collective. 

The next day, he wakes up and remembers scenes from his lost relationship. He recalls his girlfriend asking him, "What's your story?" Then he realizes that he has never told his own story and begins to narrate it.

When I left Iran for Istanbul, I never imagined that I still have unfinished business there. My plan was to observe my homeland from a distance and reinvent my storyteller identity in a new language, within a new life. But in the past five months, it became apparent that I am not done with Iran. Closure would not arrive anytime soon. I had only fled. 

Over these months, the unmistakable voices of Iranian women and people have grown louder, drowning out the silences. They have arisen against the red lines and grasped that fighting on the red line with this oppressive regime is foolish. Instead, they must fight with the whole weight of their being against oppression's very existence. Though I am not a woman, their powerful voices resonate within me. 

Every person possesses a story of humiliation. Each narrative contributes to the collective voice of deep-seated resentment. When I watch street demonstrations in my second home, I hear my own voice amidst the slogans arising from Iran's streets. A cry that I never made.

I understand now that my second home only becomes a true home when I no longer carry my anger and sorrow. My first home only becomes a home when I can narrate my anger and grief loud and clear. Similar to the boy in my story, I realized that the journey toward healing is never a personal one; it is collective. 

To move forward, I must express my suffering and rage. One day, I will recount this story again, without a stumble or a pause, from beginning to end. I have no doubt that it will be a happier story, full of hope and redemption.

© 2023 Moeen Farrokhi