The Oil Painter

Christopher stood on the hotel terrace, looking over the oasis town of Bam. It was the middle of December, the last month of the twentieth century. On the previous evening, he’d come in from Kerman: a four-hour bus ride across the Iranian desert. After finding a room, he’d gone out looking for somewhere to eat. Though he’d got his first look at Bam, it had probably been deceptive. While the buildings on the main roads were made of solid brick, they were to prove exceptional. Head down any alleyway and you’d find the mudbrick old town. As revealed from the terrace, it resembled the inside of a termite mound—all compact earth and winding passageways. Apart from the architecture, the main thing to see was date palms; they lent the town its distinctive look of spikiness.

Christopher liked the place. He liked the idea of the place. Though he was still some distance from the Pakistan border, this was the easternmost stop on the Iranian backpackers’ trail, and he enjoyed its rugged, end-of-the-road allure. Yet as he stood there, his hands at rest on the parapet, he was also pierced by loneliness. The last time he’d spoken with another traveller was at the ruins of Persepolis—that must have been two weeks ago now. Much as he’d enjoyed the sights since then—the sumptuous gardens and turquoise mosques—they hadn’t obviated the need for companionship. As the days had gone by, he’d been struck by a growing sense of isolation. It was somehow amplified by the view out over the old town.

Hoping to shake his sadness with a fresh burst of activity, he decided to head out to the Arg-e-Bam. This vast citadel, the largest adobe building on Earth, was famed as a highlight of Iran and of Bam’s whole treasury of wonder. He checked his watch. It was almost ten. He’d have a drink, grab his daypack and head out to the Arg.

On arriving at the citadel, he paid the taxi driver and walked up towards its monumental portal. Before him were massive earthen walls, topped with intricate crenellations. Imagining the imminent launching of arrows, he tensed involuntarily. But, of course, there was no one around. The entire place was now a ruin, with only the ticket office holding the promise of human habitation.

After buying his ticket, he was alone for the best part of an hour. Though the broken archways and teetering walls held a peculiar interest, he was also struck by the forlornness of the place, its lack of human personality. It was only at the far end of the Arg, where the battlements offered their finest silhouette, that he was restored to the society of others. In a clearing among the ruins were a huddle of white-robed men. They were watching the figure at the centre of the tableau—an oil painter seated at her easel.

As Christopher drew closer, he decided that she wasn’t Iranian. Though she was covered up, it wasn’t in the manner of local women. Instead of the black chador, the artist wore layers of brightly coloured fabrics. It was hard to distinguish scarf from headwrap or shawl from dress. He thought of an interior by Matisse—of draped fabrics, partly drawn curtains and hangings of exotic cloth. Though some of the colours were sombre, what stood out were the yellows and reds. They evoked a sunroom in an atelier.

Though his first impression was of colour, mundane details followed. Judging from her face, she was much older than he was—possibly in early middle age. Yet it was the artist’s mystique which prevailed. She seemed like a visitant from a far realm, and he was excited by her presence.

“Hello,” Christopher shyly offered.

“Welcome,” she said. “You’re the first foreigner I’ve met in days. What brings you to Bam?”

“I’m a backpacker. I’d heard that the citadel was stunning.”

“It certainly is! It’s the first place in Iran that’s inspired me to paint.” Her accent was hard to place. Though she spoke with crisp, English vowels, he also detected a Middle Eastern huskiness.

“It’s remarkable,” he said. “And it seems you’ve attracted an audience.”

“Ugh, I wish they’d leave me alone. Sadly, we’ve struggled to communicate. I usually get by just fine in Iran. I’m an Arabic speaker, and there’s a fair bit of overlap with Farsi. But these men are Baluchi. They’ve barely understood a word I’ve said.”

“But you’ve got a bit of work done,” noted Christopher, gesturing at the canvas. In the background were the battlements of the Arg, painted in a butterscotch hue. Up front, she’d pencilled in a group of figures, all dressed in traditional garb.

“It’s a start. Anyway, I’m Marta. Marta Massoud. I won’t shake your hand, because mine’s wet with paint.”

“That’s okay. I’m Chris.”

“You’re Australian. I can tell from your accent. I spent a few months in the outback, living with the Pitjantjatjara.”

For most people, the name would have seemed an impenetrable thicket of affricates, but she passed through it with four graceful steps. Christopher smiled, pleased to have made such a cultivated acquaintance.

“Were you painting there too?”

“Yes indeed. I did some of my best work there. My family weren’t too pleased though. I was off the radar for weeks! I should’ve brought my portfolio and shown you my Australian series.”

“Yes, what a shame.” He had a sudden vision of a butterscotch desert where figures crouched to inscrutable rites.

“How long are staying here?” asked Marta, her eyes narrowed to a squint. It seemed she was excluding the desert light, the better to perceive some emergent possibility.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m heading to Yazd.”

“That could still work. You see, I’m having dinner with some local girls—English students from Bam University. Why don’t you come along?”

“Oh,” he said, his feelings a melee of excitement and apprehension. He was attracted by the prospect of company—especially a group of young women—but was conscious of the dangers. Wasn’t this precisely the sort of thing the authorities frowned upon?

“I can tell what you’re thinking,” said Marta. “You’re afraid of offending local sensitivities.”

“I guess so,” Christopher guiltily acknowledged.

“Well, they do believe a lot of antiquated nonsense in this country, but that’s why we’ve got to challenge them. Anyway, I know this region. If they’re uncomfortable, they’ll go and get a chaperone.”

“But are you sure it’s safe?”

“What do you think might happen?” she asked, regarding Christopher with wry amusement.

“Well, what if someone reported us?”

“To whom?”

“The religious police.” He’d seen them on the streets of Tehran, confronting the immodestly dressed. The scene had clutched him like the cold hand of dread, bringing his excursion to a sudden halt.

“Surely not.” She frowned. “We won’t be meeting publicly. If anyone should be worried, it’s me. Look at all these bright clothes!”

She drew herself erect, making a show of her drapery.

“Will they have enough food?” he asked. Though he might have appeared hesitant and uninterested, he was trying to clear away obstacles. He was strongly enticed by the prospect of this dinner.

“In this part of the world, they cultivate the art of hospitality—especially during Ramadan. Believe me, there’ll be more than enough.” She conveyed this point with an air of authority. It was somehow enhanced by her husky consonants.

With Christopher’s agreement to come along, the discussion turned to practicalities. The student house was close to his hotel, so Marta proposed that she meet him there. He nodded and said he’d be waiting at four thirty.

“Would you like a bottle of water?” asked Christopher.

Marta had turned up early, so he’d asked her up to the terrace to watch the sunset. There was a fridge up there which was stocked with bottled drinks. It worked on an honesty system.

“No thanks. I had one at my guesthouse.”

“I wasn’t sure if you were fasting.” Ramadan had started a few days before, and Christopher was still adapting to its interminable austerities.

“Me? No! I mean, I am an Arab, but I’m not a Muslim. My family’s Egyptian Coptic, but I gave up religion a long time ago. It’s been nothing but a curse to this region.”

“I guessed you were breaking the fast with the students.”

“That’s understandable. I mean, look at my surname. But, honestly, thank goodness I was born into a Coptic family. If I were Muslim, could I ever have become a painter or a ‘lady traveller’?”

Presuming that these were rhetorical questions, Christopher merely looked at his shoes. But when the silence grew uncomfortably long, he asked what it was like to travel in Iran as a woman.

“As much as possible, I try to socialise with local women. With the men in this region, things will often go pear-shaped. Some of them are absolutely beastly.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well—the ogling, the comments, the roaming hands. I mean, I’m very well-travelled. I do know how to handle myself. But you can never relax your guard.”

“It must be difficult,” he said, feeling increasingly out of his depth.

“Let me tell you a story,” she said, with a clear sense of relish. “On the bus trip here from Yazd, I didn’t use the bathroom before getting on the bus. Well, what a mistake! I was busting within the first half-hour, so I ended up asking the driver to stop. He really didn’t want to, but he finally gave in. Anyway, I got off the bus and squatted behind a bush. Some of the men started leaning out the window to watch. A few were even hissing at me. I suppose they thought I was ‘unladylike’. That’s the mentality here.”

Finding an attentive audience, she offered further stories in a similar vein. Disturbed by the strangeness of the scenes she described, and also by her unnerving intensity, Christopher tried changing the topic. He asked where else she’d travelled, presuming she’d be keen to share her experiences. The ploy worked: she talked on and on. She saved her highest praise for the adobe towns of Yemen, lauding them as “little mudbrick Manhattans”. It seemed she was something of a specialist in mud. She’d also spent time in the Dogon country, enraptured by their earthen granaries.

“Where did you stay when you were painting in Mali?”

“With families, of course! Where did you think?”

“I wasn’t sure. I thought there might have been a rest-house or something.”

“Perhaps there was—but isn’t it always better to stay with a family?”

“But how do you arrange something like that? Do you just go up and ask people?”

“This is where people get travel wrong,” sniffed Marta. “They think they’re travellers because they’re staying in hotels, but really that’s just entry level. Real travel is never about comfort. It’s about adventure. Spontaneity.”

“I just can’t imagine how you’d start the conversation.”

“It develops naturally. You ask if you can paint a house or an out-building. Conservations follow. Connections are made. It isn’t something cold and calculating.”

“How about payment? I wouldn’t know how much to offer.”

Marta laughed at the slowness of her pupil. “The real traveller needn’t pay for anything! They’ve made a connection with the community. They’re a guest there.”

“But don’t you feel, well, bad? I mean, Yemen, Mali, these are poor countries.”

“Absolutely not! How often will a family in Yemen have a chance to meet a well-known painter? How can you put a price on that?”

“But how about food? Aren’t these people who can barely feed themselves?”

“In traditional communities, food’s always communal. If you’ve cooked a stew for five people, how much difference will a sixth mouth make?”

While Christopher remained unconvinced, he’d begun to sense that the painter’s views were untouchable—a mighty citadel ringed with crenellations. As he sat there struggling for something to say, he watched the final stages of the sunset. Its fiery reds and yellows were easily the rival of Marta’s brilliant drapery.

“Let’s head off,” urged the painter. “It’s almost time we were there. And I think we should stop at a cake shop first. Iranians have a sweet tooth.”

As luck would have it, there was one just across the road. Once inside, Christopher loitered ineffectually. Marta took charge. She ordered a selection of biscuits and cakes, told the shopkeeper that Christopher would be paying and then went outside to wait for him. Though it would have seemed awkward in lesser hands, Marta managed the whole thing seamlessly. She even implied that she had done him a favour: hers was the more onerous task of choosing; paying was the lesser contribution.

The student house looked well-lit and inviting. Marta knocked assertively on the door and a young woman promptly answered. Though too well-mannered to say anything, she was clearly astonished by Christopher’s presence. After Marta had introduced them (the woman’s name was Niloufar), the student hurried off to announce a male visitor. By the time they’d gathered in the kitchen, the students were all properly covered up. Though her exact source remained obscure, an elderly chaperone had also been located.

As the dinner preparations were finalised, the guests were invited to sit on the floor. To Marta, a veteran of smoky villages, this arrangement seemed completely unexceptional. To Christopher it came as a surprise, but he took it in the spirit of adventure. He was more worried about the chaperone, but she soon proved her harmlessness by entering a light doze.

They were joined by half a dozen students. Soraya, the most proficient speaker of English, was the first to attempt small talk, but after these preliminary niceties, Marta took control of the conversation, speaking mostly in English but switching to Farsi when comprehension faltered. Though speaking mostly of her own adventures, she did explain Christopher’s presence: he was a backpacker who was touring Iran. When the word “backpacker” proved unfamiliar, Marta offered almasafir—a traveller. She added that she herself was a “world traveller”, one who’d visited seventy countries. She circled the globe, she said, in search of artistic inspiration. She then unpacked her portfolio and handed it to Christopher.

At first, he was attracted by the bright colours, but soon detected a certain sameishness: a group of figures (typically in folk costume) was placed before an exotic backdrop. Though uncertain of his appraisal, Christopher suspected that these were mediocre works.

“What a wonderful palette,” he offered, before passing the portfolio to Soraya.

As the paintings worked their way around the circle, Niloufar and Safie served dinner. It was a pilaf—a great mound of steamed rice, with colourful additions of peas, onions and chunks of tuna. From the limited ingredients, it was obvious that these weren’t wealthy students; tinned fish counted as an extravagance.

The students gestured to begin. Needing no further encouragement, Marta took up the serving spoon and heaped rice onto her plate. She then picked out all the visible chunks of tuna and deposited them on her own plate. Christopher was so shocked by this impertinence that he couldn’t conceal his reaction. Some of the students, observing his expression, struggled to suppress their knowing smiles. Though Marta had seemed unaware at first, she eventually turned to Christopher and explained.

“I’m the guest of honour,” she said. “It’s expected that I take the bulk of the fish.” Sensing that he was unconvinced, she casually added, “Just dig around a little. There’s probably more inside.”

He restricted himself to a single chunk of fish. Even so, that was more than some of the students got. But they took it cheerfully enough; some of them even seemed amused.

When they had all finished the rice dish, the cakes and biscuits were served. Though Marta monopolised the baghlava, she gave the students free rein with the biscuits. Perhaps they were not to her taste.

After dinner, there was another attempt at conversation, this one more concerted. Christopher asked the women about their courses: they were all studying English literature. This was also his major, so he took a lively interest in their studies. In discussing student life they began to lose their awkwardness, and the room was soon filled with ripples of laughter. Feeling that he’d started to win their trust, Christopher began to relax as well. He was soon leaning forward with a sense of warm expectancy.

Changing her position on the floor and throwing her head back, Marta changed the subject. “But tell me,” she demanded of the students, “what faith do you practise?”

The answer was so obvious that the students found it puzzling. Yet compelled by the dictates of courtesy, Niloufar offered a belated response.

“And how about you?” asked Soraya.

“I’m an atheist,” the painter boldly declared.

Christopher lowered his head and wondered how he might extricate himself. He’d made it a policy to sidestep questions of faith in Iran. Why antagonise the locals? Yet clearly Marta thought otherwise.

“He’s an atheist too,” she declared, glaring at Christopher.

Looking for confirmation or denial, the students eyed him.

“Well, you are, aren’t you?” pressed Marta.

Christopher nodded silently, his capitulation complete. In skimming the students’ faces, he detected signs of discomfiture. His only consolation was in seeing that the chaperone was still asleep.

Marta then pressed her advantage by delivering a speech on the prevalence of atheism in the West. As if this were not controversial enough, she then asserted an equivalence between religion and superstition. Christopher wanted to return to the former conversation, to trade these arid controversies for another round of smiles and laughter.

Marta reserved her final remarks for him. “This is what we should be talking about. They don’t need small talk about their English course.”

Ignoring this unwelcome injunction, Christopher returned to more genial matters, asking the students about their home towns. While most of the women were natives of Bam, Niloufar was from Jiroft, a city an hour to the south. She spoke of it fondly as an oasis of watermelons, dates and figs. They asked him about Australia, and he happily described its people, its fauna and its geography. The mood of the gathering lightened again, and Christopher dared to hope that the evening had been saved. Yet it wasn’t to be. To Marta, their cheerful conversation seemed too great an outrage to bear. She swept in to scuttle their pleasantries.

“Why don’t you tell them about how you treat indigenous people in Australia?” she demanded. Her words hovered like a quivering finger of accusation. Christopher sat there, dumbstruck. Retrieving her portfolio, Marta turned to a painting of Pitjantjatjara women.

“These are the rightful owners of the land. The White Australians stole it from them,” she explained, eyeing Christopher as if he had personally overseen the operation. Perceiving his look of abject humiliation, the painter swelled with satisfaction. She spoke at length of the generosity of her indigenous hosts and the tragic history of dispossession.

It was hard to tell what the Iranians made of her remarks, because none of them spoke. Having lost the delightful company of the students, Christopher could see that any further attempt at friendly conversation would surely be thwarted by the painter. He found himself longing to get away.

In this, at least, he was soon to get his wish. Grown tired of her unresponsive audience, Marta brought the evening to a sudden close.

“Well, it’s getting late,” she said. “I should be heading back.”

This surprised the students and Christopher, as the whole gathering had barely lasted an hour, but no one resisted her. By then, her dominance was complete.

In no time, they were saying their farewells. Christopher found some solace in the resilient smiles of the students, yet a sense of mortification remained. He felt he had been portrayed as both a godless reprobate and a merciless oppressor of indigenous peoples.

Bristling with resentment, he yearned to make an escape from Marta. But when they reached the main street, she frustrated him in this aim too.

“Actually, I have something to ask you,” she said, her expression assuming a feminine coyness. “It’d be dangerous for me to take a cab alone. I mentioned how the local men can be.”

When he hesitated, she assured him that it wasn’t far: he could walk home from there in fifteen minutes. Caught in an unwanted obligation, he unsmilingly agreed.

After a few minutes Marta hailed a cab, climbing inside without asking the price. Though Christopher found this strange, especially from a seasoned traveller, he decided not to query her. He had arrived at an attitude of taciturn endurance.

The night sky and date palms loomed above them as they made their way to the guesthouse. Out on the edge of town, it turned out to be a great deal further than Marta had suggested. Christopher sat in the back seat, staring into the darkness.

When they finally arrived at Marta’s place, she got out without paying. The driver angrily called her back, demanding a fare of twenty thousand riel—about two American dollars.

“I’m a guest in this country,” the painter declared. “I thought you dropped me home as a courtesy.”

When the driver continued to press his claim, she waved him off with a look of impatience and strode towards the guesthouse gate. Christopher peered out the window, expecting a farewell wave or some modest signal of appreciation. All he received was the sight of the gate closing behind her.

The driver turned on him, angrily demanding compensation. Ensnared in the painter’s final trap, Christopher, astonished, began to bargain for his release.

On Boxing Day 2003, Bam was struck by a monstrous earthquake. Its vast termite mound collapsed, killing twenty-seven thousand people. On hearing the news, Christopher thought immediately of the students, pondering their likely fate. More than half the town’s people had been killed in the earthquake, so some of the students had likely been among them. Yet without their contact details, he could never know for sure. But his response to the news—a sense of pervasive desolation—hinted at what he thought had happened.

Still, for several days, he followed the story, combing through the rubble of the news reports like a rescuer waiting for a miracle. For quite a while, he had barely thought of Marta. Their meeting had been four years ago; she must have escaped Bam with plenty of time to spare. But then it occurred to him that she was the only person from Bam that he could check up on. After all, hadn’t she claimed a degree of fame?

He soon learned that she had exaggerated. None of her paintings were in the collections of any major galleries. Nor did she have a Wikipedia page. Yet her painting career was not a complete sham. She had held exhibitions in Cairo and Alexandria and had once earned a mention as an emerging Egyptian painter. Where she had been more successful was in gaining arts grants, especially those with a human rights focus. A number of these were mentioned in a write-up in the Egyptian press. The article had praised her social conscience, her “tireless devotion to the plight of the world’s poor”.

But what proved of greatest interest was an article from Brushstroke, an obscure online art journal. Dating from early 2003, it placed Marta in Togo. Flush with her latest arts grant, she’d headed to the land of the Batammariba. Unlike the other articles, this one featured photographs, and the painter’s likeness was unmistakeable. There she was, in her finest drapery, her gaze towards the mudbrick towers. And there she was again, sitting in a hut, helping herself to a bowl of someone’s fufu. And in the final shot, she was seated at her easel, devoting herself to the plight of the poor. She had already filled in most of the background, lavishing the canvas with butterscotch hues.

Sean Wayman lives in New South Wales. Several of his poems have appeared in Quadrant recently.