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Zusatztext “This gripping story—filled with humor and insights—is in the end a beautiful meditation on fatherhood, family, and the powerful draw of home.” Informationen zum Autor Aria Minu-Sepehr moved with his family to the United States following the fall of the shah of Iran in 1979. He is an adjunct professor of English, founder of the Forum for Middle East Awareness, and a public lecturer in fields related to Iran and the Middle East. He lives in Oregon with his wife and two daughters. Klappentext Originally published in hardcover in 2012. Leseprobe We Heard the Heavens Then 1 “Corrupter of the Land” For as long as I could remember, my father had been a general. Growing up in the air force, around armed forces, I had become adept at recognizing ranks. One look at someone’s uniform, at their silver stripes, bronze asters, or gold stars, and I could tell exactly where they stood, who obeyed whom. In the last four years, Baba wore two stars and an imperial crown on his epaulettes; he was a major general, commander of a sensitive base in Isfahan. All eyes were on the operation: The king considered it a glowing achievement to bring the most sophisticated fighter jet in the world to Iran. On the American side, handing over a national secret to a country bordering the Soviet Union was risky. Could Baba establish order? At the height of the cold war, would one of our pilots be lured by communist propaganda, defect, and give away an American technological advantage? Every move, even my grade-school life, had to be scrutinized. The barren setting of the base, on the high plateau of a forbidding desert, was unlike the city it bordered. Isfahan, the city, was fed by a river, nurtured for centuries, tree-stippled and verdant. In contrast, our air force base was a wasteland situated at the foot of towering, azure mountains. If one traveled in the direction of the mountains, the desert terrain quickly turned rocky, pocked, and undulating. The strewn fragments of basalt and obsidian were signs that in this land monumental calm periodically gave way to sudden, convulsive upheavals. The infertile landscape of our home had a formative influence on me. My desert: a vast carpet of undifferentiated barrenness stretching away in serene quietude. My mountains: impassive overseers of my youth. Against this backdrop the sun revealed its various faces like clockwork—starlike at dawn, canary yellow by midmorning, a diffuse blaze in the afternoon. One glance at the sky and I could tell when school would end, when the guards outside our driveway would change shifts, when my father would arrive, or when supper would appear on the table. A month before everything changed, Baba moved to Tehran, the capital city, to assume a new post with a new star. My mother, my caretaker, and I were to follow during the New Year’s break. Along with school, the entire nation would shut down in March, on the first day of spring. A weeklong celebration would ensue—presents, picnics, Grandmother’s house a revolving door of guests. But that year, in the dust of the revolution, spring’s tender blossoms came and went without notice. On the day the regime fell, we left the base in a hurry and with hearts pounding. My mother packed two satchels, swept up our poodle, and told Bubbi to leave whatever she was doing and get in the car. “Your dad’s already with Mamman Ghodsi and your brother is safe in America. The rest can go to hell,” she explained to me. “What’s going to happen to my toys?” I asked. “Room, house, this goddamn air force base … it can all go up in flames. What precious years I sacrificed. From ruin to ruin. A...
