Neda and Caspian - A Love Story
(...) The whirlwind has consumed everything except the few belongings he could smuggle out of the country – not least a small computer drive. He fires it up and there are his photos of Neda – the beautiful smile that has circled the globe suddenly becomes his private image of love again. Here is the man she was smiling for. He touches her face on the screen...
Their story begins as a classic holiday romance: they were on the same tour group to Turkey in April this year. (...).........
"For 10 or 12 days [afterwards] we didn't see each other and we had no contact because we wanted to work out how we really felt about each other. We chose a day to meet and agreed that, on that day, we would decide if we really wanted to be together. I knew I wanted to be with her and when she arrived, I knew she felt the same way. I was so happy."
They were not formally engaged, but that was the plan. They even had tickets for a trip back to Turkey together – Istanbul, for the last week in June. The private plans of a private couple. But by then Neda was dead, and Caspian in prison.
What came in between were the presidential elections in June. (...) The "green movement" was born in those days before the election, and the streets took on a carnival atmosphere. Neda was infected by the excitement. Caspian was not. "I used to tell her 'You are no fan of Mousavi.' She said 'You're right, I am not, but I like his followers. They are asking for their rights. It's not just about one man.'"
Caspian's voice is strong when he talks about the elections or the politics. Now it drops to a whisper. "She joined the protesters from the beginning. She was very brave and strong. That worried me, to be honest. I didn't want her to get hurt. I asked her to stop going to the protests. I thought she might get arrested or something else might happen to her. But she was only thinking of her goal – democracy and freedom for Iranians."..............
Neda attended virtually every demonstration – some with her mother, some even with Caspian.
He is deep within himself as he remembers how beautifully she used to explain that everyone should be there. They quarrelled about it. "She said, 'You support me in everything I do, why not this?' I said, 'You don't understand these people. What happens if they catch you?' She said, 'It's not important, Caspian. It's my duty.' She said: 'Caspian, let me tell you the truth. I think that under the circumstances we now have, we're all responsible. Even if we'd had a child, I'd carry my child to these demos on my back.' That's when I realised I couldn't prevent her from going."
On the day of her death, Caspian was out with his camera in another part of the city. (...) "I was very worried for her. I wanted to call her but the mobile phone system had been disconnected and I couldn't contact her at all. I didn't sleep that night. The terrible scenes were going through my head. I was sitting in front of my computer, looking at the photos I had taken. Around six in the morning my mobile rang. It was Neda's number. But it wasn't her. It was her sister. She said, 'Caspian, Neda is gone!' I didn't understand what she meant. I couldn't believe what she was telling me."
..............
The family were allowed to bury her but only in a part of the cemetery set aside for the bodies of protesters. They were forbidden to hold any kind of wake – none of the local restaurants, halls or mosques were allowed to accept them. Meanwhile, on television, senior police officers were blaming the violence on terrorist elements, saying that government forces had not been issued with firearms. Distraught, furious at what he was hearing and racked by nightmares, Caspian Makan felt he could not stay silent. He gave interviews over the phone to BBC Persia, Al Jazeera and the Persian-language stations based abroad, in which he described, in brief, what had happened.
His friends begged him to leave the country, but Caspian refused. "I did not want to do this. I was not able to. I could not leave Neda's home. I could not be far away from this movement. I was past caring."
On 26 June, six days after her death, the police surrounded his house with snipers on nearby rooftops. "I was at home when they rang the doorbell. They took the whole archive of my work, my editing tools, my documents, all the 10,000 photos I had collected to publish one day. Most of this work is of historical sites in Iran and nature photography.
"They told me they were taking me to Evin prison. They took me to a prison cell. Neda's grave number was 32. The grave next to that was number 34, my cell's number. I didn't want to come back after they took me. I wanted them to kill me as well."
..........
On his release, he spent every morning at Neda's grave. He went early to avoid the security police that hung around the site. "Neda loved sunrise, so I went early to be alone with her then. When the sun came up, people started arriving. It has become like a pilgrimage site."
Everyone was telling him to get out, that he would be arrested again. But it was difficult. "I didn't want to leave. For one, I believe this movement has not died out, and will never die out. But when I saw the constraints I was under, that they had me under constant surveillance, and that I had to keep silent, I really couldn't stand it."
The journey out was traumatic – organised by professional smugglers. He was ill and alone. At one stage he had to cross a mountain pass on his own. It took eight hours of steep climbing.
Caspian looks up. He is relieved to have come to the end. "As I left Tehran, I was looking around at the good people of Iran, who are kind and patient. They looked so weighed down. I am 38 years old. I always will love Iran. It was so hard – I was leaving Neda's resting place. I still cannot believe it. I think I will see her again."
Meanwhile he has a mission. He wants to stage an exhibition in her memory. This quiet dignified man will not let go. "Now I have left Iran, I can cry out. To break the silence."
