Neda, Neda, Don’t Be Afraid. Neda, Neda, Stay.

Rosita kept holy the Sabbath. Somewhat holy. She was going to go to mass, but when the time came to drop Lulu off with Mutti, she just couldn’t countenance church. Rosita was in rather a black mood (her natural state), so she left with a book under her arm for her corner local. When, upon entering, she was accosted by a whiny blonde waitress (“passive-aggressive is aggressive,” one of Rosita’s favorite refrains), “Um, can you just leave your umbrella up front? Your umbrella, can you just put it up front? It gets really slippery in here?,” Rosita promptly turned tail without a word and stalked out, wondering grimly how she was ever going to make it in a totalitarian regime when she can’t stomach being dictated to by idiots. Unless she’s getting paid, that is.

But Rosita did keep holy the Sabbath by refraining from all internet activity. She had to step away, after viewing the death of Neda Agha Soltan. Her mind reeled with the intimacy and the awfulness, she couldn’t sleep. What she kept thinking was that this girl who- it was evident she was pretty- even dying, her person suggested pleasantness, and youth- her jeans, her wholesome good looks. It was easy to construct a corresponding personality with its embarrassments (running into an annoying relative, maybe), envies (secret ones, maybe), vanities (not hard to imagine, a pretty girl), ambitions (studies? husband? work? art?), and who probably like all women did not like to have a bad photo taken, who, when a photo was unflattering, would fuss, would be dismayed, put out, perhaps coquettishly so…

And now broadcast everywhere a close-up of her gored like an animal, dying in the street. Rosita watched the camera pan to the girl on her back on the ground, her legs splayed open. Immodestly, it occurred to Rosita, but as the camera got closer, it became apparent that modesty was moot, soon to be moot forever. And it reminded Rosita of giving birth, flat on your back, legs splayed, pain, at the absolute mercy of your entrails. But there was no mercy here, it was over.

Watching, Rosita felt like she could smell the girl’s blood, like she could put a hand on the bloody denim and feel the girl’s last struggling. She could feel her helpless shock. She could feel the desperation of the men scrambling to stop it, save her, staunch the flow, keep the life in the body. Rosita had never seen anyone die before. It resounded in her beyond politics, beyond Iran, beyond time and place, beyond good and bad, beyond tragedy.

It was mystery, the ineffable moment of the transformation that is death: “when night comes, all things dissolve/into the unmanifest again.”

It made Rosita think of lines she had read in the Bhagavad Gita:

Whatever the state of being
that a man may focus upon
at the end, when he leaves his body
to that state of being he will go

“Pray for us sinners,” Rosita prayed, “now and at the hour of our death.”

That’s me waxing eloquent. That’s me being poetic. Neda Agha Soltan, Iranian female, 27 years-old, was shot through the heart by a Basji soldier for being out on the street, for attending a peaceful protest. The regime has the weapons and the money- the power, and the demonstrators have their bravery and desire to live free. This is not “unjust actions.” “Unjust action” is Obama taking away the voucher program, relegating poor kids to bad public schools, while he sends his kids to Sidwell Friends. That’s unjust, this is murder. Brutal, bloody, lawless murder of the powerless by the powerful, in full effect, on you tube, on twitter, in real time, flesh and blood people getting hacked, stabbed, beaten, shot to death by mercenaries employed by an oligarchy, by the regime. People are dying, like the signs say. People are being killed.

If we don’t call this like this is, if we don’t speak the truth (and the truth being spoken, there is only one possible position), if we don’t do this, things fall apart. The president, as the representative of the US in foreign affairs, should stand with the people of Iran for truth, freedom, and the democratic process.

When Rosita returned to the internet on Monday afternoon, it was to read the last words that Neda’s father spoke to her as she lay dying. “Neda, don’t be afraid. Neda, don’t be afraid. Neda, stay with me. Neda, stay with me!”

Rosita went to her parents’ apartment to have dinner and watch the news, and her mother, scrutinizing Rosita’s eyes, asked her apprehensively, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. The Iranians,” Rosita said shortly.

But the phrase lingered with her. Became:
Neda, Neda
Don’t be afraid
Neda, Neda
Stay

And all while making Lulu’s dinner:
Neda, Neda
Don’t be afraid
Neda, Neda
Stay

Watching the news:
Neda, Neda
Don’t be afraid
Neda, Neda
Stay

And Rosita remembered that that was what the angel said to the shepherds, when Jesus was born: “Do not be afraid.” Luke 2:10. It was what the angel said to Mary at the annunciation: “Do not be afraid.” Luke 1:30. And what Jesus told his disciples when he walked on water: “it is I; be not afraid.” Matthew 14:27.

Rosita reflected that it was a very wise thing to say to someone who is dying: don’t be afraid. She wondered whether Neda’s father had shouted “stay with me,” when he saw that she was gone.

She didn’t know. But the refrain that had shaped itself out of his words beat like a pulse in her thoughts:

Neda, Neda
Don’t be afraid
Neda, Neda
Stay

Sometimes the rhythm sounded like a chant, at the same time reassuring and defiant. Rosita thought of the chants she had heard at the rally at the UN: “Death to the Dictator! Death to the Dictator!” or “Bye-bye Khomenei! Bye-bye Khomenei!” She imagined protesters shouting “Neda, Neda! Don’t be afraid! Neda, Neda! Stay!”

‘Neda,’ Rosita remembered, means ‘voice.’ Don’t be afraid, Voice. Stay.

But mostly the words came floating unbidden and mysterious into her mind like petals on dark, vast, calm waters, ebbing and flowing like breath, pulsing like blood:

Neda, Neda
Don’t be afraid
Neda, Neda
Stay