Can You Hear My Hands? Iranian Voices of London and Beyond Betsabeh Kamali I had nearly passed the Centre. Twice. The gentleman on the phone said it’s only a five-minute walk to the Centre from Holloway Station. Everything is a five-minute walk for these Londoners. This five-minute journey took a good twenty minutes. I was beginning to worry I may have passed it, so I crossed the street. Perhaps a bird’s eye view could help me find it. No luck. My frustration was mounting and I was about to give up. “Ok, Bets,” I thought one last time, “cross the street and start over again, but this time look for Farsi writing.” I was surprised to have even found it. The Iranian Community Centre was on the third floor of a dingy, rotting old building squeezed between a discount luggage store and a small, reasonably priced, family-owned coffee shop. It was the Neale Harper Building, # 266-268, except the first ‘2’ was missing. Next to the luggage store there was a pizza shop. You could buy a slice for £1.00. What a steal. Across the street were a Sainsbury’s Local and a hidden athletics store. And past the bridge was the London Metropolitan University. I didn’t feel like I was in London, though. This early in the morning and I saw drunks on benches and young men trying to pick up ‘hoochie mamas’ at bus stops. One elderly woman with a walker simply lifted up her dress and urinated right on the sidewalk. With the wind blowing it was not a pretty sight. She didn’t even bother to crouch. The law on Holloway Road wasn’t the same as in the rest of England. I pressed the ICC button and the door made a horrid buzzing sound that I bet even people at Sainsbury’s could hear. I pulled open the metal door and entered a long, narrow and dirty hallway. It smelled of urine and sweat and old cooking oil. It smelled of hell. I couldn’t tell whether I was inside or outside. It was 10:00am and my shaking hand had a hard time pushing the ‘up’ button. I was freezing and my hands felt clammy. “Oh my God, I’m gonna screw this up.” I just wanted to turn around and go back to the Tube, back to my horrific accommodation, pack, and get on the earliest flight back home. I wasn’t cut out for university life. I couldn’t keep up in the cold. What if they wouldn’t help me because I wasn’t one of them anymore? Maybe I was a traitor to them now. Maybe my name was too disturbing for them. Maybe growing up in Tehran was not acceptable. Maybe not being a great Farsi speaker was embarrassing to my ancestors. Maybe not knowing Iranian history was something to be ashamed of. Too late. The elevator doors opened and a soft lady’s voice said: “Ground floor.” The doors closed sharply and opened just as sharply again. Oh my God, we hadn’t moved. The elevator was broken. The
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