On the run
At the height of the refugee crisis in the summer of 2015, Abbas, a Frankfurt-based development aid contractor, receives a visit out of the blue from a distant relative from Tehran – a man he has never met before. In just fifty pages, Abbas' hitherto well-ordered life sinks into chaos. "The quicker we get this over with, the better," thinks Abbas, whose German friends call him Abbe. Soon, Abbas thinks, he will be able to get back to business as usual, and he likes to have a firm handle on things. But, of course, nothing turns out the way it should.
Der Großcousin is the third novel from Iranian-born and Frankfurt-based writer Nassir Djafari. Djafari puts the pedal to the metal virtually from the first page, offering up a breathtakingly exciting and highly relevant story of escape and exile, a combination rarely encountered in contemporary German-language literature.
Abbas has made a home for himself within a wealthy, middle-class environment. He travels the world and earns a good salary working on aid projects, forever having to perform the diplomatic balancing act required when managing corrupt officials, or letting caution prevail to keep from stepping on local donors' toes.
It is no easy job and Abbas senses he is not as young as he once was. His wife runs a travel agency she would also prefer him not to be heading off on business trips to the other end of the world all the time.
Losing your roots
Abbas has left his Iranian roots far behind; his knowledge of Farsi is patchy, he knows the names of the great Iranian poets but little else, and he cannot remember when he last ate chelo kabab. And when it comes to his work, he has nothing to do with Iran; his projects are based in South Africa and his closest colleagues have names like Warnke and Muller.
Abbas' only surviving link with his heritage comes via his father, who is spending his final days in a care home. Abbas visits him every week; his father remains his anchor, and he still views him as an authority figure, even though his father's body and mind are slowly failing him.
Djafari's second novel Mahtab (Sujet Verlag, 2022) follows the story of Abbas' parents and their difficult first days in Germany in the 1960s, and his brilliant debut, One Week, One Life (Sujet Verlag 2020), tells the tale of Abbas' brother Hamid and his search for his identity following a midlife crisis. These backstories, coupled with the at times undignified negotiations over money and positions required by Abbas' development job (which Djafari is familiar with from his own professional life), mean that Abbas exhibits a quite understandable yearning for orderliness and structure, particularly at home in his private life.
But when his distant relative Reza turns up on his doorstep, newly arrived from Iran, the predictability of a comfortable day-to-day life goes out the window.
Tangled up in inconsistencies
Reza's visit is a short one. He has a job and is getting by, but he needs some money. Abbas gives him it and offers his support; he suggests to Reza that he should try to learn German quickly. But Reza disappears suddenly, only reappearing weeks later. Things continue in this way for a while and Abbas is happy to be able to keep his relative off his back with occasional financial support.
At least – that is – until he realises that Reza's story cannot be true; he has got himself tangled up in inconsistencies. One evening, Abbas opens his front door to find Reza and his wife standing there with their newborn baby; the pair have fled their flat because they cannot pay the rent – at least, that's what they say. The ensuing chaos ruins Abbas' flight to Cape Town, where the situation completely slips out of his control. The survival of his company is at stake.
When Abbas, Reza, and his family are stopped by the police, events begin to snowball. Who is this Reza? Is he a political refugee? What's his story? Who is Forugh, his wife, who has clearly been in Frankfurt for some time? And why are they hoping that Abbas will keep the whole situation a secret from their family in Tehran?
Creeping destruction
Little by little, Abbas and Djafari's reader learn what is going on, while Djafari demonstrates various reasons why people are forced to leave repressive regimes such as that of Iran, a country which probes deeper and deeper into the private lives of its citizens, whether they want it to or not.
The reader also comes to understand how difficult life is for new arrivals to a country like Germany, where people often experience discrimination due their skin colour or their names – and not just from officials.
The form that this breathless thriller takes serves its story well; the reader has no chance to catch their breath and is forced – much like the protagonist – to live through the destruction that creeps its way into Abbas' life – a life which, at second glance, is not as orderly as it appears.
It is more than possible to read Once Removed as a stand-alone book, but it truly blossoms in combination with Djafari's two other novels. The books are tightly interwoven and yet distinct. They make up a trilogy, a family saga with a complexity that only becomes fully apparent with the addition of the third book.
Djafari did not begin writing until he reached his late sixties, and his work offers great literature boasting social heft, seizing on heavy themes without ever straining his reader or appearing strained himself. Only very few authors achieve this, particularly when they are right at the beginning of their literary careers. Nassir Djafari makes it look easy. But that itself is just one of the many strengths this trilogy of novels has to offer.
© Qantara.de 2024
Translated from the German by Ayca Turkoglu
Nassir Djafari was born in Iran in 1952 and has lived in Germany since the age of five. He studied economics in Frankfurt and worked in German and international development cooperation.