"Until the day I die, I will never set foot in that place again," Ghazal Salman said, and the short, bronze-skinned and raven-haired young Persian woman looked at her audience, a group of students assembled in the auditorium located inside the Southam Hall building at Carleton University. Forty or so men and women, young and old, had come to hear her speak.
Ghazal Salman, a native of Qom, eight largest City of the Islamic Republic of Iran paused before continuing, and then briefly glanced to her right, at a towering, dark figure who stood by silently. Ghazal's eyes met those of her fiancé Landon Bartleby and she smiled, then continued with her speech. She'd known that the time had come for her to speak out on subjects such as women's rights, her Islamic faith, and race issues. If not her, then who?
"Ma'am, don't you think you're stereotyping all of Iran? I mean, not everyone had the same experience," said one of the students in the audience, a pretty gal who looked Somali. Ghazal paused and looked at the young woman, for she'd anticipated this sort of question. There were always doubters and dissenters when one spoke about certain controversial aspects of the Islamic community.
Ghazal Salman, born in the Islamic Republic of Iran to a Shiite Muslim family, was forced to flee her homeland when she converted to Christianity. Apostasy was punishable by death in the nation of Iran. This was something Ghazal would have thought unthinkable, once upon a time. She'd fallen in love with Christianity thanks to the influence of a family of Mormons who were visiting her hometown of Qom and stayed at her father Ali's hostel.
The Mormons in question happened to be James Bartleby and Julianne Chaussard-Bartleby, the parents of Landon, and the trio would come to mean a lot to Ghazal Salman in the coming days. Tourists from Salt Lake City, Utah. The whole trip to iran was a present to Landon Bartleby from his parents, following his graduation from Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University.
Ghazal Salman was twenty three years old at the time, and she'd just returned from Paris, France, where she'd graduated in Economics at the University of Paris old Sorbonne campus. Her father Ali Salman was urging her to get married and start a family, for he was old and wanted to have grandsons and granddaughters before he died. Ghazal was glad to be back in Iran, but missed Paris sorely. That's why Ghazal felt so drawn to the Bartleby family, particularly their son Landon, when they stayed at the hostel.
"No, I do not stereotype Iran, for if one doesn't have the right to choose one's faith, or whom one loves, what point is there to life?" Ghazal replied, and the young Somali woman fell silent. Ghazal looked at her audience, and tried to gauge them a bit. After moving to America to be with Landon and his family, Ghazal found herself the recipient of many threats when the Iranian government decried America's decision to grant her political asylum.
"Amen," Landon whispered, and Ghazal glanced at him, and smiled, knowing she was the only one who heard him speak. This was vintage Landon, alright. The big and tall, caramel-hued and Afro-sporting young American, born to a French immigrant mother and an African American father, had certainly seen his share of hardship as a biracial lad in Salt Lake City, Utah. Handsome and smart, but taciturn and often silent and brooding, Landon nevertheless possessed an intensity which sometimes caught many people, Ghazal included, by surprise.
When Ghazal, as a new permanent resident of the United States of America, decided to write a book about her experiences, Landon supported and encouraged her. Ghazal contacted various publishers with her story, and only one of them took a chance on her. Emir House Publishing, a small publishing company run by a Lebanese Christian man named Emil Nasser. They put out five thousand copies of Ghazal's three-hundred-page book, and it sold beyond their wildest expectations.
The story of a young Iranian woman who left Islam after falling in love with a Christian man, who is himself the son of an interracial couple from America, now this was the stuff of movies and Blockbuster storytelling. Overnight Ghazal became a celebrity, going on Fox News, CNN and other media outlets to share her story. Landon was often by her side, though he was always willing to step aside to let her tell the tale and be the star.
"My friends, I love America and Canada, such beautiful places where a young woman can be whoever she wants to be, love whoever she wants, regardless of race or faith, but I must guard you against those who would change those places, and erase those rights," Ghazal said, and a hush fell over the audience. Ghazal took a deep breath before continuing, knowing that she was heading into deeply sensitive territory. Once more, Ghazal glanced at Landon, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Ghazal, you are different from me and I from you, but I know that I love you, and I believe in you," Landon said, a few hours earlier, as the two of them dined inside Baton Rouge restaurant in downtown Ottawa. Ghazal looked at Landon, who looked handsome in a dark gray suit over a sky-blue silk shirt, dark gray silk pants, and his trademark Black Timberland boots. Landon's skin tone was the same shade as that of singer Chris Brown, whom Ghazal idealized in her younger days. The brother was so fine...
"Hmm, how did I get so lucky?" Ghazal chided Landon, and she playfully nudged him with her elbow. Landon smiled, and then took Ghazal's small hand and brought it to her lips. Ghazal felt a pleasant frisson down below as Landon's lips touched her hand, and she smiled and nodded graciously. She was wearing a Black leather jacket over a white blouse, dark gray dress pants and platform sandals. Only five-foot-six, petite yet curvy, Ghazal was beautiful, feisty and carried herself like a Titan, though she was anything but.
