Only thirty of all the world’s birds reached the abode of the Simorgh, but when they arrived, their king was not present. They waited. And waited. Finally, after much waiting, they discovered that they were the Simorgh, the very one they had been seeking. And so the birds came to understand that the seventh valley was a place of both oblivion and selflessness.
“They were looking for God but couldn’t see God, who was within them and right in front of them, too. Everybody has a little bit of God inside,” Julius said, ending the story. He always had a serious expression just at that moment. Neither sad nor apprehensive, but deeply contemplative. In his father’s face a steady kindness also resided, and Peter wished he could sketch so as to save it from the oblivion of extinguished memory.
He wanted his father here with him, to see these ancient lands whose stories had fascinated them both. But Peter knew—in a way that couldn’t be rationally explained—that Julius was dead, in residence, as it were, in the seventh valley of the birds. He missed his father, especially all the things he hadn’t listened to more carefully, such as Julius’s stories of childhood, his ideas about the future, and his opinions about the world. These regrets shaped themselves into a hollow ache in Peter’s gut. He wished his father could be—at the very least—buried at home. What kind of world, he wondered, strips a man of the right to the dignity afforded by a proper burial?
ADDITIONAL UNIFORMS WERE DISTRIBUTED to the soldiers before they boarded the ship that would cross the Caspian Sea. The troops were counted. Because the departing Poles could not leave the USSR with Soviet currency, officers collected their rubles, which would be used, they were told, to bring aid to the families left behind. Peter found it hard to think about those people who would not be leaving today or those who would be excluded in a future evacuation, if there even was one. He understood from some of the recruits that many of the Polish deportees had not even had news of the amnesty. The number of those who had been deported hadn’t been tallied yet so he couldn’t know how they’d be disputed after the war—was it one million or 1.5 million or, as lower estimates had it, “only” a matter of several hundred thousand? Some of the deportees had traveled from far-flung reaches of Siberia and the arctic circle. Some who had made it to the army’s recruiting centers were turned away. Others came a day too late. Or a week or a month. They were to be abandoned, these unfortunate refugees, obliged to adapt rapidly to their circumstances, as they had been forced to do ever since the train doors were closed, locking them into darkness and carrying them east. Later Peter learned that only two waves of evacuations took place, the first from 24 March to 2 April 1942, and the second from 10 August to 1 September 1942. After the last evacuation, the Soviets closed the frontier. Over 78,000 soldiers and 38,000 civilians escaped the Soviet Union through these evacuations. Later, Peter often reminded himself how lucky he, his mother, and his sister had been to have been included in the ten percent who made it out.
Soup and tea were served at four in the afternoon. Officers briefed the soldiers. In the distance, the mountains looked more like huge craters on what Peter imagined the lunar landscape to be. The wind died down. The rising moon was pale at first, like an imperfect circle of thin metal pasted onto the surface of the darkening sky. The Polish Army’s orchestra struck up their music, and Peter wished he could ask Suzi what they were playing. She and Mama had boarded the ship with the other civilian women. Now the soldiers were filling the vessel’s balconies with the green and gray of their uniforms and helmets. The recruits, wrapped in blankets and pressed close together, shivered as they waited. It was good to be snug amidst humanity, Peter thought.
“Like women at the market,” one of them said. Another laughed.
But Peter felt solemn. He wondered if there was to be more training once they reached Persia. Or if they’d suddenly be thrown into battle. None of them could guess what Hitler planned for his two greatest enemies, Jews and Poles. No one could envision the years of agony that lay ahead. The foundations for slave labor and extermination were being bloodily fashioned throughout their ravaged homeland and all over Europe, but war was their present tense, and they couldn’t yet see what was in store.
In the immediate, however, the voyage across the Caspian Sea to Bandar-e Pahlavi was relatively short and uneventful, save for the lack of water and the shortage of food aboard the vessel. A cold wind rose up in the night. They came into port at 1:30 in the morning. With first light, Peter—and all the other weary refugees who were awake—beheld the snow-white houses looking out to the bay. They had arrived in Persia. The unloading was undertaken quickly.
By morning, they set foot on this ancient but new-to-them land and made their way along a wide, European-style road to a square, where shops were open. The Poles were shocked to see the normalcy of commerce. No lines formed to purchase the items for sale: fruit, gingerbread, halvah, smoked fish, candy, biscuits. And there was an abundance of everything. People smiled at them. The sun warmed their backs and faces. A man sold cigarettes, the white packets gleaming in the early morning light. Swallows darted in and out of view. The Persian vendors didn’t want to take the few rubles some people had smuggled over, but they did anyway, exchanging the Soviet notes for their own currency, the toman and quiran.
Their transport was taken to the shore, where they sat on the sandy beaches and were washed by the sea. British soldiers brought drinking water and distributed enormous brass mugs full of tea with condensed milk. Crowds of Persian ladies came bearing baskets full of eggs, dates, fish, large oranges. Samovars were on the boil. They ate rations of tinned meat and Australian cheese packaged in cans.
The soldiers received a pay advance of thirty toman. Peter went into town with a group of other recruits, and they ate succulent lamb fragrant with spices and roasted on skewers, kebabs they were called. They drank wine that tasted like dates. Some people complained of upset stomachs after eating too much. Later, Peter heard about others, who were so ravenous and ate so much so quickly they then died. And among the civilians, typhus claimed a fair number, mostly children, who were buried in the Polish cemetery at Bandar-e Pahlavi.
They slept under clear skies in the warm night air. They bathed and were disinfested and fed. Officers recorded the names of the soldiers by moonlight. Lists were made. Food distributed. Drills practiced.
“A new life is ahead of us,” Peter heard someone remark, “the kind of life we had not so long ago.”
Not so long ago: Peter was surprised to count thirty-one months from the day they left Teschen. He would return to Europe, engaged in the theater of war. His mother and sister would go to Tehran. He had no idea how it would all turn out, just that he had been a boy of sixteen going on seventeen when they fled. And now he was a man, nearly twenty years old.
“Not so long ago,” he said aloud to the man who had spoken, “which was so long ago.”
PART III
In the Land of Esther’s Children
Portrait of a Gentleman with Maroon Cabriolet, Tehran
2 APRIL 1942 / PESACH 5702, TEHRAN
EARLY IN THE MORNING THE FIRST DAY OF PESACH, Soleiman Cohen drove his maroon cabriolet through the still-quiet streets of Tehran. The gentleman at the wheel of the car was known and respected throughout the city, and especially admired in the Jewish community. Anyone could see that Soleiman, Soli to close friends and family, was fashionably attired, well-groomed, socially gracious, and graceful. But those who knew him well understood that his life’s work—the thing that drives a man to achieve legacy—was to bring harmony and happiness to the people around him. Here was a man, who, at age thirty-seven, had earned the honorific Khan, which meant he would be remembered with deep respect. If he was meticulous, it is because he cared deeply about beauty in its most personal and interior forms. Thus Soleiman made of his home a place where friends and family could come and eat delicious food, gathering in comfortable rooms in the house at Avenue Pahlavi where he lived. He was a man whose generosity extended beyond his kin and fa
miliars—he tipped handsomely, paid his employees on time and sometimes in advance, and made sure there was always enough food to share with household staff and neighbors. Soleiman believed one’s word should be true, that it was important to treat people with kindness and honor. He took the time to cultivate friendships with shopkeepers, managers, and the people who worked for him. His advice was sought by younger men and all the members of his family.
The four-door Ford sedan he drove was a thing to behold. Its white-walled tires and sparkling gleam proclaimed a man with impeccable taste. Everyone who saw the vehicle stopped to watch it pass. Children waved, calling out to the car’s equally polished and dashing driver. To ride with him was to feel like royalty. On this chilly morning, however, Soleiman was alone in his car. The top was up, though it was his preference to have it down, to feel the air and sun on his face. But first light was not yet upon the city, and Soleiman also liked to be inside a warm car on a cold or damp morning. The vendors on Avenue Naderi had not yet opened, but he could sense the sounds of awakening about to burst forth as windows were uncovered and doors unlocked. Right now, people were still dreaming, or just opening their eyes. This time of day was his favorite: he liked to be present for those moments when thoughts collected and the world came into focus, emerging from darkness into the soft morning light.
He loved the many celebrations heralding spring. Just a month earlier, the Jews of Iran had celebrated Purim, reciting the story of Esther’s bravery in saving the Jews of Persia. Some made pilgrimages to her tomb in Hamadan. Generosity flowed: People donated to charity. Adults gave coins to children. Women exchanged plates of halvah as the misloach manot, or gift of food sent to friends. Each had her family recipe, and Soleiman loved the mingled scents of saffron, cardamom, pistachios, almonds, and rosewater that filled the homes of his family and friends.
Just eight days earlier, Persians of all faiths had celebrated Nowruz, the new year. Bonfires were lit in backyards, and a game was made of jumping over the flames of small fires. Children delighted in the firecrackers that popped and hissed and whistled in streets and private gardens. During these festivities, Soleiman had made many visits, as was customary, to all his relations. In each, he praised the ornate haft-seen plates on display, leaned over to smell the hyacinth flowers blooming from pots set on tables, and noticed the boxes of grass adorning the windowsills.
He had also enjoyed the festive food. The offerings included many variations of aash-e reshteh, New Year’s noodle soup; each family’s most prized khoresh recipe; roasted chicken and eggplants, kebabs, and a dazzling variety of rice dishes. He had sampled all of it at the tables of his numerous siblings and their spouses. Soleiman complimented everyone who had cooked anything, asking how they had made the lamb or chicken so tender or how they had seasoned the roasted eggplant until it was smoky and sweet, or praising them for an outstanding faludeh.
NOW IT WAS THE FIRST DAY OF PESACH, the last of the spring festivals. Soleiman was driving toward Avenue Istanbul to take his mother, the widow Gohar Khanoum, to the family seder held at the home of his older brother. Gohar occupied one spacious, first-floor room, which was divided into areas for sitting, eating, and sleeping. A large, wood-fueled samovar dominated one corner of the kitchen. The windows overlooked a garden in the back.
“It’s just me, now,” she once told her son when he asked if she wanted to use the other parts of the house. “I have everything I need and want right here.”
Soleiman had learned to respect his mother’s wishes. She was always right, which taught him that wisdom often resides in decisions which might seem humble. Gohar was a woman who valued the time-honored customs of Persian Jews, but because she had married a man who embraced Western culture, she had come to navigate the modern world with an altered perspective. Thus she taught her daughters how to care for their husbands, children, and homes and to prepare traditional foods, but she also encouraged them to learn—how to read, speak foreign languages—and use whatever resources were available to improve their lives. She was modest and soft-spoken, but she was never afraid to laugh or to state her opinion.
His mother would be waiting in the neat and spare sitting area of her home. There the floors were broom clean—lightly sprayed with water and swept—the carpets beaten, the surfaces free of dust. Not one crumb of unleavened bread had survived the scrutiny of his mother’s pre-Pesach house cleaning, which she often started just after Purim. Her five daughters, all of them married, helped her, of course. Sometimes Soleiman came while one or several or all five of his sisters were there. He heard their voices before he opened the door, exchanging stories about children or food, neighbors or cousins, and these days, talk about the war. When one of them laughed, the others joined in. When Gohar spoke, her daughters listened.
Though it was dark still, the lamp would be off, Gohar lightly dozing, upright in the cushiony hold of the overstuffed chair she favored. Her overcoat would be buttoned, her thick, white hair covered with a patterned silk hijab, and her hands would be resting on a small, brown-papered, string-bound parcel on her lap. Inside were Pesach treats whose recipes she sometimes whispered to her granddaughters. Who among them might be the ones to remember? For a moment Soleiman perceived his bachelorhood as a great loneliness; recently, this feeling had been surfacing more often. He knew that if he had a daughter, and his mother whispered secrets to her, such a daughter would remember what was said.
On the small antique table next to the sofa and Gohar’s chair was a bowl arranged with fruit and nuts. Soleiman always sampled one or two of the luscious offerings. This time of year he’d find dried figs and dates, apples, oranges, and pistachios.
“Soli, don’t eat everything,” she scolded, though they both knew she was teasing, and even if he did eat all the fruit and nuts, she wouldn’t mind. That’s exactly what his father, the late Haji Rahim Cohen, always did, pinched grapes and cherries, almonds and apricots, whatever was in season, from the fruit display. But neither father nor son ever took too much.
Soleiman smiled. You’re lucky to have such a mother, he told himself. And he was. The soft-spoken wisdom of Gohar, who was known as Nana Jan, was legendary among the Cohen clan. She was fair and pious, reserved and dignified. Her daughters-in-law admired her graceful restraint and took to heart her excellent advice. They always invited her to their homes, but she was hesitant to impose on them. All the grandchildren loved her stories. Nana Jan was the heart of the family. She had loved their father, Haji Rahim Cohen, with an abundant and essential kindness. And he, Soleiman, adored and was devoted to her.
She never criticized him for being, at thirty-seven, a bachelor. Gohar appreciated her son’s company but never clung to him unnecessarily. She seldom mentioned the numerous queries regarding his availability as a potential husband. Ever since she was widowed ten years before, Gohar received many visitors in her home, including mothers of attractive girls of an age to marry.
“He simply hasn’t found yet his written-in-heaven mate,” Soleiman imagined his mother saying, and he pictured her waving a hand to dismiss the thought of her son marrying any such girl when one was suggested as a match. It was at such moments she likely passed the bowl of fruit and urged her visitor to try that beautiful orange, or peach, or apricot. “So sweet and juicy,” she said, smiling widely, her eyes set in such a way as to suggest that perhaps another topic might be discussed.
Soleiman assumed his mother wanted him to find a spouse. He also suspected she knew in her heart that her third son was torn between tradition and modernity, East and West, European and Middle Eastern. Finding the right bride was not a matter of match-making but something more akin to divine luck.
SOLEIMAN DROVE PAST TWO BRITISH SOLDIERS. Nazi interest in the vast Iranian oil reserves had made the allies nervous. In 1941, the Soviets and British invaded and occupied Persia, deposing Reza Shah and installing his son, Mohammed, as leader. Politics were so complicated, Soleiman thought.
At this predawn hour the soldiers were cer
tainly on their way to some war-related business. Could it be true what he had heard and read during his outings to local cafés and shops, about the Jews of Europe being rounded up like farm animals and shipped off to camps? Or worse? One evening not too long ago, he listened to a Red Army officer, an older fellow who spoke in French to those gathered near him. Soleiman, seated at the next table and fluent in French, listened carefully. In spite of wearing a Soviet uniform, the man had managed to preserve a hint of the old, aristocratic Russia. Soleiman noticed his precise and deliberate mannerisms, how he set down a glass or lit a cigarette. He sported a well-trimmed, white mustache. He was a man one expected to encounter in a room appointed with a silver samovar on a marble-topped, velvet-draped table. A room in which one drank tea in glasses set into filigreed cup holders while seated on upholstered mahogany furniture. Such a man was listened to when he spoke, and now he was talking about a mass shooting he had heard about. He was telling a gruesome tale of Nazis, who made the Jews dig the pits they fell into after being shot at close range by the German soldiers.
“Thousands of Jews,” the man said. “Killed one after the next, a bullet to the back of the head.”
He didn’t say how he knew this, but certainly as an officer, he had access to more information than most.
Two evenings ago, Soleiman was seated at the Café Naderi, awaiting as he often did the arrival of friends and associates. He overheard two British lieutenants. Having studied English and then practicing it in his own business, he was able to follow the conversation. His father had insisted that all his children learn different languages. “No matter what happens or where you go,” Haji Rahim liked to say, “knowing how to speak to foreigners is advantageous.” The British officers were talking about the group of Polish soldiers and refugees who had recently arrived at Bandar-e Pahlavi. Thousands of men, women, and children, all of them previously interned in Soviet labor camps.
Six Thousand Miles to Home Page 20
