Divided Loyalties

by Nilofar Shidmehr

  The loud thumping of Homa’s heart in her ears contrasted with Roya’s silence. She was afraid that her daughter’s obvious indecisiveness would prevail and she would withdraw. What if Roya pulled out of the plan now, before they even had a chance to talk to Abol-Fazl and Effat? Homa felt a sharp pain in her chest that stopped her breathing for a moment. She thought about the day, so long ago now, that she’d given up custody. Back then, she could never have imagined a time when she would be so frightened at the prospect of Roya’s rejection. She wished Soraya would come and save her.

  Homa continued to watch Roya in the mirror, and Roya continued to stare at her hands. Long moments passed before Roya finally raised her head and gave a quick nod.

  Her lips were violet. It reminded Homa of the times when Roya was just a few months old and she’d get so upset that her breath would catch inside her and she couldn’t cry. Homa immediately stood up and tapped on Roya’s shoulder before realizing that Roya wasn’t a choking child but a grownup pondering a grave decision: a grownup who had just nodded her head to indicate that she was choosing to live with Homa. Homa felt like shaking her for a clearer answer. Instead, she sat beside her on the bed and put her arm around her daughter. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Homa woke up to the sound of Soraya’s voice. “Wake up, children! Let’s go to the park and exercise together.” Soraya looked exuberant in her navy-blue velvet track pants with red stripes on the sides, purchased from Zara; Homa had brought them from Canada. She wore a matching shawl on her dyed burgundy hair.

  “Maman, I’m going to wear the tracksuit you brought me, too!” Roya jumped out of bed.

  “Perfect,” Homa said. “I will wear mine as well, so we can match.”

  * * *

  The park was on the street just behind Soraya’s building. Soraya walked between Homa and Roya and held their hands. As they entered the park through the cypress hedges surrounding it, Homa saw a group of women doing stretches in the distance, behind the children’s playground. As they got closer, all heads turned toward the trio. Even the instructor, with the knotted ends of her scarf on her back and a whistle around her neck, stole a glance. Several of the women cheered and one called out, “Wow, Soraya! You three look like triplets.”

  “It’s true,” the instructor agreed with a grin. “Now come and join us, beautiful ladies.”

  Homa, Soraya, and Roya made a new line at the front of the group for the remaining fifteen minutes of cardio. Homa didn’t mind that at times during the jumping jacks Roya’s hand brushed against hers.

  After the cool-down stretches, everyone gathered around, asking questions about Roya’s plans to join Homa in Canada. Roya mumbled unclear answers, just a word or two, and tilted her head right and then left. Homa could see she was holding her breath. Sensing that her daughter was overwhelmed and wanting to return home, Homa intervened.

  “Excuse me, ladies, but I have jet lag and need to lie down.” She nodded her head toward the park exit, indicating that the women should open the circle they had formed around them to let them leave.

  “Thanks, Maman,” Roya whispered softly in Homa’s ear as they walked away from the crowd toward the carefully trimmed hedges.

  “No problem.” Homa smiled, grateful for the small kindness and the hope it instilled in her. The sound of the instructor blowing her whistle behind them confirmed her optimism and gave her the courage to extend her arm and hold her daughter’s hand.

  Today is my lucky day, she thought as they walked. I should try to talk to Roya about our meeting again. But as they walked past the hedges, her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a large woman in a black overcoat and scarf who was entering the park, nearly knocking into them. She addressed them in a loud and surprised voice. “Soraya? . . . Roya?”

  The trio and the burly woman stopped and faced each other. Roya jerked her hand away from Homa’s and dropped her head to the path.

  “Soraya? . . . Roya?” the woman repeated, her curious eyes moving from one to the other and then to the woman she did not recognize. She stood over them like a principal who had caught a group of children sneaking out of school.

  Homa detected a subtle quiver under the skin of Roya’s face as her daughter pulled gently at the sleeve of Homa’s matching tracksuit. What was she trying to tell her? The towering woman’s next question did not give her enough time to figure it out.

  “You three look so much alike. Are you related?” The woman was looking directly at Homa.

  “Yes. I am Homa — Soraya’s daughter who lives in Canada. And Roya is my daughter.

  “I had no idea,” the woman said. “But I always thought it strange that Roya looks neither like her father nor Mrs. Effat.” She continued talking, explaining her own relationship to Roya. “Roya and Saba, my daughter, go to the same school.” She turned her intense gaze on Roya, who refused to look up at her. “I see Roya’s father, Mr. Mir, every month in the Parents’ Council, and once saw his wife. I always wondered if she was Roya’s real mother —”

  “Mrs. Effat is also her mother,” Homa explained, cutting off the woman’s words. “She is the one who raised her.”

  Roya stared blankly at the ground, as if what Homa was saying had nothing to do with her.

  • • •

  * * *

  Once home, Homa followed her still-sullen daughter into the guest room. “Can you leave me alone?” Roya snapped. “I want to change my clothes. I am sweaty.”

  Homa stood behind the door. She didn’t go to the kitchen because Soraya was there. It would be awful to burst out crying in front of Maman, Homa thought. She’ll know right away that I am not in control of the situation.

  Homa hovered in the hallway, pressing her back to the wall and her fingers into her palms to push away the tears welling up in her eyes. As she had done a thousand times before, she started reevaluating her reason for giving up custody of Roya at the time of her divorce, when Roya was two. According to Islamic law, she could only have her daughter for seven years. After that, if Abol-Fazl insisted on taking Roya back, Homa would have had to turn her over. That could have been more devastating to Roya, let alone to Homa herself, than giving custody to Abol-Fazl from day one. Nevertheless, Roya had probably felt abandoned, no matter how logical Homa’s reasoning had been. And that feeling had likely grown, when four and half years later, Homa chose to leave Iran for good. Like Abol-Fazl and Effat, Roya probably thought of her as selfish and irresponsible.

  Perhaps that’s why she didn’t want her classmate’s mother to know I was her birth mother, Homa thought, realizing too late what Roya’s tug on her sleeve had likely meant. What kind of mother would leave her child?

  Good mothers stayed with even the most abusive husbands to be with their kids. After all, motherhood still meant self-sacrifice in Iran, although this was not something Homa believed. This was why she was not willing to admit guilt. Leaving her bad marriage had been the right thing to do. The myth of what makes a good mother was made by men. Abol-Fazl had no idea of the postpartum depression Homa had suffered through. Only many years later, in Canada, had she learned that it was a common experience that had nothing whatsoever to do with being an unfit or unloving mother.

  Homa could still feel the trauma of those days gnawing away at her. She’d been a nineteen-year-old girl, alone with a constantly crying newborn in an apartment without a phone to call her mother for help. There were days when she’d paced the rooms, crying along with Roya, scared to death that she was going to lose her mind. Abol-Fazl would leave early in the morning and not come back until ten at night, expecting his food to be warm and on the table. He wouldn’t close his bookstore early — not even by a few minutes — and he never allowed Homa to visit her mother.

  “You are my wife and you must be at my home,” he’d say, leaving no room for argument.

  Homa had been in her
last year at university when she gave birth to Roya. Abol-Fazl didn’t wish her to finish her studies, but he did not want to order her to quit, either. “You can attend your classes, but you should take Roya with you. I am not paying for a babysitter.”

  Homa knew that getting Soraya to look after the baby while she was at school was out of question. Abol-Fazl was not shy about expressing his hatred of Soraya. Homa had left him on a Friday, after a particularly bad fight. They had just returned from a weekend visit with Soraya. Her mother had bought Roya a golden pendant with the image of a mother and her child. As soon as they got back home, Abol-Fazl ripped off the thin golden chain that held the pendant loosely around Roya’s neck, jerking the baby out of her sleep. “Your idiot superficial mother cares only about appearance and beauty,” he shouted. “This will give my daughter a rash.”

  Roya had cried, and a red mark instantly formed from the tug at the right side of her neck. Homa looked at it and realized that it was time to go. If she allowed her husband to insult her mother, she would be setting a bad example for Roya; her daughter would grow up believing that it was acceptable to allow her future husband to insult her.

  No, Homa did not regret her decision to leave him and ask for a divorce. Neither did she regret wanting to continue her education and to work as a professional outside the home. She wanted to be a good mother and to make something of herself.

  “Subservient mothers raise subservient daughters. This is not what I wish for Roya,” she’d told Soraya when her mother had opened the door, surprised to find her daughter back without Abol-Fazl.

  After she left the country, she’d kept in touch with Roya through phone calls and letters, imagining the day when a grown-up Roya would tell her father that she wanted to emigrate and live with her mother — the independent woman who had made something of herself. Her hope, she told herself now, had not been false. It had already happened, and she was not going to let the opportunity slip through her fingers. I will win my daughter back. I’m not going to be defeated this time.

  Homa pushed open the door to the guest room only to notice that Roya had dropped her track pants on top of Homa’s suitcase bearing an Air Canada logo.

  “You no longer want them?” Homa asked, shivering. The cold anger she’d felt behind the door had abated, and her sweaty body had started to cool down.

  “I pulled at your sleeve so you would keep quiet and not say anything to that woman,” Roya said, her voice breaking. “But you did.”

  “I don’t understand you! Was I supposed to lie and hide that I am the mother who gave you life?”

  “Silence is not the same as a lie.”

  “Maybe. But I refuse to be silent. I am so tired of this game of hiding that you and your family have been playing for years. Why should I hide that I am your mother? And that my mother is your grandmother. Why?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Now everybody in the Parents’ Council will know things about me. And soon the whole school will know. Starting tomorrow, they’ll say —”

  “Will say what? ‘Poor Roya! Her real mother abandoned her’?”

  “No! They’ll say, ‘Poor Roya! She lives with a stepmother’!” Roya shouted.

  Homa raised her eyebrows. “What’s wrong with living with a stepmother, if she is a decent woman?”

  “You don’t understand,” Roya said again, biting her lip.

  “How is anyone supposed to understand you when you don’t express yourself?”

  When Roya remained silent, Homa pushed harder. “It is not right that you sacrifice me for your own comfort to hide the fact that Effat is—”

  She stopped speaking when Roya’s sealed lips began to quiver.

  Homa waited until Roya took a deep breath before continuing. “I understand how this society views stepmothers. But, first of all, it is not your responsibility to protect Effat against others. Second, the way to change this biased view is to not hide the reality. You should —”

  “I am not you. Why don’t you understand?” Roya said under her breath, staring at the wall. Feeling hurt once again, Homa watched her daughter’s scrunched-up face in the mirror. “If you are not going to acknowledge me as your mother, how is it that you want to live with me in the future? It seems that you have not thought through what it means to emigrate. You do not even have a concrete plan.”

  “So, you are not coming to talk to them?” Roya’s words were addressed to Homa’s own reflection.

  Homa stared at her daughter’s image. In her white shirt, she thought, Roya looks exactly like me on my wedding day. She remembered how uncertain she had suddenly felt when, eighteen years ago, the mullah sitting to the left of the groom had asked for her consent to marry her to Abol-Fazl. They had been sitting side by side on two short stools — facing this very same mirror, set between two long candle holders on an embroidered satin spread on the floor. The women standing behind them and holding a white cloth over their heads had gone silent. Abol-Fazl’s sisters, who had been rubbing sugar cones against one another while the mullah recited verses from the Koran, stopped what they were doing and waited for her answer. When Homa did not at first reply, as was the custom, one of the sisters chanted, “The bride has gone to the meadow to pick flowers. Ask again.” The second time, her groom’s other sister repeated the same thing.

  The third time, Homa knew she had to answer, but somehow, she could not bring herself to say yes to the man beside her, the man who was impatiently bouncing his knee up and down. She had only snapped out of it when the mullah had prompted her. “Ma’am?”

  Ma’am?

  It was actually Roya’s voice calling her. “Maman?”

  Homa turned to her daughter, who stopped bobbing her leg. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?” Roya asked.

  “Yes, I am coming to talk to your father,” Homa announced. “You are my daughter, and I love you.” As she hugged Roya, the door opened and Soraya stepped in. “What about me? Please take me to Canada too,” she said, joining their embrace, framed in the silver-rimmed mirror.

  “You are next on my list, Maman.” Homa laughed. “But there is one condition.”

  “And what is that?” Soraya chuckled.

  “You must bring my mirror with you.”

  “And also your track pants, Grandma,” Roya added. “So we can join a cardio class and exercise together.”

  Acknowledgements

  Parts of the stories within this collection remember and pay homage to the lives of people from the Iranian community I have befriended or known in Iran and Canada. Three decades of Iranian history from 1978 to 2008, in addition to my life history in my homeland and in migration, echo in the pages of this book; nonetheless, it is a work of fiction.

  My deepest gratitude belongs to my one and only, my husband, Pter Straka, who never stopped believing in me even in the difficult times when I was about to give in. With unparalleled patience, he travelled along with me through the ups and downs of writing. His love and kindness gave me strength and hope and his genuine sense of humor and encouraging smile lifted my spirit through my journey of composing each tale.

  I would like to thank the members of A Drift ­Collective, especially Ken Klonsky and Dr. William Ellis, for their comments on different drafts of the stories. I am hugely indebted to Dianne Maguire for her editorial help and to Tom Gorman for his substantial feedback on the finished manuscript.

  Special thanks to my publishers, Sarah MacLachlan and Janie Yoon at House of Anansi Press, for giving me the opportunity to publish this collection. My greatest regards go to my editor Michelle MacAleese for her wisdom and editorial rigor and for being a fantastic guide and advocate for this book. She nurtured the stories in a way that showed deep compassion for their female protagonists and profound insight into their lives. Thank you to Linda Pruessen for a remarkable copyedit and to Mar
ia Golikova, managing editor, for a smooth navigation of the editing process. I also owe thanks to Alysia Shewchuk for designing the beautiful cover and to Laura Meyer, my publicist, for outstanding guidance and ongoing promotion of the book.

  Last but not least, I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Regina Public Library and the Canada Council for the Arts for the period of time I served as the library’s 2015−2016 Writer in Residence, during which I completed this collection.

  NILOFAR SHIDMEHR is a poet, essayist, and scholar, and the author of six books in English and Farsi, including Between Lives and Shirin and Salt Man, a BC Book Prize finalist. She writes and delivers lectures on women’s rights, migration and diaspora, and social and political issues in Iran. A specialist in the literature and cinema of modern Iran, she teaches in the Continuing Studies program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where she lives with her husband.