“Dad?”
“Annahita?” The relief in his voice was clear. He paused a moment. When he spoke again, the warmth was gone. “Where are you?”
“We’re in Istanbul.” I wanted to tell him everything, to let him know the truth about why two seasons had passed since I had left Daniel with him. But I knew I had to keep up the lie, for my parents’ and Daniel’s sake.
“Roksana is growing big,” I said, hoping to fill the silence. “How is Daniel? Can I speak with him?”
“You ask about Daniel? You left him, Annahita. You went off with your husband, and you left your son behind. You decided that your husband was worth more to you than your son, so you chose to forget about Daniel. How can you call yourself Daniel’s mom now? You don’t deserve him. Your son doesn’t even like you anymore, and I doubt he’ll want to speak to you at all.”
I cried and cried. I was using a public phone in a shop, but there was nothing I could do to hold the pain in. Every word that my dad said was like poison. Soon I was struggling even for breath.
“Annahita?” my dad said, his anger softening a little. I could hear him calling my name over and over, but still I could not stop weeping. Finally, when I was able to wrestle back the tears just a little, he spoke again. “Do you want to speak to Daniel?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
I heard the phone clunk down on the table and my dad’s voice call out to my son. “Daniel, come.”
I pictured Daniel playing with his toys by the door that opened onto the courtyard. I saw him stand up and walk over to the phone, picking it up shyly. Maybe my mom’s hand was on his shoulder, telling him it was okay to talk.
But all I heard was silence.
“Daniel,” my dad called again. “Come here.”
Someone covered the receiver then, and the conversation that carried on was hidden from me.
“Annahita,” my dad said finally. “Daniel doesn’t want to talk to you. I’m sorry.”
I could feel the same darkness from the basement invade my head and heart again. Whatever happiness I’d felt at getting away from the Hotel and being able to phone home was extinguished that instant.
All I felt was despair.
The heartbreak did not fade, but life continued. I had traded the life of a prisoner for the life of a refugee, and in this new world we were free to come and go in the refugee center. But, with no money at first, we still spent much of our time in the room. There were days when I wondered how much really had changed since we left the Hotel.
In time, though, our situation improved. I was able to earn a little money by sewing clothes for some of the other refugees in the center. I had no machine or desk to work at, but Roksana’s little pink dress had taught me that I didn’t need either of those in order to work.
Asghar, too, had something to distract him, and he would spend hours away from the room, without ever telling me where he went. I didn’t mind at all, for by now I was content to sit and sew and watch Roksana as she crawled about on the floor, building towers out of plastic beakers and laughing with delight whenever they crashed down.
I phoned my parents every week, and, even though Daniel refused to speak to me, after two weeks in Istanbul I had finally been able to hear his voice. Khanoum had sent me a recording of him on cassette, and I had been given an old tape player by one of the center workers. Every day I listened to him talk about the toys he was playing with and the animals he thought were the best in the whole world. His voice was like fresh blood in my veins, giving me strength to work as hard as I could to be reunited with him. But it also cut deep within me, for in one part of the tape I could hear Daniel crying, then screaming out, “I want my mommy!”
I was desperate to see him again, and I eventually worked out a plan to make it happen.
Asghar and I had applied to Denmark for asylum, as we had been advised they were taking refugees, but we knew it would take months for our appointment to come through. So, in the meantime, I worked on my side plan, which involved a man who I hoped could help.
He was called Agha Danesh and was a businessman from Isfahan who regularly traveled back to Istanbul. My dad had known him for years and asked him to bring some supplies back to us. Soon after that first phone call, we met outside the refugee center one afternoon.
“Your parents are worried about you,” Agha Danesh said as he handed over a leather bag full of clothes and food and other supplies. “They can’t sleep.”
“Did you see my son Daniel when you collected the bag?”
“Yes. He’s a good boy.” He paused a little, searching for the right words. “But he is sad.” Agha Danesh turned to leave, but then he stopped. “You know, I can help you get him out. The border guards know me well enough not to ask questions if I don’t want them to.”
Back in our room, Asghar pulled out a pair of scissors and cut away at the lining of the bag. “Ha!” he said, pulling out a load of bills my father had told us he was going to sew in. “This is good!”
I just watched him in silence. I didn’t care that he was taking the cash and that I’d probably never see it again. I didn’t want money. I didn’t want my father to send items that would simply help us get by in Istanbul. I just wanted Daniel. That was all.
I wanted my son so badly that I was prepared to do anything to get him out.
The next time I phoned home, I laid out the plan for my dad. I told him about how Agha Danesh could bribe the border guards and bring Daniel back to Istanbul.
“No,” he said. “That is not a good idea. I hear that the border is a dangerous place and that many people end up going missing. I trust Agha Danesh but not the guards. It’s better that you get to Denmark first; then I can get Daniel a passport and visa and bring him out properly.”
It was hard to disagree, but I knew what this meant. Getting a passport in Iran would take a whole year, and then another six months for a visa. At this rate, I would end up missing two years of my son’s life.
I tried to stay calm, to reason with my dad, but it was no use. He said that his and my mom’s minds were made up and there was no way they were going to smuggle Daniel out of the country. “Besides,” he added, “even if he does arrive there safely, are you sure that your husband will take care of him?”
I kept my emotions inside while we talked, but once the conversation was over I exploded. Again, right there in the shop, I was once more a mess of tears. My parents had a right to be worried, both about smuggling and what life with Asghar would be like. But my heart ached for Daniel. Even though I knew that Asghar was dangerous, Iran was worse. The longer Daniel stayed there, the more likely he’d be exposed to the growing threats under Khomeini’s regime. I wanted Daniel with me in Turkey, where I could hold him, care for him, and protect him.
The tears kept on coming. But I wasn’t just crying for Daniel. I was crying for Mohammad, too, for everything that Roksana had been through, and for all the fear and despair that had settled so heavily in my own heart.
A week or two later I was back at the shop, waiting in line at the counter to buy a comb for Roksana. When it was my turn to pay I stepped up and smiled at the shopkeeper.
“You must pay what you owe me first before you can buy anything else,” he said.
“I don’t think I owe you any money. You know I always pay when I come in and use the phone or buy things.”
“Your husband doesn’t, though. Look,” he said, pulling out a bill from beneath the counter. It was a long list of cigarettes and Johnny Walker whiskey, things I’d never bought in my life but that I knew Asghar had developed a taste for. The final amount was as much as I had earned from a month of sewing clothes, money that I had been saving to pay Agha Danesh to get Daniel out, if my parents ever changed their minds. I handed it over and left.
I was enraged all the way back to the center, and when I walked into our room and saw Asghar lying on the bed, I shouted at him. “How dare you go and buy all that stuff in the shop and expect me to pay! I was saving that
for Daniel, but as fast as I’m earning it you’re smoking and drinking it away.”
“Who are you to tell me right from wrong?” he spat back at me. “And who are you to talk about Daniel? You never say anything about Cherie, never say anything about wanting to get her back. You’re not a mother. You’re nothing.”
It had been weeks since he had hit me, but as soon as his fists shot out toward my shoulder and chest, I remembered exactly what it had felt like before. I was back in the cell in the basement, cowering in the darkness. I was back in the kitchen in Isfahan, hiding among the broken glass as he brought the shovel down on me again and again.
He stopped when there was a knock on the door and a voice I didn’t know asked to come in. Asghar opened the door and walked right out.
It was 3 a.m. when he came back again. I could smell the booze and cigarettes before he had even stepped into the room. I braced myself for more pain, but he was too drunk and tired for that.
“You’ve got another bill to pay off,” he said, before lying down on the bunk next to me. Within minutes he was snoring. Only then did I let myself cry. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.
Seven months after arriving in Istanbul, we finally received news that we had been accepted by Denmark. They sent us visas, one-way plane tickets, and the promise of a new life in a country where I would finally be free from the oppression of an Islamic regime. No more chadors, no more prisons, no more fear of the mullahs. But I wasn’t quite ready yet to embrace this freedom.
“I’m not going,” I told my friends in the center. “I’m not leaving here until Daniel is with me.”
Over the coming weeks so many people tried to change my mind. They told me how good life would be in Denmark, how I could send for Daniel once I was there, how life for him would be so much better in Europe. “No,” I repeated time after time. “I am not going without my child.”
My refusal to leave was not a show of strength or an attempt to bargain with my dad or the authorities. I was fifteen hundred miles away from my son already. I simply could not put any more distance between us. If I left Turkey and headed farther west, I feared my heart would break completely.
I knew that our tickets were only valid for two months, and I knew that, yet again, I had no choice in the matter. And so, just days before the window of a new life closed, I changed my mind. Not that I feared the pain any less or that I found a way to see some great hope in the situation. I simply hoped that somehow my soul would be able to cope with the pain.
The last-night party that my friends threw for us in our room at the center was nice. There was singing and a little dancing, and Roksana was passed around the women and smothered with kisses until she giggled herself red. I felt like I could breathe a little more easily that night, as if the air was cleaner and purer somehow.
That night reminded me of what I really wanted—to make a safe home and a good future for my son and my daughter. I wanted all of us to be able to live without having to hold our breaths in fear of what was coming next.
I wanted to belong too. To be able to laugh and dance and hear the air fill with the laughter and happy talk of people I knew and loved.
But I knew all this would have to wait.
On the morning that we left, I looked at the single green suitcase we had been given. The empty shelves and walls all around told me that we had left nothing behind. But my heart felt the ache of what was missing. What little we had we carried between us.
As we left the center, I did not feel like I was starting a new adventure. The burning sickness in my stomach and the stone in my throat told a different story. The room was empty and my bag was full, but I felt as though I was leaving everything behind.
PART THREE
DENMARK AND SWEDEN
I hung up the phone and wept for the twelfth time. Roksana sat on my foot and hugged my shin, begging me to stand up and take her for a ride around the room. I did as she asked, dragging my foot along the floor as she squealed with delight. I laughed a little through the tears, but the pain within remained just as sharp.
It was spring, and we had been in Denmark for six months already. We had been given two rooms in a large house up in the northeastern corner of the country. We shared the bathroom and kitchen with two other refugee families, and life had quickly developed a sense of routine. Asghar and I both spent much of our time out of the house, Asghar in the company of other Iranian men in the area, talking up a storm but not doing much else. He had already given up on the Danish lessons that the state had encouraged us to take. I, on the other hand, had enrolled at a local college where I spent a few hours most days, sitting in bright, clean classrooms, working hard to master this strange new language.
Some evenings Asghar would barge into the living room and inform me that he had invited twenty of his friends over later that night and that he had promised them a good meal. I quickly learned not to argue or make a fuss. Instead I’d scrape together what little money I had hidden and head quickly to the shop to buy rice, tomatoes, and whatever cuts of meat I could afford.
Besides the school work, the household chores, and the regular outbursts of rage from Asghar, there was one other routine that dominated everything: my phone calls home.
My parents no longer owned a phone, so they had to reserve a thirty-minute period at the local phone house to talk with me. Every other week, as the set hour approached, I would picture them making the short drive in Dad’s old car. I always imagined that Daniel would be happily watching out the window as the streets rolled by, his eyes curious about the world he lived in.
I always spoke to Dad first. I would ask about the passport applications that would allow him, Mom, and Daniel to finally come to Denmark, hoping for news that never came. He had softened a little since we had left Turkey, but his voice still carried a note of disapproval. In his mind, I had chosen a no-good, violent husband over my own son. It hurt him to think that his own daughter could be so selfish and blind.
Mom was always warmer. She would ask about Roksana and me, wanting to know what life was like in Denmark. She always cooed whenever I told her about the size of the supermarkets or the bright clothes that the women wore in public.
Eventually, when my heart was beating so fast within me that my voice began to shake, I would say the words I had rehearsed so many times. “Let me speak to Daniel.”
For the first five and a half months that we had been in Denmark, the line would go dead as muffled voices would fog the background. Eventually Dad would return and I would spend the remaining minutes of the call forcing back tears.
This time, our twelfth call, things were different.
My brother, Hussein, had gone with them to the phone house. I didn’t have to ask him to get Daniel; he knew right away. He didn’t cover the receiver either, and I heard him clearly.
“Daniel, you need to talk to your mother. Come here.”
I heard the phone creak and the shift as it was passed from one hand to another.
I heard him breathing.
“Daniel?”
Silence.
“Daniel? It’s me, your mom. Are you there?”
I listened hard. No words, but the breathing remained. It was him. I knew it was him.
But the silence grew steadily heavier.
“Daniel, I love you. I miss you, Daniel.”
Silence.
“You’re coming to Denmark, and everything’s going to be okay.”
For two minutes he said nothing. I cried and told him over and over how much I loved him and how much I was looking forward to seeing him again, but I heard nothing but his breathing coming down the line.
When I did finally hear a voice, it was Mom’s. She said that she loved me and that the time was up.
I heard the line go dead. Sorrow flowed out of me like a flood. I gathered Roksana to my chest and fought for air in between heaving sobs.
I viewed life in Denmark through the lens of my sorrow. I noticed the vast differences between life the
re and life back in Iran but nothing moved me. The best new foods and the most exciting new tastes were bland upon my tongue. There was no joy in the world, no excitement, nothing to thrill me.
I noticed that people in Denmark were so different from people in Iran or Turkey. There was no visible anger in them, no hate raging just beneath the surface. When people disagreed in public, there were no shouts or screams or threats backed up with guns and knives. Things were gentle, warm, and easy.
I compared myself to the Danes all the time, wondering how different my life would have been had I been born in the flat suburbs of Copenhagen instead of the mountains around Isfahan. But even though this new life had so much more to offer, I missed some of the parts of my life back in Iran. When I heard Iranians talk, I’d often cry. When I thought of certain songs or smelled saffron rice, I was reminded how far away from home I was. I knew I didn’t belong anywhere.
Most of all, though, my life was dominated by the ache of missing Daniel.
I would entertain daydreams of smuggling Daniel out of Iran, of getting him to Turkey and somehow bringing him back to be with me and Roksana in Denmark. But I knew these were foolish ideas. Dad would never agree to it. And did I really want to risk Daniel at the border crossing?
All I could do was wait and hope that in the year it would take for Mom, Dad, and Daniel to get their passports, nothing would go wrong.
As the months passed, the sorrow shifted a little. Not that it got any easier. Instead of feeling depressed, I started to feel angry at myself. Angry for leaving Daniel. Angry for marrying Asghar. Angry for finding myself in a position where I had no choice but to smile and pretend like everything was all perfectly normal as I waved to my son from the back of the car window.
How could I have let all this happen?
Once I had learned enough Danish, I was able to study other subjects at college. I added math, English, and geography to my class schedule and found the work to be a welcome distraction. Sometimes, like when I felt my wrist ache from writing page after page of notes, or when I sat on the floor at home surrounded by piles of books, nursing a cup of black, sweet tea, or when I was laughing at a joke made by one of my classmates in the canteen at break, I felt something I’d not experienced for years. I felt like a normal person my age.
Stranger No More Page 11
