Stranger No More

by Annahita Parsan

  Asghar,

  I am leaving you. You can never, never see me again. I am never coming back to you.

  Annahita

  It was past 9 a.m. now, and I knew I had to move quickly. Asghar would expect me back with the children from school at 2 p.m. When we didn’t show he’d come searching for us. He always did, and I didn’t want him to visit the school or my college in one of his violent moods.

  I caught a friend who was about to go into class. “Can you deliver this to Asghar at two today?”

  “Give it to Asghar?” she said. “No way! He’ll kill me.”

  I knew she was right, so I drove to the post office, filled out my address on the envelope, and asked the lady at the counter to deliver the letter that afternoon.

  “Honey, this place is so close you can deliver it yourself.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, trying to smile. “It’s a surprise, and I can’t be the one to deliver it. But it has to get there at two, no earlier, okay?”

  It cost me $6, but it was worth every bit of it.

  At 10:05 a.m. I was in a drugstore buying toothbrushes and paste.

  At 10:23 a.m. I was back at the children’s school, parking the car on a side street. When I told the teacher that I needed to take Daniel, Cherie, and Roksana out, she nodded. “Of course,” she said. She looked at me for a moment. “You’re not coming back, are you?”

  “No,” I said.

  She smiled. “Take care of them.”

  At 10:35 a.m. we were all in the car, engine running, windows steamed. I turned round and looked at them. They looked confused.

  “I want to divorce Asghar,” I said. “I’m never going back to him. If you want to come with me you can. If you don’t, you can go back to school and stay with him. It’s up to you.”

  Six little eyes darted back and forth between each other. Then, like sunrise on a winter’s morning, three giant smiles rose on their faces. “Yay!” they shouted, arms waving, car rocking. “We’re free!”

  There was so much snow on the freeway as we drove that the thirty-minute journey took over an hour. I was gripping the wheel, staring hard and wiping the condensation off the windshield. It was only when we reached the town that I realized I had no map with me, and I hadn’t even written the address of the safe house down. It was almost noon, and I had no idea how I was going to find the place.

  “Liljehaven . . . Liljehaven . . .” I repeated the name of the street over and over, looking up at the road signs, feeling my breathing get even tighter. I didn’t want to do it, but I knew I needed to ask for directions. Only when I saw a couple of women walking into a shop ahead did I decide to pull over.

  At 12:13 p.m. I parked the car and looked up at the street name. Liljehaven.

  Five minutes later we had pulled in front of the house through tall metal gates and parked the car in the garage, the doors quickly closing behind.

  Once we had been shown the bedroom we would all sleep in and the children had been introduced to some others playing quietly in a lounge, I sat in the office with a woman who said her name was Anna. “Can you tell me your story?” she asked.

  It took hours. I told her everything. There was no detail I left out, no part of the story that I kept hidden. For the very first time since Asghar took me to the bedroom on the night of our wedding to earlier today when I left him, I shared my story.

  When I finished, Anna was silent. I felt drained, exhausted, but lighter as well.

  I looked at my watch. It was 2:30 p.m. By now he would know. I pictured him, a wild animal loose in the apartment, running about the streets in search of us, his hand clenched around his box cutter.

  The terror returned, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe again.

  It was the next day that I heard what Asghar had done. As soon as he opened the letter he phoned the police. He told them how worried he was because his beloved wife and three precious children had not yet returned from school. He was scared that something had happened to them, and could the police do something to help, anything at all?

  He dropped the act when he phoned my friends. He swore and threatened and told them that if they didn’t tell him where I was, he’d come round and cut them up.

  And then he went to Social. I don’t know how he knew they were involved, but he knew it. He told them he was going to burn the building down with all of them still inside. He pushed furniture around, told them that it was all their fault, and said they were trying to take his wife and children away. He said that everything I had told them in the hospital was a lie and they were idiots for believing even a single word of it.

  Anna told me all of this as we sat in the office. She had to keep on reassuring me that I was safe, that there was no way he would find out where we were. I had to wrestle with my thoughts to believe her.

  “But there’s one problem,” she said. “Cherie’s not your daughter. Until you divorce Asghar and get custody of her, he has every right to go to the police. If he does, you’ll have to let us take her back to him.”

  The thought terrified me almost as much as I knew it would terrify Cherie.

  For days we didn’t hear anything from Asghar or the police. I was sure that he’d try to get Cherie back, and his silence confused me. It was only when Anna received a call from Social that I knew what was going on.

  “Asghar is sick,” she said. “He’s been taken to the hospital, but I don’t know what’s wrong. They say he’s not going to be home for at least a few days. Do you want to go back and get the rest of your things?”

  We only had the one change of clothes each and no money to buy anything else that we needed. I told Anna that I wanted to go back but only if someone would go with me.

  I called a friend and asked her husband, Reza, to meet me at the apartment the next night at 9 p.m.

  It was dark when I pulled up and saw him waiting on the street. I believed that Social was right when they said Asghar wasn’t at home, and I knew that Reza was a man I could trust, but I still had to fight the urge to turn around and flee.

  We drove around the block and saw that the apartment was dark. I asked Reza to go in first and that I would come up once the lights were on.

  “I don’t know why, but I don’t feel like it’s safe. Would you mind?” I said.

  “You know he’s not there, Annahita. I just spoke to him in the hospital two hours ago. It’s going to be fine to go up there.”

  “You spoke to him? Do you know what he’s sick with?”

  “He said he had blood in his urine. He’ll be fine, but they’re keeping him in for observations.”

  I handed over the key and watched Reza cross the road. Two minutes later the light in the apartment lounge went on. I told myself not to be scared, stepped out of the car, and followed Reza’s snowy footprints.

  As soon as I reached the doorway at the top of the stairs, I stopped. I could hear voices. Both of them were familiar. Reza’s I could place, but the other—a woman’s—had me confused for a second.

  It was Ziynab.

  I stepped back and pinned myself to the wall. It had been nine days since I’d seen her off at the airport, a week since Asghar had read my note. She still had two months on her visa, and I guessed Asghar must have called her as soon as he found out I’d gone. And there she was, sitting in the apartment with the lights out while her son was in hospital. She must have been waiting for me. I had never felt more scared of her.

  “So, where’s Asghar?” Reza was trying to sound calm, but failing.

  Ziynab sounded too nice when she spoke. “In the hospital. He could do with some cigarettes. Could you take him some?”

  “Sure.”

  “And can you take me too?”

  “Yes!” said Reza, his voice unnaturally loud and slow. “Of course I can take you to see Asghar.”

  I backed down the stairs and ran to the car. I killed my lights and drove far enough away so that I could just see Reza when he came out. He was alone, and I flashed him over.

  “
I told her I was going to buy some cigarettes and that I’d come back,” he said as soon as he got in. “We should go.”

  A few days later, I was back at the apartment. This time it was daylight, and instead of Reza by my side I had three police officers, two male and one female. Anna had told them about Ziynab and Asghar, and they had agreed to help me get whatever I needed. Still, no matter how many times they told me that it was all going to be fine and that I could relax, my heart still threatened to beat its way out of my chest.

  “What do you want?” Ziynab shouted through the locked door.

  “We’re here to recover some property,” said one of the officers. “Open up now.”

  “I can’t find the key. I can’t open the door. I’m sorry, Officer.”

  “Yes, you can. If you don’t unbolt the door, we’ll break it down.”

  The door opened, and Ziynab looked at the police with disdain. When her eyes landed on me, her expression momentarily changed to disgust.

  Then she quickly switched back to mock innocence. “I’m a guest here. I can’t let you in.”

  The officers were getting impatient now. “Yes, you can. This apartment belongs to this lady here, and we’re going to let her get whatever items she wants.”

  She started swearing at them in Farsi, calling them all kinds of terrible things. All of the officers were Danish, but they understood the tone well enough.

  “Be quiet and sit down,” they said, escorting her to her bedroom and blocking the door.

  “Okay, Annahita” said the female officer, pulling out some garbage bags from her pocket. “Tell us what you want.”

  I was shaking so hard it was almost impossible to think.

  “It’s all yours, remember. You can take it. It’s okay.”

  I couldn’t speak, I was so nervous. I pointed out a few clothes and some toys.

  “You want the television?”

  I nodded. I didn’t think to look for any papers or photos. I just wanted to get out of there as soon as I could. We filled the bags and then quickly left to return to the safe house. When I walked back in through the doors, I breathed a prayer of thanks. We’d actually made it back.

  The first I knew that Asghar was out of hospital was when Anna rushed into my room at the safe house one morning a fortnight later. Daniel, Cherie, and Roksana were at their new school, and I was doing chores.

  “You need to come,” she said. “The school’s office is calling. Asghar’s there.”

  Visions flashed through my mind of him holding the children hostage, waving his box cutter in the air. It was only when I spoke to the secretary that I understood that the children were safe.

  “He was at the main gate during recess, and your son saw him from out the window and told us about him. None of your children went outside; they’re all safe here in the office. But it’s best if you come and get them now.”

  It turned out there had been an error in the school administration system, and because they didn’t have our address at the safe house, Asghar had been sent the details of the upcoming parent-teacher conference instead.

  Anna and I went to the school and got the children safely home, but the episode marked the end of their time at school—as well as the end of any of us going out beyond the tall metal gates. From then on, they were taught in our room by a string of visiting teachers. I was so grateful for their kindness, but couldn’t help feeling that I had become a prisoner once again.

  Asghar was obviously well recovered from his illness by then, so it wasn’t surprising that he proceeded to contact the police and tell them I had kidnapped Cherie. Receiving the court summons made me glad I’d had divorce papers drawn up in the meantime. If he was going to take Cherie against her will, I was going to fight to get her back.

  When I walked into the courtroom, it was the first time I had seen him in six months.

  He looked old.

  But as he stared hard right into my eyes, I knew he was ready to fight.

  I listened to him explain to the judge how he had done nothing wrong, and that after a few arguments at home, I had decided to punish him by taking his daughter away from him, against his will. He was every bit as charming as I knew he could be, and for a moment I thought the judge might just believe him.

  “I didn’t kidnap Cherie,” I said. “I was so afraid of him, and he was so angry that I thought the only way to protect her and the others was to get away.”

  Someone from Social stood up and explained about how they were helping us and why they thought we were at risk. The judge listened carefully and delivered his verdict. I had a simple choice to make: I could either give Cherie back, or I could spend six months in jail and have all of the children taken away from me. Either way, Cherie was going back to Asghar.

  What choice did I have? Asghar had won again. I promised to let Cherie return to her father, feeling sick inside at the thought of all the fear and pain she would endure as a result.

  As I walked out of the courtroom with Anna, I kept my eyes away from Asghar, only daring to look out the back of the car as Anna paused at the gates at the front of the courtyard. Asghar was coming up behind us, driving a little white Toyota. In the passenger seat was Ziynab. Both of them were looking our way. She was shouting.

  The guards let us out, but as I looked back I saw they’d stopped Asghar from following.

  Back at the safe house, I took Cherie to the laundry room, searching for somewhere quiet to break the news. “You know I’m not your biological mom, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “I can’t keep you. I’m not allowed. You have to go back to be with your dad.”

  Her shout was loud enough to shatter glass. In her anger I saw some of Asghar. But hers was not cruel or vicious. She was simply terrified and hated the injustice of it all. She was soon crying, telling me she didn’t want to go, pleading between her sobs to be allowed to stay.

  Immediately I was back in Isfahan, watching Daniel’s form grow smaller and smaller through the car window. In that instant, one of my deepest wounds opened up inside, and I gathered Cherie in my arms and wept with her.

  The court had given me two days to get Cherie back to her father, two days in which Cherie begged me not to make her go.

  Roksana joined in, telling me that she would take Cherie’s place. “Cherie can’t fight so good,” she reasoned. “But I can fight him. I won’t let him hurt me.”

  In the end, I stopped trying to get Cherie not to cry. We were all sobbing as the taxi came and the person from Social loaded Cherie’s bag into the trunk.

  Daniel, Roksana, and I watched the car disappear, then closed ourselves in behind the gates. It was one of the worst days I had ever known.

  Three days later Social phoned.

  “He doesn’t want her after all. He said Cherie hasn’t stopped crying, won’t sleep, and won’t eat. He can’t cope, nor can his mother. He says you can have her back.”

  Asghar wasn’t the only Iranian in trouble with the Danish police. Once Cherie was returned to us in the safe house, a story hit the national news about an Iranian man killing his wife with a knife. Anna was far more bothered by it than I was. I had spent years listening to Asghar threatening to kill me, and my body had more than enough scars on it to testify to his fondness for knives. But still she encouraged me to do what I could to get Asghar to finally sign the divorce papers and put some distance between us.

  I phoned Asghar to discuss it. He stayed quiet for much of the call, and I had to fight the urge to fill the space with my own words.

  Eventually, after asking him to sign the papers for a third time, he spoke. “If you let me include Cherie and Roksana on my passport I will agree to a divorce.” Since Denmark didn’t require children to have their own passports, adding them onto Asghar’s would give them the ability to travel outside the country with him. This was not something I wanted to consider.

  “Why would you want that? You already know that Cherie doesn’t want to live with you. How do
you think she’d react if you took her to Iran?”

  “Annahita, you know that I know where you live. And you know that if I want I can just take them from the street. You can’t keep my children from me. So let’s keep this friendly, shall we?”

  Was he bluffing about knowing where we lived? I couldn’t be sure, but I knew that he wasn’t lying about the possibility of him snatching them as they walked. Daniel was ten now, Cherie nine, and Roksana six. I couldn’t keep them in my sight all the time. And even if I was with them when he found us, I knew Asghar was stronger than me and would stop at nothing if his anger burned hot enough. The only thing to do was to secure this divorce. We could figure out the rest later.

  So I said yes.

  I drew up a letter detailing the agreement and took it, as Asghar instructed me, to the police station opposite the apartment. It was ironic that all the years I had spent being beaten, abused, and cut by Asghar in that home, the police had been just fifty feet away on the other side of the street. Never once had I called on them for help, yet now Asghar had found a way of getting them to do his dirty work.

  “The police know about you taking Cherie from me,” Asghar had said. “I have been talking to them about how much she means to me. If you take them the letter and the passports it’ll help them understand that you’re not a threat to the girls.”

  I parked out at the front of the station and walked straight in without looking up behind me at the apartment. I handed over the letter and left as quickly as I could.

  Back at the safe house, Anna was appalled when I told her what I had done. “How could you do that? Don’t you realize that he can leave the country at any time with them now? You’ve got to go and get it all back.”

  She was right. I knew that I had not acted wisely, and I felt bad for once again giving in to Asghar. I feared him so much that he had a strange power over me. I had spent so many years acting as his puppet it was hard to break the spell. But I was done with living in fear.