After Tehran

by Marina Nemat

  Ed’s Receipt

  In the spring of 1994, I began working part-time at a McDonald’s. Even though Andre’s salary wasn’t too bad, we had been unable to save any money. My parents were now living with us and my children were growing up; expenses were on the rise. Michael was five and a half and in kindergarten at the time, and Thomas was a year old. My mother agreed to look after Thomas while I was at work. She was good to my children and gave them the love she had never given me. With my first paycheque—about three hundred dollars—I bought a swing set for the boys. I was so proud of contributing to my family’s finances.

  When my parents first arrived in Canada, they were happy to be with us. But they had expected life here to be easier than it was. I simply couldn’t meet their expectations. I was too busy working, and when I was home, I spent most of my time with my children. I had vowed to be a good mother, and I tried to accomplish this by being present in my children’s lives. The boys and I went to the park, swimming pool, library, and movies when they were old enough. We biked and took long walks. Eventually, I signed Michael and Thomas up for soccer and piano lessons, and Andre coached their soccer teams. I wanted them to have the opportunities I had never had. Still, I tried not to spoil them. They knew they couldn’t have everything they wanted. Andre and I worked hard, and we made it clear that we expected them to do the same. As a result, they did well in school.

  My parents soon began to feel isolated in Canada. My father coped better with his adopted country than my mother did because he spoke English, but my mother’s English was so limited that she stayed at home most of the time. She quickly became bored. In Iran, she had had friends and relatives to fill her time; in Toronto, she had no one except Alik, my father, Andre and me and our two boys. She couldn’t make new friends because she spoke so little English and our neighbourhood was predominantly “white,” with few Persians other than us. As well, we lived in a small semi-detached house, which didn’t give any of us much privacy from one another. All these problems together with the long, harsh Canadian winters took their toll on my mother. She once told me she felt as if she were in prison. I wanted to say that she had no idea what being in prison was like, but I bit my tongue. Before long, she grew irritable and got upset over little things. I prayed she would come to see that if she and my father had stayed in Tehran, their lives would have been much more difficult. Before Andre and I left Iran, and even when Andre’s work caused us to live away from Tehran, across the country in the city of Zahedan, we’d paid half my parents’ rent because we knew that if we didn’t, they would be unable to live in a good neighbourhood. Prices had soared after the revolution, and middle-class families found it hard to pay their bills. My parents might not have a life of luxury in Canada, but they were safe and relatively comfortable. At least, this was how I saw it. Yet my mother was not happy. We had fight after fight, and after a while, we were barely talking to each other. My parents informed me that if I wanted them to babysit Thomas when I was at work, I had to pay them. I agreed. The situation became increasingly tough to bear, but I kept up hope that their dissatisfaction would pass. Andre was very patient, but my parents’ behaviour caused him a great deal of stress, too.

  In 1997 when I heard that a new Swiss Chalet would soon open close to my house, I applied for a job there and was hired. Every day, I went straight to work after dropping Michael off at school, then picked him up after my shift ended. For the first three years or so, I usually walked to the restaurant, which took me about half an hour; when the weather was good, I rode my bike—I had bought it for five dollars at a garage sale. After arriving at work, I did the morning prep: chopped and diced all the vegetables for the day and made salads and coleslaw before the restaurant opened at 11:00 a.m. At lunchtime on weekdays, I waitressed. I now earned tips, and compared with McDonald’s, I had a better income. I liked my boss and co-workers, and before long, I had regular customers who would tell me about themselves and their families.

  My customers often remarked that I had a “cute” accent and would ask me where I was from, and I would encourage them to guess. Most thought I was Italian, or South American, even French. When I said that I was from Iran, they were surprised. Some knew a few things about Iran, and said I must be very happy to be in Canada. I told them I was. Many people, however, did not know much about Iran at all, and believed that it was similar to Afghanistan, when in fact the two countries are very different. Others thought that because I was from the Middle East, I was an Arab. I found this frustrating and explained to them that Arabs and Persians are two distinct peoples.

  Historically, Persians are the people of the Great Persian Empire, which became the first superpower of the world about twenty-five hundred years ago. Persia is the land of the great Achaemenid kings (circa 550 BC to 330 BC) Cyrus and Dariush; they made Persia the largest empire the world had ever seen. These kings were not mere conquerors; they showed respect and tolerance toward other cultures. Arabs trace their ancestry to the tribes of Arabia, who were the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula and the Syrian Desert. Arabs speak Arabic; Persians (Iranians) speak Persian (Farsi).

  After two years of working at Swiss Chalet, I seemed to know most of the people in the community. It felt good. My biggest disappointment lay in not being able to return to school. I only had a high-school diploma and wanted to go on to university. However, that was impossible; we couldn’t afford it. I had to think about my children’s futures.

  Living in a “normal” town and working a “normal” job almost made me believe that I was a “normal” person. People told me that I was cheerful, friendly, and kind. Why would anyone be any other way living in a country like Canada? No one ever asked me about the details of my life in Iran, and I was relieved that they didn’t. The last thing I wanted was to revisit the past. However, life has its ways of reminding us about what we do not want to remember.

  One winter day a few months before my mother’s death, the first customer who came into the restaurant was a man in his late sixties. His grey hair was thinning and he was wearing a navy suit and a white shirt.

  “Table for one?” I asked him from behind the hostess stand.

  “No, two,” he answered.

  People waiting for people—this was usually the case at lunchtime. I always ended up having four or five tables with people waiting for someone to show up. Then everyone would arrive at once, and I’d have to deal with customers who wanted their food served immediately. Canadians, I discovered, were always in a rush.

  “Would you like to sit by the window?” I asked the man.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  I seated him at table five, put the menu in front of him, and walked to the kitchen. It was almost 11:30 a.m. Jimmy, the other daytime server, had just arrived. He was supposed to be in at 11:00, but he was always late. I didn’t mind. Our lunch rush didn’t start until noon. Although my shift ended at three, Jimmy would let me leave earlier if the restaurant wasn’t busy. We had a give-and-take. We got along. He was in his late twenties, and trying to decide what to do with his life. Most of our servers were students. For them, working at Swiss Chalet was a passing moment. For me, it had become destiny. I wasn’t unhappy about that. I knew my children would have the opportunity to follow their dreams far from wars and revolutions.

  Putting on my name tag, I walked back to table five. The man was looking out the window. It had started to snow.

  “Something to drink while you’re waiting?” I asked.

  “Two waters and two of your specials.”

  “Would you like me to place your order right now? The food won’t take more than ten minutes to get here.”

  “The sooner the better.”

  By the time I delivered the meals, the man’s friend—predictably—still hadn’t arrived.

  “Would you like me to take your friend’s food back to the kitchen to keep it warm?” I said.

  “No, leave it.”

  I put both orders on the table and walked away.
A couple of minutes later, as I was seating another table, the man at table five, who was still eating alone, waved me over.

  “Yes?” I said, guessing that he probably wanted me to remove his friend’s food.

  “Can we have two glasses of your white house wine? And the ketchup bottle is almost empty. My wife likes ketchup. Can you get us another bottle?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  I poured two glasses of wine at the bar, watching table five. The man was talking to himself. Something was not right. I delivered the wine.

  “Thank you,” he said with his mouth full.

  I walked to the hostess stand to greet the elderly couple waiting at the entrance. They were regulars, and I knew that the husband, Mark, had Alzheimer’s disease. Helen, his wife, was small, delicate, and still beautiful, with deep blue eyes and short grey hair. Mark was tall and handsome, with kind brown eyes, his well-made suit always perfectly pressed. I seated the couple at table six and looked at the man at table five. He was still alone.

  “Heather, don’t do this,” I heard him say softly, and I knew for sure that his wife would not arrive.

  I went to table six to take Mark’s and Helen’s orders.

  “We’ll have the quarter-chicken special,” Helen said, “but salad instead of fries. I’ll need extra napkins. Oh—and you remember that Mark likes extra Italian dressing on his salad.”

  “Of course,” I said, nodding.

  Mark stared vacantly at me.

  “How are you today, Mark?” I asked, but he didn’t reply.

  The man at table five had finished eating. Both wineglasses stood empty on the table. He waved me over again.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re done. I guess Heather wasn’t too hungry. She hasn’t been eating much lately. I think she’s on a diet. She doesn’t listen to me when I tell her to eat more. She’s always been stubborn. Today is our fortieth wedding anniversary.”

  “Maybe Heather would like to have her food later. I can wrap it to go,” I said. My voice sounded weak and distant to me.

  “Thank you, but she doesn’t like the taste of leftover chicken.”

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “What’s your name?” He narrowed his eyes, trying to read my name tag.

  “Marina.”

  “Thank you, Marina. You’ve been very kind.”

  My face felt hot.

  “Maybe Heather would like a slice of apple pie,” I suggested, uncertain why I was playing along.

  “That’s a good idea. I think she would. One slice of apple pie with two forks, please, and two coffees.”

  I went to the kitchen. Table six’s meals were ready. I delivered them.

  “Who are you?” Mark asked me.

  “Mark, this lady is our waitress. We’re here to have lunch. See? Your favourite. Chicken and salad. I’ll cut your chicken for you.”

  “This is nice,” he said, and smiled at me. “Are you coming with us?”

  I smiled back. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No, thank you,” said Helen.

  I took one slice of apple pie and two coffees to table five.

  “My name is Ed,” said the man, glancing down.

  “Nice to meet you, Ed.”

  “You’re probably wondering …”

  “I understand.”

  Ed looked up. “She died six months ago.” He started eating his pie.

  I gazed at his sad, clean-shaven face. A man having lunch at a Swiss Chalet restaurant with the memory of his wife. Where were my memories? What had I done with them?

  Fighting my tears, I ran into the walk-in fridge and stayed there a few minutes. The silence and the cool dark air calmed me down.

  By the time I returned to table five, Ed had left. On the back of the receipt, he had written “May God bless you—Ed.” I put the receipt in my pocket.

  It was snowing heavily now. The world resembled a snow globe. Up and down Yonge Street, cars and pedestrians inched along, burdened by the heavy whiteness. I felt trapped. There was a big knot in my chest.

  I had to get out of the restaurant.

  “I’m going home,” I said to Jimmy.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I have a headache.”

  I almost raced to the old green Ford Escort I had bought a few months earlier. Once I had closed the door behind me, tears rolled down my face. Deep inside, I knew that the normalcy I had been clinging to was not real. I envied Ed. He was brave enough to face his loss. He was grieving. I had never grieved. I had fled from my pain, pretended it didn’t exist. Maybe Ed was crazy, but at least he acknowledged the ghosts that haunted him. I felt like a fraud. I thought about Mark. What if one day I was condemned to forget like him? But I had a family, a job, and a life, and I had to keep on going.

  When I got home, I secured Ed’s receipt to my fridge door. I needed to see it every day so that maybe one day I might become brave.

  ONE LATE-JULY EVENING in 2000, I was making spaghetti and meat sauce while the boys were busy playing upstairs. Shortly after my mother’s death in March of that year, my father moved out of our house to a small apartment in a quiet and well-maintained seniors building, and in early July, we moved into a detached house, the picture-perfect suburban Canadian dream home, with four bedrooms and two and a half baths. Before our move, whenever I had a few minutes after work prior to picking up the kids, I would drive to the new house, park around the corner, and gaze at our future home. I’d imagine my children in their freshly painted bedrooms and Andre and me in our spacious master bedroom. What colour would I paint the living room? No more crazy yellows. A lilac, maybe?

  The meat sauce came to a boil, and the scent of onions, tomatoes, and beef filled the house. I added a little oregano to the sauce, and my mind drifted.

  Evin. One of my interrogators, Ali, is reading to me from the Koran. The chapter is about the Virgin Mary. She’s blessed. Why doesn’t she help me go home?

  They have tied me up to a bare wooden bed and are lashing the soles of my feet. Pain and nothing else. What have I done to deserve this? “Where’s Shahrzad?” they keep on asking me. I don’t know, or I would have told them.

  It’s dark and cold. I just want to go home and sleep in my bed, but I’m in a solitary cell, and a dirty, smelly military blanket is covering me. When I close my eyes, I can smell my mother’s scent—a mix of Chanel No. 5 and cigarettes—and feel the warmth of her body.

  Someone is kicking me. My whole body is aching. “Get up! Get up!” someone yells. It’s my interrogator Hamehd.

  I’m tied to a wooden pole. There are other prisoners like me here. Armed guards have surrounded us. My feet hurt. I’m tired. So tired.

  The small body of my friend Sarah is hanging from a noose made of head scarves. Her face is blue. “Marina! Run! Get scissors! Hurry! Now!” Sheida yells. I run.

  Ali is ripping off my clothes. He’s on top of me and is holding down my wrists with his hands. I try to push him away but can’t. I feel a terrible pain between my legs. I scream.

  I’m walking away from Evin. They have finally let me go. It’s raining, and it’s cold.

  Why did I leave my friends behind?

  I jolted back to reality at the sound of the fire alarm. Smoke was everywhere. The sauce had hardened into a strange black substance. I turned off the burner and opened all the windows. How had this happened? I was standing right at the stove!

  My children ran down the stairs. “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “Don’t worry. I just burned the food.”

  I hadn’t thought of Evin since my release—had avoided it at all costs. Why was I thinking about it now? Why were my memories as clear and fresh in my mind as if my imprisonment had occurred last week?

  That night, after a hot day that ended with a thunderstorm, I opened one of our bedroom windows before going to sleep. I had already kissed Andre good night, and, as usual, he had fallen asleep immediately. He snored mildly when he lay on his back, and I
listened to the peaceful sounds he made. He was very handsome, maybe even more than when I had met him a few months before my arrest. He had matured, lost his boyish, shy look. I gazed at his perfect face: the gentle curved lines of his closed eyes and his blond eyelashes, his nose narrow and straight, his lips not too thick and not too thin. I fell in love with him the moment I saw him at our church in Tehran, and I think he fell in love with me the moment he laid eyes on me. Then Evin happened. In the prison, I hung on to his memory to survive. I hung on to my recollection of his perfect face and the thought that someone beautiful was in love with me. Before Evin, Andre had never told me he loved me, but I chose to believe it, and his love became my hope, a light that would guide me back to him one day. It would have been so much easier for him to forget me while I was in prison and move on, but he didn’t. He waited for the girl he loved. Except, the girl who walked out of Evin was different from the one who’d been led in. Yes, different. But I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be the same. I wanted everything to be the same.

  “I was ready for you to come home with a baby in your arms,” Andre said to me shortly after my release, “and I would have loved you just the same. Nothing would have changed for me.”

  Back then, he had no way of knowing just what had happened to me in Evin, but he had heard rumours about the rape of young women. Those two sentences he uttered to me in March 1984 were the closest anyone came to acknowledging my ordeal. Andre didn’t ask me to marry him. Instead, he asked, “When should we get married?” And I would have married him on the spot had it been possible.

  Perhaps I betrayed Andre by marrying him. I hadn’t told him the truth. Except, how could I have? How could I put my experiences in Evin prison into words? When I married Andre, did I truly love him, or was I just following a memory? How can you live a lie with someone you love?

  I watched the curtain in front of the open window swell in the breeze, pregnant with the light of the full moon. The delicate fabric fluttered and rose. I imagined a silver angel trying to enter the room to tell me something that would lift the terrible weight I felt. Where was my angel? The angel I dreamed of when Bahboo died. The Angel of Death, who, to my surprise, didn’t look scary at all; the one who comforted me and held me in his gentle arms. Maybe I had disappointed him, too.