by Marina Nemat
“…I turned around to see he had fallen,” she said. “He had been shot. There was blood everywhere. I held him. He died in my arms…”
I didn’t want to listen to her any longer, but she wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t cover my ears; it was rude and would upset her. Maybe I could walk faster and create some space between us, but something was wrong; she wasn’t well, and I had to take care of her. Finally, I started humming, and my voice kept her words out of my head. She had always told me stories when I went to bed, but all those stories had happy endings, and no one was ever killed in them. I knew that good people went to heaven when they died, so death couldn’t be too bad—but it still terrified me. It was like walking into absolute darkness where every terrible thing could happen to you. I didn’t like darkness at all.
We had been walking toward home. She finally stopped talking and glanced around, looking lost and confused. Although we were almost there, I had to take her hand and lead her the rest of the way. The strong woman I had known all my life, the familiar companion I had relied on, the one who had always been there for me was suddenly vulnerable. She was just like a child, just like me. She, who had always listened and had rarely spoken more than a few words at a time, had told me her life story. Her words about blood, violence, and death had shocked me. My world had always been safe with her, but she had told me that nothing was here to stay. Somehow, I could feel that Grandma was dying. I had seen it in her eyes, as if it had been whispered to me in secret.
At home, I helped her to bed. She didn’t join us for dinner, nor did she get out of bed the next morning. My parents took her to the doctor’s office that day, and, when they returned, Grandma went straight to bed, and my parents didn’t answer any of my questions about her illness.
I went to her room. She was asleep, so I sat on a chair next to her and waited for a long time until she finally moved. It was only then that I realized how thin and fragile she had become.
“What’s wrong, Bahboo?” I asked.
“I’m dying, Marina,” she said, as if this were a simple, everyday matter.
I asked her what happened to us when we died. She told me to look carefully at a painting that had been hanging on a wall in her bedroom since I could remember. She wanted me to tell her everything I saw in that painting. I said that it was the picture of an old lady with gray hair and a walking stick. She was walking on a path in a dark forest, and at the end of the path there was a bright light.
Grandma explained that she was like that old lady. She had walked through her life for many years and felt tired. She said her life had been dark and difficult, and she had faced many obstacles, but she had never given up.
“Now,” she said, “it’s simply my turn to go and finally see the face of God.”
“But Bahboo,” I protested, “why can’t you see God’s face here with me? I promise to let you rest, and you won’t have to go anywhere.”
She smiled. “Child, we can’t see the face of God with these eyes,” she said, touching my eyelashes with her trembling fingers, “but with our souls. You have to know that death is only a step we have to take to reach the other world and live, only in a different way.”
“I don’t want anything to change; I like things the way they are.”
“You have to be brave, Marina.”
I didn’t want to be brave. I was afraid, and I was sad. Being brave sounded like being a liar, pretending that everything was okay. But nothing was okay.
She took a trembling breath and instructed me to go to her dresser and open the top left drawer. Inside it was a golden box. I brought it to her. Then she told me to crawl under her bed and bring out a pair of black shoes. Inside the left shoe was a small golden key.
With tears rolling down her face, she gave me the box and the key.
“Marina, I’ve written my life story, and I’ve put it in this box. It’s yours now. I want you to have it and to remember me. Will you take care of it for Bahboo?”
I nodded.
“Put the box somewhere safe. Now go and don’t worry. I need a little bit of rest.”
I left her and took refuge in my room, which felt lonelier than ever before. I hid the box under my bed, opened the glass door that led to the balcony, and stepped outside. The air was warm and heavy, and the busy street was the same as always. Nothing had changed, but everything felt different.
Grandma never woke up. Liver cancer was killing her. My mother told me that she was in a coma. Grandma remained in a coma for almost two weeks, and my father walked up and down the hallway and cried. I sat next to Grandma for at least two hours a day to keep her company and not to feel so lonely myself. Her face was calm and peaceful, but very thin and pale. As days went by, I fought my tears, afraid that they would confirm her death and bring it closer.
One morning, I woke up very early and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I went to Grandma’s room. I turned on the light, and there she was. Her face had lost its color. I touched her hand; it felt cold. I stood in silence, knowing she was dead but not knowing what to do. I needed to say something to her, but I wasn’t sure if she could hear me, if the barrier that death had created between us was penetrable at all.
“Good-bye, Bahboo. I hope you have a good life with God now, wherever He is.”
I had an odd feeling that there was somebody else in the room with us. I ran back to my room, jumped in my bed, and said all the prayers I could remember.
The next day, Grandma’s body was taken away. All day, I had listened to the sound of my father’s crying. I covered my ears with my hands and looked around my room; there was nowhere to go. Grandma had been my refuge when bad things happened, and now she was gone. I finally grabbed my angel figurine from the top of my dresser and hid under my bed. I began to pray: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”
The covers were lifted from the side of my bed, and a wave of light poured into the darkness of my hiding spot. An unfamiliar face was looking at me. It was the face of a young man with black, curly hair and dark eyes, the darkest eyes I had ever seen. His face was extremely white against hishair and his smile was warm and kind. I wanted to ask him who he was, but I couldn’t.
“Hello,” he said.
His voice was gentle and soft, giving me the courage I needed. I crawled out from under the bed. He was wearing a long, white robe and was barefoot. I touched his toes. They felt warm. He bent down, lifted me, sat on my bed, and put me on his lap. A soft fragrance filled my nostrils; it was like the scent of daffodils on a rainy day.
“You were calling me and I came,” he said and began to stroke my hair. I closed my eyes. His fingers moved along my hair, reminding me of the spring breeze braiding the warmth of the sun between the branches of waking trees. I leaned against his chest, feeling as if I knew him, as if we had met before, but where or when, I didn’t know. I looked up, and he smiled a deep, warm smile.
“Why don’t you have slippers on?” I asked.
“There’s no need for slippers where I come from.”
“Are you my guardian angel?”
“Who do you think I am?”
I looked at him for a moment. Only an angel could have eyes like his. “You are my guardian angel.”
“You’re right.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m the Angel of Death.”
My heart almost stopped.
“Death is sometimes difficult, but it’s not bad or scary. It’s like a journey to God, and because people usually die only once, they don’t know the way, so I guide them and help them through.”
“Are you here to take me with you?”
“No, not now.”
“Did you help Bahboo?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Is she happy?”
“She’s very happy.”
“Will you stay with me for a whil
e?”
“I will.”
I leaned against his chest again and closed my eyes. I had always wondered how birds felt as they glided on the wind, bathing in sunlight and blending with the sky. Now, I knew.
When I woke the next morning, I was in my bed, and there were no angels.
Four
IWOKE FROM A DREAMLESS SLEEP with a sharp pain in my right shoulder. Someone was calling my name. My vision was blurry. Hamehd stood over me, kicking my shoulder. I remembered that Ali had left me in a cell, but I had no idea how long I had been there.
“Yes, yes!” I said.
“Get up!”
My knees were shaky, and my feet were burning.
“You’re coming with me to watch us arrest your friends,” Hamehd said, “the ones you tried to protect. We had their names and addresses all along. We just needed to know more about you, and you proved to us that you’re an enemy of the revolution. You’re a danger to Islamic society.”
I was blindfolded once again. Hamehd tied my wrists with a length of rope and dragged me along. I was pushed into a car, and after a few minutes, someone removed my blindfold. We had left the prison. I wasn’t sure what day or time it was, but it seemed like the early hours of the evening; the sky was cloudy and dim but not completely dark. We headed south on the narrow, winding street. There were hardly any cars or pedestrians. Old clay and brick walls stood on both sides of the road, encircling large properties, making the road seem like a dry riverbed. Bare trees reached toward the sky, trembling with the wind. Soon, we entered the Jordan Highway and continued south. This was a newer, upscale neighborhood. A high-rise condo building stood on one of the hills, surrounded by two-story houses and large bungalows. I looked at the driver. He had a thick black beard and was dressed in the green military-style uniform of revolutionary guards. Hamehd sat in the front passenger seat. They were both silent, looking ahead. At a set of traffic lights, from the backseat of a white car that had come to a stop next to us, a little girl, maybe three or four years old, smiled at me. A man and a woman sat in the front seats of that car, talking. I wondered what my parents were doing. Were they trying to help me, or had they given up hope? I knew very well that there was nothing they could do. How about Andre? Was he thinking of me?
We entered the downtown core. Traffic was quite heavy here, and sidewalks and stores were full of people. Every single wall was covered with the Islamic government’s slogans and Khomeini’s quotes. One of them caught my eye: “If one permits an infidel to continue in his role as a corrupter of the earth, the infidel’s moral suffering will be all the worse. If one kills the infidel, and this stops him from perpetrating his misdeeds, his death will be a blessing to him.” Yes, in Khomeini’s world, murder could be considered a good deed, a “blessing.” So Hamehd could put a gun to my head, pull the trigger, and believe that he had done me a favor and that he himself would go to heaven because of it.
Pedestrians wove between cars to cross the street. At an intersection, a young man looked inside our car and, noticing the guard behind the wheel, took a step back and stared at me. It had started to snow.
The car stopped. We were at Minoo’s house; she was a school friend of mine. Another black Mercedes parked beside ours. Two guards stepped out of it, went to Minoo’s door, and rang the doorbell. Someone opened the door. It was her mother. The guards went into the house. Hamehd turned around and handed me a sheet of paper. I looked at it. There were about thirty names on it. I knew them all; they were kids from my school. I recognized my principal’s signature under it. The sheet of paper I held in my hands was my school’s most-wanted list.
“We won’t be able to arrest them all tonight, but we should have them in three days or so,” Hamehd said with a smile.
The guards left the house in about half an hour. Minoo was with them. Hamehd stepped out of the car, opened one of the back doors, and told her to sit next to me. I could see her mother crying and speaking to one of the guards. Hamehd told Minoo that I had been arrested a couple of days earlier. He told me to tell Minoo to cooperate if I didn’t want her to suffer.
Minoo stared at me, her eyes wide with terror.
“Tell them whatever they want to know,” I said, pointing at my feet. “They—”
“That will do,” Hamehd interrupted.
Minoo looked at my feet, covered her face with her hands, and started to cry.
“Why are you crying?” Hamehd asked her, but she didn’t answer.
We were in the car for what seemed like hours. We went from house to house. Four of my schoolmates were arrested that night. I tried to whisper to Minoo that she should give the guards a few names during her interrogation. I tried to tell her that they had a list and knew everything, but, at the end, I wasn’t sure if she had understood me.
We were blindfolded as soon as we arrived at the prison gates. When the car came to a stop, the door on my side opened and Hamehd instructed me to step out. I limped after him into a building, and he told me to sit on the floor in the hallway. I sat there for a long time, listening to the prisoners’ cries and screams. My head was throbbing, and I felt sick to my stomach.
“Marina, get up.” Hamehd’s voice made me jump. I had dozed off.
I managed to find my balance, leaning against the wall for support. He told me to hang on to the chador of a girl who was standing in front of me. I held on, she started to walk, and I limped after her. My feet were burning as if I were walking on broken glass. Soon outside, we walked on, and the cold wind whipped against me. The girl in front of me started to cough. The snow on the ground filled my rubber slippers, numbed my feet, and helped with the pain, but I was slowly losing the feeling in my legs, and each step was more difficult than the one before. I stumbled over a rock and fell. Resting my head on the frozen earth, I licked the snow, desperate to relieve the bitter-tasting dryness of my mouth. I had never been so cold or thirsty. My body was shaking out of control, and the sound of my chattering teeth filled my head. Rough hands lifted me off the ground and forced me back on my feet.
Where are they taking me?
“Walk properly or I’ll shoot you right here!” Hamehd barked.
I struggled on. We were finally told to stop, and someone removed my blindfold. An intense light shone into my face, blinded me, and created a sharp bolt of pain that exploded in my head. After a few seconds, I looked around. A spotlight cut the night like a white, sparkling river. Blending into ghostly shadows, black hills surrounded us. We seemed to be in the middle of nowhere; there were no buildings close by. The night sky was patched with clouds gliding against a lace of sparkling stars. A few snowflakes floated lightly in the air, trying to prolong their crystalline flight before facing an earthly death. There were four other prisoners with me: two girls and two young men. Four revolutionary guards were pointing their guns at us, their faces expressionless as if carved out of the darkness. “Move next to the poles!” Hamehd yelled out, his voice echoing against the hills. Twenty feet away, a few wooden poles, which were my height, reached out of the ground. We were about to be executed. The cold feeling inside my chest paralyzed me.
This is the moment of my death. No one deserves to die like this.
One of the two male prisoners began to recite in Arabic a part of the Koran that asked God for forgiveness. His voice was deep and strong. The other young man was staring at the poles. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and there were bloodstains on his white shirt. “Next to the poles right now!” Hamehd repeated, and we silently obeyed. Sorrow filled my heart and lungs like a thick suffocating liquid.
Dear Jesus, help me. Don’t let my soul be lost into darkness. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of darkness, I do not fear; for you are with me.”
One of the girls started to run. Someone yelled, “Stop!” But she kept on going. A gunshot tore through the night, and she fell to the ground. I took a step forward, but my legs gave way. The girl moved onto her side, and her back curved in pain. “Please…please don’
t kill me,” she moaned. The snow covering her chador glittered in the clean, white light. Pointing a gun to her head, Hamehd stood over her. She covered her head with her arms.
The girl standing next to me began to cry. Her deep screams seemed to rip her chest. She fell to her knees.
“Tie the others to the poles!” Hamehd yelled.
One of the guards lifted me off the ground and another tied me to the pole. The rope dug into my flesh.
I was so tired.
Is dying going to hurt as much as being lashed?
Hamehd was still pointing his gun at the injured girl.
“Guards! Ready!”
Death is only a place I’ve never been. And the angel is going to help me find my way. He has to. There’s light beyond this terrible darkness. Somewhere beyond the stars, the sun is rising.
They aimed their guns at us, and I closed my eyes.
I hope Andre knows I love him. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you…
I heard a car speeding toward us and opened my eyes. For a moment, I thought we were going to be run over. There was a loud screeching noise, and a black Mercedes came to a stop right in front of the guards. Ali stepped out of it. He went straight to Hamehd and gave him a piece of paper. They spoke for a moment. Hamehd nodded. His eyes focused on mine, Ali walked toward me. I wanted to run. I wanted Hamehd to shoot me and end my life. Ali untied me from the pole. I collapsed. He caught me, lifted me, and walked toward the car. I could feel his heartbeat against my body. I uselessly tried to struggle out of his arms.
