A national referendum was held at the end of the month to give people the choice of an Islamic Republic – a choice that consisted of one option: Islamic Republic, yes or no. No one knew what that meant, despite the grand speeches and propaganda issuing from Khomeini’s people, and when my parents went to vote they found the polling booth surrounded by heavily armed Revolutionary Guards who told them, as they handed out their ballot papers, ‘Brother, Sister,’ the new Islamic Marxist way that the revolutionaries addressed people, ‘please step this way. You know …’ with a meaningful pause and a hand resting on their guns ‘… how to vote, of course.’
Voting was not secret and everyone’s identity cards were stamped and marked as they went in, and my parents were sure that if they voted no, their dissent would be noted and revisited on them in the middle of the night. So they voted yes for a system they neither understood nor wanted, as did the majority of the country.
The result was announced on 1 April 1979: 98 per cent of the country had voted yes. Khomeini, who, despite going back to Qom in the first few days after his arrival, had already broken his promise not to take charge of the country, had a mandate from the people and Iran became the Islamic Republic of Iran, the calendar yanked back centuries to the Islamic one and Khomeini declared this as ‘the first day of God’s government’. He was given the title of imam and became the Supreme Leader of Iran, not just our political head but the master also of our souls and spirits.
Women protested, leftists protested, liberals protested – everywhere people took to the streets to demand their rights. In May a protest in Tehran drew 1.5 million people. But Khomeini’s regime was unmoveable. The revolution was now an Islamic one and, seeing the killing that had started, the way his followers were ruthlessly eliminating fellow revolutionaries who were not from the Islamic faction, our Supreme Leader, the representative of God on earth, the head of God’s government, looked at the killing and, instead of preaching peace and calm as he had just two months ago on his return, issued instead his decree: ‘Blood must be spilt’.
The bloodletting took on hideous proportions as the revolution proceeded to eat itself. The socialists, Marxists, Kurdish separatists, intellectuals and liberals who had not already adapted themselves to the new Islamic regime, who hadn’t grown their beards and toned down their clothes, hadn’t taken to praying in public and showing their faces at the mosque for Friday prayers, were eliminated.
Those same prison cells that the revolutionaries had displayed to us as symbols of the corruption of the shah were filled once again with political prisoners, with people who were ‘against’ the revolution. Those same instruments of torture were wielded and ad hoc firing squads dispatched thousands who had been summarily ‘tried’ and found guilty by random Revolutionary Courts. The worst excesses of the shah’s repression were back already, only this time the executioners talked a different line and wore different costumes. The killing, the torture and the terror was much worse, and made worse still by the randomness of it all.
The law was becoming a loose, elastic thing, decided by people who until recently had sat fat in their mosques, men who had no education outside the maktab and madresseh. The class system did not disappear, it was merely replaced by a different structure, one in which your welfare and progress depended on which influential mullah you knew. As a response to the shah’s overly centralised systems of governance and administration, the country was now in the hands of local factions making decisions that differed from street to street. In Iran your wellbeing had always depended absolutely on whoever was above you on the social ladder. Now the ladder had been hacked to pieces and reassembled willy-nilly.
My family now seemed to represent the decadence of the shah’s regime in the eyes of the revolutionaries, despite our innocence of any actual crime. We were so used to the rule of law, to working within a logical system, but now we were threatened. Our survival was thanks to our extended family, the respect that all the Abbasian children had for their elder brother-in-law whose good fortune in life had extended to them, left them all with jobs and money for clothes, shoes, school and university. My father had been generous, his hand had always been open, and the Abbasians had taken him to their heart. And now my aunts, uncles and Kurdish cousins used all their connections within this random new order to save us from death.
14
Escape
It was June and school was out. My father’s months of exile in Tehran had convinced him that he no longer had a future in the oil industry, that things were not about to return to normal and the danger that had lurked around every corner in Ahvaz was also in Tehran. He made the decision that we should leave the country and, unbeknown to me, both my father in Tehran and my mother in Ahvaz were preparing for our departure.
My sister and I thought that we were all going to join my father in Tehran, so we packed our things too. Our hearts were heavy but we were sure that we would be back in the autumn for the new school year. As we climbed into the Paykan for the drive to Abadan, we had no chance to say goodbye to any of our friends; my mother had told us it was better for no one to know what we were doing. We snuck away from our home with nothing but a quick secret hug with Baboo – by now hardly a lamb any longer. A few hours later we pulled up outside my grandmother’s house in Abadan. Maman-joon shuffled out into the street to greet us, Khaleh Mina on her heels, ready to envelop us in jasmine-scented hugs and kisses.
Khaleh Mina was crying and I couldn’t understand why until, a few minutes behind us, Daiey Mostafa pulled up in his car, packed to the rooftop with cases and visibly buckling under the weight. My mother ran towards him sobbing, holding him tight, thanking him as she washed his face with her tears. It was then I understood that this was more than a summer trip to Tehran, that Daiey Mostafa had followed after us with more of our things at some danger to himself, that the small suitcases we had packed for our summer were merely to fool anyone who might see and be spying on our movements. When I saw my mother overwhelmed by emotion, I knew that we had left Ahvaz for good.
I was beside myself all day. I hadn’t said goodbye to my friends, to our house, not to anything and my heart could not accept such a thing. I followed my mother around all day – even Khaleh Mina could not hold me still – and I heard her making plans to return to Ahvaz the next day to oversee the sale of our remaining possessions. I pleaded with her to take me with her. ‘Please, Maman, please take me,’ I begged her, tears falling down my face all the while. ‘Please, Maman-jan, please take me. I will be good, I promise. I just want to say goodbye to Baboo and the Armenians across the way. I won’t tell anyone else I swear on the Qur’an.’ I bargained, I promised and I swore and finally, when my mother’s patience was exhausted, she wearily agreed.
That night, with a joyful heart, I helped Khaleh Mina and my other aunts and uncles gathered at Maman-joon’s that day to unroll the pile of mattresses in the corner of the room and make up the row of bedding we would all sleep on. Exhausted from the emotions of the day and from playing with my cousins in Fatemeh Bibi’s courtyard and rooftop, I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up the next day, my mother was already gone.
When my mother returned late that night, accompanied by Daiey Mostafa and wrung out from the day, I flew at her with accusations and recriminations. I had never felt so angry with her before and had certainly never spoken to her like that. Sedi tried to take me in her arms and soothe me, tried to explain that it had been impossible, but I could not forgive her. She stroked my hair and pretended to have done all the things I had wanted to do myself – she told me she had found a good home for Baboo and had said my goodbyes to the Armenian boys who had been hanging around asking where Narmin and I were. She brought me messages from them but it was no consolation and I cried for days, inconsolable. The first of many cracks had appeared in my young heart and when, a few days later, I heard that Baboo had been slaughtered and had made a very tasty meal, I thought I would die of grief. ‘You see,’ I spat at my mother, ‘I knew you
r friends would do this, that’s why I needed to give Baboo away myself, to someone who would love him, not eat him.’
Once we were back in Tehran, my parents had more to worry about than my heartbreak over my lamb’s untimely end. They were busy packing and arguing about the best course of action, my father was adamant that my mother should take my sister and me out of the country immediately, leaving him to put his affairs in order, while my mother wanted us to stay until we could all leave together. I don’t remember much of those days, lost as I was in a sea of sorrow, but my father obviously prevailed as, before long, my mother, sister and I boarded a plane bound for Heathrow. I don’t remember saying goodbye to all the people who gathered in the house in Darrus to see us off, but I know that I still had no idea of the significance of those farewells. Had I known we were not coming back there is no way that I could ever have told any of them the things I would have wished to say. My parents tried to keep things as normal as possible for our sakes, for the sake of themselves and for our family, and we were all as breezy as could be managed.
* * *
At the airport, where only travellers were allowed, it was pandemonium. Mehrabad airport was bursting with people, anyone who smelt the slightest whiff of danger was leaving, and taking what they could. I was a veteran of Tehran’s airport but no matter how busy I had seen it during the Nowruz holidays, I had never seen anything quite like this. There were mêlées of people thronging from every door, those who had tickets and those who had come hoping to find a place on a plane – any plane – heading out of Iran. It was a hot day and the smell of all those bodies rose up and choked me. I remember the rich smell of fear above all else, hovering over us all.
Armed Revolutionary Guards were everywhere and I was scared enough to keep my mouth shut, terrified they would shoot me for being my father’s daughter or that they would take my mother away. We clung tightly to her as we watched people being searched for any money they might be trying to smuggle out of the country. I saw a middle-aged man, smartly dressed in a suit and tie, being abused by the Revolutionary Guard who had discovered a false bottom in his briefcase filled with jewels. The man flung the jewels into the face of the young Pasdar. ‘Ahmagh-e bisho’oor’ – stupid idiot – he screamed at him, spitting out the words. ‘Take them, have them, noosh-e joon – bon appetit. You are so stupid that you don’t realise that you can take all the money and jewellery you want, but I am taking with me the one thing that this country needs now more than any money. My brain. My educated brain.’
We fled for our lives as did thousands of others. My mother, the upright Sedigheh, led us out of our turbulent country with a strength even she had not known she possessed. I did not know what I was doing as I boarded the plane to leave my beloved country and my treasured family but Sedi did, and every step she took rang out with a pain that her heart had never felt before and never fully recovered from. We left our country and our people and yet, along with our tears, we breathed a sigh of relief.
But for us – and for Iran – the most difficult part was just about to begin.
Exile
Not in the pursuit of pomp and pageant, to this door we have come For shelter from ill fortune, here we have come.
Hafez, From Behind the Caravan
15
London
On 3 June 1979, Sedi led my sister and I by the hand from the plane at Heathrow. We had been to London before but this time we were arriving as refugees, not wealthy Middle Eastern holidaymakers. We were all nervous and, waiting at immigration while Sedi answered the British officer’s questions in the language I did not yet understand, I was almost sick with anxiety that he might refuse us entry, that we would be sent back to Iran to be killed. To my relief we were given leave to stay for three months but that time, and every time the following year that we had to leave and re-enter the country in order to renew our stay, usually flying to somewhere in Europe for a day, I always shifted about guiltily in front of the immigration officer, feeling as if I was on the run, and would be stopped and found out at any moment. To this day, even when wielding my British passport, a knot of apprehension tightens around my belly as I approach immigration. I have still not completely shaken the refugee who is convinced her safety and security is in the hands of the stamp-brandishing officers, but they no longer glance up from my passport as I pass.
‘Not in the pursuit of pomp and pageant, to this door we have come/For shelter from ill fortune, here we have come.’ Having lost so much in those days, more than I could comprehend, I learnt this verse of Hafez and it has stayed with me. I remember my mother muttering it a lot then, her copy of Hafez well-thumbed as, like most Iranians, in times of trouble she turned to the medieval poet for wisdom.
It turned out that the small brown flat in Notting Hill Gate where we had stayed the summer before belonged to us and my parents had, it seemed, always planned to send us to England eventually, to finish our education. It had been usual among New Iranians like my parents to send their children to the West for their higher education, and we knew many families whose children only visited Iran in the holidays, on leave from their British boarding schools or American universities. Indeed, my parents had decided to move to Ahvaz because the retirement age was lower and they had bought the flat in London so that by the time we finished high school, my father would be able to retire and we could all move to London together. My mother’s heart would not allow for the thought of being parted from us for months at a time and my father was more than ready to spend half the year back in the Britain he so admired, coming back to Iran in the school holidays. ‘You see,’ my parents explained many times in the year to come, ‘we would have been going anyway. We just have to do it a few years earlier than planned.’ In fact, we left for England a good ten years before they had intended, and in very different circumstances.
The revolution exploded into our lives, everyone’s lives, and changed everyone’s plans. Arriving in Notting Hill at the age of nine, not understanding at all what was going on, but feeling uprooted from everything I knew, was bewildering. I had always liked London, and here I was again. But the sense of unease that had started in Iran, the simmering of the revolution, the shattering of our world, was hard to shake off, and would haunt me for decades to come. No matter how well I learnt to speak English and how totally I reshaped myself to fit this new world, I would always feel out of place.
We lived in the little brown flat and took long walks in Kensington Gardens every day. My mother made friends with an upright Englishwoman, Angela Baker, who lived in our building and who happened to be an English teacher. She agreed to teach my sister and me English and we started to visit her flat for lessons. As she attempted to communicate with us, I took in the details of her life, especially fascinated by the little fruit bowl that proudly bore one orange, one apple and one banana. Its paucity never failed to surprise me – where were the piles of grapes, the little sweet cucumbers, the cornucopia of different fruits arranged delicately on top of each other? When at the supermarket with my mother I could see other English people doing the same, buying their fruit wrapped in cellophane in ones and twos, and fruit seemed, in late seventies London to only mean oranges, apples and bananas.
Despite the fact that we were living solitary lives, just the three of us, my mother still shopped in the Iranian way, filled her basket with all the varieties of fruit she could find, buying in kilos rather than ones and twos. Before long, she had found Church Street market in Edgware Road where, among the stalls run by Arabs, we could find the large bundles of herbs, big oval watermelons, stacks of white peaches and even, once in a while, pomegranates, sweet lemons and the small sweet cucumbers that we cut into long slices and sprinkled with salt before eating. She found one Iranian shop at the end of Kensington High Street where there were sacks of lemon-roasted pistachio nuts, large roasted almonds, little figs and all the other dried fruit and nuts that always sat mixed in a bowl on our table. In our culture, the day shaped itself around food – bre
akfasts of flat bread spread with a crumbly white cheese which I loved to mix with sour cherry jam; in the middle of the day a plateful of at least four different sorts of fruit; lunches and dinners of rice and khoresht; nuts before dinner; fruit again in the mid-afternoon and perhaps a mouthful of our traditional ice cream late at night. And throughout the day, permanently brewing on the samovar, a pot of fragrant black tea, drank constantly and flavoured with little sweets made of honey and rose-water that were sprinkled with nuts or made of chickpea or rice flour into little round treats. All meals were accompanied by basketfuls of mixed herbs which we would eat in between mouthfuls, pink radishes and various yoghurt dishes topped by fine, pink rose petals.
The seasons dictated what we ate – in the winter we would stain our faces and fingers with the jewel-like seeds of the pomegranate, the summers would be spent wrestling fresh walnuts out of their hard, green coats, and by September we would gorge ourselves on fresh pistachios which were peeled out of blushing skins to reveal the rose-coloured nut, still soft and tasting of the valleys. In the heat of the summer crescents of watermelon like the half-moon would cool us down, the skins later used to cool hot, itchy insect bites, and we crunched into tart greengages scattered with salt. We smeared our mouths with three different sorts of mulberries and cut sweet lemons into quarters to suck through our teeth. Our land was one of plenty and everything tasted of sunshine and made us giddy with flavour. We used ingredients in our cooking that did not exist in the north of Europe and had names for tastes that do not exist in English. Green apples, bananas and oranges could not compete with the plentiful produce of Iran and ready salted crisps were a poor substitute for the fresh or roasted nuts we consumed so liberally.
The Cypress Tree Page 14
