Persian Girls: A Memoir

by Nahid Rachlin

  “Go and join the other girls,” Father said to me as we walked back to the yard. “Find out where your classroom is.” He walked away, leaving me alone in the courtyard.

  Girls in uniforms stood in groups in patches of shade or under canopies. I felt self-conscious in the too-big uniform. All the girls seemed to know one another well and I felt too upset and shy to even try to strike up a conversation with any of them.

  Back in Tehrani School my friends now were talking to one another, comparing notes about other girls they liked or didn’t like, teachers who were nice or not nice. Maybe they were worried about me, wondering what had happened to me, or why I was abducted by that man. Or maybe by now they knew what happened. Father had spoken to the principal there and she might have announced it to the students.

  Most likely Batul must have gone to our house and found out from Maryam what happened. I missed my friends and Maryam. Was Maryam on the way to get me? Would she be waiting for me when I returned to the house? It was hard to believe that just twenty-four hours earlier I had been in Tehran with them.

  A man walked over to the large bell hanging from the ceiling of the school porch and banged it with a brass pole. The girls began to line up for classes. I asked a girl where the fourth grade was. She scrutinized me and then pointed to a line. I went and stood at the end of it.

  The bell rang again and everyone began to sing the national anthem, routine at all schools, but I joined in with difficulty in this new place.

  Our Shah-anShah, may you live long

  Iran, oh, land full of jewels

  Oh, your soil is the source of art and virtue

  May my life be sacrificed for my Motherland

  Love for you has become my occupation

  May my thoughts not be far from you

  The rock of your mountains is pearl and jewel

  The soil of your plain is better than gold . . .

  After we finished singing we went into our classrooms and I sat close to a window, so I could look outside.

  The teacher, a middle-aged man, walked in. He began to write words on the blackboard and asked us for the meaning of each one. He didn’t seem to notice me, didn’t ask my name or why I was there. He just droned on about all the conquests the Iranians had made of other countries. He frequently glanced at the large photograph of the Shah displayed prominently on the wall, as if he were afraid that the Shah was listening.

  I took a notebook from my bag and scribbled in it. I shifted in my seat and glanced out the window. A blackbird jumped from branch to branch in a palm tree, pausing for a moment and then starting up again. A lizard sped around and around the trunk of another palm tree. I heard the hooting of a train and fell into a fantasy that I was on it, going back to Tehran.

  After school I walked to the house, on the quiet backstreets to avoid the students who walked together on Pahlavi Avenue.

  When I approached the house, I found the twin wooden doors both open. I went in through the door that led to the courtyard, hoping Maryam would be there, sitting with Mohtaram, talking to her about taking me back. But there was no one there.

  I climbed the steps to the second floor, looked around, and saw no one there, either. I went into my room and sat on the bed in a state of uncertainty. What was going to happen next?

  In a few moments Father came in. “We’re going to take photographs of all of us. We can send one to your aunt.”

  Mohtaram joined us. She put some clothes on the bed. “You look sweaty,” she said. “Go take a shower first and then change into these.”

  I took the clothes and went downstairs to the bathroom. Its floor was covered by plain white tiles, as was the shower area. Between our trips to the public baths Maryam would bathe me in a basin on the kitchen floor covered with green tiles. She used a cloth made of woven straw and dipped it in soap, to wash my skin. She washed my hair with another soap. Then she rinsed me with warm water she poured from a pitcher and wrapped me in a large, soft towel and kept me warm. But in this new household everything seemed cold. I stepped out of the shower and dried myself with a towel, then put on the clothes Mohtaram had given to me. They fit well enough but they weren’t my own clothes.

  Out on the terrace, my siblings and Mohtaram and Father were standing around, already dressed for the photo. A young man stood behind a camera on a tripod, fiddling with the film. Pari took my hand and asked me to stand next to her. At the photographer’s suggestion we all changed position a few times. I struggled to smile but couldn’t. After finishing with his task, the photographer and Father exchanged some words; then he picked up his tripod and left. The children all scattered to their rooms.

  Later that evening, Father called me into the dining room for dinner. There were guests, friends of my parents. I sat with them at the table while Ali and Mohtaram brought in the food—whitefish, lamb khoresh, and saffron rice. The guests were two couples and their children; one had two girls and the other, one.

  Father and the men talked about how Ahvaz was expanding, how the oil business, central to the city’s economy, was thriving. Ahvaz, with its large oil fields and pipelines, was a major supply and distribution center, they said.

  “But most of the money goes into the pockets of American and English technicians,” one of the men said, shaking his head.

  “Yes, they come here for all the work generated from the oil fields,” the other man said expansively, waving his hands in the air. “Factories, foundries, distribution of oil to cargo ships sent to Khoramshahr and the oil refinery in Abadan. Why can’t our own men do the work?”

  “You know, dear agha, that we don’t have enough qualified technicians of our own,” Father said.

  “All that money from the oil could be spent on useful things like medical care,” the first man remarked.

  Mohtaram talked to the other women about all the heat and dust, the flies, the rising prices of everything, how she missed being near her family in Tehran. Like Mohtaram, the two women had makeup on, their hair was set in permanents, and they wore imported clothes. The women didn’t focus on religion, as Maryam and other women in her neighborhood did, but they didn’t talk about the issues Father and the men were expressing opinions about. True, they weren’t covering up in front of the men, but they weren’t really mingling with them in conversation, as if they were in different worlds. The three girls, two a little older and one a little younger than me, were wearing dresses with pleated skirts and shiny patent leather shoes and white socks. My parents, sisters, and I were still wearing the clothes we had been photographed in earlier. Father and the two other men were wearing suits and ties, even though it was hot. The ceiling fan, turned on high, wasn’t helping.

  The three girls and their mothers kept staring at me, maybe trying to figure out why I hadn’t been a part of the family until now. Mohtaram noticed their staring. “Nahid was a sickly, thin baby and we thought she’d do better in Tehran’s more temperate climate.”

  This was similar to the explanation Father had given to the principal. I felt shame that Father and Mohtaram had to find some explanation to give to everyone for my having been away all those years.

  “And my sister was desperate for a child,” Mohtaram said finally.

  “You must be so happy to have your child back again,” one of the women said.

  “Yes, I missed her so much,” Mohtaram said flatly.

  I knew she was lying.

  After the guests left, my parents went to the porch to talk. As I got ready for bed, I heard Mohtaram say, “She’s my sister’s child. It’s cruel to take her away from her.”

  “You gave her to your sister for a little while, that’s all. It’s for Nahid’s own good. Your sister should understand that.”

  After that there was silence and then the sound of footsteps receding in different directions.

  Five

  Nahid joon, Nahid joon.” Maryam was sitting in one of the wicker chairs on Mohtaram’s porch. Only two days had passed since I had been taken from school
but it felt like an eternity. She was wearing one of her special dresses, navy silk with light blue flowers on it. She had taken off her chador because no men were around, and her hair flowed over her shoulders.

  “Nahid joon, Nahid joon, he came and took you away,” she said in a choked voice. She got up and held me to herself. As we embraced I could smell the familiar rose water on her skin, feel the incandescence of her love.

  Mohtaram came out of the kitchen and sat with us. She was tense and jittery.

  “You must talk to Manoochehr khan, make him understand. It isn’t right to take her away from me,” Maryam pleaded with her sister, tears collecting in her eyes.

  “If Manoochehr would ever listen to me,” Mohtaram said, trailing off. “Don’t worry, she’s still your child, I won’t steal her heart from you.”

  Mohtaram’s words hurt me, and also relieved me; Mohtaram didn’t value me but also wanted Maryam to have me back.

  “My dear, don’t ever think that I’m not grateful to you for having been such a good sister to me all my life,” Mohtaram said.

  “You have everything—a husband who provides well for you, you’re blessed with so many children. What do I have? No husband, no ability to have children. My womb has been cursed.” Maryam started to weep.

  I leaned against her and put my arm around her and tried to fight tears.

  “Oh, my poor sister. But one of Manoochehr’s clients is looking for a wife,” Mohtaram said. “He isn’t young but he’s nice and very rich. He lives in Khoramshahr. Manoochehr asked me to talk to you about him.”

  “I already buried an old man,” Maryam said. “I don’t want more headaches.”

  “He may give you children of your own.”

  “One husband didn’t give me any children. How can another?”

  “You’ll have someone to take care of you.”

  Maryam shook her head and pulled me closer.

  I wished Mohtaram would leave me alone with Maryam. It was difficult for me to reconcile my love for Maryam and the resentment I felt toward Mohtaram.

  Maryam looked startled and suddenly collected her chador and put it on. Father was walking over to us. At his approach I could see Maryam’s face darken.

  “Welcome,” he said to Maryam. “This is your home.”

  Maryam kept her eyes down and said nothing and he walked away without any conversation exchanged between them.

  Ali called Mohtaram into the kitchen. As soon as she left, I looked at Maryam and said, “Take me back with you.”

  “That’s why I’m here, I want to take you back,” she said. “My house is empty without you.”

  Maryam stayed for three more days. Every time I came home from school the first thing I asked her was if I was going back with her. On her last day she said, “Mohtaram asked your father, and I begged him myself, but he said no. Pack everything, let’s leave while no one is home.”

  I put a few of my belongings in my schoolbag and we headed outside. As soon as we entered the courtyard, the outside door opened and Father came in from the street. He greeted Maryam and, seeing the small suitcase in her hand, said, “I’ll take you to the station.”

  Maryam froze and didn’t say a word. I was silent, too. I could feel a dark current locking me to her, as if we were caught in the same nightmare.

  “You aren’t taking her back with you,” Father said firmly.

  “She’s my child, how can you take her from me?” Maryam finally said in her shy, diffident voice.

  “If you love her you should know it’s better for her here. She needs a father to look after her.”

  Mohtaram walked into the courtyard. Maryam again begged her sister to let me go back. But this time Mohtaram said nothing.

  “Stay here with me,” I said to Maryam.

  Maryam looked at her sister. Mohtaram offered no encouragement, perhaps afraid of other scenes between Maryam and Father. She looked shaky and upset.

  “Come with me,” Father said to Maryam. “The car is outside, the chauffeur will drive us to the station.”

  “I’ll go to see you off,” I said to Maryam, still hoping that at the last minute Father would change his mind and let me go with her.

  “You stay right here,” he said to me and turned to Maryam. “Let’s go, Maryam khanoon.”

  She kissed me. Her face was wet with tears. I began to cry, too. Father was unmoved.

  As soon as they left I ran upstairs to the balcony that wrapped around the second floor, and watched the steel blue limousine zigzag through the traffic and disappear.

  Later that afternoon Father came to my room and, taking my hand, brought me to Mohtaram. She and Ali were on the porch, crushing a block of ice to supplement what the refrigerator made.

  “Say ‘I love you, Mother,’ ” Father said.

  I said nothing.

  “Go ahead,” Father said, the muscles of his face tightening and his voice rising above the sound of the ice chips being put into a pail by Ali, while Mohtaram stood and stared into space.

  “I want to go back to my own mother,” I said.

  “This is your home,” he said. “Say ‘I love you’ to your mother and everything will be fine.” He grabbed my arm. “Go on, say it.”

  I pulled away and ran to my room.

  “She’s here to stay,” I heard Father say to Mohtaram.

  “We can’t let Maryam suffer like that.”

  “You can ask her to come and stay with us for a while.”

  “She won’t feel comfortable here.”

  Several months later Maryam visited again, this time with my grandmother. Aziz was sitting alone on the porch and running between her fingers her rosary with its ninety-nine amber beads and yellow tassel, and repeating, “Allah, Allah.” She looked so different from the year before, when she had visited Maryam and me in Tehran. It was as if she had suddenly aged—her hair was almost totally gray and there were deep wrinkles on her face. She got up and we embraced tightly.

  “Maryam is in your room, go see her,” she said as we pulled apart.

  I found Maryam sitting on a mattress in the corner of my room, staring into space. Her hair was uncombed and disheveled. She got up and grasped me in her arms, holding me very tight. As I sat with her I could feel that dark current again.

  “Can you take me to the river and drown me?”

  I was overwhelmed by sadness and a sense of helplessness. “Please don’t talk like that, please, please,” I begged, holding her hand in mine.

  “I caught Maryam sitting at the edge of the cistern,” Aziz told me later. “She was staring into it. I had to remind her that it’s a sin to kill yourself. I wanted to take her to the hospital but she begged me not to. A doctor came and gave her injections and she felt a little better but then she got worse. The doctor gave her pills, too, but she won’t take them.” Aziz said she put ground herbs in Maryam’s food, pinned turquoise clay beads to her dress, and burnt esphand in the room, but nothing was working.

  This time it was Aziz who pleaded with Father to let me go back with them and live with Maryam again, be her child, but Father adamantly refused.

  “You’re like my own mother,” he told Aziz. “You bring light to our household. You and your dear daughter Maryam should consider this your home and stay as long as you like. But you can’t take my daughter far away again.”

  It was clear that I was there to stay. And hope slowly drained away.

  Every time I thought of the home I had lost, my chest filled with a heaviness, a pressure. I would cough until I turned red and tears pooled in my eyes. It happened at all times of the day and night.

  Finally Father took me to a doctor, a taciturn middle-aged man with an authoritative voice. The doctor asked me a few questions and examined my ears and throat.

  “Nothing is wrong with her,” he told my father after the exam. “It’s all nerves.”

  “You heard the doctor,” Father said when we were outside. “Your cough doesn’t have a real basis. If you try to relax and vi
ew your mother as a mother you’ll be fine.” He took me to a café close to the doctor’s office and ordered falute, ice cream mixed with strips of fruit, for both of us. “You could fill the hole Mina has left in your mother’s and my heart, if you only try,” he said.

  I recalled Maryam and her sisters talking in sorrowful tones about the lovely, curly-haired baby Mohtaram had brought with her on one visit. Mina had contracted malaria, become feverish, her skin had turned yellow, and then she died. I felt a renewed sadness at the thought of her death. But I soon became aware of a weight on my heart—Father was giving me what seemed to be the impossible responsibility of filling the hole Mina had left in their lives, especially in Mohtaram’s life. Mohtaram had lost a daughter and perhaps because of that Maryam lost a daughter. It was almost worse than if I had died. Maryam and I were so close but now I would grow up here in Ahvaz in my parents’ house, far from her. Would we forget each other? Father had also said to me on that first day when he walked me to school that I was nine years old and needed supervision. Perhaps I hadn’t been told the whole truth. There were things no one was telling me.

  “The doctor said it’s all nerves,” Father explained to Mohtaram at home.

  “I thought so,” Mohtaram said distractedly.

  In the coming months I was in and out of the doctor’s office. There were germs in Ahvaz I wasn’t immune to. An eye infection caused swelling in my lids; I had an ear infection and I couldn’t hear well for a while; a large boil appeared on my back and a fever accompanied it. Mohtaram always asked Father to take me to these appointments.

  Father also tried to get me to eat more. “You’re starving yourself,” he said, as he kept adding food to my plate. I had lost weight rapidly since coming to Ahvaz, too sad and anxious to have much of an appetite and, anyway, missing Maryam’s cooking. Mohtaram supervised Ali making the meals—usually whitefish, smoked or fresh, khoresh served with dill and lima beans, rice, some of the same dishes Maryam made. But they didn’t taste as good to me. What Maryam and Hamideh and Ezat Sadaat prepared was much more flavorful because they knew how to use just the right mixture of spices.