Persian Girls: A Memoir

by Nahid Rachlin

  To Pari’s astonishment Manijeh blamed Mohtaram for not preparing her for real life, for keeping her in a padded, soft, cocoon-like space. Manijeh, whose slightest headache prompted Mohtaram to take her to a doctor, whose mere frown filled Mohtaram with self-recrimination, now expected Mohtaram to fix her life for her. Still, Manijeh didn’t intend to ask for a divorce. She hoped that Javad would turn around and begin to love her. Moreover she liked the idea of being married. She wanted Ali and others who came to visit to address her as Mrs. Golestani. She held her hand so that her wedding and engagement rings caught the light.

  “The problem lies in you girls,” Father told Pari and Manijeh. “Expecting too much and being too spoiled.”

  Mohtaram and Father were also concerned about Farzin’s future. Who would marry her, when she reached that age? Mohtaram consoled herself saying, “She has a delightful disposition and those beautiful gray eyes.” She added, with rare humor, “After all, intellect in a woman isn’t the first priority with men.”

  One day Pari saw Father standing on the balcony, crying.

  Twenty-four

  Father said he’d send you a plane ticket when you graduate,” Parviz informed me in a letter.

  My senior year, 1968-1969, Iran continued in turmoil, with tension and threat in the air, as in my high school years. Since the late 1960s, increases in the price of oil had brought billions of dollars into the Iranian economy. But most of that money, people believed, was going straight into the pockets of the Shah and his close circle, or spent on the military. From his exile in Iraq, having left Turkey, Khomeini was sending messages to Iranians, advocating a democratic Islamic regime in place of corrupt rule by the Shah and his alliance with the United States. He provoked people to go to the streets to show their sympathy with him; that led to widespread arrests of demonstrators.

  Added to the political situation in Iran was my painful family situation. In spite of ups and downs in America, I wanted to stay on. But unless I could continue as a student, my visa would expire six months after graduation. In my sophomore and junior years my grades had improved considerably along with my English, but I had to solve the problem of how I would support myself while in graduate school. There was no point in asking Father for help.

  I contacted Linda, my friend who had moved to New York City. She told me about the New School, a university there that allowed students to attend part-time and work part-time. No formal application was necessary. She was moving out of New York in a few weeks—she and her painter boy-friend were going to Taos so they could save money and devote themselves to painting. If I went to New York without telling Father or anyone else, I thought, he would have a hard time tracking me down; he wasn’t going to drop everything in his complicated life and come look for me.

  On graduation day linden trees were in bloom on campus. Wearing a cap and gown and standing with other girls on the campus lawn, I was the only one without any family members attending the ceremony.

  After the ceremony, while the air was still filled with congratulatory remarks and cheers, I wandered back to my room to pack. I planned to take a bus to New York the following day. I wrote a letter to Father that night, telling him that I had decided to go to graduate school and work part-time, that I wouldn’t be returning home. I gave no information about my intention to go to New York. Putting that letter in the mailbox was more painful, even frightening, than I had anticipated. It was as if I had been dangling from a rope Father held and had just been cut loose.

  The Greyhound bus pulled into New York’s Port Authority terminal at six in the morning. Groggy and disoriented, I sat in a restaurant in the Port Authority to have breakfast, trying to think, to pull my mind together. I had made no advance plans about where to stay, and I didn’t have a job.

  “Do you know of any safe, inexpensive hotels in New York?” I asked a woman sitting at the table next to mine.

  “There’s nothing inexpensive in this city,” she said, looking up from her newspaper.

  I had one suitcase and $755 to my name. Outside the bus terminal, so many people were roaming the streets, so many cars, that my knees became weak.

  I began to walk slowly toward lower street numbers, stopping every few blocks to put down the heavy suitcase and rest. I wandered into the lobby of a modern hotel.

  “Do you have a single room for tonight?” I asked the woman behind the counter. She consulted a large notebook, then said, “Yes,” and handed me a rate sheet. Rooms started at $100 a night.

  I left and started walking again. When I reached streets in the twenties I noticed a hotel with a plaque next to the door saying that it was a residence for women. The lobby was small and dingy, with stained walls and bouquets of artificial flowers set in different spots.

  “What are your rates for a single room?” I asked the woman at the front desk.

  “We have a minimum stay of one week,” she said. “Rates start at $350 per week.”

  “Do you have any rooms available at the $350 rate starting tonight?”

  She nodded and asked for proof that I was over eighteen. I showed her my passport. I gave her $350 in cash and she handed me a receipt and a key.

  After resting for a while in the small, dark room, I went outside for a walk.

  As I ate a sandwich at a nearby diner, I looked at the want ads in a newspaper. There were pages and pages of jobs, but most required higher education, experience, and, at the very least, good typing skills. I circled a few, went to a public phone, and started making calls.

  Twenty-five

  In New York, I managed to get a job babysitting in exchange for room and board. Natasha was the eight-year-old daughter of Greenwich Village artists. After putting the little girl to bed each night, I’d steal a few minutes to write.

  I wrote a story about the time Ardavani visited my father. I gave it a different, darker ending.

  . . . Mina walked over very quietly and, standing behind her, whispered, “Simin.”

  Simin turned around and looked at her dreamily for an instant. “Oh, you!” She grabbed Mina’s hand instinctively and then let go.

  “I’m so glad to find you here. I’ve been bored all day,” Mina said.

  “Where’s your family?”

  “Over there.”

  “Mine are on that side. That’s why we didn’t run into each other before.” Simin raised the rod, lifting the hook from the water, and abandoned it on the ground. “I have to sit down. I’m tired.”

  She sat on the grassy bank of the stream and Mina sat next to her. Mosquitoes buzzed in the trees that stood sparsely around them. The air had a slight rotting smell.

  “Tell me, why have you been avoiding me?” Mina asked after a few moments of silence.

  “Oh, no reason.”

  “Please tell me.”

  Simin, holding her head so that all Mina could see was her profile, said, “You must know. It was what happened that day with Ardavani, what he wrote for you coming spontaneously from him. I envied you so much for it. I just had to avoid you until the feelings passed.” Her voice sounded hollow and far away. Mina felt a chill listening to that voice that was almost unrecognizable.

  “Oh, that’s so silly,” she managed to say.

  “When we were in the room with him, I wished so much for you to be out of the room—you and your father. I wanted so badly to be alone with Ardavani,” Simin went on.

  Mina recalled that she had had similar thoughts when she stood in the room and felt ignored by Ardavani. But the thoughts had quickly vanished, like sparks. She lowered her head so that Simin could not see the tears that had come into her eyes.

  “All that is past now,” she said after a moment. She was hopeful for an instant, but the next moment she could see that the gap that had begun to open between them was only deepening. The confession had made it worse instead of better. A grayness, denser than ever before, enveloped her.

  One day, I watched as Natasha’s mother picked her daughter up and cooed to her, “You’re th
e prettiest, the most perfect little girl. You’re the love of my life,” and I knew I had to leave. I had been only a year older than Natasha that day in the school courtyard. A wound inside me opened up. I couldn’t even bear to look at Natasha anymore.

  After brief stints as a waitress and a hospital aide and living in rooming houses, I wandered into Judson House, a student residence in Greenwich Village, subsidized by an adjacent church. I had just registered for three courses at the New School, two in psychology and one in English literature, for the fall semester.

  “Though we’re affiliated with a church, we don’t discriminate on the basis of religion or have any kind of quota,” the manager said as we sat in his small office overlooking a tree-lined street. “We have Jews, Christians, one Buddhist.”

  “I come from a Muslim background.”

  “And now a Muslim,” he said.

  I immediately felt at ease in the place. Though not luxurious, it was pleasant, with coffee always brewing in the kitchen and music in the background as someone played the old piano in the dining room. At breakfast, which was included in the rate, I talked to some of the residents, students from nearby universities. The women were very different from those at Lindengrove. One was studying to become a film director, another an anthropologist, another a physician, another a business manager. Most of them weren’t New York natives. Many had come to the big city to escape the confinement of small towns or a history of family difficulties.

  After a few weeks there, I began to feel that not letting Father know where I was (which also meant I had no access to Pari) was more unbearable than letting him know, so I tore out a sheet from a notebook and wrote him a brief letter, giving him my address and assuring him that I was in a good, safe place and would be pursuing my education. In the morning, as I stood by a mailbox on the street with Father’s letter in my hand, I hesitated. I tried to tell myself that even if he came after me, he would have no power to force me back to Iran, that I was living in a different country with different rules now. Finally I dropped the letter in.

  That evening in my room, as I was writing a letter to Pari, the sky darkened and the air grew chill. From the adjacent room, I could hear Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow” on a record player.

  Somewhere over the rainbow

  Bluebirds fly

  Birds fly over the rainbow

  Why then, oh why can’t I?

  I burst out crying, a long deep sob that shook my whole body.

  With a second part-time job, in the admissions office at the New School, my subsidized housing at Judson House, a student loan, and frugal living, I was getting by. I was at ease, not just in Judson House but in the whole city, with all its ethnic variety and different languages. I didn’t stand out as “foreign” in New York the way I had in Lindengrove.

  I didn’t hear from Father. He had never written to me before, but I had expected him to respond this time.

  Twenty-six

  One day, I pulled a letter from Pari out of my mailbox and read it as I stood in the small mailroom.

  She had finally managed, with Father’s reluctant help, to get a divorce. But her freedom from Taheri came at the expense of her mehrieh and her son. She had visitation rights to Bijan, but so far hadn’t succeeded in seeing him. As Mohtaram had warned, the long distances and the difficulties of arranging things with Taheri made it impossible. Father had gone to Tehran several times and tried to use his influence with a judge he knew from law school, to see if he could get his grandson to live with them but the judge said it wasn’t in his power to change the laws. Father mentioned Taheri’s crime but, as he originally suspected, too much time had passed, and they didn’t have evidence of what had really caused the woman’s death. Father came back, despairing and then angry at Pari for wanting the divorce to begin with. Both Father and Mohtaram were shamed that Pari had gone through with the divorce.

  Their criticism only adds to my self-blame. Have I done the wrong thing not to have tolerated Bijan’s father so that I could be with him? I miss my little sweet boy so much. I hear his voice calling me, asking me questions. I have qualms that he will be influenced by Taheri and become like him. I feel a dread in my stomach just thinking about that happening.

  Dearest sister, it’s so lonely here without you to talk to, to share hopes and dreams with, but for your sake I’m glad you are far away from home. It’s so tense and gloomy here. Except for Miss Partovi and Golnaz, I don’t have any friends left in Ahvaz. All my previous friends disapprove of me for leaving my husband at the expense of being separated from my son. They can’t conceive of contemplating divorce themselves, even if unhappy with their husbands. They would remain married to save face for their families and to keep their children.

  At home I help out with the twins, play with them. Two afternoons a week I go to the high school and help with future school productions. Miss Partovi and I read through plays, discuss them, and select the ones that we think might be approved. I get paid for that but it’s very little, just pocket money. Now that I’m divorced it’s in Father’s hands to send me to America. I thought of asking him but I know it would be futile. I did ask if I could go there for a short visit and his response was a blunt no. It’s still expensive, as you know, with the unfavorable money exchange, but more, he pointed out that if I leave even for a short time, I may lose Bijan altogether. He’s still trying to get a judge to let Bijan live with us. Sometimes I’m hopeful, at others I feel I’m standing behind a thick glass door, knocking and knocking and no one is opening it. On the other side of the door are Bijan, my acting, and Majid.

  Through the mailroom window I could see a hard wind blowing and traffic going by in a continuous stream. Residents of Judson House were rushing in and out. I stood still, clutching the letter.

  Twenty-seven

  In my second semester at the New School, I noticed a man with a lot of dark hair and blue eyes in my psychology class. Every class he’d pause in the doorway and look around the room before taking the empty seat beside me.

  After one class, he followed me outside and asked me to have dinner with him if I hadn’t eaten yet. When I hesitated, he said, “I’ll treat you.” It was more than not being able to afford eating out. I was wary of a date, several of them having ended badly.

  It was raining and we went to a Chinese restaurant around the corner. Howie was four years older than me and had a degree in mechanical engineering from Cooper Union. He had worked as an engineer for a year, but gave it up because he found the field dull. He was put off by having to wear suits and work nine to six in an office. He had begun graduate studies in philosophy at Columbia University, but after a year dropped out of that, too. Now he was getting a degree in psychology. I told him I was studying psychology to be practical and that my real dream was to become a writer.

  His last relationship with a girl had ended several months ago, he said. “She was a good Jewish girl. My mother would have been happy if it had worked.”

  “My family would like me to marry someone from Iran and a Muslim.”

  “They wouldn’t like you going out with me then, an American Jew.”

  I nodded. “If you were Christian it’d be the same.”

  “Are you religious?” Howie asked.

  I shook my head.

  It was after midnight when he walked me back to Judson House. The rain had stopped and the moon was visible in the sky. He kissed me quickly and I went inside.

  After that we met whenever our schedules could be squeezed to match—five minutes in the lobby of the graduate school building, twenty minutes in the cafeteria, an hour in the evening in a restaurant near the school for something quick to eat. Or just sitting in the library doing work. With Howie I felt freer than with other boys; perhaps it was because I felt sparks of attraction immediately and trusted them, or just that I felt compatible with him. Although from different backgrounds, we could talk for hours, exchange views, or be quiet and just read and do our work together. I took him to a Persi
an restaurant. He bought a bunch of roses for me from a vendor who wandered in, taking my mind to Pari and Majid.

  After dinner near the New School one night, I spent the night with him in his apartment. Although the apartment was small, it had the luxury of abundant light pouring in. Shelves around the rooms were filled with books and records.

  In the morning, when we had to go to our different appointments, parting was difficult for both of us.

  Then everything between us moved quickly.

  “I want to introduce you to my parents,” he said after he proposed marriage in a candlelit restaurant and I said yes without pause. “Don’t worry, there’s nothing they can say or do that would have any effect on us.”

  Howie and I drove to his parents’ apartment in Yonkers.

  “How can a Jew and a Muslim mingle?” Howie’s mother, Gussie, asked.

  I looked at the plates of roast beef, potato pancakes, and coleslaw and tried to think of an answer to the question.

  “I’m not sentimental about religion, you know that,” Howie said to his mother.

  “Aren’t you going to miss home and want to take our son there, too?” Irving, Howie’s father, asked me. “He has no place in your country.”

  “I don’t plan to live there,” I said shyly.

  “I know the Shah is friendly with Israel but Jews are just a small minority there.”

  “In Iran Jews are respected. They have prestigious jobs; some of them are close to the Shah,” Howie said.

  We left quickly after dessert.

  “Are you upset?” I asked Howie as we drove home.

  “What?”

  “About us?”

  “Of course not. I love my parents but I don’t share their values.” He put his arm around me to reassure me.