Persian Girls: A Memoir

by Nahid Rachlin

  I received a letter from Maryam, who had been lost to me for a long time, as she kept moving from place to place in towns with important shrines. She said because of the war between Iran and Iraq, Iranians had been expelled from Karbala. She had moved to Dubai, and Mohtaram, lonely and devastated after Father died, was joining her. Both Farzaneh and Farzin were married. Mohtaram had found a village man with limited education to marry Farzin. All her daughters were now married.

  Thirty-six

  Despite rumors that Carter might create an “October surprise” and free the hostages before the election, negotiations dragged on for months. Carter’s all-night effort to bring the hostages home before the end of his term fell short. On January 21, 1981, the day of President Reagan’s inauguration, the United States released almost $8 billion in Iranian assets, and the Iranians released the hostages. On that same day, now former President Carter went to Germany to meet the freed hostages on behalf of the new president. It was a difficult moment for him, fraught with emotion.

  Not long after the hostages’ release, I woke to a loud siren from an ambulance speeding to the emergency rooms of Mount Sinai or Lenox Hill hospital, an ominous and depressing sound I never got used to. I was alone in the apartment that night. Howie was in Boston, and Leila was staying with a friend. As the sirens receded, the phone began to ring. I picked it up and a woman said in Farsi, “Nahid, this is Azar.”

  “Oh, Azar, nice hearing from you. Is Pari with you?” Azar was the friend Pari had talked about in a letter, the one whose sister told Pari about Taheri’s criminal past.

  “I’m afraid not,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” There was a pause and then the sound of weeping. Her next words went through me like shards of glass. “I’m so sorry, Nahid, your dear sister, my dear friend, had a terrible accident. She lost her balance and tripped down the stairway of their house. It was too late by the time she reached the hospital.”

  I began choking on my own breath. I couldn’t say a word.

  “It happened a month ago—no, to be exact, five weeks ago, but it took this long for me to get your phone number from Mansour and then get through the international lines. Are you there? . . . Mansour was away for a few days. I was with her, so were Zohreh and another friend, Laleh. It took a long time for the ambulance to come.” The line went dead.

  The phone rang again and again, but each time as soon as I picked it up we got disconnected. After trying many times to reach information in Iran, I found there were more than a hundred Mirshahis listed. I didn’t have Azar’s address. I knew she had moved out of their house across from Pari’s.

  I had an impulse to call my husband but didn’t. It was as if talking about it would make it all too real. Still the reality was there, and came to me in disturbing images. I saw two medics, both female, shrouded in black clothes, coming to Pari’s aid as she lay at the bottom of the staircase. I imagined them listening to her pulse, her heartbeat, covering her with a sheet and carrying her to the ambulance waiting outside.

  Lost her balance. Something ice-cold slipped into my crowded thoughts: the accident must have been intentional. Pari so closely identified with Furugh Farrukhzad, and she believed that the poet killed herself because she couldn’t bear her situation in life. I’d seen Pari’s perspective on her own life grow darker and darker. No hope. No escape. No passion. I could see her standing at the top of the steep stairs, looking down and telling herself, Jump, and that will be the end of pain.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, feeling broken into pieces. Neither do I recall how I got from the bed to the living room couch. I was filled with dread and doom. And then I remembered everything. Through the window I could see rain falling and thought, in a strange, hallucinatory way, that the rapid raindrops were my own tears. How was it possible that I would never see Pari again? At some level of my existence, in my fantasy, I had always hoped one day, somehow or other, she and I would live close to each other and resume our old intimacy. Now that dream was completely shattered.

  I couldn’t find Mansour’s work number and I didn’t know the name of his company. Mohtaram was still with Maryam in Dubai, and I had no address or phone number for either of them anymore, as they moved around a lot. My relatives in Tehran either had no phones or had changed numbers. I no longer had addresses for most of them. I talked about Pari’s accident with Parviz and Cyrus; they were both shocked and grief-stricken, but how could we offer solace to one another or find answers to our questions about what really happened? I had no idea how to reach Manijeh. I suddenly had an urge to talk to her after all these years, partly to find out if she had been in contact with Pari in recent months.

  In the days that followed I played and replayed in my mind my conversations with Pari when I had visited—the loss of Majid and of her acting ambitions, Mansour committing her to that sanitarium, and her dimming hope that she would ever gain any rights to Bijan or even see him.

  For so much of my life I had found solace in writing. Maneuvering details into a coherent story had a calming effect. But I couldn’t write about Pari’s death. In fact I couldn’t write about anything. It was as if a part of me had died with Pari. I thought, Pari, too, had always needed the world of the imagination, and she had, step-by-step and to an increasing degree, been deprived of that world. That deprivation cast a darker shadow on everything else in her life. She wasn’t allowed to give her dissatisfactions and disappointments, her losses, shape and meaning and so she became their prisoner.

  I must have looked strange to everyone around me. My daughter told me more than once, “Mom, you’re so zonked out.” How could I explain to this little girl, who had led a life so different from her mother’s, what was pulling me inward? In fact she knew very little about my culture. She had never been to Iran, never met Pari, Maryam, or my parents, and didn’t speak a word of Farsi. In my attempt to protect her from the harsh reality of my own culture, I hadn’t introduced her even to the good things.

  A friend, Julie, suggested I see a therapist. But how could a therapist help me change the facts of what had happened? Did I even want to stop grieving?

  When Azar called again, I told her I would go to Iran to see her and Zohreh and Laleh, who had been with Pari at the time of the accident, and perhaps other people who had been with her close to the end. Then I could also go to Mansour’s office and see him. I knew its location, as Pari had pointed it out to me on a walk. The only way I could cope with feelings of loss was to find out more about what had happened, to get closer to the truth of the accident. It quickly became an obsession.

  The Iran-Iraq war, which had started in1980, was still raging. It was a dangerous time to go to Iran but in the state of mind I was in, I was determined to go there no matter the risk. I called the Iranian Interest Section in the Pakistani Embassy in D.C., which now functioned as a go-between, since there was no Iranian consulate or embassy in the United States.

  The official who answered the phone informed me that there was no problem with my going to Iran and returning, as long as I didn’t show my American passport when arriving and leaving. I needed only to show my Iranian passport. I also had to follow the hejab—cover my hair and arms and legs. A head scarf and a raincoat would be sufficient, but I should make sure they were in dark colors. Bright colors on women were now officially condemned by Khomeini. He assured me that the war was being fought only in a small border area and that it would end soon.

  I had to replace my Iranian passport because it now had to have a photograph of me following the hejab. The new passport also wouldn’t have stamps used under the Shah on it. The old passport had to be sent to Iran instead of the Interest Section, and that would take a few months. The official cautioned me about certain things. If I took any books or magazines with me, I should make sure there were no photos in them of women with hair or skin showing. I also shouldn’t wear makeup or nail polish.

  As if he were a friend, he advised me to hide my American passpo
rt in the lining of my purse or raincoat so that it wouldn’t be discovered easily. He also told me I had to go without my husband or daughter. My husband’s being Jewish didn’t matter as Khomeini, like the Shah, had declared Jews to be “People of the Book,” but it did matter that he and my daughter, too, were American-born.

  Almost all the Iran Air passengers were Iranians, and they were all somber. No alcohol was served on the plane, and the programs on the screens were in Farsi and were mostly Iranian propaganda newsreels.

  As we began our descent into Mehrabad Airport, the flight attendant announced, “Please buckle your seat belts, we are landing. And cover up, please.”

  I put on my dark head scarf and my longer-than-usual dark raincoat, which I had bought for the trip. In the airport I was struck by how Khomeini’s grim-faced photographs were displayed everywhere, replacing those of the Shah. Framed calligraphic quotations from the Koran—“In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful”—hung on several walls, some of them next to Khomeini’s photograph. Armed, bearded guards in dark green fatigues stood in various spots.

  I was relieved that nothing out of the ordinary happened as my passport was checked. The officer at the customs booth made me open my suitcase and purse. “Go ahead,” he said. I felt a surge of relief again—he didn’t notice my American passport hidden in the lining of my purse.

  As I left the terminal building, I noticed signs on two entrance doors behind me, one saying, FOR MEN, and the other, FOR WOMEN. I got into a taxi and told the driver to take me to Esteghal Grand Hotel, the former Tehran Hilton Hotel, where my parents had stayed on my last visit. The driver, a bulky man with sad eyes and a sweet smile, complained about inflation and the rising prices of everything.

  The atmosphere in the city, as I looked out the window, was as grim as Khomeini’s photographs. Everything was black, brown, gray. Many of the street names had been changed to depressing ones: Martyr Square, Martyr Haj Ali Avenue, Imam Reza Alley, Execution Avenue. Slogans on walls read: “Women follow hejab,” “Those who gave their lives to fight the evil Shah are now in Heaven,” “Death to America.”

  When we reached the hotel, the driver helped me inside and, before leaving, said, “Khanoon be careful, a woman alone.”

  In the lobby were more photographs of Khomeini. With relief, I noticed two foreign-looking single women sitting in different spots. They were both wearing lightweight head scarves and raincoats, as I was. After checking in I followed the bellboy to my room.

  It was a pleasant room with a handmade kilim on the floor and a quilt on the bed. A framed calligraphy print reading, “In the name of God,” hung on the wall next to the door. Through the window I could see the mosaic on the mosque across the street and hear the water in the joob running along the street, gurgling gently.

  I unpacked, took a shower, and sat in bed. I dialed our number at home to tell Howie and Leila that I had arrived safely but I couldn’t get through—calls between Iran and America, never easy, had only gotten worse.

  Thirty-seven

  In the morning, after a quick breakfast in the hotel dining room, I left for Azar’s house, where she was expecting me. I decided to walk.

  I passed a street filled with houses belonging to Jews who had remained in Iran after the revolution, then passed an enclave for Syrians. On another street, a young boy was selling bouquets of geraniums from a bucket. “The freshest and cheapest flowers in Tehran!” he shouted to everyone passing by. I bought a bouquet to take to Azar. As I walked on, I realized that while my mind was tied up in thoughts of Pari, I had been pulling the petals off the flowers and they had scattered on the ground, leaving a trail behind me.

  It had been a spring day, too, in Ahraz when Majid sent a flower to Pari with an envelope tied to the stem. Konar flowers on the bushes lining the path had been in bloom; it was near dusk and everything had an ethereal quality. I could still hear the cooing of doves above the murmur of traffic on Pahlavi Avenue.

  Azar’s building stood on a narrow street lined with two- and three-story houses, divided into separate apartments, all with tall windows to allow north light in. Some of the windows were covered by lace curtains. Azar’s apartment had been provided for her by the government after her husband was killed on the streets during the upheaval leading to the revolution.

  “I wish we were seeing each other on a happier occasion,” Azar said as we embraced in the doorway.

  As she hurried to the kitchen to make tea, I took off my raincoat and head scarf and sat on the sofa. The voice of a man singing a dreamy love song, accompanied by santur and donbak, blared out of a phonograph in the corner.

  You came to me in the dark of the night . . . Your eyes bright stars . . .

  It was the kind of song that the clergy would interpret as being about Prophet Mohammad revealing himself to someone, so it was acceptable. While I waited for Azar, I noticed jasmine flowers floating in a bowl on the coffee table. A rocking horse stood in the corner, and some toys lay in another corner.

  Azar came back with the tea. She had taken off her head scarf, and her shimmering chestnut hair fell over her shoulders. She was dressed in black.

  “I’ve been wearing black for two years now, since Hassan was killed,” she said when she noticed my questioning look. “If I didn’t they would say I was disrespectful.”

  My eyes were drawn to a small painting on the wall behind her. It depicted a woman covered by a dark chador, holding a little boy on her lap, turning his face to her. The colors were somber—gray-blue, black.

  “Pari gave that to me just recently. She found it at an art fair. It meant a lot to her but she didn’t want it anymore. I’m not a soul mate with anyone as I was with Pari. At least my children have friends in the building. They’re at school now.” She stared at her hands folded on her lap. Then she said, “I’ve been bleeding heavily. Doctors can’t find any cause for it, other than tension.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Life must be so hard with all the tragedies.”

  “It is so for everyone, and I had those extra traumas. My husband, my friend, dying.”

  “Azar, it’s hard to believe Pari just fell down those stairs.”

  “We had gathered in her house because she wanted to tell us something, but then she fell.” Tears collected in her eyes. “We were on the second floor. She went to another room to get something to show to us. When she didn’t come back I went to look for her. Then I heard a moan and realized it was coming from the bottom of the stairs. I saw her lying there. I screamed and ran down the stairs. She was unconscious, Nahid, and the side of her face was bleeding. It’s odd she didn’t scream or anything as she was falling.” Azar began sobbing.

  I felt tears spring to my eyes, too.

  “She could have hit her head and immediately become unconscious,” Azar said after we had calmed ourselves. “Life was so abnormal for all of us. And she had all those issues. I don’t want to allow myself to believe she did it intentionally. I hope it was only an accident.”

  The taxi crawled so slowly through the Tehran traffic that by the time I got to Mansour’s office, it was closed. Back in my room at the hotel, I called home again but without success. I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. When I opened them it was dark outside. It was too late to go and see Mansour and I didn’t want to just show up at his house, though I wanted to go there at some point, to see the steps, feel something about Pari in the air.

  Laleh’s house stood on a dead-end alley lined with large, expensive-looking houses, both modern and old-fashioned. A servant opened the iron gate and led me through a garden filled with apple and cherry trees. Zohreh and Azar were already waiting at the dining table, Laleh told me as she opened the door and led me inside.

  All three women were well dressed and without head scarves inside the home. Laleh was older than the other two and had pale skin and light brown hair. Zohreh was dark-haired, had nearly black eyes, and wore a morose expression. A maid, Nane joon, brought in platters heaped with food—eg
gplant stew, a vegetable casserole, saffron rice, chopped salad. She was wearing a chador with the sides wrapped around her waist to free her hands to carry things.

  “My two daughters have left their husbands and are back home,” Laleh told me as we began to eat. “They both go to the university. Things are so ridiculous: boys and girls sit on separate sides, segregated as they are on buses and in many other public places. I taught sociology there. It was hard enough to teach that subject under the Shah, but it became worse after the revolution, so I quit.”

  “Did you and Pari join the crowds on the streets?” I asked the women.

  “Yes, we all did,” Azar said. “No one was sitting home.”

  “Now we all feel cheated. We gained nothing, and so many people were killed,” Zohreh said.

  “It’s all so unfair,” I said. “Pari couldn’t have stayed on with that terrible husband, but then she had to pay such a high price for leaving him.” I became aware of the bitterness in my voice and said nothing more.

  “Yes, she had every reason to be depressed,” Zohreh said.

  “Do you think . . .”

  “She once was so despairing after she came back from court that I was worried about her,” Zohreh interrupted. “But I don’t think she really wanted to end her life. She heard from someone who knew Taheri that her son had been trying to find her. She expected Bijan to come to her house any day.”

  “Pari never told me that,” Azar said.

  “She didn’t tell me, either,” Laleh said.

  Zohreh shrugged.

  There were sounds of footsteps and laughter, then two young girls walked in.