Daughters of Smoke and Fire

by Ava Homa

  “I do something like a thousand push-ups and three hundred sit-ups every day.”

  “Good for you, my dearest. Chia. Chia gian. It’s so good to see you.” I placed my cheek on the window, and he extended his palm. I’d been hungry for his presence, and now I gorged myself on the sight of him, drinking in each detail, each freckle, each eggplant bruise fading to yellow.

  “And guess what—one of my cellmates knows a lot of poems. I’ve been memorizing most of what he has recited for us. His poetry reminds me of the songs you used to hum. It’s such a joy, Leila. I never knew. Poetry is such a cure for loneliness. You see, if you’re stuck on an island all alone, somewhere deserted, you can recite poetry and lo and behold, poof! Loneliness fades away. When I am out, we will see which of us knows more ghazals by heart.”

  On a desert island or in a solitary cell?

  “Oh, I’ll beat you. You know that.”

  When the authorities didn’t allow me to visit him the next week, I threatened to inform foreign media about the signs of torture I’d seen on my brother. They made me promise not to talk to the “hostile media” in exchange for weekly visits and phone calls. I agreed.

  Soon Chia and I developed codes and a sign language we improvised, the words mimed or written on the glass with fingertips. We agreed to leave the country when he was released and promised to improve our English language skills. That made me watch more movies, which in turn alleviated my stress. At night I slept well without pills.

  Chia wrote new essays in prison with pen and paper he purchased from the crooked guards at ten times the price and read them to me over the phone. I recorded the calls and transcribed his words, reading them over and over until I’d memorized them.

  One day Chia painted a vivid picture of the city of Sanandaj, the autumn foliage, things he could not see from the window of his cell but in his imagination. In general he only hinted at agony in his essays; instead he mostly spoke about his moments of falling in love, of listening to Abbas Kamandy’s love songs, and of hiking Awyar Mountain. He was distracted from these memories only when the bitterness of the blood he accidentally swallowed threatened to suffocate him.

  “My prison guard anxiously checked to see if I’d survived the latest severe beating. I know he would prefer that I die at the hands of the interrogators instead of his. I heard the sound of a wedding’s music coming through the prison walls. My guard didn’t know, couldn’t know, that the music had me imagining dancing at my own wedding, waving my chopi—handkerchief—in the air and shouting, ‘Cheers! Cheers to all the prisoners’ families who are awaiting reunions with their children. Cheers to all the men and women who risked their lives to make a difference.’”

  We fed his words to the hungry internet community. UNICEF, PEN, and a few other international organizations released statements about him.

  I was called in to Intelligence for questioning and responded that the web followed its own laws. I had no say in how Chia’s words were spreading, I said. I was no longer scared of them. If they did anything to me, the pressure to release Chia would only grow.

  The authorities had me go on state-run television and make a statement that in the past few months, my brother had been fed properly and allowed to see a doctor and had been given access to soap and other toiletries. It was only when he did receive these basic comforts—which political prisoners were denied, contrary to Iran’s own laws—that I agreed to appear on the program. On the air, I parroted their lines and did not say one word more, no matter how cleverly their senior anchor tried to wheedle me into saying that the international news outlets had exaggerated regarding the conditions in Iran’s prisons. I kept repeating that I didn’t know. When the anchor implied during the live broadcast that I was an imbecile, I asked, “How come you’re not asking me how many days it took me to see my brother? Do you want to know how he looked when I first saw him?”

  Right then the program “ran out of time.”

  Shiler wasn’t thrilled about my media appearance. She believed Chia must be under tremendous pressure for a fake televised “confession.” Some of her friends were former political prisoners and knew Iran’s methods.

  Chia’s lawyer called.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I held my knuckles to prevent the dripping blood from falling on the concrete floor, jostled the noisy people blocking me, and pushed my way forward. Outside of the courthouse, I wrapped the end of my headscarf around my fingers and pressed it hard to stop the red stream. The shocking news had numbed the pain in my hand.

  “Shahid namre?” Hawrez, the younger of Farhad’s sons, asked in Kurdish, pulling on my manteau. His mother had waited outside the courthouse in a show of solidarity.

  “What?”

  “Shahid regai aazadi namre.” This time he pronounced the words as a statement rather than a question. “Martyrs never die. Freedom fighters never die,” the little boy repeated.

  “Shut up!” I yelled. “Shut up!” Right after the lawyer had summoned me into his office to tell me Chia had been sentenced to death, the last thing I wanted to hear was a little boy repeating “Martyrs never die.”

  “Freedom or no freedom, listen to me, little man.” I waved my bleeding hand in the air. “When somebody dies, they die. They’ll never come back. Think.”

  Hawrez tilted his head, the look in his eyes similar to my brother’s at that age.

  “Chia will not die.” I bent to reach his face. “Nor will your father. Okay? We will save them. They will be free and alive. Do you hear me?” My fingers were pressing the boy’s shoulder blade, perhaps too firmly, but he only stared at me in confusion.

  Hewram, his older brother, stepped forward and glared at me. I released the boy. Their mother appeared and placed her hands on her sons’ shoulders.

  “You shouldn’t teach the kids these things,” I said to her and heard the quiver in my voice. “You must not.”

  “What would you say, ha? To a seven-year-old?”

  I walked away, waved for a cab. I had no answer.

  Only after several empty cabs passed by and refused to stop for me did I become aware of the tears mixing with mascara running down my face. Big drops of blood oozed through the scarf wrapped around my hand. I felt faint. I wiped my face with my sleeve and shoved my hand inside my purse. An orange taxi finally braked, the bespectacled owner too old to detect potential trouble. I jumped in and gave him the address, asked him to rush. I had to get home, change, and head to Evin right away. The noise of the car’s engine gradually overrode my heartbeat, and I leaned back to place my temple on the headrest.

  I hadn’t planned to punch the decorative glass scale on the lawyer’s table, even though that bogus symbol of justice appalled me. But when the lawyer broke the news, when I heard that Chia was accused of the make-believe crime of Moharebeh, “enmity against God”—the indictment punishable by death—I had lost control and smashed my hand down on the scales. Like a scared cat who wished to be mistaken for a lion, my thoughts roared and reverberated.

  Back at the apartment, I moved on autopilot. “Exchange the purple shoelaces for black ones. Bring the black headscarf forward so no strand of the hair that has turned completely gray is revealed. Tie your ponytail low so it’s not obvious you have one; now tuck it inside the black coverall.” I spoke aloud so I could remember and focus. I needed to be invisible enough for this “virtuous” society. “Cover every sign of femininity under your dark chador. Disappear.” Rummaging in the drawer, I found a pair of thin black gloves and, despite the pain, forced my swollen fingers inside.

  Then I marched hurriedly through the crowded streets, past the cherry blossoms, and concentrated only on the fact that the day had come—finally, after having applied nineteen times—when I could see Chia in person. Not behind a window. The in-person visitation was granted without enough notice for Mama and Baba to make the trek. They had fought over it bitterly; Mama was itching to see Chia and me, but Baba was too proud to visit the home of a daughter he had dis
owned, too broke to stay at a hotel. The situation suited me just fine though; I was disinclined to share with anyone the few moments I could spend with my brother.

  Car horns, road rage, accidents, gridlock—nothing distracted me from my mission. I couldn’t change history, I couldn’t control the future, but I could save Chia. I would save Chia. I would save Chia. God had abandoned us. Everyone had. I wouldn’t give up till my last breath.

  After endless hours of waiting in different lines, I was led to a bench where I waited more, avoiding the gaze of the leering guards, checking repeatedly that my hair hadn’t sprouted out of my hijab. My chador covered me from head to toe.

  To the self-righteous guards, political prisoners’ families were bugs that society needed to exterminate. They had a mustached Almighty on their side.

  “Chia will be saved; Chia will be free,” I chanted silently and cast aside every other thought until my brother’s shrunken figure appeared at the end of the hallway and limped toward me, escorted by a guard four times his size. The man was doused in a very sharp cologne. We were led to a small space surrounded by four walls; the only piece of furniture inside was a pale bench.

  “Leila gian! Gola gian.” Chia spoke in a voice so velvety and reassuring that its sound alone was healing. I hugged him, smelled him, and hoped that he would simply let his warm voice roll on.

  “How’ve you been?” he asked, his weak arms barely holding my body, as if embracing me took all his remaining strength. I let go and only held on to his rough hands, pretending that I had not noticed the broken jaw that slurred his speech.

  I kissed his cheeks, his eyes, his forehead. “Ay ba ghorbani chawakanet bem, Chia gian.” I’d sacrifice myself, I repeated. I threw words of endearment at him, words I’d never used before but meant now, just so the glimmer in his eyes would return, so the spasms in his arms would stop.

  “Persian!” The guard pounded the off-white walls. The floor and ceiling shook with his rage. We stopped talking.

  I used the guard’s language, though it tasted bitter on my lips. “I’m good, Chia, dear. I’ve been working, reading, watching movies. My boss has given me a raise. He’s a follower of your letters. How are you? Tell me, how have you been?”

  It was easier to hide my agony when I didn’t speak in my mother tongue, yet I felt exposed, as if Chia could see through me. He looked at my gloves without asking.

  “I’ve been well too—tons of time to read and think. Prison isn’t as bad when you have a creative or inquisitive mind, you know, if you like to reflect on life, on being . . .” He shrugged. “I’m learning English.”

  A broken gasp escaped my throat; it could’ve been a loud breath I’d been holding inside so I could listen to him carefully and take in his every word, every facial expression. Or maybe it was an audible smile at the pleasure of hearing him find something positive about incarceration to tell me. Speaking in a language that was not ours made it easier to fake strength. “What have you been reading, Chia gian?”

  “There are lots of legal books here. I’ll be ready to practice law when I’m out. And I could defend myself in the court, if I ever get there. It should happen soon. I mean, I don’t know, but it should. After all, there’s no evidence against me. None.”

  He knew I’d been meeting with his lawyer regularly and had heard the news of his sentence as well. Perhaps, like me, he was ready to fight it. There was no way they would kill an innocent man who had gained global popularity through his letters and poems.

  As soon as the armed guard looked away to stuff something in his mouth, Chia slid a letter into my pocket that he had written with a fading marker on a piece of nylon tablecloth.

  “So the cherry tree is in full bloom.” I wiped a wayward tear and held his hands again. “The little one you planted in the garden. We will have fresh cherries this year.”

  Chia choked but recovered. “Save some for me, okay?”

  “I’ll talk to the birds and worms. Here.” I gave him the old headphones.

  “Does this thing even work?” He laughed.

  “It still has its magic.”

  “I am very pleased to see this,” he said in English.

  “Look at you!” I stared at him, trying not to blink, to take as many mental snapshots as I could. I memorized the lines of his face as it brightened with a small smile.

  “Electronics are not allowed!” the guard barked. “How did you smuggle this in?” He jerked the headphones from Chia’s hands in one swift motion.

  I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see them break when he tossed them away.

  “What the hell piece of junk is that anyway?” His cologne was nauseating.

  I flinched and looked around for a window, forgetting there were none. I was short of breath but high from the exhilaration of seeing him.

  “Euphoric,” he said. “That’s the word.” Chia kept the conversation rolling, unaffected by the aggressive behavior of the guard, the illogical restrictions, or the broken souvenir of our childhood, the one keepsake of the days I was able to protect him.

  “What word, bawanem?” I choked back tears.

  “The word for how I feel now. Now that I am holding your hand.” He embraced me again.

  I whispered, “Delirious is actually how I feel now.”

  He let go of me. “What is ‘headphones’ in English?”

  “What? Oh, I don’t know! ‘Headphones’ is an English word, isn’t it?”

  He laughed. “Listen to this.” He sang for me, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star . . .”

  “Persian!” the guard yelled again.

  I laughed hard, an exaggerated laugh. “You’re like a five-year-old.”

  Chia giggled. “I have been aging backward. One of the glories of prison.”

  I stuck my thumbs in my ears, made antlers of my hands, and crossed my eyes. He let out a yelp of pure pleasure and made a hideous, lopsided grimace. We melted into giggles. The guard touched his gun in the holster. Our laughter echoed off the walls enclosing the tiny space.

  When the visitation came to an end, the guard led Chia and me to the hallway where other visitors were also saying goodbye to prisoners. “Look over there. Farhad’s sons are here to perform their latest gymnastic routine for their father,” he said.

  “They are my friends. Those two little boys. Hewarm and Hawrez.”

  The children showed off their acrobatic moves and ran around the chairs, screaming in excitement, their voices a resonant tremolo of verve and faith. “Out,” the guard yelled. I enfolded my brother in my arms and slipped homemade chocolate pigeons into his pockets, ones that Shirin’s mother had baked.

  “You really shouldn’t worry about me, Leila. I am in a place full of intellectuals and artists. We all have rich inner lives no one can take away.” Chia squeezed my hand. “I have never been around this many fascinating people at the same time.”

  The door was shut.

  “Don’t you ever give up. Don’t you ever give in. Together we can get through this.” I cupped my hands and screamed for all the political prisoners to hear.

  “Fuck off, bitch, before we put you behind one of those steel doors too.” A female guard grabbed me and pulled me away. I was very aware of my breathing. She pushed me down the hallway. Farhad’s sons and other visiting young children squealed with delight in their parents’ embrace. Their laughter lit up the faces of the prisoners and their families but irritated the guards. Out the door she shoved me.

  “Happy May Day!” someone yelled across the street. All the way home, I hummed Kurdish songs of resistance. “We are laborers. We are fighters . . .”

  Rich inner life, Chia had said. Rich inner life. One’s only reliable investment and the most loyal companion. I was slowly building one too.

  PART IV

  CHIA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  My students are still learning the history of the Kurds in secret, I tell myself. Leila is well, stronger now, and can handle my absence. The call to prayer that rever
berates through Evin Prison turns me cold with fear.

  Footsteps.

  I know the sound of those heavy boots. I know them well. I hear the iron doors open and shut, hear the jingle of the guard’s huge keychain, then another metal door opens and shuts, and yet another. The footsteps grow louder. I drop my pen and curl into a ball, shrinking with fear. Three more doors, and then they will reach mine. The pain in my head and face, legs and back, stomach and ribs sharpens. Clutching at the pillow does not stop my arms from shaking.

  The footsteps stop before they reach my cell.

  Hands up, I think, and almost say it out loud.

  “Hands up,” the old guard says.

  I know what they are doing in the other cell. A blindfold, a click of the handcuffs, and the guards take Ali out, pushing and kicking him.

  I follow them in my head as Ali is taken downstairs, dragged nineteen steps to the right, down fifteen more stairs, and delivered to the interrogators. Under his blindfold, Ali will count the shoes in the room: four, six, eight black formal shoes splattered with blood, polished by blood.

  The whipping will start soon after the curses. If the man they call Mongrel is there, the interrogation will be longer. Every prisoner knows that man’s strange voice, an unusual soft timbre that can detonate in an instant. He’d call the Kurds “treasonous, murdering savages,” then show us who the true savage was. It is rumored that Mongrel’s brother was killed in Kurdistan thirty years ago when he went there to quash an uprising.

  Five, six lashes in and Ali will start thinking about concentration camps, pyramids, the Great Wall of China. He will not feel the whip anymore, I hope.

  The number of cracks on the wall numbers 305 today. I sneak a pen out from under my army blanket and take paper, folded six times, from my underwear. Leila, I write, but my pen is paralyzed. Guilt gnaws at me for having abandoned her. My dear students, my pen gallops. All I was able to do was teach you our alphabet, our literature, and our history. Please, children, pass it on. Dear little ones, never allow this knowledge to steal from you the joy of childhood. May you keep the memories of youth in your minds forever. It may be the one and only investment you can use later when the agony of earning your bread and butter dominates you, my sons, and the sin of being “the second sex” overpowers you, my daughters.