The girl was still silent. The officer walked closer to her, almost nose to nose, and slammed her against the wall. “You want to be disowned? Is that what you want?”
The girl looked at the ground and tried to back up, but he pinned her against the wall.
“Now answer my questions before I arrest you!”
“I don’t sell myself and this isn’t my house.” She told them that ten people lived there: two boys in their twenties who had rented the house, and the rest runaway teenagers who periodically stayed there. She began sobbing and begged the police not to call her parents; she finally admitted that the people in the house regularly had parties, consumed drugs, and engaged in sex. She didn’t mention Abdollah.
After several hours of searching, the officers found no drugs or alcohol. But as they were about to leave empty-handed, an officer unrolled a bamboo shade and found something much more ominous:
A handgun fell to the floor.
An hour later, shattering the silence of a starless dawn, the squeal of tires on our gravel driveway awoke the roosters. The thump of a soldier’s rifle butt on the heavy metal gate scattered the chickens and their startled cries rose with the slam of each car door.
Maman rushed down the path and tripped over the squawking birds at her ankles. She tried to hang onto her headscarf to shield her face.
She pushed against the gate latch, to keep it closed. “Kieh? Who’s there?”
“Komiteh.” Morality Police. The komiteh – Islamic revolutionaries recruited to monitor people’s “moral” behavior.
Another car door slammed. “Open up!”
Maman fumbled with her chador, to cover her bare legs. What was Khomeini’s police force doing here? And where were her husband and son?
“Open up now!” Another revolutionary yelled. Behind him were more soldiers. They pounded their rifle butts on the gate, rattling its hinges. She pressed a palm against the door. “My husband is not at home. I must call him first.”
“Khafesho!” – Shut up! – Open it or we’ll break down the door.” She could hear the thud of more heavy boots coming down the driveway.
Arranging her chador over her face, Maman pulled open the heavy metal gate and tucked herself behind it – twenty bearded men with semi-automatic rifles pushed through the front door. They stormed inside and kicked aside the frantic chickens as they moved through the yard. Some of the soldiers couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old, Abdollah’s age.
One guard tossed the squawking rooster into the air with the tip of his rifle. The soldiers’ heavy boots shook the deck as they were herded like sheep by their superiors in a game they didn’t fully understand. The young soldiers pushed into each other as they pressed themselves through the doorway. Bypassing our neatly organized shoes at the entryway, they trampled on the living room rug with their muddy boots.
Maman stumbled up the steps after them. “I beg you. My children are asleep!” The living room was now crowded with armed guards determined to find their prey.
The commander, an older man, walked two steps toward Maman and pushed against her chador-clad face. He searched for her eyes beneath the fold of her chador. “Khafeh, zanikeh!” – Shut the hell up, bitch!” he barked at her.
Staggering for a minute, she sunk against the doorframe. She had never been spoken to like this, never been called zanikeh. No stranger had ever stood this close.
One soldier bumped a vase off the mantle and sent it shattering to the floor. The smell of rotten flower water spread over the rug. The commotion immediately woke up Iman and me. I helped my baby brother from his crib. Scared by the noise, he clutched his zebra-striped blanket. Even though he seemed on the verge of bursting into tears, he held his thumb in his mouth. Hadi and Zain, shook themselves from sleep and followed Iman and me into the living room.
We gathered around Maman. At the sight of the armed soldiers, Iman began to cry. Maman begged, “Sir, please, you’re frightening my children.”
The man ran a flashlight beam across our faces, making us blink, and then he focused on Maman. “Where’s that son of yours who runs the hotel?”
“Abdollah?” Maman braced herself against the wall.
The man strutted into Abdollah’s room, “Where is he I said?” He flipped over a couch cushion with the toe of his boot. “I know you’re hiding him!”
Chewing on my lower lip, I glanced at Hadi. Why would the police be looking for Abdollah? This must be a mistake.
Iman, who was buried in his blanket under the corner of Maman’s chador, began to sniffle and whimper.
The commander shined the flashlight back at Maman. “Khafeshoon kon! – Don’t breathe or I’ll arrest you. Now shut your kids up.”
I could feel Zain’s shoulders trembling as we moved closer to Maman. I placed the pacifier in Iman’s mouth.
When they realized Abdollah wasn’t home, the commander waved the white flashlight beam and yelled at the others: “Look for heroin, guns, bullets, alcohol, money. Anything. Go.”
As the guards stomped past us, a teenage soldier with soft eyes leaned down, moving his rifle aside, and whispered to Maman, “It’s orders from the Revolutionary Guard. I’m sorry. We’re only doing what we’ve been told to do.”
For hours we sat in the corner, listening as the soldiers opened and closed drawers, removing and throwing clothes, papers and other objects at the floor. The sound of doors banging, the rise and fall of the soldiers’ voices, and rifles pounding against the walls made us more frightened. As we hunkered down in the corner, we watched books, cushions, prayer rugs, bed sheets, pillows, silverware, and toys fly and then land in the middle of each room. The guards flipped over the heavy Persian rugs and sent swirls of dust into the air that made us cough.
Maman seemed to be in a trance, unaware that the heel of her foot was exposed. She had never been seen without thick black knee-high socks since the day after her wedding. As I covered her foot, I stared at a tiny yellow feather caught in the fold of her chador.
Finally, an excited shout followed the opening of the basement door, and one of the guards re-entered the living room with a soccer ball, a roll of fabric, and a stack of Abdollah’s European magazines.
The leader nodded. “Berim!” Kicking aside the toys and prayer rugs, the soldiers left as suddenly as they had appeared.
The house was silent except for the ticking of the clock in the living room.
Why were they taking our soccer ball? Where was Baba? Where was our brother?
Later, we learned that Baba was out searching for Abdollah. The komiteh found him first.
Three weeks later, on a windy September day, my parents pushed their way through the bottleneck of family members, reporters, and the public to get into the courthouse. They waited in the dark hallway of the courtroom for the final day of Abdollah’s two-week trial.
The charge was murder.
After interrogating the girl from the house, the police had picked up everyone connected to the hotel, even those who had stayed there, including the two boys from Room 314 of the Rose Hotel. They were accused of bank robbery and a murder connected to the hidden gun. After fabricating, then recanting a story that Baba was the mastermind of the crime, the two boys claimed that Abdollah had driven them to the bank where they stole a total of 2,000 tomans – equivalent to $300 – and shot the bank security guard who attempted to stop them.
To our family, the idea that Abdollah had done such a thing was as ludicrous as the charge that it had been Baba. Baba and Maman believed that they knew their son and the limits of his adolescent rebellion. Would he drive off? Resent an arranged marriage? Would he leave the top button of his shirt undone? – Yes. Rob a bank, kill someone? Impossible.
Abdollah was caught in the momentum of the Ayatollah’s machine. In the bloody chaos that followed the Islamic Revolution, there was no justice, only blind vengeance.
The headline of the morning’s paper read: “More Mofsede-fel arz – offenders of the moral order – to be
brought to justice and executed.” In the article, Abdollah’s name appeared first. Under the new Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini established a new judicial system run by clerics that carried out heavy punishment for even the smallest crimes that were believed to be “spreading corruption” throughout Iranian society. In these new religious courts, boys like Abdollah were judged as men, even at the age of fifteen.
Baba was a man of faith and what he saw had nothing to do with faith. Thugs ran amok, as they had in our home, wreaking destruction. In the U.S. media, “Ayatollah” came to mean that one man, Khomeini, but in Iran, there were several ayatollahs holding positions similar to archbishops. Each ayatollah held his own views. And even at the launch of the new regime, many ayatollahs dissented; this was not the way of Islam.
Baba underestimated the significance of Abdollah’s trial, which was covered extensively in Iranian newspapers and radio. And, although there were now ayatollahs asking for peaceful demonstrations, and for a new system in which religious jurists would serve only as advisors to elected rulers, voted for by the people, their pleas were silenced. In effect, a dictatorship, in the name of religion, usurped law and order in Iran. Anyone could be sentenced to death on any charge – without proof in court.
Abdollah’s case was one of the first tried in the new courts – a test of Ayatollah Khomeini’s power and of his newly appointed judges including Sheikh Ferdus, a disciple of Khomeini, who would use this case to establish a name for himself. Abdollah’s claim that he had no knowledge of the robbery was irrelevant.
In the courtroom, among the buzz of conversation, Baba overheard a man ask, “This is what our country has become?” The man looked at Baba. “Shepherds with a few religious classes under their belt and no legal experience will decide our fate?” The man looked back at another man and said. “This is not what we wanted from our revolution. Now we’re all screwed.”
Baba, however, remained confident that this new system was in the hands of men who believed in God and that Abdollah would soon be vindicated. To reassure Maman, he whispered in her ear, “It will be over soon, he will be coming home. I promise.”
In the windowless courtroom, Baba stared at the empty chair where Abdollah’s lawyer would have sat. Recognizing that the verdict was already decided, the celebrity lawyer whom Baba had flown in from Tehran had quit mid-trial.
“It’s the Islamic Republic of Iran now,” Ayatollah Masoodi told Baba before he left the lawyer’s chair empty. “This is a losing battle. They’re going to make an example of your son. You are too much in the public eye, and I’m against this and their regime, and my dissent for them will only hurt you. This is becoming personal, and I want nothing to do with these courts.” He knew what Baba didn’t, or rather, what Baba chose not to believe.
In those panicked moments, when Baba found himself without a lawyer for his son and saw the court was about to adjourn, he made a request to address the court himself. He had spent most of the previous night pacing the hallway as he prepared his speech.
In the back of the courtroom, Maman closed her eyes, saying a prayer, thanking God that this was the last day of the trial, the last day she would be sitting far away, unable to touch, hug, or smell her son. She opened her eyes only when Abdollah entered and walked past the judge to his chair.
During the trial of the two boys who had been imprisoned at the hotel in Room 314 and were now sentenced to death for shooting the bank guard, a bigger picture of their crimes emerged: the gruesome details of the rape surfaced. Earlier that same night, the boys had also robbed and murdered a jewelry store owner. How could anyone believe these two as they implicated my brother, who had barely known them?
There was a hush as the crowd watched Baba rise from the seat where his lawyer, Masoodi, once sat. Baba squared his shoulders, walked to the center of the room, and faced the courtroom full of people. He looked directly into their eyes as he spoke. “To all the parents in this room, I say this: we were brought up believing that we had to watch over our daughters with extreme care and caution. But today, I have news for you all: we have to watch over our sons. My son is a good man. And he was exploited – Ighfal shod. He’s an honest and hardworking-boy. He’s only fifteen. He’s married. These two boys lied and manipulated him. He didn’t need money, he makes four times the amount they stole in one week. He’s no robber, no murderer.”
Maman didn’t take her eyes off Baba as he addressed the audience. She could hear the other women in the courtroom cry as Baba continued to talk about his son, his family, his business, and his commitment to the community. All eyes were glued to Baba. When he finished speaking, many women dabbed their eyes with tissues or with the corner of their chador. Almost everyone in the courtroom, including the forty hotel employees present, stood at the close of Baba’s speech.
Judge Ferdus sneered at Baba and demanded everyone take their seats. He refused to give out the verdict in court and revealed that it would be reported in the coming days.
In the morning, Baba sat by the sofreh. I looked at my father – he was rubbing his eyes that burned red from lack of sleep.
He knelt and pressed his forehead against the ground, as sunlight began to spread over the floor. “God, thank you for letting this nightmare end. I know my son will be safe soon.”
As Baba rose and folded his prayer rug, the hotel manager came running toward him, sweat on his forehead. “Haji, look,” he held up the newspaper to show Baba the headline.
Baba’s knees buckled when he read the black ink, “Abdollah, Mofsede-fel-arz – moral sinner – Found Guilty.”
When Maman woke that morning, she collapsed at the news of her son’s fate. The sentence was death or life in prison. That morning, there was no breakfast, no hand-fed bites of barbari bread. On the deck, under the blue sky where she could reach out to God as she wept, Maman unrolled her prayer rug on the deck, and raised her arms, palms open, as she recited the Arabic verses, weeping and choking. Her tears poured on her face as she fell into racking sobs during prostration. Afraid that she couldn’t stop crying, I sat at her feet, keeping guard.
Baba reassured her that although the two boys had been ordered to death, Abdollah would remain in prison awaiting a review of the judge’s decision by the newly-organized high court of Grand Ayatollahs in Qom.
The rest of the day, when Maman wasn’t on the deck wailing, she lay on the couch. When I brought her two cucumbers to peel and fix with salt the way we liked, one for me and one for Iman, she looked toward me with her soft eyes, a tear rolling along her hairline, inching behind her ear. I slid one of the cucumbers behind my back and held out the other, but she closed her eyes and turned away.
I broke the cucumber with both my hands and Iman and I each ate half unsalted with its rough skin.
Two days later, Maman was still tearful, but she was off the couch and busy cooking pots of stew and rice. The maids and driver made deliveries of radishes, mint, and parsley mixed for sabzi, and a large assortment of vegetables. As the staff exited the kitchen, they would bring with them the smell of saffron, rice, sautéed onion, and eggplant. The sizzle of the green beans frying in the pan told me Maman was also preparing lubia polo – Zain’s favorite beef and bean rice dish.
Was food being prepared for some kind of celebration? A party perhaps?
Careful about interrupting, Zain tugged on Baba’s pant leg. “Baba, where’re you going?”
Baba was bent over, packing the car trunk with watermelons, cantaloupes, and boxes of canned fruits. “I’m not going anywhere, son. We’re all going together to see Abdollah. Check with your mother and let me know when the food’s ready.”
In the kitchen, Maman pushed away a box she had received days ago. It was filled with photos from Abdollah’s wedding; the bride and her family had been scissored out of them. Maman did not hear from the girl she had welcomed into her heart as her daughter-in-law. After it was public that Abdollah was arrested, there were no calls, no notes, no conversations. Maman heard rumors that
because the marriage was never consummated, the young bride was promised to another family, to an ayatollah’s son.
In the car, Maman barely met our eyes as she leaned over the backseat to hand us single orange and apple slices, and ajeel – a mixture of walnuts, raisins, pistachios, dried mulberries, and almonds. Through a slight opening in the window, clouds of dust blew into our noses and mouths as we bumped down the dirt road. Small rocks slammed against the undercarriage of the car, but Baba did not slow down. I could see Maman’s shoulders tense as the truck in front of us accelerated over the potholes. The explosion of the exhaust sounded like a gunshot and blackened our windshield. While Baba recited Qur’anic verses in a soft whisper, Maman stared out the car window.
When we finally pulled into a field of dying patches of grass, Maman held her black chador tight, only one eye and the tip of her nose showing. Under the hot summer sun were hundreds of women. Fighting for shade, they jammed under a weeping willow tree whose yellowish feather-veined leaves hung over a gray cement building and the field.
The women fanned themselves as they poured basmati rice onto serving dishes placed on the sofrehs laid on the uneven ground. The smells of stews and lavash bread filtered through the air around us, but all the faces were blank.
Baba chose a spot closest to the cement prison building and placed our blanket on the muddy ground where a few patches of grass were still exposed. Throughout the afternoon, as the sun began its downward climb, family after family, in turn, shuffled their belongings into bags and flowed toward the entrance.
Finally, we were herded into a hot room that smelled of wet mud and body odor where we faced the reception area. On our side were chairs that faced a five-inch-thick glass panel smeared with oily fingerprints. A telephone rested on a scarred table below the glass. On the other side of this viewing window was another phone, set on another table – but on that side, a heavyset guard, wearing a holster and badge, watched as, in sequence, prisoners approached the glass to speak to their families.
The Rose Hotel Page 6
