When Maman released my hand and grabbed my red suitcase, I hesitated. I was floating away. Everything seemed gigantic and strange. Strange sounds were ringing in my ears, and there were signs everywhere with lettering I didn’t understand.
Chador-to-chador, Maman and I followed Iman out of the bright loud terminal into the darkness of the night.
On the ride in the huge, black taxicab to my parents’ new apartment, Maman smoothed my hair. “This is London, azizam. It’s different here. The lights are brighter, the cars move faster, and there are signs everywhere.”
The chill London wind blew in the open window. I gripped my chador more tightly under my chin and leaned my head out to smell the air. The sea of lights made me dizzy. I thought about my brothers. I wondered if they felt as lost as I did.
When the taxi finally came to a stop, my heart began to pound. I followed Iman and Maman across patches of grass that appeared yellow in the faint porch light. The wind was cold and shook the row of bluebell flowers along the walk.
When I first walked into the apartment, I thought it must be a small living room, a part of larger quarters. I was wrong. This single room was to be our home. The bathroom frightened me. In the dark earth underneath the loose toilet pedestal, slugs and worms weaved among the mushroom caps. But I didn’t say anything as Maman opened a small cabinet refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of shirazi salad covered with Saran Wrap. The refrigerator was shorter than Iman.
That night, Maman was making celery lamb stew especially for me. The small two-burner stove reminded me of the one in the RV parked in our backyard in Mashhad. How would she make a lavish dinner on a stove the size of one pot?
“You want something to drink, azizam?” Maman walked toward me with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. “We moved here as soon as we knew you had a visa; we wanted to get a larger place so you and Iman would have some room to play.” As Maman handed me the glass, her smile faded. She sat beside me and pressed my hair to her cheek as she took a sniff. “We’ll need more space when your brothers get their visas. I hope it’s soon. I can’t be without them much longer.”
I stared at the orange juice. One child was a poor substitute for three.
Baba stared at the floor. “I’m going to try the embassy again in three weeks.”
As Maman rattled the pots and began heating the celery stew, Iman’s eyes followed me everywhere. Finally, with Maman gently pushing him, Iman sat next to me, a foot away, and placed a wrapped gift in my lap.
Maman smiled. “Iman has one and he wanted you to have one just like it.”
We helped each other unfold the duvet cover he had so neatly wrapped. We carefully laid it out like a sofreh, and then sat on it, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking out the window. On the duvet, there was a picture of a little boy, his head resting on a little girl’s shoulder.
As the wind blew open her chador, Maman let the air inside to cool her chest. It was a warm day in London as my parents waited on the street for Baba’s cab to the airport.
“Here’s fifty pounds.” Maman handed Baba the notes.
“But that’s all you have for ten days.”
“You take it. We have enough groceries for now.” The week before, she had shown Baba how to separate the toilet paper. If we were careful, we could get two whole rolls of toilet paper out of one, without even a tear in one square.
Maman fanned herself with the chador. “Your sister called this morning and said she would give you a return ticket from Tehran. She must have known that we can’t ask any of our friends for more money.”
Baba kissed her cheek. “You keep the money. Soon I’ll have all we need. Start looking for a bigger apartment, one with room enough for Hadi and Zain.”
Maman squeezed his hand and kissed Baba. “Until we can go home, of course,” Maman said, but her voice had the strained sound it did whenever she mentioned the future.
A few days after Baba returned from Tehran, Maman sent Iman and me to play outside in the small, dusty rectangle with balding patches of dead grass. When we looked up, we could see our parents through the window, and we could even hear them, their voices rising.
“You sold our house without talking to me! And I had to hear this from my brother-in-law? You knew I would stop you. You got rid of it all, just like you did the hotel? Not even a call to my sisters? To have them come get my things, pack my jewelry, take a few of the antiques, nothing? The rugs, my plants, all of it? Our kids’ toys? My God, the chickens! The house was to be the kids’ inheritance. They could have built on the land and raised their children there. How could you do this?” Maman was furious at Baba again.
“You don’t understand these things. We have no money. I can’t work in Britain on a medical visa. You see where we live, right? To move to a bigger, nicer apartment, we need money, zan, money. Our money is not worth the same here, it’s toman to pound, you understand? We need to live, and now we have the money to do it.” Baba turned off the gas burner.
Maman ran to the stove. “How many times have I told you not to touch the heat!” She turned the fire back on high and stared at Baba, “Don’t touch my stove.” She picked up the pot cover and slammed it on the pot twice.
Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, a new calm entered her voice. “You can’t keep doing this, Haji. You can’t keep making decisions without asking me. You can’t protect me this way.” She took another breath. “You’re robbing me of the chance to do it my way, or for us to do together.” Maman placed the lid on the pot and turned down the burner. With softer eyes, she looked at Baba again. “I want go back someday, Haji. I want a home to go back to.”
“Mashhad is not home anymore, azizam. Iran is not our home either. I don’t know where home will be, maybe somewhere in between these two worlds but going to Iran is not an option.” Baba’s voice softened as he walked a step closer to Maman. “That government is still killing people, any good ayatollah who is left is either dead or on house arrest. Look what they did to Ayatollah Shariatmadari. He stopped the Shah from killing Khomeini in 1963; a man of peace, a visionary who believed in keeping clerics away from government positions is under house arrest until he dies. There’s no way to tell a good ayatollah apart from an evil one anymore. All the women wear chadors so you can’t tell apart a call girl from a good woman. The pretense, the backstabbing! People there have changed. Everything is different, zan.” Baba’s face was near Maman’s now. “I’ll never go back to live there. I’m sorry to tell you that, but we simply can’t.”
Maman held her chest and leaned against the wall. Her breathing was labored. “But this is not my country! You could have bought a small apartment for us so we had something left there, anything.” She was still angry but now her voice gave way to an old sadness. “You shouldn’t have done this without me.”
“Our sons would be drafted to be killed in a senseless war.” Baba took a breath. “Over a million men – boys – all Muslims – Shi’a’s and Sunni’s have been killed so far. And you’re upset about the house and the chicks?”
Baba always emphasized the difference between the two subgroups of Muslims, educating us that the Sunni and Shi’a initially split not because of spiritual reasons but political ones. The Sunni believed that after the death of Prophet Mohammad, the Muslim leadership should be in the hands of his companions, whereas the Shi’a believed the leadership of the faith should stay within the Prophet’s family, starting with his son-in-law, Imam Ali. Baba felt that the two groups killing one another was irrational.
Baba rubbed his forehead. “We can’t go back, zan.” Calling her “woman” signaled he was finished talking. “You know how many people are dead. You’re sick zan. You’re getting the best medical care here. Do you know how many Bahais are denied medical treatment, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, executed? Do you see what is going on there?” Baba closed his eyes.
“We are not going back. I did what I had to do and I did it for all of us. I had no choice and I will not apologize for protecting my f
amily.”
Maman wielded a pot lid in one hand, closing the gap that stood between her and Baba who’d had taken a few steps back. “The war will be over some day. This isn’t just about money or the war. You hate what people said about you and about him.” Maman rarely mentioned Abdollah’s name aloud anymore. “You don’t want to go back and have to face that. None of it. You would rather hide from what happened.” Maman avoided Baba’s eyes.
The next morning I stared into my bowl, chewing my cereal slowly as Maman did her best to smile.
“So my little angels, tell me what you’re doing in school?”
After listening to her crying during her prayers that morning and watching her face when she finished talking with Zain and Hadi on the pay phone in the hallway, I couldn’t add to her worries. I was still digesting the news that our house was sold and we would never see it again. I knew I had to handle my problems myself.
It was the tall girl at school who made me snap. She was always cursing me in English, which made me glad that I had refused to learn the language. It was different than calling me “Gandhi” and “towel head” and saying I was bald as everyone else did when they mocked me for wearing a chador. Since the day I walked into the school compound with its four-story buildings and its cobblestone walkways, I felt hundreds of eyes on me. Although two other Iranian girls wore headscarves, I was the only one in the entire school of thousands of students wearing a chador.
Eventually, I built up enough courage to take off my chador before class, hang the black robe on a hook next to the jackets on the wall, and keep only a headscarf like the two other girls. I struck a bargain with these two girls, my new friends: I would do their artwork, and in exchange, they would do my English homework. I refused to learn English: writing, reading, or speaking. It was my way of saying, “I don’t actually live here. I’m just occupying space in the back row until I can go home.”
At the end of the day, when I went to take my chador off the hook, the tall girl was there with a wicked smile, putting something in her pocket as she left. My black chador, which had been a sensation and the object of praise in Tehran, now had three holes in it – the result of a burning cigarette.
After that, I kept on my chador at school, hiding the holes in the folds of the fabric. I hid myself in it, too. I closed my eyes and went back to our home in Iran.
We are standing under the tall willow tree, its branches draping over us and protecting us from the beams of the hot summer sun. The sofreh lies on a blanket in the shadow, and we breathe in the scent of blossoming persimmon, lemon, plum, and sour cherry trees. Baba is feeding Maman a bite of sangak bread dipped in yogurt while Hadi and Zain chase Iman and me around the tree trunks, pretending they can’t find us during hide-and-seek. Then, Baba calls us around the sofreh where he cracks open a pomegranate. Abdollah is there, visiting from America.
This was how I would handle the tall girl. I would remain an outsider, refusing to learn the language and biding my time in dreams until Maman and I could kneel again at the window and watch the shining cherries bob in the sunlight.
But first, we had to get Hadi and Zain out of Germany.
“I had a nightmare last night.” Maman moved the tissues closer to where she sat cross-legged on the floor. “The boys were hungry and Zain kept begging me for rice and kabab.” Maman looked up toward Baba, who was still standing above her, staring at the numerous pots of hot meals on the sofreh.
“It’s been months, Haji.” Maman wiped the sweat from her face with a tissue and then held the heavy pot handle up with both hands as she maneuvered her way closer to the sofreh. “When will we be together again? I’m running out of prayers.”
“How can I take all this to Germany? You’ve made entirely too much food this time.” His voice was gentle. “Freeze some of it. I promise they’ll be here soon. We can eat it together then.”
“I didn’t make Abdollah’s favorite dish. We’ll have that together.” Maman filled another plastic bowl and secured a lid on it. “Zain loves lubia polo, Haji,” Maman looked up at Baba with sad eyes.
“I promise you. Next time, I’m bringing our sons back, no matter what.”
Maman had a half smile as she placed the pot down next to the other four large ones already cooling. The smells of parsley, sautéed green onions, and spinach filled the room. The thick turmeric-colored noodles danced with the lentils, kidney and garbanzo beans as Maman mixed them together with the broth of the ash-e-reshteh to cool it. She began to decorate the top of the cooled ash with caramelized garlic, onions and mint. “I can freeze some soup, but you have to take all the rest. I’m telling you, I can feel it. Every cell of my body tells me, my boys are hungry.”
Hundreds of miles away in Germany, in their shared room in the home of family friends, Zain pushed away his meal, spilling the cold, brown, sticky beans from the corner of his plate. “I don’t want stupid canned beans and rice anymore.”
Hadi pointed his fork at Zain. “I told you, this is all we have. You eat it or you’ll be hungry again. These beans cost us money we don’t have. I’ll warm up a slice of bread for you. Okay?”
Looking at him with sullen eyes, Zain propped his chin up with one hand. “I’m sick of this. Just sick of it! Nothing tastes right anymore. And my stomach hurts. This is not lubia polo. Who makes green beans and rice from cans? I would rather be hungry.”
Hadi had been holding on to their money after they had spent too much on ice cream the week before. They weren’t sure when Baba was coming again, and Hadi was not going to ask him to send more money, certainly not now when the entire family savings were tied up in Iran.
Zain held his belly with his hands as the pain in his stomach grew more intense and his gut made loud growling sounds. Playing with the sticky rice grains, he finally took a bite of beans. He ate all the rice and poured the beans back in the can. “Merci, brother.” He put his slice of bread on Hadi’s plate. “You can eat the beans if you want.”
“Maman told me on the phone this morning that Baba’s bringing lubia polo and ash the next time he comes. Okay?” Hadi forced himself to smile.
Zain nodded.
Zain lay on his folded blanket on the floor. He had spoken to Maman on the phone that morning too, but, as usual, hurried to get off. The sound of her voice made him curl into a ball. It was best not to have any reminders, hear her voice, or see a picture in his mind. He hugged his legs to his chest and forced his eyes shut.
At our two-burner stove, Maman’s humming made me smile. And it was then that I noticed her lipstick. It wasn’t the passionate red she used to wear, but there was pink on her lips for the first time since we left Mashhad.
Maman spent three days preparing a lavish meal, busily switching pots on the tiny stove. She was making four dishes: eggplant, lamb, and rice tahchin, Hadi’s favorite; kabab for Zain; spaghetti with ground beef and mushrooms for Iman; and tomato paste celery lamb stew, Abdollah’s – and now – my favorite. Making one elaborate Persian stew on this stove was a task; making five was monumental. “We’ll have to warm up one dish at a time,” she explained. But she was going to be ready for her whole family. On the last four trips to Germany, Baba had come back empty-handed, but when we would meet him at the airport later, he would have Hadi and Zain with him, just as he had promised.
When the doorbell rang, I jumped. Who would ring the bell? Unlike in Iran, where we had people visit us daily and bring us food and sweets, no one ever rang our doorbell – not once in the last six months. Maman rushed to the closet, took out her colorful chador, and pressed one hand to the door, “Kieh?”
There was no answer.
Fear took over Maman’s face. “Kieh?” she called out louder this time.
“Stand next to Iman, honey.” Maman held her hand in the air gesturing us to stay back as she flipped the chain and slowly slid the door open peeking around it. With a sigh, she swung it wider and let her chador fall to her shoulders. “Haji?” Maman said with shock. “What are you doing here
? I almost had a stroke.”
“Baba Jaan,” Iman cried out and ran to be lifted into the air as Baba kissed him all over his head.
Maman and I exchanged looks. Where were the boys?
Baba was silent.
Then I saw it. Abdollah’s navy blue jacket that Hadi had taken with him when we left Tehran was folded over Baba’s arm. I jumped up and down and pounded my fist on the suit. “They’re here Mamani, they’re here!”
Maman flung open the door. “Where, Haji?” She stumbled into the street with her chador only covering half her head.
I looked at Baba, who waited at the door, now smiling.
“Hadi! Zain!” I screamed as I grabbed Iman’s hand and ran outside, following Maman.
Maman’s hair came loose in the breeze as she tugged at her chador. She sprinted to the middle of the street. When Hadi and Zain stepped out from behind a red car where they had been hiding, Maman fell to her knees. They ran toward her screaming, “Maman!” and dropped to the ground in front of her.
As she sobbed, kissing their foreheads and cheeks, Maman’s chador, slid down to her shoulders, and finally floated to the ground. While Zain pressed his head against her chest and circled his arms around her, Hadi held them both in his. “Dadashis!” I screamed and pulled Iman with me, and we piled on top of them, hugging in the street.
When I looked back at Baba, he was standing in front of our apartment, his right hand over the jacket on his arm, watching Maman. Tears rolled over the dark circles around his exhausted eyes. I had never seen my father cry before.
Crowded into our single-room home with our feet and elbows bumping against each as we sat around the sofreh eating Maman’s feast, we were oblivious to everything that was still difficult. It didn’t matter that the money from the house sale hadn’t arrived, or that we had a bathroom with slugs underneath the toilet. Crammed together in a tiny studio, we laughed and shared stories, and, finally, after so much time, we were almost whole again. Only Abdollah was still missing.
The Rose Hotel Page 13
