Camelia
Page 3
My family became closer to his widow, Afsar Khanum. She never lost her sense of humor (and always had Smarties in her purse for me and my younger cousin Bita). And despite our sorrows, afterward I remember I also felt proud. Though many revolutionary families would be ashamed to have a relative executed, I was proud of my family’s history because it showed strength and conviction. Two decades later, when I was taken to jail, I know my family was waiting anxiously to see if I would suddenly end up on national television. My uncle Bizhan later told me, with tears in his eyes, that he kept remembering the shock of that day and how afraid he’d been that they would lose me, too.
FALL 1979
Concerned for our safety, my father sent us along with our mother to England for the summer. But we returned home to Iran to join him in the fall, following the construction of our villa in Karaj. My father wanted to stay close to his mother, and my parents were full of false hope for a coup d’état. The schools opened, and I went to my first class at Chista No. 1 elementary school, where Katayun was enrolled in the fourth grade.
There was no sign of boys in my class—the new Islamic government separated the sexes in school. The most revolutionary girl in our school was one of Katayun’s classmates. Everyone called her by her last name, Torkan. Head coverings were not yet mandatory at elementary school (the law went into effect when I started 3rd grade) and no one wore the hejab, but this coarse, olive-skinned girl wore a long black veil. She had a mustache on her upper lip and a hoarse voice, and would read the Qur’an and start chanting slogans at the beginning of each day as we lined up in the courtyard before class. Her family had come from southern Tehran and lived in a rough-hewn house in a slum along the main road in Shahr Ara, across from the Bulvar-e Gulha. It had once been a wide, open area and seemed to have been settled by fiery revolutionaries overnight. My mother hated Torkan and would argue with her when she came to pick up Kati and me up after school. Her brother had died in the revolution, and years later, we heard that Torkan had gone to medical school on the compensation paid to her family for his martyrdom.
The mood of Iranians, regardless of group or faction, had heated to the boiling point. The burning and looting had come to an end, and the demonstrations against America weren’t enough to quench the people’s thirst. When my friends and I reached the front gate of our school one morning, we saw custodians with buckets and giant brushes in hand, painting something on the ground. Before we could take another step, they turned to us and said, “Go that way to go in. The painting is wet, it’ll get ruined. In sha’ Allah, tomorrow you’ll be able to walk over it.” I asked, “But what is it?” My friend Mozhgan Tokaldani answered quickly, “The American flag.”
A few days before, the American embassy had been occupied by youths who called themselves Students Following in the Line of the Imam. They had taken sixty-six Americans hostage, demanding that America return the Shah to Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini announced on the radio that he supported their gesture. I gleefully clapped my hands, certain that we would have a special program before our lessons and that the first few hours of class would be canceled. The bell rang and we all lined up. Torkan had taken her place in front of the microphone and called out with great excitement, “Our motto of the day?” And we had to respond, “Marg bar Amrika” (Death to America or Down with America). And Torkan asked again, “The motto of the oppressed?” And we had to respond, “Marg bar Amrika!” She chanted, “Marg bar Amrika!” and we repeated it, Marg bar Amrika, our voices like a hammer hitting the courtyard.
Khanum Nuri, the faculty representative of Omur-e Tarbiyati, stepped up to the microphone. “Young ladies, you certainly must have heard that the ‘nest of spying’ was occupied by the Students Following in the Line of the Imam. We would like to go stand outside the spies’ lair to show our solidarity. Those who want to come may, in an orderly fashion, get on the minibuses in front of the school when the morning program is finished. You have your teachers’ permission, and we aren’t having classes today. The rest of the students who aren’t interested in participating in the demonstrations can call home and have their guardians pick them up or stay at school and go over their lessons.”
The students burst out clapping and yelling with joy. I prayed that I would be allowed to go. I imagined the hostage takers as a bunch of young girls and boys dressed as commandos with guns standing in front of the embassy. We rushed to the minibuses. There were more of us than there were seats. Some of the girls had to stand and were hanging from leather hand straps. We pushed and shoved each other, as we knew if we couldn’t find a spot, we’d have to stay back at the school. I leaped on window seats for me and my best friend, Delaram. We waved at our envious classmates who couldn’t find seats as we departed. Beside ourselves with joy, we all just kept clapping our hands together.
For two hours, the caravan of Fiat minibuses from Chista No. 1 was stuck in record traffic on what had formerly been Bulvar-e Elizabeth and was now Bulvar-e Keshavarz (Farmer’s Boulevard). Inside we sang and clapped and generally misbehaved. The teacher scolded, “Children, we are not on our way to a wedding! Chant slogans! Give praise to Allah!” At about Khiaban-e Amir Abad, now Khiaban-e Kargar (Worker’s Avenue), we faced a mass of people pressing eastward toward the American embassy, spilling into the streets. A riotous crowd of students and ordinary people seethed together, signs in their hands, struggling to make their way to the embassy. It was almost noon, and people were handing out tomato and hard-boiled egg sandwiches from the back of a pickup truck. We were getting cranky after sitting so long and complained, “Yallah ! Why aren’t we going anywhere?”
Khanum Nuri climbed into our minibus, holding a megaphone that now seemed completely useless. She shouted, “Children, quiet! Be quiet! Listen!” Our teachers never imagined we would be met with such pandemonium nor did they have the courage to take all three hundred schoolgirls out to continue toward the embassy on foot. They had decided to turn onto the nearest street and head back to the school. She told us, “It is enough that we’ve come this far to show our solidarity. The best thing to do now until we leave this street is to yell slogans out from our minibuses in an orderly fashion with clenched fists.” Three or four girls stuck their heads out of each of the minibuses’ windows. Khanum Nuri shouted into the megaphone, “Daneshjuye Khat-e Imam! Bar tu darud, bar tu salaam!” (Students of the Line of the Imam! Upon you praise, upon you peace!) Too tired to chant, we just clenched our fists in the air and screamed. You couldn’t tell one voice from another, and we must have looked pretty funny to the demonstrators, as we certainly attracted their attention. A crowd of boys was marching in an organized formation shouting slogans, and our unharmonious voices clashed with their rhythm. One of them said, “Guys, will you look at that twerp?” The boys all turned their heads and burst into peals of laughter. Another one called out, “Look at that one’s head! She looks like a monster!” They were making fun of Delaram, my best friend. She was an attractive girl with big frizzy hair like an afro, such as you rarely saw in Iran.
This was intolerable. We instantly changed our mission and went from chanting to waging war against these boys. We threw at them whatever we had left from lunch, from plastic bags to dry bread to wadded-up balls of paper. Khanum Nuri scolded us through the megaphone, “Girls! Girls! For shame! What’s all this?” In tears, Delaram explained. Khanum Nuri climbed down to go talk with the custodian from the boys’ school and again our chants changed from “Marg bar Amrika!” to clapping and cheering, “Khanum Nuri! Khanum Nuri!” Khanum Nuri tried to hush us from the middle of the frowning crowd. After that the teacher’s assistant got on the bus with a pen and paper to write down the names of the unruly students whose marks for discipline would be penalized. We sat still. We were told that everyone’s mark for conduct for the term would be lowered by one grade. As we drove away down a side street, there were still great crowds heading for the embassy. Exhausted, with lumps in our throats, we made faces at the demonstrators out on the street.
1980
That winter, my family still held out hope for a coup. Doctor Bani Sadr, who enjoyed the confidence and trust of Ayatollah Khomeini, was elected with twenty million votes as the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Bani Sadr was a former classmate of my uncle Bizhan the dentist. Strangely, years later, he turned up again as a patient at my uncle’s practice on Khiaban-e Sepeh near the parliament. Every time Uncle Bizhan saw us, he’d lower his voice and intimate that he had it on authority that in a certain month the regime would fall. And when that date had passed, another authority would give him a new date. The country was faced with a severe economic crisis. Fuel production had fallen drastically, and inflation had risen. Despite the new president and constitution, the country wasn’t stabilizing. A few months after the revolution, the street assassinations began. A group by the name of Forqan took to killing prominent revolutionary figures. Their first bullets lodged in the heart of Doctor Mortaza Mutahari in May 1979, a university professor and one of Khomeini’s beloved disciples. Khomeini was shown weeping on television, proclaiming Mutahari the apple of his eye. The day of Mutahari’s assassination became known as teachers’ day.
Khomeini had moved residences from the Madresseh-ye ‘Alavi to the religious city of Qom but found it was too isolated from the capital. In April 1980, Imam Jamarani, who led prayers at the Jamaran mosque, suggested to Mr. Khomeini that he take up residence in Jamaran, the birthplace of my mother. How my mother’s heart sank! The village lay among the foothills of the Elburz Mountains and could not be accessed from the north. It seemed like a safe place in the uncertain political atmosphere—quiet, unspoiled, with a pleasant climate. In the mornings, roosters crowed, and the scent of hot fresh bread wound its way through the earthy garden lanes. Crystal clear waters flowed from springs deep in the mountains into the little street canals. The local people were simple and fervently religious. Khomeini found the choice admirable, and he rented Imam Jamarani’s house and cheerful garden. My mother was furious with Imam Jamarani, who was my grandmother’s rezai brother. A rezai is like a foster sibling in Islam. When Imam Jamarani and Mader-jan were babies, my great-grandmother nursed them at the same time, so Imam Jamarani became Mader-jan’s mahram.
In Jamaran, many villagers took great pride in Khomeini’s arrival, while others feared for their safety. The Pasdaran welded seven bolted iron gates along the street that led to Khomeini’s home and issued special passes to local residents. Jamaran had become a restricted area. Though we luckily didn’t need to pass through the seven gates to visit my grandmother, we still had to stop at the main checkpoint. When the guards would start questioning us, my mother would light up like a wild rue seed in a fire. Putting up her chin, she’d answer sharply, “To my mother’s house, with your permission!”
Then we’d have to be searched. There’d be bearded men wearing the green uniforms of the Revolutionary Guard sticking their hands in our purses and handbags. We’d have to keep calm and call these provincial sentries “brother.” Finally, they’d tell my mother to fix her hejab and wipe off her lipstick. This was all it took for my mother to explode. My sister and I would plead with her—we knew that being arrested by the Imam’s guards was very dangerous and would be a serious headache. But she ignored us and would rain down a torrent of abuse on whichever guard had his turn that day. “If you just turned Muslim and just started going to prayer, we are from a long line of God-fearing Muslims! And if you are Muslim, why are you looking at my face? Lower your head and fill out the pass!” My heart would break into palpitations. Sometimes we’d drive off with her wailing and cursing all the way to my grandmother’s courtyard. But sometimes the brothers would call headquarters on the wireless, planning to arrest us and send us to the Komité. In the face of these threats, my mother’s voice just grew louder and shriller.
Usually one of the local business owners with some clout would arrive on the scene to save us. He’d tell the brothers that my mother grew up there and that she had kids to look after and an aged mother sitting at home. Then he would turn to my mother and say, “Zahra Khanum, simply arrange your hejab a little bit. This brother was only looking out for your own good. Just offer your praise to Allah and Mohammed and Mohammed’s line.” By that time, the news would have reached Mader-jan , and we’d meet her walking up to the checkpoint in her white prayer chador. She would anxiously ask my mother, “What’s all this fuss you’re making? Keep your head down and come and go quietly. Do you want them to throw you in the corner of some prison somewhere?” My mother, still smoldering, would say under her breath, “I was fine. That stinking trash!”
I knew in my heart that the days of warmth that I remembered from before the revolution were never coming back. I didn’t believe any longer in the tomorrows my uncle Bizhan and my parents kept promising.
chapter two
My Commander
NOVEMBER 1999
I had arrived at the rendezvous half an hour early and sat in the courtyard of the offices of Zan looking at the flowers and the persimmon trees. It was autumn, and although it was only the middle of the day, the air was dark and moist after the heavy morning rain. Ashen clouds were spread across the Tehran sky. Water droplets, left over from the rain, dropped one by one from the points of the daisies’ petals. I took a pack of Marlboro Menthols out of my purse and looked to make sure no one else was around. The first time I had officially bought a pack of cigarettes was three weeks before, the day after I was released from prison.
The café owner had smiled at me when I bought them. He hadn’t seen me for a few months, and he shook his head in delight. He certainly would have read about my release in the morning edition of Aftab-e Yazd. My mother didn’t know I’d started smoking—I would lock the door to my bedroom and secretly blow the smoke out the window. Majid, a co-worker of mine at Zan, once told me that I would meet all the requisites of a professional reporter if I added cigarette smoking to my repertoire. Fine, but today I had a cigarette in my hand, and I felt less like a newspaper reporter than ever.
I drew the tart Shemiran air into my lungs as I took deep drag after drag and slid the slimy leaves back and forth on the ground under my feet. Zan, my former workplace, was now shut down. No one else was in the courtyard. Not even Hossein Agha the gardener, who was always rearranging the flowerpots, moving them this way and that. He was undoubtedly sitting in his room heating up his tea. He’d passed so many years in this courtyard that he’d grown old here. Early in the morning, he would transfer the blossoms from one bed to another with a trowel, or he would clip leaves and extra branches with his shears. At the start of the revolution, the owners entrusted all of it to him and fled. Maybe Hossein Agha hadn’t been able to escape because he was lame in the left leg, or maybe he didn’t want to run. The property was confiscated by Khomenini’s new government and sold off at auction. The new owner had rented the building out to Faezeh Hashemi, the owner and editor in chief of Zan, with Hossein Agha in tow. When the newspaper was still running a few months back, he’d bring me a fistful of fresh, wet, white jasmine on a saucer nearly every morning and set it on the table, and I’d drop a handful of bonbons into an empty vase for him.
No trace remained of the previous summer’s bustle. Everyone had left. After my release, I’d returned like a lost pigeon to stare in shock through the window at the old office with its overturned chairs. Now Zan had become my secret meeting place.
At least twice a week in the afternoon, I’d creep silently into the building like a shadow, and a few hours later, I’d go home.
My guest during these afternoons was a man in his thirties, medium height, with full-bodied, wheat-colored hair. He had a bony jaw, eyebrows that flowed into each other, and sparkling black eyes. To the guards, he was simply Agha-ye Muhandes (Mr. Engineer). Nothing more. In this way, I explained away the presence of this mysterious official appearing with a briefcase several times a week. When we were alone, I called him Farmandeh, which means Commander. He wouldn’t tell me his real name.
I sometimes thought about killing myself. I was tired. I didn’t know what to do or whom to turn to for help. As I walked up the steps toward the editorial offices, I faced my own image in the glass window, a barrier between me and the old days. I felt no connection with the person I saw. It was not anyone I had ever known before.
The newspaper building was completely dark and silent. The great chandeliers were without power but I could see through the half-open slits in the dusty broken shutters. The crows in the courtyard were hard at work pecking at the orange persimmons. I was filled with regret, remembering my co-workers. Everyone had packed their things up quickly and left. But there was a drawing by our cartoonist, Nik Ahang Kowsar, still posted on the wall above my desk. It had been a joke for the benefit of the office, a caricature of me, extremely busy, talking on ten phones, with a hundred sheets of paper in my hand. Under it was written “Al-hasood la yasood” ( Jealousy gets you nowhere).