Camelia

by Camelia Entekhabifard

  My mother had refused to speak to her brother since an incident in the early days of the revolution. As a zealous Revolutionary Guard, Uncle Ali had been charged with watching the houses of high-profile fugitives on Khiaban-e Sarlashgar Zahedi, a street parallel to my mader-jan’s in Jamaran. This was while relatives on my father’s side, like Guli’s father, were fleeing house to house. One night we stopped to visit Ali on the way to my grandmother’s, and after passing through the security checkpoint, we came to a brown house with a graded roof. Someone called for my uncle, and he appeared at the entrance in the darkness in his special green uniform. He came right over and lifted me up in a single motion. The fingers of my kind uncle were adorned with gaudy carnelian rings. From his arms, I could see the house in disarray, trampled under the boots of my uncle and his friends. A rag doll lay ripped in half, dragged outside the front door, and peering in, I could see a wooden crib in a child’s wrecked bedroom. I remembered how we used to take walks in the park with his girlfriends. Was it my same beloved uncle who had laid waste to the home of these children? My mother was upset and couldn’t bear to see any more. I heard her say some nasty, indecent things to him under her breath. We turned the car around and sped down the hill, my mother crying in disbelief. The man whose house we had seen—Khusraudad—was pictured among the victims of the firing squad in the next day’s newspaper.

  Though my mother wouldn’t speak to my uncle, we continued to visit Jamaran as always. In the summer of 1980, Khomeini, in observance of the birth of Mohammed, held a public meeting with the people. A screaming throng was advancing past my grandmother’s house, where we’d gathered to celebrate the holiday. The women had tied their chadors at the waist to have their hands free in the crush of the crowd, and some of them were crying and beating their breasts. Everyone was supposed to gather in the husseinya, and Khomeini would speak from his terrace. But the adoring first had to line up, pushing and shoving, so the Pasdaran could issue them entry passes to see the Imam.

  I was once blessed by Khomeini when my uncle Ali stole me from Mader-jan’s home. My mother was away—perhaps to visit another relative in Jamaran. My uncle asked Mader-jan for a veil to put over my head and told me we were going to buy candy at the Mohsen Agha grocery store. I knew where he was really taking me, but I pretended that I was fooled, knowing how angry my mother would be when she found out. Uncle Ali ignored Mader-jan’s warnings. With lots of “Salaam aleikum Baradar,” we passed the gates into the Imam’s courtyard. At my uncle’s request, the Imam himself appeared in the courtyard and put his hand on my head and prayed.

  Back at Mader-jan’s house, my mother crouched on the terrace like a wounded tiger. As soon as we appeared, she tore into my uncle. Kati had been out with my mother, and in private she later told me she wished she could have met Khomeini, too. My mother cursed wildly at anyone and everyone around her that day, twisting my ears in a firm grasp, and promising that if I said a word to my father, he’d have our scalps—and we’d never be able to come back to Jamaran to visit Mader-jan again.

  Since Khomeini had moved to Jamaran, the village had become “Khomeini’s house.” All day on the celebration of the birth of Mohammed, what my mother called “the idle masses” had been knocking on our door to use the bathroom, to take a drink of water, or to change their babies’ diaper. It was impossible to refuse them. The strong smell of human waste rose from the far corner of the yard, where people lined up for the toilet. My uncle was in the Imam’s special guard and brought by a stack of passes to Khomeini’s rally. My mother shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t need the passes. As people left our courtyard, they turned to her and said, “Hajj Khanum, how fortunate you are to be close to Agha-ye Khomeini. May you be rewarded by the Imam-e Zaman.”

  The neighboring garden had been taken over by revolutionary forces as a base for the units guarding Khomeini. These provincial soldiers with their green hats would sit up on the roof behind antiaircraft guns. But aside from keeping an eye on the skies and the Imam, they found something else to occupy their time, namely, peeping at my grandmother’s house. Through the thick of the leaves of the walnut tree that stretched up toward the heavens, you’d see the face of a soldier hoping to catch a woman changing her clothes or something similarly exciting. But sadly, the house had only two old women living in it, my grandmother and her friend Nargess Khanum. And these were not the sort of women to venture out without a prayer chador. And if my mother ever glimpsed a shape turned toward the courtyard, she’d cry out, “Motherless bastards! Was the point of your revolution that you could come stand on the roof and look at women’s bodies? Rotten pieces of shit!” Then they’d slip away like phantoms, scared off by her insults. But an hour later there’d be another shadowy figure on the roof. . . .

  On the morning of the anniversary of Mohammed’s birth, our courtyard was overflowing. As soon as it was announced that the Pasdaran would start issuing the required passes to the rally, people rushed forward like a herd of frightened sheep. A group went by carrying something I couldn’t see, wailing and crying, “Ya Hussein!” The Imam Hussein was one of the sons of Ali, the first Shi’a imam; he had been killed in an ambush at Karbala, and the Shi’a forever repented his death, often punishing themselves publicly. Dust rose off the ground in clouds, and my mother picked me up under her arm and shut us in the house. The sound of shrieking and moaning swelled from every direction. Men, women, and children were being trampled underfoot. As the crowds retreated, hundreds were left lying bloody on the ground. People busied themselves attending to the wounded and the dead. My uncle, a brawny, athletic man, showed up every fifteen minutes with a corpse over his shoulder, carried from who knows how far away, and lay the motionless body out behind our back wall. We brought out white sheets. My uncle murmured in Arabic, “Enna l’illah wa enna aleihi raja’un” (Verily, we come to God and to God we return) and drew the sheets over the faces of the dead. At one point, he emerged from the bewildered crowd shouting, “Move aside! Make way!” But the young girl draped over his shoulder gave a violent twitch and hung lifeless. When he put her down, I saw the stain down his back. Afraid to die, the helpless girl had peed on my uncle’s shoulder.

  It took several hours for ambulances to arrive and the tens of thousands of people to disperse. The sound of wailing and weeping continued. “Ya Hussien! Ya Imam-e Zaman!” (Oh Hussein! Oh Imam of Time!) Families that had gotten separated in the confusion came first to peek under the white sheets. They uncovered the faces of the dead and then either went on their way or else started moaning. And again they were knocking on the door of our house. They wanted to know where their loved ones had been taken. My mother would say, “To either the Reza Pahlavi or Manzaria Hospital.” And my uncle would growl under his breath, “Say Martyrs’ Hospital. Pahlavi is dead!”

  “Ali, Ali, Ali, dear Ali . . .” My mother held her brother tightly and cried uncontrollably in front of Ghezel Qal’eh Prison. After seven months without word of his fate, four more months passed before she was allowed to visit him for the first time. He was half alive after being tortured in Evin. Luckily, he had been moved. At least at Ghezel Qal’eh you could ask for a lawyer to look into your case. Kati and I, too, had wrapped our arms around our uncle’s legs and were crying. For the entire visit we were kept outside in the prison courtyard, and we sat on a piece of cardboard we’d laid down. In my mother’s hand was a bag full of underwear and qand. My mother had a blue voile chador with bright roses all over it, and we tried, like the dozens of other families that had come for visits, to stay composed and look unemotional and revolutionary. My uncle was too ashamed to kiss his wife, but when he saw the picture of his nine-month-old son, he broke down and wept bitterly.

  My uncle had bought a Kit Kat and Smarties from the prison store for Kati and me. Hoping that homemade food would restore her brother’s health, my mother started packing him a little bundle of meat sandwiches and other food, clothes, and pocket money every week. I remembered how at the Ashura holiday he used to march
, holding high an almost two hundred pound metal tree with sixteen branches, with the crowd cheering him on in one voice, “Ya Ali . . .” Now he was thin and wounded. He told my mother at length about how he had nearly been executed for being a mujahed— how they had put him in a cell for those awaiting execution until a friend in the Pasdaran had recognized him and moved him. They had beat his stomach until it had been torn to pieces. He had to be brought twice to the prison hospital to have his ruptures stitched up.

  A year passed since his arrest, and after much discussion, everyone agreed on a plan to bribe the prison director. “In order to free your uncle we need hard cash,” my mother explained, as she moved nuts, one by one, from a set of engraved antique silver dishes into an empty porcelain bowl. When the plates were empty, she took out a handkerchief and wrapped them. Bowls, plates, spoons, and decorated trays disappeared from our dining table. Aunt Mahin, an old friend of my mother’s, arrived.

  “Mahin, put this gold in your bag as well. By the way, did you bring your chador?”

  Aunt Mahin recited, “Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim” (In the name of God the Merciful and the Compassionate) as she put the jewelry in her handbag. I recognized my grandmother’s bracelets; my mother’s long necklace with the portrait of the first Shi’a imam, Hazrat-e Ali; her enameled bracelet from Kuwait; her other bracelet embedded with Pahlavi royal coins; and my uncle’s wife’s wedding ring. My mother called out, “Camelia, are you ready?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the bazaar.”

  Aunt Mahin and my mother had put on black chadors so they could hide the valuables underneath as well as conceal the money they collected. Being so short, I felt trapped in the congestion of the bazaar. I couldn’t see anything, and I couldn’t breathe in the thicket of women in black chadors. I held my mother’s hand tightly to make sure I didn’t get lost, and we went from shop to shop. My mother sold everything, and then the complicated negotiations began. Again and again, my father was brought to the prison to negotiate for Ali, blindfolded so he couldn’t recognize any of the interrogators or secret prison officials. He acted as the guarantor for my uncle’s bond, giving up to the Ministry of Intelligence his own passport and therefore his ability to travel outside the country, along with hefty bribes, so that my uncle would be released.

  Before, my uncle had been a robust, athletic man, but my new uncle was broken and tormented. All year round, in the snow and freezing cold, or in the unbearable heat of the summer, he’d sit on the roof and play with the pigeons. I’d go up to watch the neighbors with his field glasses.

  “Salaam, Uncle!”

  Coo, coo, coo, coo . . . Sunburned and defeated, my uncle watched his birds with his head tilted back, emitting faint noises from his throat and scattering handfuls of millet. The birds would flutter over to eat. One time when I visited, another man, Akbar, an emaciated taryaki, sat across from my uncle. A tray lay between them, with two empty tea glasses and a little bowl of qand. My uncle stuck his head out and called, “Iran! Iran!”

  And the voice of his wife rose from the vent, “Yes?”

  “Give two teas to Fatima to bring up.”

  I had heard Aunt Iran voice her heartache many times to my mother. “Zari Khanum, when will it end? From morning to night he’s up on that roof calling those pigeons! And he has every two-bit hoodlum up there with him!” She’d pour the tea, mumbling under her breath, “Snake venom for all I care!”

  “Fatima, take these up and bring down the old tray. For the love of God, Zari Khanum, do you see what kind of life we have here?” And she’d wipe the tears from her eyes with the corner of her informal cotton chador. As my cousin brought up the fresh tea, my mother followed on her heels. My uncle’s guest, upon seeing my mother, put his tail between his legs and quickly ran off. She had war written all over her face.

  “Ali!” my mother cried, as my uncle’s friend scurried away.

  My uncle mumbled a greeting as he slurped the hot tea from the saucer. He was an old man at thirty-five. His long hair had gone completely white; his moustache hung down from both sides of his mouth like a dervish’s. I looked at my uncle, orbiting around another world; was he alive or did he just bear a striking resemblance to a living being?

  “Your wife and children are ashamed! Why don’t you put a stop to all this? You’re up here on this roof shooing birds around from morning to night. You stare at the sun so much your pupils are yellow! Comb your hair at least. Cut your beard. These people are ashamed! Your wife is young!”

  Aunt Iran hid in the space behind the half-open door to the roof, but we could hear her crying. My uncle raised his face to the sun. He didn’t answer but tears streamed down his face. . . . He hadn’t said a single word. My mother cried, “Ali, speak. Say something. Do you want to see a doctor?”

  I couldn’t bear to be there any longer. I ran down the stairs to the floor below and found my chubby cousin Fatima, delighted at this rare opportunity to be left alone with the box of sweets my mother had bought for them, trying to eat them quickly before her mother came down. I started to quarrel with her. “Don’t you have any manners? Leave some for your brothers!” I went into the bathroom so I wouldn’t be able to hear the sound of my uncle’s agony and his wife’s heartrending sobbing. My mother’s voice drifted down the stairs. “I don’t know what they’ve done to this poor creature. It’s like talking to a wall.”

  “They’re not worthy of you. May they bring you good fortune.” With these words, my mother placed a pair of brown leather shoes in front of my uncle Musayyeb. She had recently visited London and brought back this gift. “Try them on and see if they fit,” she added. He said, “Zari dear, they’re super. I’ll save them for when I go to meet His Majesty at Mehrabad airport.” It was the winter of 1980 and they both still believed the Shah would return. My aunt’s courtier husband, “His Majesty’s personal calligrapher,” had worked in the Shah’s private office. Worried about being arrested in the months after the revolution, Uncle Musayyeb spent most of his time in his pomegranate groves in the village of Nurabad. He always assured my mother, with extreme optimism, that “next month” the mullahs’ government would fall. But the months kept passing, and the Shah died in exile on a hospital bed in Cairo that July.

  Among our family and neighbors, the only person to publicly mourn for forty days and nights after the Shah’s death was my mother. She dressed from head to toe in black and wore a black chiffon veil and gloves. Local business owners advised her to stop with this useless business to avoid any harm that might befall her or her family. She’d shrug her shoulders and say that it wasn’t a crime to wear black.

  JANUARY 1985

  The Iranian revolution had entered its fifth year, and I was in the fifth grade at elementary school. That week my classes were on the morning shift, and I came home to the surprise of an empty house. I stood ringing the doorbell, kicking at the frozen snow on the doorstep.

  “Camelia! Camelia!”

  Our kind neighbor Menizhe Khanum called to me. She was always keeping watch from her kitchen on the third floor of the apartment across our street. She and my mother were friends, and we’d visit often. She could turn your cup of coffee over onto a saucer and read your fal in the grounds. Menizhe Khanum would always see wedding proposals, money, and news coming by telephone. She’d look at me slyly and say, “You little devil, who is this boy in your cup?” I’d put on a big frown and shrug my shoulders, my mother watching me like a hawk.

  “Dear Camelia, come up,” she beckoned. “Your mother went out, and she said you and Katayun should stay at our house.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I’m not sure. I think she had to go to your aunt Turan’s house.”

  To Niyavaran in the middle of the day? I was afraid but didn’t ask any more questions. Menizhe Khanum was Zoroastrian. Above her wall clock, a piece of paper read, “Good words, good thoughts, good deeds.” My mother said that they were much better than Muslims, since they weren’t liars
or hypocrites, and they minded their own affairs. Their prophet was a man named Zartusht, and I had gone to their temple on Khiaban-e Qavvam-e Saltaneh many times and savored the scent of aloe wood and frankincense burning. I was busy compiling a list of guests to invite to my birthday party, so I brought the list up to discuss with Menizhe Khanum’s children, Nasim and Bahareh. Katayun came home and joined us for dinner.

  It was after nine when the doorbell rang. It was after nine when the doorbell rang. I grabbed my schoolbag and bounded down the stairs. Outside, on the street, I saw my mother, facing away from me, and she was dressed exactly as she had been four years earlier. Black coat and skirt, black festooned lace veil, and a black snakeskin handbag in her hand. A gentle snow had started to fall and was swirling around her, landing softly on the ground. I was afraid to come any closer, but when she heard my footsteps she turned. Her eyes were blood red. She gazed at me and burst into tears.

  I didn’t have any black clothes in my wardrobe for Uncle Mussayeb’s memorial, so I wore dark blue. In my aunt Turan’s house, there was an undulating sea of people dressed in black. It was the sixth day after my uncle’s death, and this gathering marked the eve of the final day in the weeklong funeral. My mother, Kati, and I had visited the home every day for the past week, as is traditional in Iran. My father was staying over with his sister for the whole month, to keep her company in her grief.

  A photograph of my uncle Musayyeb smoking a pipe had been placed in front of the door in the middle of a wreath of roses. He had died of heart failure in Nurabad. His royal colleagues were there, the ones who hadn’t fled and who’d been spared from the vengeful wrath of the revolutionaries. The whole family. Those we knew and those we didn’t know. A dignified old man with a cane and formal dress was standing next to my father and my uncle’s brothers, greeting the guests. “Who is that?” I asked. My sister whispered into my ear, “That’s Agha-ye Vaziri, Uncle Musayyeb’s old colleague. He hasn’t been paid his salary in five years, and he’s waiting to get it from the crown prince.”