To me, watching the artists at work was much more exciting than seeing the finished masterpieces hanging on a museum wall. I felt as if I were witnessing history in the making. Perhaps one day I would hobble through the halls of a museum telling my grandchildren about my days of youth when I sipped Coca-Cola poured from a small glass bottle and saw these creations given life.
As the weeks in Paris passed, however, my energy waned. Some days I was too tired to go anywhere. Mom thought I was getting lazy, always wanting to sleep in and begging to spend my days sitting around. It became a mild source of conflict between us. She was on a mission to change the world, and I was content to nap on the couch with an unopened book on my lap. We had no way of knowing then that a much more ominous problem was lurking under the surface.
CHAPTER 17
I enjoyed traveling the world, but there was never any doubt in my mind that my real life was lived at home with my family and friends. We had moved yet again, this time to a house across the street from a sleepy park with old trees and a meandering river. The water brought ducks to feed, though I rarely walked across the street to feed them.
Mom was determined to find a way to give me the typical experiences of youth I longed for while still defending against the constant threat of my father’s return. Determined to create an oasis for me, she fenced the backyard so I could play outside and redesigned the house so that virtually the entire back of the building was windows, making it easy for her to keep a watchful eye on me. Because I loved to swim, she put in a pool. And whether Mom was home or not, the door was always open to my friends.
Because she was traveling too frequently for Grandma to keep staying with me, Mom hired someone to help. By day Lori worked in a law office, and by night she took care of me. Lori laughed easily and often. She didn’t like any of the usual titles that went with her role, so instead of “babysitter” or “nanny” she called herself “the lady who stayed with me when Mom was out of town.” In reality, she was more like a big sister. She was playful and unencumbered and precisely the type of influence I needed to help me start to break free from my shy and rule-bound tendencies.
Lori’s whole family adopted me as their own—even her boyfriend, Bob, who quickly became one of my favorite people. He was quirky in the best possible way. He drank chocolate milk and called the remote control a biviter. He greeted people enthusiastically with three hellos—“hello, hello, hello”—instead of just one. For no reason at all other than to break the silence, he would cup his hands together at his lips and whistle the song of the dove. And whenever he traveled, even if only for a day, he sent me a postcard.
Years had passed since we’d gotten any word from or about my dad. As I grew older, we had relaxed a bit, though the fear had not gone away. And we remained extra cautious around special days. My dad was sentimental and thus, we believed, more likely to reappear on my birthday, Christmas, or another holiday.
Halloween was especially anxiety provoking. What better time to gain entrance to someone’s house than on a holiday when it was standard procedure to open the door for strangers in disguise? Still, Mom did her best to give me the normal Halloween experience. She let me dress up and go out trick-or-treating. And because I didn’t want ours to be the one house on the block that didn’t hand out candy, for a couple of years, against Mom’s better judgment, we did just that. The year we handed out candy with a gun hidden in the candy bowl forced us to admit there were some experiences I just didn’t need to have.
There were still plenty of other outlets for enjoying a typical childhood in spite of my atypical circumstances. I played basketball and volleyball. I was a cheerleader. I took piano lessons. When Mom was home, she never missed a game or a recital, and when she was on the road, Bob and Lori took her place on the sidelines. They were extremely social, and we spent Friday nights at home surrounded by friends. We played cards or board games or just sat around laughing into the wee hours. They didn’t treat me like a child, which I appreciated.
For several years I’d had occasional headaches, but by the time I was twelve or thirteen, they started striking more regularly and intensified into full-blown migraines. I spent many of those Friday nights lying on the couch in the dark, enjoying the distant sounds of Bob and Lori’s merriment and drifting in and out of sleep, willing the throbbing and the nausea to subside.
When Mom came home, film crews often followed her, doing pieces on us or on the abduction cases Mom was working to solve. Typically, journalists coming from great distances used a local production company rather than bringing an entire crew. That is how Mom and I came to know Bob Bishop of Future Media Corporation. A master at putting people at ease, helping them open up and speak freely, he was one of the few people who could actually get me to talk on camera when I was young. Although I remained shy, I offered up more for Bob than I did for most.
He asked me once how I felt about my dad. It was a question I had fielded many times over the years, and I struggled to find ways to convey my feelings. In my experience, journalists often walked into interviews with their story already mentally written. In their versions I was bitter and angry, and hatred for him ruled my life. Bob knew me well enough to prod for a deeper explanation, and I knew him well enough to give it.
“I don’t hate him,” I said matter-of-factly. “I have forgiven him for what he did to us in Iran, but I don’t think of him as my dad anymore.”
“Do you sometimes feel as if you are missing out on something because you don’t have a dad who’s an active part of your life?”
“It is his loss, not mine. ‘If you abuse a privilege, you lose the privilege,’ ” I said, quoting the sage wisdom of my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Voeltz. “Having a family is a privilege, not a right. My father abused that privilege—literally—and so he lost it. It’s as simple as that.”
“Would you like to see him again someday?”
“No. I’m not holding a grudge, but that doesn’t mean I have to expose myself to any more of his abuse.”
“Do you think your father loves you, that he misses you? Do you think he’s suffering because you’re not part of his life?”
“Yes, and he has only himself to blame.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“I don’t feel sorry for him. He had his chance, and he blew it. Now we’ve all got to live with the consequences of the decisions he made. I’ve moved on. I hope he has, too, and that he’ll leave me alone to live in peace. I hope his life is so full that he doesn’t have time to think about missing me or coming to take me back.”
My teachers helped me cope in ways they didn’t even intend. There’s no way Mr. Voeltz could have known that his oft-repeated warning, “If you abuse a privilege, you’ll lose the privilege,” would help me make sense of my complex family dynamics. He had used the phrase in reference to recess or to the privilege of spending a few minutes in the afternoon playing board games. He’d been eager to treat us to an afternoon of chess and checkers, but first we’d had to earn the privilege. Later, I’d decided Mr. Voeltz’s lesson applied to more than just recess and board games. Perhaps it was Bob’s questioning that helped bring the pieces of the puzzle together in my mind.
In the early 1990s, when Maria Shriver came to our house to interview us for Dateline, Bob did part of the filming. He had become interested in the work of One World: For Children and closely followed the progress on international abduction cases. My friends were giddy because Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, who was also a real live Kennedy, was coming to our house. Mom appreciated the opportunity to further the cause. And I was happy because my friend Bob would be doing the filming.
Other families whose lives had been impacted by abduction also participated in the interview. When we wrapped up after an extremely long day of filming, Mom invited Marian, one of the mothers, to spend the night. Mom had been actively working Marian’s case for many months.
A few years earlier, while Marian was out of town on business, her husband had
kidnapped their two children from their home in Michigan and taken them to his home country of Iraq. Weeks later, war broke out in Iraq. The governments of both nations, which had initially been poised to find a diplomatic solution to the kidnappings, found their attention turned to the more pressing issues of the military conflict. Eight-year-old Adam and four-year-old Adora were left on the sidelines with little hope of rescue.
Months turned into years, carrying both mother and children on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Each time it seemed there was a glimmer of hope, things would fall through yet again. Marian even filed for a visa to enter Iraq. She was willing to risk being held hostage by her husband, imprisoned, or even killed for a chance to see her son and daughter. Her heart was absolutely shattered when her request was denied.
The night of the Maria Shriver interview, while Marian was staying at our house, the call came from the US State Department that her husband had taken their son to Amman, Jordan, and from there was requesting a visa to come to America. The State Department, after consulting with Mom and Marian, agreed to issue him a visa on the condition that he return with the children.
Immediately, everything that didn’t directly relate to saving Adam and Adora became of secondary importance. Marian’s husband was ambushed at the airport in Flint, Michigan, by a representative of the sheriff’s department, who served him with a court order giving Marian custody. Unfortunately, he came only with Adam, not Adora. The Dateline film crew was there to capture the heart-wrenching reunion. Adam sobbed with joy as he embraced his grandparents, his aunts and uncles and cousins, and his mom. But Adora’s absence made the moment bittersweet.
Marian had asked the court to issue an arrest warrant so that her husband could be held for kidnapping their children. But the judge’s hands were tied. No law existed on which he could base such a warrant. A gaping hole remained in the justice system. And poor Adora remained in Iraq.
These cases were personal to us. The children who were stolen from their homes were real to us. We saw their pictures, we knew their names, we listened to their stories, we wept with their left-behind parents. I understood why Mom couldn’t rest knowing that there were still so many young people waiting to be rescued. Adora became a painful symbol to us of all the children around the world suffering this senseless, unrecognized crime. And so Mom was spurred on in her mission.
This was widespread work, and it brought with it widespread opportunities. Mom’s life was dedicated to a cause much broader than the quiet life I dreamed of living. It wasn’t that I didn’t wholeheartedly agree with the importance of the issue. I did and I also needed the structure a stable home environment could provide. There were few things more inherently threatening to me in those days than the threat of losing my home—my haven, my symbol of structure, security, family, comfort, all things familiar.
This is one of the rare areas where Mom and I struggled to come to an agreement. The root of the issue was that the concept of home meant something different to each of us.
For Mom, coming back to the United States from Iran meant returning to freedom. She has said repeatedly over the years that she could have lived in Iran if she hadn’t been a prisoner. So once our freedom was restored, it wasn’t so important to her where we lived. We were free to go where we wanted, do what we wanted, spend time with whomever we wanted. Where we lived was inconsequential, so moving around as the opportunities presented themselves made perfect sense—to her.
“Mahtob, if we move the One World: For Children office to the Washington, DC, area, and work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, think of all the families that could be helped and all the kidnapped children that could be rescued.”
“No, our family is here. We fought to escape so we could come back to them. My friends are here. My school is here. I’m not leaving.”
My ability to express my objections grew with age and, by the grace of God, Mom passed up many opportunities so that I could stay in my home and more importantly, my school.
In September 1992, shortly after my thirteenth birthday, my friends Cathie, Angie, Jamie, and I were preparing to go to our first high school football game. The “fearsome foursome,” as we had been dubbed by our fourth grade teacher, Mr. Milbrath, were sleeping over at my house. We had rushed home from school to begin our primping. My bedroom was filled with the giddiness of young girls about to get their first taste of the high school experiences that awaited them. We curled our bangs amid cough-inducing clouds of aerosol hairspray and spackled our faces with blush, eye shadow, and lip gloss. My bedroom floor was littered with mounds of clothes that had been rejected in our quest to find just the right outfits for the occasion.
Minutes before kickoff, we pried ourselves away from the mirror and raced to put on shoes and load our purses with all the essentials—cash for our tickets, lip gloss, bubble gum—the important things. Just then Mom, who had been in Alpena and wasn’t expected back until late that evening, burst through the door in a frenzy. She had found the perfect house, she informed me, and we were moving. I needed to pack a bag right away because she was taking me to see it.
I don’t know if she wasn’t aware of my plans for the evening or if she just didn’t comprehend how important they were to me, but her sudden announcement was not well received.
There had been a time when I would have been thrilled at the possibility of moving back to Alpena. At thirteen, it was the last thing I wanted to do. Alpena was a four-hour drive away—too great a distance to put between my friends and me. Leaving Salem at the end of eighth grade was inevitable but there was no way I was going to lose my school, my friends, my church, my home, and my town simultaneously.
“You can do whatever you want, but there is no way I’m moving to Alpena,” I sassed, “and right now I’m going to a football game. You can’t just waltz in here and change my life like that with no warning.”
“Fine, go to the game,” she shot back. “Then come home and pack a bag. We’ll leave in the morning.”
“I am not moving to Alpena.”
“We won’t move until you graduate from Salem. After that, there’s nothing holding us here.”
“This is my home. I’m not moving!” I shouted. “You’re gone all the time anyway. What difference does it make to you where we live? You’re never around. I’m the one that’s here.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
I don’t remember the game. All I remember is the immense sadness and frustration I felt at the unfairness of the situation.
The next morning, as we made the long drive to Alpena, I sat silently with my arms folded across my chest in protest. The house was even more beautiful in reality than in Mom’s description. Built on the banks of Lake Huron, it was a stately mansion. But despite its grandeur, I remained steadfast in my determination to hold on to the home I knew. Underestimating my stubbornness, Mom bought the house despite my insistence that I would never live there.
The debate continued. Pushed beyond the point of frustration after one particularly infuriating argument, I stormed into my bedroom and kicked my door to shut it. Missing, I caught the end of the door with my toes. There was a loud crack, to which I paid no heed. In my fury I kicked the door again, this time slamming it shut with a decisive crash. I hobbled to my stereo and turned it up full blast to drown out Mom’s pleas for me to open the locked door and talk to her. My foot throbbed, my head ached.
My toes swelled and turned black and blue, but in my pride, I refused to show any sign of weakness. I did not limp. I did not complain. I never once mentioned my injury. Each painful step served only to feed my stubborn will to avoid another move. It was only years later, when I had X-rays for some other reason, that we discovered more than my heart was broken that night.
CHAPTER 18
Mom’s work continued despite the opportunities she passed up on my behalf, and the world took notice. In the Netherlands she was awarded the Prize of the Public. In Germany she was named Woman of the Year.
She was presented with an honorary degree from Alma College, a private school in the town of her birth. We were both recipients of the America’s Freedom Award, and in 1992 we learned that the president of France would be presenting Mom with the prestigious gold medal of the City of Paris.
Mom was on tour in Europe at the time, so she asked Bob Bishop, our videographer friend and the unofficial One World: For Children historian, to accompany me to meet her in Paris for the honor. Mom’s French publishers would be there. Her literary agent, Michael Carlisle, was flying in from New York. Best of all, Mom’s German editor, Anja Kleinlein, would be there.
The anticipation of going to a palace and meeting the president was nice, but it paled in comparison to the joy of seeing Anja again. I loved Anja. She was wild and exuberant, with a gift for turning life into a party. Whenever we sat down to eat, we would say grace and then, motioning for everyone to clasp hands with those beside them, Anja would lead us in unison to say, “Guten Appetit. En-joy-your-meal!” Our hands would rise and fall with each slowly articulated syllable. Inevitably we dissolved into laughter.
With Anja, we ate languidly and with great merriment. She ended each meal by reapplying her signature coral Christian Dior lipstick and ever so gracefully drawing on a cigarette. She credited old Hollywood movies with teaching her to smoke cigarettes so glamorously. Although Mom and I jokingly referred to her as the Schnapsdrossel—the Schnapps drinker—when I thought of Anja, I thought of champagne. It was with her that I would drink my first champagne in the stately lounge of Munich’s Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten.
My Name Is Mahtob: The Story That Began the Global Phenomenon Not Without My Daughter Continues Page 13
