My Name Is Mahtob: The Story That Began the Global Phenomenon Not Without My Daughter Continues

by Mahtob Mahmoody

  I vowed never to open my mouth in class again. My resolve to keep my mouth shut was seriously tested, however, in a sociology class where the professor asserted that one person cannot make a difference in society. She said the world is full of injustice and we, as members of society, have to accept that because society is more powerful than the individual.

  I thought I had misunderstood her. How could she possibly believe that? And why did no one else in the room seem the least bit alarmed that she had stood before us in a position of authority and uttered such nonsense? I sat listening in disbelief, wanting so badly to stand up and tell everyone that she was wrong, that one person could make a difference. My mom was proof of that.

  When Mom was told by the courts that in order to get a divorce she would have to serve notice to my dad, thus alerting him to where we were, she didn’t just say, “Oh, okay. I guess there’s nothing I can do.” No. She threw herself headlong into a battle to reform our legal system to make it possible for her and others to get a divorce in a way that upholds due process and yet offers protection to those who need it. She spoke out about the injustice and garnered support from citizens and politicians alike.

  Together they lobbied, working within the system to change the system. And the wheels of democracy turned. Michigan became the first state in the nation to allow someone to file for divorce in a county other than their county of residence. Five and a half years after our escape, she was able to obtain a divorce in a way that respected my father’s right to defend himself in court and still afforded us protection. One person can make a difference.

  Mom didn’t stop there. There was a federal law that rendered it a crime for a parent to kidnap a child over state lines, but that law did not apply to international borders. Legally speaking, wrongful retention constitutes kidnapping. Had my father held us in Kansas, he would have committed a crime. But he didn’t hold us hostage in Kansas, he held us hostage in Iran, and because of a loophole in the American legal system, he was considered an innocent man.

  At the same time Mom was lobbying for state reform, she lobbied for federal reform. In late 1993, more than seven and a half years after our escape, President Clinton signed a federal law forbidding international parental child abduction. One person can make a difference.

  By the time that class was over, I was livid. I stormed out and stomped all the way to the bus stop. By the time I got there, I had decided I had to say something. I sat on a bench, grabbed my notebook from my backpack and scribbled a heated essay on the value and social responsibility of an individual in society. My bus came and went, and I remained on the bench, clenching my pen so firmly my hand ached.

  After several pages of venting, I was finally able to breathe. I took the next bus back to my dorm and called Mom the minute I got in my room. “How could she say that?” I fumed. “And everyone just sat there soaking it up. What we need to be hearing is that we can make a difference in the world. A democracy is only effective if its citizens play an active role in defending against injustice. How could a public university in America tolerate such treason?”

  I was shouting, pacing around my dorm room, arms flying through the air in disgust. “It just doesn’t make any sense. What about Gandhi? What about Rosa Parks? What about Hitler, for crying out loud? His contribution was horrendous, but he still influenced society. Individuals influence society all the time.”

  “Don’t you think maybe she was saying something so outlandish just to elicit a response from the class? Maybe she was just trying to spark a conversation.”

  “If that’s what she was doing, she carried it too far. If you use an example like that, at some point you have to set the record straight when no one takes the bait.”

  Ever the voice of reason, Mom cautioned me to think before giving the professor my essay. “I’m not telling you not to do it. I’m just saying to think it through. Is this the way you want to fight this battle? You’re right; individuals do make a difference in the world. We both know that. And it’s good that you don’t blindly accept everything your professors teach you. When it comes time for your exam, you can write, ‘What you taught us is . . .’ That doesn’t mean you have to agree with it.

  “Maybe this class is just a means to an end. Maybe it’s better to just keep quiet, pass the class, and move on to the next one. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s worth it to you to speak your mind. If it is, you’ve got to be ready to live with the consequences. It may hurt your grade. Can you live with that?”

  She knew I couldn’t.

  “Whatever you do, remember you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

  She was right, of course. This wasn’t a crucial battle. I could try to prove my point, but what would that accomplish? I knew what I believed. That professor couldn’t change that. I didn’t need to convince anyone in that class that I was right. I would let my actions do the talking. I would stick to my convictions and live my life according to them. That’s how I would make a difference.

  CHAPTER 23

  From the time Not Without My Daughter was first published in 1987, Mom and I had received thousands of letters from people around the world. But the summer of 2000 marked the start of a new trend. Suddenly I began receiving e-mails from strangers. Their messages were the same as the lovely letters Mom and I had received for years. But receiving them on my personal computer, behind the secured walls of my home, my haven, was an unsettling turn of events for me. I tried to feel flattered, but instead the e-mails left me feeling threatened and harassed. These kindhearted gestures crossed some invisible boundary and were, to me, a disquieting invasion of privacy.

  Internet use then wasn’t what it is today. In my senior year of high school, a forward-thinking professor had taught our class how to perform an Internet search. It was a complicated, space-age discourse interwoven with terms like Boolean operators and keywords. My computer kept locking up, and my searches didn’t return pertinent information.

  I found the whole process cumbersome and immensely inefficient. So it was a completely alien experience when people I didn’t know started to locate me by untangling the invisible webs that I couldn’t wrap my head around, the ones that would supposedly one day connect the entire world.

  How had they found me? How did I know they were who they claimed to be? Mom and I hadn’t heard anything directly from my dad since he’d sent the message saying he wouldn’t allow me to be anything but Muslim. That had been nearly four years earlier, but we were still on guard.

  Was this just another of his ploys? How did I know he wasn’t posing as a well-wisher in order to gain access to me? Or maybe he had enlisted the help of these people to draw me into a dialogue. Even if he didn’t have anything to do with these intrusions, if these people could find me, so could he.

  I probably wouldn’t have found the e-mails so disconcerting if there hadn’t been so many at once. The first came on July 12, closely followed by messages on July 25, July 26, August 5, and August 19. Every few days, it seemed, yet another person was contacting me, telling me how much they admired Mom and me and wanting to know if I’d ever spoken with my dad again.

  I methodically analyzed each message for clues, acutely aware that there were too many unknown variables for me to crack the code. At the same time, I was plagued with guilt for not responding to the e-mails. If they were genuine, then these were gracious gestures from strangers who cared enough to reach out to me.

  But just as my resolve would begin to crumble and I was on the verge of hitting reply, I would get a message containing a thread of information I couldn’t recall sharing publicly, and my protective impulses would again take over. Two e-mails in a row congratulated me on my decision to become a doctor, but I couldn’t remember ever saying in an interview that I was pursuing premed studies. My instincts told me something was brewing, and I had learned over the years the importance of trusting my intuition.

  I had decided years earlier that I would never engage my father in conversation. I didn’t f
eel I owed him anything. Mr. Voeltz’s monotone wisdom still rang through my mind: “If you abuse a privilege, you lose the privilege.” Forgiving my father didn’t mean I had to subject myself to any more of his abuse. I also didn’t want to put him through any undue trauma. I reasoned that any word from me would feed his hope of rekindling our relationship, and I was entirely opposed to that. I also knew that nothing I had to say would be what my father wanted to hear. I feared that any communication on my part would only serve to enrage him, leading to disastrous results. Knowing firsthand how violent he became when he didn’t get his way, I was petrified of what he was capable of doing.

  I had spent most of my childhood just hours from Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit that was said to contain the highest concentration of Muslims outside the Muslim world. I didn’t know if that was true or not. I had never checked the numbers. I did know however, that every few years news would break of another honor killing right here in Michigan. There had even been an alleged honor killing in or around East Lansing about the time I started at MSU.

  I knew my father was trying to reach me, but I didn’t know his motives. Did he just want to talk or did he want to see me? Did he want to take me back to Iran? Did he want to restore the family’s “honor” by killing me for being Christian, for not wearing hijab, for wearing makeup, for listening to rock music, for reading books that weren’t approved by the Islamic Guidance Committee? If he was planning to kidnap me, had he paused to consider the implications for me? Taking me back to Iran would literally be a death sentence because I was a Christian born to a Muslim father. Even if he wasn’t interested in restoring the family’s honor, who’s to say the government wasn’t ready to do it for him?

  I hated being so cynical about the e-mails, but my dad posed a real and potent threat. As I grew older, Mom and I had slowly let down our guard at times, but that summer warning bells had begun to sound. I had a growing feeling that something was awry. The day after my twenty-first birthday, my suspicions were confirmed as I read the fateful words that flickered before me on my computer screen.

  It was a message from a Finnish film producer. While in Iran on business, he had met my father, who tearfully expressed a deep desire to see me.

  Wonderful, I thought, this is just what I need. Is this guy for real?

  The Finnish producer wrote that he had heard from “several sources” that I wanted to see my dad again.

  Really? Who are these sources—my dad and his evil henchmen? How about doing some research before interfering in my life?

  My stance had been unwavering. Any interview the producer could have watched would have revealed my position on reuniting with my father.

  This guy clearly has an agenda . . . my father’s agenda.

  The producer informed me that he was making a documentary about my father. He invited me to be a part of the project and, more specifically, to meet with my father.

  Fantastic! Now this guy, who is sympathetic to my dad and his mission to reunite with me, has my e-mail address, which means my dad has my e-mail address. What other contact information do they have? This is bad. This is very, very bad.

  My father had asked him to convey his birthday wishes to me.

  My father can save his birthday wishes. It is an apology that he needs to send.

  I ignored the e-mail. Nine days later, another e-mail arrived. It was identical to the last one, save the line about my birthday.

  The contact from the producer left me terrified, and I retreated from the world to the only dependable escape I knew—sleep. I slept entire weekends away, nestled under the covers in my childhood bedroom at Mom’s house. During the school week, back at my apartment in East Lansing, my waking hours were spent fleeing reality by reading. I immersed myself in my textbooks, and when there was no more studying to do, I read long novels. I was desperate to keep my mind so intensely absorbed that there were no free thoughts left for contemplation.

  Mom tried to talk with me about how I wanted to proceed, and I refused to answer, which she took to mean that maybe I wanted to see my father. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to deal with his harassment. I wanted everything and everyone to just leave me alone. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to be. All I wanted was to go to sleep and not wake up until this had all gone away.

  Finally one weekend, when I was at Mom’s house, curled up in a ball beneath my covers, Mom came in. Sitting on the edge of my bed, she spoke softly, “Mahtob, I know you don’t want to talk about this right now, but we need to send a response. We can’t put it off any longer, and I think it needs to come from you.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Do you want to see your dad? It’s okay with me if you do.”

  “I don’t,” I snapped, feeling numb. Since all this had begun, I had been in shock. Too stunned to cry, I shivered uncontrollably, even under the blankets. And though I was held down by the weight of their layers, I had the feeling that I was floating somewhere in the corner of the room, watching my world fall apart from a distance. The only emotion I felt was fear, laced with the fierce hatred I had become intimately acquainted with as a child.

  “Do you want to do an interview?”

  “No.” I didn’t like the sound of my voice. It was icy, bitter.

  “Then you need to tell them that.”

  “No. In all these years I haven’t given him any reason to hope for a reunion, and still he hasn’t given up. No matter what I say, he’s going to be angry. You know how he is. He doesn’t need to be provoked to explode. Any statement from me would only be a provocation. If I say I don’t want to do the interview, either he’ll see it as a good sign that I’ve opened the door of communication, or he’ll see it as a sign of disrespect and he’ll come after us. Either way, it’ll only make matters worse. I’m not adding fuel to this fire. Plus, you know how the media works. If I give a statement, they could twist and turn it to serve their agenda. I don’t trust anyone involved in any of this. I am not giving them a statement.”

  Realizing there was nothing she could say to convince me, Mom prepared a response from both of us. She returned to her seat on the edge of my bed and read it to me. “I still think it would be better coming from you.”

  “You can do what you want, but I am not saying anything.” I rolled over, turning my back to her.

  I held out an unrealistic hope that the extent of this intrusion would be limited to a few unsettling e-mails. Even then, I knew that was naive. Already Mom had been contacted by the State Department and cautioned. Several family friends had received similar requests for interviews. Even the judge who had issued my parents’ divorce had been approached. All indications pointed to this being an ugly and far-reaching campaign. Nevertheless, I hoped.

  CHAPTER 24

  In mid-October 2000, my worst fear became a reality. It happened on a gloriously crisp autumn afternoon.

  I loved autumn in Michigan. The earthy scent of fallen leaves, their crunch beneath my feet, the refreshing blast of air brushing against my face as I walked up the path to my apartment door—it was all wonderful. Even though fall heralded Michigan’s seemingly eternal winter, it was my favorite season . . . until spring hit, that is.

  My junior year at MSU, I shared a cozy two-bedroom apartment—my first—with three other girls. After six years in the dorms, four in high school and two in college, apartment living felt gloriously cosmopolitan. The facts that we were on the flight path to the airport and literally next to the expressway were inconsequential. I could gladly tune out the hustle and bustle of land and air traffic in exchange for the luxury of living in my first apartment.

  The moment I opened the door that October day, I was hit with an intense sense of foreboding. There on the wall directly in front of me was a sticky note that read, “Maht, call your mom. It’s important!” As I followed the curve of the stairs, my eyes landed on a second note: “Maht, your mom called.” Then there was a
third note, and a fourth . . . and a hundredth. Well, maybe there really weren’t that many, but to me it felt as if there were Post-Its everywhere, on nearly every wall, the refrigerator, even the bathroom mirror. By the time I added the note from the door of the bedroom I shared with Trish to the stack in my hand, I was absolutely certain disaster had struck. I had that feeling of panic that only seized me when the threat of my father reared its head.

  This was a feeling I knew well. It had gnawed at me most of my life. I could hide from it, pretend I wasn’t in danger, make believe I didn’t live every day of my life with the intense dread of my world being turned on end with the flip of a switch, but there was no escaping it. The threat of my dad lurked in every shadow.

  Flinging my backpack on my bed, I frantically tore through pockets in search of my phone. Not wanting to be one of “those people,” I had fought the cell-phone revolution with gusto. But with all the recent suspicious activity, Mom’s unceasing insistence that “a little bit of communication saves a lot of worry” had finally won me over.

  The trembling that came with my dad’s intrusion in my life always started deep in my core. Usually I was able to control it, hiding it from view, masking it behind a stoic smile. In that moment though, it seized my entire body. My hands shook so violently, my fingers struggled to grip the backpack’s zippers. My heart pounded in my ears.

  Slowly, purposefully, I forced myself to take deep breaths. Everything was going to be all right. There was no need to panic. Maybe it wasn’t my dad. Maybe I was overreacting. Where was the phone?

  Blindly I opened one compartment after another searching for it. Finally I reached for the small pocket on the front of the bag, the pocket where I always kept my phone. Why was that the last place I checked? That was where the phone belonged. Disoriented, I flipped the phone open and found numerous missed calls and voice-mail messages.