My Name Is Mahtob

by Mahtob Mahmoody

  I did, and to my surprise the bracelet expanded. Mom, wanting to be sure to avoid future standoffs, had gotten me a bracelet with a built-in safety mechanism. I could wear it without ever again having to worry about outgrowing it. With a simple push of the button, I could easily remove my new bangle whenever I was ready.

  CHAPTER 14

  My thoughts still on the woman I met on the plane to Atlanta, I page through my half-filled photo album. She was quite surprised to learn that I hadn’t read Not Without My Daughter or Mom’s second book For the Love of a Child. That seems to be the standard response. People who know our story assume I have read the books. But why would I read them? I lived them.

  I suppose if it wasn’t for Anja, I might have considered reading the books at some point, perhaps during my adolescence. But God is good and puts just the right people in our lives at just the right moments. He sent Anja Kleinlein to me as a child.

  Anja, the editor of Mom’s books in Germany, quickly became family to me. She had experienced life at its fullest and knew well the extremes of immense joy and abhorrent evil. Yet somehow she had managed to embrace joy—to bask in the sunshine instead of wallowing in the pain of the tragedy she had endured. As a loving grandmother would, she nuzzled me by her side and taught me her secrets of survival.

  With wisdom refined through the fires of life, Anja recognized that it would be important for me to keep my memories untarnished. And so at the age of just eight or nine, under Anja’s guidance, I made a conscious decision to not read Mom’s books.

  Side by side, Mom and I climbed the same mountains in Iran, literally and figuratively, but our experiences were immeasurably different and understandably so. After all, we were looking through vastly different lenses. I have no doubt that the memories in my head are my own. They are the pictures of my past captured through the lens of youth and understood first from a child’s perspective.

  Feeling a chill, I set the album beside the box and look for my favorite sweater, an oversized cream cardigan with oblong wooden buttons that belonged to my dad before we went to Iran. It hangs down to my knees and the sleeves are rolled and bulky, but there’s no better sweater for lounging at home. Spotting it in the closet, I part the sea of clothes, hangers squeaking along the metal bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse something shimmery and gray poking out from the shadows.

  It’s funny how something can be invisible, yet in plain sight. I don’t know when I last noticed the skirt that fell from Mom’s bag that night outside the flower shop in Iran. Why has it hung unworn in the back of my closet all these years? I run my fingers over its stitches, delicate and precise. It was handmade for Mom in Iran. I had one too. I wonder what my dad did with mine once he realized I wouldn’t be back to wear it. How long did it hang in my closet in his house?

  Looking at this skirt reminds me of the pivotal moment when Mom and I made the joint decision to escape. As a student of developmental psychology, I have learned that children typically become autonomous from their parents during adolescence. That is when they develop their sense of self—their identity, their individuality, their independence. That’s why teenagers rebel and test boundaries. That’s why they tend to cling to their friends and push away from their parents.

  From the start, however, my developmental milestones were destined to keep their own pace. Because of the hurricane, I was born a month early. Despite that, Mom says I learned to sit, roll over, walk, and even talk ahead of schedule. My parents invested a great deal of time and effort into parenting me. They—especially my dad—had high expectations for me, and at a young age, I learned to have even higher expectations for myself. To this day, I believe one of the worst things we can do to people is to have low expectations for them.

  Even when I was six years old, Mom appreciated my ability to comprehend the gravity of our situation and the implications of the decision to flee. As desperately as she longed to escape, she never would have left without me. And yet, regardless of her desperation, she had enough respect for me as an individual to let me choose if we would stay or go. It was not only the path of her life in the balance, but mine as well. She wouldn’t make such a far-reaching decision on my behalf without consulting me, even when there was no time for talking, even when delay could literally mean life or death for her.

  Had I said I wanted to go back to my dad, we would have gone back. If ever there was a moment that typifies our relationship, it is that one. I didn’t have to wait for adolescence to fight for autonomy. Mom gave it to me freely and generously a decade ahead of schedule.

  Cozy in my dad’s old sweater, I return to the open box in my sunroom. Sinking to the floor beside it, I gaze up at my haft sin. Everything on the table carrries a symbolic meaning. Sib and sir—apples and garlic—convey wishes for beauty and health. Serkeh—vinegar—symbolizes wisdom. Samanu, represented on my table by halva, a delicacy made of sesame-seed paste, honey, and pistachios, stands for the pleasant things life has to offer. And so on. Each item nestles in a gold-rimmed clear-glass saucer from a Persian tea set that belonged to my parents.

  On the haft sin, life and rebirth are represented by greens—sabzi. In my childhood home, the haft sin wasn’t complete without loads of spring flowers: cheerful yellow daffodils, fragrant hyacinths, and vibrant tulips with their powdery, pollen-coated stamens. As a child, I liked to collect the bright dust on my finger and swept it across my eyelid, creating my own eye shadow. The purple hyacinth on my table now fills the room with its sweet smell. That, to me, is the scent of No-ruz.

  Wheatgrass is another staple. Each spring Mom would retrieve the container of wheat berries from the pantry. The rest of the year we ate them in soups or other dishes, but at No-ruz they were for planting. Transferring a handful to a shallow bowl, she would cover them with warm water and let them soak overnight. The next day we would fill trays with dirt, scatter the tops with the rehydrated seeds, sprinkle on a bit more soil, and wait for them to grow.

  No-ruz is a time for making a fresh start, for leaving behind all the negativity of the previous year and moving forward with a blank slate. If you’ve wronged someone, No-ruz is the time to make amends. If you’ve been hurt by someone, No-ruz is the time to forgive.

  The first sprouts of wheat start to appear around day three. They grow so quickly, you can almost sit and watch it happen. First the seeds germinate and tiny roots begin to form. I like to use a clear container so I can watch the roots extend and intertwine to support the fresh green blades of grass. In a dish as shallow as an inch, wheatgrass can grow to be eight to ten inches tall, if not taller, a phenomenon that speaks to the importance of strong roots. Some of the blades sprout with such vigor that they carry a clump of dirt right up into the air and hold on to it for days. Looking closely, you may even catch a single gleaming droplet of water clinging to the grass.

  As the grass grows, you transfer any negativity you’re harboring from the previous year to the plant. At the end of the two weeks, tradition holds that you throw it into the river, and with it last year’s ill will. I’ve never actually tossed my plant into a river, but an emotional tug of war happens when I throw away a healthy, thriving plant that I’ve cared for.

  The symbolism is clear. We hold on to the things we nurture—all the more reason to choose the object of our tending wisely. A nursed grudge, if not released, can infect our lives and relationships for a lifetime.

  Throughout my life, Mom and I have enthusiastically shared No-ruz customs with our friends. I’ve even been known to take the practices into the workplace. One year I stocked our break room with all the necessary supplies and a flyer explaining the idea. My coworkers loved the concept that I called “sowing seeds of peace.” It was fun to walk down the hallways and see glasses of spring green growing on desks and windowsills.

  Like me, some weren’t ready to let their plants go at the end of the two weeks. When it was time for the “throw it in the river party,” my inbox was flooded with e-mails asking if the plants could be
kept. After all, it was raining that day, and it wouldn’t be fun to go outside in the rain. One coworker, not wanting to waste the life, took her wheat grass home and fed it to her turtle. Others gladly cut the ties, eager to rid themselves of the psychological burden. Forgiveness can be a tricky thing.

  As hard as I fought to hold on to my anger, to continue to hate my dad, the tugging of the good memories eventually found an inroad to my heart. No one is all good or all bad. The reality that my father would forever be a part of me was inescapable. A big part of making peace with myself was rediscovering the good in him and claiming that as my inheritance.

  The act of forgiving wasn’t like flipping a switch—forgiven . . . unforgiven . . . forgiven . . . unforgiven . . . forgiven. It was a gradual progression, a slow softening of the heart aided by the guidance of Mom and teachers like Mrs. Hatzung. I’m not sure exactly how or when I forgave my dad, but I do know why. Starting on my first day at Salem and continuing every single day I was there, I was taught the incredible redeeming power of love. Its mysteries were revealed to me not just in the lessons my teachers shared with me about God’s love for all people, but also in the unconditional love they modeled.

  Along the way, I was also taught about the destructive, lethal impact of hatred on our lives and, more importantly, on our souls. “Anyone who hates his brother,” the Bible says, “is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). Plain and simple, hatred is a sin—a sin that, like all sin, separates us from God and his forgiveness. Hatred is a cancer, and as I had seen cancer destroy my grandpa’s body and ultimately steal his life, I was blessed to have adults in my life who recognized that unless I was taught the dangers of this sin I harbored, it would destroy me and condemn me to an eternity in hell.

  My teachers gave me permission to forgive my father. Mom gave me permission to love him. That was one of the greatest gifts she gave me. While the rest of our family was quite vocal about their hatred for my father, Mom found a way to strike a gracious balance between being realistic and being complimentary. It wasn’t just with me that she spoke kindly of him; it was with everyone. This selfless act on her part had a lasting impact in my life—and not just mine. If not for her inexhaustible commitment to helping me heal, perhaps it would have been easier for her to linger in the darkness. But she couldn’t pull me out of my dark hole of hatred without first digging her own way out.

  Turning to the box at my side, I reach in like an archeologist on the brink of unearthing a relic from days of old, only to turn up a timeworn spiral-bound notebook. Opening its yellow cover, I discover the familiar writing of my former self. There are pages and pages of entries written in the sloppy penmanship of a child. In the space above the lines on the first page, words are scrawled in pencil: “By Amanda Smith.” Some of the massive letters curve down, while others curve up. Those three words alone take up almost the entire width of the paper.

  The first entry is dated September 2, 1988, two days before my ninth birthday. “I read that if you take your finger and meeger [measure] your arms that is how tall you are.” Regrettably my spelling has improved only marginally since the third grade. On September 28 I wrote, “I read about Woodsy Owl. He says not to pollute. He says if you go on a hike not to leav [leave] a tral [trail] of something but to draw on a rock.” That little tidbit of information I had filed away in the recesses of my mind, just in case I was ever kidnapped and had to leave clues for Mom to find me.

  On October 12 I wrote about the Statue of Liberty, “She stands for world peace,” a topic close to my heart. And November 30’s entry is most telling: “Today I read about She-Ra. I found out that she was wonce [once] kidnapped. She-Ra has tow [two] identities one is She-Ra and the other is Adora.” That was all I wrote on the issue, a matter-of-fact recounting of our similarities. She-Ra was my favorite cartoon character at the time. I even took on her superhero persona for Halloween. By then, it appears, I had come to terms with my dual selves. Touring with Mom, no doubt, played a vital role by giving me an outlet for releasing my original identity.

  As Not Without My Daughter flourished, Mom’s travels intensified. She and my teachers agreed that I could join her for some of the travel. Midyear trips in the fifth and seventh grades took me to Australia, and in third grade I traveled to Utah.

  Mrs. Tackebury, my third grade teacher, loved music and movement and regularly combined the two in our classroom. As a treat, she often led us in song with her ukulele or a tambourine, and on special occasions she dragged out the pogo sticks. She was also passionate about God’s grace. There wasn’t a day that she didn’t remind us of it. “Grace is God’s undeserved love for us sinners,” she would say, in awe that even though we’re sinful, God loved us enough to send his Son to redeem us. “We don’t do anything to earn it, and yet God gives it to us free and clear. That’s grace.”

  Her other passion was literacy. So it came as no surprise, when I went with Mom to Utah, that Mrs. Tackebury’s special assignment for me was to journal each day. Nearly a quarter of a century has washed away the memory of that trip, save for the evenings I spent sitting in a hotel room carefully chronicling the day’s adventures. The only thing I remember about what I wrote is that I wished my mommy wasn’t so tired all the time. Why couldn’t she be peppy like Mrs. Tackebury?

  When I returned to school, I turned in my stack of journal pages, and Mrs. Tackebury surprised me by binding them in wallpaper-wrapped cardboard and presenting me with my very first book.

  CHAPTER 15

  Though my trips during the school year were limited, I spent my summers at Mom’s side, traveling the world to promote her book, which had quickly become an international bestseller and had even been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. I loved seeing new places, meeting fascinating people, and experiencing their cultures and culinary delights.

  In London, around the age of nine, I encountered for the first time a black swan, a teenager wearing a dog collar around his neck with a Mohawk of lime-green spikes, and the thrill of creating wax rubbings at Westminster Abbey. That was a normal day for me. My life was eclectic to the extreme, and I thoroughly enjoyed drinking everything in.

  In each new city Mom and I ran the gamut of media experiences. Press junkets in Scandinavia were arranged for the sake of time. Mom and I sat in a hotel room and a revolving door of journalists appeared, each asking the same questions as the ones who had come before.

  Wanting me to be free to answer questions as I chose, Mom and I sometimes did our interviews separately, in adjacent rooms. Most of the reporters were very gracious, asking me silly questions to lighten the mood and put me at ease. I was still shy, but I didn’t mind doing the interviews, especially for print media, where my awkwardness was less likely to be apparent to the reader.

  Once, in Copenhagen, I encountered a journalist who made me immediately uneasy. He treated me like a five-year-old when I was nine and tried to get me to let down my guard. He started off with standard questions but it soon became clear that he had an agenda—to get me to tell him the real identity of the man who had helped us escape.

  Mom had taught me the art of tactfully choosing not to answer a question. Instead of revealing the name of our rescuer, I told the reporter why it was important to protect his identity. Again he asked who our helper was. I expounded on the methods we had used over the years to protect him. The reporter remained undeterred, certain that eventually I would reveal just enough for him to put the pieces together. Each time he asked, I deflected the question.

  I was relieved when we were interrupted for lunch. As soon as I saw Mom, I privately told her that I was done with interviews for the day.

  “Okay, you can be done. You never have to do interviews if you don’t want to. Did something happen?”

  “He wants me to tell him who helped us escape. I told him I won’t say, but he keeps asking me,” I fumed. “I won’t talk to him anymore.”

  Mom immediately informed the organizers that I would grant no more interviews that day and would spend the aftern
oon with her.

  Every night when the interviews had finished, representatives from the publishing company took us out for dinner. These were extravagant meals with an endless procession of courses. Even as a child I relished the opportunity to try new dishes. On our Scandinavian trip, though, my tolerance was tested to the extreme.

  Scandinavians are proud of their abundance of fresh seafood, and every entree we were served, it seemed to me, was raw. Actually, most of the fish was smoked, but in a way that left it looking and tasting uncooked to a young girl from the American Midwest. The one night we weren’t served fish, we were served steak tartare, which I found surprisingly delicious.

  On our last night in Sweden, the publicist complimented me on what a good sport I had been on the Scandinavian tour and said, “Tonight is all about you. We’ll go anywhere you want. What would you like to eat?”

  Typically I would have thanked her and said I’d gladly go anywhere she chose. But I had eaten my fill of “smoked” meat, and before I could stop myself, the words had slipped out. “I don’t care—as long as it’s cooked,” I said with a deep sigh.

  The innocence of my response was met with a belly-busting round of laughter. “Very well, then,” the publicist said once she could again speak, “We shall go for Swedish pancakes with lingonberry sauce. That, too, is a local specialty, and I promise you it will be cooked.”

  In London, I found the traditional afternoon tea most enchanting. It was all so dainty and refined—tiny cucumber sandwiches, elaborately decorated bites of cake, miniature fruit tarts, scones with clotted cream and jam. It was a grand experience. Mom and I sat in the hotel lobby, surrounded by colossal arrangements of flowers, sipping tea while a harpist filled the room with elegant classical music.

  In Paris, I was introduced to crepes, baguettes stuffed with brie and ham, and steaks accompanied by thin golden French fries served with the most delicious mustard. But nothing I ate in France or anywhere else in the world could compare with breakfast at Hôtel Balzac—croissants still hot from the oven, freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee for Mom, hot chocolate for me. My favorites were the croissants with a line of rich dark chocolate running through the center—pain au chocolat.