“My mother’s answer always was, ‘I’m not going anywhere. How can I move somewhere else with four girls.’ She said, ‘I’m going to stay here until my children and I are all killed.’
“It happened just as she predicted. I was ten then. Not even two months after my father’s death, my mother and my younger sister, who was six years old, were killed by the shelling. They went to buy bread and never came back. I was left with my two sisters. Mahboobeh my eldest sister was married before the war and had left for Andimeshk. When the war started she moved to Tehran with her husband and her child and stayed there. Of the three of us left, Fatima was two years older than I was and Razieh was four years older. Razieh was tall and sturdy like my mother. She looked like an eighteen-year-old, but she was younger.
“We had nobody in Ahwaz. My father had come from a tribe in the central area of Iran. I never could figure out which one. One day, two months after my mother’s death, Razieh came home with a soldier. His name was Morad. She said she was going to marry him. She got permission from one of my father’s co-workers, who was a close friend of my father’s and considered himself our guardian. After their marriage, Morad lived with us. Fatima and I were happy that we had a man watching over us. We had my father’s salary, so we weren’t in need. Two weeks after my sister’s marriage, Morad was sent back to the front lines. He said he would take my sister to to stay with his parents, who lived in a village between Shiraz and Behbehan, leaving Fatima and me all alone. When we asked what would happen to us, he said that we could go stay with our eldest sister in Tehran, but we hadn’t heard from her since she had moved away, and we didn’t even know where she lived.
“So instead, my sister and I went with Morad and Razieh. We lived with Morad’s parents for three years until he finished his military service. In the meantime, he came home several times on holidays, and he and Razieh had two children. Morad’s mother taught my sister and me to weave carpets, and we didn’t go to school anymore. Fatima was in grade seven and I was in grade four when we had to quit school. Morad received my father’s pension each month and told us he was using it for our expenses. Fatima and I sat behind a loom weaving carpets all day long and produced one or two rugs every month.
“One day when I woke up, Fatima wasn’t sleeping beside me like she always did. I thought she must have gone to the washroom. Then I found out that she had left. She had taken her clothing and all her belongings. Morad said, ‘She has gone of her own free will, let her go.’ Razieh was worried that she would go back to Ahwaz and claim our father’s pension, and that there would be no more left for me, but Morad assured her that Fatima was still a minor and therefore wouldn’t be able to transfer the pension.
“I never saw Fatima again,” Nadereh said bitterly.”
“What happened then?” Parvaneh asked.
“Time passed, and I became older and wiser. I told my sister that I wanted to go back to school. In the village where we lived there was a mixed school for boys and girls. My sister took me to the school, but they wouldn’t accept me. I was thirteen by then, and the principal said I was too old to be in an elementary school.
“Morad told me to wait a little longer, that he was planning to move the family to Shiraz. He was a teacher, and the following year he got a job. I moved to Shiraz with my sister and her family. Morad’s mother didn’t come with us. She said her home was in the village and she didn’t want to give up her land, but she was sad to lose me when we moved. She had never had a daughter. She never treated me badly, but she never let me waste my time for a single minute. I either sat at the loom weaving rugs or did the housework. Her fingers were disfigured because she was always weaving rugs, and she had constant pain in her knees and her back.
“In Shiraz, I registered in night school and wrote the final exam to pass grade five. I still hadn’t finished grade seven when I met Ehsan, who attended the night school too. It was the wintertime when we met. The days were short and it got dark early. He walked me home to my sister’s house after classes. We became friends and I told him my life story. His own story was more or less like mine, and we sympathized with each other. Originally, he had lived in Dezfoul, a city that was attacked by the Iraqis regularly during the war. He had been at school when a bomb fell on his house and killed his parents. His brother, who belonged to a political group, had also been killed in a street fight.
“Eventually, I fell in love with Ehsan. I wasn’t happy in my sister’s house. Like her mother-in-law, my sister wanted me to work for her. She, too, expected me to weave rugs. All day long I was either behind the loom, washing her children’s clothes, or doing the dishes. Morad treated me the same way. Both of them thought of me as their maid. I worked for them to earn my living, despite the fact that Morad still received my father’s pension.
“I told Ehsan, ‘Let’s run away and go to Tehran.’ Ehsan said, ‘You don’t even know me yet.’
“I said, ‘My sister didn’t know Morad, either, and now they are married and have two children. My other sister ran away from home and she probably has a husband and children by now too.’
“‘You’re only fourteen. You are still a child,’ Ehsan said.
‘Not fourteen,’ I said. ‘I’m almost fifteen. And Islamic law states that a girl can marry at nine years of age.’
“We planned everything in secret. On the last day of school, we got on a bus, and the next day around noon we were in Tehran. I had never been to Tehran before. Ehsan told me we were going to stay with one of his father’s friends for a few days and then find a place of our own. It was an old house with a small pond in the middle of the courtyard and tall sturdy trees full of leaves. Although Ehsan had told me the house belonged to his father’s friend, I never figured out who the owner of the house was. When we arrived, there was a middle-aged couple with no children, and at first I thought they were the owners. Then there were other people who came and stayed there for one or two nights at a time; they sometimes left late at night. After a couple of weeks, the couple left too, and they never came back. They didn’t say a thing when they were leaving. Then Ehsan told me we had to leave too. He said that, in order to rent a room, we should pretend we were brother and sister coming from the war zone. No one believed us though—we didn’t even look alike. I’m dark, as you can see, but Ehsan had a pale complexion and light hair with light brown eyes.
“We spent about a week sleeping under bridges or in deserted alleys. Then we went into the suburbs and found an empty hut that we made into a home for ourselves. I didn’t know where Ehsan got his money from. When I asked him once, he said that I would be better off not knowing about it. After a few weeks of living in our little house, I realized that he belonged to a dissident group. He gave me some pamphlets to read and explained his ideology to me—he was fighting for the working class. A few weeks later we became intimate and began to sleep together. I told him that we should be officially married. I didn’t want to do anything against my religion, and I thought that if we became husband and wife we wouldn’t have committed any sins. Ehsan said he had no birth certificate and his real name had to be kept secret; otherwise, he could be identified and he would be arrested, tortured, and executed. After he told me the truth about himself, he said that I would be better off not getting involved with him. Because I was still a minor, he told me, I could go back to school, finish my education, and get my high school diploma. But I insisted on staying with him. I had no other place to go, and, in my eyes, we were almost husband and wife.
“The next afternoon, we decided to seek out one of his distant relatives. They had heard what had happened to Ehsan’s parents and his brother. They felt sorry for him and welcomed him. When Ehsan said he wanted to marry me, they understood the position we were in and arranged for us to be married. The next night, Ehsan’s great uncle, who was a clergyman, performed a simple ceremony for us, and we became husband and wife. We stayed with them for three days and then returned to our hut in the south of Te
hran. Ehsan didn’t work, so I decided to look for work myself.
“We stayed in that hut for about three months, and then cold weather forced us to move into a room in a house in a suburb of Tehran; it was almost a village, I suppose. All the people coming and going were politically active.
“We had been married for five or six months when I realized that I was pregnant. Around this time, Ehsan disappeared. Twenty-four hours after he left, one of the men in the village told me that he had been recognized and could possibly have been arrested. Now I understood what being ‘recognized’ meant. He told me that I had better find a place to hide or go back to live with my family. He said that if they caught me, they would force me to confess everything I knew. I didn’t have anywhere to hide, and they came for me that very night. It was in prison that I found out Ehsan had been killed in the street, fighting.”
It was now past two o’clock and Parvaneh was very hungry. She had been concentrating on recording Nadereh’s story, but finally she asked her to stop for a break.
Taking a big sandwich from her purse, she gave half to Nadereh, then left the room with their two empty mugs and came back with two cups of tea. She devoured her sandwich and drank her tea slowly. She waited for Nadereh to finish hers, then asked, “What happened to make you decide to come to Canada? Did Ehsan’s group arrange to send you out of the country?”
“When I was released from prison, I didn’t know how to get in touch with anyone from the group, and I didn’t dare ask. I didn’t know anything about politics, either, but I had to get my life in order. I was in the last month of my pregnancy. I found my sister’s address and stayed there until I gave birth to my baby. Then…”
She suddenly started to cry.
“I think that’s enough for today,” Parvaneh said.
IT IS A TEN-MINUTE WALK FROM THE BUS STOP to Parvaneh’s place. The late afternoon sunshine angles through the leaves of the trees lining both sides of the street. The homes are comfortable, and the lawns are well tended. The air has a promise of colder weather to come, but for the moment the leaves on the tree in front of Parvaneh’s place are still green and strong and provide cool shade for the house.
Nadereh climbs the steps to the front door. The inner door and the screen door are closed but not locked. There are no sounds inside when she enters. A painting of a woman hangs in the hallway, and a plant’s tendrils climb up its frame. Leaving her shoes on feels odd—it is customary to remove them upon entering any Iranian home—but Mahan and Parvaneh are not fussy about this. She tries to ignore her discomfort as she makes her way into the living room, calling out a loud hello to announce her entry. Unexpectedly, she comes upon Mahan and Parvaneh, who spring apart, surprised at her interruption. Embarrassed, Mahan says hello and hastily retreats up the stairs.
“Sorry for disturbing you.”
“No problem,” Parvaneh says, fumbling to rebutton her blouse. Nadereh can see that Parvaneh’s breasts are uncovered and poking through the opening in her blouse.
Parvaneh invites Nadereh to sit down, hiding her discomfort by asking, “Would you like a tea or a coffee? We have both. Or a cold drink?”
Sitting down, Nadereh says, “No thanks. I’ll wait until the others arrive.”
“Ferdous is the only other guest coming, right?” Parvaneh says.
“Yes, though Goodarz said he might drop by later,” answers Nadereh.
Mahan returns. He has changed from shorts into jeans and a grey shirt with a white stripes. Having regained his composure, he takes a seat on the sofa.
“Sorry to have interrupted your moment of intimacy,” Nadereh says. “I seem to have a flair for bursting in on people in compromising situations.”
“You didn’t tell me whether you wanted tea or coffee. We have beer, too,” Parvaneh offers.
“I’ll have a beer, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, we have beer; where there is a man there’s always beer.”
Mahan goes to the kitchen and comes back with two bottles and a bowl of chips. He gives one of the beers to Nadereh. “What about me?” Parvaneh asks. “Did you forget about me?”
Taking a drink from the bottle, Nadereh looks over at Mahan and winks. “He could never forget you,” she says.
Mahan jumps up and says, “But sweetheart, you never drink beer.”
“I’m joking,” Parvaneh says. “It’s okay. I have to make tea, anyway.”
She gets up and starts for the kitchen.
“You sit down,” Mahan says. “It’s my turn to serve today.”
As he disappears into the kitchen, Nadereh takes another sip from her bottle, then reaches for the chips. Glancing around the room, she says, “This place looks different. It seems more spacious. Something’s missing.”
“I took the TV upstairs to mom’s room,” Parvaneh says. “She likes to watch TV in bed. Now whenever she comes to visit, we don’t have to move the TV. Also, Mahasti got badly attached to the TV and spent most of her time in front of it. I did too. You can get addicted to it. And the programs—you know how they are—they’re lousy! It’s better this way. Now we spend more quality time together. We even speak to one another.”
“What about the news?”
“We listen to the radio; it’s always on. The programs are much better and the news is too.”
“Good for you, living without a TV.”
“Believe me, today TV is more destructive than constructive, especially for Mahasti. It’s not easy to control what she absorbs.”
“Have you heard anything from your mother? It’s been more than a week since I’ve last seen her.”
“She’s fine. I spoke to her last night. She was asking about you.”
“Is she going to be here today?”
“No, I thought it would only tire her out.”
PARVANEH’S MOTHER SAT ON A STOOL in front of the washroom mirror with a cape over her shoulders. Nadereh stood behind her with a small brush in her hand. Dunking the brush into a bowl of colour, she applied it to a small section of Mother’s hair. The mirror reflected Mother’s tiny, fragile-looking countenance. Looking at the wrinkled face in the mirror, Nadereh saw a pensive sadness in Mother’s faraway look. Parvaneh’s mother made Nadereh think fondly of her own departed mother, and the chaotic life she herself had lived so far. Nadereh sometimes thought of Mother as a replacement for her own mother, even though she would never completely erase the memory of the woman who had held her lovingly in her arms as a child.
Nadereh was glad that Mother appreciated her affection. The sudden death of her own mother meant that she had never had a chance to experience this kind of relationship. As hard as she tried, she also could never remember herself or her sisters showing their mother love. As she thought about it more, she realized that the love she had for Parvaneh’s mother was mixed with a kind of sympathy, which was exactly what Mother wanted.
Nadereh was looking at Mother in the mirror. “Parvaneh looks more like you than your other daughters,” she said. “She has your height and eyes. Soraya and Farnaz probably resemble their father more.”
Mother looked back at Nadereh in the mirror, sighed, and said, “Yes, Soraya and Farnaz take after their father’s side of the family; they look like their older aunt. But Parvaneh is the same height as me. She’s always been upset because she’s short and slightly chubby, but her chubbiness isn’t my fault. As Mahan says, she should be careful about what she eats. Well, is it my fault she’s short? I got it from my parents, too.”
Nadereh smiled and said, “Is it important?”
“How do I know? When you get old, and dependent to your children, you will lose your real place in the family.
But your children love you and respect you.
“Oh … Nadereh, don’t open my wounds. Are you sure they love me? When we were still in Iran and I had something of my own and I had my place in the family, yes, t
hey loved me. I don’t know if you have read Father Goriot or not. Your mother is lucky she’s not alive to experience these times. I wouldn’t want to be like Father Goriot.”
“Who’s this Father Goriot anyway?”
“Father Goriot is the title of a book by Balzac. I read it when I was young. My father was a man of books, and he had all of Balzac’s books. Yes, Balzac was a French writer.”
Applying the last drop of colour to Mother’s hair, Nadereh asked, “How’s the story related to your life?”
Mother looked at Nadereh in the mirror and said, “It’s a story of an old man who divides his wealth among his three daughters. Before he divided his wealth, he was loved by his three daughters and each of them wanted him to live with them. But afterwards, when he had nothing left for himself and needed his daughters’ care, not one of them wanted anything to do with him. Now, it’s my story. I had a house in Iran and the pension of my late husband. I was financially independent from my children. Then I sold the house and gave the money to Parvaneh to immigrate with her husband. Now they have a good income, but she returns the money to her sisters and brother as their father’s inheritance. If I hadn’t sold the house, I would have a place to go back to. But now, here I am, unwanted, useless, and a burden. I’m not even useful to watch their children anymore; they don’t need me. The three of them all have big houses, but none of them wants me around. I don’t expect anything from Sohrab, with his wife, an American….”
“Wouldn’t you be uncomfortable living that way? Being dependent on them? You have your own home. When you have your own home, you can do as you wish.”
Mother sighed and said, “God bless the government of Canada, that gave me this small apartment with a low rent and a pension of my own. I also have some pension of my late husband in Iran, too. Thank God I don’t need them financially. Yes, as you say, I’m happy with the privacy I get, but do you call a mouse hole a home? I can’t invite all of them to visit me at once, now that Farnaz has a daughter-in-law and a grandchild and Soraya has a son-in-law. God save them, there is no way they could all fit in here. Neither could my friends. I’ve become a lonely old owl. If you didn’t come to see me, no one would; I don’t exist for my children and grandchildren.”
A Palace in Paradise Page 6