Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir (No Series)

by Nemat, Marina

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “It’s okay; I won’t hurt you,” he whispered.

  My eyes met the eyes of the girl tied to the pole next to mine.

  “God…” she screamed and closed her eyes.

  Ali dropped me in the front passenger seat of his car and slammed the door. I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t open. He jumped in the driver’s seat. Gathering all my strength, I began punching him, but he held me back with one hand. Guns fired as we sped away.

  I opened my eyes to a lightbulb shining over me. There was a gray ceiling. I tried to move but couldn’t feel my body. Ali sat in a corner, staring at me. We were in a small cell, and I was lying on the floor.

  I closed my eyes and wished he would go away, but when I opened my eyes a couple of minutes later, he was still sitting there. He shook his head and said that I had brought all this upon myself by being stubborn. He said he had gone to Ayatollah Khomeini, who was a close friend of his father’s, to have my sentence reduced from death to life in prison. The ayatollah had given the order to spare my life.

  I didn’t want the ayatollah to save me. I didn’t want anyone to save me. I wanted to die.

  “I’m going to get you something to eat now. You haven’t eaten for a long time,” he said without taking his eyes off me. But he didn’t move. Feeling the weight of his stare on my skin, I held the blanket covering me so tightly that my fingers began to hurt. He finally stood up. Every muscle in my body tightened.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

  “No.” I swallowed.

  “You don’t need to be.”

  The longing in his eyes was deep and real. My stomach hurt. I could feel a scream forming in my throat, but he turned around and left the cell. My body shook with every tear that streamed down my face. I hated him.

  Ali came back with a bowl of soup and sat next to me.

  “Please, don’t cry.”

  I couldn’t stop.

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll leave only if you promise to finish the soup. Do you promise?”

  I nodded again.

  He paused at the door and turned around, saying, “I’ll check on you later,” with a tired, heavy voice.

  What was going to happen to me? Why had he taken me away from the firing squad? I didn’t know.

  My last thought before I fell asleep was of Sarah. I hoped she was all right. All I could do was to pray for both of us and for Sirus and Gita and all my friends who had been arrested.

  It wasn’t too long ago when we were all in school, playing tag and hide-and-go-seek at recess. Now we were political prisoners.

  Five

  IATTENDED AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL with vine-covered red brick walls. This was during the time of the shah. My school was a ten-minute walk from home, so I walked there and back by myself. The old school building was originally a two-story mansion, and my friends had told me that the principal, Khanoom Mortazavi, who had gone to university abroad, had turned it into a school once she had returned to Iran. Although every classroom had tall windows, because of a few ancient maple trees that grew in the yard, it was always dark inside, and we usually had to turn on the lights in order to be able to see the blackboard. Every day, after the final bell, Sarah and I would step out of school and cross the street together, but then she would turn left and I would turn right. I would continue south on Rahzi Avenue and walk past the tall brick walls surrounding the Vatican embassy, past Ashna restaurant, which filled the air with the smell of aromatic rice and barbecued beef, and past a small lingerie store with a window displaying lacy, delicate nightgowns. Without my mother dragging me along and telling me to walk properly, I sometimes pretended to be a little white cloud drifting across the blue sky, a ballerina dancing in front of a large crowd, or a boat traveling down a magical river.

  As long as I wasn’t too late in getting home, I didn’t need to rush, but I always had to be careful not to upset my mother. If she had customers, I had to stay out of the beauty salon, and if she didn’t, I had to be very quiet, because she usually had a headache. I was clumsy, and I had to be careful not to break anything and not to make a mess while fixing myself a sandwich, and when pouring iced tea or Pepsi in a cup, I had to be careful not to spill my drink. My mother was short-tempered and beautiful. She had brown eyes, a perfect nose, full lips, and long legs and loved to wear dresses with open necklines to show off her smooth white skin. Every strand of her short dark hair was always obediently in place. If I made her angry, she would lock me on the balcony that was connected to my bedroom. My balcony was enclosed by bamboo shades leaning against two horizontal and a few vertical metal poles. From here, I would watch cars and pedestrians filling the street, vendors advertising their merchandise, and beggars begging. The paved four-lane street seethed with traffic during rush hours and the air smelled of exhaust fumes. On the other side of the street, Hassan Agha, the vendor who had only one arm, sold sour green plums in spring, peaches and apricots in summer, cooked red beets in autumn, and offered different kinds of cookies in winter. I loved the cooked beets; they slowly simmered in a shallow, large pan over the flames of a portable burner, and their sticky juices bubbled and steamed, making the air sweet. At the other corner of the intersection, an old blind man wearing a torn, dirty suit held his bony hands to the passersby and cried “Help me, for the love of God” from morning till night. In front of our apartment stood a fifteen-story office building with large, mirrored windows sparkling in the sun, reflecting the movement of the clouds. At night, the bright neon lights above stores came on and colored the darkness.

  One day, I decided that any punishment was better than being locked up on the balcony. I looked down; jumping was impossible. I could scream, but I didn’t want to make a scene and let the whole neighborhood know how my mother locked me on the balcony. Looking around, I fixed on the small plastic bag in which my mother kept her wooden clothespins. I looked down at the busy sidewalk again. If I dropped the clothespins on passersby, they wouldn’t get hurt, but they would want to find out what had fallen on their heads from the sky. Then I could tell them about the clothespins and beg them to ring the doorbell and ask my mother to let me inside. I knew that my mother would get angry, but I didn’t care; I couldn’t bear my solitary confinement any longer. It was winter and a cold wind had begun to blow. Soon, the sun disappeared behind the clouds, and snowflakes began landing on my face. Collecting all my courage, I grabbed one pin, and, leaning on the bamboo shades surrounding the balcony, held it over the sidewalk, took a deep breath, and dropped it. It didn’t land on anyone, just on the pavement. I tried again and succeeded. A middle-aged woman with long brown hair, stopped, touched her head, and looked around. Then, she bent forward, picked up the pin, and examined it. Finally, looking up, she looked straight into my eyes.

  “Little girl, what are you doing?” she asked, her face a deep red.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but my mother locked me up here on the balcony, and I want to go inside. It’s cold. Will you please ring the doorbell and ask my mother to let me in?”

  “I certainly will not! It’s none of my business how your mother punishes you. By the looks of it, you probably deserve it,” she said and walked away. But I wasn’t going to give up.

  Next time, the pin landed on the head of an older woman wearing a black chador, and she looked up right away.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, and I told her my story.

  She rang the doorbell. Soon my mother appeared on the other balcony, which was only a few feet away from mine, and looked down, asking, “Who is it?”

  As the woman told my mother what I had done and why, I watched my mother’s eyes darken with anger. After a minute, the door of my balcony opened. I hesitated.

  “Get in now,” my mother said between her teeth.

  I stepped into my bedroom.

  “You are a terrible child!” she said.

  I shive
red. I was expecting her to slap me, but instead, she turned around and walked away. “I’m leaving. I’m tired. I hate this life. I don’t want to ever see you again!”

  My stomach hurt. She couldn’t possibly leave, or could she? She sounded serious. What would I do without a mother? I ran after her and grabbed her skirt. She didn’t stop.

  “Please don’t leave! I’m sorry!” I begged, “I’ll go back on the balcony, and I’ll stay there without causing trouble. I promise.”

  Ignoring me, she walked to the kitchen, grabbed her purse, and walked toward the stairs. Panicked, I started crying, but she didn’t stop. I grasped one of her legs, but she continued down the stairs, dragging me along. The stairs were hard and cold against my skin. I begged her to stay. She finally stopped at the door.

  “If you want me to stay, go in your room, stay there, and don’t make a sound.”

  I stared at her.

  “Now!” she screamed, and I ran to my room.

  For awhile after that, every time my mother stepped out of the house to go to the store or to run an errand, I sat by the window and shook with fear. What if she never returned?

  I decided to stay out of my mother’s way, and the best way to achieve this was to stay in my room as long as possible. Every day, as soon as I arrived home from school, I tiptoed to the kitchen to see if my mother was there. If she wasn’t, I fixed myself a bologna sandwich, and if she was, I said a quick hello and then went to my room and waited for her to leave the kitchen. After eating, I stayed in my room, did my homework, and read the books I had borrowed from my school library. Most of these books were translations: Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, and Rapunzel. My school library was small, and soon I had read all its books not only once, but three or four times. A couple of times every night, my mother opened the door of my bedroom to see what I was doing and smiled when she found me reading. In a way, books had saved us both.

  One day, I gathered all my courage and asked my mother if she would buy me books, and she said she could buy me only one book a month because books were expensive and we couldn’t spend all our money on them. But one book a month wasn’t enough. A few days later, when my mother and I were walking home after visiting her father, I noticed a small bookstore. The sign read: Secondhand Books. I knew “secondhand” meant cheap, but I didn’t dare ask my mother to check it out.

  One week later, when my mother told me it was time for us to visit my grandfather, I told her I wasn’t feeling well, and she agreed to let me stay home. My father was at work. Not too long after Grandma’s death, he had closed down his dance studio and had found a job at a division of the Ministry of Arts and Culture, working with folklore dance groups. He liked his new job and sometimes traveled to different countries with the dancers, young men and women who represented Iran at different international events. As soon as my mother left the house, I ran to my parents’ bedroom and took my mother’s spare house keys from the drawer of her dresser. I had saved all my chocolate-milk money for a week and hoped it would be enough for a book.

  I ran to the secondhand bookstore. All day, the late-spring sun had shone on the black asphalt, creating quivering waves of heat, which rose into the air and pushed against me. When I arrived at the bookstore, drops of sweat were dripping down my forehead and into my eyes, making them burn. I wiped my face with my T-shirt, pushed open the glass door of the store, and stepped in. Once my eyes adjusted to the low level of light, I couldn’t believe what I saw. All around me, piles of books were stacked on bookshelves up to the ceiling, leaving only narrow tunnels that disappeared into darkness. I was surrounded by thousands of books. The air was heavy with the scent of paper, of stories and dreams that lived in written words.

  “Hello?” I called.

  There was no answer.

  “Hello?” I called again, a little louder this time.

  From the depths of one of the book tunnels, a man’s voice called, “How can I help you?” in a thick Armenian accent.

  I took a step back, calling, “Where are you?”

  Right in front of me, a gray shadow came into focus. I gasped.

  The shadow laughed.

  “I’m sorry, little girl. I didn’t mean to scare you. What do you want?”

  I had to remind myself to breathe.

  “I…I want to buy a book.”

  “What book?”

  I took all my money out of my pocket and showed the coins to the thin, old man standing in front of me.

  “I have this much money. Doesn’t matter what book, as long as it’s good.”

  He smiled and ran his fingers through his gray hair.

  “Why don’t you go to the bakery next door and buy yourself a few donuts instead?”

  “But I want a book. Isn’t this money enough?”

  “Young lady, the problem is that all my books are written in English. Do you speak English?”

  “I’m very good in English. In school, we study English for an hour every day. I’m in the third grade.”

  “Okay, let’s see what I can find for you,” he said with a sigh and disappeared behind the book mountains.

  I waited, wondering how he could possibly find anything in that mess, but he miraculously emerged from the dark clutter with a book.

  “Here you go,” he said, handing it to me. “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s a wonderful book and the first one of a series.”

  I examined it. It had a blue-gray cover in the center of which was the picture of a lion with a boy and a girl sitting on its back. The lion had leaped into the air. The book looked old but was in a reasonably good shape.

  “How much does it cost?”

  “Five tomans.”

  “But, I only have four!” I said, almost in tears.

  “Four will do.”

  I thanked him, ecstatic, and ran home.

  Three days later, I had read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe twice and had fallen in love with it. I wanted more. But only having two tomans saved, I wasn’t sure if the man at the bookstore was going to be generous again, and I was afraid to ask my mother for money, so I decided to sell my pencil box to my friend Sarah. At the beginning of the school year, Sarah had asked me where I had bought the box, and I had told her that my mother had bought it at the big department store at the intersection of Shah and Pahlavi Avenues. But when Sarah’s mother went to buy one like mine, they were sold out, and Sarah was very disappointed. It was a blue plastic box with a magnetic lock that clicked when you closed its lid. The next day, I caught up with Sarah on my way to school. She had large dark brown eyes, thick curly black hair that fell on her shoulders, and she owned a fancy watch, on the face of which was a picture of Cinderella with Prince Charming putting a glass slipper on her foot. Cinderella was sitting on a stool and had crossed one leg over the other, and her leg moved back and forth every second. Sarah’s mother had bought the watch for her when they were vacationing in England. I asked her if she still wanted my pencil box, and she said she did. I told her I was willing to sell it to her. She wanted to know why, sounding rather suspicious. So I told her about the bookstore. She agreed to give me five tomans if I also gave her my scented eraser. I accepted her condition.

  After school, it took Sarah and me less than five minutes to run to her house, which was on a narrow residential crescent where all houses had small yards and were surrounded by tall brick walls to provide privacy for the residents. I loved her street, because without cars, stores, vendors, and beggars, it was quiet. The air was filled with the mouthwatering fragrance of sautéed onions and garlic. One of the neighbors was probably making dinner. Sarah had a house key because both her parents worked and didn’t return home until later in the day. She opened the door, and we stepped in her yard. On our right, a small flower bed overflowed with the reds, greens, and purples of geraniums and pansies.

  I secretly wished to live in a house like Sar
ah’s. Her mother, who worked at the bank and always wore elegant suits and very high-heeled shiny black shoes, was a small, round woman with short black hair. She hugged me whenever I went for a visit, telling me how wonderful it was to have me over. Sarah’s father was an engineer and a big man, who always told funny jokes, laughed loudly, and recited beautiful old poems. Sarah’s only brother, Sirus, was twelve, three years older than Sarah and me, and, unlike the rest of his family, was very shy. Sarah’s house was always colored with noise and laughter.

  I gave Sarah the pencil box, and she gave me the money. Then I called my mother and told her that I was at Sarah’s to help her with homework. My mother didn’t mind. I thanked Sarah and ran to the bookstore to find it as dark, dusty, and mysterious as my first visit. Again, the old man emerged from the darkness.

  “Let me guess: you couldn’t understand a word, and now you want your money back,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  “No. I read it twice, and I loved it! I didn’t understand a few words, but I used my father’s dictionary. I’m here to buy the second book of the series. Do you have it? I sold my pencil box and my scented eraser to my friend, Sarah, so I have enough money this time.”

  The old man stared at me and didn’t move. My heart sank. Maybe he didn’t have the second book.

  “So, do you have it?”

  “Yes, I do. But…you don’t have to pay for it; you can borrow it if you promise to take good care of it and return it when you have read it. Twice.”

  I thought of my angel. Maybe he was pretending to be an old man. I looked into the old man’s eyes, and they seemed almost as dark, deep, and kind as the angel’s eyes. I looked at the book; it was Prince Caspian.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Marina. What’s your name?”

  “Albert,” he answered.

  Hmm. An angel named Albert.

  From that day on, I went to visit Albert and to borrow books from him at least once a week.