“These new sisters aren’t very nice.”
“No, not at all.”
Mr. Moosavi was distracted as we walked to his car.
When we cleared the gates, he asked me if I was feeling better, and I said I was. He said he and his family were doing better as well; God had given them strength, and Akram’s baby had been keeping them busy. Then, he took a deep breath and said he’d received information that Ali’s assassination had been an inside job. I couldn’t believe it.
“Hamehd?” I asked.
“Yes. He’s one of them, but it can’t be proven.”
I said Ali had told me that he had been having difficulties with Assadollah-eh Ladjevardi, and Mr. Moosavi said he believed Ladjevardi had ordered the assassination.
“Is there anything you can do to bring the ones responsible to justice?” I asked.
“No, as I said, nothing can be proven. Witnesses will never step forward.”
Mr. Moosavi had lost his only son, and the killers, who were his son’s colleagues, were going to walk away. This was terribly painful for him. I found it sadly ironic that Ali had died almost in the same way as the young men and women executed in Evin; members of the same firing squads who had killed Gita, Taraneh, and Sirus had pulled the trigger that had ended his life.
“There’s something else you need to know, Marina,” said Mr. Moosavi. “I’ve been trying to get you released and I haven’t been able to.”
“Why?”
“Because hard-liners, like Ladjevardi, who have a lot of influence in Evin, say you shouldn’t be allowed to return to your old way of life. They say such a move will jeopardize your faith in Islam. They say that you’re a martyr’s wife, that your husband was murdered by the Mojahedin and that you should be protected against the infidel and marry a good Muslim man as soon as possible.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I’d rather die,” I said.
He shook his head. “There’s no need to go that far, Marina. I promised my son I would get you home and I will. I’ll have to go and see the imam. I’m sure I can convince him to give the order for your release. Some people will be upset, and they’ll do their best to cause complications, so it could take longer than I had expected, but we’ll be fine. You have to be strong. I might not be able to bring Ali’s killers to justice, but I will protect you, because this is what he wanted me to do.”
“Will you take me to Ali’s grave?” I asked.
He promised he would.
“Marina, did you love him at all?” he suddenly asked.
I was surprised to hear this question. I had never expected him to be so open with me.
“He asked me not too long before he died if I hated him, and I told him I didn’t. I can’t say I loved him, no, but I cared about him,” I said.
I had never been to Ali’s parents’ house without him. Every few minutes, I had a very strong feeling that he would walk into the room.
After dinner, Ali’s mother told me she wanted to talk to me in private. We went to Akram’s old bedroom. She closed the door behind us, sat on the bed, and motioned me to sit next to her. She told me Mr. Moosavi was doing his best to get me home to my parents, and I told her I knew this.
“I know he’s told you, but I wanted to tell you myself,” she said. “It was Ali’s last wish for you to go home, and this means a great deal to us.”
She said she had never expected Ali to survive when he was arrested by SAVAK and taken to Evin before the revolution. She knew it was an honor to be the mother of a martyr, but she had been terrified. She had not wanted to lose her only son. When he went to the front, she had been afraid again, and she had been relieved when he had returned, believing he’d be safe in Tehran.
“But look what happened,” she sobbed. “The people he worked with stabbed him in the back. The people who were supposed to protect him. The ones he trusted. And nothing can be done. He survived the shah and the war to be killed like this. All we can do now is to honor his last wish. And we will, I promise you. And we know very well that Akram owes her baby to you. Little Ali is our miracle. He’s our hope.”
There was a knock on the door, and Akram came in with little Ali in her arms. He had grown since I had seen him at the hospital. He had big rosy cheeks and large dark eyes; he was beautiful. I held him and thought of my own baby. I was grateful that I had had a chance to hold my son, even if only in a dream.
A few days later, Mr. Moosavi took me to Behesht-eh Zahra cemetery, where Ali had been buried. Behesht-eh Zahra is located just south of Tehran, off the highway to Quom, a city famous for its religious Islamic schools. Akram had come with us. She sat in the backseat with me, and for the two hours of the journey, we held each other’s hands in silence. The road was a dark, clean line cutting the desert in half. It had rained the night before, but now the sky was clearing. I rested my head against the back of the seat and let the waves of shadow and light wash over me. I had lost friends and loved ones before, but Ali didn’t fit with them. He was unlike anyone else I had ever known. I couldn’t change what he had done to me or what had happened between us. He died when he had begun to pull away from the person he had been. So many innocents had lost their lives behind the walls of Evin and were buried in unmarked graves, and Ali was accountable for the terrible things that had happened there. But the truth was that he had died unjustly. The hard-liners who were responsible for his death had murdered him because he had become a threat to them, because he had tried to make things better, because he had tried to break free.
In the cemetery, my mind refused to focus. The world had become a jumble of unrelated images. I came to myself when Akram told me we had entered Golzar-eh Shohadah, the part of Behesht-eh Zahra dedicated to martyrs. It was almost noon, and although a cool, gentle breeze had begun to blow, the sun was hot, and I was sweating. There were small trees here and there, but as far as the eye could see, the earth was carpeted with marble and cement tombstones placed horizontally on top of graves. Tin stands with glass windows, small shrines to the dead, stood all around us. Most of the dead buried here had been killed in the war, and most of them had been very young when they died.
Mr. Moosavi and Akram finally stopped. We had arrived at Ali’s grave. His father dropped to his knees and put his hands on the white marble stone. His shoulders began to shake, and his tears fell onto the stone’s sparkling surface, seeping into the engraved letters that read:
Seyed Ali-eh Moosavi
Islam’s Brave Soldier
April 21, 1954, to September 26, 1983
Akram put her hands on her father’s shoulders and pulled her chador over her face.
Inside the tin stand that stood at the head of the grave, there were three pictures of Ali. In the first one he was eight or nine years old, standing with his right foot on a soccer ball, his hands on his hips; he smiled at the camera. In the second one, he was about sixteen and had a thin beard, looking very serious. In the third, he was as I had known him: a dark-haired man with a thick, trimmed beard, a rather large nose, and sad, intense dark eyes. A few artificial red roses were glued around the pictures, and on either side of the stand was a pot of red geraniums. Tears blinded me. I sat on the gravel-covered ground next to the grave and said tens of Hail Marys for him, for my husband, a Muslim man buried in Golzar-eh Shohadah, which means the flower garden of martyrs. I wanted him to have my forgiveness, and I knew that forgiveness didn’t come at once and complete, beautifully packaged and tied with red ribbon, but it came little by little. And my forgiving him wasn’t going to erase the pain he had caused me; this pain would remain with me as long as I lived, but my forgiveness would help me rise above the past and face all that had happened. I had to let him go so I could be free myself.
A few graves to our right, a small old woman with a hunched back scrubbed a marble tombstone with a yellow sponge dripping with soapy water. Then, from a bottle, she poured clean water over the tombstone and dried it with a white cloth. After the stone was spotless, she move
d to the next grave and followed the same ritual. A thin old man wearing a white shirt and black dress pants sat on the dirt in between the two graves and chanted something, moving his prayer beads between his fingers and watching the woman.
No one was ever going to wash Taraneh’s, Sirus’s, or Gita’s tombstones or build them tin shrines at the cemetery where friends, family, and strangers could stop, remember them, and offer a prayer. But I remembered them, and now that I had survived, I had to find a way to keep their memories alive. My life belonged to them more than it belonged to me.
I stood up, opened the glass window of Ali’s memorial stand, took my rosary out of my pocket, and left it there for him.
Akram looked at the rosary.
“What is that?” she asked.
“My prayer beads.”
“They’re beautiful. I’ve never seen prayer beads like these before.”
“They’re for praying to Mary.”
As we headed back to the car, I looked at the tombstones the old woman had cleaned so carefully. She and the old man were gone. One of the graves belonged to Reza Ahmadi and the other to Hassan-eh Ahmadi. They had been born on the same day and died on the same day; they were twins who had been killed at the front together.
I realized how accustomed to death I had become. And in my world, it happened to the young more than it did to the old.
After dropping Akram off at home, Mr. Moosavi took me back to Evin and told me he would do his best to get me home as soon as possible.
In late October, at a visitation, Sheida sent Kaveh home to her parents. He was about nineteen months old, an energetic, sweet toddler who had given us all a great deal of joy. He couldn’t pronounce my name and called me Aunt Manah. When Sheida came back from her visitation without him, she looked like she had lost her soul. She sat in a corner and rocked herself back and forth for hours until she finally fell asleep.
A few days later, I gave all of Taraneh’s belongings, which she had asked me to deliver to her parents, to a close friend whose eighteen-month sentence was close to completion. I was losing hope of ever going home.
On Christmas day of 1983, it snowed. Early in the morning, through the barred window of our room, I watched feathery flakes glide back and forth on the wind. Soon, the clotheslines and all the clothes hanging on them were frosted with white. When our time to use the yard came, most of the girls came back in immediately after collecting their laundry because it was too cold. Our rubber slippers didn’t offer much protection against the elements. I volunteered to bring in Bahar’s and Sarah’s clothes. It was colder than I had thought, but I liked the touch of snowflakes on my face. There was no one outside. I took off my socks and slippers and stood as motionless as possible. The white curves of winter took me in, covering me, filling the small spaces between my toes. Christmas day. The day Christ was born. A day of joy and celebration, of singing carols, eating big meals, and opening gifts. How could the world go on as if nothing had happened, as if so many lost lives had never existed?
After a while, my feet began to hurt, and then they went numb. I could see myself on the night of the executions when I was supposed to die, tied up to a pole, waiting for death. Evin had taken me away from home, from who I had been; it had taken me to a realm beyond fear; it had shown me more pain than any human being should ever endure. I had experienced loss before; I had grieved. But here, grief became a never-ending, raging body of darkness that kept its victims in a perpetual state of suffocation. How was one supposed to live after here?
I had to stop thinking. These thoughts would bring me nothing but despair. I had to believe I would go home one day.
About three months later, on the morning of March 26, 1984, the loudspeaker crackled and I heard my name announced.
“Marina Moradi-Bakht, come to the office.”
This could mean anything. They could let me go, put me in front of a firing squad—or Mr. Moosavi might have come to see me.
“Marina, you’re going home, I know it,” said Bahar.
“You can’t predict anything around here.”
“Marina, Bahar is right. This is it,” said Sheida.
Sarah embraced me, laughing, tears running down her face. “Marina, talk to my mother. Tell her I’m okay. Tell her I’ll come home one day,” she said.
“Go Marina! Run!” the girls cried, pushing me along the hallway.
I walked through the barred door and, before climbing the stairs to the office, looked back and saw the hands of my friends reaching out in between the bars, waving good-bye. I waved back. As soon as I stepped into the office, Sister Zeinab called the representative of room 6 over the loudspeaker, telling her to bring my belongings.
“You won,” Sister Zeinab said. “I never thought they’d let you go home so soon.”
“I’ve lost many friends, I’ve lost my husband, and I’ve lost my baby, and you think I’ve won?”
She looked down.
I was going home. Finally, I was going home.
Ali’s father, mother, Akram, and the baby were waiting for me in a small room at the gates. Mr. Moosavi smiled at me.
“Did I keep my promise to you?” he asked.
“Yes, you did. How did you manage to do it?”
“I talked to the imam. Ladjevardi had spoken against you, but I finally convinced the imam that it was the right thing to let you go.” He paused. “Will you remember me well?”
“Yes, I will. And how about you? How will you remember me?”
“As a strong and brave daughter,” he said, wiping away his tears. He told me to phone him if anything went wrong. He said he would hold all the money Ali had left for me in the bank for a year, in case I changed my mind and decided I wanted it after all. He had tried to make it easier for me, but he explained that I still wouldn’t be allowed to leave the country for a few years; this was the norm for people released from Evin.
I told Mr. Moosavi that Ali had promised me to help Sarah. I asked him to ask Mohammad to watch out for her, and he promised he would.
“I just have one piece of advice for you,” Mr. Moosavi said. “Don’t go visiting all your prison friends’ families. Maybe visiting one or two of them would be fine, but not more. Hamehd will be watching you, and if you give him the slightest reason to arrest you again, he will. And if this happens, I might not be able to help you. Stay home. Don’t attract any attention.”
“I’ll stay home.”
Mr. Moosavi offered to drive me to Luna Park, where my family would be waiting for me, but I thanked him for his kindness and said I preferred to walk. I needed some fresh air and some time to prepare myself to face my parents.
Luna Park, located about a mile and a half south of Evin, was an amusement park. The government had taken over a part of it for use as a base for shuttle buses for visitors to the prison. When a prisoner was being released, his or her family had to wait for their loved one at the park.
I stepped outside. It was the strangest feeling to know that I could simply walk home. I still didn’t dare be happy. A gust of wind heavy with cold droplets of rain whipped against me. Adjusting my black chador, I carefully made my way down the few steps that led to the quiet, narrow street. Then, I paused, looked up, and watched the clouds move with the strong wind, and for a moment, a small patch of pale-blue sky was revealed, breathtaking. Although pale, it was still lively and beautiful against the different shades of gray. My eyes followed the road, and a white car appeared around the corner. The driver, a middle-aged man, slowed and stared at me but continued on his path. My socks were soaked inside my rubber slippers, and my feet were freezing.
An armed guard stood on top of a lookout tower, watching the street.
“Brother, which way is it to Luna Park?” I called out to him, and he pointed down the road.
There were puddles everywhere. Delicate ripples spread across their surface, making reflections quiver, blend, and dissolve. There weren’t many pedestrians, but every once in a while, someone went by with qu
ick, steady steps. A black umbrella danced in the air, moving purposefully away from me. At a corner, a thin, old man wearing a ragged suit stood in front of a decaying clay wall. His bony hands were open in prayer in front of his face.
What was I going to tell my parents? That within the past two years, I had been tortured, nearly died, been married, widowed, and had lost a child? How could I possibly put it into words? And Andre…Did he still love me despite the gap in time that separated us?
I noticed a girl walking not too far ahead of me. She carried a large plastic bag similar to mine, and her rubber slippers were at least three sizes too big. Every few steps, she stopped and glanced back at the mountains. She didn’t seem to notice me. When she reached the highway and Luna Park came into view, although the pedestrian light was green, she didn’t cross the road. I stopped a few steps behind her. She stood by the pedestrian crossing and watched the traffic light change from green to red and back again. Cars sped by, came to a stop, and moved again.
“Why aren’t you crossing the road?” I asked. Startled, she turned around and stared at me through the rain. I smiled.
“I’m also going home from Evin. We can cross the road together,” I offered.
She smiled an uncertain smile. Holding hands, we crossed the highway. Her hand was even colder than mine.
As soon as we arrived at the gates of Luna Park, a revolutionary guard stopped us. He was cursing at the cold rain. He asked our names, took a wet piece of paper out of his pocket, checked it, and let us through. We looked around. Except for a few large booths at the back, the place looked like an empty parking lot with revolutionary guards protecting it. I couldn’t see any familiar faces, but my new friend ran toward a man and a woman who had just come in and were both crying. A few minutes later, I saw my parents. I ran, held them, and couldn’t let go. As we walked to the car, my mother began struggling with her umbrella, which refused to open.
“Maman, what are you doing?”
“This stupid umbrella is stuck.”
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