Stranger No More

by Annahita Parsan

  When the bus finally cleared the checkpoint, the soldiers had taken three passengers off. I watched them as they stood on the road. They looked terrified.

  The rest of our journey was quiet and uneventful. A little boy approached us at the bus stop and called us by name, and we followed him along several streets. Maku was even colder than Tabriz, and poorer too. There were no sidewalks and barely any traffic. He led us into a house that was darker, older, and damper than any I had been in. Inside, the Smuggler was waiting for us. He barely said a word to us. He just pointed us to our room and told us not to leave the house, make any noise, or remove the board that covered the window.

  We met his mother when she opened the door, holding a bucket for us to use as a toilet. She said that she would bring some food later on as well, but by the time she did I was asleep.

  The Smuggler visited early the next day. I asked if I could go for a walk, but he told me that it was too risky. “Someone will see you,” he said. “And it’s obvious you don’t belong here.”

  And so that was it. There was no lock on the door, and we were allowed to walk about the house, but there was nothing to see—only brown, unpainted walls and grimy windows that looked out onto the backs and sides of another house.

  The rest of the day crept by, the only distraction being the lamb and egg that his mother brought us late in the afternoon. When Roksana was awake I devoted myself to her, but when she slept all I could do was stare at the thin, threadbare carpet.

  Iranians can tell a lot about a house by looking at the carpet. In the west it is the art on the walls that reveal a person’s taste, but in Iran the best art is always right beneath your feet. The best carpets come from Isfahan; they are made with silk and can cost thousands of dollars. I remembered the carpet I had back at home, and the day that Daniel had peed on it.

  The memory caused me physical pain, not just from the sounds of his screams that I could hear again, but the fact that I missed my boy so much. I tried to remember the smell and the feel of his head as I held him close. I tried, but the memory was weak.

  The Smuggler visited every day, but he never had much to say. Most of the time Asghar talked with him about the plans for our escape. I stayed silent throughout, and the waiting continued.

  On the tenth day the Smuggler had some news for us. “We will leave tomorrow, but first you need some new shoes,” he said, looking at my canvas sneakers.

  “Why?” said Asghar.

  “Because those shoes are no good for walking in the mountains.”

  Asghar’s anger was quick, but I knew he was trying to control it. “Walking? You said we were going by bus.”

  The Smuggler just shrugged and pointed back at my shoes. “Like I said, those are no good, but I can buy you some walking boots. Give me some money, and I will do it today.”

  I didn’t have any money, but Asghar appeared to be deaf to the conversation. The only thing I could do was hand over my gold necklace.

  When he was gone Asghar and Firouz talked about the change in plan. Soon, though, they ran out of things to say. We all realized that we were powerless.

  I started to worry about my clothes. I had not even brought a coat with me, just a light vest. If it was too snowy for sneakers it was sure to be too cold for anything else I had to wear. I wondered about asking the Smuggler to buy me something warm to wear, but I had nothing left to sell.

  The evening we left, the Smuggler came with a couple of duffel bags and told us to swap them for our suitcases. He also gave us each a white sheet, but said nothing about why.

  It was just barely still light as we walked to his car. A man I’d never seen before drove us down the warren of muddy roads, the headlights weak in the gloom. It was only when we pulled out onto a main road that I saw them: the mountains. They towered above us, patches of dark against the sky, like giant storm clouds that had been wrestled all the way to the ground.

  The driver pointed the car out of the town, turned off his lights, and drove down an empty road that was lined with rocks. Soon the engine was straining as the car began the climb, and we quickly slowed to a halt. The road ahead of us ended in a pile of snow-capped boulders.

  “Now we walk,” said the Smuggler, opening his door and stamping his feet warm.

  The mountains seemed even bigger now that we were among them, rising up above us like impregnable castle walls. I stared, searching for a path, but I could see nothing but rock, snow, and darkness.

  “Where’s the path?” asked Asghar as the car arced away from us and sank into the darkness.

  The Smuggler waved his hand up at the sky. “Up there,” he said. He pulled his own white sheet out of his bag and arranged it over his head. His eyes peered out through specially cut holes, making him look like he was dressing up as a ghost to scare some children. “Put yours on,” he said, “and follow me.” He turned from us and took a step. His leg plunged knee-deep into the snow.

  I felt every bit like the ghost that I must have looked like. The mountain boots that had cost me my gold necklace were already soaked through, and every step was a battle of strength and concentration. I had already run out of both. I was exhausted and cold in a way I had never known before. I had nothing left within me.

  We had been walking less than an hour.

  Right from the start we moved in silence, our bodies swaying from side to side as we planted each foot in the snow. I had Roksana in my arms and had to take extra care, which meant I fell back behind the others. Asghar would stop and wait until I caught up, then haul me by the shoulder for a while, but in a few minutes I’d be at the back again, watching the three swaying white sheets disappear into the darkness ahead.

  The ground soon changed. The deep snow remained, but the ascent became so steep that it was impossible not to use your hands. Asghar took Roksana and carried her in one of the duffel bags, the zipper open just enough to make sure she got air. I scrambled and shivered behind as best I could, my numb fingers groping for safety among the sharp rocks.

  All the time we wore our sheets. Seeing the world through two tiny holes, hearing nothing but the sound of my own breathing, feeling nothing but the pain in my limbs and the warmth of my breath. It turned my thoughts inward. It was not long before I was wondering how long the journey would take and fearing how long I would be able to last.

  There was only one positive that I could hold onto—that Roksana had so far remained asleep. As long as she was not distressed, I knew that I would be able to keep going.

  I don’t know how many hours we walked at first, but at one point I looked up and saw that the Smuggler had stopped near a herd of goats. We waited at a distance and looked on as he went and spoke with the shepherd boy up ahead.

  The Smuggler returned with old cheese and bread, both of them so hard and dry they had lost all taste. Not that it mattered. I ate in silence while Roksana stirred in my arms and drank from the bottle of milk I had brought with me.

  I put Roksana back in her bag and looked at my shoes. My feet were so numb that I’d been hitting my shoes on rocks all the way up. The soles were falling off both of them. I ripped in half one of my chadors and wrapped it around my feet, hoping to hold the shoes together for a while more. As I finished, it was time to move on. It was almost a relief to get up and walk again, for in the few minutes that we had stopped I had felt my body temperature drop. With no gloves and no warm clothes, just jeans and my light jacket, the only hope I had of keeping warm was to keep moving.

  Between the moon and the snow, we were able to see the ground in front of us, though whenever we approached the top of a peak, it was hard to tell where the mountains stopped and the darkness began. Our route had us scrambling up the rock face on all fours one moment, then sliding down over loose rocks the next. Apart from the snow tracks we left ourselves there didn’t seem to be any real path that we were following. It was impossible to know how far we had come or how much farther there was to go. Everywhere looked the same, and once we had left the farmer�
�s hut behind, we’d seen no more sign of life at all. The longer we walked, the less I thought about how soon we’d be arriving in Turkey, and the more I thought about how I could survive long enough to make it.

  As the sun rose behind us, the Smuggler led us into a gap in the mountain. “We will sleep here,” he said, throwing his bag down. “When it’s night, we’ll walk again.”

  Though the sun rose and the air grew warmer, the fact that we were motionless allowed the cold to bite even deeper than it had the night before. The pain was deeper, as if every bone was ice and every finger was fire. The Smuggler slept, wrapped in his hat and gloves, his thick jacket and sweater, but I was too cold to sleep. Even wearing every item of clothing that I had brought with me didn’t help. All I could do was close my eyes, pull my knees in close, and rock from side to side.

  Soon after it fell dark and we started walking, Roksana began to cry. She had spent much of the day either asleep or feeding, but now, as we trekked our way through the mountains, it was getting harder to pacify her.

  After a few hours we stopped at another wooden shack, where we boiled snow and made up some more bottles with our powdered milk. Roksana settled a little, finally going back to sleep. With some more cheese and bread inside us, we pushed on.

  When she started crying again, Roksana was louder than ever. Her cries echoed off the mountainside, and the Smuggler made us all stop. “Make her quiet,” he hissed, his face inches from mine. “She’ll get us caught out here.”

  The best I could do as we stood there was hold her close and muffle the worst of her screams. But she was frozen, and nothing I could do would stop her. The Smuggler told us to start walking again, and before we started clambering over loose rocks and up steep slopes again, Asghar took her and put her back in the bag. Somehow she quieted a little. Slowly, inch by inch, we pressed on.

  It had become impossible to concentrate. My mind drifted like the snow that was blowing about the mountains. I thought about Daniel and remembered the sight of him waving outside my parents’ house as we drove away. I remembered Mohammad shouting about Khomeini into the dark night. I saw my father smoking his hookah, laughing as the dancing turned wild around him. And I remembered how loud I cried as I listened to the poppy song months after Mohammad died. Was this the future I was facing? When you die, I die, so very soon.

  The sound of Roksana’s crying brought me back. We had stopped, and Asghar had placed Roksana in her bag on a low rock. He was helping Firouz bandage up his shoes. The Smuggler, meanwhile, was standing over Roksana, reaching for the handle of the duffel, then turning away and walking down behind a rock. He disappeared, and with him Roksana’s voice grew fainter.

  I sprang to life. “Stop him, Asghar!” I shouted, running over to the rock. Beneath was a steep slope, and though I could not see the bottom, I could hear Roksana’s cries coming from below. I jumped forward, my legs keeping my balance for the first two strides, but soon giving way. I slipped and scraped down through the snow toward the figure I could see below.

  “Give me back my daughter!” I shouted as I reached the Smuggler. He was standing over the bag, his back to me. He turned. In his hand was a gun.

  “I’m going to kill her,” he said as Asghar and Firouz joined me. “It’ll be easier for all of us if I do.”

  “No!” Asghar and I both said at once. “We’ll keep her quiet,” I begged. “She won’t make any noise, I promise. Please, just give me back my daughter.”

  He waved the pistol back toward Roksana, who was still crying in the bag. “You can’t promise that. You can’t keep her quiet out here.” He paused. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a bottle. “I’ll let her live if you let me keep her asleep.”

  After a while—and two capfuls of the Smuggler’s medicine—Roksana’s crying calmed. Soon she was asleep, and our journey continued.

  We spent the next day in another cave. It was colder this time, and the bottles of milk we brought with us had all frozen. Though we tried to thaw them out by placing them next to our bodies, it was impossible to melt enough to satisfy Roksana. She had no choice but to go without once again.

  We walked through the third night, rested again the next day, and then walked through the fourth. At first I was always the quickest to reach Roksana whenever she awoke, but soon the cold and the exhaustion overtook me, slowing me down, dulling my senses. Whenever she stirred, the Smuggler was there, tipping cap after cap of the thick, smoky liquid into her mouth. All I could do was watch through the two tiny holes in my sheet. None of it felt real.

  We only stopped for a short time on the fifth day. At least, that’s how it seemed to me. I was glad at least that my toes and fingers had stopped hurting, but when I looked at them, both my hands and feet were black. The skin peeled off like it was wet paper.

  We were soon moving again, but by now my legs had failed. I lay on the ground to rest, and Asghar grabbed the neck of my jacket and hauled me over the snow. I remember thinking how odd it was that I was colder than I’d ever been, yet I didn’t feel scared. Death was close. I could feel it.

  The Smuggler stopped us at the top of a steep slope that led a long way down. “You two go that way,” he said to Asghar and me. “I have to take Firouz another way.”

  “Why?” I heard Asghar say.

  The Smuggler said something about us being in Turkey already and how we needed to split up to avoid getting caught by their border guards, but I was drifting again. I was grateful that I was finally still. All I wanted to do was sleep.

  I felt the earth start to move beneath me. I was falling, slowly at first, then quicker. I was out of control. My neck hurt, and so did my back. Somewhere nearby, I could hear Asghar cursing. I knew what this meant—that any second now he would hurt me with his fists—but I didn’t care so much.

  “He took the bag,” Asghar said, his face suddenly appearing large and loud in front of me. “The bag with the money, the papers, the jewelry. It’s all gone.”

  I sat up. We were at the bottom of a hollow, a small valley fenced in by steep sides. “Where are we?”

  “He tricked us. He said there was a road down here, but there’s nothing.”

  Asghar went and tried to scramble up one side of the valley, like a spider trapped in a jar.

  I wanted to check on Roksana and pulled myself over to where the bag was.

  The zipper was half open.

  Her skin was white, as white as the snow. But it was mottled too, strange patterns inked beneath her skin. I put my cheek to her mouth, but the air was cold. I felt her chest but there was no movement. I picked her up. So thin. So light.

  I fell back on the rocks, her body held to mine. There was nothing to her. No breath. No heat. No life.

  I opened my mouth and screamed.

  Asghar came and picked her up. He sobbed into her chest, the thick bundle of clothes swallowing his cries.

  But it was getting dark, and we had to move quickly if we were to find the materials we needed to build a fire and keep warm. He lay Roksana’s body beside me, gathered some sticks, and made a fire. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, as the little tower struggled to catch light. He blew and blew, sending great clouds of smoke into the air.

  Then I saw them. Asghar was still kneeling, blowing and blowing, and as the flames wrapped around the wood, I saw their eyes reflected in the light. I whispered to Asghar, and he stopped and stared.

  “Wolves,” he said. “They can smell her.”

  He got up and gathered stones, building first a base, then a small wall around the base. I protested when he took Roksana and placed her in the middle. He was building our daughter a grave. “They’ll eat her otherwise,” he said. I let go then.

  When the pile of rocks was complete, Asghar left. He was convinced there was a road nearby and wanted to find it.

  All I wanted to do was join my daughter.

  I tore at the rocks that covered her with the palms of my hands, my fingers no longer good for anything.
I pulled her out and held Roksana to me.

  I wanted to end it all. I rocked back and forth, howling from deep inside.

  I swung my head down upon the rocks with all the force that I could manage. A pain sharper than any Asghar had ever given me tore through my head, but still it was not enough. I could feel it, and I wanted to feel nothing.

  I hit my head on the rocks again, and again, wishing the end would come.

  When I could hit no more, I opened my lungs and shouted at God. “Where are you?” I knew he could not hear me, or if he could that he would not answer, but I called to him all the same. I only had one request of him—that he would end my suffering and take my life. That was all I wanted. Nothing more.

  I listened to the words echoing all around me. “Where are you?” I shouted again. Nothing but my own voice came back to me.

  I lay down.

  The wolves could have us both soon enough.

  “I found a road! We’ve got a way out!”

  I turned away from Asghar’s voice. It was dark, the fire had gone out, and the cold was deeper inside me than it had been at any point in the journey. But it seemed the wolves had left us behind.

  “Come on, Annahita, we’ve made it! I can pull you up. Let me take Roksana, and we’ll get out.”

  “You go without me,” I said. “Leave us here.”

  When he spoke again, there was something different about his voice. Instead of his usual anger and hatred, he was softer, quieter. “Please,” he said. “Let’s take her somewhere we can bury her properly.”

  I could just about stand, but my legs and hands were too weak to climb up out of the valley. Asghar found a long stick, which I held onto, and he dragged me up and onto the plateau beyond.

  We walked until we heard dogs barking. I looked up and saw their black fur standing out against the snow. “Sit down!” Asghar shouted to me as he sat and put his hands on top of his head. “Put your hands like this, or they’ll attack.”