The Daughter Who Walked Away

by Kimia Eslah

  Haseem and Taraneh smiled knowingly at each other as parents do when patience is abundant. Taraneh gave a small nod to indicate that she was content to continue their conversation at another time. Haseem kissed her cheek lightly and sat up at the edge of the bed.

  In a quiet and conspiratorial tone, Haseem leaned forward and asked Zaeem, “Is he okay?”

  Zaeem, who loved to conspire with his father, especially about his little brother, cast off his pose, stepped into the gap between Haseem’s legs, and huddled close to talk. With their foreheads pressed together and their gazes locked, the parent and child demonstrated a depth of intimacy that Taraneh had never experienced with her own parents. In the slight space between Haseem and Zaeem, there existed more trust, humility, and compassion than Taraneh had known in a lifetime of being a daughter.

  At the best of times, the closeness she observed every day between Haseem and their boys filled her with intense joy and gratitude. On the days when her will to live was an abstract concept, she regarded their bond achingly, and she dismissed her own role in the creation and continuation of their loving family dynamics. At those times, she perceived herself as an outsider, a fraud, a person pretending to believe in unconditional love.

  Most days, she was relieved that the boys had Haseem. She observed him, mimicked him, and often consulted him. Taraneh didn’t trust herself the way Haseem trusted her; she feared that narcissism dictated her actions unconsciously. She feared that she would place her own needs ahead of her children’s, as her parents had. She feared that she might delude herself about the damage caused by her selfishness, as her parents had. Haseem reassured her that she was a loving parent and Taraneh tried to believe him. It was the daily effort to believe in herself as a loving, mindful parent that depleted her energy and caused her to withdraw, craving the quiet mind brought on by sleep.

  “He’s okay,” Zaeem confided in his father, “but I think his shirt is caught on something and he can’t pull away.”

  “Okay, I’ll check in on him,” Haseem said as he headed across the small hallway to the boys’ room.

  Zaeem smiled at his mother briefly before leaping onto the bed next to her. Kicking his feet wildly at the sheets, he managed to bury himself under the covers. With a self-satisfied smile, Zaeem turned onto his side to face Taraneh. Immediately, Taraneh placed her hand on his nape and travelled the path to his bare shoulder before resting it in his hair. She loved to touch and smell her boys. At times, her desire to be close to them felt akin to hunger, an aching to consume them. Looking into Zaeem’s dark brown eyes and touching his short, curly locks, she could not conceive of a single flaw in his physicality.

  “Mom, why didn’t you come yesterday?” Zaeem asked.

  Having learned to answer minimally, Taraneh replied, “I was finishing chores.” Still wearing her neutral smile, Taraneh averted her gaze to his head of thick hair. “I think we need to get you into a shower today,” she suggested.

  “Do you wanna know what Baba-bozorg and Maman-bozorg gave me?” Zaeem asked her eagerly.

  Taraneh nodded and resigned herself to hearing the list. Excitedly, Zaeem jumped to a kneeling pose. With his fingers keeping count, he listed the toys that he and Ziyad had acquired. “And the best one’s a crossbow. They didn’t give one to Ziyad ’cause he’s too small, but I’m old enough. Daddy said I could play with it in the basement, if I’m careful. Is that okay, Mom?” Zaeem spoke rapidly and Taraneh barely understood his question.

  “Crossbow? Is that what you said?” Taraneh heard the concern in her voice, as did Zaeem.

  “It’s really safe, Mom. I promise. Wait, lemme show you.” He made to retrieve the toy.

  “Wait, wait.” Taraneh patted the bed to prompt his return. “How about after breakfast you and I go to the basement? You can show me then.”

  “It’s just in my room, Mom,” Zaeem insisted. “It’s really cool. You can see it now.”

  “Zaeem, I want to see it. Just not now.” Taraneh smiled to reassure him. “Can we just hang out? I haven’t seen you since yesterday and I miss you.”

  “Oh, okay.” Zaeem plopped back on the bed, slightly defeated, and rested his head on the pillow. He looked up at the ceiling momentarily before he turned over to stare into Taraneh’s face.

  “Mom, what’s pedarsag?” Zaeem asked with eyebrows furrowed.

  Taraneh chuckled and Zaeem smiled in response. He was uncertain about the cause of her amusement, but he enjoyed making his mother laugh.

  “Did you hear that at your grandparents’ house?” Taraneh asked.

  “Yeah. Baba-bozorg said it when I took a watermelon slice,” answered Zaeem. Proudly, he added, “It was the biggest slice. Bigger than my head.” His arms spread wide with exaggeration.

  “Ah, well. It’s not a word you want to say until you’re his age. It’s his way of saying that he thinks you’re very clever.” Taraneh smiled at her own memories of outsmarting or surprising her father and hearing the same response, jerk.

  “Why do I have to wait until I’m his age?” Zaeem frowned at his mother suspiciously.

  “Pedarsag can also be an insult, that’s why,” Taraneh explained. “When you’re older, you’ll be able to tell when it’s okay to say it.”

  “Mom, why do we visit them?” Zaeem continued to frown but averted his eyes.

  “They’re your grandparents. They love you. We visit them so you can spend time together. Get to know each other.” Taraneh recited her list with all of the conviction that she could muster.

  In her reflections while dishwashing, in her counselling sessions for post-traumatic stress, in her broken-hearted conversations with Haseem, she had arrived consistently at two conclusions: she was uncertain whether she wanted to have a relationship with her parents, and she was certain that she did not want to prevent her sons from having a relationship with them. Primarily, she believed that Zaeem and Ziyad benefited from exposure to their network of relations and family friends, even if visits were few and far between.

  Hidden under the surface of this progressive and benevolent approach to parenting was another reason: Taraneh remained doubtful about her account of the past; she wondered whether she misjudged her parents and whether she had caused her own childhood trauma. She feared that one day she would become aware of her misconceptions, and she didn’t want her boys to resent her for not knowing their grandparents. It seemed possible that Zaeem and Ziyad could develop meaningful and satisfying relationships with her parents, in spite of her failed attempt.

  “They don’t want to know me.” Zaeem glanced briefly at Taraneh and continued to frown at the ceiling.

  Taraneh brushed back the fringe of curls from his forehead. The reasons to visit had been scripted and memorized. The reasons why her parents were unable to sustain interest in their grandchildren was a work in progress.

  “What makes you think that?” Taraneh heard the quiver in her own voice and she hoped Zaeem did not.

  “They don’t want to play games. They talk over me. They don’t answer my questions. They just do their own stuff. The whole time,” Zaeem enumerated. With each reason, his expression darkened further.

  “I see. You want more of their attention than they’re giving,” Taraneh replied lovingly as her mind worked busily to compartmentalize her emotions.

  Her ability to parent on autopilot had switched on. She remained cognizant sufficiently to keep Zaeem talking, but she was no longer available emotionally. Her own childhood memories of being ignored and dismissed troubled her. She sought refuge by disassociating, and she hoped for Haseem’s prompt return.

  “Yeah.” Zaeem turned onto his side to face her. He wore a hopeful expression. “Like Jiddo.”

  Taraneh sighed. She’d had the same thought many times. Haseem’s father, whom the boys affectionately called Jiddo according to Lebanese custom, was the archetypal parent and grandparent, though Haseem c
ould easily list pet peeves in regards to his father. Widowed and recently retired, Ibrahim was a creature of habit who preferred ardent adherence to rules and routine. Despite his rigidity and much to Taraneh’s surprise, Ibrahim adjusted readily to accommodate his children and grandchildren. She observed that Ibrahim’s need to bond deeply surpassed his need for order.

  “I see. You want to feel close to Baba-bozorg and Maman-bozorg,” Taraneh paraphrased.

  “Yeah,” Zaeem said in a small voice, unsure where the conversation was headed.

  “I wish you felt closer to them, too,” Taraneh sympathized.

  Also, she wished Haseem would return and the conversation would end. Hearing Zaeem describe his yearning for a meaningful relationship with her parents scraped off the scab that had formed over her grieving heart. She would hemorrhage for hours, days, and possibly longer, until the consistent pressure of Haseem’s compassion and presence stemmed the flow and another scab formed.

  “Mom, were you close to your grandparents?”

  “Hm. I only had one.” Taraneh inhaled deeply to ease the ache in her chest. Without relief, she exhaled and added, “My grandmother. My mother’s mother. I don’t remember her, but I know she was kind.”

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  ONE MORNING in his fortieth year, Ali Rajavi did not wake up. He died at home in bed, just two months after the death of his parents. It was the winter of 1949. Batoul had completed her morning prayers in the sitting room and had returned to their family bedroom to find Ali still stretched out, even as the sun rose and lightened the cloudless skies of Shiraz. Batoul’s first thought was that Ali was fatigued from the accident he had suffered the previous day. A wall of loose bricks had collapsed on him while he and his crew of bricklayers worked on repairs to the foundation of the Pink Mosque. When he arrived home, Ali had complained to Batoul of a headache, and she had suggested he take rest immediately after dinner.

  It was Mojegan, their two-year-old daughter, whose actions made Batoul’s fear a certainty. With all the jubilance of her age, Mojegan jumped out of her sleep and squealed with surprise to find her father still on his mattress. Most mornings, Mojegan woke to a room empty of her brothers and parents, and she made her way into the courtyard to find them all busy with their morning chores and preparations for work and school.

  Before Batoul could stop her, Mojegan leapt the few feet from her side of the mattress onto her father, calling, “Bazee, bazee, play, play.” Unfazed by her father’s lack of movement, Mojegan continued to climb on him and demand his attention. When Ali did not stir, Batoul did not move. It was her eldest son who scooped up Mojegan. It was her second-eldest son who ran panicked to the homes of his older sisters, seeking their help.

  Batoul stood in place, arms heavy at her sides, and watched the slightest changes of light on the blanket covering Ali. Upon hearing her sons-in-law arrive in the courtyard, she fingered her prayer beads and prayed that Ali had died content.

  ***

  Mojegan was the youngest child in a proud and respectable home, where no one spoke of their successes or their failures. Proudest of them all was Batoul, a meticulous woman who had been married at nine years of age to Ali, a year older. Batoul’s pride lay in the measurable work she performed, though she never spoke about her efforts or their results for fear of attracting unwanted attention.

  It was 1953, the four-year anniversary of the death of her husband and both his parents. Batoul began her day before sunrise, as she used to do with her mother-in-law. In the darkness, she quietly left the bedroom that she and Mojegan shared. Six-year-old Mojegan was tucked in among the comforts of the wool-stuffed mattress and the blankets that Batoul had sewn when she and Ali had first shared a bed. Batoul walked along the outdoor hallway to her sons’ room. Silently and gently, she shook the feet of the two young men who slept in separate corners of the room.

  In the chilly atmosphere of the courtyard, wrapped in her brown wool chador, she performed her ablutions and cleansed herself for namaz, prayer. Before the sun rose over the mountain range to cast a pink glow over the arid plains and just as the muezzin’s call to prayer sounded over the domed rooftops, the public gardens, and the still-dark quadrants of Bazaar-e Vakil, Batoul knelt on her prayer rug in her courtyard, facing eastward. Her eyes closed as her heart opened to Allah. She could have cried from the relief she felt when she knelt on her rug. It was the relief of knowing that her prayers were heard by a great being, one who had the power to heal, to save, and to restore justice. On her prayer rug, she understood her work and her world: My duty is to take care of my family, and I trust that Allah will take care of me. Shifting prayer beads in her right hand, she recited the prayers she had memorized from the Quran. The holy book lay near her on her prayer rug, and she knew well its thin pages of scripture though she neither could read the Arabic script, nor could she read Farsi, the Persian script. Had her mother-in-law been literate, Batoul was certain she would have been taught to read. Instead, she had memorized her prayers and recited them five times each day since childhood.

  After she completed her final recitation, she noticed Akbar and Omar, her sons, also completing their prayers. The young men knelt toward the east, still in their rumpled night clothes with only their faces washed. Ali had taught them their prayers and they continued to lay their prayer rugs in the same place under the plum tree, leaving empty the place where Ali had once put his own rug between them. Mojegan lay asleep, spread out and occupying the whole of the mattress she shared with her mother. After prayer, Akbar, her eldest son, groomed and dressed for school; fifteen-year-old Omar returned immediately to sleep.

  In the kitchen, dimly lit by the dawn appearing over the courtyard walls and through the window, Batoul prepared the coal fire. She set the copper kettle to boil. She laid out a small sofra, a cotton tablecloth, on the carpet in the sitting room and placed on it walnuts, goat cheese, mint, and noon, flatbread, for her three children.

  Sitting on her wooden stool and facing out the small window of the kitchen, Batoul admired the perfect colour of the blue sky. She took her tea in the silence of her workspace and drank the short glass of hot amber liquid quickly before she set about checking her vats of apple cider vinegar.

  She expected Aga Tajehmiri to send a delivery boy in the early afternoon to pick up the vats, and she wanted to make sure that they were sealed and ready for transport. From the kitchen, she carried an oil lamp down the short flight of stone steps into the cool, dark cellar where she stored the forty vats. Nine years earlier, Ali had suggested installing an electric light down there, but Batoul had dismissed the idea for fear that it might affect the vinegar. She still preferred the cellar unadorned with wires and fixtures. Some things are best left unchanged, she thought.

  The fragrance of fermenting apples overwhelmed her senses, and she took a moment on the last step to clear her head before she set about her work. Batoul lifted lids and inhaled the scents to determine each vat’s progress, and as she worked she felt increasingly at peace. She did not allow the children to enter the cellar, partly because she feared they would spoil the vinegar and partly because it created a calm place where she could escape their exuberance. She confirmed that eight vats were mature, ready for sale. It was critical to seal them with wax early in the morning to ensure the seals hardened properly in time for the delivery boy’s arrival. The apple cider in the remaining vats required more time to ferment into vinegar.

  Knowing she had eight vats to sell reduced the tension Batoul felt about her diminishing income as a seamstress. Batoul would not admit to anyone, including her elder daughters and sons-in-law, that she struggled to purchase coal, rice, and cooking oil. Certainly, she did not have enough money to buy the school uniform and books which were required in a few months for Mojegan’s enrolment in first grade. Mojegan might not attend school now, or ever, Batoul thought. She might become Ali’s only child to not attend school.

 
; When she felt optimistic, Batoul imagined she would teach Mojegan all the homemaking skills she had wanted to teach her older daughters. Akram and Azadeh were now grown and married, with homes and children of their own. It seemed to Batoul that they had fared well in spite of being in school for nine years. Time will reveal the consequences of their years pondering esoterically, Batoul supposed.

  When she thought about Ali’s aspirations for their children, she felt a momentary pang of guilt for not putting Mojegan in primary school. Quickly, her guilt turned to indignation when she considered the distance between herself and her older daughters. To Batoul, this distance was the result of her daughters’ preoccupation with books and magazines and their presumptuous notions of efficiency. Batoul was pleased with the idea that Mojegan might follow in her footsteps, learning how to do with less and being content with what was at hand.

  It was possible to acquire the money for school books and uniforms, Batoul knew. She could ask Akram and Azadeh to pay Mojegan’s way, since their husbands were devoted family men who would be honoured to help their mother-in-law. She could ask her teenaged sons to contribute some of their income for Mojegan’s needs, since they were responsible young men who were already contributing to the household budget and paying for their own needs. Yet, just imagining those conversations caused Batoul to feel uneasy. Admitting to others that she did not have enough income for the school supplies seemed akin to jumping off a cliff to relieve a headache. Unless there is a wild animal threatening to attack me, jumping to a likely death seems unwarranted, Batoul concluded. Were Mojegan’s health in jeopardy, I would certainly ask for their help in bringing around the doctor or paying for medicine. It seemed outlandish to equate enrolment in school with life-saving medical attention.

  She ascended the stairs from the cellar to the sun-filled kitchen and perched herself on the stool with a fresh glass of tea. Maman would have advised me well in this matter, Batoul mused glumly.