by Kimia Eslah
“Nah, merci, no, thanks. I’m on a diet.” Mojegan gave a small shrug. She would have loved to eat all the bamieh but she was worried about gaining weight. Bita is already happily married and she does not care about her appearance, Mojegan reasoned.
Bita shook her head and put the bamieh into her own mouth, “More for me!” Between mouthfuls, Bita explained that the administration started the new nurses in the TB unit, trained them to be as efficient as possible, and then transferred them to the emergency room, where nurses were needed most. She theorized that the high turnover rate was due to a lack of community among the nurses. She described the head administrators and policy changes over the course of her twenty years working at Bimarestan-e Sina.
Mojegan talked about how much she loved her work in the maternity ward at Bimarestan-e Namazi and how she left each shift exhausted and content. “One day,” Mojegan looked down at the table bashfully and began placing items at right angles, “I hope to be an oncology nurse.”
“Aray! Yes! I can see you would be very good in that role.” Bita leaned forward and nodded enthusiastically.
“Merci, thanks.” Mojegan smiled graciously. “I need to complete four years of courses but I think I can manage it when I am not at work.”
“Yes! I can help you study,” offered Bita, licking syrup from her fingertips.
Approaching forty, Bita lived with her husband and three children in a suburb in the east end of Tehran. Their three-bedroom apartment was simple and comfortable, with durable furniture and a handful of framed paintings. Mojegan was struck by the paintings, particularly a large canvas that depicted a close-up of three oil workers standing together, wearing the same yellow shirts, blue overalls, and white hardhats, and sporting the same thick brows and mustaches. In homes and galleries, Mojegan had seen many miniature paintings, and most were of poets and muses, men slaying beasts, and groups resting or working in the outdoors. Most were set in the Safavid era. She had never seen a painting of present-day life such as the one with the oil workers.
During her first visit to Bita’s home, five months after their first shift together, Bita made tea for herself and Mojegan, while her husband, Davoud, worked on a written piece in the master bedroom. All three children were out at the cinema watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Mojegan marvelled at the shape of this alternate life. She looked out the window. It was the end of October, and fall leaves covered the grounds of the four identical apartment complexes that stood in a row. She contemplated the existence of one distinct family in each unit, pursuing its own agenda. Apart from her residence, she had never been in an apartment unit before, or six floors up. She considered whether she would like to live in an apartment, to live high up, to have a sofa instead of cushions, to own a television. This was a modest life without the embellishments of a traditional Shiraz house. The unit seemed almost bare without the extravagance of ornate picture frames and serving bowls, expansive rugs, and a lavish spread.
During tea, Mojegan learned that Bita and Davoud married in their sleepy hometown of Damavand before they moved to Tehran to attend university. They planned to return to Damavand but they both received job offers in the local hospitals in Tehran. They postponed their plans to return for one year, to earn money. One year turned into twenty-two years and three children, and they stopped planning a return. Bita daydreamed about starting a family-planning clinic back home. When Mojegan suggested they take the leap and move back, Bita shook her head and looked out the window.
“There’s so much that we need to do. So much we can’t do from Damavand,” Bita said sadly.
Mojegan felt like a child who could not read between the lines. She wanted to know more but she did not want to sound ignorant. “Yes, I understand,” Mojegan nodded knowingly and looked at the glass of tea.
At this, Bita smirked and covered her mouth with her fist. Mojegan tried to hide her smile. “You make me laugh,” Bita said, exhaling deeply and pouring more tea. “It’s Davoud’s work that keeps us here.”
“His position at the hospital? I am sure he could find work closer to Damavand. I mean he could …” Mojegan began in her excited tone, ready to solve the problem.
“No,” Bita interrupted. “Not his job. He … he writes. He writes articles, letters.” She narrowed her eyes and looked curiously at Mojegan to determine whether she understood.
“Articles and letters. Okay.” Mojegan wished Bita would elaborate.
“Mojegan,” Bita leaned forward with her elbows on the table, spoke quietly and wore a stern expression, “what I tell you next must be kept a secret. The safety of my family depends on it.”
Thinking this was one of Bita’s practical jokes, Mojegan shook her comically, “Sure thing, Bita.”
“No, Mojegan. I am serious now,” Bita said with the same sombre tone and expression.
Slightly put off but still intrigued, Mojegan assumed a neutral expression and also leaned in.
“What do you know about Tudeh?” Bita asked.
“The Tudeh Party? Well … I read a lot of them were arrested and …” Mojegan stopped. She leaned back. She became aware of the sounds of typewriter keys, the sound that had been going on continuously during her visit. The visit was not going as she expected. She was scared and she was not sure of what. “Bita, I …” Mojegan did not know what to say. She considered pretending to not understand and then making a quick exit. She wondered if she could change the topic. She even thought to suggest joining the children at the cinema.
“Wait, let me finish.” Bita placed her hand on top of Mojegan’s and told her friend about the other half of their lives.
In 1945, Bita and Davoud were both enrolled in Tehran University. Bita graduated within two years from the nursing program, and Davoud continued with medical school. When the leftist Tudeh Party founded the Tehran University Students Organization in 1950, Davoud joined.
As she continued, Bita looked back and forth from her tea to Mojegan, “He thought the Shah’s policies were elitist. He wanted an egalitarian system. We both did. We still do. He attended protests for higher wages and better housing for oil workers. At one protest, the police fired into the crowds. He could have died that day.”
Bita looked briefly at Mojegan, who felt more like a naive child than ever. Mojegan had never thought deeply about politics and its effects. In Shiraz, she had been sheltered by her mother and advised by her eldest brother to focus on her studies. She had heard of protests and strikes, but they had not affected her daily life as a daughter and a student. At home, her mother discouraged her from listening to the news program. She insisted, “Life will proceed of its own accord, no matter who pretends to control it.” Since her arrival in Tehran, Mojegan had remained as obtuse about politics and the suffering of political prisoners as she had been in Shiraz. The only difference was that she could no longer blame her ignorance on her mother or her brother.
Bita continued. “I feared for his life. I did. But I knew things needed to change. We had to push for change. We had to stand up for the working class. I mean, we had two young children, you know. It was their future we were shaping.”
In 1953, when nearly 600 activists were arrested in Tehran, Bita and Davoud lost many of their close friends. The couple felt fortunate and guilty for having escaped imprisonment. They vowed that they would not stop advocating for their friends, alerting foreign media, and demanding fair wages, in spite of the Shah’s ban on most political groups. They were both gainfully employed and they could contribute to the workers’ cause, albeit confidentially and anonymously.
When more party members were arrested and sentenced to death in 1966, Bita and Davoud increased their efforts. They tried to rally support from all the avenues available to them, nationally and internationally. All the while, they feared exposure and arrest. In Europe, where activists were out of reach of the Shah, demonstrators held hunger strikes and generated an
international outcry. The Shah conceded to life sentences instead of execution for protestors, and that evening Bita and Davoud cried into each other’s arms.
Tears streamed down Bita’s face but her voice did not quaver, “Our lives were meaningless pieces on a game board that the Shah controlled. He doesn’t care about broken homes.” It seemed to Bita and Davoud that the best they could do was prolong the lives of their friends, the lives they lived in dirty, dank cells with never enough food, water, or help. Friends they could not visit for fear of being imprisoned themselves. Life imprisonment, instead of execution, was an achievement only briefly celebrated.
“And now?” Mojegan whispered, afraid to be heard, afraid who might be listening.
“The pressure is increasing. There are plans for widespread strikes among the oil workers in the south.” Bita leaned back in her chair and drank her tepid tea.
“You want to stay in Tehran to help,” Mojegan stated the obvious.
“Yes. Here we have our connections to the media and the international groups. Damavand is a great place but we need to be here.” Bita looked tired from relaying their story.
Mojegan heard the front door open and the children push past each other into the hallway. They exchanged accusations and insults even as they helped one another hang up their coats. By the time they arrived in the living room, they were teasing and laughing. Mojegan felt at once akin to their youthful erratic behaviour but also distinctly older and tamer. She was only two years older than Bita’s eldest, Mohammad, who had celebrated his eighteenth birthday the previous month.
With the children’s arrival, Bita’s disposition changed. She hugged and kissed them, she asked whether they wanted a snack, and then she shuffled them to their bedrooms to complete their school work. When Bita returned, she wore her usual expression of contentment and amusement. “We are lucky, Mojegan,” Bita said as she cleared the table of the tea glasses. “We work toward a better life for everyone but we also appreciate everything we have now.”
***
As Mojegan hurried the last hundred metres of the promenade through Park-e Shahr on her way to work, she was preoccupied thinking about her conversation with Bita. She was confused by the nature of Bita and Davoud’s altruistic deeds. She had been taught to avoid danger at all costs; to put herself in harm’s way was a selfish act that endangered her family. They choose to be activists. They want to help others. Even though they put themselves at risk, Mojegan mulled. What is the point? What could they gain?
She was uncertain how to rationalize placing her own family at risk to help others. As a nurse in the TB ward, she jeopardized her health every day by being in proximity to the contagion. She recognized the altruistic nature of her work, but it lacked the ambiguity and uncertainty of helping political prisoners. Treating tuberculosis patients was a worthy and life-saving act by all accounts. Protesting the Shah’s policies, especially in light of the numerous social programs he had instigated, which she considered essential to the health of rural families, was simply baffling, and risking incarceration or death in the hopes of helping imprisoned protestors was bewildering. She wondered guiltily, If Bita was imprisoned, would I risk my own life to help her? Surprising herself, she resented Bita for placing herself in harm’s way. In her contemplative state, Mojegan did not realize that she was standing still, frowning into the cloudless winter sky.
“Beautiful day,” said a man sitting on a park bench only a stone’s throw from Mojegan. In his black suit and slim black tie, with his short wavy hair slicked back, he looked like Paul Newman. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and smoked a cigarette. Startled by the voice of a stranger, Mojegan grimaced and rushed toward the hospital.
“Goodbye,” Mojegan heard him say. She did not turn to look and she hoped he would not follow her.
Mojegan resented that Tehrani men felt inclined to flirt with any woman in their vicinity. This was unheard of in Shiraz, where men conversed in their groups and women in theirs. If a man needed to speak to an unfamiliar woman on the street, he kept a considerable distance and spoke with the formality required to demonstrate his respect for her dignity. This was a civilized approach to sharing space. She was tired of deflecting the come-ons of every man who felt the whim to ask her name, where she was from, and why she was in a hurry. On a few occasions, the men followed her for a couple of blocks performing a soliloquy. She was flustered about how to curtail the conversations respectfully. Bita advised her to ignore the men, to pretend she could not see them or hear them. Mojegan was reluctant to act in a seemingly rude, juvenile way. Yet, her other approaches did not work. A few times, she asked the men to stop but this led to teasing and increased harassment. After six months of trying various tactics, Mojegan agreed that ignoring them was the best approach. She ignored the man on the bench and hurried to work.
***
The man in the black suit and tie appeared the same day in the TB unit. Mojegan was sitting at the nurses station reviewing patient files as she prepared for her shift. Of the twenty beds in the unit, nine were occupied, and only one patient was newly admitted. The new patient was an elderly woman who could be heard coughing and wheezing throughout the unit. She had come in during the night suffering from fever and chills and complaining of chest pains. The doctors started her drug treatment, but she would continue to be contagious for another two weeks.
Shireen was the only other nurse on duty and she was tending to an elderly patient who was nauseated. Mojegan expected a quiet shift. She hoped to read more about the oncology nurse training she planned to start in a few weeks. She assumed she would have to help a few patients with their meals though most patients had visitors and preferred to be fed by their loved ones.
“Hello,” said a man who stood at the counter.
Mojegan looked up from the files and frowned at him. It was the man from the park. Mojegan thought, He must be here for a patient. Otherwise I am screaming for help. With a stern face, Mojegan made a small sound of acknowledgement. The man crossed his arms on the counter, leaned forward, and smiled innocently.
“Do you need something?” Mojegan asked in a tone that she hoped sounded cold and professional. With the files under her right arm, she stood in the centre of the station to create distance.
“Yes, a smile would be a good start.” He smiled to make the point. “And a new face mask for visiting.”
Mojegan ignored the initial comment and reached for a mask from a box under the counter. She placed it on the counter, along with a visitor sign-in sheet and a pen.
“You will need to sign in as a visitor,” she spoke over her shoulder as she replaced the patient files and left the station to start her rounds.
During her rounds, she noticed him sitting at the bedside of the newly admitted elderly woman. She stopped in the hallway and observed the two of them discreetly. He wore a face mask and sat with her right hand between his two hands. Both of them looked out the window and the silence was broken only by her fitful coughing. Mojegan wondered if he was her son or grandson. Their features were distinctly different. She had a heart-shaped face, a small forehead, and no discernable cheek bones. He resembled a jagged rock with his large aquiline nose and prominent brow ridge. He stayed ten minutes and left for the day, signing out at the counter.
Mojegan saw him the next morning, leaning at the counter and chatting with Bita. She turned into the nurses’ locker room before they saw her. As she hung up her winter coat and purse, she wondered if Bita knew him. From the way they leaned toward each other over the counter, Mojegan thought their conversation seemed involved. Later on, she learned his name from the visitor sign-in sheet, Reza Pourani. It was not a name she had ever heard Bita mention. At that moment, Mojegan shook the thoughts out of her head. She felt childish for even wondering about this person, this man. She smoothed out her white uniform, checked her cap in the mirror, and left to begin her shift. Reza was no longer at the nurs
es’ station and Bita was preparing to start her rounds. Mojegan noticed a large box of cookies on the counter and one in Bita’s hand.
“Salam, sobe bekhair, good morning,” greeted Mojegan, as she thumbed the stack of patient files and attempted to sound nonchalant. “Did you bring the cookies, or was it a visitor?”
“A visitor,” said Bita as she brushed crumbs off her chest. “He’s the one visiting Khanome Pourani.”
“Oh,” Mojegan said, still looking at the files. “That’s nice. Do you know him?”
When no response came, Mojegan turned to ask again. Bita had already left for her rounds, but Reza Pourani stood looking at her sheepishly. “No, we don’t know each other.” Reza placed his elbows on the counter and rested his chin in one palm.
“Oh, you don’t need to explain, I shouldn’t …” Mojegan tried to apologize for her nosiness.
“It’s alright. I wanted to show my appreciation. My aunt is feeling much better.” Reza continued to look directly at her face, and Mojegan was certain she was blushing. She tried to hold a neutral, professional expression.
“I am glad to hear Khanome Pourani is feeling better.”
“Yes, thank you,” replied Reza. He stepped back from the counter, smiled pleasantly and said, “Now, I’m off to work. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” Mojegan replied in a singsong voice, then pursed her lips and frowned at her own casualness.
***
The following day, Mojegan arrived at work and noticed a colourful display at the nurses’ station. From down the hall, she could see a tall vase with a glorious bouquet of pink zinnias and orange inverted tulips. Beside the vase was a large fruit bowl filled by a mountain of pomegranates, apricots, and green grapes. Bita sat behind the counter eating grapes and reviewing patient files. When Mojegan appeared, Bita grinned and welcomed her to the sultan’s palace. Mojegan took a seat nearby and began reviewing files as Bita finished with them.