by Kimia Eslah
Mojegan was not challenged or inspired by her job, but the hours were suitable and its proximity to home was ideal. Still, she had mixed feelings about the Flemingdon Park neighbourhood. The tree-lined streets pleased her, as did the closeness of the school, the grocery store, and the Iranian doctor’s office. It was the constant exposure to the personal lives of others that aggravated her. People seemed to live out their experiences in public view, on the sidewalks, in the hallways, at the plaza. At any time of day, she could hear someone arguing, watching TV, or copulating. She imagined that one day they might live somewhere quieter with more privacy and reserved neighbours. Until then, she accepted that her neighbourhood consisted of fifteen or so high-rise buildings and several cul-de-sacs of rundown townhouses, all of which were up against five schools, the plaza, and the community centre, in an area that was barely eight-by-eight city blocks.
When she was optimistic, she felt rejuvenated by the diversity in her community. Just like us, they’re trying to make a home here, she thought hopefully. Looking into the community centre’s swimming pool during classes, Mojegan could spot ten or more ethnicities among the children. Sitting in the McDonald’s restaurant at the plaza, Mojegan’s own family might be adjacent to an elderly Iranian pair, in front of a Pakistani family, and behind a young Polish couple. Typically, the din in the restaurant, the elevator, or the schoolyard was a raucous orchestra of different languages. When she did hear someone speaking Farsi, it absorbed all of her attention and she didn’t want to move. The conversations were usually mundane but they transported her to a place where she understood everything and to a time when she took for granted the ability to read, hear, and speak without thought, even distractedly. She enjoyed hearing Farsi and she had noticed that she was hearing it more than ever.
At the start of each month the elevator was often commissioned and another newly immigrated family moved in. In the last year, Mojegan had observed with bittersweet feelings that many of the new immigrants were Iranians, mostly refugees. Though she could speak and relate to them easily, their arrival also cemented her belief that life in Canada was permanent.
The revolution that Bita, Davoud, and many others hoped would create space for an egalitarian state had not. Inadvertently, it had produced a vacuum filled by a system of religious guardianship overseen by mullahs. Mojegan watched the news closely, wringing her hands and chewing her lip. She hoped that one day the news anchor would announce that recent troubling events had turned for the better. Instead, less than a year after they arrived in Canada, her heart sank when she read that fifty-two American diplomats were being held hostage in the US embassy in Tehran and the government of Iran would not assist in their rescue. The new immigrants described an Iran that horrified Mojegan, and she accrued substantial long-distance charges to contact her mother and siblings. In Shiraz, the families of her siblings had withdrawn into their homes to limit contact with the revolutionary guards and the morality police. Mojegan’s niece complained that her children were restless from being home, but there was no option. Schools and universities had been shut down for months as the theocratic regime purged the institutions of anyone considered to be politically left-leaning or influenced by Eastern or Western ideologies. Everyone was suspect, and the elders decided to keep a low profile as a prudent strategy to stay out of harm’s way.
Mojegan pleaded with her mother to come to Canada. First, Batoul laughed off the suggestion as an overreaction. When Mojegan insisted, Batoul refused flatly to leave behind her family and her home. Akram, Azadeh, and Akbar rejected the idea more diplomatically. They reassured Mojegan that they were unlikely targets for the regime given the modest and apolitical nature of their day-to-day lives. Only Omar considered leaving Iran, possibly for Switzerland, where his wife’s brother lived. Yet, Omar’s wife was reluctant to leave behind her elderly parents, who refused to immigrate. Omar explained to Mojegan that his family would remain in Iran for one more year before they decided whether to emigrate. Mojegan wanted to press harder for all of them to leave immediately. Life in Shiraz, as they described it, seemed like a prison. To be under scrutiny at all times and fearful of neighbours and coworkers acting as informants was intolerable. She was livid to think the morality police might lecture her grandnieces about adjusting their hijabs, or the revolutionary guards might stop her grandnephew to verify that all the women in his car are his relations.
It’s not fair, Mojegan thought. They’re all good kids. Mojegan was disappointed with the instigators of the uprising as much as she hated the clerics who took over the revolution and disfigured her beloved home. They should have known better and been smarter, Mojegan would start. Yet, when she thought of Bita, Davoud and their efforts, she felt muddled. Their intentions were good and they were trying to help others, Mojegan reasoned.
Desperately, she wanted to hold someone accountable for the bizarre turn of events that cornered her permanently in a place where she had planned to stay for only a short time. When she felt most cynical about her circumstances, Mojegan looked about her Toronto neighbourhood with disdain. Instead of seeing a mosaic of cultures, she saw a tangled mess of people who did not belong together. She did not want to know her neighbours, who seemed uncivilized with their boisterous chatter, abrupt expressions, and miserliness. She wanted the women to cast off their frumpy clothing, do their hair, wear makeup, and dress stylishly. As for the men, she wanted them to look smart and respectable, to get haircuts and clean shaves, and to wear collared shirts and ties. When Mojegan heard a mother yell from a balcony to her children on the green, or spotted a man in the lobby in an undershirt, she mused contemptuously, Copying white people’s ways will not win you any points. It only adds to their impression of us as barbarians.
The apathetic lifestyle of white Canadians, who seemed content with their lot no matter how measly, was unpalatable to her. To Mojegan, it seemed whites took for granted how easily they could climb the socioeconomic ladder. She perceived white Canadians as childlike in their aspirations and their understanding of the world. She sometimes pitied them for their small-mindedness. Mostly, she was angered by the injustice of having the future of her family influenced by whites, who yielded their power arrogantly, ignorantly.
With recurring exposure to images of fanatics burning American flags, to jokes about camel jockeys, or to questions about living in a tent in the desert, Mojegan realized the extent to which her ethnicity was a hindrance. In her yearning to protect her children from becoming targets of hate and discrimination, Mojegan pressed them to be courteous, well-dressed, and educated beyond usual expectations. If they are going to keep us out, it’s going to have to be for a good reason, she contended.
When they first arrived, she hoped to take English classes and study to become re-accredited as a nurse while Reza built up his import business. That plan was shattered immediately when Reza realized that his business partner was a fraud who had stolen their savings.
Mojegan was beside herself that day. She remembered sitting on the edge of their bed in the hotel room. Four days had passed since their plane landed at the Toronto international airport and they decided to stay at a hotel nearby until Reza’s contact arrived to help them get situated. Every day, Reza called the phone number but no one answered. On the fourth day, the line was disconnected.
“I don’t understand, Reza,” Mojegan shook her head in disbelief. “Tell me again.”
Reza sat slumped back on the sofa across from her. He stared at the ceiling, and Mojegan could see tears stream down his cheeks. “Mojegan, he’s gone. He took the money. It’s all gone.” Reza’s voice caught and his tears continued to stream.
“All of it?” Mojegan pressed her palm on Reza’s knee and felt compelled to grab him, to hold onto an earthly presence, to keep from collapsing inwards and plummeting into an abyss of confusion.
“Yes, all of it!” Reza snapped. He rested his head on the back of the sofa again. “I’ve tried to reach him. The li
ne is disconnected. The guys back in Tehran say they have not heard from him in a week.”
“What about the house? He had a house for us.” Mojegan squeezed his knee to overcome her nausea.
“There’s nothing, Mojegan. No business. No house. He’s disappeared.” Reza spoke reluctantly, tired of explaining their situation.
“Then, let’s call the police,” Mojegan asserted. “He’s stolen our money.”
Reza sat up. He wore a troubled expression, and said sombrely, “We can’t, Mojegan. They’d look into our papers.”
“Let them look.” Mojegan shrugged and grimaced at her husband.
“Our papers are forged.” confessed Reza, who stared at his feet and rubbed his forehead.
“Why do we have forged papers?” Mojegan nearly shrieked.
“The Canadian embassy would have taken years to process our immigration papers,” Reza reasoned.
“We are here illegally?” Mojegan jumped to her feet and clenched her fists.
“Yes. So leave the police out of it.” Reza continued to speak to the floor.
Mojegan ran to the toilet and vomited. Her stomach emptied promptly but dry heaves seized her body for much longer. She washed up and peered at her reflection. Get back on a plane and take your family home, she heard within herself.
She knew they would return homeless and penniless but her family would take them in. They’d find the thief and get their life savings back eventually. Besides, I can always find work as a nurse, probably a head nurse, she pined.
She dug her nails into her palms and cursed herself for handing the reins to Reza, for not pursuing her concerns. Several times after the sale of the house, reluctance gnawed at her nerves. She did not want to transfer such a large sum to a man Reza had met a few times for drinks, a man with tenuous connections to Reza’s work associates. Reza insisted that she trust him to do right by his family, to stop worrying and enjoy the experience. She could have worked around Reza as she did typically but she had not. In the aftermath, Mojegan blamed herself for letting Reza be taken in by a trickster.
Mojegan remembered staring at her reflection and then hearing the children enter the suite with their wet swimsuits. They had spent the previous hour at the hotel pool and were asking for lunch. Reza had left the suite. Mojegan prepared the children for lunch at the hotel restaurant. She did not see Reza again until late that night, when he stumbled into the suite, inebriated and crying.
In the days following, Reza beseeched Mojegan to remain in Toronto until he could earn some money and recover their savings. He did not want to return home as the penniless victim of a conman. Mojegan agreed to stay for a few months and to keep quiet about their misfortune. Soon after, Reza met two Iranians in the lobby and found work as a semi-truck driver. Within two weeks of their arrival, they signed a monthly lease for the three-bedroom unit in Flemingdon Park.
Mojegan’s hopes for an imminent return were dashed four months later on Black Friday. That was September 8, 1978, and demonstrations against the Shah and the imposed martial law were widespread. When Mojegan heard the news reports on The National and saw the images of troops shooting into the crowds in Tehran, she wept for the motionless bodies that lay on the asphalt. The children wrapped their arms around her to try and soothe her. Mojegan stopped crying, stopped watching the news, and stopped thinking about their return. A month later, word came that a nationwide general strike had shut down all major industries in Iran. Two months later, the Shah was exiled. Mojegan imagined that peace might follow, except it did not. She tried to focus on the present and leave the future to sort itself out.
When the elevator door opened, Mojegan turned to see that the elderly woman was already gone and it was Mojegan’s floor. She grabbed the two bags and headed to her unit at the end of the hallway. Along the way, she heard televisions playing and children yelling. She smelled a meal of roast chicken, another of curry and fish, and the salty buttery scent of popcorn.
At her apartment door, she heard the television and not much else. During the week, the children arrived home from school nearly three hours before Mojegan. Taraneh, who was fourteen, agreed to make snacks for Nassrin and Omid and keep them from irritating each other. Still, Mojegan arrived home each day to the sounds of one child berating another or wreaking revenge and Taraneh scolding them both for disturbing her. She unlocked and opened the door into the front hallway. In the coat closet, she heaped the two bags on top of each other. Reza did not like the idea of her or the children wearing secondhand clothes. He wanted his family to buy the things they needed and to live comfortably. Mojegan appreciated the sentiment. Yet, clothing for three children was costly, and secondhand was a reasonable option. Mojegan indulged him to keep the peace. Instead, she added to the children’s wardrobes and her own without discussion. She bought new items for Reza discreetly from a discount warehouse.
In the living room, Omid knelt steps away from the nineteen-inch big screen TV. His eyes were glued to the screen as voluptuous Chrissy bounced about the set of Three’s Company in a revealing t-shirt. Mojegan stood at the doorway expecting a greeting. Omid said nothing. He was so fixated on Suzanne Somers’s form that he did not even laugh at the comedic blunders.
“Salam, Omid.” Mojegan stood awaiting a hug.
“Hi, Maman,” Omid spoke to the set.
Frustrated by her ten-year-old son’s lack of courtesy, Mojegan reached over his head and turned off the TV. “Those shows are not for you. Besides, I expect you to greet me at the door and ask me about my day.” Mojegan lifted Omid’s chin toward her face to make a point.
“Sorry, Maman,” Omid spoke sullenly. “How was your day?”
“Good, thank you.” Mojegan was disappointed in this exchange but she did not want to beg for attention. “Where are your sisters?”
Omid headed to the fridge with Mojegan in tow. “I don’t know. Around.” He grabbed a cold can of Pepsi, and before he could open it, Mojegan took it out of his hand.
“No Pepsi until dinner.” She replaced the can in the fridge. “And, what do you mean you don’t know?”
“They’re doing something in their bedroom,” Omid said over his shoulder as he opened the pantry door and scanned for a snack. He grabbed the last Passion Flaky and left the empty box on the shelf.
Mojegan reached over his shoulder and snatched the packaged pastry from him.
“Maman!” Omid whined, deflated and stumped.
“Eat an apple.” Mojegan replaced the pastry and directed him toward the full bowl of fruit on the dining room table.
Dejected, Omid dragged his feet out of the kitchen, through the dining room and adjacent living room, and down the hall to his room. He leaned his desk chair up under the doorknob as he had learned from movies. From the stash he hid in his closet under a pile of comic books, he removed a chocolate bar and his latest copy of MAD magazine. On his bed, he stretched out with the magazine, put on his headphones, started the Rolling Stones cassette on his Walkman, and bit greedily into the gooey chocolate.
Mojegan did not bother to follow Omid even though she suspected him of eating junk food in his room. She was concerned about Taraneh and Nassrin. She had taught them to greet her at the front door, and typically they did. That day, their bedroom door was shut, and when she pressed her ear to the door, Mojegan heard only whispers. Mojegan told herself that Taraneh and Nassrin were good girls — helpful, respectful, and studious. She attributed their desirable traits to her unfailing concern and attention. According to Mojegan, it did not take much for a good girl to go down the wrong road, and she refused to let her daughters take risks with their futures. It is my duty to ensure they follow the correct path, Mojegan thought vehemently.
She insisted that her children pursue law, medicine, or engineering. Persistently, she reminded the girls that she had high hopes for them and their job was to work hard to achieve success. Her greatest fear was that C
anadian culture might overly influence the girls and sidetrack them from their potential. Around the local high school, she saw the teenage girls in their strange hairstyles and tight skirts smoking and clinging to boys. Mojegan shook her head sadly at these misfits. Their parents and society have let them down, Mojegan judged, but it will not happen to my girls. Taraneh would enter high school the following autumn, and Mojegan had a plan to keep her in line. She leaned in again to listen. Still, only faint whispers.
“Girls,” Mojegan opened the door without warning, “what do you want for dinner?”
On Nassrin’s bed, she and Taraneh were hunched over a notebook and a calculator. The two looked up startled. Mojegan knew that her expression was serious and growing increasingly serious with each passing moment that they did not respond. At once, both girls leaped to hug their mother and ask about her day.
“Good, thank you,” Mojegan said detachedly and walked over to the bed. She sat next to the notebook and calculator, and then looked back and forth with pursed lips and raised brows from the notebook to the girls.
“We were trying to figure out something for school,” Taraneh started.
Nassrin bit her lower lip and looked at her feet.
“Is that right, Nassrin? You were trying to figure out something for school?” Mojegan probed.
“Yes,” Nassrin spoke softly to her feet and then peered sideways at Taraneh.
“So, what is it?” Mojegan tried again, ready to demand an answer. Secrets felt like an insult to her work as their mother.