All day, every day, military songs blared from our TV. The government wanted each male citizen—even old men and teenage boys—to fight the Iraqis. They promised martyrdom, an automatic free pass to heaven. We could not turn away from the broadcast images of families waving good-bye to their sons. A few boys from our street left to fight Saddam. Their mothers wailed hysterically from the pain of the sacrifice their sons were making for Islam.
During this time I took frequent walks to my grandmother’s house, either after school or in the early evening, as the grieving dusk prayers boomed from the mosque’s loudspeakers. Doom and fear hung thick and stagnant in the air as more and more men were called to war. The dusty nights were bleak, the street vendors increasingly desperate.
Walking beyond the main street, with cars violently whizzing past, angry drivers screaming, and armed men in Jeeps looking at me funny I’d smell the aromas of cooked liver and freshly baked nooneh sangak. I passed the pastry shops with strawberry-glazed cream puffs and crumbly confections in the windows. Dolls with spider-leg eyelashes and exotic animal toys with drum sets slept in shops, closed for the night. Teenage boys, likely just days away from war’s brutality, pedaled bicycles along the sooty streets. The rich little girls held tight to their daddies’ hands by florist shops crammed full of funeral wreaths and bridal bouquets.
I would run to my grandmother’s house, pressing my head against her heaving bosom and big belly. I breathed deeply, inhaling her love. It was a small, safe place in the world. I no longer missed my real father: My new dad taught me how to ride a bike, holding on to the back and running behind and letting go only when I told him to. He taught me how to dine like a lady, but he also slapped me when I was bad.
One day, as I played with my bike in the yard with my mum and dad, my first daddy appeared, tall and slim with his film–star–tinted glasses and lovely lips. Avoiding eye contact with me, he walked right up to my new father. His whisper was dry and straight to the point: “I don’t want to have any more responsibility for her. I won’t be seeing her again. You can officially be the dad.” Then he turned and left as hurriedly as he’d come. I looked down at my bike, at the Pink Panther stickers on the plastic between the handlebars, at the glitter-sprinkled dancing dolls in the basket, and I felt like nothing. I knew that I was damaged goods.
It was around this time that my stepfather first beat me. I remember standing in the shower where a bright, fresh pool of blood gushed from my nose and stained the water. My face was all puffed up and ugly and I fucking hated looking ugly. I thought I deserved it because I’d been a smart-ass, and getting smacked in the face was part of the deal for a cheeky kid who answered back. No one stood up for me, not even my mother; after all, he was her husband now, and Iranians don’t discuss such things. It brings shame on the family.
By now my brother was a toddler. He would wiggle his wobbly jelly bottom whenever a war anthem played on TV, which seemed to be every five minutes. There was practically a funeral a day in the neighborhood. Shrines dedicated to the local martyrs sprouted up all over town; gorgeous colored lights bathed the dead soldiers’ photos. At night, while the lizards slithered near the lamps in our yard, bombs destroyed the smaller southern cities, and even Tehran endured the occasional blast. When the sirens sounded, we swarmed into our block’s underground parking garage for shelter.
Despite the terror, I thought life was still grand. I loved my friends and was the top student at school. I studied the Qur’an and devoured my textbooks, hungrily lapping up lessons in science and history. Religion was different, however, because religion made me feel peaceful and at one with God—especially since it was everywhere: on TV, blaring from the mosque’s loudspeakers, and at school, where heaven and hell were constantly drummed into our brains. If I was a good girl and said my prayers every day and loved God, I would go to heaven. If I was a naughty girl, flaunting my sexuality and flirting with boys, I was destined for hell.
God, I tried to be virtuous and pure. I tried so hard. But I was tainted by my dirty thoughts. I just couldn’t help myself. They became real every day when I played with my boy cousins and neighbors in private, hidden from the eyes of adults. I would get naked and rub my eight-year-old chest against my cousin’s bare torso. Then in the afternoon I’d find my nine-year-old neighbor, a boy named Hamid, and get him to play doctor-and-patient with me. I would undress, climb in bed, make him examine me down there, and lie silently, letting him explore. I would bring Soraya and Zari to my room and ask them to look at my body and touch my private parts, relishing every sigh, every touch, every finger. In the midst of it, I could still feel God looking down upon me with loathing.
One night I decided to try it with two boys. I had exploding feelings in my tummy but no logic in my head. While my parents and family friends gathered in the living room to talk politics and war songs blared from the TV calling everyone to sacrifice their sons, I brought my younger boy cousin, Kian, to my room and asked Hamid to join us.
“We’re playing servants and housekeepers,” Hamid told Kian, somehow reading my mind. “She’s going to lie down on the bed like she’s asleep. You have to pretend you are a servant and do as you are told.”
Hamid’s imagination is just like mine, I thought gleefully.
I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. Hamid ordered Kian to touch me. I pretended to doze like Sleeping Beauty. Hamid was harsh with Kian, commanding him to kiss my feet and thighs. I felt like I was floating. I felt like a queen. The game made my tummy tumble with frenzy. I worried that we were too cruel to my cousin, who, bewildered and meek, went along with whatever we told him to do.
I knew I had power—a real power—over boys. And I exercised it whenever the fancy took me. One afternoon, I finished school early after a grueling day of listening to sermons about heaven and hell and where we might end up if we got on the wrong side of God. Clutching my books, with thoughts of fires and snakes running through my mind, I walked home. There I found our neighbor’s eight-year-old brother hanging around out in front. Knowing no one was home, I took the wide-eyed boy into my room and forced him to kiss me. I fondled under my panties and straddled him as I removed my hejab (head scarf). He panted hard, fingered me, and blushed crimson. I was in ecstasy, a pack of wild wolves in my belly. There. Now I was definitely going to hell.
Chapter 14
My family made frequent trips to Shomal (the north of Iran), where crystal waters and powder-soft sand welcomed us. On the drive there, we passed majestic blue mountains. The Persian wilderness, the forests, the lakes, and the ancient hills looked like a fairy-tale painting. There were small cafés and restaurants tucked into the belly of the mountain. We rested on their sofas and beds, atop intricately patterned cushions, while being served little plates of feta cheese, Persian dips with freshly baked bread, and hot tea in dainty glasses. Sometimes we shared our hotel room with a harmless snake; the damp weather invited many wiggling creatures.
By 1982, the beach had been segregated: a makeshift wall divided the men from the women, despite the fact that all females still had to adhere to the Islamic dress code, even in the sea. One afternoon, as I scampered around the beach, a male Pasdar screamed obscenities at me for not covering my arms and legs. I felt like a criminal.
Another day, as we were driving home from Shomal, I gently held my new baby sister—less than a year old—in my arms, wondering how long it would be until she had to cover her body, too. Suddenly we were pulled over by the Pasdar. They screamed at my parents to get out of the car. We had no idea what we could have done wrong.
The Pasdar threatened to prosecute my parents, all because a bit of my leg was showing beneath my montoe. My parents turned white with panic, realizing that they could be dragged in and tortured, or worse, for my infraction. It took twenty minutes for my dad to negotiate a cash bribe with the Pasdar. Finally, they let us go. That was a good day.
A few weeks later, after a long night’s drive to Shomal, I woke to find we’d arrived at a farm.
The farmer greeted us with breakfast—fresh eggs, feta, fresh bread, double cream, and honey—on his sofreh. My uncle and aunt were traveling with us, and I could see sadness in their eyes. That morning, my uncle and aunt told us they too were planning to leave Iran. Having been blacklisted by the government for their activism, they planned to escape to Turkey on horseback.
By 1983, missing people were very much a part of daily life. Torture and mass graves of prisoners dominated every adult conversation. I’d often overhear horror stories about the torture methods used in Evin Prison; too often these tales involved yet another relative who had been executed. Most of my family and their friends had plans to escape Iran or were trying to get out.
By this time I was nine years old, but I still didn’t completely understand the panic. I was too busy playing with my friends and cousins. However, I was fed up with covering my hair and skin. So I rebelled by paying more attention to the dresses and accessories I wore beneath my montoe. I watched Hollywood films, which were sold under the counter at the grocery store and smuggled into our home by my stepdad. I watched Scarlett O’Hara—her lips and her hips and how she moved. I put on shows for my relatives, imitating famous Persian singers and copying their every dance move.
One man, who moved into our apartment building, started to take a special interest in me. Remembering my grandmother’s lodger, I hesitated to go to this new neighbor’s apartment alone. But I convinced myself that this time would be different. This man was a doctor, after all, and he got on well with my parents.
One day, he promised me chocolate if I would come visit him. I skipped up the stairs, jubilant. Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, was all I thought.
When I entered his apartment, it seemed too dingy and dark for a doctor. Unkempt plants, dirty clothes, and stacks of magazines cluttered the room. He shut the door and took me to his bedroom. Where was my chocolate?
Without a word, he pulled my panties down and then took his pants off. Was this normal? Was it my destiny? Why did men do this? Was it my fault? “No,” I said, and tried to wriggle out of his grip. But he forced my legs open. Mr. Karimi had been much gentler. This neighbor’s down-there was hard against my thigh and it hurt. I was scared. I hated it. It made me feel sick.
I was afraid and disgusted. It felt wrong, the way it had with Mr. Karimi. But I let the man do what he had to, just so he would let me go. I never told anyone, not even God when I prayed to him during Namaz.
Chapter 15
Please, don’t send Me to England. I want to Stay Here at Home, with My Friends.
It is an Iranian tradition to spend nights at mehmoonis, the family parties that brightened our evenings. These were more than just casual visits uptown to exchange pleasantries and have a drink; they were lavish and colorful affairs, full of dancing and affectionate banter, with the women in immaculate makeup and the host serving a banquet of dishes. There was always some excuse for a mehmooni—a cousin’s birthday, for instance—and I loved dressing up for them, scrubbing my face with harsh soap and scraping my hair into a severe ponytail. My stepdad would drive my mum, my little brother and sister, and me through the dark and busy streets of Tehran, past pickled-walnut sellers standing lit by gas lamps on the curb and panicked chador-clad women toward the north of the city, where the rich and the grand lived. I would sit in the backseat like a lady, scrubbed and grateful for my life.
At one of those mehmoonis, I met him. He was the son of a family friend. At thirteen, he was already a street-smart rebel with pale skin and green eyes. My first bad boy. When he invited me to his birthday party a few days later, I knew he liked me. There were no other girls invited—all boys and only me. It was going to be heaven. My mother took me shopping for a new dress to wear to heaven.
The electricity was out in the city that night. I waited in the dark by our house gates, watching the lizards scratch their warm bellies on the rough wall. An uncle and a cousin picked me up to take me to the party. The neighborhood was quiet. It was nights like these when the hush would often be destroyed by bombs and sirens and carnage. But I didn’t care: I was fucking euphoric.
At the party, about twenty boys buzzed around. Since there were no other girls there, I got to dance with all of them. But my heart was sweaty for the boy. Finally, he winked at me and took me by his side. For the rest of the evening, we sat next to one another, arm against arm, our bodies sizzling.
I adored him, but I knew I’d never see him again. In two months, I was being sent to England with my grandmother, and I really didn’t want to go.
“Please, don’t make me go to England. I want to stay here at home, with my friends,” I cried to my mother a few days after the party.
“You’ll get a better education.”
“But I don’t want to be sent away from here. I don’t want to leave you!”
“It’s for your own good, my dear,” my grandmother chimed in. “This regime is so bad. Everyone is escaping.”
“Can I still do sociology if I go to school there?” It was my favorite subject.
My mum laughed. “Yes. They have it there, too.”
“But I don’t speak English!”
“You don’t have to go to school until you’ve learned it.”
Part of me thought it was all a bit of a lark. England—a glamorous new world with shiny things, chic clothes, fancy hairdos, and lots of clever books I could read to become educated and ladylike. And so I agreed to go to England with Anneh accompanying me. I never would have done it if I had known what would happen next.
Gottfried Helnwein: Sonntagskind
Part 2
LOST
Chapter 16
The English Air Poisoned My Grandmother’s Lungs. She Stopped and Clutched Her Chest Right There.
It was the summer of 1984, and the whole neighborhood came out to wish me well on my trip.
“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Zari and Soraya sobbed, crying into my back.
“I’ll bring back lots of presents for you,” I promised.
“Here’s a photo of me,” Zari said. “So that you’ll never forget me.”
My mother’s eyes were puffed up, raw and pink. It was for the best. Her mother and oldest daughter were getting away from this government, heading to a new world of freedom. It was a shame we couldn’t all go as a family. They wouldn’t allow that: It would be too obvious that we were emigrating and not coming back.
My stepfather proudly posed for pictures. Two days earlier he’d taught me that English people did not put their elbows on the table during meals and always spoke in a genteel manner. He saw England through the romantic haze of Jane Austen books.
The night before we left, the whole neighborhood came to see my grandmother and me—aunts, uncles, cousins, and a sea of unknowns. I was lost in a watercolor of lipstick kisses and distant perfumes, snug hugs and constant photographs. Before my baby sister had gone to bed, I’d sweetly kissed her chubby mouth. My little brother, four years old, giggled shyly at all the attention I was getting.
By early morning, everyone had filtered out of our house, leaving my grandmother and me with our suitcases. In preparation for the trip, I removed my red nail polish in case the authorities noticed it and interrogated me. I was too excited to sleep. I thought this would be a short adventure and then I’d come home.
At three a.m., my stepfather drove us to the airport. A frenzied air-raid siren pierced the sky, and in the car, the dry heat retched over us. Sitting there mutely, I bubbled with unspeakable emotion as we glided past sleeping neighborhoods. I was going to miss playing with my friends and stealing fruit from the splitting persimmon tree.
At the airport, of course, we were interrogated. The Pasdar took my grandmother and me into separate cubicles for a physical search. His touching tickled my ribs, but a black-chador-clad woman carried out the body investigation silently and hostilely. Finally, I slid through the plastic curtains to find my grandmother sitting on a chair in her cubicle. A couple female officials were s
licing out the inner sole of her shoes.
On the plane, sitting beside one of the huge exit doors, my grandmother joked about whether the ginger man behind us was also ginger down there as well. She always joked like that.
I was ten years old and I was on my way to England, a symbol of freedom and abandon, where I could walk around in public without an Islamic head scarf and its matching somber montoe and have no fear of being stopped by the morality police. I was filled with excitement at the thought of the sophisticated education I would receive and the blond, blue-eyed English boys I would be seeing. In my mind, England was a wholesome, orderly place, where everything gleamed as if brand new, where every woman had the demeanor of Mary Poppins, and every man had the quaintness of a gentleman. I was trusting and optimistic. These were the last moments of the real me—grounded, unfragmented, uncomplicated.
The instant we entered British airspace, I unwrapped my tentlike Islamic uniform, peeling it off my head and body. I had grand plans to apply the right shade of polish to my nails to fit in with the glamour of England. I chose the color from the previous night’s party, because I liked the instant brazenness of its unforgiving red. The light cotton, spaghetti-strapped dress my mother bought me for the trip bloomed when I removed the massive cloak. Cocky little me, spunky street-smart spoiled girl: I was finally going to feel the breeze of freedom on my skin. With my bright red fingernails, no one could stop me.
As the plane landed and we shuffled into the terminal, the air slapped against my bare arms, chest, back, neck, and legs, shocking me. I felt naked. Not since the age of seven had I walked outside without my Islamic cover. It was cloudy, nearly three p.m., and all was hushed. I was used to loud people all around me—talking, kissing, shouting, laughing, and gossiping—and to being surrounded by color. Now, I saw only gray. I was used to sunshine and warm flowery greetings from everyone in the street, fruit trees and mountains, and orange taxis. This new land was so bland, unfriendly, and alien.
The Last Living Slut Page 5