by Osamah Sami
No one pays him any mind. Mashhad is full of people who look just like this.
My father and I haven’t been eating street food often since coming to Iran three weeks ago, but every now and then we forgo the fine dining for the grubby treat—it just tastes a little better knowing it isn’t that good for you.
I’m fidgeting, uneasy. I know what Dad’s craving: a double felafel, pickles, tomato, no sauce. I want the same, plus mustard. And we both want the obligatory Coke, straight out of the bottle. How can we possibly order this much food? Not here, in front of the man. Not in front of his kids.
So I make a choice. I reach for my wallet, feeling heroic, flashing it to Dad, to make sure he sees the generous gift I’m about to bestow. After all, in Australian dollars, a felafel with Coke is around forty cents. But just as I’m about to pull out a wad of cash, Dad grabs my forearm and slides the wallet back.
He tells me, in Arabic, so the man can’t understand: ‘Son, is the man begging? No. He is a working man, and a handout would be a slap in his face; it would rid him of his dignity. And his children will never forget that they saw a stranger give their father cash.’
I understand. ‘Right. Sorry, Dad.’
‘Just keep talking to me.’
So I keep murmuring in Arabic, pointless small talk, while Dad quietly slips a 50,000-toman note out of his own pocket. This is the equivalent of eighteen Australian bucks.
He ever so gently lets the note glide out of his hand. ‘Keep talking,’ he says. We do, and then, a moment later, Dad taps the old man on the shoulder.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he says, in Farsi. ‘I believe you dropped some money.’
The man looks at the floor. It’s a huge denomination.
‘Sorry, that’s not mine,’ he says.
Dad looks him closely in the eyes.
‘No, sir,’ he says firmly. ‘I saw. It fell from your pocket, when you were swinging your daughter…’
The broken man regards my father. He conjures a smile.
◆ ◆ ◆
On the minibus as we’re heading back to the hotel, Dad takes my arm and places it behind his back so it acts as a cushion. It’s been a long morning, and my father needs a nap.
As he’s dozing off, he starts to mumble nonsense about how much he misses Mum. How, in thirty years of marriage, he’s never told her he loves her.
‘But I know she knows I love her,’ he says. ‘She has known since day one. It’s the actions, in any case. But it would’ve been nice to tell her…’
And then off he goes, head against the window, the streets of Mashhad whipping past him as he finally rests.
◆ ◆ ◆
Dad falls into bed. ‘Osamah, habibi, I’m exhausted. Will you go have dinner on your own?’
‘Sure, Dad.’
He smiles. I close the curtains, turn the heating up and head to the hotel restaurant alone.
It’s the first time in weeks I’m eating without Dad. It’s an alien feeling. There’s a pretty girl at an opposite table; we trade brief smiles. I rush through my food, check a few emails on the lobby wi-fi. I tell my cousin in England I’ll be seeing her soon, on the next leg of our trip; she’s as excited as I am. I haven’t seen her—or her five sisters—in twenty years.
We’ve gone a solid couple of days with little sleep, and I realise I’m tired too. So I head back upstairs, to study a little and maybe have a nap.
I swipe my card, leave the lights off so as not to wake Dad. I walk in quietly. Something is not right. I look at the bed where Dad is sleeping and I see that he’s not there. Or—
I look at the bed again. A rush of goosebumps hits me. My body is talking to me, but I don’t know what the signals mean. Dad lies flat on the bed, but still, he isn’t there. I whisper, ‘Oh, fuck,’ so quietly I can barely hear myself speak. I launch myself at the body and try to wake him up. I shake him hard, kissing his neck.
‘Dad! Wake up! Dad! Please! Dad! Wake up!’ I get angry and loud. ‘I’m sorry if I’m yelling at you but you’re not listening to me! Wake up!’
It’s true: he’s not listening. I cradle his head in my arms. Suddenly, I sense a presence behind me and turn around. There are a dozen strangers. When did they get here? I can’t quite make out their words—but they’re all giving instructions, about what to do, how to keep his airways clear, how to resuscitate. I won’t let his head go. I keep hugging him, kissing him.
I must’ve been yelling so loud the whole floor of the hotel is here.
I look at my watch. I want to know exactly what time it is.
I picture every single friend and family member and think: What are you doing right this very moment?
I feel a hand on my shoulder. The pretty girl from the restaurant. I think, why is she touching me? This is Iran. It’s illegal here. I beg the girl to tell me that this is all a dream. She just looks at me, crying. She is crying more than me.
The paramedics arrive and forcefully remove me from my dad.
They run all sorts of procedures. One of them turns to me and says words I don’t understand. ‘What does passed away mean?’ I ask. Surely not the same thing as it means in English. The man’s making no sense, even in Farsi.
‘He’s been gone an hour.’
I beseech them to wake him. It’s their job to wake him up. But they place him on a trolley bed and drape him in a sheet.
◆ ◆ ◆
I notice that the ambulance is a Mercedes. I feel the dashboard. My brother has one of these. Bigger than this one. He moves furniture in it; I’ve helped him many times. I wonder what it would be like to drive a van with a dead body in it. I start mumbling something about how I drive a van just like this back in Australia. How Dad actually bought it for my brother Mohammed, aka Moe Greene, to help him get back on his feet after a rough divorce.
The driver doesn’t say anything. He just drives, with the siren on. Does this mean surgeons might save him? Surely something can reverse this, some expensive German device.
The traffic moves slowly. Don’t people know what an ambulance siren means? I ask the driver what the time is. He checks his watch. I check mine.
I wait in reception at the hospital. I stand, sit, stand again. I pace up and down. Remember, this is all just a dream.
It’s now close to midnight. About 6 am back home. I have to call my family and tell them, but I can’t. Hey, guys, how’s it going? By the way, Dad’s gone. I am sure the doctors will come bearing good news. They will say the paramedics were ill-equipped to do proper tests.
I pace up to a group of nurses congregating behind the counter. I ask one what the time is. ‘Are you always this anxious?’ she says.
‘No, I’m not used to seeing my father die, you see,’ I tell her, anxious, not believing my own words.
‘I know, you are the Australian, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘His body is being examined.’
‘He will be alive in minutes, yes?’
The nurse looks at me closely. ‘Have you got some wires loose?’
‘No,’ I protest. ‘You
think I’m crazy, but I’m just thinking of modern medicine. You see, in Australia, science is a big thing. It can heal people and it can save people. You can explain life with it.’ I fidget. ‘Do you have the time?’
She is silent for a minute. ‘Get this boy a glass of water,’ she says.
A doctor approaches. He looks a lot older than Dad.
‘Are you the relative of the Australian man?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you to him?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘His eldest son. But he was my father, he was everything. He was God, I think.’
‘Be careful who you say that to,’ the doctor says. ‘Don’t go saying that to the police when they interview you, for one thing. I trained in Europe, I know you don’t mean apostasy, but they can hang you for that.’ He hands me a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve estimated the time of death.’
‘No.’
‘No? No to what?’
‘No to everything.’
‘Son. We all die. It’s our destiny. I just need you to sign this.’
I look down at the death notice. Am I really doing this? This morning, we were drinking Coke at a felafel stand.
‘Sorry, doctor,’ I say. ‘Can you sign it for me?’
‘What kind of son are you? Sign it!’ he snaps. ‘Your father deserves this, at the very least. Now sign it, damn it!’
I look at the paper and something inside me wakes up. The doctor’s words echo. I must take care of him after his death. When the doctor hands me a pen, I take it and sign the sheet.
◆ ◆ ◆
Time has stopped, but my watch keeps ticking. I’m still in reception at the hospital. I finally call my younger brother, Ali.
‘Hey. How’s Iran going?’ he asks me. ‘It’s Sunday morning here.’
‘Yeah, I’m good. Iran’s good. It’s Saturday night here. Hey, sorry if I’m disturbing you.’
‘No, I’m on the way to work.’ Ali works early on Sundays. ‘Running late, actually.’
‘That’s no good, running late is never good, I’m always running late,’ I say. ‘Hey, listen, if you’re driving, just pull over for a second.’
A long pause.
‘Go on,’ he says.
‘Okay, so I think Dad’s not in a good situation. He had a heart attack and died.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think he’s not alive anymore.’
‘No, man.’ He softly exhales.
His no echoes like a soundtrack from a horror movie.
‘It’s pretty much a hundred per cent. Sorry, bro, I think it’s real,’ I whisper.
‘No, man! What about the doctors? People have heart attacks all the time. He’s only fifty.’
‘I have a police interview, then I have to see what the procedure is to bring him home. None of this “bury him in Iraq” and “Iraq is holy ground” bullshit. Okay?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ I don’t know if he gets it. ‘Sure, bro. Are you in Qom?’
‘Mashhad.’
‘But it’s freezing there now, no? It’s crowded. Are you going to get things done?’
‘Yes to your last question. I think it’s cold to your first. Listen, I have to bring him back in the next few days, my visa’s gonna expire. Shit, can you hear me talk about Dad like this? Ali, do not tell anyone. Do not tell a soul. Don’t tell Mum. Not yet. Let me finish the procedures here. There could be a few hurdles.’
I hang up and sit down. I watch the wall clock ticking.
Two hours later, it’s still ticking. I’ve never noticed the white fluorescent lights at a hospital like this before. They are super bright. An officer in military uniform greets me. He invites me to an interview room in another part of the hospital. He’s eating a submarine sandwich. He says a detective is on his way.
He squeezes out his condolences. He assures me it’s just procedure. Since Dad is a foreigner, they want it done by the book.
They’ve also learned that Dad is the head cleric in Melbourne, and a representative of the major scholars of Iran. So they’re taking extra caution, to avoid the local media out of respect. He ushers me into the interview room and tells me to sit down.
‘Wherever you’re comfortable,’ he says.
I look around. There’s a table and a large chair, probably for the officer, and two smaller wooden chairs. They’re identical. I do eeny, meeny, miny, moe and pick one. I can’t believe my brain is doing this.
The officer bites through his sandwich, salad hanging out of his mouth. He’s overweight. Through his thick lenses, I can’t quite see his eyes.
He lectures me about burying Dad next to Imam Reza. ‘Mashhad is a holy ground. It is of great fortune for your father to have died not only on this sacred land, but during the memorial of the great imam’s death as well.’
‘Thank you for the offer,’ I say, ‘but I have to inform you I’ll be taking Dad to be buried back where his family lives.’
The officer chews through his submarine like a wild mule. He talks with his mouth full. ‘Listen carefully, son. There’s a few things you’ll have to do to get your father out of here.’ I brace for a litany of tasks. ‘There’s a lot of things to do,’ he repeats, vaguely. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue. We don’t have many of these cases.’
‘How long do you think the procedure will take?’ I ask him. ‘My visa expires next Saturday.’
‘What are we now, Saturday? It’ll be touch and go. You’ll have to get it extended.’
‘I already have,’ I say. ‘I’m not allowed another one.’
‘Yeah, sorry,’ he says. ‘Just try and get everything done as fast as you can. Okay, I want you to write. Can you write?’
‘Yes.’
‘In Farsi?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I knew that was what he meant.
‘Good boy,’ he says. ‘Write down all the events. Right up until your discovery of the deceased. What you did this morning, all that. We can use this as your statement, so be detailed.’
So I start. I haven’t written anything formal in Persian in a long time, but the events are so fresh in my mind that they come without a hurdle. The officer keeps chewing and keeps talking as I write.
‘Don’t worry about your father’s death. We’ll all die,’ he says. ‘Life is a shithole anyway. It’s sewage. Believe me, I wish I was dead. How old was your father?’
I’m trying to focus. ‘Fifty, I think.’
‘Wow! Eight years younger than me. I’m going to die one day, too. This life just isn’t worth it. I swear, I envy your father. Take this afternoon, for instance. I’m lining up to get a burger. I tell the clerk I want mayonnaise, and what sauce does he put? Aioli! I’m telling you, life’s shit. Worthless. Can you believe it? No mayonnaise. It’s wonderful, your father doesn’t have to see all this suffering anymore.’
I sit, completely stunned. I want to stand up and choke him. On the other hand, I pity him. I want him to see a therapist—and I want to pay for it too.
But the other thing is, what he said
was stupid, but it was quite funny too. I want to laugh. But I don’t.
◆ ◆ ◆
Two hours later, the detective arrives. Aioli Cop lets him in.
He’s a young man, bearded, with a strong regional accent. He goes through the condolences in such a way that it’s clear it’s just routine.
He asks me to recount the story—how I found Dad, what happened earlier. I tell him I’ve already written the story and given it to his colleague.
He shrugs. ‘That wasn’t necessary. I have to write it down.’
For fifty minutes, I go over it again. I sign a paper, stating that he’s ruled me out as a suspect. I ask how long the procedure will take.
‘I hear you want to take the body back to Australia,’ he says. ‘Why not bury him here? Religious place. Next to the imam.’
‘We have no family here.’
‘So? He died here. It has a meaning. Put him in holy grounds.’
I wonder if he’s saying this to give himself an easier job, or if the sentiment is genuine. I don’t know.
The detective tells me he doesn’t know either—what exactly the procedures are. He suggests I play it by ear from department to department. He assures me the job will take no more than a couple of days. I breathe a little easier; the last thing I want is to serve a prison sentence while Dad lies in an Iranian morgue. The detective stamps the paper. He seals it in an envelope. He hands it to me. He tells me to take it to Kalantari 27, a police division. Aioli Cop looks surprised. A police car should take me, he says. Or the detective should take the form there himself. It’s his job.
The detective contests this. It’s past midnight, and the police cars are all out of action at this time. He asks if I’ll have a problem finding my own way to the Kalantari 27. He tries to ease the burden: it’s only a half-hour drive.
I’m so bewildered I can’t reply. It’s late at night, or actually early the next day, in a city of millions. I couldn’t even find my own hotel.