Persian Girls: A Memoir

by Nahid Rachlin

  The women, like the aghounds, talked about the events that happened nearly fifteen hundred years ago as if they had just taken place. They spoke of Prophet Mohammad and Ali and Yazid, and Umar, their differences, degrees of justice and generosity. They referred to Ali, Mohammad’s son-in-law, who they believed should have succeeded Mohammad (an issue that divided them from the Sunnis, who didn’t). They condemned Umar, the caliph who succeeded Mohammad instead.

  I didn’t miss the presence of a father. Other girls rarely had real relationships with their fathers and almost never spoke about them. Fathers were distant figures in the lives of Iranian girls—except when it came to rules and punishment.

  Tehran streets were filled with adventures and mysteries for my cousins and me; we ran through them, our shoes pounding against the cobblestones. Unaware of the limitations that choked the hopes and aspirations of the young women all around me, I felt a boundless sense of freedom. We sneaked into little neighborhood bazaars filled with the scents of fruit, herbs, and spices, and bought bags of roasted pumpkin and watermelon seeds. We watched the greengrocer weighing a batch of vegetables on a scale, a copper-shiner filing a copper pot, sparks jumping from his instrument into the air. On Khanat Abad Avenue we went to the stationery store that stocked stacks of colorful stickers, and we bought angel and flower stickers to take home. Back home, our aunts held and kissed us, gave us handmade toys—rag dolls, pinwheels, clay animals. We were unaware then of the asperity of their lives.

  Only in the public baths did I come to understand the difficulties of being a woman. In the large steamy room, with red loincloths wrapped around their hips, the women spoke of the unfairness of the system that gave women so much less power than men. The Shah’s claim of equality for women was nonsense, they said. Didn’t sons inherit twice as much as daughters when their parents died? And weren’t men allowed to marry more than one woman? Didn’t fathers automatically get custody of the children in cases of divorce? Wasn’t it the simplest thing for a man to divorce his wife, whereas if a woman wanted a divorce she had to give up everything—the right to money and her children? How sad it was that the Shah divorced his wife, Fowzieh, because she didn’t give him a son. Now he was married again and no doubt Sorraya, his new wife, would suffer the same fate if she didn’t produce a son. The Shah had changed nothing for women, other than making it optional for them to wear the chador—but what good did that freedom do when it was the husbands who dictated to them whether or not to wear the chador?

  “The Shah could learn something from Prophet Mohammad, who believed in equality for women,” Maryam said as she wiped soap from her forehead.

  “Yes, the prophet married a woman fifteen years older than himself, was devoted to her, and didn’t divorce her even though only a daughter, not a son, by her survived,” another woman joined in.

  “He never married another woman until Khadijeh died,” Aunt Roghieh, Maryam’s middle sister, said.

  “He was so unassuming, and, unlike the Shah, lived sparsely. He gave away everything extra,” Maryam agreed. “His house, with its mud walls, its roof thatched with date-palm leaves, often remained dark for want of oil for the lamp. He was compassionate. Remember what’s said about him? That when he saw a poor blind woman stumbling in the street in Mecca he led her gently to her home and took meals to her daily thereafter.”

  “You know how Agha brought another wife on me?” Aunt Khadijeh, who was named after the prophet’s wife, said in a near whisper. “I can’t say I was really upset when his truck turned over and killed him. It was God’s doing, to answer my prayers.”

  Aunt Khadijeh was a vivacious woman now but I had heard Maryam say to her tenants that Khadijeh had been depressed for years.

  “Didn’t I give him three sons? What else did he want from me?” Aunt Khadijeh added.

  Aunt Roghieh shook her head from side to side. “Dear sister, what happens on this earth is insignificant.” She was the oldest of the sisters and had a retiring manner.

  “And you know how I waited on Fatollah, and all I got was criticism for not giving him a child,” Maryam remarked. “I was sure he was going to take another wife, but then he died.” She began to massage the back of Khadijeh, who looked stirred up and upset by the memory of the other wife her own husband had brought on her.

  The sweet intimacy among the sisters and the support they gave to one another gradually relieved their pain, and finally they could relax, joke, laugh. Then more cheerful subjects were introduced.

  “A nice man from a fine family has come for Narghes’s hand,” Aunt Roghieh said, speaking about her fourteen-year-old daughter. She had been worried that no one would marry Narghes because she had bald spots on her head.

  “See, when all the doors are shut on you, God opens a window,” Aunt Khadijeh said.

  “We’re a part of an intricate design by God that unfolds itself in ways that we don’t always understand,” Maryam remarked.

  Three

  During those years of my living with Maryam, my birth mother was just a shadow. I saw her only once a year when she came to Tehran to visit her relatives. She always stayed with Maryam but she paid no particular attention to me; there was no bond between us.

  One year when I was about seven, Mohtaram brought along a vivacious, curly-haired child of about two who kept moving around in Mohtaram’s arms, staring at everyone, smiling at them. It was Mina, my younger sister, whom I had never met.

  They stayed with us for a week and my other two aunts and their children came over daily to visit. Mohtaram stood out among her sisters because she had become modern, wore makeup, didn’t cover her hair in the presence of men, and didn’t pray. But still her sisters doted on her. They excused her, blamed her modern ways on my father. Men had all the power and it was dangerous to go against their will, they said.

  “You were such a lively, pretty little girl,” Maryam said to Mohtaram.

  “No wonder Manoochehr khan waited until you reached the right age to marry,” Roghieh said.

  “And God has blessed you with so many children,” said Khadijeh, who herself had three sons.

  Mohtaram paid particular attention to her favorite sister, Maryam. “You were the most beautiful of all of us,” she said to her. “Remember Reza Shah sent a woman over, asking if you would become one of his wives.”

  Reza Shah, the father of Mohammad Reza Shah, had a small harem and told women in his circle to look in public baths or streets for the most beautiful women, whom he could bring to his harem.

  “Our mother didn’t want you to be in a harem,” Mohtaram went on.

  “None of us sisters wanted to marry anyone,” Maryam said. “We were happy to just stay home and be with each other.”

  Hossein khan, my grandfather, was a wealthy tobacco merchant and provided well for his family. They lived in a large house in Khanat Abad, this very neighborhood, and also had a summer villa in a village in the Alborz Mountains. He had set traditional values for his family. He believed education was for boys and boys only. His sons had gone as far as finishing high school. He encouraged his daughters to marry as soon as suitable men came along.

  Maryam had completed the sixth grade and had some grasp of reading and writing. Mohtaram, after she was married, had tutors—my father’s idea. My other two aunts were completely illiterate. All the sisters were married by the age of sixteen, as were almost all the other girls in the neighborhood. Mohtaram married at nine, the legal age then for marrying. My father was the only one among the sisters’ husbands with a higher education. Not only had he finished college, he had continued his schooling and become a lawyer. My aunts’ husbands all owned shops: Maryam’s owned bakeries; of the other two, one sold produce, the other carpets.

  My father had traveled and been exposed to other ways of thinking, but still he adhered to the tradition of arranged marriage and wasn’t troubled by the age discrepancy between him and his bride, or by the fact that his bride was a mere child. He was Mohtaram’s second cousin; he had
watched her grow and anticipated marrying her one day. When they married he was thirty-four. After the wedding he set up a separate room for his child bride until she was old enough to perform properly as a wife.

  Once the girls were married, they immediately started having children. All the sisters, that is, except for Maryam.

  At the end of her visit Mohtaram cried. She couldn’t bear to part with her sisters, particularly Maryam. Maryam promised to visit Mohtaram in Ahvaz but she never did. Without speaking a word, my father made it impossible.

  Mohtaram kissed my cousins and me good-bye, showing no more love or affection for me than for my cousins. She made no attempt to instill in me the fact that she was my real mother. And I felt nothing special for her.

  “Which one do you like better?” I asked one of my cousins after Mohtaram had left and Maryam had disappeared into the courtyard. “Maryam or Mohtaram?” I was devastated when my cousin said she liked Mohtaram because she had many children.

  Something about that visit upset me. That night in bed I lay awake for a long time. I wondered for the first time why she had given me up so easily. Why hadn’t she given one of her other children to Maryam? Was there something wrong with me? Why had I been so quickly surrendered? She held Mina in her arms so lovingly.

  I stopped every few days at the stationery store on Khanat Abad Avenue that carried the magazine Gheseh (Story). Each issue contained a few “true” stories and one piece of fiction, all written by unknown, sometimes anonymous writers. At home I read every piece. Perhaps those words, those stories, would provide me with answers.

  Because of all the reading I did I came out first in the third grade at Tehrani School. At the end of a school day the principal gathered everyone in the courtyard and announced who had come first in their classes. Then one by one she put crowns, made with gold-and-blue paper, on our heads. I didn’t want to remove the crown too quickly, so I went home by the quiet, empty, backstreet that led to our alley. At home I found Maryam in the courtyard, watering the rosebushes with a tin can. I stood in front of her. She turned to me and noticed the crown. “I came first in my class,” I said.

  She put the can down and embraced and kissed me. “You’re a wonderful girl in every respect,” she said.

  Why did Mohtaram give me away, then? I asked myself, still searching for an explanation.

  Maryam and Hamideh were talking in the courtyard while they chopped vegetables. On the porch, I strained to catch every word.

  “You know, Banu khanoon put her one-year-old baby girl in the doorway of that house at the end of the alley and walked away. The poor child is blind,” Hamideh said to Maryam.

  “Oh no, why did she do that?” Maryam said. “What happened to the child?”

  “Banu had a suitor, that butcher at Asghari shop. His mother told her that he wanted her to place her child with one of her relatives. Her son wouldn’t want that blind child around. Banu couldn’t find anyone to take the child. But Banu changed her mind—she ran back and picked up the child.”

  I was chilled by what they were saying.

  A little later Hamideh went into her room and Maryam came up onto the porch and went into the living room. I followed her.

  “Mother, is something wrong with me that Mohtaram gave me away?”

  “You’re a perfect creation of God, my dear girl. It was your destiny to be my child. As soon as a baby comes into the world an angel writes its destiny on the baby’s forehead.”

  “I don’t see any writing on my forehead,” I said.

  “It’s written with a special invisible ink.”

  “Does what the angel writes stay there forever?”

  “Sometimes if a person pleads with God, he might decide to tell the angel to change the writing. But no one is praying to change your destiny. I want you with me forever.”

  Four

  Suddenly Ali, the servant, was knocking on the door and calling me to breakfast. I didn’t answer, and he left only to return and call me again. I finally roused myself, went to the bathroom, and washed up. Reluctantly I headed to the dining room to have breakfast with my new family.

  Though it was early morning the sunlight pouring into the dining room was already glaringly bright. My siblings were there, sitting at the long wooden table and talking among themselves. I had met them all once or twice during Mohtaram’s visits to Maryam, so I wasn’t introduced to them. I took the empty seat next to Father.

  “Here is Nahid, back with us,” he said.

  Everyone turned to me but we were all speechless. My brothers were grown now, Cyrus, eighteen, two years older than Parviz and in the last year of high school. They were attractive boys and exuded self-confidence. Pari, thirteen, was three years younger than Parviz and had robust good looks. Manijeh, two years younger than Pari, was pretty but had a wan, remote air about her. They were all dressed in imported clothes, like the ones I saw in boutiques in north Tehran. Pari was in a blouse and a skirt with shoulder straps, Manijeh in a white print dress with ruffles at the sleeves, Mohtaram in a striped black-and-white dress. Father and my brothers were wearing suits and ties, very formal. Suddenly my dress, made by the seamstress, seemed crude. I felt that I did not belong with these people.

  “Now all my children are here with us,” Father said, trying to pull me in, his stern face brightening.

  “But my dear Maryam,” Mohtaram murmured, looking down.

  “Don’t mention that,” Father said sharply.

  Pari smiled at me as if trying to comfort me, the first acknowledgment from a sibling of my presence.

  Ali came in and put a glass of tea before me.

  “Eat something,” Father said, addressing me.

  I began to serve myself cheese, bread, jam, dates.

  “Take some khameh, too,” Pari said. “It’s good.” I reached for the thick, almost solid cream and put a spoonful on my plate.

  The bread was thick and cold, the tea didn’t have mint fragrance like the one Maryam served. As I played with my food, my brothers talked among themselves, and Mohtaram focused on Manijeh, asking her what she needed that day for school. Pari glanced at me and smiled again.

  “There’s so much to do today, shopping, cooking,” Mohtaram suddenly began to complain to no one in particular. “We need to get a new oven, a new fan for the salon. And all the children want one thing or another,” she said. “Nahid needs a uniform to wear to school,” she added.

  There was no warmth in her words. I felt it was only me she was complaining about, as if I had somehow tipped the scales and now she had far too many children to attend to. The others, after all, had always been there.

  Father got up and pulled the shades over the windows to cut the merciless light. When he sat down again he looked very serious, as if about to give a lecture. A hush fell over the table. After a few moments of tense silence, he said, “I have to take Nahid to school her first day.”

  Everyone finished eating and left the dining room one by one. The early morning havoc followed—the children flitting around the large house, looking for something or other—a misplaced shoe, the collar of a school uniform. I went into my room and waited quietly.

  Finally Mohtaram came in and handed me a gray uniform with a white collar.

  “Here,” she said. “Wear this until we get you your own. It’s Manijeh’s from last year.”

  “I don’t want to wear it,” I said, rebellion bubbling up inside me. We didn’t wear uniforms in my school in Tehran. Mohtaram walked away without another word.

  After a few moments, Father appeared in the doorway. “Hurry up and put on the uniform, we have to go,” he said.

  Reluctantly, I put it on. It was too big for me.

  “We’ll get you your own uniform soon,” he said once we were outside. “You’re nine years old now, a woman,” he added as we began walking. “You need my supervision.”

  I said nothing, filled with anxiety and fear of his power over me.

  “I want you to start calling your mother
‘Mother,’ ” he said. “She is your real mother, she always has been.”

  “I don’t want to stay here,” I said.

  “You must stop talking like that,” he said firmly.

  We turned from Pahlavi Avenue onto another, smaller street lined mainly with houses, most of them modern, not inside courtyards. Palm trees, some with dates clustered between their branches, stood everywhere. There were no joobs in sight. It was much warmer than yesterday in Tehran and I was hot from walking. I felt I had been plunged into a different, alien world.

  The school, a modern building on a long street, finally came into view. “Your sisters went here, too,” Father said. “It goes through the sixth grade.”

  Other girls in gray uniforms swarmed in the street, some walking, some dropped off by chauffeurs. They greeted one another and disappeared inside.

  As we reached the entrance Father said, “I’m sure you’ll like it. You’re only a week late for classes here.”

  I stood by the door, not wanting to go in. He took my hand and led me inside into a large yard. The yard was open on the other side, except for a short fence. Palm trees stood in clumps in several spots. The classrooms and offices were inside a large grayish two-story modern structure. Father led me to the principal’s office on the second floor.

  A woman in a stiff navy blue suit opened the door. Her dark hair was pulled back tightly and she wore a touch of makeup on her face.

  “Oh, Mr. Ghazi,” she said, using the word for “judge.” “I am so pleased you believe this school worthy of your daughter.” She turned to me. “Welcome. You look healthy. It was good of your parents to send you to Tehran to recover.”

  I blushed. What was she talking about?

  “We’ll be off now. I wanted you to meet her,” Father said to the woman.

  “We’ll take good care of her,” she replied, smiling at me.