Persian Girls: A Memoir

by Nahid Rachlin

  “When I was twelve years old I injured my spine jumping off a tree in our backyard,” Linda said. “I was in bed for weeks. All I did was read and think about things.”

  She made a deal with me to help me with my English and edit my papers, in return for Farsi lessons. Linda had read Omar Khayyám’s poetry and had become interested in ancient Iran and the Farsi language. She intended to use Farsi letters in her paintings. “I want to juxtapose something mystical with the ordinary,” she explained.

  I took it that she was referring to me as well as the language when she used the word “mystical.” Coming from Linda, it was a compliment.

  We began to spend a lot of time together. We were an odd couple on campus: she was tall and thin, I was short and suddenly a little overweight from the high-calorie food in the school’s dining room.

  During the Christmas holidays Linda invited me to her home in Dallas.

  “Don’t be put off by my parents,” she warned me before we left. “They’re very provincial.”

  We reached her house at dinnertime, having taken an early bus from St. Louis. Linda’s mother, Shirley, kissed her.

  “Welcome,” Shirley said to me but with a scrutinizing gaze that immediately made me uncomfortable. Linda showed me the guest room and then we went to dinner. The house was furnished with ornate, imitation European items, the way my parents’ house was. But the ranch-style architecture and the quietness surrounding it were vastly different.

  Linda’s father was already sitting at the table. He nodded to me and said, “Sit down, Nadia.”

  “Nahid,” Linda corrected.

  “Nahad, how do you like our country so far? Isn’t it lucky you came here?”

  I was blushing, uncomfortable with him.

  “Let’s eat,” Shirley said. The table was already set with food similar to meals at school—corn bread, deep-fried chicken, and grits. Shirley bent her head and began to say grace, and we all bent our heads, too. In a moment she raised her head and said, “Amen,” and we all repeated, “Amen.” I had participated in the ritual on different occasions in the college.

  Shirley began to pass around the food.

  “What do you eat in Iran?” she asked me.

  “The most common dishes are fish and lamb and chicken kababs and stews.”

  “Do you have houses in Iran?” was Shirley’s next question.

  “Yes, definitely,” I said.

  “You’re so much more refined than other foreigners,” she said.

  Linda’s father was quiet throughout, listening to the hum of the TV turned low in the corner.

  After dinner Linda and I withdrew to our rooms. Before going to bed I had to use the bathroom and I passed Linda’s room. Her mother was inside talking to her.

  “Why don’t you ever do things like everyone else, the normal way? First you go out with an Egyptian and now your best friend is Eyeranian. Before we know it you’re going to announce you’re engaged to a Negro.”

  “Mom, stop it,” Linda shouted. “I don’t want to hear any of this!”

  I couldn’t hear them after I went into the bathroom. Later Linda joined me in my room and shut the door. I was sitting in bed, reading the The Dallas Morning News, which I had picked up in the living room.

  I hid my head in the newspaper.

  “My parents share the herd mentality of the people around here,” she said, assuming I had overheard the conversation. “Sometimes I lie in the dark and think about how disappointed they are in me. I don’t date much, I’m not in a hurry to catch the right husband. I’ll never be a typical housewife and mother. They sent me to Lindengrove to groom me for the right kind of husband. The college is just a finishing school.”

  I thought of the home economics course that was immensely popular at school. The homecoming queen was a home economics major.

  When we returned to St. James, Linda seemed more restless than ever and began cutting classes. One afternoon she came to my room and announced, “I’m not staying for the rest of the semester. I’m going to New York to enroll in art school. All I want to do is paint.”

  “You’re quitting in the middle of the semester?”

  “I can’t bear it here,” she said. “You could come to New York, too. Maybe we’ll room together.”

  “I can’t quit,” I said. “I’m on a student visa. I have to be at school. And I wouldn’t be able to support myself anyway. I need the full scholarship.”

  After Linda dropped out I tried to get away from the campus as much as possible. One day I looked for a bookstore in town but discovered there were none. A drugstore had a rack with some paperbacks and magazines on it. As I was browsing through the books with their shiny covers, my mind was totally on Jalal and his bookstore. I missed him, and my fears for him returned. Was he in jail, dead, alive? None of the books interested me and I bought a copy of Time magazine. I decided to treat myself to a meal out, something I rarely did for lack of money. I sat in a diner and read the magazine as I ate.

  This was 1965 and there was a reference to Khomeini in a brief article. He had been released from house arrest and sent into exile in Turkey. He was sending messages to Iranians, demanding that they openly criticize the Shah. But, the article said, the upheaval that had beset Iranian cities had diminished over the last several weeks and there was no real threat to the Shah.

  I noticed a young man sitting alone, staring at me.

  “Hello,” he said, catching my eye. He had blue eyes and short-cropped blond hair, like most of the boys in the area. “Can I sit with you?” he asked.

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  He joined me. “I’m Bill Owen. And you?”

  “Nahid Mehramy.”

  He repeated my name a couple of times and asked, “Where are you from?”

  “Iran.”

  “A modern Shah and queen and all the oil,” he said. “Everyone must be rich there. Is your father rich?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you live near oil fields?”

  “Right in the middle of them.”

  He said he sold electronic equipment and occasionally passed through St. James. After we finished eating he got the check and paid for my lunch, too. “I’ll take you for a ride,” he said. “That’s my car right there.”

  I hesitated. Not that I was afraid of being seen with the man, as I had been when I went for the boat ride with James, but because I was afraid of who Bill Owen might be, where he would take me. In the dormitory students talked about rape and murder. But I was terribly lonely and wanted to make a connection. So I got into his car. He drove to a quiet spot just a few minutes out of the town. He put the car in park, then took my face in his hands and kissed me. I felt nothing. It was as if I were asleep or my flesh was numb. I was used to being wooed by a boy before anything could happen. Before I got onto the boat with James, I had seen him around town, our eyes had locked, we had smiled at each other. I had just met Bill. His hand touched my breast and I began to resist.

  “Why not?” he whispered, breathing fast.

  I didn’t know what to say to this stranger, so I said nothing.

  Bill put his head on the steering wheel and gave an exasperated sigh. Then he began to drive me to the college.

  “Let me know if you’re in town again,” I said, as he dropped me off.

  “I will,” he said and quickly drove away.

  I stood by the school’s gate as if I had been thrown out of his car. I thought of how persistent the boys in Ahvaz were—day after day standing on the sidewalk waiting for us girls to pass by. This encounter seemed to be part of an American code I didn’t quite comprehend.

  But for weeks, I missed this man I had met only once.

  It was helpful to see how my brothers had adjusted to the culture. Cyrus, who lived in Ohio now, was visiting Parviz in his apartment in St. Louis. Both my brothers had assumed the more informal American appearance and manner. They were immersed in the culture and even had American girlfriends, who joined us for dinner.
Cyrus’s girlfriend, Mildred, grew up on a farm in Ohio and was blond and Christian. Parviz’s girlfriend, Shirley, was from Tennessee and also Christian, and had light brown hair and brown eyes. In certain ways my brothers had fulfilled our parents’ expectations. Parviz was doing well in his field of medicine, having gotten an internship at a prestigious hospital, and Cyrus was getting a Ph.D. in mathematics, after completing his engineering degree. Neither had returned home for visits, even though they could now afford it. They both explained that it was difficult for them psychologically. It had taken a long time to understand the cues of this new culture and to finally become a part of it. It would be jarring to go back and forth.

  Twenty-one

  Throughout the year, I had written Pari several letters. I never received a reply. But finally one came in my second semester.

  I’m so happy to get your letters and have a glimpse of the way you live. I didn’t write back sooner because I have so little to say about my life that you don’t already know. As you might expect, Taheri went against his promise again and when I got a part in a play he stopped me from being in it. He’s a caricature of the romantic man he presented himself as. I’m passing time by doing what he approves of—renovating the house.

  There’s a dark hollow space between me and my husband. I feel this is a good time to get out of the marriage, before I have a child. I wrote letters home to see if Father and Mother would help me get a divorce. As expected, they said no. You know how impossible it would be for me to do it alone, without their help. How would I make a living? I would be penniless without the mehrieh, which I would surely lose. I don’t even have access to most of my jewelry. Taheri put most of the valuable ones in a bank safe. He says I don’t have enough sense and will lose them and also there are home robberies at times. Jobs wouldn’t come easily to a young divorced woman here and the same with trying to rent a place and living alone, even if I could afford it. It’s easier for a woman who’s widowed to live alone than a divorced woman, even in the most modern sections. A divorced woman living alone practically has the status of a prostitute. I don’t want to give up hope but I can’t help despairing at times. You were stronger than me. . . .

  I remained in my chair, almost paralyzed with sadness. Finally I put the letter in a cardboard box where I kept an antique tortoiseshell comb and brush set that Pari had given to me when we were in Ahvaz. The lid was decorated with designs of a willowy girl sitting by a stream. I had written “Pari” on it.

  A few months later, another letter arrived.

  Nahid, I am pregnant, two months. I was hoping I wouldn’t get pregnant but here I am with a baby growing inside me. My dear sister, I can tell you honestly that I’m not happy about it. It kills the hope of my somehow getting out of the marriage. In spite of his possessiveness of me, I’m sure Taheri goes to prostitutes. I smell different perfumes on him. I couldn’t hold myself back and I confronted him. He vehemently denied it. Then, as usual, he tried to comfort me with lavish gifts.

  One good thing in my life is having Azar Mirshahi as a friend. She lives in a house across the street. She’s about my age, is married to a businessman working for a caviar cannery, and they have three small children. I go to her house and we have tea and talk. Yesterday she said something that upsets me terribly. She asked me if I knew anything about Taheri’s past. I assumed she was referring to his going to prostitutes but she said no, there were things about him that I should know but I had to find out on my own, as she had been sworn to secrecy. It makes me apprehensive what it could be. I’m going to try to pry it out of her.

  At the bottom of the letter Pari had copied a poem, “The Wind-up Doll,” by the famous Iranian poet Furugh Farrukhzad. Farrukhzad, who lived in Ahvaz for a period of time, was both admired and attacked by people for her outspokenness on issues having to do with women’s private desires, so suppressed in Iran.

  With a frozen gaze like that of the dead

  you stare at the smoke drifting from a cigarette

  at a cup

  at a fading epigraph on the wall

  With stiff fingers you push aside the drapery on the window

  you stand there motionless and like a wind-up doll,

  you see the world with glass eyes

  you watch the rain falling in the alley

  a child standing in a doorway, flying colorful kites

  At night in bed, enveloped in a man’s domineering arms

  you cry out with a voice that is false and remote, “I love . . .”

  You sleep for years in lace and tinsel, your body stuffed with straw

  Rise up and seek your freedom, my sister

  Why are you quiet?

  Seek your rights, my sister

  You must tear apart from those who seat you in a corner of the house

  so that your life will be free.

  Now from an even farther distance than that between Ahvaz and Tehran, I was haunted by Pari’s state in life, in the hands of her despotic husband. She had hoped that in Tehran she would find freedom. She had been naive to believe Taheri would let her pursue what she wanted. She had pulled a veil of self-deception over her face in order to bear marrying him.

  I had an urgent desire to talk to Pari, hear her voice. I decided to use the public phone in the dorm lobby. It was ten o’clock in the morning in St. James; it would be nine o’clock in the evening in Tehran. The international lines were busy for a long time. When I finally got through, Pari’s phone rang and rang and no one picked up. The same thing happened on the following days. Each time I failed to reach her I was filled with a bottomless sense of foreboding.

  I thought about visiting her. I would need a permission letter from Father again to be able to get out of Iran and return to school. What if, for some reason, he decided to keep me there and force me to marry? Besides, I didn’t have the money for travel and I knew he wouldn’t pay for the trip since he had never sent money to my brothers to visit. The unfavorable exchange rate from toomans to dollars made the tickets exorbitantly expensive. Pari couldn’t visit me because Taheri would never allow her to come all the way to America; now that she was married, Iranian law stipulated that he (rather than Father) was the one from whom she needed a permission letter to travel.

  I began to dream about Pari. In one dream I was in Maryam’s house. Pari was there, too, and the three of us were sitting in her large living room around a sofreh, eating. Mellow green, yellow, and amber lights seeped into the room. Maryam suddenly frowned and said, “That isn’t Pari, she only looks like her. And that isn’t really my courtyard.” I looked at Pari and I could see there were certain obvious differences. And the courtyard was filled with paper flowers, not real ones.

  I woke, covered in sweat.

  The next night in my dream I was sitting in the hollow trunk of the old plane tree in Maryam’s courtyard. It was a very clear day and everything around me was vividly delineated. Then the air suddenly changed; a hard wind began to blow and it quickly turned into a hurricane. Someone was walking toward me in the darkened air, calling my name, asking for help. I jumped out of the tree and ran toward the figure, whose voice became more desperate. It was a tiny, featureless figure with hands stretched out toward me, trying to move forward but not able to. I realized that the figure was Pari, only smaller and younger. She sank into the ground before I could reach her.

  Pari gave birth in the modern and well-equipped Russian Hospital in Tehran. After she came out of anesthesia, she found Taheri sitting on a chair by her bed, looking at her with loving eyes. He kissed her and said, “You gave us a lovely son.” But Pari knew this new behavior would not last; beneath his congenial and adoring manner lurked the desire to control, the dark possessiveness. It would return. A nurse examined Pari’s breasts to see if she had enough milk to breast-feed. She did but it hurt when she fed Bijan, so much that Pari couldn’t help but cry. Pari considered bottle-feeding Bijan, as some modern Tehrani mothers did, but Taheri didn’t like the idea.

  After two days
in the maternity hospital Taheri took Pari home. His three sisters were waiting for them there. Taheri’s elderly parents visited for a week. Other family members, hordes of them, some of whom Pari hadn’t met before, visited daily. Many of Taheri’s relatives were ultraconservative Muslims who were hoping Taheri would give Bijan a name like Mohammad or Hussein. They insisted that he and Pari, too, start praying daily to set a good example for their child. Taheri prayed while they were there and forced Pari to do the same. Pari pretended. Mohtaram and Father didn’t visit as they were saddled with responsibilities at home. Farzin was having seizures that were hard to control with drugs. She couldn’t speak and threw tantrums in frustration. She couldn’t attend school, and they had hired tutors for her.

  Twenty-two

  That fall, the foreign student adviser called me into her office. “What is your major going to be?” she asked.

  “I want to be a writer.”

  “You know we don’t have a writing major,” she said, frowning. “Besides, writing isn’t practical. How are you going to support yourself? Are you engaged to a rich man or are your parents willing to support you through the struggle?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why don’t you major in psychology? It’s a practical field and it is about people, like writing. After you get your degree here, you can apply to graduate schools.”

  I liked her suggestions, though I wasn’t sure how I would manage to go to graduate school. I became fascinated by mother-child relationships. I devoured literature about teenage girls, how during teen and preteen years girls often rebel against their mothers, even hate them. They think of their mothers as being too restrictive and are sensitive to the slightest criticism. In turn they are critical of anything their mothers do: their clothing, way of speaking, hairstyle. It reminded me of my attitude toward Mohtaram, with whom I had lived only during those typically rebellious years.