Laleh introduced her daughters. They both removed their head scarves and raincoats and emerged as stylish, attractive, nice girls. Soosan wore a pleated skirt and a T-shirt with a low neckline, and Nasrin a tailored blue dress, also with a low neckline. Laleh invited them to join us for lunch, but they had already eaten and went to their rooms.
“My daughters go against the rules as much as they can get away with,” Laleh said to me. “That’s the case with many young people; they take chances. Some of them are picked up by the moral police. If their ‘crime’ is wearing lipstick or nail polish or they aren’t observing the hejab properly, they’re flogged; if they’re carrying any pamphlets or books that might sound anti-government, they’re sent to jail. Everyone lives only in the privacy of their homes. You can get almost anything on the black market—American videos, liquor—but then of course there’s always the dread of being caught. We live with fear and anxiety, the way it was under the Shah. My daughters wish so much to go to a university in America, but it’s nearly impossible to get even student visas now. Why did it have to come to this?” She got up and went into the kitchen.
In a moment she came back carrying a silver-legged platter heaped with fruit. She set it in the middle of the table.
“Nahid,” she said as she sat down. “Mansour committed Pari to a sanitarium. The doctors released her after a month.”
“But wasn’t that a few years ago?” I asked, feeling a painful squeeze in my heart.
“No, it was just before the accident. He put her in what used to be called Pahlavi Sanitarium.”
“This was the second time he put her there,” Azar said.
“Pari told me about the first time. I don’t think there was enough justification for it,” I said.
“I didn’t think there was the second time, either,” Azar said.
“One of Mansour’s relatives told my husband that Mansour’s brothers are already looking for a new wife for him. They all thought Pari was wrong for him, that she felt superior to him,” Zohreh said.
We fell into silence. That Mansour would be substituting another woman for Pari made my heart ache. It was odd, I suddenly thought, that Mansour didn’t try to reach me after the accident.
We talked awhile longer, sorrow casting a wider and wider shadow over us, but none of us reached any conclusions about the accident.
As I wandered aimlessly through different neighborhoods, my mind filled with images of Pari. I envisioned her funeral. Pari, who hated all the rituals of her wedding, would not have liked those rituals, either. Mansour would arrange that within twenty-four hours of her death her body would be washed by a woman in a mosque, on a stone slab, facing Mecca. After she was washed three times, she would be wrapped in a white sheet from head to toe, and then an aghound standing by her shoulder would say a prayer, reading the Koran’s first sureh, starting with “God is Great.” At the cemetery, Pari, still wrapped in the white cloth, would be put, without a coffin, into her grave, also facing Mecca. Then men, hired by Mansour for the occasion, would shovel dirt over her body. Then the aghound would say another prayer.
How unreal this all was. Pari, so full of life, was now out of reach. I wished I could believe what Maryam had told me on those long-ago days—that death was only a temporary state and the person will be brought back to life on the Day of Judgment and eventually reunited with loved ones.
After lunch I decided to get a haircut at the salon Pari had pointed out to me when I was last in Tehran. Pari said she went to the woman who ran the salon mainly in the hope of finding out things about Bijan; the woman heard about Bijan from her cousin who had a shop in Tehran where Taheri went periodically to purchase old rugs.
A sheet of paper pasted on a burlap curtain on the door read: “Haircut, blow-dry, thirty toomans.” Although it was Friday, the shop appeared to be open. I rang the bell. A plump woman with henna-red hair poking out from under her head scarf opened the door and looked at me blankly. I asked her if I could get a haircut without an appointment. She told me the shop was closed. I told her I was Pari’s sister and wanted to talk to her.
“Oh,” she said, her demeanor changing at once. “You must be Nahid. Pari talked about you a lot. She missed you. I’m so sorry about Pari joon. What a tragedy.”
Farideh said she would give me a haircut and we could talk. I followed her through a courtyard and into a room. Photographs of women with different hairstyles decorated the walls.
She washed my hair, then asked me what kind of cut I wanted.
“Just shape it,” I said. “One of Pari’s friends told me that Bijan was supposed to visit. Is it true?”
“My cousin told me that Taheri was going to drop Bijan off at Pari’s house on one of his trips to Tehran, that Bijan had been asking about his mother daily. He’s fourteen years old now and understands everything.”
“It’s all so cruel.”
“Pari and I were going to have lunch but that meeting never took place. Do you want me to color your hair?”
“I like to leave it natural.”
“I put blond highlights in Pari’s hair. She wanted to look good for her son.”
“I wish I knew what was going on in her heart and mind before the accident.”
“The same thought has been going around and around in my head, and some of the girls here who knew her wonder, too. We’ve all been very upset, of course. Everyone loved Pari.”
“Go ahead, highlight my hair.”
“If you want my honest opinion, I don’t believe she just lost her balance. She was afraid that Taheri would never allow Bijan to see her, would make life hell for him if he did. Then, at the same time, Pari was afraid Bijan would be disappointed in her, or blame her for abandoning him, if he did see her. Her outlook was dark on that.”
After Farideh was finished highlighting, she washed and blow-dried my hair. She held up a mirror for me to look at the outcome. “It’s just like Pari’s,” she said.
As I was leaving I tried to pay her, but she refused the money.
“Please. I did it in honor of my dear friend.”
Thirty-eight
The next day, in the lobby of Mogadessi National Oil Company, the receptionist, a woman covered from head to toe in a black chador, directed me to Mansour’s office. As I walked along the corridor all the women I passed were also covered by black chadors. A door had been left ajar, and I saw that it was to a prayer room for women. Several women were standing in front of prayer rugs, bowing and rising.
Mansour opened the door. “Nahid khanoon, what a surprise,” he said, giving a start.
He had lost weight, his hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot. His clothes, a brown blazer, beige pants, and a white shirt, all looked creased. I sat on a chair and he behind the desk and we looked at each other awkwardly.
He had a box of gaz, a Persian candy, on his desk, and he offered it to me. I shook my head. My throat felt constricted.
“You didn’t even tell me about my dear sister’s accident. I had to hear it in the middle of the night from a friend.” I managed to speak after a moment of uncomfortable silence between us.
“I’m sorry, Nahid. I tried to call you but I couldn’t get through, and then I couldn’t bear trying again. I’m in shock myself.” His voice grew tremulous. “I was away for three days, visiting my ailing mother, and then that happened. Oh, I tried so hard to please Pari, to make her happy, but nothing worked. Sometimes she spent entire days in bed. She kept saying Taheri was following her around in a car. I never knew if she was imagining things or they really happened. She constantly talked about how meaningless her life was and how terrible she felt about Bijan. She kept saying she wished she were dead. I had to put her in a sanitarium. I was afraid for her.” A touch of righteousness came into his voice as he said, “It was for her own sake but she felt I had betrayed her.”
“Do you think she brought that on herself, the falling—”
“Nahid joon, I can’t be sure. She didn’t leave a note or anything
. But she was giving her belongings away. I have to sort out what’s left. I packed everything in boxes and put them in storage for now.”
I thought of the pendant she gave to me and the painting she gave to Azar.
“I can’t imagine life without her,” Mansour sighed. “But she’s finally at peace, a repose she didn’t find living. I couldn’t bear the house after what happened. I rented it and moved to an apartment. Why did God serve me so many blows? I lost both of my wives and my son.”
I had intended to challenge Mansour but he seemed so grief-stricken.
“I wish I could be in the house again, see those steps,” I said.
“It’s hard with the renters. Besides, what’s the point? Why bring back the horror?”
There was a knock on the door and Mansour opened it. A man in a suit whispered something to Mansour and left.
“I was just given an assignment that will take me out of Tehran for a few days,” Mansour said, coming back to his seat. “How long are you going to be here?”
I told him I’d be in Iran for six more days, and I wanted to visit Pari’s grave. He said it was in Behesht Zahra (Zahra’s Heaven) cemetery, named after Prophet Mohammad’s daughter, Martyr Fatemeh Zahra. He had had a tree planted next to her grave and he paid someone to attend to it. He wished he could go with me, but he didn’t know how long his assignment would last. He advised me to wait a day or two before going to the cemetery; the computer system that identified graves was down temporarily. He himself would have trouble finding the grave without that guidance, the cemetery was so vast.
Outside, I felt so overwhelmed by helplessness and confusion that I wondered why I had come to Iran. Why was I tormenting myself? Was there something deeply damaged about me that had been scratched by Pari’s death?
As if pulled by a magnet, I started toward the sanitarium. I recalled the exact location; it had penetrated my brain. I had a vague hope that a nurse or a doctor would remember Pari and tell me something about her. Maybe they could look up her records. I passed a row of bargain clothing stores, electronic stores, toy shops. On the wall of one store hung posters of John F. Kennedy next to posters of the dark-bearded Imam Ali, the first imam of the Shia Muslim faith. A group of boys in the red, green, and white shirts of the Iranian national soccer team rushed by.
I passed the British Embassy and entered Bobby Sands Street, named after an IRA figure who defied the British (the British still brought out anger in many Iranians). I passed a fruit market, the white-columned Parliament Building with its rose garden, then came across the American Embassy. Graffiti covered the walls. “The great Satan,” “The archvillain.” A plaque at the entrance door said, “Den of Spies.”
Finally the sanitarium loomed. It was now called Aram Bag (Calm Garden). A muscular man with a curling black mustache was standing by the door.
After a few moments, I convinced him to let me in. The courtyard was empty, not like the last time I passed it with Pari. Judging by how quiet it was, this seemed to be the time when patients were kept indoors, perhaps to be given tests or medicine, or to be examined by doctors.
I entered the reception area, and after I explained to the receptionist why I was there, she led me to a nurse. Wearing a navy head scarf and a white uniform, the nurse was sitting next to a window, knitting. I introduced myself, and she told me her name was Shirin.
“Of course I remember Pari,” she said as I sat in a chair across from her. “We were friends. I took her out a few times for lunch. She was depressed but nothing serious. She was a delightful patient to have around. With her lively imagination she lifted us from the grayness of life.”
“Yes, she had that capacity. Now she’s dead.”
Shirin gave a start. “She died? I’m so sorry to hear it. Of what?”
I told her about the accident.
“That’s so sad, I can’t believe it,” Shirin said.
“Was she so depressed that she was suicidal?” I asked.
“I don’t think she would have brought something like that on herself. She was full of life, in spite of everything.”
“Her husband committed her here a few years ago, too. Do you think . . . I mean, was his bringing her here justified?”
“Her psychiatrist didn’t think so, the last time anyway. That’s why he let her go.”
“They let her go quickly the first time, too. Is it possible for me to speak to her psychiatrist?”
“Doctors rotate. He isn’t here now. But a young psychiatrist who saw Pari a few times is still here.”
Shirin was self-educated, spent hours every day reading books, whatever she could find, and listened to an educational radio station that was taken off the air at times by the censors. She had turned down many suitors; she didn’t like most men. She lived with a nephew in a luxury apartment building in north Tehran. Her nephew was paralyzed in both legs from polio and his parents were dead. Before her death his mother had begged Shirin to take care of him. She put some money in Shirin’s name and said she could live with her nephew in the luxury apartment, rent free. Shirin’s life was better this way, as a nurse’s salary was extremely low. And it was fulfilling to be of help to her nephew, whom she loved.
Just then a patient ran into the hall, screaming, “Water, water,” and Shirin dashed out to help. When she came back, we resumed talking. I asked her more questions about Pari, and she asked me questions about life in America.
The silence in the hall was broken again by sounds of coughing, strange, harsh laughter, incomprehensible mumbles, and groans of misery. A middle-aged woman in a beige hospital gown shuffled down the hall. A red substance was smeared all over her face. She was saying to no one in particular, “Terrible, terrible.”
Several nurses appeared. One of them took the woman’s arm and led her away. Others passed by carrying thermometers, vials of blood, bottles of pills, and syringes.
When it became quiet again, Shirin said, “Was there any letter?”
“No, Pari didn’t leave a suicide note or anything.”
She shook her head and said nothing else.
Dr. Hejazi, Pari’s psychiatrist, was young and sullen. His office was plain with no personal touches, and he didn’t look at me as I sat across from him.
“If you know so much about medicine, why don’t I give you my doctor’s coat?” he said sharply.
“You talk to me like that because I’m a woman,” I said, blood racing to my face. “You wouldn’t say anything like that to a man.”
“What I hate about Iranians living in America is that they pick up this kind of ridiculous jargon.”
“You can at least tell me what medication she was on.”
“Lithium, to calm her down.”
“Isn’t that given for a bipolar condition?”
“We give it for other problems, too. She wouldn’t have been here if she didn’t have problems,” he said with a dismissive gesture of his hand.
I got up and left the room. The encounter felt unreal, as if it had been a nightmare. I remembered that as a child I once asked the pharmacist near Maryam’s house about some medicine I was picking up for Hamideh, one of our tenants. He turned to his partner and said with a derisive laugh, “Look at this girl, asking such questions!” I had felt hurt for days.
As I entered the courtyard, a patient sitting on a bench got up and came over to me. She gave me a folded piece of paper and walked away.
I unfolded the paper. Please get me out of here.
As I continued to the entrance, another patient came into the yard. “Get me out of this cage,” she shouted. “What have I done to be punished like this? Get me out, get me out.”
Another woman joined in. “I want to die, please let me.”
Thirty-nine
At the cemetery entrance a giant pair of granite hands held a large red tulip. In the distance, through the smog, I could see the gold dome and minarets of a mosque. Vendors appeared, hawking bouquets or single flowers to people passing in cars or on foot. I stoppe
d a little girl and bought a bouquet from her, then went to the booth next to the entrance and asked the man inside for directions. He went into a little room and came back in a few moments and told me exactly how to get to Pari’s grave.
I walked down tree-lined paths, passing people sitting on blankets spread in the shade of trees. Trays of sweets and fruit wrapped in plastic and tied with black ribbons were set out for the memorials of their loved ones. A beggar in a dusty black chador, holding a sleeping child in one arm, the other hand outstretched, approached them one by one.
Finally I came across a row of marble headstones engraved with epitaphs like “Open the gates of heaven,” and, “Your soul is already in heaven.” I noticed two women kneeling by a grave and looking at photographs of a young man that were inside a plastic case fastened to a pole next to the stone.
“You’re in heaven and at peace,” one of the women said. “It’s we mortals who are suffering.”
A bearded cleric in a brown frock coat and a white shirt came over to the women and said, “He served his nation well, produced three sons and one daughter. He loved his country, religion, family.”
I entered a plot of land with no tombstones; this was where people who had been executed by the new regime were buried. The sight of all the dead in this vast cemetery, some killed in the revolution, some by execution, others from usual causes, didn’t make Pari’s death ordinary or easier to bear.
Finally I came to the path where her grave was. The tree that Mansour had had planted shaded the grave. Two doves were engraved on the horizontal stone. Beneath the doves was carved:
Pari Mehramy: 1942-1981, beloved wife, mother, sister, daughter.
As I put the flowers on the stone, my mind denied that Pari was dead. “This is no place for you,” I told Pari. “Come on out, I’m here to see you.” Though I knew I had spoken the words, I was startled to hear my voice.
A teenage boy appeared and offered to wash the grave. As he performed his task he recited:
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