Tension built as before an electric storm, and one morning, as we ate breakfast, the unspent emotion exploded with actual thunder and lightning. A hard rain beat on the windowpanes and thunder growled as we ate our bread and jam and drank tea in silence. Zain looked up from his tea and pushed the saucer around in circles.
When Baba finally looked at him disapprovingly, he said the unthinkable.
“Where is Abdollah, really?”
I stopped chewing the bread with quince jam that filled my mouth. Zain’s face was backlit for a second by a flash of lightning.
When no one answered, Zain lifted and then slammed his teacup down on the saucer, chipping a piece of the flowery pattern. “Pesaram,” Baba took in a breath, thinking over his answer, not looking at Zain. “Son, your brother is far away, in school. In America. Studying.”
Without excusing himself, Hadi rose and ran upstairs and slammed the door of the room behind him.
Maman’s gaze was fixed on a spot in the air, far away.
Zain frowned from across the table. “What’s America? You let him go there?” His right foot was pressed against the table leg and the whole table was now shaking.
“Yes, Pesaram, eat your breakfast now,” he said, and offered nothing else.
“Okay, then.” Zain excused himself and, without saying a word, I followed behind him.
As I made my way up the stairs toward my room, beads of rain rapidly moved down the windows. I stopped at Hadi’s door, and caught my breath: Hadi, oblivious to me, stood before his full-length mirror. He was wearing Abdollah’s favorite navy blue suit jacket; he was turning side-to-side in the mirror, buttoning the jacket then opening it again, adjusting his shoulders. The sleeves dangled over his hands, the shoulder seams sagged, and the jacket hem hung close to his knees.
When he raised his arm, I caught a glint of gold on his wrist: the Kuwaiti gold watch, Abdollah’s prized possession.
Hadi bent his head to the crease in the inner elbow folds, and inhaled the scent of the material. When thunder shook the momentary quiet, Hadi was startled and caught my eye in the mirror. Then, he stepped behind the door and pushed it closed. He knew I would never mention Abdollah’s navy blue suit or what I had caught him doing.
That night, lying in bed, I tried to picture Abdollah sitting at a school desk in America, his eyebrows knit in concentration over a book. My mind conjured something else: my brother lost and confused in a big building, looking around to find his place, holding a bag filled with school supplies and weighed down by heavy books he couldn’t carry. I pictured him wearing his navy blue suit as a bright light surrounded him. Then I didn’t want to imagine Abdollah at all – wouldn’t he have taken the suit with him for school?
After a year of attendance, it turned out that the school didn’t want Hadi and his shaved head any more than Hadi wanted the school. Tangled in suspension, disciplinary actions, and meetings with my parents, Hadi came home from school one day looking pleased with himself. “I’m not ever going back,” he declared. A teacher had slapped him hard in the face.
Maman looked up at Baba. “Don’t make him go there anymore, Haji.”
Hadi was expelled for being disruptive and confrontational. If a teacher humiliated or struck a student, Hadi didn’t hesitate to play a prank or get even. After one teacher shamed several students by making them stand in the corner, Hadi took the leg off the teacher’s chair and put it back together with gum. Hadi had smiled at his classmates when the teacher sat down and crashed to the floor. Justice was served, Hadi-style.
Maman inspected the pink mark on Hadi’s cheek again. “Kids have to love where they go to school. They have to like and respect their teachers. This will serve no one.”
My father interrupted. “It’s the best of the best private schools. It was nearly impossible to get him in there in the first place.”
“Haji, they hit him. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, I know. Let me think this through.”
Hadi put down his fork and couldn’t help himself.
“They tell us not to hit. They say parents are the only ones allowed to punish their children. What gives a teacher the right to hit me and other kids? They’re hypocrites, Baba. All of them.”
He had Baba and he knew it. In his fantasies of the hereafter, Baba reserved a special place in hell for hypocrites. Baba swore to change Hadi’s teacher. As soon as Hadi heard him say this, he could not hide his smirk.
I saw the smirk, even if Baba didn’t. I knew more trouble would follow.
ANOTHER CAR RACE
Ever since the crazy car chase after Abdollah, I felt frightened being in cars, especially when they accelerated without warning. When one quiet Sunday morning, Hadi led me to the family station wagon and suggested that I get in, and told me he would take me for a ride, I balked. It did not seem like a good idea.
But even at twelve, Hadi had developed this bold black stare – the “don’t defy me” look that later would control us all for so long. So I obeyed.
After he started the engine, I saw his head disappear as he slumped down in the driver’s seat to reach the gas pedal.
“You don’t even know how to drive,” I said in a confused tone. It was bright out and, as usual, the street was empty of cars and people.
“Don’t worry, Sis. Dadashi taught me.” He seemed entirely too confident. “This will be fun.”
I looked through the back window at the house. And grew anxious.
“Sit in the middle, slide forward and hold on to the front seats,” he yelled back at me with his hand pointing to the middle of the seat behind him. Before I could position myself, I felt the car jerk forward. Hadi pressed his foot hard on the accelerator.
“Here we go,” he said. “Hold on tight.”
The sudden lurch of the car caused me to lose my grip, and my head snapped hard against the backseat. Hadi tried to keep his foot on the accelerator and his hands on the wheel. We weaved down the street and then, without warning, we were suspended in air. The front half of the car rammed into one of the large trees that shaded Parvaneh Street and slammed to a stop. The front part of the car was squeezed together: my body was thrown against the seat again, and I could see Hadi’s face, full of surprise, turning around looking for me. As smoke and steam escaped from the front of the car, we both poked our heads up to see the bend in the hood, and then saw the front-end suspension start to bow.
Hadi pulled himself together, climbed in the backseat, and held my hand as we escaped the car, which was tilted half in the air, half on the ground. We stood by the car for a long time and felt the worry seep in. When the radiator burst and sent steam up the tree, we looked at each other, still holding hands, and ran for home.
When I ran into the house, I found Maman, on her knees on her prayer rug. She was wailing and sobbing. There was a small photo on the floor next to her; I sensed it was Abdollah. She didn’t see me come in. I sat cross-legged on the rug nearby and folded my hands in my lap.
After slamming the front door closed, Baba stomped through the house. “Maman? Maman?” he called out. “Maman?” His voice boomed down the hall toward the living room. “Where’s Hadi? How did he get the car?”
When Baba stormed into the room, Maman sat back on her heels and raised her eyebrows. “He took the car? Oh my God, is he okay?”
“I don’t know, but the car is totaled, crushed, up against a tree.” Baba moved closer to me and lowered his voice. “Do you know where he is?” he asked, peeling me with his eyes.
“He didn’t mean to crash the car, Baba…we’re okay.”
“You were in the car?” he said in an even louder voice. Both my parents stared at me. “Yes,” I said, obediently. “But I’m fine.”
Maman got up from the prayer rug and began to search the house. She found Hadi sitting in the upstairs hallway. She sat down next to him and placed her arm on his shoulder. “You could have hurt yourself or your sister, azizam. You know I wouldn’t survive if anything happened to an
y of you… Promise me: you’ll never do anything like that again.”
Hadi sighed, “Yes, Maman. I’m sorry.”
When Maman returned to the dining room, Baba was pacing back and forth. He was seething. “This has to stop right away. We’re losing control of that boy.”
“Hadi’s sorry, Haji. He won’t do it again. Let him think things through, he knows he’s done wrong.”
“But they could have been killed! He needs to understand that! This time we have to punish him.”
“Your punishments lead to no good. That isn’t what the boy needs, that won’t help.” When Maman slammed the lid on a pot, I let out a squeak from where I was standing.
“Rahimeh? What are you doing?” She said turning to see me in the corner. I had been hiding behind a plant, my back against the wall. “Go honey! Go find Iman!” Maman said as she continued to lecture Baba.
Maman and Baba
“I will never forgive him,” she said as the clattering of pans and pots filled the kitchen. She lifted a metal spoon and banged the edge of a pot. “I will not!” she turned on the water and began to scrub at one of the pans. “I can’t believe you want to do this. After everything, you’re still willing to forgive that damn ayatollah. Well, I won’t forgive him, ever.” Even though I couldn’t see my mother, I knew she was speaking to Baba.
“Ever since we moved to Tehran, he’s been sending me messages daily. Khabazi wants to make peace. I don’t know how else to stop him from contacting us.”
“I will not give him a heliat. None of them will get any absolution from me, not till I die,” she cried out.
After Abdollah’s trial, his judge had moved up the ranks and was among the seventy-two men involved in a bomb explosion during an assassination attempt on Ayatollah Khamenei, Khomeini’s second in command. Expected to be in a vegetative state, the judge was hospitalized and when his family sought forgiveness before he died, Maman refused.
Baba had finally agreed to a visit from Khabazi, the man he had hidden from the SAVAK for more than a year in Mashhad. As Khabazi was now one of the key players in Khomeini’s government, he traveled with an entourage, and today, Maman was reluctantly cooking for Khabazi and his staff of seventeen people.
“I might be cooking for them, but I will never forget how he was so conveniently ‘out of town’ and how he never got any of our messages for help.” Maman took a breath.
Baba leaned toward her. “I put two sofrehs down. Okay? Khabazi’s security guards can eat in the yard.”
Maman stabbed the frying greens with a wooden spoon and didn’t say a word as she stirred the gheymeh – lentil and meat stew. After a few minutes, as Baba turned to leave the kitchen, she began.
“Do you remember when Abdollah used to drive food over to Khabazi’s house and hide in the dark waiting for him to open the door? Do you remember when Khabazi was a nobody and we sheltered his family from death, Haji? We risked our lives to save his. Now, years later, after he did nothing to help us in our moment of greatest need – nothing – he wants to see us and clear his conscience.” Maman was yelling. Maman poked at the fried lentils again. “How can he work for Khomeini? How can he be pretending to be a big shot in this government and destroy so many people, and still be ripping apart our society?” She stabbed at the greens again but this time the hot oil splattered and burned her wrist. She cursed under her breath.
“He’ll be here for an hour, and then we’ll make them go. After this, they will stop bothering us and we can get on with our lives.” Baba’s voice was soft. “Plus, I have a few things I want to say to him face to face.”
Without responding, Maman wiped the hot oil from her hand, turned the fire under the pan off, and moved toward the sink. She said nothing.
After the meal, during which Khabazi’s wife spent an hour begging Maman to see and speak to her husband, Maman finally agreed and he joined them at the sofreh spread out on the floor. During the twenty minutes Khabazi spent urging her to forgive him, Maman cried uncontrollably, her head down, her chador hiding her face.
Khabazi pulled out a pocket Qur’an and put his hand on it. “I swear to you, his file never came to Qom.” He bowed his head. “I would have done anything for you. I owe you and your husband my life. I will never forget Abdollah’s kindness to me and my kids. I never saw the file, I swear on this holy book.”
His fingernails dug into the pocket Qur’an. “No one can truly be absolved, and nothing will ease your pain, I know this. We were forming a new government, many mistakes were made, please forgive… and understand. I’m so deeply sorry.”
Maman didn’t look up. She said nothing but continued to let her tears fall.
Watching Maman’s sadness vibrate under her chador, Baba stood and turned the doorknob. He could feel Maman’s face flare. He knew her head movements, her heavy breathing, and could tell by the slightest change around her eyes what she was feeling. It was time for the Khabazis to go.
Baba opened the door and looked straight at Khabazi. “You were a man of God, not politics. Maybe you could have done more, maybe not, but when it happened, your silence was your greatest sin. You needed to speak up against injustice, especially when it was done in the name of Islam. Your hands are bloodied, too. My son is gone and that hole will never be filled.” Baba’s voice was soft and sad. “Only God can forgive now.”
After the door shut behind the guests, Maman’s face grew pale. She began hyperventilating. I hated the ayatollahs for making my Maman cry.
When Baba came into the kitchen, he saw the distress in her face and hands. She threw the dishes into the sink without regard for their fragility. He took a dish from Maman’s hand. “I’ll do them, you go rest.”
I had never in my life seen Baba offer to do the dishes.
“Nakhastam. You’ve done enough,” she answered sharply. Maman turned her back to him and filled the sink with teacups letting them drop haphazardly into the soapy water. “The nerve of those people,” she said to herself. Her hands were shaking as she dropped a saucer into the sink.
Baba moved to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat.
“And you were going to become an ayatollah? It’s hard to tell a good one apart from the bad.” Maman’s voice began to rise. “If you had continued your religious studies, I would be divorced from you right now. Not that I wouldn’t have better reasons.”
Baba shushed her from the table. “Azizam, please, the kids are around.”
Maman dropped a bowl, splashing sink water all over herself and the counter. Walking to the table now, Maman slammed her fist on it. “You trusted those bastards, those child-killing ‘men of God.’”
Baba met her gaze.
“Your faith makes you blind. I tried to warn you, but of course, you didn’t listen. And here you are forgiving again.”
Baba took in a deep breath. He was preparing for what was about to come.
“You married him off when he didn’t want to. You forced your excessive rules on him. You brought those snakes into our hotel!” Maman was yelling now and every angry thought that she had held inside was now finding voice. “You took him from me!” Her breathing was rapid, and she flattened a palm on her chest. “It wasn’t just the government. You did this, Haji. You did it!”
I felt the warm liquid on the inside of my pant leg. I didn’t understand, but I knew something was deeply wrong. What did she mean? What had Baba done?
Baba’s jaw tightened and clenched, but he remained at the table as Maman went back to the sink, finished cleaning the dishes, wiped the counters, and put the food away. When she washed her hands for the final time and started to make her way toward the door, Baba rose to leave and say his prayers and spend another night alone. As Baba left the room, she slammed both hands on the table and screamed loud enough for the whole house to hear, “Don’t ever bring an ayatollah into my house again. I hate them.” She pounded her fists again. “And I hate you!”
When I heard the water turn off in the kitchen, I headed to the yard
where I knew I would find her. Everyday, for hours, Maman would cry while she watered the fruit and flower trees, to which she had given names. This time, as I watched from behind the shrubs, she fell to her knees, muddying her skirt as she dug into the grass with her fingers, pulling it out as she screamed. When she started to pound on her chest, I took a step backward, pulling the branches of the bush closer to cover my eyes so she wouldn’t see me. Maman was fighting with herself, and I could not stop her. Her pain was bigger than ever – nothing, not even the earth, could contain it.
I moved my eyes away from her, stared at the grass under my feet, and sat cross-legged, peeking at Maman from afar. Nothing I could do could lessen the ache in her. I closed my eyes and tried to remember her smile, but I couldn’t. I knew I would stay there for a while, until Maman walked back inside the house.
Then, as I looked around, I saw the dandelion; I felt hope filling up inside me. My cousin had always told me, when you make a wish with a dandelion, it will always come true, always. I bent over and picked it. I chose one that had gone to seed – its golden petals turned to white silver fluff, easily dispersed by a breeze to scatter the seeds that were carried on the tips of the now silken pistils. I shut my eyes, and prayed: “God please help my Mamani find her smile again, and please bring us together again, oh and please end the fighting,” and then I blew as hard as I could. The flower head disintegrated into the air, sending my message with its seeds…
I sensed my effort, my prayer, was hopeless. The only force that could and did stop the fighting was my parents’ concern over Hadi’s latest school suspension and Zain’s failing grades. Then their old parental conscience rose up and shook them somewhat from the spell under which we had been living.
My straight A’s, studying Arabic, and leading a dozen little girls to piety by my example of donning a chador in first grade, wasn’t going to give them a reason to stop fighting and unite again. Only my brothers seemed able to do that.
The Rose Hotel Page 10