by Ehsaneh Sadr
Sadegh had seen Leila and Ms. Tabibian without their coverings once before, at their home. They were the first new women he’d seen uncovered since marrying Sumayeh seven years earlier, and he’d felt intensely uncomfortable. But today, with his uncovered wife and sisters with him, it didn’t feel so unnatural.
Leila looked at her mother before answering slowly, “I just feel like I’m ready.”
Zainab’s hawk eyes observed the girl closely. “But why the rush?”
Ms. Tabibian jumped in. “It’s better for her to get life started with a good man as soon as possible. Who knows how long I’ll be around, and the older she gets, the harder it will be.”
Leila was looking down again. She seemed intensely uncomfortable at being the center of attention and Sadegh wondered whether she might cry. She really did seem like a good girl, and Sadegh wondered what sort of mess Ms. Tabibian had allowed her to get into. Whatever the story, Sadegh was grateful he’d grown up under Maman-Mehri’s strict religious guidance.
Warmhearted Fatimeh, who was sitting next to Leila, reached over and hugged the girl to her as she said cheerily, “Oh, I’m certain Leila-khanoom will have plenty of suitors and khastegars whenever she wants them. Just look at this beautiful girl.”
It was true, Sadegh thought. Leila was unusually pretty. The striking contrast of her light-green eyes against her brown skin combined with perfect cheekbones and a strong nose to create a stunning effect. Her skin was a bit darker than his own, but otherwise, she looked a lot like himself, except the combination of features looked much better on a girl than on a balding, bearded, overly skinny man.
Fatimeh continued, turning to Ms. Tabibian, “Actually she reminds me so much of you.” Fatimeh’s voice was almost shy as she went on. “I remember the first time I met you, I thought you must be some sort of royalty. You looked just like the girls in my mother’s sewing magazines.”
Sadegh was surprised. Fatimeh had met Ms. Tabibian? He didn’t think his sisters had had any contact with her, even when she’d been married to his father. He wondered whether his mother was following the conversation from the guest room, where she was still resting.
This was apparently news to Zainab as well, who broke into Ms. Tabibian’s modest demurrals to demand, “When did you meet?”
Fatimeh grinned and blinked her big cow eyes. Sadegh thought she looked almost proud to be the subject of their often-dismissive older sister’s curiosity.
“Mahdiyeh was with me sometimes too,” Fatimeh said.
Heads turned to the other side of the table, where Sadegh’s aunt nodded and asked Ms. Tabibian. “It must have been shortly after you were married, right? Were you already pregnant with Sadegh then? It seems like you were sick a lot.”
Ms. Tabibian nodded and said, “You have no idea what a comfort you two were to me. I was so alone. Your father, God bless his memory, was a good and kind man. But he had so many responsibilities. He couldn’t be around much, and he didn’t like me to leave the house or have many visitors if I was alone.”
“And you didn’t have much family in Tehran, if I remember,” Fatimeh said.
“That’s right. I’m from the north. The only family I had in Tehran was my great-aunt. I’d actually only just moved here to help take care of her when I met your father.”
Sadegh had already heard this story. But he enjoyed watching the ladies struggle with their curiosity. He was sure they were dying to know the details of Ms. Tabibian’s first encounter with his father. But it would be crass to press for details too obviously. Would their sense of propriety win out?
Perhaps aware of their internal conflict, or maybe simply eager to explain that the circumstances were less lurid than they might have imagined, Ms. Tabibian continued without being asked.
“It was a car accident. I was crossing a busy street, one lane at a time, and someone pushed me into the lane your father was driving in, and he hit me, through no fault of his own. I woke up in the hospital, barely able to move. And my hip never did fully heal, as you can see from the way I limp around. But your father . . . well, I suppose he felt responsible. He took care of everything. God bless him, he was a good man.”
There was a pause as the ladies of Sadegh’s family seemed to wait for more. But Ms. Tabibian did not continue, so Zainab asked her question of Fatimeh and Mahdiyeh again. “So, when did you two meet Ms. Tabibian? Why didn’t I know anything about it?”
Chatty Aunt Mahdiyeh would have normally been the more likely candidate to tell a childhood tale. But perhaps she felt shy about commenting on a family drama she had become a part of only because she was living in her sister’s home at the time.
Fatimeh finally spoke up. “I’m not sure how it happened,” she said apologetically to her sister. “I think Father just took me and, later, Mahdiyeh to her house sometimes. Maman-Mehri was so . . . unwell. And you were busy taking care of her and Alireza. Probably, Father just wanted to get us out of your way, or maybe he thought we could help Ms. Tabibian. But he never even explained who Ms. Tabibian was. Although he did say we weren’t to mention our visits to Maman-Mehri. Or you.”
“Humph,” Zainab digested this information with a sour look.
Fatimeh went on, addressing Ms. Tabibian. “You were so good to us. I never had a chance to thank you. And I only really understand now, as an adult, that it must not have been easy having a thirteen-year-old girl dumped on you. But you went out of your way to make visits fun. Your house was the first place I heard Googoosh’s music, and I’ve been a fan ever since. I looked up to you so much, sometimes I even pretended my name was Roksana!” Fatimeh tittered loudly.
Sadegh thought he heard a noise coming from the hallway that led to the bedrooms and winced as he wondered again whether his mother was hearing all of this. He was sure it would hurt her to hear her daughter speak so highly of a woman who had only caused her pain. And Sadegh felt it was rather disloyal of Fatimeh to gush on like this, even if Ms. Tabibian had been good to her. He looked across the table at Sumayeh who’d been following the conversation with interest while making sure everyone’s plates were filled and refilled. They made eye contact, and Sadegh tilted his head toward the hall to ask Sumayeh silently to check on his mother. Understanding his request immediately, she pushed back her chair and excused herself.
The conversation at the table continued. Ms. Tabibian was speaking now.
“. . . honored to have you.” She seemed to be getting emotional. “Truly, that was a lovely time in my life. You two felt like the little sisters I’d always wanted. Sadegh arrived, and motherhood brought more joy than I could have imagined. And your father was so . . . good to me.”
“Why did you leave?” Fatimeh asked.
“Fati!” Zainab admonished her sister with a jab of her sharp elbow.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Fatimeh apologized immediately as she rubbed at her pillowy upper arm where Zainab’s jab had landed. “It’s none of my business. I just always wondered. It was all so abrupt and no one ever explained.”
“It’s okay Fatimeh dear,” Ms. Tabibian assured her. “I can try to explain, although to this day I’m not sure I understand exactly what happened. You see . . . your father asked me to leave.” Ms. Tabibian looked down. “It seems that the neighborhood grocer, well, it’s embarrassing really, but he’d developed some . . . feelings for me. And your father, well, someone put it into his head that I was encouraging this man. Can you imagine? Someone gave your father love letters that were supposedly between me and this grocer. He . . .”
Fatimeh gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. Sadegh wondered what she thought of Ms. Tabibian’s story since he wasn’t sure what he thought of it himself.
“Yes, it was unimaginable to me, too,” Ms. Tabibian said. “I laughed at first and didn’t take it seriously. But then one day, when your father had taken me out to eat, we came back and found the grocer actually inside the house.
It scared me to death . . . I thought he was a burglar or some crazy killer. But he told your father I had arranged it. He even had a key.”
Fatimeh looked at Ms. Tabibian with her big eyes widened so much they seemed to occupy the entire upper half of her face.
Zainab cocked her head suspiciously, “How did he have a key?”
Ms. Tabibian puckered her lips to one side and shook her head. Then she sighed and said, “I honestly don’t know. I must confess I always wondered whether . . . You see, I didn’t realize your mother was so opposed to your father taking a second wife. Now that I’m older and understand the world better, I can imagine she must have been terribly hurt, and I suppose it’s understandable that she might have wanted to end it somehow. Although, I must say that it is hard for me to understand how anyone could take a child away from their mother.” Ms. Tabibian’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It nearly killed me to lose—”
“That’s enough!”
Ms. Tabibian froze midsentence, and the rest of the ladies looked shocked and confused as they tried to digest the sudden appearance of Maman-Mehri, shuffling in like a short, plump ghost in a too-long white house chador she’d borrowed from Sumayeh.
Sadegh felt he should explain his mother’s presence. “Maman-Mehri stopped by right before—”
But Maman-Mehri cut him off. “He was my husband!” she shouted as she leaned heavily on an armchair for support. “My life partner! You were nothing to him. He felt sorry for you, that’s all.”
Sadegh looked at Sumayeh, Zainab, Mahdiyeh, and even Fati for a clue as to what he should do, but all eyes were on Maman-Mehri and her tirade against Ms. Tabibian.
“You weren’t worth the dust under his feet! After all the pain he caused to make a home for you, I can’t even speak of what you did. Disgusting! And yet you stand there in front of my family not only denying your treachery but trying to blame me for it!
“I don’t have the words to describe the sort of filth you are,” Maman-Mehri spat. Her face was bright red against the white cotton chador. “But I promise I will not let you infect this family again. Get out! Get out and don’t you dare come back!”
Maman-Mehri had long ruled the family and their wider community of religious friends and relatives as an absolute matriarch. On those occasions that called for a public scolding, the hapless recipient of her wrath was well aware that the only acceptable response was either submissive silence or apologetic bleating.
So it was a shocking contravention of expected norms when Ms. Tabibian interrupted Maman-Mehri with a defiant slap on the table and shouted, “How dare you?”
Maman-Mehri was rattled into silence.
Ms. Tabibian went on. “It wasn’t enough that you turned my husband against me with your lies and manipulations? It wasn’t enough that you took my only son, my beloved Sadegh, away from me? It wasn’t enough that you ruined my life? On top of all this, you stand there in front of my children accusing me of unspeakable things! How dare you?”
Maman-Mehri’s face went purple with rage. “Quiet! You disrespectful vermin. Don’t you dare deny it. I saw the letters with my own eyes. Letters to your lover! I still remember his disgusting name. Babak Islami.”
Fatimeh let out a strange squeak.
Ms. Tabibian refused to back down. Her grassy eyes flashed yellow, like hornets buzzing through a meadow.
“I deny everything! And I tell you that on the Day of Judgement, when the truth of your lies becomes known to everyone, I will insist upon my right to see you fully punished as God promises for liars and spreaders of false gossip. You stand there so self-righteous and act like you’re better than me but mark my words, on that day everyone will know who the true vermin is.”
Maman-Mehri swayed as if she might fall. Zainab jumped up to join Sumayeh in helping Maman-Mehri into a seated position.
Maman-Mehri protested breathlessly through sobs. “No! I won’t stay here with her. Take me into the bedroom. And call the driver. I can’t listen to this devil tell these brazen lies any longer. Oh, my heart, my heart!”
Ms. Tabibian laughed an ugly laugh. “All these years later, you haven’t changed a bit, have you? Just like he always said, anytime you want attention you pretend you’re sick or dying.”
Maman-Mehri gasped. Sadegh felt as if a vein were bursting in his left temple as he heard his mother beg her children to help. Ms. Tabibian had gone too far. He stood and roared. “That’s enough!”
The room quieted. Sadegh tilted his head toward Ms. Tabibian. “Shoma dige befarmayeed. It’s time for you to go.”
Ms. Tabibian seemed to have recognized that she had crossed a line and began apologizing. “I’m so sorry. She pushed me too far, my son—”
“Don’t call me that!” Sadegh shouted. “My mother . . . the woman who stayed by my side and cared for me and raised me is in that chair . . . decimated by your hurtful words!”
“I’m so sorry. But you have to understand what she—”
“That’s enough! I want you to leave now.”
Leila, already standing, pulled Ms. Tabibian out of her chair.
“Okay, we’ll leave. We can talk later about—”
“No! Don’t you dare call or contact me again. I’m finished with you. This has been quite enough already!”
“Sadegh-jaan, please!” Ms. Tabibian begged as she limped toward him. “Don’t say that. Think of your sister! She needs you. We both need you!”
“I want you to leave. Right now.”
Leila tugged at her mother.
Ms. Tabibian waved Leila off and turned to Sadegh, her mouth a thin line.
“I won’t go until you promise to help Leila.”
Leila grabbed her mother’s arm. “Maman! Stop it, let’s go!”
“No! I won’t go until he promises!”
Sadegh felt trapped with the sound of Maman-Mehri’s tears in his ears. He pushed himself away from the table, stood up and stalked toward Ms. Tabibian as he shouted. “Get out! Get out before I throw you from the window!”
Eyes wide, Ms. Tabibian finally started hobbling toward the door. Sadegh stood where he was, breathing with all the anger of fire-starting bellows. Sumayeh came forward to calm her husband and help the two ladies retrieve their shoes and outdoor coverings.
As the ladies made their speedy exit, Sadegh gave his final instruction. “Don’t you dare contact me again! Or I’ll tell the authorities you’re harassing us.”
Stephen Adams, “Iran Confirms Capture of Five British Sailors,” The Telegraph, December 1, 2009.
CHAPTER 6
Thursday, December 10, 2009—five months
and twenty-seven days after the election
In a letter to former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mehdi Karroubi said senior officials had informed him of the “shameful behaviour” taking place. Mr. Karroubi wrote that both male and female detainees had been raped, with some suffering serious injuries.
—BBC News Online, August 10, 2009
Azar’s panicked shriek was entirely inappropriate to the circumstances. The collision between the back of her head and the open file drawer had been little more than a tap.
What is wrong with you? Azar scolded herself as she massaged her head. It’d been almost six months since her encounter with that man, and still she lost control anytime her head made contact with something harder than a pillow.
Azar took the file she’d been looking for, closed the open drawers, and returned to her desk. She opened the file to review its contents, but her hands were still trembling so badly she could barely flip through the pages. Azar finally gave up and let the papers fall to the desk. She stretched her hands wide and then clenched them, repeating the motion a few times in an effort to stop their shaking.
On her left pinky was a jagged scar where The Open Society had ripped through her flesh.
She’
d been luckier than many who’d been taken in during the government crackdown. The case file on her desk was enough to tell her that. Azar had been beaten only that one time and had received medical attention promptly. When she was transferred to Evin’s Section 209 for political prisoners, her cell had been relatively spacious and even had a window. Besides, at this point she’d been home with her boys for almost four months. So why were her hands still shaking? Why was she so weak when others had to survive so much worse, or hadn’t survived at all?
And all of it for what?
It was hard to believe there was a time when there had been any hope. The brutal crackdown that had followed the Green Wave uprising had been cruel, efficient, and much more effective than Azar, Ibrahim, and their friends had believed. The authorities had said openly that they would not repeat the Shah’s mistake of softness that had resulted in the 1979 revolution. Thousands were imprisoned, many were killed or injured, and the streets were emptied of Iranian citizens, who were too tired, scared, and disempowered to continue the fight. Ahmadinejad remained president, free to continue destroying the economy and any hope of progress toward women’s rights. Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, the Green Wave’s most important spiritual leader, remained under house arrest, where the most he could do was issue meaningless and entirely irrelevant statements such as his most recent one that the 1979 occupation of the American embassy had been a mistake.
1979? Who cared about 1979?
Azar shook her head to clear her thoughts. She had to focus on her work. Maybe a cup of tea would help. She got up and made her way down the hall, past the vacant offices, and through the empty waiting room to the kitchen. She filled the tea kettle, set it on the electric stove, and waited for it to boil.
Most days she missed the bustle of the busy office she used to head, with three junior associates, two secretaries, the office tea boy who kept liquid and solid refreshments coming at a quick pace, and the clients and their families milling about. But at times like these, solitude was welcome. Azar could almost be thankful for the court order that had barred her from working for a year.