by Terence Ward
“Let’s ask someone.”
Full of excitement and dread, we pulled over. The first storefront featured the worn-out sign of a bakery. A young lad, cloaked in a white film of flour dust, walked out the door to light a cigarette.
“Lotfan, please, Hassan and Fatimeh Ghasemi, do you know them?” Rich asked.
“Ghasemi?”
“Yes.”
“Hameh ye Tudeshk Ghasemiand.”
“What did he say?” asked my father.
“Everyone in Tudeshk is Ghasemi,” Vaz translated.
“Everyone?”
“The whole village has that name. It’s a common name, according to him.”
My mother stuck her head out the window. “Hassan and Fatimeh,” she pleaded.
“Hassan,” the boy repeated.
“Yes, yes. Hassan. Fatimeh Ghasemi,” she repeated loudly.
“Mordan,” he said slowly.
“What?”
“They … they’re dead, Mrs. Ward,” Vaz said.
I saw the anguish lace my mother’s eyes. My father dropped his face into his hands. Richard didn’t move.
“Bebakhsheed, khanoum, excuse me, lady.” The boy walked away in his floury shroud.
* * *
He was right, nearly everyone in the village was named Ghasemi. And nearly everyone appeared to be under twenty years of age. Our inquiries about Hassan were met with vacant stares, shrugged shoulders and blank faces.
Two other young fellows coldly confirmed in unison, “Hassan and Fatimeh mordan, dead.”
“Listen,” Vaz said. “There’s nothing we can do now. Let’s go.”
“Maybe he’s right,” said Chris. “We just came too late.”
“Mr. Ward,” Vaz said, “we can get to Isfahan before dark. We still have a big program ahead. There’s the Chehel Sotoun Palace …”
We began debating with my father whether to leave or stay.
“We should go,” Chris said.
“I don’t know. What do the rest of you boys think?” Dad asked.
I couldn’t speak. Kevin mumbled something.
My mother opened the door and stepped out of the van. She began to walk away from us. While we debated our next move, I glanced out my window at her. That slow, determined pace I had seen before. Her gait was resolute. Nothing would stop her.
She walked along the roadside through the dust-stricken village on her sore ankle. I could see she was carrying the black-and-white photo from 1963. Stopping passersby, she showed it to one and all.
Chris stuck his head out and called to her, but she ignored him and kept walking. I got out and followed. Panting as I caught up with her, I studied her profile. Her eyes were set straight ahead, focused.
“Terry, they’re here,” she said firmly.
“But …”
“I just know it. Trust me.”
I nodded.
“Now go and tell Chris I’m not getting back in that van until I find them.”
So I turned back. When I told everyone what she said, the debating stopped. We all looked out the windshield at her. Nasrollah inched the van along in her wake, keeping at a safe distance, not interfering.
“Khanoum is strong,” he said.
“I know,” I replied.
Ten minutes later, in a greasy garage, she stood between oil-black motorcycle parts and in front of a heavyset, bearded bear of a man.
“Great,” said Chris. “Now she’s talking to Brutus, village chief of Hezbollah.”
“We really should go,” said Vaz.
“We’ll never get out of here,” Chris whimpered.
I could hear her voice faintly: “… Hassan with Fatimeh … here’s baby Ali … grandmother Khorshid … thirty-six years ago. Do you know them?”
“Hey, look,” Kev said. “Brutus is really interested.”
“Of course,” said Dad. “This is the most excitement he’s had in years.”
Brutus looked over at our van. Chris was right—his stubbly beard carried an ominous tinge of thuggery. This was someone I wouldn’t want to meet on a dark street. I waved sheepishly. He ignored my gesture and stared at Mom’s picture again, his forehead crinkled in thought. Suddenly his face lit up. He pointed to a figure. Clearly, he recognized someone. I listened in. “Khorshid!” Fatimeh’s mother! With boisterous excitement, he trundled off down a maze of back alleys with Mom right behind.
“Ke-Chri-Ter-Rich!” she called out in one word as she disappeared around a corner. We piled out of the van in hot pursuit. I caught a glimpse of Brutus dashing down another alley, waving his arms. Tudeshki children started emerging from nowhere. Soon a flood of villagers poured out of alleys as if on cue. In seconds, our small group grew into a herd.
I saw my mother totter to the right and vanish again. A break in the wall. We followed en masse, sliding through a narrow gate. Stumbling into a small compound, we found an emaciated pomegranate tree and an unassuming pale green house behind it. Across from the tiny courtyard, a bright blue door opened. An old woman stared out timidly. She looked sleepy. A flowered scarf covered her head and part of her face. Instantly, all eyes connected.
We stop to ask about Hassan's whereabouts among baffled villagers of Tudeshk.
Then she threw up her arms, almost fainting. My mother moved forward and said her name. “Khorshid?” My father’s jaw dropped. Kev couldn’t believe it. Brutus held the photo, waving it for others to see. Khorshid took Mom’s hand and told everyone who we were. Our throng of curious villagers—fathers and sons, daughters and sisters—broke out in loud cheers. Rich and Chris joined in. Kheli sholoogh, total confusion!
“Fatimeh, Hassan, are they well?” Mom asked. “And Ali? Mahdi? Where are they?”
“Baleh, baleh, baleh,” Khorshid answered. Then she spun on her heel and went inside her house. Then, just as quickly, she burst out her door again, holding up a box filled with familiar homemade cookies and sweets.
“Isfahan,” she said breathlessly.
“Hassan and Fatimeh?” Mom asked.
“Hameh dar Isfahan-and. They’re all in Isfahan.” Above the din, she shouted out a phone number.
Scribbling it down, I asked a thin, wiry kid if there was a telephone nearby. He tugged on the arm of proud Brutus, whose scruffy beard turned in my direction.
Hassan’s mother-in-law, Khorshid, welcomes us with homemade cookies.
He said to me, “Let’s go.”
Squeezing out the gate, Rich and I ran after Brutus to a neighbor’s house, which happened to belong to Brutus. I had now decided that his fearsome mug was only a front; inside, he was a complete sweetheart. In the house, women were busily working at their looms while he showed me the phone. Dialing the number, I waited nervously for the ring.
“Boushy.”
It was Fatimeh who answered. I recognized her voice instantly.
“Hello, Fatimeh,” I said. “Terry hastam.”
“Ter-ry?”
“Aareh. Yes!”
A voice cried out, then an explosion rushed into my ear. Her receiver had fallen to the floor. Then her soft voice began again.
“Terry? Terry!”
“Fatimeh. Yes, it’s me.”
“No … Terr-ry, where are you?”
“In Tudeshk.”
“What are you doing there?”
“We came looking for you and Hassan. My maman and baba are here too.”
“No!”
“And also Ra-chort and Chris-tofer and Kevin.”
“I don’t believe!”
“And your Ali?”
“Baleh. Ali, Mahdi, Maryam, Ahmad, Majid, everyone is well. Come to Isfahan!”
“Yes, of course!”
“We wait for you. Come quickly!”
Reeling with emotion, Rich and I returned with the good news. More cheers. We embraced Khorshid—her name means “sun” in Farsi—and walked back through the village labyrinth. Boarding the van, Pat shook Brutus’s hand mightily and waved goodbye to the throng of Tudeshkis.
“Divine Irish luck,” said Kevin.
“I never thought we’d find them,” Dad confessed.
“I always knew we would.” Mom smiled. “But I was just worried sick.”
My father slipped his arm around her shoulder.
Rich and I traded high fives. “Hip hip hooray,” Kev began, and we took up the chant. Even Vaz beamed a big grin.
“Unbelievable,” Chris told him. “You know, I think you’ll have good luck now. Maybe things have changed for you. It’s because you went to Cyrus’s tomb, I’m sure of that.”
“You may be right,” Vaz said.
Our long-lost Ghasemi family was only three hours away in Isfahan, the turquoise-domed capital of Shah Abbas the Great. Under a darkening sky, in great excitement, we headed west toward the dying sun.
10. Isfahan Feasts, Bicycle Girlfriend
Last night I saw angels knock on the tavern door.
They kneaded the clay of Adam and molded it into a cup.
Those who live in the veiled and chaste sanctuary of Heaven Drank strong wine with me, the wandering beggar.
—HAFEZ
In Isfahan’s Abbasi Hotel, the desk clerk called up to our room. “Excuse me. The Ghasemi family is waiting for you.”
Rich knocked loudly on my parents’ door. “They’re here!”
“Donna, let’s go,” said Pat behind the door.
“Quick, guys, I’m heading down,” Rich bellowed from the corridor.
In that moment, our doors flung open like a Marx Brothers fire drill. We all burst out, bumping into each other, with ebullient Richard in front. Hearts pounding, we followed his lead, rushing down the stairs. Crossing the garden courtyard, we raced past a floodlit arcing fountain and strolling couples.
In the crowded marble lobby, Rich cried out, “Hassan!”
A mustachioed face looked up. Rich stretched his arms wide and the man responded by opening his own.
“Al-hamdulillah!” Rich bellowed. “At last.”
Amazed, time melting inside me, I watched as these long-lost friends wrapped each other in a bear hug. “C’mon, Ter. Over here!” Rich waved me closer.
The barrel-chested man laughed, opened his arms and turned to face me. And then, over to my right, a pair of magnetic eyes seized me. I became slightly dizzy. My feet spun to the right. Before I realized what was happening, I found myself in a pair of waiting arms.
“Hassan?” I asked.
A grin flooded his cheeks. His eyes sparkled. I couldn’t believe it: his lustrous black hair, the bold mustache, his height—all were gone. Instead, I looked into a weathered face, etched with smoky lines of age, that spoke of hard years. I stood taller, but his grip was stronger. All had gone except those radiant eyes. They still had that electricity. I was speechless.
Behind me, Kev said, “That’s not Hassan.”
“Oh, my God,” Rich moaned. “I just hugged the doorman!”
Quickly Hassan broke away, straightening himself just in time to receive my exuberant father’s outstretched arms.
“Mr. Ward!”
“Yeessss!” Dad burst out triumphantly. “Ah-hah!”
Chris, Kev and Rich circled in to give Hassan their heartfelt hugs. Then our crowd parted like the Red Sea for my mother. A deft hand reached out with a huge bouquet of red roses. As the bounty of flowers settled in Mom’s arms, her mouth opened wide.
“Ohhhh!”
“Khosh amadid, great joy to see you, Mrs. Ward.”
A small woman with a light complexion in a jet-black chador uttered those words. Fatimeh! I recognized her doe-like eyes, magnified behind black-framed glasses, the soft purr of her voice so familiar, so inviting.
“Thank you, Fatimeh! Oh, thank you,” Mom said, shaking her hand.
Surprised hotel staff turned their heads. A few tourists gazed at us, bewildered. A small crowd pressed forward, all smartly dressed in their best chadors and suits, and into Mom’s arms fell another bouquet, yellow and pink gladioli and white baby’s breath.
Our meeting was contained delirium, with exchanges of hugs and kisses and shouts of joy. While everyone talked at once, tears rolled down Hassan’s cheeks.
“So happy to see you! Really, I never forget!”
We sat on the lobby’s large leather sofas under Safavid scenes of wine-pouring unveiled damsels and dancers, painted in the decadent days when this lavish caravansary was reputedly the finest hotel in the Middle East. Polite introductions were made while a brood of small children with wonder-filled eyes peered up at us foreigners.
Maryam and Mahdi, once babies in our house, were fully grown, as were their two younger brothers, Ahmad and Majid, born well after we left. Ahmad bore a striking resemblance to his father, a carbon copy of young Hassan, dashing and virile-looking with a full head of hair. Like her mother, Maryam wore glasses that magnified her energetic eyes. Perhaps the most charismatic of the family, she schmoozed brilliantly. Her spontaneous smile was infectious. Only Ali was not there.
Maryam’s watery-eyed husband, Rasool, cuddled their two precocious boys, Saeed and Masoud, who respectfully shook our hands. All these new faces! Lightly bearded, heavy-chested Mahdi softly introduced his shy wife, Mahnaz, and his two little tigers, Ali and Ahmad. The large Ghasemi clan rivaled our own.
Hassan clapped his powerful hands as if all had been settled.
“Mrs. Ward, how are you? Are you happy with your boys?”
“Yes, Hassan, they’re all healthy, nobody’s in jail,” my mother joked.
“Hassan,” my father said, “I’m so glad we found you.”
“All these years … I was so worried thinking about you and the family,” my mother said.
“Your family I never forget, really,” repeated Hassan, shaking his head.
“Actually,” my mother went on, “I wrote a letter for you and sent it to Mr. Gross of the Bank of America, but he did not mail it. He said there was no village of Tudeshk. All his people said it didn’t exist. What could we do? Those fools!”
“In my parents’ house, your picture is on the wall,” Rich said. “Mom always looked at it and asked, ‘Where is Hassan?’ ”
Fatimeh laughed. “I too. Where is the Wards? I asked God.”
After twenty-nine years, my mother, Donna, and Hassan meet at last in Isfahan as my brother Kevin looks on.
“How did you come here, in a bus?” Hassan asked.
We told him about our journey.
“And we found you because of Khorshid,” said Rich.
“She looks just the same,” said Kevin.
“Yes, my mommy doesn’t change.” Fatimeh nodded. “Not like Hassan.”
She rubbed his balding head, and we all laughed.
“In Tudeshk, we showed this picture.” My mother pulled out the black-and-white photograph of the Ghasemis. Hassan and Fatimeh looked at it.
“Ahh, that was before I lost my hair,” Hassan said.
“Me too!” Rich rubbed his own head. He began singing a nursery rhyme, “Katchal, katchal, kalache … ,” that ridiculed a young army recruit whose head was shaved bare as a walnut. Maryam’s little boys tittered as Rich pranced through the song, waving his arms. The doorman glowered at us.
“You’re very good,” Maryam said.
“Your baba taught me that song,” Rich said, bowing.
“It’s very silly.”
“Don’t forget, Richie, if hair were so important,” Hassan pronounced, “it would grow inside our heads, not outside.”
“Silly, you two,” Maryam said.
“Did you know that Donna went to see President Khatami’s sister?” Pat asked.
“Oh, really?” Clearly, Maryam was impressed.
“When the president’s sister asked Donna, ‘Why did you come to Iran?’ Donna said”—Pat paused for dramatic effect—“ ‘To search for Hassan, of course.’ ”
Everyone laughed.
Any government informants who were in the Abbasi Hotel must have been as shocked as we were. The piped-in viol
in music—a traditional minor-key melody probing emotions of loss—didn’t stand a chance. It was all washed away by our spirited cacophony.
“Honey?” Mom tapped my shoulder. “Why don’t you order some tea?”
Hassan put up his hands. “Thank you, but please, Mrs. Ward, we don’t need any tea. Tomorrow for lunch, my son Ahmad will come and bring you to my house.”
“Then tomorrow,” Rich said, “you come to our hotel for dinner.”
“No, no. If we come to your country, then yes. But in my country, no.” He raised his hand to his heart. “You are my guests in Isfahan.”
Compact and stocky, Hassan still looked healthy and strong, thanks no doubt to his daily workouts. His expressive face shifted fluidly from surprise to playful impishness to solemnity. All his cylinders were firing. He and Fatimeh conversed amazingly well in English, a language they hadn’t spoken for almost thirty years. And, as both had worked since the age of six, it was a language they had never studied.
“So you live here in Isfahan?” Pat asked.
“Yes,” Hassan said. “We left Tudeshk, I bought a small piece of land here, and then we built a house.”
“But when you were with us,” my mother said, “you worked very hard, and you always told me that one day you would go back to Tudeshk to raise your children. I remember you said to me, ‘Even if my village is dry, it’s still the best village because it’s my village.’ ”
Over the years, Mom had repeated this often at our gatherings. It had become part of our family lore, illustrating Iran’s defiant pride and Hassan’s strong roots.
“Well, I had land and also a small house. But it didn’t work out.”
“Because you wanted to be in Isfahan?”
“No, but I was offered a good job in the Kowsar Hotel. I was chef, with sixteen helpers in the kitchen.”