Da (Mother) 51

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni
Translated from the Persian with an Introduction by Paul Sprachman

2023-6-26

Da (Mother)

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Translated from the Persian with an Introduction by Paul Sprachman

Persian Version (2008)

Sooreh Mehr Publishing House

English Version (2014)

Mazda Publishers

***

Before they covered her with earth, I looked at the woman’s half-opened eyes and thanked God she had died relatively intact. Shrapnel had hit her in the head and neck. Many of the other casualties with similar wounds would dry out, and no matter what we did to the bodies, they never looked natural.

After the extra help arrived, I told Zeynab that I was going back to the mosque.

“Traitor, leaving us like that?” she joked.

“There’s a lot to do, I swear!”

“I know, dear, I’m just kidding. God bless you for all the work you’ve taken on.”

Zeynab and I walked slowly back to the entrance to the body washers’. She seemed very preoccupied and anxious. The situation had thrown her for a loop.

Parvizpur’s car was outside, which meant he was around somewhere. Zeynab said suddenly, “Let’s see if they’ve done anything about the shroud fabric. We can’t go on like this. The least we can do is asking the mosque people to do something about it.”

“I told them what it was like here until I was blue in the face. The poor people don’t know which end is up, and it’s only natural they would see to the needs of the living first. If they have energy left and time permits, they may give Jannatabad some thought.”

“Let’s just see what’ll happen anyway,” she said.

Although I knew going there would do no good, I said nothing. I stood outside the door while Zeynab went to find Parvizpur. After a few minutes they emerged from the building. I said hello and got into the car with Zeynab. We were all silent as we drove to the mosque. Once inside we immediately saw Soleymani, Dr. Sheybani, Farrokhi, and two others. They were all standing in the yard under a small cupola talking. As soon as they saw us, they said hello. Parvizpur told them why we had come.

One of the men not exactly known to me answered, “By the way, the Jannatabad situation bothers us, also. We’ve discussed the issue among ourselves. The clergy were also involved in the discussion. We have concluded that if there’s a shop still open in the bazaar, we’ll buy the calico. But if that fails—and we’ve already asked the clergy about this—we’ll take fabric from the closed shops. Under these conditions there’s always the possibility things will disappear. By the same token the bodies of Muslims have dignity and should be buried according to proper Islamic practice and customs.”

Disturbed by this, I said, “Forgive me, but any shroud that we take without permission has no business on a Muslim’s corpse.”

The man said, “We didn’t say we should steal them. This is an emergency. Besides, you’re not going to do this yourself. We’ll have one or two of the trusted people from the mosque pick up the fabric and write a receipt. They’ll also record the name of the shopkeeper so that when all this dies down, we’ll add up what we owe and pay the owner.”

At that point he called out to a few of the men, “Come with us.” We went to the get into the car. Zeynab and I sat in the back and the men sat in the front next to the driver. One of the men told Parvizpur to drive to the Safa Market. “The shop owner is an acquaintance,” he explained.

We reached the market quickly, and Parvizpur pulled up in front of the famous Amu Naser Teahouse. Zeynab and I remained in the car while Parvizpur and the two men got out and headed for the covered part of the market where the cloth sellers were. Zeynab said, “Do you remember what it was like here before? There was such a crowd, so much material spread on the ground, you couldn’t move....”

I nodded, absentmindedly listening to her, but there was something else on my mind. I was still upset about the way they were getting the material. To me it was neither fair to the shopkeepers nor to the martyrs. In the end I said to myself it was an emergency and if the clergy had okayed it, who was I to object? With that I tried to steer my thoughts in another direction.

I looked around. Thick smoke blackened the sky over the market, making the covered part even darker. The roll bars were pulled down over the shops; some of them were locked. I wondered where all the shopkeepers were. What they were doing? How were they supporting their wives and children? Seeing the cassette store next to the teahouse reminded me of the times I used to come to the market with mother. The shop always had a tape of the Iraqi singer Sa’dun Jaber playing. The shopkeeper played it loud enough to be heard over the roar of the bazaar.

Jaber’s lyrics echoed in my mind:

O sacred land of my fathers, how I yearn for you.

My clan and tribe, my family, my birthplace are not far,

were a person to learn the way.

Not far, the moon knows the way.

Why is it that the heart senses their nearness?

Not far if someone wants to go to them.

I also remembered the tape of the Egyptian poet and singer Abd al-Halim Hafez. His “O my son”:

O my son, don’t feel sad.

Love is your destiny.

My son, you will certainly die a martyr.

He who sacrifices his soul for his beloved.

Your fate is to ply the sea of love without a sail,

Caught between fire and water.

Despite all the burnings.

Against all happenstance.

My son, my son, love shall endure.

The most beautiful of adventures.

These memories reopened old wounds, and there was no remedy for them with both father and Ali gone. It was two days since father’s death. Only two days! His absence still seared my insides. I wept silently, keeping my face shielded from Zeynab, but she was in her own world anyway. A half hour later, the men returned with four or five bolts of white fabric. One of the men carrying a ledger had Zeynab and I add our names to it. The book was open to a page that had the name of the shopkeeper, his address, and the date when the fabric was taken. Parvizpur and the two other men had signed it. Zeynab inked her finger with the pen and made a mark instead of signing. We took the fabric and returned to Jannatabad. Leila had returned from visiting mother, and we all got busy cutting the fabric into shrouds. The work was over quickly. We folded the shrouds and, since there were few female corpses, gave most of them to the men’s morgue. Many mutilated bodies had been brought in. Several days before we had decided to wash only those that were relatively whole. This way we’d use less water and there would be less blood from wounds. When there was enough nylon to wrap bodies, we would use it, but when that ran out, separating out the less mutilated ones seemed logical. Nevertheless, this was difficult for me. Thinking that the poor souls were being doubly victimized, it pained me to ignore the mutilated bodies. But there was no choice. As we were leaving the body washers’, I noticed a pile of old clothing in the corner. Proper sanitation dictated we put the clothing in a ditch and pour lime over it, but I was too tired to do it. I preferred to have the others do it, but they were just as worn out. I went to get a wheelbarrow and shoveled the clothing into it. One wheelbarrow couldn’t hold it all. I had to make a couple of trips before all of it was piled in an empty corner of the cemetery. Then I poured kerosene over the pile and set it on fire. It went up quickly. I stepped back watching the flames devour the clothes. I found myself thinking about how delighted the owners of the articles were when they had bought them and how they felt when they put them on for the first time. All those feelings were turning to ashes now.

Zeynab’s voice calling me brought me back to the present. I rose and walked to her. She said that someone said my brother was waiting outside the door. He wouldn’t come in, so I had to go and see what he wanted.

For a moment my heart stopped. What’s happened now? I thought.

I raced to the door where I saw Mansur with his hands in his pockets looking around. He stepped forward and said hello. I said hello and asked, “What did you come here for? Didn’t I tell you not to leave mother and the kids?”

“Yes, but I’ve brought you some food,” he said pitifully.

“Food? Where’d it come from?” I asked in surprise.

“The neighbors cooked supper and gave us some. We were eating and mother said, ‘I wish Zahra and Leila were here.’ So I secretly put some aside for you, but mother found out and asked me what I was hiding. I told her it was for you.”

I was touched and asked, “You came all this way just for us?”

He nodded and took some bread out of his pocket. I took it from him; it turned out to be a sandwich with a couple of cutlets inside. “Why didn’t you come into the building instead of waiting outside the door?” I asked him. “Or, why didn’t you just give the food to the people who had called me to the door?”

“It wasn’t that much food,” he explained. “I didn’t dare give it to somebody else. Maybe they’d have taken it for themselves, but it was for you.”

I bent down and kissed his head. “There was no reason for you to come all this way, baby. It would have been better if you had eaten it yourself.”

He snapped his head up to say “No.” I invited him inside.

“No, mother said to come back quickly,” he said.

The previous times when I had been at the Sheikh Soleyman Mosque, I hadn’t seen Mansur. I thought he had to be around, but when he didn’t turn up, I asked mother. She said, “I don’t know where he is. Maybe in the alley or he’s gone to the Congregational Mosque.” With this in mind I stared down at him and warned, “Don’t keep sneaking off. Don’t leave the mosque again. You don’t have to come all this way to bring me something. We’ve got everything we need here. Besides, I’m not always around.”

“Whatever you say,” he said.

To be continued …