Da (Mother) 55

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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

2023-7-29

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

***

After a good cry, I felt better. I began to stroke the baby’s head and neck and massage his belly and legs. This seemed to work, as his crying jags became less frequent. He was overtired and couldn’t keep his eyes open. His head kept burrowing in my chest searching for milk. The futile efforts of his tiny lips tore at my insides. It was clear hunger has brought him to the end of his tether. I wanted to go out of the hospital and find something for him to eat, but I knew there wasn’t anything available in the neighborhood. I continued to massage his back and shoulders and managed to get him to fall asleep. I rested my head on his chest and said, “God help us!” The baby’s crying resumed. I raised my head and looked through the windshield to see the nurse coming toward us. She wore her dyed brown hair up, and she had biscuits in her hand. I quickly tried to dry my tears. She said, “If it’s not a bother, I found these, but I know it isn’t what the baby needs. Our newborn ward is empty, otherwise I would have gone there and brought a bottle with some powdered milk.” Then she opened the pack of biscuits and gave it to me. I pulled one out and put it in the baby’s mouth. It was dry and, unable to chew it, he pushed it away and started to cry. I struggled to keep it in front of his mouth. He sucked on it and quieted a little. But it did not satisfy him, so he pushed my hand away again. I refused to give up and forced the biscuit into his mouth to moisten it, hoping he would be able to get it down. But then I thought it would be better to crumble it and pour the crumbs into his mouth. That didn’t work either. He wiped his mouth and nose with his hand. His tears mixed with what was running from his nose, and he cried, spitting out the biscuit crumbs. I stopped trying to feed him. Now, lacking the strength to cry, he was whimpering. Amid the sounds of explosions, ambulance sirens, and the horn honking that never seemed to stop, I had a thought. The child had no one left and nowhere to go. Why not keep him myself? It was true that my own fate was not certain, but at least he could be with me wherever I was going. Like Zeynab and Sa’id he’d have to depend on the goodness of God for his daily bread. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I wanted to stay in the city and work. There was no telling how long the war was going to last. When it was over, I’d give him to somebody. Where was I going to get food for him? Who was going to take care of him while I went about town? God had kept him alive to this point, but if I kept him in the city would he survive the bombings?

My thoughts were interrupted by someone saying, “Sister, give us the child, we have to go.” I raised my head and saw it was the same man who had brought the bodies. “Where do you want to take him?” I asked. “You’re not going to abandon him, God forbid. He’s an orphan now. Take him somewhere safe, somewhere his family can find him.” “Don’t worry. I’ll hand him over to the health center in Abadan,” the man said.

I kissed and kissed the boy, who by now was lying limp in my arms. The man took him. I climbed down from the pickup and watched it as it left the hospital compound.

I felt terrible and lacked the strength to stand. I had seen nothing but tragedy that day. As I walked from the compound, I didn’t know where I was going. I wanted to flee, go where there were no people, drown myself in my own being. The only thing that would restore my peace of mind would be to see Ali. I could no longer entertain any hope of seeing father. Besides him the only person who could give me the strength to go on would be Ali. He was the only person I could talk to now, and there was so much I had to tell him. I walked dizzily into the middle of the street, thinking I could escape these horrible thoughts by getting lost. I wished the whole thing had been a nightmare, a long period of terror that would disappear. It was no use. I knew with all my heart that all the misery was real. I called on the Lord to send some shrapnel my way and put me out of my misery.

Not knowing where I was going, I reached the traffic circle where the municipality building was. I sat down in the middle of the traffic circle and stared at the building. I remembered that a few days before Banisadr had been at that very spot. Father had convinced me that he was a traitor, and said so openly when arguing with people. A few times when I had brought food to the girls at the Quran school, I repeated the charge, but Shahnaz objected, “That’s still not certain and saying such things weakens our solidarity.”

The day Banisadr came I had just finished burying bodies and ferrying the wounded to Taleqani Hospital. The nurses had confronted me grumbling that I couldn’t keep depositing bodies with them. So I was in a very bad mood when I got to the mosque. I wanted to pour out my heart to someone, tell them that they had to make somebody in charge of admitting wounded to the hospitals and coordinate their activities. I also wanted a decision about whether we should bring the corpses to Jannatabad or deposit them at the morgue or bury them in the cemetery in Abadan. Just finding vehicles and convincing the drivers to cooperate were huge challenges. I had no choice but to dragoon anyone I found into service and make them work so much they would try to run away at the first opportunity. By chance several men were standing outside the door. Annoyed, I asked, “Why can’t anyone take responsibility for the dead and wounded?”

More annoyed than I was, they said, “Go and tell it to Banisadr.”

“And how am I supposed to get a hold of Banisadr?” I asked in surprise.

“He’s at the municipality right now,” they said.

At that moment all the heartrending sights of Jannatabad, all the damage inflicted on the city and the people, flashed before my eyes. My blood began to boil. I asked myself, what prompted the traitor to come here? I was going to go right then and there and spit in his face. If you’re man enough, I’d say, pick up a rifle and fight. See how long you’d last!

I went into the street and saw a pickup parked there with some of the people who worked in the mosque on board. I grabbed the rail, pulled myself up, and stood with the girls. The pickup was overloaded and it was just as likely to tip over as reach the municipality. There were also two people sitting on the roof of the cab. To cries of “God is great!” and salutations and prayers, the pickup started to move. Some people shouted their encouragement to the defenders of the city. Others threatened Banisadr, while others said that it was better to be reasonable than start a riot. When we reached the building, we saw a huge crowd gathered there. Everybody from ordinary people to military, defenders, women and men, were all standing by the entrance. At times the crowd would surge against the double doors trying to open them. There were soldiers on the other side standing ready to fire. There were also plainclothes bodyguards in the compound. We joined the crowd. “Let us in,” we shouted, “let us have our say!”

From the other side of the door the men asked, “What do you want? What do you want to say?”

I pushed my way through the crowd and screamed, “OPEN THE DOOR! Why are you hiding him in there? Is there a reception or something?”

One of the armed men said, “Calm down. The president is meeting with the governor.”

“Meeting?” I yelled over the clamor. “There’s no need for a meeting. Bring him forward so he can see for himself what’s happening here. We’ve lost everything. He’s got to see what people are going through!”

Someone in the crowd said to me, “Come on, sister, show a little respect. He’s the president of the country after all.”

“Respect? What for? How many people have to be slaughtered?

How many of our young men have to be crushed under the enemy tanks? It’s like it makes no difference to this man how much of our territory they take. He’s a traitor. We made him president, and now we want him out!”

At once one of the military types behind the door barked, “Watch what you’re saying. If you don’t change your tone, I’ll come out there and smack you in the mouth. Understand?”

“You watch what you’re saying, you ass-kisser! If you’re man enough, come out here and I’ll show you who’s going to smack who!”

Then the young people near me said to him, “Shut up! We going to come in there and punch your face!” Grabbing the railing, they yanked themselves up. The bodyguards took the military man aside and shouted, “Stand back!” Then they gave the door a shove, knocking several of the boys to the ground. Several of the onlookers intervened and helped the other boys climb down off the door. They said to the crowd, “Why don’t we wait for now and see what happens at the meeting they’re talking about?”

The hour we waited there went badly for me. Angered by my own helplessness, I walked away and sat down by a fence. Then leaning on the bars of the fence, I asked, “So, is the meeting over?”

“No,” they said.

In the end the only thing we accomplished was to shout. A bodyguard told me to go to the mosque, because Banisadr was scheduled to visit everywhere. They told me I could say what I wanted when he came to the mosque. People said, “Mister, all we want to tell him is send two Phantoms so they can bomb the enemy positions. We don’t want anything for ourselves.”

“The generals will tell him that,” they said.

Dejected, we all walked back to the mosque; people rushed up to us and asked excitedly, “What happened? Did you see the president? What did he say?”

“Nothing,” I said, “don’t get excited. They didn’t even let us inside. This clown just came to blow his own horn, not to see what was happening to us.”

“What do you mean? What actually happened?”

I didn’t feel like saying more. The others answered for me, “Nothing happened. It was useless going there. They told us that Mr. President would deign to visit the mosque in due time.”

To be continued …