Da (Mother) 59

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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

2023-8-20

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

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Chapter Eleven: More Bodies—More Martyrs

On the ninth day I awoke early in the morning to the sound of a man giving the call to prayer in the yard. The explosions and shelling, which had been going on all night, had intensified. The intervals between explosions seemed to be getting shorter; it was as if the Iraqis were using everything they had to grind the city to dust. I woke up the row of sleeping bodies for prayer and went into the yard myself for ablutions. I was still tired and bothered by the cold. Just before sunrise a woman, who had come to the mosque for shelter the night before, called out to me. She wanted me to get her to the hospital. I had heard her moan feebly the whole night. The woman was in the last stages of pregnancy, but whenever we asked her about helping, she would say, “It’s still not time for the child to come into the world.”

I didn’t know why she had no family with her. The girls told the men to get a car ready for her, but they said she had to wait. The woman was in distress and couldn’t take much more, however. Having asked the men repeatedly, the girls finally got their attention. At that time of morning they couldn’t reach anyone and asked, “Is the patient that sick?”

The girls had no choice but to admit that she was pregnant and that the child was due any moment. Waiting, they said, would put the lives of both in danger.

The men ran around to see what could be done, and then announced that a car was on its way.

Because there was no stretcher, we had to carry her from the mosque.

She put her hands around the necks of two of us, while three others had her by the legs. We managed to bring her out that way and headed toward a beverage truck parked outside. In addition to bottles it had a load of potatoes and onions for the mosque. We had no choice but to lay her on one side. I climbed in with her and leaned against the metal bottle rack. As the truck started to move, a woman known as Evil Zahra hopped on and sat at the other end of the rack. I had gotten to know her after father’s death. I don’t know what kept her at the mosque. She never helped, and anytime anything went against her sensibilities she would shout and argue. During the bombings, she would go rigid with fear, faint dramatically, and pretend to be dumb. Everybody was sick of her antics, and for this reason they called her “evil.” I wasn’t too happy she had come along.

But what could I say? The pregnant woman was in agony. I cradled her head in my lap, trying to comfort her. Ashamed of having her grief made public, she tried to keep her emotions in check by muttering prayers under her breath.

By now I was fed up with the truck. The motor wasn’t right. It chugged along until reaching the bridge and then struggled to make the incline. When the driver gunned the engine, I almost jumped out of my skin. The truck picked up speed after it reached the other side. We were near the gas station when an enemy plane appeared in the sky; the roar of its jets sounded everywhere. Suddenly I feared for the woman’s life.

There was a motorcycle twenty meters behind us. Keeping one eye on the sky and the other on the cycle, I noticed a passenger behind the driver with his head ducked to one side. Like us, they were trying to outrun certain death, but unlike us they had speed on their side. I knew the bridge was the enemy’s primary target. I prayed and prayed the two boys on the cycle would make it over the bridge before the jets fired. I covered the woman’s eyes with my hands to keep her from seeing the gory scene I feared. Seconds after the motorcycle cleared the bridge, the jets fired their rockets. One of them landed on the Kut-e Sheikh side, and the shock wave sent the two boys flying in opposite directions. Their empty bike skidded along the road and burst into flames. I held my breath. If they were anywhere near the gas tank when it exploded, they would be burned to a cinder. At the sound of the jets, the woman seemed to forget her pain. She stared at the sky in terror and prayed in a loud voice.

Instead of trying to maintain her cool, Evil Zahra went into her usual hysterics. Worried that upsetting the woman might jeopardize her and her baby, I yelled to Zahra to sit down and stop being so annoying. But she was deaf to that.

When the truck reached the birthing center, nurses rushed out and we got the woman inside. As I was saying goodbye to her, the woman thanked me and said she was worried about how I was going to get back.

“God will provide,” I reassured her.

Leaving the center, I was more concerned about what happened to the two boys on the motorcycle. I said to Zahra, “I think I’ll go to try to find those boys; they must be hurt, if you want to come, by all means. But if you’re going to pull those antics, please don’t bother. I don’t want you around.”

“I’m not play-acting. I’m really scared sometimes.”

“Look,” I said, “you know yourself that things aren’t normal. Now’s not the time for drama.”

She said nothing and started walking with me. Sensing the wounded boys needed immediate attention, I hurried. It wasn’t far from the center to the traffic circle. Soon I saw the smoldering remains of the motorcycle. The tires had come off the machine. I scoured the area for any sign of the boys, but found none. I followed a trail of blood leading to a half-built structure with no door. I went inside and found one of the boys lying in a dusty hallway with his legs spread apart and his head against the wall. There was blood all around him. I rushed to him and took his pulse, which was very weak. He had shrapnel in his side and stomach. He was also badly mangled below the belt. He had lost so much blood it looked as if he was breathing his last. He tried to say something but was too weak. I brought my head closer to his mouth but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I tried to talk to him; it was no use as he coughed up a foamy stream of blood. There was nothing I could do, so I said to Zahra, “Let’s go find a car. He’s gone.” We left the building and craned our necks trying to spot a vehicle. None came into view. “Stay put,” I told her, “and try to flag down anything that comes along.”

I ran back into the building hoping that the boy was alive but fearing the worst. I tugged on his bloody trousers trying to get his attention. “Look,” I said. “You’re going to be all right. Don’t worry; it’s not serious. I’ll help you.” As I spoke, he struggled to look at me. All of a sudden his eyes rolled back in his head, which scared the life out of me. I had never seen that before. Uneasy, I shook him again and said, “Look. Look. You’re going to be fine. Don’t worry; you’ve lost some blood is all. I’m going to get some serum and a transfusion into you and you’ll be fine.”

A low moan told me he had understood what I had said. I ran from the building and asked Zahra to help me get him outside. We couldn’t drag him by the legs because they were too mangled. So, despite our disgust, we grabbed him below the waist and pulled him to the side of the road. A couple of cars sped by and Zahra shouted at them, but it was no use. They wouldn’t stop because of the jets. Frustrated, she began cursing, “Stop, you bastards! Yellow sons of bitches, we have wounded here!” “Stop that,” I said, “They’re already gone. Who are you cursing at?”

Finally, a battered red van came to a jerky stop near us. The driver, an old Arab with frizzy hair, agreed to take the boy to the hospital. In the front seat next to him was another man; both appeared to be dockworkers. After we loaded the boy in the van, I went to look for the other one. Following a blood trail that led from the street to a date grove, I found him lying next to a hut. It appeared that he had been able to walk part of the way and then collapsed.

When I got to him, he was making his peace with the lord, saying, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is His prophet.” The oath was not coming from his mouth but from a large gash in his throat that was also streaming with blood foam. I shuddered in horror and took his pulse. There was a piece of shrapnel in his throat, but when I tried to take it out, I found I couldn’t reach it with my fingers. The boy seemed younger than his companion. Transfixed by the bloody gash in the boy’s throat, I said, “Brother, brother, you’re going to make it. Don’t give up. Think of Imam Hoseyn and the blessed Ali Akbar and stay strong.” I ran from the grove and called out to the driver. Then I rushed back to the boy. By the time I got there, his head had slumped to one side. I went into a panic and took his pulse again. There was no pulse. I put my ear to his chest. It seemed his heart had stopped. At that point the driver and the other man came; their clothes were bloodstained from carrying the first boy. We lifted the other boy and noticed immediately the wall behind him was dripping with blood. Then I realized that shrapnel was not only in his throat; it had blown off the back of his head. “This one’s almost gone,” I said to the driver. “He won’t make it to the hospital. Let’s get him to the birthing center; they’re admitting wounded also. Maybe they can do something, which will be quicker.”

“We won’t get them there in time in this old crate,” the driver said.

My heart told me that it was over for the two boys. I was so upset I couldn’t speak, and Evil Zahra was also quiet. We started walking toward the bridge, hoping a car would come by and at least give us a lift across. Hunger and weariness made it difficult for us to get up the ramp. I told Zahra to walk faster so we could be on the other side quickly, but suddenly there was a horrible explosion from the Moharezzi area. The shock wave made everything shake for moment. A cloud of smoke and dust rose in the air, showing us where the shell had hit. We ran toward the spot. It appeared to have landed in the date grove along the Shatt, among the modest mud dwellings. We headed for a place where there was the sound of a woman wailing. The closer we got, the louder her shrieks became. We ran down the alleys past the huts as the cries continued. “Tell us where you are!” we shouted.

But all we heard was the sound of her wailing. We shouted again, but this time there was an answer.

We were faced with a strange sight when we finally got to the spot. The shell had landed in a foxhole beside a hut. The hole was obliterated and the walls of the hut had collapsed. The ground was dug up as if ploughed by shrapnel from the shell. The iron door of the hut was dislodged and was leaning in toward the yard. The horribly mutilated body of a young man lay by the door. I could hardly look at him let alone gather his remains. The force of the blast had torn a hole in his midsection and rotated his pelvis so much his feet seemed like they were on backwards. One of his arms was mashed up to the shoulder. His entire body, in fact, was shredded. I felt as soon as we tried to move him, his bones would disintegrate. More heartrending was the sight of his aged mother and father, who, having come out of their hut, were wailing, “Abd al-Rasul, Abd al-Rasul.”

I realized the old woman was blind from the way she got on all fours and crawled on the ground toward her son’s corpse. Her husband also seemed to be blind. The woman reached her son and cried in Arabic, “Sweetheart, sweetheart.” The old man stood in the doorway saying, “Abd al-Rasul, answer me.” The old woman seemed to realize that something had happened and said to her husband, “Go to him. See why he doesn’t answer.” She didn’t want to believe that her son was dead. The old man feebly went forward unable to stop crying and saying, “Dear, dear?”

He fell to the ground and ran his hand over his boy’s lifeless body, trying to waken him. The two of them hoped that their son had been knocked unconscious. I couldn’t take any more of this. Wishing I was anywhere but there, I cried, “Mother, come here. Leave him.” As soon as she heard my voice, she said, “He hasn’t been martyred, has he? He’s not dead, is he?”

Although I knew he was gone, I couldn’t bear to tell them the truth. “We’ll take him to the hospital,” I lied. “You should pray for him.” Hearing this, she hugged the corpse even harder and glued herself to her son. No matter how many times I asked her to leave him, she refused. I went to her and tried to persuade her to let her son go. In tears she pleaded, “Don’t make me leave him, I beg you!”

To be continued …