Da (Mother) 110

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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

2024-8-11

Da (Mother) 110

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

***

Soon after lunch the boys went to their bunks, while the others stretched out on the carpeting so I could rest. The boys liked their bunks. They seemed to settle down for a time but, secretly, the little monsters remained what they had always been. Nevertheless, they were curious about was going to happen to them and paid careful attention to what the adults said.

As we rested I felt Hasan watching me. “When are we going back home?” he asked suddenly. I was tired. It was strange to hear this from the mouth of the little devil.

Optimistic that the war would be over soon, I said, “We’ll be back in no time.” Then I added, “I’ll probably be there before you.”

Anxious to be back in school, Sa’id, believing I was going back to Khorramshahr, asked, “When you’re there would you bring me my school books? Would the Iraqis let you?”

He meant his first grade books. “They wouldn’t dare stop me,” I said. “We’ll go and get them out ourselves, and you can bring them to Khorramshahr so we won’t have to bring them here.”

The next day I decided to supervise the boys myself. Because the trailers faced one another, and some of the neighbors didn’t maintain privacy, we always kept our door shut, which made us feel even more like prisoners in our own home. The boys wanted to roughhouse, and it was impossible to keep them cooped up in one room. But I was also afraid they would wander on the grounds. The poor sanitation, the questionable morality of some of the inhabitants and … made me worry. This was why I went with them when they went out to play. Hasan, Sa’id, and Mansur climbed the fence and the cement pedestal of the water tank and jumped down for fun. For two weeks this was how I spent my days.

Sometimes when I was depressed I would leave camp. I would stand under the sun beside the road, wondering how far it was to Abadan. Could I reach it on foot? People were saying the Iraqis had taken the Mahshahr-Abadan Road, so I decided to get to it from the desert side. Realizing this was impossible was hard on my nerves. Mother knew not to bother me when I became sullen. I had become very irritable. One word was enough to make me burst into tears. Leila was equally grumpy, but she was better able to put up with the conditions. To comfort me she said, “Zahra, we can also work right here. We’ll go to the camp clinic.” But yearning to go back to Khorramshahr with all my soul, I wouldn’t hear of it. I felt like a bird with its wings clipped. I couldn’t sleep at night. Scenes of what happened in Jannatabad, the Congregational Mosque, the Sheybani clinic, and the front lines appeared before me, driving sleep away. Thinking a picture of Ali or father would give me some peace, I regretted not bringing my photo album with me. I didn’t let mother see me during these bouts of depression. I wouldn’t let her see weakness in me and was always fending her off by saying, “You have to have patience and try not to break down.”

Even in worse shape than I, mother was always breaking down. She would sing in Arabic and Kurdish, with tears streaming down her cheeks. Modesty prevented her from mentioning father’s name. It was agonizing to hear her sing of Ali’s absence. At night it got worse, and there were times when I became very stern, telling her not to cry. At other times I would soften and hug and kiss her, saying, “Stop torturing yourself. Ali will come back and become the man of the house. We’ll be back on track then.”

Deep down I didn’t want to give her false hope, but what could I do? This was the only way to calm her. I had no choice and knew that although they were pretending to sleep, the boys were awake and sobbing in their beds.

Several times I returned from my walks to the road to find mother in tears, telling the neighbors what kind of man father was. The people were very moved in sympathy for her. I heard them saying behind her back, “The war has ruined her. She has lost her home, her whole life, even her husband.…”

“Why, mother,” I scolded her, “are you squandering the rewards of father’s martyrdom?”

She would say nothing, seemingly agreeing with me. But then I found her doing the same thing. Seeing me coming, she would get up and say, “There’s going to be an argument now.”

Then her mood changed rapidly, so I wouldn’t say anything. She would laugh and say, “Is that you, sweetie? Anything you need? Is there anything I can do for you?”

It hurt me the most when she got like this. Apart from our finances, uncle had problems of his own. He helped mother with the expenses and would never let her starve, but how much could he do? A short time later, instead of warm, cooked food, they started distributing dry rations. Seeing mother having to wait in line for the rations was painful. I felt the loss of dignity and suggested she not go and stand in line herself.

“What?” she said. “Who’s going to fill these kids’ stomachs?”

“So why don’t you let them go themselves?”

“They don’t give food to children,” she explained.

Once Uncle Hoseyni came from Khorramabad and found us in the camp. Mother insisted he take us back with him. We refused, and he gave mother some money and left.

Conditions grew worse for people by the day. The complaints became louder. “What is this all about?” people grumbled. “Why have they dumped us here? Why don’t they hear what we’re saying?”

Like the family of Uncle Gholami, whose presence was such a joy to us, many people wanted to leave. In the beginning, everybody thought the situation was temporary, but with the widening of the war and the news that other cities were under attack, they realized they would have to escape the misery of the camp and go to safer cities.

Official organizations had yet to look into the plight of the families of the martyrs and the missing in any systematic way. Only in Mahshahr was something set up called the Force for War Victims, which administered the camp. With the mounting numbers of refugees, the conditions naturally became more dire and chaotic. They even cleared out storage facilities and wrecked vehicles to house people. Trucks would come occasionally and distribute sacks of used clothing for men, women, and children—one sack for each family. This was so disgusting to me I started cursing Saddam, the instigator, and hoped for his death; I also reviled those on our side who failed to do their duty. People objected, “What good are these clothes to us? We don’t have children. What are we supposed to do with them? What do they expect us to do? We have our pride. What’s the point of treating us like dirt?”

I once accompanied uncle’s wife to the food distribution place. She wanted powdered milk for her daughter, who had just turned one. She told the man distributing the food, “This isn’t enough for my daughter, and there’s none on the bazaar. Would you give me another tin?”

The man said, “What can I do? Teach your daughter to eat less.”

Finding that very hard to take, she fought back tears. I was also very put out and felt like messing up his little setup. I managed to control myself and said to uncle’s wife, “This is useless. Let’s go. They’re treating us like we’re poor and unfortunate creatures, and are giving us charity out the goodness of their little hearts. They also probably think we’re going to hoard the food.”

Seeing how upset we were, the man regretted what he had said. He explained, “No offense, but our supplies are limited. They have to be stretched so everybody can get a share.”

“What was your point when you said that, though?” I asked.

“Orders are orders. If it was up to me, I’d give everybody everything they wanted,” he said.

“You should have said that in the first place rather than rubbing salt in our wounds,” I said.

“I swear I have been locking horns with people so much since this morning my head is about to explode. I don’t have the strength to argue with you,” he said.

“Fine,” I said, “but can’t you go and see if you have just one extra tin back there you can give us?”

“You’re right. What I said was wrong.”

It was toward the middle of November, ten days since my arrival at the camp. I was at my wits end. To keep myself occupied I sought out the aid workers at the camp. The Force for War Victims set them up in a tent. One of them directed me to the kitchen, where I saw things were going on as they should, and there was no need for my supervision. I went to one of the large rooms in a storage area where old and new clothes were strewn about. Volunteers were culling bedding, blankets, sheets, and clothing. I spent several days sorting clothing. Later it became necessary to take an accurate census of the camp according to gender and age. I limped from home to home, trying to get an exact count, but failed no matter what we did. Every day a number of people, who had the means or who had sold some gold, would leave for Isfahan, Shiraz, Behbehan, etc., while another group would arrive and wait for places to open up for them.

The areas around the camp were not immune to attacks by enemy planes. Once a rocket landed in the stagnant water in the nearby desert, terrifying people. Despite all the psychological pressures I felt at the camp, deep down I didn’t want to leave it for faraway cities. The camp was close to Khorramshahr. I forced myself to come to terms with the conditions so they wouldn’t bother me as much. Around noon I would go home where the boys would bring lunch from the kitchen or mother would rustle up something. Her simple, spare meals tasted better than the camp food. When we sat around the floor cloth, the absence of father and Ali weighed heavily on me, and I had to choke back tears. Father always insisted we eat together because it was healthy for us. The harmony, he said, made the angels happy.

Mother didn’t eat much; apparently these gatherings had opened old wounds. She seemed to be lost in thought. Often she would sigh and say, “Ali, it kills me not knowing where you are now, whether you’re eating or not.”

A few times Hoseyn Ta’i Nezhad stopped by with other army boys. I had seen Hoseyn once in Khorramshahr and asked him never to tell mother about Ali. When she mentioned him, Hoseyn said, “Ali’s busy. He’s in a good place. We’ve tried to get him to take leave and come by.”

But the boys were not happy with me for forcing them to lie.

To be continued …