A Memory of Working in the Bank

Compiled by: Islamic Revolution Website
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2024-10-16


During the time when I was working in the bank, I participated in some gatherings and I hopped that one day they might come to me. Coincidentally, the day I went home, I opened the letter box behind the door and found a letter in it, and nothing was written on the back, it was just written: "Mr. Hussain Mumtaheni", I took this letter and put it in my pocket. When I found that the sender's name and address were not written on it, I became suspicious. My wife saw it and my daughter saw it and said: Dad, what was that letter that you put in your pocket? They insisted. I said: It is from SAVAK. We opened it and saw that it was written that you should come there on a certain day and number on Khalili Street in Shemiran. I got up one morning, went at the appointed time, and stood until exactly at the hour, someone came and said that I am Hossein Mumtaheni. He said come in. When I entered the hallway, there was a staircase. It was an iron staircase. We went down to a long basement. It was very long, almost 4.5-5 meters wide, and a rusty iron table was placed next to it. There were 2 chairs, one of which was broken and one half broken, which at that time was called "Araj". I sat down on one of these chairs. They had put a picture in front of me, it was a picture of a mosque window; I don't know if it was in Isfahan or Yazd. I waited there for more than 1.5 hours and there was no news. I was getting bored, I was looking at this picture, and once I realized that this picture is not a simple picture, I looked and saw that it started with Allah, then the Prophet of Islam (pbuh), then the twelve Imams (pbuh) and Hazrat Zahra (pbuh) made a state that was amazing for me. Suppose that he used several sides for letter "N" and the names "Hossein" come from this side and letter "H" goes to the other side. In general, I was amazed at what art this has done and I still wish to go to this window somewhere and see that it has not been successful yet.

 

 

When I reached the last point, I saw that a person came and sat behind the servant there and said: Pull that chair and sit here. I went and sat in front. He said: What is your name? I said so and so. What do you do I said that I am an employee of a commercial bank. He said: How did you get transferred to Tehran? I said that the bank transferred me and I was in Sabzevar city, and some issues arose in Sabzevar Bank, and I was the bank teller at that time, when the branch had not even opened, something happened in the bank and there was a large amount of abuse in the bank, an inspection came and I talked to them about We talked about transfer from the bank and he transferred me to Tehran.

This person who interrogated me was one of the people who worked in the former office where I was engaged. I did not know him. At that time, when I went to the accounting office, I would take out the formulas that I had and take the shift with one or two other people who were sitting on the other side. A bank would match. After a few days, he disappeared and we forgot about him, that day he came with a different face and sat in front of me. He used to shave his beard, he had grown a beard that day and changed his appearance, so he was unrecognizable. He searched well, what do your children do? What do you do, how do you live? I said: "It's hard, but the bathroom I built in Sabzevar was worth a penny, and with the salary I was getting, we didn't need anything." Then he started asking some of the bank guys. I thought at first that he wanted to question me about them in terms of their beliefs. Then he said: Do you know Haeri? I said: Yes. He said: Where is he now? I said: He left the bank. He said: Where did he go? I said I don't know where he went. How many people asked about these names and then said you don't know me? I said no, how do I know you? He said: We read our accounts together with you several times, I am Ghominijad. I looked at him carefully and said yes, I remembered, you are right. That day, he said that you go, I will close your case so that no one will look for you again, and God knows that this one I am saying was one of God's blessings. On that day, God told us that he did not interrogate me further and closed this case. Then he went and said that no, this is nothing, and we went out, and there was no problem for me.[1]

 


[1] Source: the Mood of Painful People (a review of Hamid Sabzevari's memoirs and poems), edited by Mustafa Faiz, Tehran, Islamic Revolution Records Center, 2007, pp. 112-115.

 



 
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