The Days without Mirror (Part 16)

2019-3-5

The Days without Mirror (Part 16)

Memoirs of Manijeh Lashgari; The wife of released pilot, Hossein Lashgari

Edited by: Golestan Jafarian

Translator: Zahra Hosseinian

Tehran, Sooreh Mehr Publications Company

‎2016 (Persian Version)‎

Twenty days passed. Every morning I woke up hoping to turn on the TV and heard that the war has been over. Days were slow and long. As if there was no passage of moments. In the morning, when I woke up, I thought: Oh my God, when it's noon. And at noon, I felt why the night does not come. I constantly cried, either when I was among family members, or secretly in a corner of house. No longer could I breast-feed, so we had to prepare infant formula for Ali. The doctor diagnosed that a nervous shock has caused it and prescribed a lot of medicine for me. It took two months to be able to breast-feed again, but too little. Ali was accustomed to eat food.

The air force agents visited me one or two times, but what they could do. They opened an account in my name, so that I could withdraw Hossein’s salary monthly. Three months after beginning of war, they called from the air base and asked me to collect my belongings and evacuate the villa. They reasoned that everything would be destroyed here. I had no energy left to travel. I gave my father and my brother-in-law power of attorney. They went to the Vahdati air base and brought my household goods to Tehran by a truck.

There were a lot of household goods; each of them was put in a corner. Every time I set my eyes on them, I emotionally crashed. My daily hobby was that I went into basement and ransacked my things. Happiness and liveliness had gone from our house. My mother and sisters cried a lot. But Haj Khanum was a devout person and constantly said, ‘trust in God ... God willing it'll be fine. Grieving is useless.’

I never saw my father cry in front of me. My aunt's house was near a mosque where my father went to perform his prayers. ‘Sometimes, after performing the prayers finished,’ my aunt said, ‘when the mosque is not crowded, I draw aside the curtain divided men and women, and see my brother has prostrated himself and weep loudly.’

December of the same year, Farah phoned me. I was happy to hear her. I knew the aircraft of her husband had also fallen in Iraqi territory. ‘Where’re you, Farah?’ I asked, ‘tell me where I can see you or come here.’ She asked me to tell her the address of my father’s house and then she came. One or two days she stayed with me. Two months of her pregnancy had remained. She said her baby was a boy.

During each week and month, I heard the capture of a few pilots. The New Year was coming and I had emotionally gotten worse. Hossein and I had just spent two Nowruz with each other.

The first one was on March, 27^th 1979, when we married; and the next year, when I was pregnant and he went to Qazvin alone to visit his parents. ‘Car moves a lot, it's not good for baby,’ he said.

Every time we went to a party and there were a lot of people in the room, Hossein looked for a good place for me. If there was no place, he asked them to give place to me at where I could sit down and lean against the wall. As soon as he saw children created a lot of noise and ran around the room, he said, ‘please don’t ran close her. She’s pregnant and maybe hurt.’ All guests burst into laugh. At goodbye time, they approached me and asked Hossein, ‘do you permit us to kiss her?’

I cried for nine months. My mother complained. She said, ‘at last you’ll be blind!’ I said, ‘What should I do, mom! I miss him...’ I did not know what to do with this nostalgia. It was a strange feeling. No longer was the war important for me, not the ruined houses and the martyrs that constantly were shown in the TV. I just thought of Hossein. When I prayed, I just said: ‘O God! I miss him so much. Tell me what I should do with it!’

The Red Cross contacted many Iranian pilots' spouses, even Farah, whose husband was alive and captive. But there was no news about Hossein. It was proclaimed Hossein was an untraceable. After nine months of restlessness, the grief and sorrow came. I did not cry anymore. The words of others, who consoled me continuously, did not offend me. Nothing was important to me. Ali was with my sisters and mother. Even sweet laughter of Ali, who just started toddling, did not make me happy.

I was just among family members. There were a lot of coming and going in my father's house, in my brother’s house, and my sister’s house. Gholam Hossein, my brother, was twenty years older and loved me and Ali very much. Everywhere I went, there were a lot of people around me. I think that's the reason I did not lose my senses and did not think what had happened to my life.

As I and my sibling called my father ‘Aghajon (dear dad)’ and Ali also called him the same when he started talking. Ali loved my father. My father had done a lot for Ali. Until three or four years old, Ali thought that my father was his father; but when he was old enough to know better, one day I talked to him, ‘My son, your father was a fighter pilot. When the war began, he went to war and still hasn’t returned. We two should expect him and pray for his safety.’

Little by little, there were some whispers that I should get married. Hossein’s father and brother came to my father's house. ‘We’ve accepted that our son was martyred.’ Hossein’ father declared, ‘Manijeh is young; if she likes, she can give the baby to us and starts a new life.’

I cried so much. I loved Hossein and could not think of anyone else.

‘Mr. Lashgari, thank you.’ My father replied, ‘If Hossein was my son, I would reason my daughter-in-law not to suffer because of her love. But I'm sure Hossein is alive and will return proudly. My daughter’s gotten married once and that's enough. We pay more attention to her since her husband’s gone. Always the highest place in my house belongs to her and the best food is for her. She and her son are the apple of my eye. Let this mother and baby to be with each other until Hossein returns.’

Hossein’s father and brother thanked my father so much and went.

When Mr. Khomeini, may he rest in peace, ordered ‘The Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans’ to be formed; the first thing this organization did was to give child custody of martyrs, captives, and missing men to the mothers and put the minds of mothers at ease. If Ali was taken from me, I would definitely lose my senses. Hossein's words in the last moments of his going spun constantly in my head, ‘Whenever you miss me, look at my son... look at Ali...’

My older brother and his wife showed so much affection to me and Ali that I became tired. I had become very sensitive and easily offended, but they did not hurt by my behaviors. At least five times in a year, they took me and Ali to the north to their own villa. My brother always told me, ‘beautiful lady... Haj Khanum... ‘may I die for you’… how you ignore me... Ok. You're giving me the cold shoulder!’ And he would continue until to make me smile.

By my mother’s encouragement and the insistence of my brother’s wife, I was convinced to go to a hairdresser’s shop after four years. Until then, nobody could convince me. ‘Hossein doesn’t like to dye my hair or to have a haircut. He said I shouldn’t dye my hair until they turn grey. When he came back, I would do these works.’ The hairdresser’s shop was around Fatemi Square. At that time I was twenty-three. As soon as the hairdresser saw me, she said wonderingly: ‘a beautiful girl like you, why hasn’t done threading yet? Why your face and eyebrows are like this?’

She did eyebrow threading and dyed my hair. Those days, having hair streaked was new in Iran. I had my hair highlighted. The hairdresser pressed that ‘let me clip your hair a little.’ I did not let her, because Hossein liked long hair.

Everyone in that salon began to speak about my hair. They gathered around me and said, ‘How much streaked hair coordinates to your face skin! How beautiful and thick is your hair.’ I quickly gathered my hair and fastened it up and told my mother to go out.

When I stepped out of the hairdresser’s shop, hated myself. ‘Why did I do this? Hossein’s not here...’ I said repeatedly to myself.

I cried all that night. The next day, my brother held a party in his house. They insisted on me to let my hair down, but I deferred. I always twisted my long hair, and fastened it up with a clip - and I kept doing my hair the same way until now.

After a while, I became addicted to dyeing my hair; every day I tested a different color and streaked my hair, and I kept doing it so much that became my hobby. I went to the atelier to take a photograph once or twice a year; this is the photo of my twenty-five years old... this one twenty-seven years old... that one thirty years old... I wanted Hossein see my changes... whenever I took a new photo, felt sorry for myself... I repeated to myself: God, how much I take photo!

To be continued…