SABAH (23)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

2020-8-18

SABAH (23)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami

Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

Published by Soore Mehr Publishing Co.

Persian Version 2019

We returned home when we were finished. Auntie wanted to make fish for lunch. She had already brought the fish called Zobeidi out of freezer and started preparing the rice. When the fish was defrosted Fouziyeh and Nahid dumped it in special flour and fried it. Auntie Maryam was a lux and chic person. She always had a calm life void of any tension. She was rich too. Their living condition including food and clothing was always better than the rest of the family.

Although Zobeidi was a delicious fish but I always liked Sobour. My mom cooked Sobour in a traditional oven. It was so delicious that we ate it although it had many bones and some of them would be stuck in our throat. My mom would clean the fish and fill it with spices and some kind of herbs and cooked it in the traditional over. Sobour was a fatty fish and you could barbeque it and fry in a pan, but the taste was different when you cooked it in oven. My mom cooked one Sobour for each one of us. After eating Sobour, we felt so sleepy that we slept for two hours.

We had just had lunch. We jumped with a horrible explosion. It was obvious that Iraq had progressed invasion since yesterday. It was the sound of a cannon coming from a place nearby. We got out of the house with Elaheh. A place near Melli Bank in Ferdowsi Avenue was hit. There was a lot of smog and dust rising from the place that the cartouche had hit. We ran towards the place.

When we got there, we saw that an oval shaped hole as big as a big wardrobe is on the wall of the second floor of the building. The hole was so big that we could see inside the house. Elaheh and I ran inside to help. The members of the family had gathered under the stairs and were scared but thanks God nobody was hurt. The family members were a bit confused due to the explosion wave and their faces covered in soil and smog.

The city was attacked by a weapon called “Khamseh Khamseh[1]”. Constant explosions were heard. We returned home. On our way home, Elaheh was talking about the events of yesterday and the day before. She said that Salour School in Taleghani district was one of the first targets. The school was closed but the guard and his wife were both martyred. Later, they targeted other locations in Taleghani district and have martyred between seventy five to one hundred people and nearly three hundred were injured.

When we got to auntie Maryam’s place, my mother and Shahnaz had gone home. They wanted to persuade my father to join us. They would feel more content if we were all together. We were worried for him. We did not know what he ate and did. We heard explosions from near and far constantly. No hour went by quietly. It was almost an hour that they had left the house. We were worried for my mother and Shahnaz. They should have returned by then. I was restless. Iraq was hitting the city non-stop. The sound of Khamseh Khamseh were getting closer and closer like morning. There was an explosion near the house. We all ran to the door to see what has happened. Fouziyeh, Nahid, Elahah and auntie and I were at the door and Abbas, Mohsen, Reza, Mozhgan and Mona were in the street. They were kids and the sounds of explosion was both frightening and exciting like firecrackers.

There was a police station at the beginning of auntie Maryam’s alley. Hazrate Fatemeh Al Zahra mosque was located on the left side of her house and with the distance of two, three houses. We were standing at the door and looked around that all of a sudden there was a huge explosion, shaking the ground under our feet. Right in front of our eyes, a house which was four five houses away, was turned into ashes and soil and smog and fire.

It took us a few moments to understand what had happened. We were numb and heavy headed. We were just looking at each other in bewilderment. We did not know why we were like that. After three four minutes, Nahid started screaming that “come inside”. She kept repeating the same sentence. We did not know at that time that this condition is called “blast wave sickness”.

The sound of the blast was from the right side of the house and in a distance of around fifty meters away. Elaheh, five six other people and I ran to the blast location. When we got there, what we saw stoned us. The cannonball had hit the frame of the gate at the yard of a two-story house. After the dust died down, we saw a piece of meat covered in blood and thorn which was dangling from the fences of the second floor. The piece of meat was a piece of the spinal cord and waist of one of the members of the family. Without being able to react, I was gazing at that piece of waist. I didn’t know what to do; scream, cry, run, help or …

I was stoned at my place. Elaheh was not moving too. After a while, I started looking around. All the building facades, floor, and walls were covered in small and big pieces of burnt and bloody meats.  Nahid and Fouziyeh and auntie joined us. Auntie was crying loudly and hitting her head with her hands. Nahid was trying to stop her from hitting herself. At the same time, she was constantly screaming: “Hurry and go home.” We were standing there like hunted people. The wail of the ambulance sirens was heard. Some people got out of it and ran inside the house. One person was shouting constantly at others to scatter and leave the scene, it might be attacked again.

We returned home. The image of that dangling piece of waist and all those minced meats, as if it were grinded and spread all over the thorn and melted curtain shutters, did not get out of my mind. Every time I blinked, the scene was in front of my eyes. Auntie was crying constantly and was restless. Little by little, Elaheh started talking. She told us that the building belonged to one of their neighbors who was a doctor and is in Tehran now. He has given his house temporarily to a poor Arab family to have a place to live and to take care of his house and living during his absence.

So that amount of meat and skin were in fact the body organs of five six family members! A family whose only identifiable organ was that piece of waist! The smell of barbequed meat and gunpowder had filled my head. I felt nauseous. I wanted to go to a corner and throw up. I was not feeling well. My throat was hurting. I could not believe that I had to be ready to see more such scenes from now on. Whether we wanted it or not, we were in the middle of the events; which were terrifying and would last until when.

We were in process of comprehending what was happening to us. I was thinking of my own death all the time; quiver or cannonball would cut my body into pieces. Would I be killed alone or with my family like this poor family? Thousands of unanswered questions were going around in my mind. I wished to die in a way that my corpse be intact and recognizable. The image that my corpse be unidentifiable and beyond recognition, was unbearable for me. I was thinking of my grave in Jannat Abad. Where would I be buried? Who will be buried besides me?

Little had passed from the event that we heard fast knocks on the door. Auntie ran to the door. Two soldiers had come with a car and said: “evacuate the house and come to Jame mosque.” Auntie answered: “we are waiting for a few people. When they come, we will join you in mosque.”

The soldiers did not agree and advised one person to stay and the rest to go. It was not suitable to stay, they said.

Elaheh, auntie, children and I went to mosque with the soldiers and Fouziyeh and Nahid stayed home waiting for my mom and Shahnaz.

 To be continued …