Da (Mother) 18

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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

2022-10-25

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

***

Zeynab returned to find the old and round woman who washed bodies smoking a water pipe and Maryam a cigarette. The rest of her staff was busy with other things. She called me and said, “Come and grab her head.” She meant the body of a young girl. I had resisted doing such things. Until this point, I would only lift corpses if they were on stretchers, but now I had to lay my hands on one of them. I looked at the body; she was about my age—the only difference between was my being thin and olive-complexioned, while she was light-skinned and curvy. She was wearing a dark brown blouse and crème colored corduroy pants that suited her quite well. She was obviously very stylish; the color of her head cloth, which was hanging off her head, went with the ensemble. Exhausted from all the work, Zeynab had little patience for my shilly-shallying and asked brusquely, “What’s gotten into you, girl?”

I wanted to say that I couldn’t do it, but I was unable. The woman’s full-bodied, coifed hair had been singed and her clothes, although chic, were bloody and shredded from all the shrapnel. I bring get myself to lift her, but Zeynab was already bent over the body saying, “Hurry up; it’s late.”

I had no choice if I wanted to keep working. So I hiked up my chador and, imagining the girl looking at me, said, “Let me take her by the feet.”

“What difference does it make?” asked Zeynab.

“No difference. It’s just that I’m more comfortable at this end,” I said and stood at the girl’s feet.

“Up to you, girl,” said Zeynab.

Holding the corpse by the legs, it felt for a moment like a bullet shot through my spine and my hair stood on end. All the strength I had drained from my body and I became limp. My heart started racing and seemed as if it was going to burst from my chest. It felt like I had been running for hours; my throat was burning and I couldn’t catch my breath. Seeing me like this, Zeynab said, “Get a good grip and say ‘Ya Ali,’—that’s what we say when we’re doing heavy lifting.”

I said, “Ya Ali!” and grabbed the girl around her knees and hoisted her up under my arm.

After the last of the unclaimed bodies was washed, the washers went to the one who kept the list and said, “Don’t admit any more. We’re dead on our feet and we’ve got homes to go to. We’ll take care of the rest tomorrow.”

We began to swab the rooms. It was dark inside, and because of the Iraqi planes, we couldn’t turn on the lights. Despite the darkness, I was sure that the walls were bloody from the bodies leaning against them. The corpses were charred from the explosions and left traces of smoke on the walls. Still, I couldn’t touch them with my hands. Zeynab and Maryam were wearing gloves as they washed the walls, saying if we don’t clean off the blood and gore, tomorrow it’ll reek in here. I hosed down the floor of the building. Then we washed our hands and feet and left. I was the last helper left in the place. There wasn’t a soul outside our building, but there were still a few people standing outside the men’s body washers’, beating themselves and wailing. One of the women seemed familiar to me. I stepped forward. It was Mrs. Nuri, my elementary school teacher. She was in very bad shape. Her cries were heartbreaking. She was such a happy person. I never saw her without a smile on her face. She always had a good word and joked with her colleagues, but now she was trying to yank off her chador to give full vent to her wailing. I said hello and offered my condolences. She answered me in tears and repeated several times, “God forbid you lose your brother; it’s unbearable.” Her sisters, especially the younger ones, were even more grief-stricken. When they delivered the body, a roar went through Jannatabad. They brought his corpse along with an unidentified body that Zeynab and Maryam had prepared to the mosque, where the prayer for the dead was recited. Then they went to the cemetery. Since Mrs. Nuri was an acquaintance I greatly respected, I joined in the procession. Zeynab and one or two others buried the unknown corpse. Mrs. Nuri’s sisters threw themselves on the grave of their brother. Their mother had fainted, and the father was crying and saying in Kurdish, “Brother, Qeytas. Brother Qeytas.”

I knew that Qeytas was their oldest son who had been studying in America. When Mrs. Nuri’s father said his name, it made me think that he had returned and was killed. The person who wrote the names of the dead on the placards they put by the graves asked, “The deceased’s name?”

I asked Mr. Nuri directly, “Father, what was his name? Qeytas, was it?”

All of a sudden, as if he had been set on fire, the father screamed at me, “Don’t say Qeytas. Never, ever, mention that name or I’ll kill myself. My Qeytas is dead to us!” I was staggered and began to tremble.

“Sorry,” I said, “I was mistaken.”

Later I asked the family, “The deceased, which son was he?”

“Bizhan,” they said, “the last son.”

They wrote “Bizhan” on the placard. At first the mother and sisters wouldn’t let them put the body into the grave, but they finally relented. His face looked out from the shroud as they lowered him, and his sister, who did not seem much older than the boy, began to screech, “Bury me instead of Bizhan!” This was first time I saw the kind of hole they dug for the graves. It seemed very narrow and dark. The men were getting fed up with the antics of Bizhan’s sisters. I looked into the pretty face of one of them, now contorted with grief. I felt sorry for her and tried to comfort the girl, who was around my age, but she continued to screech and then passed out. Her chador fell off and it was worrying to see her in that state. However much I repeated, “God wouldn’t like this; try to control yourself; your dead brother will be upset; ask God for the patience to bear this,” she wouldn’t listen—she wasn’t even paying attention. After the hole was filled in, they sat around the grave in a circle and mourned with men and women from the family.

After Zeynab and Maryam returned from the burial of the nameless corpse, they said a prayer over Bizhan’s grave and offered their condolences to the Nuri family. Then Zeynab, seeing me struggling with Bizhan’s sister, whispered in my ear, “Don’t you want to go home? They will probably be staying here until midnight. You don’t want to stay that long, do you?”

“I know these people,” I said. “I want to help this girl come to grips with it. You go ahead, I’ll be along soon.”

Zeynab said, “We’ll go then.”

I heard Bizhan’s sister saying to him, “I’m staying with you. I’m not going anywhere. I want to say the prayer that will help you get through the horrors of the grave.” I said to her, “The body washers do that for the dead,” but she wouldn’t listen. In the end the family pried the sisters away from the grave. I helped the young one get up myself and accompanied her to the car. When they all were inside, I returned to Jannatabad.

They were giving the call for the sundown prayer. I walked over to the door for the men’s body washers’, which was right next to where Zeynab worked. Having told Bizhan’s sister that the body washers would say a prayer for the horrors of the grave, I wanted to be sure that was correct. I asked an older man, whom I had seen several times since morning about it. He said, “We don’t have time to say it for each and every one, but when we can, especially if someone makes a point of it, we will say that prayer over their dead. Let’s face it; nobody’s going to ask these poor souls anything, so what do they need a prayer for the horrors of the grave for?”

I thanked him and was about to leave when I saw Ali Reza, the husband of the dark-skinned woman. I was surprised; he stayed there from morning until now. My heart when out to him; he seemed to have lost all his senses. He would take a few steps and fall to the ground. He would get up, and then walk aimlessly among the graves. He moved without making a sound, as if in a stupor.

I didn’t have much time. I went to Zeynab and Maryam’s room to say goodbye. They were changing out of their work clothes and talking. Maryam was saying, “Today I didn’t even have time to smoke a cigarette they way I would like.” That made me laugh, because she sat down to smoke whenever she had the chance. Zeynab answered, “Yeah, I’ve got a headache; I think it’s because I didn’t have any tea.” Then they spoke about the day’s work and how tired they were, both agreeing that they were too tired to stand up. These two carried most of the load that day. The older body washer didn’t last; after all with that bulk there was no way she could stay on her feet. She’d take frequent breaks and sit in the corner smoking the water pipe. She went home early with her husband, also a very round person who worked at the men’s body washers’.

When Zeynab and Maryam started to talk about their work, I didn’t feel right about listening in. I passed by their door and said, “I’m leaving now.”

Both of them thanked me. Then Zeynab came to the door and asked, “Are you coming tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”

I said goodbye and headed home. I felt that Zeynab and I, despite the difference in our ages (she was more than twice mine), had formed a bond. We became close and whenever she called out to me she would use the endearing “mother” or “daughter.” This showed how kind and sympathetic she was. Maryam was also a fine person, but not in Zeynab’s league.

As I walked home, I went over the events of the day. I couldn’t stop thinking about these things: Bizhan and his sisters; the body of Effat, the wife of Khoda Rahm; that dark-skinned woman whose husband’s name—Ali Reza—was the only thing I knew about her.

I couldn’t figure out why the afternoon had been more troubling to me than the morning. It was dark when I got home and it felt like my heart was chock-full of all the troubles of the world. In the morning I was just afraid of what was going on, but in the afternoon fear gave way to something gloomier—depression. I saw several women from the neighborhood in the alley: Mrs. Goruhi, Eskandar the local grocer’s wife, etc. I said hello and tried to pass them without a word, but Mrs. Goruhi asked, “How’s it going? What’s new?”

I had no idea how she knew I was at Jannatabad. “It was a mad house,” I said “Very upsetting.” Then I added, “By the way, Effat the wife of Khoda Rahm was killed. They also brought her child in.”

To be continued …