Da (Mother) 62

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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

2023-9-10

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

***

I said, “I stayed, well, to help the wounded and bury the dead.”

Nothing I said convinced them. I didn’t have the stomach to stick a rifle in their backs and force them out. I took an old woman by the hand and begged, “For God’s sake, leave. My family members are all in the mosque.” One old woman with a southern drawl said, “Where am I going to go with my son here? Is my blood redder than his? I spent a lifetime raising him, making him somebody, and now I should just get up and go? He’s gone to fight the enemies of the faith, and what about when he gets back all worn out and covered in dust? Shouldn’t there be someone here to give him water?”

Another woman, an Arab, was sitting in her yard. She peeked out when I knocked on the door, and then went back to the yard. I knocked again and entered. She was thin with dark skin, sitting in a corner. She had her arms wrapped around her knees and was in pain. “Are you alone here, mother?” I asked.

“Yes, dear, all alone.”

“Why are you staying here all by yourself?” I asked.

“What am I supposed to do? I have no one.”

“Get up and we’ll go to the mosque. Everybody’s gathered there.”

“Why should I go somewhere I don’t know and get lost?” she asked. “This is my home. This is my life. I can’t find it in my heart to leave.”

“It’s dangerous here, mother. They’re going to start shelling. God forbid....”

“Let me die right here. Dying at home is better than being a refugee.”

I felt for her but kept arguing, “Come with me to the mosque for now, and we’ll bring you back and stop in at your home whenever you wish.” She stared at me in surprise. I surveyed the many wrinkles in her face, which spoke of the difficult life she had led. She rose and stood before the door, stopping to see what she would bring with her. She turned and said, “Can I bring the hens and roosters?” I wanted to ask her what she was going to do with chickens with the world going to pieces, but I was afraid that she might change her mind about going. “Fine, take whatever you want,” I said.

Before I knew it she was carrying a number of small boxes. She also had a straw basket full of chickens in her hand, which I took from her. She wiped the tears from her face with the end of her headscarf and locked the door to her home. Locking it made her feel better. She didn’t know the Iraqis would just kick it open when they got there.

I accompanied her to the truck and helped her get in. We walked through the other streets and, when we were certain no one else was left, returned to the truck. I choked up when I saw the garlands of paper flowers hanging from the walls of the homes in the alleys. These reddish blossoms were the only things intact in the area. Even the palm fronds were charred and smoldering.

The happiest passengers on the truck were several children acting like they were going on an outing. The little devils loved having the wind whip through their hair and wouldn’t listen when we told them not to stand up in the back of the truck. A few children, uneasy because the truck lacked doors and side panels, held onto their mothers. Most of the passengers, old men and women, reminded me of grandma and grandpa. The men cursed Saddam; one kept saying in Arabic, “May God avenges us.”

The old woman zealously guarded her boxes and chicken basket, fearing that someone would take them from her. The chickens would cluck at times, making the children laugh.

One person in the crowd was clutching a prized possession—his television. When we reached the mosque, we helped the passengers off the truck. “Hurry,” we said. “It’s dangerous outside.”

I asked Ebrahimi, “Okay, now that we’ve brought them, what do you want to do with them?’

“Go and tell the officials,” he said.

“I’m going to Jannatabad. I haven’t heard anything from them since last night,” I said, and as I did I saw Hajj Aqa Farrokhi, Mahmud’s father. I knew him before the war; he had a bookshop and a bath in the Safa Bazaar. I told him, “Hajj Aqa, they told us to evacuate people from the Taleqani neighborhood, and we have. Now it’s up to you to keep them here or take them out of town.”

Then I left for Jannatabad.

Wherever I went that morning I kept one eye out for Ali. I hoped Leila had gotten word about his whereabouts. At Jannatabad I found several people standing around a coffin, spent, it seemed, by all the weeping and wailing. I came nearer and read what was written on the coffin: Hoseyn Mojtahedzadeh. It was my guess that he was the brother of Hasan Mojtahedzadeh, who had been tortured by SAVAK and died a few months before the revolution. I whispered to the women around the coffin, “Is he any relation to Hasan Mojtahedzadeh?” “Yes,” one of them said with a pained expression, “his brother.”

The woman next to her voiced her grief with the Arabic expression, “May I go blind for them.”

How hard it must have been for the family to lose two young men. What’s keeping their mother alive, I wondered? I stood around for a moment, saying a prayer and expressing my condolences. Then I left. I saw Leila in the body washers’. She told me that she had seen Ali that afternoon with his friend Hoseyn Ta’yi Nezhad. I left and headed for father’s grave, wanting to tell him Ali had come back.

As I was leaving, I helped Zeynab with a stretcher. It felt light, probably because the men had the heavier end. It was the body of a young man. They buried him in a hole dug at the foot of father’s grave. When Zeynab looked at the boy’s face, her expression changed. I felt her getting worse day by day. Aside from missing her daughter Maryam, the mounting misery was robbing Zeynab of the will to go on. I got her to her feet. “Going to see your father’s grave?” she asked.

Not waiting for me to reply, she took my hand and said, “Come, let’s go.”

We hadn’t reached the gravesite when Zeynab said, “Greetings, Seyyed, I envy you your good fortune. You have left us with all this hardship.” She continued with tears streaming down her face, “Yes, Seyyed, you’re rid of all this hardship. Bravo!”

Her words caused a large lump to form in my throat. We reached the grave, and I bent down to kiss the ground. My tears started flowing. I couldn’t speak to father with Zeynab around. She kept on in the same vein, “Intercede for us, dear Seyyed. How about a helping hand?”

The men who had helped us carry the boy sat down by father’s grave, said a prayer, and left. Zeynab also said a prayer. She took my hand and got me on my feet, and we walked toward the body washers’. We hadn’t reached the building when a military jeep pulled up. Several officers got out. I knew one of them; he had offered his condolences to me and mother when father died. I had seen him going about the avenue or inside the Congregational Mosque getting munitions. He was polite and treated me with respect every time we met. I found his deference embarrassing and hoped he wouldn’t recognize me. He spoke so well of me after father’s death, I felt ashamed. But he greeted me this time, and I answered his greeting by acknowledging all the hard work the men had done.

They took equipment from the jeep: a tripod, a tube, a box of paraphernalia, etc. They mounted the tube on the tripod. One person remained in the jeep on the field radio repeating the numbers they told him in a loud voice. Another soldier adjusted the tube. I watched what they were doing curiously. I asked one officer, more or less an acquaintance, “What’s that? Is it what they call a mortar?”

The lieutenant, who was in his mid-thirties, was supervising the work. He said, “No. This is a launcher for the mortar.” He took a shell from the box and showed it to me.

The first time Ali brought his weapon home, I remember father had explained to us the various insignias worn by the officers and their weapons. I touched the shells and asked, “What do you intend to do with this?”

“Word has come the Iraqis have started to advance from the direction of the police station toward the fort. We’ll use the coordinates supplied by spotters to shell that area, and maybe we can halt their advance.” Then he said, “I want to give you the honor of firing the first shell.”

“Me? Why me?” I asked in surprise.

He said, “Because you have lost the person dearest to you. He died in the service of God and defending his country.”

I blushed again. For a moment I missed father more than ever. I looked toward his grave, feeling him looking back at me wherever I went, watching over me.

They fiddled with the tube until they had the coordinates they wanted. Zeynab, who was not feeling well, didn’t stay. Two or three of the men came to watch. The lieutenant ordered the soldier handling the shells to give one to me.

He said, “Hold it at an angle and then drop it in the tube, but not until I tell you.”

It seemed heavy to me. The only thing I knew about mortars was what it sounded like when they hit, sending pieces of shrapnel shooting out. How much damage does this little thing cause, how many young men can it take it from us? I wondered.

Preoccupied by these thoughts, I forgot to tell the soldiers I was about to load the shell. I got close to the thing and peered down the tube. All at once the munitions soldier sitting on a box saw me and yelled, “What the hell are you doing, you idiot?”

I was startled. What did I do to deserve that? I felt very bad. He bellowed again, “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“What did I do?” I asked innocently.

“Nothing!” he said. “You want the shell to hit them or your head? Standing over the thing that way, your head will go flying as soon as you fire it.”

I couldn’t have been more embarrassed. The lieutenant and a few other soldiers who were busy with the radio looked around fearfully to see what was going on. I held the shell out to the soldier and said, “Please, take it.”

The lieutenant said, “No, sister, it’s only natural. You lack experience. The fault is ours; we should have been more careful. Now fire it. God willing we’ll avenge your father and all the other innocents the Iraqis have slaughtered.”

Seeing how the lieutenant treated me, the munitions soldier said, “Forgive me. I just happened to look up and saw that you were about to blow your head off.”

To be continued …