Da (Mother) 89

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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

2024-3-17

Da (Mother) 89

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

***

Chapter Twenty one: Suspicious Characters

I didn’t find working at the clinic, gathering the dead, and tending the wounded in the town all that satisfying. The weapons they gave us to fix were useless, which was even more infuriating. I felt that none of these tasks was vital. What I really wanted to do was to go to the front. I knew that there’d be more work to do there. Zohreh Farhadi was like me, restlessly expecting something else to do. She once told me, “There’s a detachment known as Abu Zarr on its way to the front. Come on, let’s try to go with them.”

“Joining up with some group or band is not something I want to do,” I said. “We can’t be independent that way. I want to be able to go where I feel I’m needed and not take orders from somebody.”

Zohreh said no more on the subject until one day an Abu Zarr pickup pulled up for her. I so wanted to be at the front, I went with her. I believe Maryam Amjadi was also with us.

Several of the men in the truck had weapons, but although they were an armed unit, there was but one machine gun among them. They spent an hour going around the city, picking up several others and stopping in at a few places. I soon got fed up. We had scarcely left Naqdi Avenue when I said to the driver, “Mister, stop here. I want to get off.” Zohreh and Maryam, already members of the detachment who had gone to the front several times, said, “Be a little patient. We’ll get there.”

“I can’t. Stop, please.”

I got down and returned to the clinic. A few hours later Zohreh returned. “Well, what happened?” I asked.

“We got to the crossroads. There was heavy fighting there. The truck stopped and dropped off several of the men, but they sent us back.”

From the time that Sheikh Sharif had vouched for our presence at the clinic, putting himself on the line for us, we had to be super careful. The clinic took in anybody who wanted to work, and if somebody didn’t do his best, we had to take the blame. The men and boys at the mosque kept their eyes on the place and, without appearing too nosy about it, checked up on us. Mahmud Farrokhi and Mr. Mesbah were especially protective. At dusk they would come around and sit in the clinic. If they didn’t see one of the girls, they would ask after her. “She had something to do. Why do you ask?” we’d say.

“It’s nothing,” they said. “We just need to speak to her.” Or they would ask about things in general, about any problems.

If we suspected someone or something, we would let them know. For example, one of the men who had come the first time with the medical team that had disappeared even before the day began, showed up at the clinic a few days later. He was a hefty man with a handlebar mustache, who spoke Persian with a Kurdish accent. He said that he was from Sanandaj.

This time he wasn’t doing anything in particular. He hung around the medications and kept busy, he told us, by rearranging them. He talked a lot about the Komala Groups and the Demokrats, defending their view of things. Knowing these groups well, I would stand up to him. Ali had told me that in Kurdistan they made people’s lives miserable in the name of defending their rights. The man brought in posters showing the bombardment of the Dowlehtu Prison and the torture of revolutionary guards and Kurds.[1] He would say, “See how bloodthirsty they are and how they muzzle the people?”

Given this background, I didn’t have good feelings about him. In addition to his politics, he was always trying to sow dissent and said bad things about Mr. Najjar behind his back. He would also make up things that I had supposedly said and tell them to the others. Once I confronted him directly about this. He knew I was Kurdish, yet asked, “Aren’t you a Kurd? You should be defending their rights. Why do you call the Komala and the Demokrats deviant groups?”

He had heard me labeling these groups “deviant” in front of the other girls. I said, “Are you saying that anyone who’s Kurdish has to be a traitor as well? First and foremost, I am a Muslim; second, I am a Kurd.”

He defended the groups, calling them the saviors of the Kurdish people. I mentioned the horrors that they were responsible for. He said nothing. That evening Mahmud Farrokhi came to the clinic asking if there were any problems. I told him what had transpired and was astounded to learn that he already knew the whole story. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We have him under surveillance. We realize ourselves he isn’t really here to work.”

That man wasn’t the only one of his type I had to deal with. Around the same time we had come to the clinic, a young man in his twenties named Jownshan would pop in every time his travels took him that way. Although he made a great show of being religious and a zealous enforcer of the law, none of us had anything good to say about him. Mr. Najjar also didn’t like him and would tell us, “This guy isn’t what he appears to be. Don’t let him in.”

But he wouldn’t leave us alone and unbeknownst to us would show up while we were working. He would say, “We must form a group. We must act independently. If we act on the orders of the other forces, then nothing will be accomplished.”

Besides that, whenever he saw us he would tell us to mind our morals. “You girls have to be strict about modesty,” he said. “Always keep your heads down when you’re walking.”

None of us took him seriously. More than anyone else I was aware of the gap between his words and actions and told the others about them.

He would say to me, “You’re very forward.” I would reply, “Do you imagine you’re our guardian, that you have the right to interfere in our lives like this? We don’t need your advice.” I wasn’t his favorite person after that, and I heard he warned the other girls not to associate with me because I was “headstrong and cocky.”

He would say things like that, but then he would try to get around my opposition and bring me over to his side. He told me that the judiciary had appointed him as a special agent to identify and arrest Fifth Column forces. With each passing day, I grew more aware of his lies, and I had my heart set on catching him in one of them.

One evening the girls were talking and readying the medical equipment for the trolley, when he entered the clinic and said, “We caught a suspicious character among the naval forces. I want to put him on trial, and I want you to come and see it.”

“Who are you that you can put someone on trial?” we asked.

“I am an officer of the court working under the prosecutor,” he said.

“Okay, but why is it necessary for us to be there?” I asked.

“It’s not necessary. I just want you to see what I do, because you’ve made so much about it,” he said.

No matter how many ways we tried to get out of it, he wouldn’t stop pestering us. “Let’s get it over with once and for all,” I said to the girls.

“Either he’s lying or telling the truth. But watch out; he may try to pull something.”

Zohrah agreed to come along and the three of us went to the avenue along the Shatt. From there we turned right, went to the corner of another street, and stopped in front of a two-story white building.

“We’re here,” Jownshan announced.

I looked at the building carefully. It seemed abandoned with no sound or light coming from it. “What are you waiting for?” he said.

“Come on in.”

“I don’t see any reason to,” I said. “This your courthouse, isn’t it? Please, you go in first.”

He shrugged his shoulders, went up a few stairs, and entered the leafy green yard of the building. He walked around a bit and returned to say, “It seems they haven’t brought the accused in yet. We’ll have to wait.”

Now, certain that the man was a shifty character, I said, “There’s no reason to stick around. Do you take us for children? You think we have nothing better to do? We have absolutely no desire to see this court of yours.” A little anxious now, Zohreh whispered to me, “Now what do we do?”

“Nothing,” I said. “We’ll go back. There’s no telling what this man has cooked up in his sick little mind. I hope I’m mistaken, but maybe he’s got something going with the Fifth Columnists. Let’s go.”

Just as we were about to leave, he said, “Hey. Hold on a second. They’re about to come any time now.”

“You stay,” I said. “We’re going. The trial is your show. It’s got nothing to do with us.”

We went back to the mosque and found Farrokhi and Mesbah and told them what happened. We asked them to do something about it.

Just as before, they told us that they were aware of the situation and that we should keep on doing our work but keep him under surveillance without letting him know we were doing it.

When we got back to the clinic, I told each girl to be on her guard. Ever since that day no one was friendly to him. Jownshan himself soon realized how we felt, and after a while he disappeared.[2]

End of Chapter twenty one

To be continued …