Da (Mother) 143

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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

2025-3-30

Da (Mother) 143

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

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Chapter Forty: Final Chapter

Habib finally came home for good in 1993.

Until that time he had been in the border areas with soldiers overseeing the United Nations peace. Some of these soldiers were the same ones who had taken us prisoner or had killed our forces. Habib agreed to come to Tehran at a time when the city was secure. Life had been very hard for us the whole time he was away. Things would crop up that needed the presence of a man; I would have to take care of these myself. I never complained, thinking it might weaken his resolve to be at the front. Although I was extremely lonely, I never brought it up to him, because I felt, rather than belonging to us, he belonged to the war effort, to the Lord. I counted his visits to us a gift from God. I felt the same way about Mansur and Mohsen, and, likewise, about Hasan and Sa’id, who joined them later at the front. I braced myself for the news they were gone. Losing father and Ali had steeled my heart, and I was ready to lose everybody, even Habib. Though he was very loving to us, Habib didn’t seem to want to be too attached to his children or  to me.

Once Habib dreamed he saw Hoseyn Eidi in the lush garden of an imposing building where many of the boys martyred in the war were gathered. Hoseyn said to him, “We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

Hoseyn said, “If you want, I’ll take your ticket so they can sign it.”

Habib said, “I’ll bring them the ticket myself.”

After telling me about the dream, he said angrily, “It’s is all your fault I can’t go.” Habib often ignored Abdollah when he was acting cute and cuddly. He also wouldn’t take care of the baby when I had to run an errand, saying, “Do it later.” He preferred not to spend all that much time with Abdollah and Hoda.

What puzzled me was how he could be a loving father, and, at the same time, leave his family and appear so unfeeling toward us. While he could be very hard-hearted at times, he could also cry his eyes out when he saw a beggar freezing in the cold. This, I thought, was the Habib I married.

Be that as it may, it is difficult to describe the emotional and physical toll Habib’s absences took on me from the time we left Abadan in 1984 until his return. It was devastating at times, and the anguish is still with me. When he visited us at the Kushk Building and saw the state it was in, he’d ask, “Why didn’t you say something? You must have infinite patience to put up with this.”

“Putting up with it was a duty at the time,” I replied.

A while after Habib returned, the six of us (one son: Abdollah, three daughters: Hoda, Fatemeh, and Mina) moved from the Kushk Building to a house Habib found near Ferdowsi Square.

Even after all these years, the pain of losing father and Ali is still fresh for mother. She uses every excuse to visit Khorramshahr. While Abdollah and I were living in the city, she would visit to help with the baby. After we moved to Tehran, she had other excuses:

“I want to spend the months of mourning in Khorramshahr.”

“I miss Leila and her children.”

“So-and-so has passed away, and I want to go to the funeral.”

I knew full well she just wanted to visit the graves of Ali and father—even though the doctor had told her to limit her travel. As a child, mother had lost her mother, which was the reason why everyone, especially grandfather, babied her. Father, for his part, was a believer in hardship. He would say, “Children should learn to put up with difficulties to be successful in the real world.” Sure enough, the responsibilities and chores father gave to us when we were kids helped us when we encountered problems later in life.

This was why, when we moved from Sar Bandar, a small town, to Tehran, a huge city, my sister and brothers didn’t have any trouble with the change. But the hardships mother experienced living in the camp, with its poor water, food, and sanitation, all the expenses of raising the children—all of it was too much for her. It weighed her down.

She stoops now and has difficulty walking. Her lips quiver and her chin trembles; nevertheless, she is a permanent reminder of what we have endured. She is the tree that still provides shade for her family, never denying them the soothing cool of her being.

My sister and brothers are all busy leading their own lives now. Uncle Salim and Aunt Salimeh remain in Darreh Shahr. Mimi passed away in the last days of winter in 2007. In 2004 I had the opportunity to go back to Basra, and, though my time there was short, I tried to find our old house. I longed to relive the memories of growing up with grandfather and Mimi, to become that child again who played in the yard with Ali or begged to stay up a few more minutes while Mimi told us bedtime stories. That was the time she would sing to me:

O, lovely moon, lovely moon,

Have you seen my grandpa on the path,

With his gun on his shoulder,

Going to the lions’ den?

The End

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About the Translator

Paul Sprachman teaches Persian at Rutgers University.He has worked and studied in Afghanistan and Iran.He is the translator of a number of works from Persian including Plagued by the West by Jalan Al-e Ahmad, A Man of Many Worlds: The Diaries and Memoirs of Dr. Ghasem Ghani, Journey to Heading 270 Degrees, by Ahmad Dehqan, and Chess with the Doomsday Machine and A City under Siege: Tales of the Iran-Iraq War by Habib Ahmadzadeh, and Revolution Street: A Novel by Amir Cheheltan. He is also the author of  Suppressed Persian: An Anthology of Forbidden Literaure, Language and Culture in Persian, and Licensed Fool: The Damnable, Foul-mouthed Obeyd-e Zakani.