Da (Mother) 18

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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.

Da (Mother) 17

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

She did not say anything. I went to the spigot and washed for prayer on the veranda. I felt much better after praying; the pressures on my heart were gone. I picked up my socks and put them on, and although I had washed them thoroughly, they still smelled of camphor. At that point five-year-old Zeynab walked over to me. She had not seen me since morning, and I knew she wanted a hug.

Da (Mother) 16

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Two sides of the room were lined with cement benches protruding from the wall. The bodies were laid out on the benches. The panes in the translucent windows were etched with floral patterns and covered with muslin so nothing could been seen from the outside. Light from a naked bulb suspended from the ceiling shone on the water. Several aged women were helping the body washers. A few others operated the spigot, ...

Da (Mother) 15

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

The woman was in tears and said, “I do not have anything. You see how I am dressed.” I said, “No problem,” and covered the little girl with a corner of the blanket. The woman seemed to be paying attention to me, but her crying and moans made me speak more directly. “If you go on this way, you’ll make it worse for the child. You have got to get yourself under control first and then try to calm the child.”

Da (Mother) 14

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

On September 22, 1980, we expected the next day to be like any other, with the kids going to school: Sa’id to first grade, Hasan to second, and Mansur to the first year of middle school. Father had given us money a few days before to buy school supplies for them. I took the boys myself to the Darvazeh traffic circle and bought—as much as our budget would allow—what they needed.

Da (Mother) 13

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

The next day I saw to Alis pack, as I normally did. There were some bloodstained clothes and a pair of boots in it. I pulled the clothes out, washed them, and hung them to dry on the clothesline. A couple of hours later, Ali returned. As soon as he saw the clothes on the line, he let out a deep sigh and said testily, “Why did you touch those clothes?

Da (Mother) 12

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Ali was rarely at home after the victory of the revolution. He joined the Civilian Construction Corps to help in farming and the development of villages in deprived regions. Many nights he went on public safety patrols and didn’t return until morning. Not many months had passed after the revolution when word spread in the town that some of the heads of the Arab clans wanted independence from Iran. These were the same people who collaborated with SAVAK before the ...

Da (Mother) 11

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Whenever father had to go somewhere else to work, he had let Ali take his place, knowing that his son was disciplined enough to carry out any task he gave him. And the older he got, the more difficult were the jobs he took on. Working beside father, Ali gradually learned construction, plumbing, and welding. His eyes became bloodshot from the welding, and the pain would keep him awake all night. But, by the time he was eighteen, he was a master welder and mason.

Da (Mother) 10

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

Ali, who had witnessed all this strife as a child, was the first of us to go to work. In the dead of summer or in winter when it got cooler, he would sell gum to people at the gas station (famous as Dieselabad) on the Ahvaz-Khorramshahr road. He would also sell corn on the cob roasted over a fire. One day I insisted he take me with him so I could see how he did it. I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Da (Mother) 9

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

With school over we moved and got away from our nasty landlord. Then began a period of going from one house to another every so often in the Shahabad neighborhood. Each place had its advantages and disadvantages; we had no choice but to take the good with the bad. One place had a good landlord who looked out for us, while another had a nasty one who would do things to annoy us.