SABAH (87)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

2021-12-7


SABAH (87)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami

Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

Published by Soore Mehr Publishing Co.

Persian Version 2019

 


 

One day, Shahnaz and I decided to go and visit him. We asked the address until we found it. Their house was a big garden in Farmaniyeh Avenue. We were surprised to see the house and the entrance door. We couldn’t believe that he could come from such a family and residence. We knocked. His father answered the door. We introduced ourselves and said that we have come from Abadan to visit his son. The man acted very respectfully and invited us in. We went in. But instead of going to the main building, we were guided to a small house at the end of the garden.

His mother came to the door. His father introduced us. His mother was a warm person; she grabbed our hands and took us in. They told us about their living. They told us that they are the janitor of the house of a person who is the defender of shah and imperial and the young clergy is their only son. We asked where he was and they said that he is hospitalized in 501 army hospital since the situation with his hand and shoulder is not good and he still can’t be discharged. In Abadan we had no hope to be able to preserve his hand. We thought that it has been amputated by now. When we asked about his hand’s situation, they said that thanks God the doctors have done everything they could and didn’t amputate the hand. This was the reason that he couldn’t be discharged. They want him to be under supervision to avoid further problems. We asked about the address of the hospital and his room number and decided to go and visit him.

The parents of the young man showed hospitality during our one hour stay at the home and thanked for our efforts and other aid workers of the hospital. We went directly to the hospital. We waited in the yard for the visiting hours. When we went to visit the wounded clergy, he was shocked to see us. He couldn’t believe that we had come all this way to visit him. He was also surprised and very happy at the same time that we had visited his parents. We asked how he was. He said that thanks God the danger of amputation of the hand has passed and with the help of God he will be discharged from the hospital until next week. We stayed for a while and then said goodbye and returned home.

Thanks God my parents’ mood was much better. This could be understood from the ray of light in their eyes. Therefore they didn’t object when Shahnaz and I told them that we want to return to Abadan. We said goodbye to my family and aunt Maryam and Zahra and went to Mahshahr with bus. The more we approached Abadan, I felt better. Thanks God we had been able to get permission without challenge. Our faces were familiar for them. As soon as we said that we are aid workers in Taleghani hospital, they accepted and gave us permission.

Shahnaz, Zohreh and I went directly to the Taleghani hospital. Most of the personnel had gone to their families and only a few had stayed in the hospital. I saw Maryam Amjadi in the hospital. After greeting and congratulation Nowruz, she said: “Sabbah do you know what has happened?” I said: “No! I have just arrived. I know nothing.” She said: “Masoud Paki has also been martyred. The quiver hit his stomach, and he lost most of his intestine and underwent Colostomy[1].”

Masoud was an energetic and active man. He was relatively fat, white skin with red cheeks. He was around seventeen years old. His beards were just growing. I heard from Maryam Amjadi that Masoud had been dispatched to a hospital in Isfahan. They told that one night he endures lots of pain and becomes restless and falls off the bed. Nobody has been there to attend to him. When he falls down, his stitches rapture and he feels bad and becomes martyr. I felt sorry for his loneliness. His smiling face didn’t disappear from my eyes. Maryam and I, both, cried. My heart ached for his oppression. My tears didn’t stop. It took me a long time to get better.

Together with the other girls in Taleghani hospital we had arranged for a morning routine for ourselves. We were around thirty people. When the sun rised, we all gathered in an area behind the hospital and we walked from there to the morgue which was about two hundred meter and when we got there, we exercised together.

At nights after the evening and night prayers, we sat in the hospital and discussed political events. Due to the presence of martial and aid forces stationed in the hospital, most of the time we had a clergy among ourselves. In such cases, we used this opportunity and had questioned and answer sessions after evening and night prayers. Lots of discussions happened in these sessions; topics which were very spoken of on those days; ideological and belief discussions such as heaven and hell and quiddity of existence and … also discussions about the Islamic government, absolute clerical rule, the philosophy of martyrdom, thoughts and events of Bani Sadr and his cooperation with Hypocrites. We had agreements and disagreements in our discussions. In Taleghani hospital we always arranged Komeil and Tavasol prayers. Dr. Sa’adat read the prayers. One night during Komeil prayers, I was very sad. It was as if all the sadness in the world had gathered in my heart. I didn’t know the reason. As soon Dr. Sa’adat started the prayer, I started sobbing and my tears dropped. I didn’t know the reason was the loss of Khorramshahr who was bothering me so much or dealing with injured who were in bad situations. Whatever it was, my heart was aching badly. I was in the same condition until end of prayer. I cried so much that I lost my voice. The next day when I went to do a task for a patient with Dr. Ansari, he said: “Why are you like this?”  I said: “I think I have got cold.” He said: “Yes it is obvious that you got cold last night!”

I just figured out what he meant. When I noticed that I have cried so badly that all noticed and I felt shy. Nobody knew why I was so upset. How could people around me know what my pain was? I tilted my head down and said: “I couldn’t handle it; something painful was in my heart.”

Since the fall of Khorramshahr, I was restless everywhere and couldn’t stay calm. While I was in hospital, I wanted to go to Tehran to my family. While I reached Tehran, I wanted to return to Abadan.

On the 31st day of last month of spring, I was going in through the emergency ward door when I heard the radio announcing the martyrdom news of Dr. Chamran in Dehlavieh area. Upon hearing this news, my feet started trembling and I felt that I can neither stand nor walk. I dragged myself inside the emergency ward and sat on a bench near the entrance door. I knew Dr. Chamran after the revolution. I knew that he and his friends in Amal movement had come from Lebanon to Iran upon hearing the unrest in Kurdestan. After a while he had founded the Islamic Revolution Officers Army together with Abou Sharif and a few others. Dr. Chamran was the Minister of Defense and one of the comrades and trustees of Imam. He had a PhD in Plasma Physics and prior to coming to Iran, was working in an institute in America under the supervision of NASA.

There were not many individuals like him in revolution; the same applied to war. Where we are out of weapon and our military knowledge was not much, Dr. Chamran was like a mountain warming our hearts but now that he had gone, a big pain had filled our hearts. I was sure that he won’t be replaced in near future.

As time passed, by showing mild and Islamic behavior, we could change the reaction and behavior of the medical personnel of the hospital specially the nurses. Little by little many of them started wearing headdress and became covered. When we proved that we had stayed to render services and will do whatever we can, this wrong impression that we had come to replace them, vanished from their minds. These changes were quite obvious in their way of talking.

Before this change, when we passed them, we heard them whispering that these girls have come to find husbands! They wanted to hurt us with their words but thanks God our efforts paid off later. Many of the nurses did not greet us before.

When we became closed with the nurses, many of them confided in us. They said that this unveiled behavior is not something to have come to us over a night. They said that we have learnt many of these behaviours and habits from our university instructors. They said that most of their instructors were old and unmarried female English nurses. They said that even our way of eating was not in our hands. Our instructors came to the dining room and supervised our way of eating. When one of us overate, the old English nurses who were single, started reprimanding that why we overate and are not careful about our figure. It was as if they wanted to deliver mannequins to the society instead of nurses. 

They said that the instructors were quite sensitive on our appearance and we had to have make up all the time. They had even taught us to rub rouge to the back of our feet above the hip, to make them more beautiful and attractive! If one of us didn’t have make up, the physicians started to wonder what has happened. Why are you depressed and haven’t paid attention to yourself?!

When they said such things, I remembered our high school. I remembered those times when in our Persian book and in the lesson “lady with the lamp in her hands” the biography of Ms. Nightingale was included. She was the first English war professional nurse who served the patients in World War II. When I read her biography, a question came to my mind that we are Muslims and we have a brave and devoted woman such as “Surgeon Nasibeh” who treated to the wounds in the wars of the Prophet and was even known for stitching the wounds based on traditions of those times. So why should we read about Nightingale whereas we have Surgeon Nasibeh who has a history of thousand and some hundred years. When the nurses talked about the terrible training eras in high education facilities, I got the answers to many of my questions. 

Among the nurses, there was a young nurse called Baghi. Ms. Baghi had a twelve years old brother who had been martyred in Abadan. Although she was a sister of a martyr but she was unveiled. She always pulled her hair up and knotted it. Then put the nursing hat on her head. When she did like that her face became prettier and more attractive and attracted the attention of the passers. She was one of the nurses who got into arguments with us a lot. When we did something wrong while serving the patients, she started screaming and said that you don’t know how to work so why have you come here.

 

To be continued …

 

 


[1] Colostomy was performed on the colon of the injured intestine. Due to this surgery and extraction of the quiver fragments tearing intestine apart the injured individual could not defecate easily. Therefore, the part of the intestine that was healthier than the other parts was removed from the body and a bag was attached to it so that the feces could enter this part. Most of the fighters were young and when they underwent a colostomy, they were very embarrassed by the situation. They were proud. When the nurses wanted to give them a simple injection, they would not allow a namahram to touch their body, and would tell them to go and call their male colleague to come, hence they would suffer a lot because of colostomy.



 
Number of Visits: 1914


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