Daughter of Sheena (40)

2015-7-24

Daughter of Sheena-40
Memories of Qadamkheyr Mohammadi Kanaan
Wife of Sardar Shaheed Haj Sattar Ebrahimi Hajir
Memory writer: Behnaz Zarrabizadeh
Tehran, Sooreh Mehr Publications Company, 2011 (Persian Version)
Translated by Zahra Hosseinian

This was the first time that a week after his going I still hadn’t any control over my life. I had no inclination to do housework. I would always say myself: “Qadamkheyr! You said yes and now you must expect the worst.”
I would get up from this corner of room and sit down on the other corner. I remembered Samad had sat down there the week before. This time we were eating lunch together. Around this time he said such and such words. Good memories of moments when he was with me and wouldn’t let me be alone a moment.
Strange sadness had covered the whole space of home. Every moment I was in grief and sorrow. It was those days that I found out I’m pregnant again. It was like a larger sorrow had come. What should I do with four children? I was only twenty-two years old. How I could handle the life with little age and to be a mother of four children. Oh, my God! To whom I can say my suffering. O Allah! I wish I had seen a nightmare and I wake up. I wish I would go to the doctor now and find out I’m not pregnant. But what these nausea, lethargy and fatigue are. I spent two or three months in limbo; doubted between being pregnant or not being. When my abdomen swelled, I assured that I cannot do anything anymore.
In this situation, war came to the cities. Every minute I hugged Mahdi, called Masumah and Khadija and we all ran toward under staircase at the entrance. Sometimes I said myself that if this baby will be survived with all these anxieties and works.
That day the state of red alert had happened. I had held my babies into my arms and we had sat under staircase. The sound of anti-aircrafts was so much loud that I thought airplanes were over our house. Mahdi was scared and continuously crying. Masumah and Khadija had lump in their throat and felt like crying when they saw Mahdi’s crying. I did not know how to make them quiet. I myself was about to cry. I talked with my kids. I told them a story to distract them, but it was of no avail. At the same time the door was opened and Samad entered. First children feared. Samad was a stranger for Mahdi, who had attached himself to me and screamed.
Samad hugged Masumah and Khadija and kissed them, but everything he did, Mahdi didn’t go to his arms. The sound of anti-aircrafts didn’t stop for a moment. Samad said: “Why have you sat down here?!”
I said: “Don’t you see it is red alert.”
Laughing he said: “You’ve come here to seek refuge. By chance this is the most dangerous place in house. Go sit down in the courtyard. That’s safer than here.”
He took Khadija and Masumah's hands and took them into the room. I hugged Mahdi and followed him. Shortly after the state become white. Samad took a shower, changed his clothes, drank a cup of tea and went out. After a couple of hours he returned with one of his friends. They had brought a few bags of cement and some iron angles.
The same day he and his friend built a trench in front of the kitchen in the courtyard. For few days he was with us. He was always there in the trench and completed there.
I brought him a cup of tea and sat down in front of the trench. He was working and I watched him. Once he said: “Qadamkheyr! That summer we built our house together was a very good year. What if it was that time and we lived for the rest of our life joyfully.”
I said: “As if you forget; that year you didn’t stay with me after summer.”
He said: “I remember. But we had nice days in that summer, when we were with each other. I think it was only then that we were with each other for a long time.”
He drank his tea and said: “I’ll buy a car and both of us will travel around the world, when the war is over. We’ll travel from this city to that city.”
Smiling I said: “With all the kids.”
He said: “No, just me and you. Together.”
I said: “So, what about kids.”
“They have grown up to that time.” He said, “We’ll ask them to stay at home. Or we‘ll ask Sheena to look after them.” I looked down and said: “Poor Sheena. Don’t think of it. For a long while yet you and I can’t go anywhere. Another baby is on the way.”
He put the cup into tray and said: “What do you say?”
Then he looked at my abdomen and said: “When?”
I said: “Three months.”
He said: “Are you sure?”
I said: “I went to doctor with Mr. Sattar’s wife. She is pregnant too. The doctor said both of us will deliver our babies on one day.”
I knew that he also wasn’t very happy this time. But he said: “I’m happy. You never know. Don’t interfere into God’s work. Surly it had been his advisability.”
Finally, the trench was completed; a one in one and a half meters small shelter. Happily he said: “I swear that if a bomb hit it, nothing happens!”
He went two or three days later, but promised to return soon when he saw my state.

To be continued…