Da (Mother) 136

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

2025-2-9

Da (Mother) 136

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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Thirty-Nine: Family Transitions

With me being in Abadan and my family far away in Tehran, what was happening to my little sister and brothers was a concern. I constantly worried about what were they up to. Who were their friends? I would call regularly to keep tabs on them, asking Hasan to tell me about Mansur and vice versa. I didn’t worry about Sa’id, who always had been a quiet, obedient child. Hasan was also a good boy, although he could be very naughty and willful at times. They were still young and I could control them. Mansur, who had gone through a difficult phase and was now on his own, worried me the most. Unfortunately, there was a problem with drugs and even alcohol in the Kushk Building. One of the men ran a drug ring, calling it the “The Association for Mourning Imam Hoseyn.” Afraid Mansur might get involved, I overcame my disgust at having to deal with such characters and pulled the boy out of it. I told him, “I don’t want you to get mixed up with such people. There’s no telling what they’ll do in the Imam’s name.”

All my efforts went into seeing that the kids traveled the right path. Though not perfect myself, I tried to make up for the absence a father or other elders to guide them.

In those years the Komeyl Prayer and Supplication were held either at the Islamic Republican Headquarters or the Motahhari Seminary. Whenever I was in Tehran (both before and after I was married), I would go with the family and, occasionally, others from the building to take part in the ceremonies. I also tried to get the kids in the habit of attending services at the local mosques to keep them from going bad later on. I also taught them the prayers and supplications I had practiced before the war. When summer rolled around, I asked mother to bring the kids to Abadan immediately after their final exams. If she couldn’t, I would go to Tehran and fetch them myself. Although they were often a handful, it was better to have them with me than in the city on their own.

Occasionally I went to Tehran in the summer. The Kushk Building Cultural Unit would put on programs for the children. Hasan, Sa’id, and the rest of the children were let loose on the seventh floor, which had a huge hall lined with large windows facing the avenue. They would horse around and participate in the programs. There was a small storage room partitioned off from the rest of the hall, leading to a stairway to the roof. One day Hasan and his playmates, having left their toys in the room, asked the caretaker to open the door for them. He refused. When they insisted, he said, “You’ll make a mess if you go in there.”

Hasan and one of his friends, a boy named Kurush Lak, decided they would climb out the window and get into the small room from the outside of the building. Holding on to the thin bars and frames of the huge windows, they made their way into the small room and got their toys. Then, retracing their steps, they climbed back into the hall.

I was beside myself when I heard what they had done. I imagined them falling from the seventh floor onto the street, where, even if they survived the fall, a car would run them over.

Even when the kids were in Abadan, I had to watch them like a hawk to see what they were up to. Habib also minded them, especially when they were at our house. Strangely, Habib wouldn’t hug or look after Abdollah and, if he had to buy something for the baby, he would always buy gifts for Hasan and Sa’id and give them to the boys first. Things reached such a state that I began to feel jealous for the baby and asked Habib why he didn’t kiss his own son. He said, “I can’t show my love for him in front of your sister and brothers. It might make them think of their dead father.”

One day Habib came home in a red van, which, as usual, was filled with weapons and mortar shells. He ate lunch and went to take a short nap. As soon as Habib entered the house, Hasan and Sa’id left. A short time later they returned and immediately ran up to the second floor. I heard nothing from them, which was odd because they usually made a racket. Habib woke up and went back into the van. A moment later he returned saying, “There were two grenades in there, but now there’s only one. Could somebody have taken it?”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “There’re so many explosives in this area, who’d bother to steal a grenade?”

“So what happened to it?”

“You probably left it somewhere.”

“Impossible. I put it right on the dashboard.”

I had a thought and called Hasan and Sa’id to come down. I asked Hasan, “Did you take something from the van?”

“I didn’t take anything.”

“I think you did. Now bring it here.”

Sa’id couldn’t keep his mouth shut and admitted, “We took a grenade.”

“What did you do with it?”

Hasan said, “Nothing. I gave it to Sa’id and told him to hold it tight while I pulled out the safety.”

I felt faint. We had dodged a bullet. Hasan and Sa’id had managed to defuse the grenade. I don’t know who taught them how to do that. I looked at Sa’id’s palms. They were crosshatched like the outside of the grenade. “You’ve got to be strict with them,” I told Habib. “This time it was a grenade. Next time they might try to defuse a mortar shell.”

Habib, who loved the boys very much, said, “There’s no way I can be harsh with them. First, they’re Seyyeds, and, second, they’re the sons of a martyr. What can I say?”

“Saying nothing is worse. You’ve got to be firm. Slap them in the head, at least.”

I finally convinced Habib he had to confront the boys. He slapped Hasan, but, more upset by this than the boys, he quickly climbed into his van and took off. Later I noticed Hasan had disappeared. I searched high and low for him—the yard, the neighbors’ houses—but couldn’t find him. I even looked on the roof, but there was no place to hide up there. Now beside myself with worry, I went over to Sa’id and asked, “How did you manage to hold on to the grenade in those two little hands of yours?”

“Well, Hasan told me if I let go I’d be blown to bits,” he explained. “I got scared and held on with all my might.”

Suddenly it hit me: God forbid Hasan is hiding in the small, neighborhood electrical room. I was right. Despite his show of bravery, Hasan was a sensitive child and never expected to be hit. It left a psychological scar. I led him back home. Habib, for his part, returned in a bad mood, complaining, “Why did you make me hit the boy? I couldn’t get any work done after that.”

Then he went to cuddle Hasan and asked the boy to forgive him several times.

Another of Hasan and Sa’id’s favorite pastimes was to play war. They would make dirt piles in the yard and dig two first-class foxholes that faced each other. They also dug trenches with a network of tributaries and filled them with water. It was nice to see them putting so much effort and skill into this, but then again it tore up the garden. Fed up with filling in the holes and ditches they dug, I eventually let them have it. They took my scolding to heart and would repair the damage themselves, only to dig up the place again the next day.

I had no worries as far as Mohsen and Mansur were concerned. Mohsen was employed with the municipality as a fireman, and Mansur spent his time at the front as a paramilitary under Habib’s command.

Many times when the area was under constant shelling, the boys in the army would try to send their families to other cities. Habib sent us to his sister’s in Ahvaz, which was considered part of the war zone but was still safer than Abadan.

Every day there would be a funeral procession for one of the martyrs. In Ahvaz I visited a graveyard for them called the Rose Garden of Martyrs. I considered it my duty. It also gave me a special feeling. Whenever I was in Tehran, I would go to the office at Behesht-e Zahra where they had voided the IDs of father and Ali. These visits helped keep their memories alive for me.

Once I was in the Rose Garden of Martyrs with Habib’s sister and her husband when some uniformed men passed by. Used to seeing his father in uniform, Abdollah started to babble “daddy, daddy” and wiggled his arms and feet. The men walked away, and he started to cry, as though he expected them to cuddle him.

Habib’s absences were becoming harder and harder to bear. I was of two minds about them, though. I needed to feel his constant presence, but, at the same time, I wanted to be the wife of a man always at the front. This was one of the conditions of our marriage, a condition many people had a hard time understanding. “Women,” they would say, “demand their husbands buy this thing or that for them, but you insist yours should be at the front?”

Habib never came home empty-handed. He’d always arrive with a bouquet of damask roses, which filled the house with their perfume. The ruined houses and alleyways in Moharrezi were teeming with flowers. Even under heavy Iraqi fire, Habib would take pains to pick them. When he handed them to me, I noticed his hands were bleeding from the thorns.

I grew more anxious as time passed about the dangers Habib faced. When he left home, I would stand in the yard with Abdollah in my arms watching him go. I even walked toward the park so I could catch a glimpse of his car as it disappeared in the distance.

Habib’s presence at the front being necessary, it was selfish for me to want him all to myself, but he always told me, “If you don’t want to live in the zone or if you don’t want me to be at the front, just say so and I’ll accept it.” But I knew he couldn’t stand to be away from the war for a moment. And that was how I felt, as well.

When Abdollah was three months old, we moved to another home in the radio and television development. Our first home had taken a mortar hit while we were away in Ahvaz. The door was knocked off its hinges and part of the front of the house was destroyed. Seeing it was no longer habitable, we moved into a smaller but better home in the center of the development. It had a gas stove and a refrigerator. Some of the windows in the home were intact, and it was generally cleaner than the first house. The best thing was that water from the truck outside the house was piped in, which meant there was running water in the kitchen and bathrooms.

To be continued …