Da (Mother) 121

The Memoirs of Seyyedeh Zahra Hoseyni

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

2024-10-27

Da (Mother) 121

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

***

The guard asked what we were doing there and how we’d gotten a weapon. I showed him the gun permit Mr. Mohammadi had given me. He read it, and I explained why we were there. After a moment, he wished us Godspeed and left.

My first thought was to go to the hospital they had mentioned at the camp. Unaware the name had been changed, I asked where the Misaqiyeh Hospital was and how to get there. Naturally, no one knew, but finally one person told me the new name was Martyr Mostafa Khomeini Hospital.

I won’t say what we went through to get there. Not having much money, we had to walk most of the way to Italia Avenue. When we finally arrived, I stood in the entryway not knowing whom I should see. Would anyone know me there? I had no choice but to go up to one of the brothers from the army and take my chances. But as soon as I went to the reception desk and introduced myself, everybody started saying, “Sister, where have you been? We’ve been waiting for you a couple of days now. Brother Jahan Ara had gotten in touch with us, saying you’d be favoring us with a visit.”

They introduced me to the nurses, who gave me such a warm welcome you’d think we’d known one another for ages. The hospital workers showed great respect for me, saying I reminded them of Ali. Seeing me was like seeing the martyr himself. It was clear in the three or four months Ali had been there, he’d made quite an impression on them.

I asked the nurses to show me his room. They told me to wait until I had been admitted formally.

I said, “I can’t wait. I just have to see where he spent those months.”

They agreed. We went to the second floor, and, stopping by a door, they said, “Here’s his room. He heard the war had broken out and wanted to leave, but the doctors wouldn’t release him. So he tied bed sheets together and climbed down from the window, landing in the avenue below. That time he didn’t make it because the attendants had gotten wind of it, but later, on a visit to the graves of the martyrs at the Behest-e Zahra cemetery, he managed to escape.”

I entered a kind of vestibule leading to the room but didn’t go farther. Standing beside a small refrigerator they had installed, I looked around. There were three beds in the room. The one in the middle was empty, but the other two were occupied. A nurse pointed to the bed closest to the window and said, “That was your brother’s.”

All I could think about was how much I missed him. It was too much to bear, and I burst into tears. I ran from the room as the wounded men stared, not knowing what to make of it.

The nurses explained the situation to them. I tried to pull myself together in the hallway, and asked if I could go back in the room again if I promised not to upset the patients. It was an effort to remain composed and quiet. The wounded man in Ali’s bed said to me, “It’s an honor to sleep in the bed of a martyr.”

The nurse said one Thursday night the hospital Islamic association held a remembrance ceremony for Ali and invited Mr. Falsafi, a well-known preacher, to speak. The nurses put up flyers and hung posters about Ali’s martyrdom throughout the hospital. They showed them to me, along with pictures of Ali that his brother soldiers had taken. The  announcement for the ceremony was on red paper with a picture of Ali dressed in hospital clothes. The title read: “Brother Martyr, Seyyed Ali Hoseyni, a fearless warrior in the lineage of Abel.” There was an explanation of how he had gotten to Khorramshahr and was martyred. I kept one of the flyers.

The specialist was not in that day, so they made an appointment for me. As it had been quite a while since I was wounded, I didn’t have to be hospitalized. The doctors only wanted to know where on my spine the shrapnel was and gauge the likelihood of paralysis if it were to move.

From the hospital we went to Mr. Mohammadi’s family home, which was located at the end of Tehran-e Now. The Cultural Revolution was going on, and all the universities were closed. This allowed the authorities to house refugee families in the building of an officer’s college, which was protected like a military base with soldiers everywhere. Everyone had to pass through a checkpoint before entering and exiting.

Each family was assigned one of the large college classrooms. Mr. Mohammadi’s family, his wife’s father’s family, and his father’s family were all living at the college. While in Tehran I stayed with his sisters in their mother’s room.

Those days were frigid. The rooms had heaters, but they didn’t work because of a fuel shortage. There was no hot water, and, unaccustomed to the cold, my hands swelled. Because I was shivering and always speaking about the cold, Mrs. Mohammadi gave me a black knitted woolen sweater. It was so tight on me I couldn’t button it. One corner was singed and had turned brown. Part of the sleeve had unraveled and the rest was moth-eaten. People from the Refugee Aid Committee supplied the sweater and other clothing, which, however shabby, were better than nothing. The sweater, which I wore under my chador, truly came in handy in the cold when I found myself constantly shivering.

A short time later, Mr. Mohammadi returned from Khuzestan. A little while after that he took his brother Abdol Azim and me to parliament.

It was not as hard to visit parliament then as it is now. With him we were able to enter without formalities. He introduced us to Mr. Rafsanjani and Mr. Karroubi and gave them a rundown on my activities. Mr. Rafsanjani said, “We are honored to have such brave sisters and daughters at the front.” Mr. Karroubi was very kind and consoling to me, and then he gave me a letter of introduction. He said, “Take this to Mr. Mazandarani at the Martyrs Foundation.”

The next couple of times I went to the parliament, I saw Mr. Khameneh’i, Dr. Dialameh, Dr. Ayat, and Hojjat al-Eslam Montazeri and spoke to them about the war, the sacrifices of the people, and the conditions in Khorramshahr. They said, “The people who ought to tell Imam Khomeini about these things are not doing their jobs. It’s people like you who should give him the news.” Mr. Khameneh’i and Dr. Dialameh seemed to be strong personalities with gentle souls. Dr. Dialameh’s obvious humility and modesty put me to shame, speaking to him. There was a certain innocence to his features. He never raised his voice. People said he was on the faculty of the University of Tehran, and he was the first in the city to hold a public Komeyl Prayer and Supplication.

I witnessed an ugly scene at one of the sessions of parliament. That day the members were discussing relations with America. Those opposed said, “America could have shown its good will by returning the Iranian funds it seized, but it didn’t even take this first step. All of the policies it devises are against its own best interests.”

A number of other delegates Mr. Mohammadi called “nationalist” were strongly opposed and wanted to resume relations with the United States. Owing to a painful wound he had received in a terror attack, Mr. Rafsanjani was not presiding at this session. In his place was Mr. Sahabi, a nationalist. The debate had become very heated, and one of the supporters of resuming relations with the West attacked Hojjat al-Eslam Montazeri by grabbing his collar and shaking him as he screamed at him. The Hojjat al-Eslam showed no reaction, nor did he speak. He merely stared at the man. Then another nationalist suddenly got up and boxed the Hojjat al-Eslam’s ear.

All he said was, “So this is nationalist logic?”

All the while people in the balcony, who had come to parliament with high hopes of disrupting the proceedings, were fanning the flames. It upset me to see how easily people were able to enter the parliament building and disrupt the legislative process. I said to myself: We are at war. Decisions made here affect the people of this country’s lives and property. Why do they allow a few—if not Hypocrites, certainly ignorant and shortsighted people—to make a mockery of the proceedings?

Finally, after a series of attacks by the Hypocrites, especially after the terrorist attacks of June 28 and August 30, 1981, and the resulting loss of all those top individuals, it occurred to the authorities to beef up security at parliament by setting up checkpoints. The representatives of the people in those days were an uncomplicated and trusting lot. People had easy access to them at all times and could speak their piece. I ate at the parliament several times. The food was simple, ordinary fare. The representatives came and went without drivers or bodyguards.

One time, as I was leaving parliament with Mr. Mohammadi, Dr. Ayat drove up in his own Peykan and parked in one of the alleys near the north corner of the building. All at once some Hypocrites, who had apparently been waiting in ambush, attacked him. Moments later people rushed from parliament to stop the attack. Many representatives during that period were attacked like this, and many of them, including Dr. Dialameh, perished in the explosion at Islamic Republican Headquarters.

Mr. Mohammadi’s home life was very spare. During my visit to his home, all the family had colds. They didn’t have a drop of heating oil to their names. Even though they put carpeting on the cold floor and spread coats over that, his wife felt so cold she couldn’t nurse their infant. Seeing the authorities in the same boat as us common folk during that week made my problems seem simple and bearable by comparison.

Mr. Mohammadi was also quite a card. One time when we were walking from the parliament to Revolution Square, he asked his brother and me, “Do you know, guys, what SAAAR stands for?”

“The Society of Armed, Active, Avant-garde Revolutionaries, the Maoist group?” we guessed.

“No,” he said. “The Shah’s Armed American Agents on the Run.”

One day I went to see Mr. Mazandarani at the Martyrs Foundation with the letter of introduction Mr. Karroubi had given me. I didn’t know why he had given me the letter. After I spoke with Mr. Mazandarani, he led me to another section. The head of that section placed three overcoats and 15,000 tumans in cash in front of me. It was a startling sight, but I refused the offer, saying, “I didn’t come here for charity.” “Given your financial state, you’ve got to accept,” he said.

“I don’t want them,” I said. But he kept insisting.

It was embarrassing for me to take the coats and the money. Although I needed them badly, it was not in my nature to beg. But he justified these “gifts” in so many ways I reluctantly accepted them.

To be continued …