The Shipwrecked (15 page)

I help Arash stand up. But when I try to pull him away with me, he resists and stumbles to where the Basijis are being bitten by the crowds. He reaches a young Basiji and lifts him into his arms, holding his bloodied head to his own chest. I can hear myself shrieking as some punches make contact with his face.

I can feel the heat of flames behind me. I look back and I see the riot police motorcycles on fire in a pile.

Two other women approach me to help Arash. I can see some people with their cell phones raised above the crowd shooting pictures and videos.

The young Basiji has now surrendered himself to Arash, who is bleeding from a gash on his forehead. One eye is shut with coagulated blood, the other raised skyward, streaming with tears. Blood sprays from his nose
with every breath. The surrounding crowd is calmer now. More people come forward to help, most of them women of all ages. I desperately look for the doctor.

Now that the crowd has calmed down, Arash lets go of the Basiji's head. He tucks the young man's hand under his arm and leads him to the sidewalk where they both slump on the curb. The sight of the Basiji's face covered in blood turns my stomach. I can't bear to look at the swelling where his eyebrows were and the tear at the corner of his lip from which a trickle of blood drips down his chin.

The doctor now appears, carrying a bottle of mineral water. He uncaps the bottle and tries to pour the water on Arash's face. But Arash grabs the bottle in mid-air.

“Cold water helps stop the bleeding,” the doctor grunts.

Arash wrests the bottle from the doctor's grip and splashes some water on the Basiji's face. Blood washes down his face through his beard and drips on the ground between his legs. He then takes a swig from the bottle, gurgles the water in his mouth, and spits out some thick, red liquid. I almost vomit.

Arash rises and helps the young man to stand up. They start walking toward the intersection. The doctor and I follow them. The wind spreads heavy smoke in all directions. I can hear the crowd cheering. The government building is now engulfed in flames.

People are still throwing rocks at the contingents of riot police lined up along the boulevard. They stop when they see us moving in that direction. We walk past a crowd
of irate Greens. They stop their rock-throwing barrage, watching us intently. At a short distance from the police lines Arash stops. The Basiji, without looking back, moves toward his colleagues and disappears in their formation. I help Arash to get back to the ranks of the Greens.

According to reports, police patrol cars have ploughed into the crowds of Greens in the city square, killing several.

When we get back to overpass bridge, we find no sign of Mahtab or the Peugeot sedan.

MASIH ALINEJAD
was a parliamentary reporter for major reformist newspapers, until her critical articles led to her dismissal in 2006. She now lives in England, and received a degree in communication from Oxford Brookes University. She has written
The Crown of Thorn
about her experience as a young journalist in Iran.

¹
In December 2009, during the holy day of Ashura, there were several demonstrations in the streets of Tehran, and other cities in Iran, against the Islamic regime. These demonstrations ended in bloody confrontation, and the rounding up and jailing of hundreds of the protestors.

²
Seyyed Ali Khamenei (b. 1939), currently the “Supreme Leader” of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Following Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini's death in 1989, Khamenei replaced him as God's Regent on Earth and was declared the Supreme Leader of the regime.

³
Yazeed Ibn Mu'awiya (647–683) was challenged in his claim to the caliphate by Hussein Ibn Ali, the Prophet's grandson and the son of Ali Ibn Abitalib, the fourth of the Rashedin caliphs and the spiritual leader of the Shi'ite movement. In the ensuing hostilities culminating in the Battle of Karbala (May 680), Hussein was killed and thus reached the status of a martyr among the Shi'ites, who consider Yazeed his murderer and the arch-villain in the conflict.

⁴
The references here are, respectively, to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last ruling monarch of Iran, deposed in 1979, and the current Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

⁵
Basij is a loosely organized paramilitary militia maintained by clerics in the Islamic regime. Units of the organization are deployed against demonstrations and activities of the opposition.

⁶
The protesters against the declared outcome of the 2009 presidential election in Iran were designated as “Greens,” partially due to a reference by founder and former presidential candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi, calling the movement the “Green Path of Hope” as a nonviolent civil rights movement.

The Bathhouse

Shahla Zarlaki

THE HINGES OF THE
corrugated iron door of the bathhouse squeak as it opens. No sooner have we crossed the threshold than a thick, milky steam engulfs us. We are greeted by a hubbub of unfamiliar voices—women talking, laughing, children shrieking. Though only yards away, the noise seems to be muffled by the denseness of the steam. The sounds modulate in volume but not enough to drown Mother's injunction: “Watch your step so you don't fall again.” She follows her mother's warning by scanning the rotunda of the bathhouse, looking for a spot for us to occupy. With every step I take I have the fear of slipping on a slimy spot or the remnants of a bar of soap abandoned on the floor. I hold the plastic bowl in front of my chest.

It never takes Mommy Ati any length of time to find a vacant alcove for the three of us in the atrium of the bathhouse, crowded with naked, boisterous female bathers. As usual, Fariba rushes ahead to access the fourth shower, which she believes has more water pressure than the others. Mommy Ati splashes some water on a spot
near the central pool in an effort to sanitize it for us to sit on. Before we are settled, the wife of Saj Ali, the local greengrocer, spots us from across the central pools. Her head is covered in soapsuds and she is rapidly blinking trying to keep it out of her eyes.

“Good morning, Mrs. Atieh. Good to see you.” Her voice rings under the dome of the atrium, bringing unwanted attention to us. “Any more phone calls? Any news?” she wants to know. My mother responds dismissively, to let her know she is not particularly pleased with the encounter. “Having a telephone,” she grumbled once,” has made us the central news agency of the whole neighborhood.”

MOMMY ATI
places the heavy receiver of the black German-made telephone next to her on the carpet and turns to me. I know I have to set aside my doll on the bedroll and wrap myself in my chador that has flower patterns on a white background. “Run over to Saj Ali's store,” she orders. “Tell him it is long distance.”

I put on my foam-rubber slippers, still smelling new. They are yellow, the color of melted butter on breakfast toast. I run on the freshly paved asphalt across the alley to the store. As I run, my chador is lifted, making me feel like I'm flying in the air. I find it gratifying that our telephone brings news to us first; we are receivers of important, world-shaking news, and we dispense it to grateful
neighbors and acquaintances. Mommy, too, cannot hide her amusement at the effusive expressions of Saj Ali's wife, “Dear, dear Mrs. Atieh! I am crazy about your telephone!”

“Hello? Hello? Is that you, Hojjat? Are you all right?” shouts Saj Ali, holding the receiver upside down to the side of his face.

I am standing by the door giggling. Mommy frowns at me as she reaches for the receiver. “Uncle Saj Ali, you're holding it wrong again,” she says impatiently. “This way.” Saj Ali, who is cross-eyed, looks sheepish as he presses the receiver to his ear. He hands the receiver to Mommy when the conversation ends and leaves the house, uncharacteristically without profuse expression of thanks. In the alley, he leans against a poplar tree looking skyward, the pupils of his eyes pointing in different directions. He does not offer me the customary snacks of nuts and raisins he always carries in his pocket. He mumbles something to a neighbor standing in the doorway.

Later, when father is watering the tree with a garden hose, I ask about Uncle Saj Ali. “Nothing for you to worry about, dear,” he says. “Apparently his son is missing in action in the front.”
¹

Also the news of the son of another neighbor, Haj Morteza, who volunteered to go to the front and is now suffering from shell shock, is delivered by our telephone.

Fariba, always intent to get to the bottom of things, wants to know what that means.

“Shell shock, you know, combat stress,” Mommy bursts out impatiently. “Must everything be translated for you? Don't you know anything?”

We have come to view our telephone like a capricious monster, perched on an elevated spot in the living room, dispensing good or bad news at will. Mommy sets the receiver next to her on the carpet and turns to me. Loathe to be the bearer of bad news, I try to ignore her by raising my geography textbook in front of my face, trying to memorize the name of the longest rivers in the world.

I AM STILL
trying to squeeze myself between Fariba and a neighboring lady in the alcove. Mommy pours a bowl of hot water over my head. I let out a squeal. “These old hags!” she complains. “They overheat the water. I am surprised their skin doesn't peel off.”

In my constricted space, I rest my chin on my knees and watch Mother washing Fariba's hair as I wait for my turn. Her unhurried pace tells me we are going to be here for a while yet. She takes the bathing paraphernalia out of the plastic bag and arranges them next to the pool. She is fond of Golnar soap and Darougar shampoo. I hug my knees firmly. I realize that there is no sign of the woman I call the mermaid. She usually comes on midweek days when the place is less crowded. She always takes the alcove
to the right of the second pool, near the exit door. First she kneels on her right knee, then lifts her right knee, balancing herself on her left hand as she turns her head over her shoulder. In doing so, her long black hair, still dry, streams down her back all the way to the crook of her narrow waist. In this pose, before she starts scraping her heel with the unsightly pumice, she reminds of the picture of a mermaid I once saw in a storybook.

Fariba is adroit and agile as she rubs the washcloth over her flat stomach and spindly legs, ignoring Mommy's advice not to expose kneecaps to too much moisture to avoid pruning. She is not embarrassed of her own body. I feel envious that she will soon be in the dressing area with her hair wrapped in a towel, while I will still be standing in a corner of the shower stall waiting for Mommy to go through the ablution ritual, enunciating the required chant, before attending to me. Fariba will be past the first intersection on the way home while Mommy meticulously rubs my entire body, like that of a newborn baby, with the soapy washcloth. By the time I am wrapped in the towel, still damp from Fariba's hair, she is halfway home, loosening the knot of her silken headscarf to allow a curl of her hair to dangle on her forehead for the benefit of Haj Morteza's son, who is watching from the window of the carpet shop.

Fariba always refers to the last shower stall in the bathhouse the old ladies' chamber. It is infused with the smell of old plaster mixed with that of depilation compound.
She says there is a secret behind the foul odor emanating from the drainpipe, but she doesn't share it with me. She raises her plucked eyebrows and looks at me condescendingly. She is not aware that I have been peeping through the hole in the metal door and have my own stash of secrets.

“Why are you so dazed?” Mommy Ati howls at me. “Get a move on. Your feet are pruning.”

“Possibly it is due to calcium deficiency,” the woman with the close-cropped haircut observes, as she slides a silver-handled razor up her leg. “Some children are more prone to it than others. Look how her heels have puffed up.”

I feel an irritation in my heels. If I were in the dressing area, Khavar Khanom, the manager on duty, would never miss a chance to comment on my puffy heels. I continue to imagine that when Khavar Khanom would ask for our locker number, which is twenty-four, I would be holding the large comb in front of me as a gesture of modesty to hide those ridiculously small protrusions on my chest. She would rub a block of salt on my feet. The swelling goes away and wrinkles disappear. I would smell the stew Khavar Khanom is cooking on a burner in the corner of the dressing room. The cool, fresh air of the dressing room would relax me. I think of the freezing air on the street and the warmth of my ski jacket protecting me against it. If it weren't for those math problems waiting for me at home, I would be the happiest little girl in the world.

But for now I am squeezed between the warm fleshy thighs of my mother. She is wringing my hair, as she does laundry in a tub, with her thick fingers, dousing it with bowl after bowl of hot water to make sure all soap is washed out of it. I have my eyes closed in agony, points of light floating behind firmly pressed eyelids. My ears are covered by soapsuds, tiny bubbles bursting noisily, muffling the sounds around me.

Suddenly, I do not feel the touch of my mother's thighs and beyond the tiny explosions of soap bubbles I hear the rising howls of fear. I open my eyes. I see only darkness, as if the darkness behind my closed eyelids has now extended to the space before it. I see specter-like outlines of white bodies running helter-skelter in the dim light of the bathhouse. I crawl toward the pool and take refuge against its warm border wall. I know it is the bomb alert and the blackout will not last long. As on Friday three weeks ago, Khavar Khanom will open the door and yell over the noise of the bathers, “Ladies, it is situation red alert . . . Just wait a little while . . . They'll sound the all-clear siren shortly . . . It will be over in a minute.”