Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir (No Series) (21 page)

As I stepped into my new house and my strange new life, I promised myself not to look back and not to think of the past, but this was a difficult promise to keep. Ali led me to our bedroom, where gifts had been piled on the bed.

“Open them,” he said. “Some are from me, and the rest are from my family.”

There were many pieces of jewelry, crystal bowls and glasses, dishes, and silver-plated platters. Ali was sitting on the bed beside me, watching me as I opened them.

“I’m your husband now, you don’t need your
hejab
anymore,” he said.

I wished I could hide somewhere. He pulled at the large scarf covering my hair. I reached back for it.

“I understand your discomfort, but you really don’t need it. You’ll get used to me.”

He undid my braided hair and ran his fingers through it.

“You have beautiful hair. It’s soft as silk.”

He put a necklace around my neck and a bracelet around my wrist. I looked at my wedding ring. It had a large diamond shining on it.

“I’ve wanted you ever since I saw you,” Ali said, wrapping his arms around me, kissing my hair and my neck. I pushed him away.

“Marina, it’s fine. You know how long I’ve waited for this. You’re finally mine, and I can touch you. There’s no need to be afraid. I won’t hurt you. I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

He unbuttoned his shirt, and, frozen with terror, I closed my eyes. Soon, I felt his fingers undoing the buttons of my manteau. I opened my eyes and tried to fight him, but his weight pinned me to the mattress. I begged him to stop, but he said he couldn’t. He ripped off my clothes. I screamed. His bare skin touched mine, and the strange, unfamiliar warmth of his body pressed on me. He smelled of shampoo and soap. I gathered all my strength and struggled to push him away, but it was useless; he was too big and strong. Anger, fear, and a terrible sense of humiliation twisted, turned, and rose inside me like a storm that had nowhere to go, until I had no energy left, until I accepted that there was nowhere to run, until I surrendered. It hurt. The shocking pain wasn’t the same as the pain of being lashed. When I was being tortured, I had managed to maintain a sense of authority, a strange kind of power that physical torment could never steal away. But now, I was his. He had me.

I cried all night. My insides were burning. Ali had his arms around me, holding me tight. Before dawn, he rose for
namaz,
and I stayed in bed.

He sat on the edge of the bed beside me and kissed my cheek and my arm. “I have to touch you to believe that you’re my wife. Was it painful for you?”

“Yes.”

“It will get better.”

I fell asleep after he left the bed; sleep was my only escape.

“Breakfast is ready,” he called from the kitchen at about eight o’clock. The sun was shining through the sliding doors. I got up and opened them. A breeze swept through and brought in the song of the sparrows. The backyard was beautiful. The geraniums and marigolds were in full bloom. I felt as if I were living someone else’s life. The next-door neighbor called her children in for breakfast. It was a perfect summer day, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but I wished for snow to cover the earth; I wished for its cold and honest touch to embrace my warm skin. I wanted my fingers to lose their sense of touch in deep frost and ache. I wanted all the shades of green and red to disappear under the weight of winter and its shades of white so I could dream and tell myself that when spring came, things would be different.

“There you are,” I heard him say from behind me. “Breakfast is ready, and your tea is getting cold. There’s fresh bread on the table.”

I was in his arms again. “You can’t imagine how happy I am,” he whispered in my ear and told me that the first time he had seen me, I was sitting on the floor in a hallway, but unlike all the other women who were wearing black chadors, I had covered my hair with a beige cashmere shawl. Although he could see that I was small and slim, I had my back straight against the wall, looking taller than all the others around me. He said that with my head tilted toward the ceiling and my lips moving slightly in what seemed like a prayer, I had been calm in the middle of a world of fear and despair that surrounded me. He said he had wanted to look away, and he couldn’t.

For the next few days, he pampered me to the point that I felt uncomfortable. I had always taken care of myself. I didn’t want to be treated like a child. The girl I used to be was gone. I was a married woman. I couldn’t hide under my bed as I used to. Maybe Ali was my cross and I had to accept him. Or, at least, I could try. I just wished he would leave me alone in bed. Every time he took off his clothes and touched me, I begged him to stop. He sometimes listened and sometimes didn’t, telling me that I had to get used to it, that this was an important part of being married and that if I stopped resisting him, it would hurt less.

Finally, about a week after our wedding day, I rose from bed at dawn and decided to try to live my life and stop feeling sorry for myself. What was done was done, and I couldn’t change it. I began by cleaning the house and making breakfast, and I told Ali that I wanted him to invite his parents and his sister for dinner. He thought I had lost my mind and told me he didn’t think I knew how to cook. I told him I did, and he gave in.

“Okay, I’ll call my parents and my sister,” he said. “Then we’ll go grocery shopping, and Marina?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For trying.”

My heart felt a little warmer than it had in a very long time. I started working on dinner right after lunch. Ali was gone for a couple of hours, and when he returned, the house was filled with the smells of lasagna, beef and mushroom stew, and rice. I had just begun working on an apple cake. He came into the kitchen and told me that the smell of food had made him hungry. He wanted to know if my mother had taught me how to cook, and I told him that my mother was not patient enough to teach me anything; I liked to cook, so I had learned from cookbooks. He offered to make us tea and poured some water into the samovar. Then, after putting some loose tea leaves in a china teapot, he came toward me. I was breaking an egg into a bowl. He still terrified me. Every time he stepped close to me, every time I felt his breath on my skin, every time he touched me, I wanted to run away. He held my face in his hands and kissed my forehead, and I wondered if I was ever going to get accustomed to his touch.

Ali’s parents, Akram, and Massood came and were all pleased with everything I had prepared. Ali’s mother had a little bit of a cold, so after dinner and dessert, I made her some tea with lemon and brought her a blanket so she could rest on the couch. Akram came into the kitchen to help me with the dishes.

“Dinner was delicious,” she said with a forced smile. I could feel the discomfort in her voice; she was trying to be kind to me, and I appreciated it.

“Thank you. I’m not a good cook, but I tried. I’m sure you can cook a lot better than me.”

“No, not really.”

Silence filled the space between us. I began putting the leftovers in the fridge.

“Why did you marry my brother?” she suddenly asked.

I looked straight into her eyes, but she looked away.

“Has your brother told you anything about what happened between us?” I said.

“He hasn’t told me much.”

“Why don’t you ask him then?”

“He won’t tell me, and I want to hear it from you.”

“I married him because he wanted me to.”

“That’s not enough.”

“Why not? Why did you marry your husband?”

“My marriage was arranged. My parents had made an agreement with my husband’s parents when I was a child that I should marry their son as soon as I was old enough. You’re from a different kind of a family, a different culture. If you didn’t want to marry him, you could have said no.”

“Why do you think I didn’t want to marry him?”

“I just know. A woman can sense these kinds of things.”

I took a deep breath. “Don’t forget that I’m a prisoner. Ali threatened me that if I didn’t marry him, he would hurt those who are dear to me.”

“Ali would never do anything like this!”

“See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you wouldn’t believe me because you love your brother.”

“Will you put your hand on the Holy Koran and say that he did this?”

“Yes, I’m telling the truth.”

She dropped in a chair and shook her head.

“This is terrible! Do you hate him for it?”

I didn’t know what to say. This was not because I didn’t want to tell the truth, but because I realized I didn’t exactly know the true answer to this question. A few days earlier, I would have said, with conviction, that I hated him. But I wasn’t so sure anymore. Something had changed, not fundamentally, but slightly, and I didn’t understand why my feelings toward Ali were now different. But I had every right to hate him.

“No, I don’t know. I did hate him, but not anymore. Hatred is a very strong word.”

She looked into my eyes.

“Did you also convert to Islam because you had to?”

“Yes.”

“So, you didn’t really mean it?”

“No, but don’t forget that I only told you because you insisted on knowing and I didn’t want to lie. It’s all over now. I’m a Muslim, I’m your brother’s wife, and I’ve promised to be faithful to him and I will. I don’t want to talk about it. What’s done is done.”

“May God give you strength,” she said. “I know how difficult this must be.”

“At least it’s good to know that someone understands.”

An honest, effortless smile brightened her face.

“How long have you been married?” I asked.

“Seven years.”

“Do you love your husband?”

Surprised, she looked at me as if she had never considered her feelings toward him.

“Love is such a strong word,” she said with a laugh, staring at her wedding ring, tracing its sparkling diamond with a finger. “I think it only exists in fairy tales. My husband is good and faithful to me, and I live a comfortable life. I guess you can say I’m happy, except…” Her gaze drifted away, and I recognized the nostalgic pain that loss leaves behind. It made my heart sink.

“Except what?” I whispered.

“I can’t have children,” she said and sighed as if this was the most difficult sentence she had ever spoken. “I’ve tried everything. In the beginning, everybody kept asking me if I was pregnant, but after a couple of years, they gave up. Now, I’m just the woman who can’t have children. But as I told you, my husband is good to me. I know how important it is for him to have a son, but he’s told me that he won’t marry another woman.”

“What are you ladies doing there? You’re taking forever,” Ali’s mother said as she walked into the kitchen. “Your men would like some more tea.”

As soon as we sat down in the living room, the phone rang. Ali answered it. I could tell it was from Evin. Listening most of the time, he looked concerned. Everyone was silent. I asked him what was wrong when the conversation was over.

“We’ve known for a while that the Mojahedin have plans to assassinate a few of the people who hold important jobs in Evin,” he said. “We’ve been trying to find and arrest the ones involved. A few of them were arrested recently and have been interrogated. It was Mohammad on the phone. He called to let me know that the information he’s obtained suggests that I’m on their assassination list. My colleagues and friends believe that it would be safer for Marina and me to stay in Evin for a while. I’m not worried for myself, but I don’t want to put Marina’s life in danger.”

I had figured that he was important in Evin, and this confirmed it.

“I think staying in Evin is a good idea. It’s better to be safe than sorry,” said Mr. Moosavi. He looked worried.

I didn’t know this at the time because I didn’t have access to TV, radio, or newspapers, but a few government officials had been assassinated recently, and all the killings had been blamed on the Mojahedin.

“Marina, is it okay with you if we stay in Evin for a while? It will be a lot safer,” Ali said.

“Sure,” I said, knowing I didn’t really have a choice.

“I’ll make it up to you when things are better.”

We went to bed after our guests left.

“Ali, do you see what violence does to people? You kill them, and they kill you. When is it going to end, only after everybody is dead?”

“You’re naïve,” he said. “Do you think that if we ask them nicely, they’ll simply stop fighting the government? We have to protect Islam, God’s law, and God’s people from the evil forces that are at work against them.”

“God doesn’t need protection. I’m just saying that violence only brings more violence. I don’t know what the solution is, but I know that killing is not the answer.”

He pulled me into his arms. “Not everyone is as good as you,” he said. “It’s a cruel world.”

“Yes it is, only because we’re cruel to each other.”

He laughed. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“When are we going back to Evin?” I asked.

“Tomorrow morning. I hope you understand that once we go back to Evin, even though you’re my wife, you won’t be treated differently from before. You’re still officially a prisoner. Do you want to stay in a solitary cell or do you want to go to 246?”