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Chapter Three

Part 1  -  Part 2  -  Part 3  -  Part 4
A camel caravan.
She did not tell me that she was going to cook it for a meal. She said she was cleaning it and would use it in the house, adding, "I know your mother has never touched these and you have never seen one." At the next mealtime we had pieces of white meat covered with soft skin. In fact it was rather tasty and it was only later that I found out the meal consisted of sheep's stomach.
Humai's house consisted of a small vestibule and pantry at either side of the single room. In the pantry she used to keep cases full of clothes, as well as the kitchen utensils she used outside the house in a small kitchen in the corner of the yard. She also stored left-over bread and some fruit and vegetables in the pantry. Half of the vestibule was taken up with the storage of charcoal, which was used for samovar tea-making all year round, and for the korsi during the winter. A korsi consisted of a low, square table under which a brazier was placed and fed with charcoal. It was the sole means of heating the house apart from an oil lamp. There was neither hot nor cold water in the house. Cold water would be brought in buckets from the neighbouring water-well, or from some cheshma far away. The source of cold water was therefore two buckets, one in the garden and one in the house, while the samovar supplied the hot water for washing clothes in addition to its normal function of tea-making. Seeing my nurse fetching water like this and comparing it with the water-reservoir and constant supply we had at home emphasised the sharp contrast between the two houses. I often wished I had been able to help her myself, for I did not like to see her wrapped with the veil and struggling with two buckets of water. Later on, when Fatima grew bigger, she would help her mother; but when I offered in my turn, the offer was refused.
I used to play with Fatima in the yard during the summer and in winter in the room inside the house. As summer gradually turned to autumn we used to climb over the wall and pick from the tree a kind of fruit called ida, which is grown in many parts of Azerbaijan and perhaps other parts of Iran as well. It needs the least attention and water of all fruits, and is likened to those natural geniuses (or genii) who produce immortal works of art having received the least possible cultivation or training. An excellent case in point is Samad Behrangi, writer of children's books, who was drowned before he was 30: that was in 1968, and the circumstances are mysterious, possibly connected with the repression of dissenting intellectuals by the security forces of the late Shah. He declared his own similarity to the ida tree with its need for so little water or care. And like the ida tree he brought forth very sweet fruit during his short life. He worked entirely for others, not for himself at all. In one of the chapters of his Study of Educational Problems in Iran he wrote:

Until we see an environment or society closely, until we live in it, mix with the people and hear their griefs and learn about their wants, it is vain and useless to show ourselves sympathetic to that society and people, and even to write stories for them. . .

Again in his last work, his masterpiece, Mahi-ye Siya-he K uchulu (Little Black Fish), he shows his philosophy and his vision that we should live for others as well as for ourselves. Opposing the social oppression at the time, he wrote:

Now death can very easily call on me but as far as I can live I should not go towards death. If I once come face to face with death - I face it. That is not important. What is important is what effect my life or death can have on the life of others...

, The words are his own philosophy, although in this story he has put them into the mouth of the black fish who is speaking to itself just before being caught by the fish-eating bird. When he visited me in my house with his close friend Behruz Dihqani (later killed by the Shah's agents in the summer of 1973), Samad answered my question as to what he was writing about: "I am writing exactly what I see, not more, not less." In fact, his stories of villagers in Iran proved his words exactly and recall Blake's statement in his Jerusalem: "My Streets are my Ideas of Imagination."
The memory of Fatima and myself as children naturally brings back to me Samad's wonderful stories for children, because he was so near to children himself. Actually, when I used to play with Fatima sometimes I was rather rough with her. Once, I remember clearly, I hit her hard and made her cry. To my surprise Humai did qot hit me back as I expected her to, and deserved. Interestingly, children know when they do - and do not - deserve a punishment. She kissed both of us and told me gently, "When Fatima is grown up she will be a good sister for you." I felt really ashamed of my behaviour. I don't remember ever hitting Fatima again. I loved Fatima, and when we grew up I did not distinguish her from my own sisters. In fact, I felt closer to her.
Fatima had bright and large blue eyes, brown hair and fairish skin, which is not unusual in Azerbaijan. Her sister Marzieh, who was two years younger, had dark eyes, dark hair and tanned skin. Fatima was seven years of age when she started working in a match-making factory near their house. Marzieh joined her there two years later. I missed Fatima's companionship and I felt really lonely. I used to sit for hours and wait until she returned from the factory. She used to get up very early, when it was still dark, and rush to the factory while the factory hooter was still blaring out, and not leave until the evening. When Fatima returned home from the factory she looked pale and tired, and did not show any interest in playing with me. She used to sit quietly, and I would be very anxious to make her talk, smile or run around with me. We were moving apart, I felt, and I did not want this to be the case. I felt sad, but did not understand what was ha ppening.
As we grew older the different environments of Fatima's house and my parents' house created a gulf between us. When Marzieh joined Fatima working in the factory I started to wonder why was it that they worked and I did not. I clearly remember that one evening Marzieh's face was very pale, and her normal smile and rosy cheeks were absent. It made me sad but I still did not understand. For the first time I felt alienated and estranged; indeed even before that occasion I had found they were ignoring me. I still loved them and wished they would return to playing and chatting as before, but they never did. The more Fatima and Marzieh worked, the less we saw of each other. I went to school and they went to the factory. Whenever they visited my parents' house, they remained quiet and rather shy, and reluctant to eat or wander around the house. It seemed as though an invisible wall was being built between us as the time passed. I wished I knew what had caused it, and could pull the barrier down.
I remember, too, that I would save my money to buy them presents at Nawruz. I once bought my nurse and her daughters stockings - at this time I was about 13. Humai was pleased and gave Fatima and Marzieh my presents. They accepted the stockings politely and put them on the shelf. I felt disappointed because they did not jump, laugh and embrace me as they would have done before. I did not know what to say, so I said, "Next time I shall buy you dresses." Humai said, "You are my lovely and kind boy and your sisters appreciate your kindness." But Fatima and Marzieh remained silent. The silence disturbed me and I felt myself as a stranger in their house, and when they came to my parents' house I would feel a stranger there as well. Humai's warm and loving attitude helped me to some extent but, nevertheless, this significant silence and distance existed between me and her daughters until they married and had children. When visiting Iran in 1964 I also called on Humai and her daughters. Fatima and Marzieh, to my excitement, called me Agha-da-dash (Big Brother) and received me very warmly. Even their children called me uncle. I felt happy and my early sweet memories of them were revived within me. I continued to visit my nurse and her daughters and two sons (born later on: Majeed and Hamid) whenever I visited Iran.
Fatima and Marzieh both married when relatively young, Fatima when she was 20. Her husband was a textile worker who then went on to build up his own small textile workshop, employing his sons. Marzieh's husband began by buying and selling cattle, and then went into the meat business, where he achieved considerable success. Both of them had beautiful children, of whom the girls finished elementary school, two of them subsequently marrying. No members of the families have as yet gone to secondary school.
My nurse, Humai, is still alive, but her husband, Izzat, recently died at a great age. I remember him well and liked him very much indeed. He was a builder and often used to work at my father's house or in the factory. He used to take Fatima and me to the National Park, and this was a most enjoyable treat for me especially as he used to let me ride on his shoulders and I felt myself on the top of the world. My father was too dignified ever to do anything of this kind. While he was sitting in the house, I was permitted once or twice to climb on his shoulder, but never on the street.
Izzat used to leave for work in the early morning, but being self-employed he sometimes found himself without any particular job and would spend his day at home or at the chai-khaneh or tea-house. Whether in or out of work I never heard him talk about money or have any dispute with Humai. I thought they both had a very good relationship. In contrast I well remember that in my father's house I heard constant discussions about how much profit they made out of carpets, how many losses they had, how many workers were on strike or absent and how far the price fluctuations would affect them. My father would always complain or worry about not being able to sell the carpets, and would warn my mother and everybody else to be careful how they spent money and used the things he had obtained for them, since the future was uncertain. Though Izzat was poor, and they did not have as much food and other things as we had in my parents' house, I felt that the most obvious and pleasant absentee in Izzat's was discussion about money. At my parents' house, too, the mullah would always be preaching about the eternal salvation or damnation of everyone, or what God would do when life was over. But Izzat and his family did not seem to be concerned about these things either. Perhaps they were too busy to worry about them. As the saying goes, "The busy bee has no time to worry." Even when men and women got together they talked about their daily work and children, and what they were going to do tomorrow. The stories that were told in the tea-houses opposite to Humai's house were from traditional epics, old heroic tales telling of peasants' insurrections against the feudal overlords and tyrants. These stories supplied the family with their chief topics of conversation, whereas the mullahs hardly ever came to such a poor district where they would not be likely to receive gifts and food of the value and delicacy to which they were accustomed in the rich districts. And where the old stories were retold, there would also be repetition of witty satires of Hafiz of Shiraz at the expense of the greed and rapacity of mullahs. So from every point of view the mullahs were wise in leaving the area alone - which was all to the advantage of Izzat, Humai and their neighbours.
There was always a sense of peace and pleasure in my nurse's home. They did not mention the price of things they bought. They had no bank account.
They did not talk about profits, losses, bank drafts, defaulting workers and debtors. Nor did the gossip resemble the topics in my parents' district: who had married whom and how much dowry had been taken to her husband, what neighbour had bought that huge American Cadillac. There I felt suffocated in this inhuman and impersonal atmosphere. In my nurse's district money was important in order to buy the necessities of daily life, but it was not regarded as everything. The people were proud of their hard work and skill. The son of Humai's next-door neighbour was called Usta Hussein (skilled man) because he was a good carpenter. There were others who were well-known for their skill in making fine carpets - they made carpets in their houses for the carpet merchants, and often part of their sitting-rooms were taken up with carpet-looms. Usually all the family would work on the loom. Many women used to feed their babies, cook, wash clothes and sweep their houses and still had time to help their husbands make the carpet.
These people in Amir Khiz seemed more cheerful, hopeful and generous than those in the Shakkli district where my parents lived. In Shakkli, life seemed to be more tedious, and tiring. I felt that people watched each other's movements, clothes and appearances incessantly. Most disturbing of all were the disputes over distribution of inherited properties. Some argued, and some from time to time violently quarrelled over shares in villages, orchards, farms, gold and jewellery. They tried to cheat each other. Men took two shares and women one share of their parents' inheritance. In most cases the women were even deprived of their share by putting their fingerprint on a document which they were unable to read. This was precisely the fate of my own sisters. When my father died I was studying in Britain. My brother Ibrahim had taken my sisters to the property registrar's office and asked each of them to put her fingerprint (because they could not write) on a document which declared that her share of our father's wealth was received therewith. This was done in exchange for a promise of the equivalent of £180, which in fact was not paid for a long time. Later, when my sisters learned of the purpose behind this action, they became upset and bitter, and repeatedly expressed their bitterness to me. Even my mother was made to sell her share of the house to her sons in exchange for a sum of money which she never received, and so she lived at the mercy of my brothers Ibrahim and Mohsen. Later, some three years before her death, her telephone was cut off because Ibrahim's wife accused her of using it too frequently. It is unlikely that this was the case; in fact Ibrahim's wife was herself often on the telephone to Tehran, where her parents and step-brothers lived. This action hurt me deeply as it cut off my link with my mother. When I last talked to her by telephone to Batul's house three months before she died, she talked of selling her jewellery to install a telephone, which would have cost about £1000. She did not know how to write and, later, desperately wished to get in touch with me two days before her death.
My own observations would lead me to conclude that this attitude to my mother was not a general practice. In Iran old people are usually loved and cared for by their younger family. They often live with their children and their children's families, and seldom live alone. This is generally the case in Asia and Africa. However, women have no economic and social independence. In comparison with Western women they are more protected and sheltered against social insecurity such as unemployment, but this security and sheltered position is often paid for with a loss of personality and dignity. My mother and sisters disliked their dependence on my brothers and their husbands. My mother often told me that she did not wish to live after my father's death. Initially, I thought she said this out of emotion and her love for my father - but later I learned that she did not want to be dependent on the mercy of others. No matter how rich my father was, my mother could not enjoy his wealth after his death because she was dependent on my brothers. Such provision as children's allowances paid to the parents and old age pensions are not common in Iran.
But difficulties between the generations over property are age-old. In the 14th century Hafiz of Shiraz wrote:

Daughters are all at war and in dispute with mothers.
Sons are ill-wishers of their fathers.
The fools always drink sherbet made of roses and sugar.
The strength of the wise is always made of the blood of their hearts.

(In fact, Hafiz wrote "liver". In the ancient world the liver not the heart was taken to be the seat of the emotions, which is probably why Prometheus in Greek legend had his . . .