It was one of those questions adults liked to ask that condemned you no matter how
you responded. Maybe he really was an escapee, which would’ve pissed him off, knowing
even a kid could see it. I was still thinking this over when, all in a flash, my
artworks shattered under the young man’s boots.
He stomped and stomped and stomped on them, and no matter how much I cried, he just
didn’t stop stomping on my work. They made a noise when breaking; I could hear they
were in pain. The sounds made my heart clench like a fist.
A crowd had gathered, and I already knew they’d side with him, because he was a man,
and I was just a kid. Because he looked like a pious soldier, and I looked like a
rascal.
Because he was Persian and I was Arab—a little punk in a wet
dishdasha
. It was wet
from the sweat; it was getting wetter from the tears, and I think I might have peed
a little too.
And just then, an old mosque patron saw my pocket-sized Koran and stopped the mob
from harassing me further. He picked me up and walked me back home, where I knew
I’d get a belting. And that was the day I realised jeans were probably not for me.
God wanted me to be an unfashionable outsider.
On Saturdays, our family went to Golzare-Shohada, aka the Martyrs’ Rose Garden. Saddam
had burned most of the parks—along with the farm fields and oil rigs—but the Martyrs’
Rose Garden was miraculously untouched. In my grandmother’s view, God had sent His
angels to protect the martyrs’
souls
because they’d failed to shield those martyrs’
bodies
.
‘They work overtime, the angels,’ she hummed after her nightly prayers. ‘They’ve
got a world full of ruin to save.’
Dozens of bodies came here on a daily basis. Young, old. Almost always men. Almost
always with blood seeping through their shrouds.
That the park was a makeshift cemetery didn’t bother us boys. We got to play tiggy
and hide-and-seek all day.
‘You’re it!’ I shouted as I elbowed my brother Moe Greene—to show him I was boss,
I was older, I was stronger, and to get him back for eating my chocolate-spread sandwich,
which he’d stolen when an air-raid siren provided a distraction. It had been in the
fridge, clearly marked
Osamah’s sandwich
.
Moe Greene didn’t show pain. He wore the
dishdasha
like me, which teaches you to
take various kinds of punishment. It also handicaps you in a game of tiggy; while
our cousins Mehdi and Musty could run like gazelles in their jeans, we had to shuffle
like penguins in the
dishdashas
and the added disadvantage of sandals.
We ran across patches of sand and dry, dead grass, weaving in between the palm trees
that had somehow stayed alive through the searing summer temperatures of Abadan.
Despite being a literal loser, I was enjoying myself. The free air, the freedom to
run about without watching for landmines—it was liberating. Just nearby, Mum, Nanni
and my aunts joined a group of wailing women to read the Koran for the souls of the
martyrs. They were all mothers, grandmothers
and aunts of the deceased. And in one
case, a mistress, who the other women shunned—the martyr’s wife most pointedly and
particularly. I didn’t know the extent of the adultery, but even at seven, I’d heard
the rumours circulating the cemetery that the mistress had got gifts from the front
line and the wife had not. My uncle Adnan often brought me shell casings and disarmed
grenades, so I imagined she’d got a necklace made from those same materials.
The mistress never showed her face, but I knew she was pretty from her soft voice
and soft cries. The wife brayed like a donkey; the mistress cried melodically, almost
as if she was composing her weeping on the go. For us kids, certain gravestones supplied
the perfect cover; you could circle them endlessly and avoid becoming ‘it’. But most
of them were clogged up by the women.
Unattended gravestones were even better for playing hide- and-seek. Right now, for
instance, I was hiding behind the oldest headstone in the park, which belonged to
a fourteen-year-old soldier named Reza. His mother went there every Friday, performing
her many rituals for brightening the spirit of her departed son.
She was always oblivious to our games of tiggy. Or so I thought. Maybe she didn’t
get mad because she could remember her own son, who not that long ago had played
just like this, in this park, before it had become a shrine for boys like hers.
We had an unwritten rule not to hide behind children’s graves. But desperate times
called for desperate measures. I did a quick prayer to assuage the guilt, but the
guilt remained. All I could do was stare into the picture of Reza’s face, which had
been engraved into the headstone.
He had a stunning smile. He must have brushed his teeth twice a day, for sure. I
made a deal with myself that I would be more like Reza, brush twice a day, instead
of my current twice-a-week
habit—so lazy. If I died, I wanted kids hiding behind
my tombstone to think,
Wow! Look at that smile.
An example for other youngsters.
You could always look good, dead especially.
‘Oi!’ Moe Greene shouted, jolting me out of my fantasy. ‘Move away from that tombstone.’
I laughed nervously. ‘Okay, you found me.’ My cousins caught up. They all looked
at me with disappointment, and pity.
‘What have we said about hiding behind baby graves?’ yelled Moe Greene. ‘You
idioto
!’
I stopped myself from crying. I was the oldest boy. But my throat was warm, trying
to let out an explosion. I knew I couldn’t hold it much longer.
‘Osamah,’ Nanni called, in the nick of time. ‘Come over here.’
I wiped away the tears and trudged towards the women.
‘
Oocha
, read this passage of the Koran. I don’t know this one off by heart,’ she
said. She was illiterate, and could only read the passages she’d memorised. Lines
had long ago hijacked her face. She had a tattoo on her upper lip. It was a symbol,
and I didn’t know what it meant. She lost her husband when my mum was seven.
I’d once asked Mum what it had been like to lose her dad at seven. I was seven, and
my own dad was on the front line. ‘You son of a shit,’ she’d said. ‘Why do you ask
these questions? Two-legged goat, go sit and play.’
Nanni had called me over to read for a newly arrived body. It was shrouded, seeping
blood, and on its way into the ground, being lowered by a group of men chanting ‘God
is Great’ and ‘Death to the Tyrant’. I had to invent some of the passage as I recited
it, since I’d only been learning to read the Koran for the past year.
‘Nanni, it’s getting dark!’ I said. ‘I hate reading for a new body. It freaks me
out.’ The arrival of bodies in the park was so
common that we always just carried
on playing when they came. When I got close to a corpse, I felt sick in my stomach.
I could smell the dead.
‘Each verse you read from the Koran brightens their soul,’ she replied.
The idea of brightening the soul fascinated me, even though I couldn’t explain it
to my brain.
I went to go on reading, but before I could, one of the men lost his grip on the
shroud and slipped into the open grave. He pulled the corpse in after him and it
landed right on his face. ‘Fucking vagina!’ he screamed.
The religious chants stopped instantly. Nanni covered my ears. But I’d already heard
it.
The other men tried to pretend their friend had shouted something holy, but in the
open grave, with the corpse on him, he was still freaking out, still yelling like
a schoolboy.
‘Get this vagina corpse off me!’ he cried. My ears were poorly muffled. He shoved
the body off him, violently. And just like that, the shroud opened.
I threw up. Not on the corpse, thank God, but on Nanni’s lap. The martyr’s head was
so flat it looked like an open book. A red book, a messy book that looked nothing
like a face. The mouth was wide open. It had no eyes.
‘Nanni,’ I said quietly. ‘When we read the Koran, does it just brighten his soul,
or does it heal his face too?’
No answer. I wondered if I’d be in trouble for vomiting on her lap. If reading the
Koran was in fact meant to heal the martyr’s face, I wouldn’t want to be the one
doing it. It’d take two years just to bring the martyr’s eyes back.
Mashhad, Iran, 2013
There are more felafel stands in Mashhad than there are restaurants in Sydney. So
it’s not strange that my dad and I have ended up at one where a man happens, in some
small but crucial way, to need our help. The man is lucky because my father likes
to help a stranger out.
This is an unusual way of living in the world, as the next week of my life is about
to demonstrate.
The man is in his fifties, mostly bald; what hair he has is white. He’s talking to
his three children, two girls and a boy; one of the daughters is swinging from his
arms. They are pleading with him to buy them ‘regular’ felafels—not halves, not one
piece of bread with just sauce and no salads. Soft drink, too. They’re thirsty. They
play the promise card: he promised them today he’d buy regular felafel and drink.
The man tries to shush the children, likely from embarrassment. He tries to whisper
that he
can’t
buy these things, but he can’t even whisper—have you ever tried to
speak with subtlety
to three hungry kids? They keep hassling him, chasing the meal.
The man is distraught, even anguished.
No one pays him any mind. Mashhad is full of people who look just like this.
My father and I haven’t been eating street food often since coming to Iran three
weeks ago, but every now and then we forgo the fine dining for the grubby treat—it
just tastes a little better knowing it isn’t that good for you.
I’m fidgeting, uneasy. I know what Dad’s craving: a double felafel, pickles, tomato,
no sauce. I want the same, plus mustard. And we both want the obligatory Coke, straight
out of the bottle. How can we possibly order this much food? Not here, in front of
the man. Not in front of his kids.
So I make a choice. I reach for my wallet, feeling heroic, flashing it to Dad, to
make sure he sees the generous gift I’m about to bestow. After all, in Australian
dollars, a felafel with Coke is around forty cents. But just as I’m about to pull
out a wad of cash, Dad grabs my forearm and slides the wallet back.
He tells me, in Arabic, so the man can’t understand: ‘Son, is the man begging? No.
He is a working man, and a handout would be a slap in his face; it would rid him
of his dignity. And his children will never forget that they saw a stranger give
their father cash.’
I understand. ‘Right. Sorry, Dad.’
‘Just keep talking to me.’
So I keep murmuring in Arabic, pointless small talk, while Dad quietly slips a 50,000-toman
note out of his own pocket. This is the equivalent of eighteen Australian bucks.
He ever so gently lets the note glide out of his hand. ‘Keep talking,’ he says. We
do, and then, a moment later, Dad taps the old man on the shoulder.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he says, in Farsi. ‘I believe you dropped some money.’
The man looks at the floor. It’s a huge denomination.
‘Sorry, that’s not mine,’ he says.
Dad looks him closely in the eyes.
‘No, sir,’ he says firmly. ‘I saw. It fell from your pocket, when you were swinging
your daughter…’
The broken man regards my father. He conjures a smile.
◆ ◆ ◆
On the minibus as we’re heading back to the hotel, Dad takes my arm and places it
behind his back so it acts as a cushion. It’s been a long morning, and my father
needs a nap.
As he’s dozing off, he starts to mumble nonsense about how much he misses Mum. How,
in thirty years of marriage, he’s never told her he loves her.
‘But I know she knows I love her,’ he says. ‘She has known since day one. It’s the
actions, in any case. But it would’ve been nice to tell her…’
And then off he goes, head against the window, the streets of Mashhad whipping past
him as he finally rests.
◆ ◆ ◆
Dad falls into bed. ‘Osamah,
habibi
, I’m exhausted. Will you go have dinner on your
own?’
‘Sure, Dad.’
He smiles. I close the curtains, turn the heating up and head to the hotel restaurant
alone.
It’s the first time in weeks I’m eating without Dad. It’s an alien feeling. There’s
a pretty girl at an opposite table; we trade brief smiles. I rush through my food,
check a few emails on the lobby wi-fi. I tell my cousin in England I’ll be seeing
her soon, on the
next leg of our trip; she’s as excited as I am. I haven’t seen her—or
her five sisters—in twenty years.
We’ve gone a solid couple of days with little sleep, and I realise I’m tired too.
So I head back upstairs, to study a little and maybe have a nap.
I swipe my card, leave the lights off so as not to wake Dad. I walk in quietly. Something
is not right. I look at the bed where Dad is sleeping and I see that he’s not there.
Or—
I look at the bed again. A rush of goosebumps hits me. My body is talking to me,
but I don’t know what the signals mean. Dad lies flat on the bed, but still, he isn’t
there. I whisper, ‘Oh, fuck,’ so quietly I can barely hear myself speak. I launch
myself at the body and try to wake him up. I shake him hard, kissing his neck.
‘Dad! Wake up! Dad! Please! Dad! Wake up!’ I get angry and loud. ‘I’m sorry if I’m
yelling at you but you’re not listening to me! Wake up!’
It’s true: he’s not listening. I cradle his head in my arms. Suddenly, I sense a
presence behind me and turn around. There are a dozen strangers. When did they get
here? I can’t quite make out their words—but they’re all giving instructions, about
what to do, how to keep his airways clear, how to resuscitate. I won’t let his head
go. I keep hugging him, kissing him.
I must’ve been yelling so loud the whole floor of the hotel is here.
I look at my watch. I want to know exactly what time it is.
I picture every single friend and family member and think:
What are you doing right
this very moment?
I feel a hand on my shoulder. The pretty girl from the restaurant. I think, why
is she touching me? This is Iran. It’s illegal here. I beg the girl to tell me that
this is all a dream. She just looks at me, crying. She is crying more than me.
The paramedics arrive and forcefully remove me from my dad.
They run all sorts of procedures. One of them turns to me and says words I don’t
understand. ‘What does passed away mean?’ I ask. Surely not the same thing as it
means in English. The man’s making no sense, even in Farsi.
‘He’s been gone an hour.’
I beseech them to wake him. It’s
their job
to wake him up. But they place him on
a trolley bed and drape him in a sheet.
◆ ◆ ◆
I notice that the ambulance is a Mercedes. I feel the dashboard. My brother has one
of these. Bigger than this one. He moves furniture in it; I’ve helped him many times.
I wonder what it would be like to drive a van with a dead body in it. I start mumbling
something about how I drive a van just like this back in Australia. How Dad actually
bought it for my brother Mohammed, aka Moe Greene, to help him get back on his feet
after a rough divorce.
The driver doesn’t say anything. He just drives, with the siren on. Does this mean
surgeons might save him? Surely something can reverse this, some expensive German
device.
The traffic moves slowly. Don’t people know what an ambulance siren means? I ask
the driver what the time is. He checks his watch. I check mine.
I wait in reception at the hospital. I stand, sit, stand again. I pace up and down.
Remember, this is all just a dream.
It’s now close to midnight. About 6 am back home. I have to call my family and tell
them, but I can’t.
Hey, guys, how’s it going? By the way, Dad’s gone
. I am sure the
doctors will come bearing good news. They will say the paramedics were ill-equipped
to do proper tests.
I pace up to a group of nurses congregating behind the counter. I ask one what the
time is. ‘Are you always this anxious?’ she says.
‘No, I’m not used to seeing my father die, you see,’ I tell her, anxious, not believing
my own words.
‘I know, you are the Australian, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘His body is being examined.’
‘He will be alive in minutes, yes?’
The nurse looks at me closely. ‘Have you got some wires loose?’
‘No,’ I protest. ‘You think I’m crazy, but I’m just thinking of modern medicine.
You see, in Australia, science is a big thing. It can heal people and it can save
people. You can explain life with it.’ I fidget. ‘Do you have the time?’
She is silent for a minute. ‘Get this boy a glass of water,’ she says.
A doctor approaches. He looks a lot older than Dad.
‘Are you the relative of the Australian man?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you to him?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘His eldest son. But he was my father, he was everything.
He was God, I think.’
‘Be careful who you say that to,’ the doctor says. ‘Don’t go saying that to the police
when they interview you, for one thing. I trained in Europe, I know you don’t mean
apostasy, but they can hang you for that.’ He hands me a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve estimated
the time of death.’
‘No.’
‘No? No to what?’
‘No to everything.’
‘Son. We all die. It’s our destiny. I just need you to sign this.’
I look down at the death notice. Am I really doing this? This morning, we were drinking
Coke at a felafel stand.
‘Sorry, doctor,’ I say. ‘Can you sign it for me?’
‘What kind of son are you? Sign it!’ he snaps. ‘Your father deserves this, at the
very least. Now sign it, damn it!’
I look at the paper and something inside me wakes up. The doctor’s words echo.
I
must take care of him after his death
. When the doctor hands me a pen, I take it
and sign the sheet.
◆ ◆ ◆
Time has stopped, but my watch keeps ticking. I’m still in reception at the hospital.
I finally call my younger brother, Ali.
‘Hey. How’s Iran going?’ he asks me. ‘It’s Sunday morning here.’
‘Yeah, I’m good. Iran’s good. It’s Saturday night here. Hey, sorry if I’m disturbing
you.’
‘No, I’m on the way to work.’ Ali works early on Sundays. ‘Running late, actually.’
‘That’s no good, running late is never good, I’m always running late,’ I say. ‘Hey,
listen, if you’re driving, just pull over for a second.’
A long pause.
‘Go on,’ he says.
‘Okay, so I think Dad’s not in a good situation. He had a heart attack and died.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think he’s not alive anymore.’
‘No, man.’ He softly exhales.
His
no
echoes like a soundtrack from a horror movie.
‘It’s pretty much a hundred per cent. Sorry, bro, I think it’s real,’ I whisper.
‘No, man! What about the doctors? People have heart attacks all the time. He’s only
fifty.’
‘I have a police interview, then I have to see what the procedure is to bring him
home. None of this “bury him in Iraq” and “Iraq is holy ground” bullshit. Okay?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ I don’t know if he gets it. ‘Sure, bro. Are you in Qom?’
‘Mashhad.’
‘But it’s freezing there now, no? It’s crowded. Are you going to get things done?’
‘Yes to your last question. I think it’s cold to your first. Listen, I have to bring
him back in the next few days, my visa’s gonna expire. Shit, can you hear me talk
about Dad like this? Ali, do not tell anyone. Do not tell a soul. Don’t tell Mum.
Not yet. Let me finish the procedures here. There could be a few hurdles.’
I hang up and sit down. I watch the wall clock ticking.
Two hours later, it’s still ticking. I’ve never noticed the white fluorescent lights
at a hospital like this before. They are super bright. An officer in military uniform
greets me. He invites me to an interview room in another part of the hospital. He’s
eating a submarine sandwich. He says a detective is on his way.
He squeezes out his condolences. He assures me it’s just procedure. Since Dad is
a foreigner, they want it done by the book.
They’ve also learned that Dad is the head cleric in Melbourne, and a representative
of the major scholars of Iran. So they’re taking extra caution, to avoid the local
media out of respect. He ushers me into the interview room and tells me to sit down.
‘Wherever you’re comfortable,’ he says.
I look around. There’s a table and a large chair, probably for the officer, and two
smaller wooden chairs. They’re identical. I do eeny, meeny, miny, moe and pick one.
I can’t believe my brain is doing this.
The officer bites through his sandwich, salad hanging out of his mouth. He’s overweight.
Through his thick lenses, I can’t quite see his eyes.
He lectures me about burying Dad next to Imam Reza. ‘Mashhad is a holy ground. It
is of great fortune for your father to have died not only on this sacred land, but
during the memorial of the great imam’s death as well.’
‘Thank you for the offer,’ I say, ‘but I have to inform you I’ll be taking Dad to
be buried back where his family lives.’
The officer chews through his submarine like a wild mule. He talks with his mouth
full. ‘Listen carefully, son. There’s a few things you’ll have to do to get your
father out of here.’ I brace for a litany of tasks. ‘There’s a lot of things to do,’
he repeats, vaguely. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue. We don’t have many of these cases.’
‘How long do you think the procedure will take?’ I ask him. ‘My visa expires next
Saturday.’
‘What are we now, Saturday? It’ll be touch and go. You’ll have to get it extended.’
‘I already have,’ I say. ‘I’m not allowed another one.’
‘Yeah, sorry,’ he says. ‘Just try and get everything done as fast as you can. Okay,
I want you to write. Can you write?’
‘Yes.’
‘In Farsi?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I knew that was what he meant.
‘Good boy,’ he says. ‘Write down all the events. Right up until your discovery of
the deceased. What you did this morning, all that. We can use this as your statement,
so be detailed.’