Under a Papery Roof: Excerpts from a Memoir about Life
in Post-Revolutionary Iran and Exile
by Panteha Sanati

I climb the steep stairs all the way to the top of the house, where my grandfather’s unmistakably sweet body odor points me right to his sewing room. He stands behind his heavy workbench, humming to his transistor radio. When he looks at me from atop his reading glasses, he says “You came baba jon!” as if he was expecting me. Then he picks up one of his ancient, hissing irons that suffuses the room with a smell like a wet animal. Pressing down on a freshly bowed lapel, he scorches it to submission around the collar of a newly-sewn jacket. He always receives me sweetly and tells me stories about his days as an athlete in zoor-khaneh, a traditional house of power strictly prohibited to women or a woman’s breath. The zoor-khaneh is more a social sanctuary than a gym. Here, the mentors specialize in molding the virile Muslim flesh, while honing the Muslim mind and character to reach the pinnacle of Islamic spirituality to the tune of ancient folk stories, epic poems and Islamic chants.

*

Up here, strewn about on my grandfather’s heavy work bench, are fabric chalks in pastel shades of blue, pink, and yellow. I play with the chalks, feeling their perfectly smooth and shiny edges. Like clay, they feel cool to the touch. Hiding behind giant rolls of wool and cashmere, I cautiously touch the whittled-down pieces of chalk to my tongue to see if they taste as good as they look. When Agha-joon (my grandfather) clears his throat, I am posing in the dressing room, facing a tall mirror shrouded behind an improvised curtain. This mirror assumes the position of a modest and trusted keeper of secrets to all the shockingly bare body parts and the inadvertent revelation of physical imperfections on the bodies of clients and family members.

At noon-time, when his glasses barely hang on the tip of his nose—and when I have amassed a choice selection of fabric scraps for Barbie—Aziz, my grandmother, calls to Agha-joon all the way from the ground floor. Her voice has a pitch far too inferior for a woman of her size and comportment. “Sanate, Sanate,” she calls her husband by his last name—as is customary among older women—unwittingly, habitually, and vocally reducing their decades of marital commitment and affection to a mere domestic and socioeconomic union of necessity. But she loves him very much and her devotion to him is evident in the way she so diligently keeps track of his blood sugar and dietary needs.

Agha-joon gets up early and after his morning prayer, heads to the bakery on foot. I always want to go with him, but I never get up early enough. Several minutes later, I hear the buzzer that lets him back into the house. Under his arm with the fading tattoo, Agha-joon has a very warm and crusty, honey colored barbari bread. Playfully, I ambush him, pinching off a piece of bread before he even has a chance to give it to Aziz. Pilfering little bits from the hands of my grandfather is not really about hunger but about testing his patience. Agha-joon is patient, and I already know that about him. So when he pretends that he doesn’t see me spoil the perfect crust of bread, I am elated, like we are bound by a secret tailored for the two of us. Then, what I am really walking away with is not the bread in my hand, but something warm and soft in my heart, something I hunger for far more ravenously than sustenance.

(Post Revolution)

Back in Tehran, time beats to a different rhythm. Economic sanctions have caused a shortage of food and fuel. The government starts issuing rationed coupons for gasoline, milk, rice, cooking oil, flour, sugar and other necessities, based on the number of people in each family. Grocery lines get longer and longer. There is always a limit on how much of each item you can purchase. Meat, poultry and fish become so expensive that many people cannot afford them. Fights break out in the bread line because there is a limit on how much the bakery can produce and how much people can purchase.

Other scarce necessities are warm water, hygiene products, machine parts and electronics. People huddle in one heated room in the house. Cars, electronics and everything else around them gets old and decrepit. Unless they have the money or know someone to supply black market goods or illegal imports, they are stuck using what little there is. It is as if sanctions tarnish the city, obscuring its previous shimmer. There is only one domestic shampoo and soap product, for instance. After the imported goods stop pouring in, even those items are very hard to come by. A dwindling, poor economy is beginning to take its toll on people who are already destitute.

On the first day of school, my Farsi teacher tells us to cross out some lessons from our literature book. She doesn’t really say why we have to do this. Perhaps she believes in the cause, or maybe gives in to it for the sake of saving her job. I know that I am writing ‘delete’ in Farsi on the corner of certain pages because of the revolution. I don’t know that Khomeini’s regime finds certain lessons threatening to their ideology. In the little anthology I call my Farsi book, there is a story which teaches me about the daily operations of a post office and the reason for using stamps. The stamps, strewn about above the text, bear the picture of Shah, so I write ‘delete’ on the top of that story and any other story that exudes the slightest hint of the previous regime’s miasma. We keep The Sacrificing Shepherd and the very first lesson. The first lesson talks about being one year older and how we should be a good influence on the second graders, and how we should be patient, kind, and respectful to others.

I am older and I have spotted a pair of shoes that will make me look very mature. My father refuses to buy them for me. He says I must wear my other shoes until they have holes in them. I cry and beg my mother to intervene, but I don’t want to push the matter any further because when my mother appeals to my father, he will yell or even hit her. Once when she asked him to buy me a new school bag because the latch on the old one was broken, they fought and he hit her. So I stop asking for the new shoes. Instead, I stuff the tips of my mother’s lace-up shoes and wear them to school. They look very grown up, but they hurt my feet when I walk home. This reminds me of how my mother describes her marital life. She says, “When people notice a pretty pair of shoes on your feet, they say ‘how nice!’ They can’t imagine how badly those shoes really hurt your feet.”

The entire nation is enduring a hidden pain by this time. The new regime has collapsed the secular sinew of the country. Islamic conservatism has erected itself on the corpse of modernization, labeling the remaining cadaver “westoxificated” to justify its own purpose and establishment. The Shah of Iran was not the most benevolent king, nor was he the bravest leader. But both he and his father, Reza Shah, were steering Iran toward progress that, one day, could have led to a more independent Iran. An Iran that could afford to drill its own oil, refine its own petroleum and transport its own imports to financial autonomy on roads that were paved, both physically and figuratively. The new regime began to devastate the already suffering economy, and when desperate for revenue, it auctioned off national assets of oil and copper with an apathy suitable for a garage sale.

The “Spring of Freedom” is a term coined to forcefully impose the rhetoric of Islamic nationalism into the secular Persian tradition of vernal celebration. With the “Spring of Freedom,” the country starts a physical and ideological conversion. Khomeini’s particular brand of republic is the kind of authoritarian leadership that permeates and infuses all aspects of the individual’s life with Islamic fundamentalism. The midnight picnics in the park and the sounds of music and laughter from people’s homes and cars are replaced with melancholic faces and the constant recitation of the Koran. The drabness of the clothing is reflected in the mood of the people who wear it. Emotional ennui is apparent in the doldrums of everyday coexistence with a life tainted with continuous struggle. Survival in Iran requires mandatory adaptation to the barefaced absence of normalcy and security. Life in Iran demands the ceaseless adjustment to ubiquitous chaos and intimidation.

The Islamic clergy condemn capitalism and refute usury as a sin. In the aftermath of the revolution, however, they take charge of all economic affairs of the country. Islam, by its very ideological essence and in accordance with its micro-view of wealth and possession, is opposed to a style of life that encourages the coveting and acquisition of anything beyond simple material goods, shelter or sustenance. But even a theocratic government must burden itself with matters of national economy to ensure its survival. So, after usurping economical authority, the regime sets out to cleanse Iran of its “heathens”—liberal government officials, corrupt college professors, and filthy non-Muslims. Their method: coercion of fundamentalist ideology and the forceful practice of Islam.

Whomever was left of the old government officials was quickly replaced. The new government knew that the subversive strata of university staff and students were partly responsible for the revolution. Gradually and cautiously, as to not awaken mass suspicion or opposition, they replaced university professors or made their lives so difficult that they left on their own accord. Non-Muslims were murdered, tortured and executed with trumped-up charges. A few lucky ones were able to escape the keen eye of the hunter. In order to carry out these atrocities, the government used a small group of uneducated and impoverished youths equipped with enough violent tendencies and resentment toward the wealthy to carry out their contempt. Delinquents and crooks became indoctrinated as the government’s new ruling class. The remaining majority of the population, aware of and immune to the hypocrisy of the new regime, were coerced to look as if they had accepted the forceful arms of Islam into every aspect of their lives. Their appearance, habits and attitudes toward their daily work routine reflected this coercion.

Regressive Islamic ideas wrapped women’s bodies in the dark garb of modesty because flesh, hair, makeup and bright colors are considered provocative to men. A proper Muslim woman is stoic and stern; she never sings, dances or even laughs in public. A proper Muslim man does not shave or wear his shirt tucked into his pants, nor does he wear a tie to mimic western fashion or culture. And all devout Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan. They cry and flagellate themselves bloody during the month of Moharram which, to this day, commemorates the death of apostle Ali with a disturbingly violent zeal in public. Fanatic followers of Islam, such as the Iranian government, embrace asperity during existence and martyrdom as the choice method to end existence. Martyrdom is believed to be the way of extricating oneself from sin and guilt and paving the way to salvation. Even inside the home, an obedient Muslim should not listen to music, look at western images, drink alcohol, talk to na-mahram men, eat pork or gamble.

Esoteric and archaic interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence are now being forced upon all individuals. Even after all the schools in the country become segregated by sex, my principal diligently checks the tightness of every trouser, the length of every coat, and the rosiness of every cheek, to make sure that all the girls comply with the new rules. I get sent to the principal’s office one day because I dare to remove my scarf and comb my itchy scalp. My Arabic teacher, the self-professed guardian of Islam and the gates of heaven, tells me that I am defiant and must be punished, even when I insist that there are no male bodies within kilometers of us.

We move again; I leave Farnaz and Neda behind for good. I try to call them, but, very often, the phones and electricity are out. When Iraq lets their bombs rain on us a few more times, I am afraid to call my friends. Or maybe I am just afraid that I will not hear my friend’s voice again; so I decide to keep them alive in my mind. Just last week, when a six year old was having a birthday slumber party, Iraqi bombs tore the silence and killed all the kids in their sleep. I wonder about the last thing they heard before they died. I imagine their smiles and the spaces between their newly-sprouting teeth. For sure I am not calling my friends now. I tell myself they are fine. They are alive. Just like me.

When we visit Aziz at her house this time, I notice something different about her street. The plastic soccer balls are motionless and the aroma of spices has given way to the frigid draft of grief and mourning. The walls of the little alleyways in Ghasre Dasht are filled with pictures of dead soldiers. Inside courtyards and above the mantles of many houses, there are pictures of young men who perished in the war, many of whom were too young to grow facial hair. Some of their pictures are embraced by black ribbons, some with fresh wreaths of carnations. Some images are just hanging on the empty wall; somber. Silent. When Aziz tells us about the death of her friend’s son, I don’t know what to do or how to act. I think I know what death is, but I try to avoid that friend when we see her on the street. I don’t know what to say, and I am afraid to make a fool of myself. I am worried that if I see the mother of the dead boy, I might somehow incite her despair and send her sorrow back to the surface of the moment.

Agha-joon has wasted his talent on a brand new uniform for my new school in Ershad. Brown pants and a matching mantow with delicate pleats on the sleeves. I make a new friend at Hadaf, my new school. In the morning we hail our new leader, Imam Khomeini. Then, the woman behind the microphone talks about Islam and how we could all become exemplary Muslims if we do well in our Arabic classes and read the Koran. All I can see of her are her two green eyes peering through the narrow opening of her black chador (the garb which covers all but the face of women). When I am older, I wonder if her world-view suffered from the same confinement.

I know that our departure is approaching because these days, even my father is nervous. One evening he comes home and after my mother and he rummage through the closet in their bedroom, they come out with their arms full of photographs. I beg my mom to let me see the photographs before she and my father burn them in the fireplace. Unsure if she can trust my judgment at twelve, she says, “You can see them, but you cannot breathe a word of this to anyone, however tempting it may be to brag about.” Scattered below the sooty mouth of the fireplace lay small and large black and white photos, taken before my father was married. In one photograph, my father is wearing his army uniform, kissing the hand of Shah during some award ceremony. What was previously a memento attesting to my father’s pride and selflessness is now, even in paper form, potent enough evidence to send him to execution. Like a wise keeper of secrets, the fireplace swallows any and all evidence tying my father to the shah and his army of servicemen. The flames devour any tangible trace of his history.

One evening, still feeling vulnerable to a Hezb-o-llahi raid, my father brings home a semi-automatic weapon wrapped in sheets that they hide somewhere within the untouchable abyss of a closet. I find out what that item is because when my parents hide the ‘cheese’ in the back seat of the car to transport it, I feel its hard surface beneath the sheets. I run my hand along its angry contour, and when I feel the end, I stick my index finger in its barrel. I have seen many guns like that on the street since the revolution began. When the forces prevailed over Shah’s regime, the militia in the streets used their J3s as vases and stuck red and white carnations into their barrels. A sign of their zeal and joy for the Ayatollah. But those same guns sent thousands of Iranians to the morgue and this time, the flowers ended up on the cold surfaces of an ocean of tombstones.

Our affairs are somewhat in order to leave Iran, except that there is no sign of that readiness in the house. My father tells us that we should take the minimum amount of clothing for two reasons. One, we may not succeed to get a visa to America, and two, we do not want to arouse any suspicions as to the length of our trip. So my suitcase is filled with memories, a few pieces of clothing, and small childhood treasures. Like my green toy soldier who poses to shoot with a rifle, the tip of which is permanently curved because I squeeze him next to a bottle of cologne shaped like a small pinecone inside a film canister. I don’t know why I have kept these items so near and dear to my heart, but my affinity for them sets a precedence over all other toys. I snagged the small pinecone bottle when my parents returned home after a three-month European journey. That scent reminded me of their embrace, and the little green toy soldier with his feet planted in a puddle of the same green plastic was the keeper of my sexual indiscretions, as he lent his handsome profile for my kissing practices—his head so small, it fit between my lips. Lodged between my lips or not, my plastic hero was always prepared to defend something, or someone, and maybe more than any sexual fantasy, I cherished the unrelenting protection he offered symbolically frozen in his poise.

A few afternoons before we leave Iran, my mother asks the local jeweler to convert a few small pieces of gold into more subtle items for more easy and inconspicuous transportation. By this time, the country is in the midst of a financial hemorrhage and the government has issued mandates on how much currency or jewelry people can take out of the country. Ultimately, Khomeini’s ending exile has meant the beginning of exile for millions of Iranians, and with those millions of people leaves millions of Tomans (the Iranian currency) and dollars, exasperating Iran’s diminishing wealth and capital. Some, I hear, even resort to hiding their money and valuables in their children’s diapers, because all women and their body parts are subject to search by the Hezb-o-llahi “sisters” crowding the checkpoints like ravenous crows, agog to find some reason to incriminate innocent people with the charge of treason and to prevent them from escaping the hell in which they are thriving. Those intense moments in Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport, where anyone is at the mercy of fanatics, still send currents of anxiety and fear through my body every time I travel.

I am always looking over my shoulder.

*

On a warm summer day, my mother, two sisters and I leave our house as if we are going on a day trip, our hopes of finding a guardian country just as evanescent. We say goodbye to my weeping aunt Mina’s little girl, cousins, uncles, my grandparents, and a discreet few who will not divulge our departure to whomever is not supposed to know of it. I do not known then that I will never have the chance to spend time with Mamani next to her indoor paradise again or that I will never get to see newborn cousins. I do not know that these will be my last images of Iran for many years to come.

© 2008 prickofthespindle.com