“Shahram jan, beedar sho!, Shahram?”. Those were my dad’s words trying to wake me up from a light sleep that I was in. I couldn’t believe that I had actually fallen asleep after the news that my dad had given me hours earlier. I had known for a while that I would be leaving Iran with the help of smugglers at some point after my mom, younger brother and sister had left Iran, but never thought the day would actually come. My dad had surprised me with the news and I didn’t know how to feel. My emotions were an unusual combination of happiness, sadness, and absolute fear.
The thought of leaving my dad created the most intense sadness in every cell of my body that I cannot describe even if I wrote an encyclopedia on it. Life had been excruciatingly hard for both of us after my Mom and siblings had left Iran, but we shared that pain and that alone made it easier for us to deal with together. My dad and I often went to places together where we had memories of our family as a whole and either my dad or I would talk about the extremely funny things that my brother Shahrokh did, or the sweet words that my sister Mahrokh said or my Mom’s delicious cooking. That’s how we made it through those difficult times together, by reminiscing about the past. Father and son, had become friends who shared a very overwhelming deep sadness. And now I was worried for my dad. Who would be there for him when I was gone? Who could he talk to when he needed to? There really was no one else, because everyone from friends and extended family had cut all contact with us, since my dad’s arrest and fallout with the Iranian government. After my Mom and siblings had left, I used to hate to come to our empty apartment but the thought that my dad would be coming home later, made it easier on me. And now I pictured him coming to an empty apartment and no one coming home to keep him company or busy. The mental image of it was so painful that I did not want to think of it.
And then there was this fear about the unknown. It was all mental images, thinking of all the stories I had heard in gatherings throughout my teen years in Iran, of people trying to escape Iran by paying smugglers. I remembered very few success stories, or maybe by nature I had only remembered the ones that had ended in tragedy. The one that played in my head that night over and over again was the story of a young man whose family had paid smugglers to help him escape over the Iranian border to Pakistan. He had been murdered and decapitated in the mountains by the fake smugglers after the money had been paid by the family back in the city. His family could not even use the Iranian justice system (a disgrace to the word justice) to prosecute the people involved because they themselves would be prosecuted for aiding their son to escape the country and deserting mandatory military service during the war.
And I thought to myself, even if I succeeded, it might come at the cost of my dad’s life. The government could not prove anything about him being a CIA spy but that didn’t mean that they weren’t watching his every move anymore. What if they used my desertion of the army and the fact that he had helped me escape, as an excuse to execute him like tens and thousands of other Iranians that they butchered over their reign of terror since the Islamic Revolution? How could I live the rest of my life with the guilt of having caused the death of my father?
And then there was the joyous scenario where I would finally see my Mom and siblings again. I imagined holding them so tight and not ever wanting to let go and crying with joy and savoring the moment. I had promised myself soon after they were gone, that I would not take any moment with them for granted ever again and I hoped that I could keep that promise to myself if I did make it there.
The tears running down my face brought me back to reality and in search of some Kleenex but my blanket had to do the job. I didn’t want my dad to see me cry because he was already worried enough and I sure did not want to add to his mountain of pain and sadness. After he had given me the news about my departure on that cold December 15th 1991 night, we had both gone to our rooms to “prepare”. He had given me instructions as what to pack for the trek and I was following his instructions. My little over the shoulder bag was very small and could only fit the few warm items of clothing that my dad had recently bought for the purpose of this trip. I looked around my room, at all my belongings that I could not take with me. Everything I looked at had some sort of special significance to me. Oh, how much I would miss my large Spider-Man collection that was probably worth a lot of money too! Everything was a part of my memories and my identity, a part of my childhood and teenage years. But I had to leave it all behind and in a way, that night I was leaving behind a huge part of me and who I was.
My dad’s voice brought me back to the present, when he came in the room and gave me some money to hide on me, just in case I needed it. It was money for the "in case of emergency" situations, he explained but didn’t specify. Well, that made my wild imagination take off again picturing myself in all different kinds of dilemmas where I would need to use this “emergency” money. But before I could get too absorbed in my thoughts, my dad reminded me that we had to leave soon so I better get ready fast. I put on the clothes that was picked out specifically for this trip and I looked at myself in the mirror and for a moment didn’t believe that this was really happening. I felt like I was in a dream. Can this really be happening? Am I really leaving the place I call home?
Eventually when we quietly got to the open parking area of our Condo to get to our car, the cold winter air of my beloved city Tehran, took away any doubts that I had about whether this was a dream or reality. My dad started our white Peikan, while I quietly opened the large metal gates of our parking, making sure the clanking of the metal parts did not wake up our neighbours. It was quiet unusual for us to be leaving at that odd hour in the middle of the night so I am sure if any one of our neighbours heard us, it would raise their suspicions and maybe even force them to come out and question us about what is going on. My dad backed out as quietly as possible and kept the car lights off. Once he got onto the street I closed the tall brown metal gates and very quietly clicked the lock into place. My hands hesitated from removing themselves from the gate as if I wanted to remember how it felt, recording its feeling with my sense of touch . I slowly stepped back and looked at our whole building. I felt this immense sadness come over me in an instance and I wanted to burst out crying for having to do this. I loved this house and the many memories in it. Fighting the huge lump in my throat from doing what it wanted to do, I took a deep breath and whispered under my breath and said goodbye to my home: “Khodahafez khone. Khodahafez”.
July 11th 2011
