Tehran
TEHRAN
Now
December. Her planned visit to is a much-needed escape. No one cares about Rob Grayson there. The whole UK publishing industry means nothing there either.
While Shirin would not say she has a strong connection to Iran—having lived in England all her life—it is her maman bozorg that she associates with the country. There is nothing Shirin relishes more than sitting next to her grandmother while she speaks about the universe and Allah’s love, imparting calm wisdom and grounding guidance. Iran is special to Shirin solely because it is where her maman bozorg is.
She takes a direct flight from Heathrow Airport to via Iran Air. At the airport she takes a picture of her ticket and passport and posts it as an Instagram story with the caption Goodbye . When she is in Itsu getting a preflight snack, Kian replies to it:
@KianRahimi: Sick—I didn’t know you were going. I hope you have a great trip
Initially, her stomach flips at seeing his name. There’s a lightness within her as she reads and then rereads the message, at the possibility of it, though this is soon followed by a hollow gnawing in the pit of her. It doesn’t change anything.
She has no right to be jealous that he is seeing someone, but she is. They have not spoken much since the night at hers. They sometimes message, though she is cautious not to entertain the conversation for too long. He asks her how she is and Shirin always says she is great, even though she is tearful most of the time and is constantly thinking: I want to die. Though she does not actually want to die, she doesn’t think. She just wants things to be different.
She would like to reply, but she only hearts his message. It’s simpler this way. She cannot help but think how seeing Kian again, though, revived something within her. She hadn’t realized how muted her life had been, how she had been living life on autopilot, until his arrival. And now, just like that, the door was closed, because she was too afraid to say how she really felt. She pushes such thoughts from the back of her mind because nothing can be changed now.
The plane is loud, with Iranians shouting across their seats to each other, some laughing, others arguing. There is always a buzz on planes to Iran; it is unlike any other flight she has been on. The familiarity of the language they are speaking, combined with quite how fussy her people are, makes it both a stressful and humorous experience.
Two women, one next to her and the other in the row behind, get into an argument because the lady in front leaned her chair back, and the one behind asked her to pull it back up. Shirin cannot help but think if they were English they would be more passive-aggressive in their response. Perhaps the person next to her would do as asked but grumble about it.
But instead the woman says, “No, I don’t want to.”
The woman behind says, “Fine,” before turning to the person next to her and saying loudly, “Some people are so selfish. I’m not going to be able to sleep a wink because of this khar.” Donkey.
Shirin is not sure what happens next, as she puts her headphones in and cranks the volume up. Each time she shuts her eyes, though, she’s taken back to Hull, to North Oak. It wasn’t like this before she saw Kian back in the summer; he’s awakened a time she’d buried in her mind. She lets her thoughts wander to what would have happened if she had never met Rob, if he’d gone to another school. Kian wouldn’t have been suspended and forced to go to a different college. They wouldn’t have been forbidden to speak to each other. She wouldn’t have said the things she said to Kian—ugly, untrue words that she wishes now she could take back, but alas. Their lives would be different.
Six hours later they are informed that the plane is about to land. The women who do not already have their hijabs on get them out of their bags and begin to put them on themselves and their young daughters. Shirin gets hers out of her backpack. It is a navy cotton-polyester blend. She has patterned ones in her suitcase but made the decision to be subtle when going through security. Her mother always warned her, before flying to , that it’s not good to stand out in airport security. That if they saw her British passport they might take it away, as they don’t believe in dual citizenship, leaving her stranded in Iran.
Passing security, however, is smoother than she’s built it up to be. She is not even asked why she is visiting. She only shows her Iranian passport, keeping her British one safely tucked away in her backpack’s inside compartment.
Once she retrieves her suitcase, Shirin scans the people waiting at arrivals. She sees a group with red roses, even balloons, waving toward her. Her heart skitters, she looks down, briefly embarrassed, until she realizes she does not recognize any of them and that they are waving at the woman behind her. She shoves her hands into her coat pockets, gazing ahead, trying to find her mother’s face. She cannot see her. After five minutes of waiting she perches on a nearby bench and attempts, unsuccessfully, to log onto the airport’s Wi-Fi. She keeps trying, even though it is clearly not going to happen. She went to the toilet on the airplane because she cannot bear to use an Iranian squat toilet—especially a public one. But because she knows she cannot use any nearby toilet, she now feels as though she needs to go. She crosses her legs and gives a heavy, prolonged sigh.
Twenty minutes later her mother arrives, tapping Shirin on her shoulder from behind, jolting her into awareness. She gives a string of halfhearted apologies, blaming everything from traffic, to parking, to Shirin being early (she wasn’t), to the airport being too big and getting lost.
“Don’t worry,” Shirin says, hugging her mum. It is only when she is next to her mother that she realizes how petite she is. From a distance she has a real presence about her, which makes her appear much taller than she is.
Her mother wears her hijab loose on her head, the top of her hair marginally showing. This is not her mother bending the rules, as many in Iran do, but likely because it is the dead of night and her mother has rushed over to the airport. She wears a long monto that falls above her ankles, and Shirin can just about see the black leggings she is wearing underneath. Her mother is slender; she is habitually on a diet, which she habitually breaks, continuing a cycle of cheat days and restriction. Her face, though, looks a lot more relaxed compared to the last time Shirin saw her in person.
Shirin is led to the car, a white Fiat that has seen better days. The inside is clean, however, with brightly colored cushions on each seat. Her mother puts the heater on, and initially it blows out only cold air.
“It just needs a minute to warm up,” her mother says, pulling out of the parking spot. “Did you have a good flight? No one bother you?”
“It went smoothly, thanks.”
Silence drags between them. She loves her mother, but she has nothing to say to her. Shirin has always been hyperaware of what people want from her, what kinds of conversations she should have with the different people in her life. There is nothing she dreads more than being considered boring or uninteresting. So, knowing that any life update she gives her mum will not pique her interest, she assumes silence is better.
“Thanks for collecting me,” she eventually says.
“Of course. Remember, though, no one but your maman bozorg and aunt know about the divorce, so if anyone asks, he couldn’t take time off work to be here.” Her mum sighs heavily. It is like the sigh pushes her mother’s worries onto Shirin. She can feel them heavy inside her now, and instead of telling her mother how she is feeling—her own struggles—she stacks her mother’s troubles atop her own.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” A pause. “When do you think you’re going to tell people?”
They slip onto the motorway, her mum’s car audibly straining in its attempts to go more than 65 kph. Shirin looks to her mother, sees the way her lips are pursed, the curves of her eyebrows.
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to get through one day at a time. There’s a lot going on here, you know. I’m glad I’m here to help Maman Bozorg. I think now that’s all that matters.” Her words are cagey, alluding to something. This is something her mother often does. She knows Shirin will prod. How can she not?
“What do you mean? What’s going on?” Her mind jumps to the worst-case scenarios: cancer. Terminal illness. Death.
“Your grandma’s carer.” She shakes her head before indicating to change lanes. Even so late at night the highway is busy, with cars cramming together, not following the three lanes but creating five, sometimes six. Driving in lacks rules—you need to be comfortable with constant near misses and the occasional bump to your car. “We fired her.”
“Why?”
Maman Bozorg always has issues with her live-in carers. She says they are unkind to her, and to begin with her complaints were taken seriously, but after a while the family concluded that Maman Bozorg craved attention due to her loneliness. It is through complaining about her carers that her many children surround her and give her what she needs. She has had five carers in a year, and with each new carer her complaints about them became wilder and wilder. She says they swear at her, they starve her, they do a whole manner of shocking things. The last Shirin heard was that they got a nanny cam installed in the flat, which the current carer is unaware of, that links to Maman Bozorg’s children’s phones.
“It’s horrible, Shirin. Dayi Saman saw the carer bring a man to the house and they began… in the living room.” She mutters what sounds like disgusting under her breath.
“What? Were you both in the house?”
“She was in the next room, asleep. I was away.”
Shirin’s mouth opens involuntarily, but she can think of no words to speak.
“Saman called us all, rushed over, phoned the police, and kicked them both out. Maman says she thinks she was drugged; she remembered feeling so drowsy just before and said she saw figures standing over her—checking if she was asleep.” Her mum shudders. “I’ve not been a good daughter. I was out in Shiraz with my friends, traveling. I should have been at home with my maman. I’m never where I need to be.”
Shirin agrees with her mum’s last statement. She never is. Even now. Shirin is aware her thoughts are selfish, but it doesn’t make what she feels any less true.
“Is Maman Bozorg okay? What happened to the carer?”
“Yes, she’s fine. We dropped the charges in the end. The carer had separated from her husband but hadn’t yet divorced, and the punishment for what she did with that man would be too much.”
“Death penalty?”
Her mum nods. “It’s ridiculous. They should be punished, but death is extreme. It means they’re going to be let free because of our goodwill. It’s not fair.”
Shirin is silent.
“Maman Bozorg’s looking forward to seeing you, though. She says you’re her favorite grandchild, even in front of her other grandchildren,” her mum continues, smiling now.
They are in the city. They pass grand murals of important figures, elaborate graffiti proclaiming “Death to America,” with the American flag bleeding. Shirin’s head strains to get a good look at them as they speed on by.
She checks her phone. No messages. It is always difficult to get Wi-Fi when she visits. Eventually they make it to the only street in that Shirin knows like the back of her hand: Maman Bozorg’s street. It is narrow, with grand mismatched gates, each one a different style, some tall and black metal, others low, white, and wooden with gold accents. Her mother parks over the pedestrian path, close to the front door.
Maman Bozorg lives in a large house that’s been converted into flats. Once they get past the electric gate they walk up the smooth white steps and two flights of stairs. Next to every flat’s front door are shoes, an insight into the people who live in each apartment.
They enter the apartment quietly, but it is unnecessary, for Maman Bozorg is awake. She is a short but large woman. She unsteadily pads over to Shirin, grabs her in a very powerful headlock hug, and kisses her head.
“Shirin, I’ve missed you so much, my love,” Maman Bozorg exclaims. They speak in Farsi.
“Hello, Maman Bozorg,” Shirin says.
“Do you want tea or something to eat? I got some fresh pastries from the bakery.”
“It’s bedtime, Maman,” her mum says, her hand lightly placed on Maman Bozorg’s back. “We can have all of this in the morning.”
Shirin retrieves from her suitcase the various diabetes medications she has brought with her from England, because her family struggles to get them due to the sanctions against Iran, and places them on the side table for her grandmother. The apartment has tiled floors running through each room, Persian carpets laid on top of each other in the living areas. Maman Bozorg insists that Shirin sleep in her bed and she sleep on the futon on the floor of Shirin’s mother’s bedroom. They argue about this for a long while, Maman Bozorg’s taarofing getting more and more extravagant, in which she insists that she prefers the futon to the bed, as her bed hurts her back. Shirin lies, saying she prefers the futon because she feels closer to the earth that way. She has never in her life considered that she would prefer to be closer to the earth when she sleeps.
In the end, Shirin wins and Maman Bozorg relents. The futon is not so bad. Her mother’s nighttime habits, however, are not conducive to easy sleep. She’s forgotten how her mum listens to an Iranian psychologist’s YouTube channel every night to sleep. Even though her mum puts her headphones in to listen to him, Shirin can still hear his voice and cannot sleep from the light coming from the phone, the brightness on maximum. Then, just a few hours later, she is woken once more by her mum getting up to pray.
“I’m speaking to Allah, Shirin,” her mum retorts to her groans.
“Well, yeah, but could you not turn the light on to do it?” she snaps.
After she says this, she is certain she will be going to hell when she dies.