A Beginner's Guide to Acting English Read online

  She meant me and Peyvand when she said 'my children'.

  Maman rolled her eyes and smiled. 'Don't be silly, Maman! We are not moving for ever! We will be back, Hadi's work is here.'

  But there was no consoling Maman Shamsi. All the young people wanted to go to kharej and why shouldn't they? A few years abroad gave them more opportunities when they returned to Iran. Being able to speak English or French was important. All the educated people spoke one or the other. Perhaps it was because Fatemeh was her eldest or perhaps it was because her husband was such a high-flyer with such a successful career that Maman Shamsi worried for her sweet, gentle Fatemeh. She buttered her bread and shook her head. 'You're taking my children away, God keep you, God keep you. It's all in His hands now.'

  Maman Shamsi trusted God and put everything in his hands.

  'Enshallah!' was her answer whenever you asked her something.

  'Are we going to the hammam today?'

  'Enshallah.' If it is God's will. I never saw a reason why God might want to stop us going to the baths.

  One summer evening, years before I was born, Maman Shamsi and her family were sleeping on the roof. The summers were too hot to sleep indoors so the whole neighbourhood carried bundles of bedding to the roofs of their houses and slept under the stars. The children all loved it. Fatemeh was sure that the roof was more comfortable than the floor of the rooms they slept in inside. 'It's just because you're excited,' Baba Mokhtar told her. 'Floors seem softer when you're excited to be sleeping there. By the end of the summer you'll be complaining of backache.'

  Mehdi was only a few weeks old but he was a good baby and adjusted well to his first night sleeping outdoors. Just before dawn, just as the cockerels were warming up for their dawn chorus, the earthquake hit. Roofs came tumbling down.

  Baba Mokhtar was trying to calm his family. The building was shaking too much for them to get to the door and get out of the house; it could fall on them before they made it to the street outside. The family stood and saw neighbours scream as they fell through their houses, a ton of rubble falling on top of them. Maman Shamsi ran to the edge of the roof and held her newborn out over the ledge. Only God could save him. She was going to entrust her baby to the prophet Abolfaz. 'Catch him, oh Abolfaz! Catch my baby!' she shouted.

  'I don't know how I managed to get to the baby in time.' Maman told me the story at least three times a year. 'I was on the other side of the roof, pinned to the wall, the roof was shaking so much I couldn't move. I somehow got there and grabbed the baby before she dropped him.'

  Maman shook her head at her mother's old-fashioned earthquake survival techniques. 'Why, of all the prophets, did she call upon Abolfaz? Abolfaz was killed in battle, he was so badly injured they say they chopped off his arms. How on earth was he meant to catch the baby? There are plenty of able-bodied prophets she could have called.'

  Maman Shamsi, however, was adamant that Abolfaz, with or without arms, had shoved Fatemeh hard enough to get her to the edge of the roof in time.

  Maman Shamsi trusted her instincts and her concerns about Maman and Baba were all coming true with this trip abroad. 'She'll always be Hadi Khorsandi's wife, she'll never follow her own dreams,' she told Baba Mokhtar, who said that may be so but there was nothing they could do because their daughter was married now and he was not going to interfere with another man's domestic affairs.

  However much my grandparents enjoyed Hadi's articles at the breakfast table, they were not impressed by his fancy career. However clever and funny his articles were, however moving his poetry, they still worried about whether he was the best husband for their eldest daughter. Fati was beautiful and intelligent, intellectually his equal, but she wasn't one of those girls who drank or smoked, not like the literary crowd Baba hung out with. She danced and sang at parties, but she was very reserved, keeping herself a step or two back from the scene. Hadi, on the other hand, well, Hadi was a party animal. This was fine while they were young and in love, but Maman Shamsi had flashes of fear for her daughter's future. Here in Tehran, they could help her with us kids and she wouldn't be on her own when Baba was out drinking vodka and smoking red Marlboros and laughing with pretty girls in miniskirts and beehives.

  Despite his feelings about my father Baba Mokhtar tried to reassure Maman Shamsi. 'Hadi is the most driven man I have ever met. His work is everything to him and that's as it should be for creative types. He has a great sense of duty, though, he feels responsible for everyone's well-being whether they are family or not. He will drive Fatemeh mad, but she will always respect his motives.'

  Maman and Baba came from very different backgrounds. Maman was Tehrani, a city girl, and Baba was a boy from the dahaat, the poor, rural parts of the country where people could rarely educate their children to read and write. Maman Shamsi and Baba Mokhtar could not read or write either but that was typical of their generation. Baba Mokhtar's army wage would have given them a comfortable living if they had had fewer children, but with so many, there was little money to spare after everyone had been fed and clothed.

  Baba Mokhtar and Maman Shamsi believed in allowing their daughters to marry whomever they wanted and so now had to bury their concerns for her deep down inside. It didn't do to interfere with a marriage.

  It was hard to find a husband if your nose was as big as Soltan Bigari's. Soltan was a very able girl, she worked as hard as any man and was cleverer than most men. But what use was all that when she was so plain?

  Poor Soltan. She was already twenty-five, she should have been married and have had several children by now.

  'She can kill a cow by herself, just give her rope and a knife and one-two-three, it's over!' her father boasted in the village in the hope that it might make her more attractive. He could not afford to keep a grown woman. She needed to go to a husband's house now.

  Soltan could not read or write but she was practical. She was a great wit and the most wonderful storyteller, but these were not qualities most men in the dahaat looked for in a wife.

  Her father was worried she would end up toorshideh – overripe. No man would take an overripe woman.

  Ahmad Khorsandi did not mind big noses. His own was quite big, though not, of course, as big as Soltan's. Ahmad was not from the village. He was an educated man, he'd travelled and been a teacher in India. He wrote poems and songs and when he wanted to go back to Iran, he settled in Fari-man because he had relatives there who could find him a wife. He was fifteen years older than Soltan. They married in a simple ceremony. Nobody made too much of a fuss because there was little money and Soltan was plain.

  They worked as labourers on the farms around the village and Soltan's first baby, a boy, died soon after birth. The women in the village told her not to worry, the first child often is taken and she must have more. She gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The twins were small and sickly and died within days. Soltan cried and the women in the village told her she had to have another baby quickly so she would stop feeling sad. Next, Soltan had a baby girl. Ashraf. She had another quickly afterwards, because although she loved her little girl, she wanted sons. The next baby was, praise God, a little boy. They named him Hadi and he was a beautiful chubby, happy little boy who brought great delight to Soltan and Ahmad. Soltan was pregnant again by the time Hadi was a year old and prayed for another little boy just like him. She was only days from giving birth when little Hadi fell ill. He had the measles. They had no money for a doctor; they hoped such a healthy boy would get over them by himself. But Hadi died in Soltan's arms and her heart broke in two. They had buried his tiny body in the village. Her next baby was born. To her great joy, it was another boy. They called him Nasser.

  They had not yet registered Hadi's death. The trip into town was long and expensive and in the dahaat, who would know or care if they did not comply with formalities? Ahmad decided that neither Hadi's death nor Nasser's birth would be registered. Hadi's birth certificate would now be Nasser's. 'If we use Hadi's birth certificate for Nasser, then he c
an go to school a year earlier, get a head start.' Ahmad had had children later in life. Educating them was his priority. If they were educated, they would see more of this world than their little village and they would have choices in life, choices that he had never had.

  So, Nasser was enrolled in school at six years old instead of seven, under his dead brother's name. On his first day, he was called to the front of the class and told to stretch out his hand. His teacher, who was tall and thin and never smiled, grabbed his wrist and struck his palm seven times with her cane for his insolence. 'When I call your name, Khorsandi, you answer me, you do not just sit and ignore your teacher.'

  When the teacher had called out 'Hadi Khorsandi' as she read her register, Nasser had not answered. He remained where he was, eagerly awaiting his own name to be called so he could proudly say 'Present!' as he'd rehearsed at home. He did not know that his name had changed. He thought his name was Nasser; that's what they called him at home. After a few more canings, Soltan and Ahmad decided it was best to call the boy Hadi at home too so the teachers would beat him less often. So Nasser Khorsandi became Hadi Khorsandi.

  Hadi decided he would become a very famous person when he was grown-up so nobody would get his name wrong again.

  'Shaparak! Not four sugars in your tea!'

  I took no notice and watched my sugar cubes dissolve in my little glass of chai for a few seconds before bashing them down with my teaspoon.

  'Leave her be, she likes her tea sweet like me.' Dayee Masood sat cross-legged next to me and put four sugars in his own cup. 'You know,' he bent low to confide in me, 'Aziz puts four sugars in her tea, she's ninety-five and all of her teeth are her own.'

  Aziz was Maman Shamsi's mother. Maman Shamsi called her Aziz like everyone else. I had not noticed her teeth when I had met her. I wouldn't have known if they were real or not unless she took them out and put them in a glass by her bed the way Madar Jaan, my other grandmother, did. Aziz had red hair and a skinny face.

  I knew Aziz had got married when she was nine. I knew that nine was very young to be married because children were nine, but Maman said she married a long time ago when people were very different.

  When Aziz was born, she was promised to a local village man who was twenty-five. He didn't have very much money but he had more than Aziz's family, which was nothing. The local village man had to wait nine whole years for his bride. They finally married when he was thirty-three. The marriage ceremony was performed and she went to live in her husband's house.

  The newly-weds discovered they did not have very much in common so they fought. They fought mostly because the man was angry that his bride preferred to sleep with her dolls rather than with him. 'You are not a child now!' he scolded. 'You are a married woman and have duties you must perform.'

  His bride stuck her tongue out at him and ran into the yard to play hopscotch.

  Aziz would not let her husband near her until, exasperated, he called upon his mother to help. The mother-in-law came and saw that there was no reasoning with her daughter-in-law, so she beat Aziz then tied her to the bed. Then she left her son to show Aziz how to be a good wife.

  Aziz did not get pregnant for a long time, not until she was almost thirteen. She had a son, and the year after that, she had a daughter, Shamsi. Motherhood and marriage did not suit Aziz. She was a strong-willed girl and, despite her husband's patient beatings, she would not be obedient. When Shamsi was only two years old, Aziz ran away to the north and divorced her husband. He had to give her permission to divorce him, which he did because, as he told older family members, 'Why should I keep a wife who doesn't want to stay?'

  'Well, who are we to stand in the way of these modern ways,' his family said. They didn't mind too much. Aziz had never really grown up and so wasn't a very good wife anyway. Besides that, Iranian law stood firmly on the side of her husband. It said that children belonged to their father and if a woman leaves a marriage, she also leaves her children, with no rights to see them again. Aziz's husband had full custody of Shamsi and her brother.

  Aziz went to live in north Iran and married a man who didn't beat her at all and Shamsi didn't see her mother again until she was almost fifteen years old and expecting her own child.

  Shamsi's father raised his son, as was expected.

  'What will you do with the girl?' his family asked him.

  He loved his little daughter Shamsi dearly. She was two years old, fair and chubby and adored her father. But no one expected him to invest time and money in a daughter. Life was a struggle as it was and without her mother, the girl was a burden to him. She would marry as soon as she was old enough and another man would look after her. He sent Shamsi to live with his own mother. She died when Shamsi was four so the Mahjoobis took her in. The Mahjoobis were close friends of the family and were very good people. They cared for Shamsi as though she were their own. She and their own daughter Eteram were raised as sisters and the two girls remained devoted to each other for all their lives.

  The court official looked at the case of little Mokhtar. He was seven years old and Russia was in a time of great famine. His parents had travelled here eight years ago from Iran and until now, although life was a struggle, they had never fallen below the line like this. They had no home, nothing to eat and something had to be done for the sake of their son.

  It was easy to see why it had come to this. His pretty young mother, Mahpareh, needed to find a different husband, a richer man who could see her and little Mokhtar through this hard time. Taghi loved his wife but understood why, for her own survival, she had to divorce him. He was not willing to give up Mokhtar. Losing a wife was one thing, he could find another, but another man raising his son? No man could allow that and still call himself a man. Here, in the stuffy courtroom, he pleaded with the official to let him keep the boy. 'I am poor, it's true,' he told him. 'I am uneducated but I'm a hard worker and I would give up both my eyes in a heartbeat to look after my boy.'

  'I don't doubt it,' the clerk said. 'You would have to give up your eyes because you have nothing else to offer your son.'

  Mahpareh looked at Taghi; he had tried, he had tried so hard to provide for them but if there was no crop, there was no labour and no food. The look of desperation in his eyes almost broke her heart but she had to be strong, she too was desperate. 'Ahmad, let this go, let him come with me,' she begged her husband.

  'Silence, please.' The clerk had made up his mind. 'You both have a strong case,' the man said. 'On the one hand, children need their mothers, especially at such a tender age; however, this is a son, and only a father can teach a son how to become a man. I have concluded that the best thing for all parties is that boy chooses for himself.'

  Mokhtar, who had been playing marbles on the steps of the court, was brought inside. The clerk explained the situation to him. 'You are a very lucky young man. A child in your circumstances is lucky to have just one parent who is willing to take him on; you have two. Both of them could have chosen to put you in a charitable home. The way things are in this part of the country, some might say this would be the most sensible thing to do. They would be released of the burden of providing for you and be free to look after themselves until God takes us out of the desolate situation we are in. But, despite their hunger, they both wish to keep you. So, this is where you have to decide which one of them you wish to be with. Listen very carefully child, do you want to live with your mother or your father?'

  Mokhtar's childhood ended there. Although only seven years old, he lived in a time where children were not spared the details of dire situations and he understood that whichever parent he chose, he would never see the other one again. He stood by the clerk's desk in the courtroom and looked several times from his beautiful, loving mother to his adoring father who were standing at opposite sides of the room, each close to tears and each begging their son with their eyes to go to them.

  'I want to stay with both.'

  The clerk stood up from behind his desk. He had many more cases
to see this morning and had no time for this sort of nonsense.

  'That is not an answer,' he snapped. 'Choose which parent you want and leave my courtroom.'

  Frightened by the authoritative figure glaring at him, Mokhtar looked from his mother to his father, his eyebrows creased in bewilderment until the clerk smacked his pen down hard on the table and shouted at him to 'Choose, boy!' Mokhtar ran to his mother. He turned to look at his father. He stood across the room with big tears silently streaming down his face and so Mokhtar ran to him instead. His mother now sobbed, so he ran back to her. He was just a few paces away from her embrace before he looked at his father again and ran back to him. The little boy was sobbing hard as he took a few steps towards one parent then a few steps back to the other. His mother cried out, 'Stop! We can't do this! We are tearing him in two, he cannot decide! He is just a little boy!'

  Mahpareh went to Mokhtar and crouched down on the floor beside him. She held him to her tenderly and planted kisses all over his face, on his cheeks, his nose. He closed his eyes and wept. She kissed his long wet eyelashes. The taste of his tears on her lips would stay there for ever. She would make the ultimate sacrifice to spare her son the pain of making such a dreadful decision. 'You be a good strong boy and go to your father; he will take care of you, azizam, go to your father.'

  Mokhtar threw his arms around his mother and wept for a moment on her neck. She whispered comforting things in his ear. She told him not to cry. 'You are a man now.' She told him he must always remember that his mother loved him more than anything else in the whole world. His father gently eased the boy's arms from around his mother's neck and, without looking at Mahpareh, led Mokhtar out of the courtroom. Then Mahpareh, in front of the clerk and the other court officials, collapsed on the floor and had to be carried out into the street.