The Enemies Of Happiness

As long as the war kept on, we were going to read happy-ending stories

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The Enemies Of Happiness
by Azarin Sadegh
03-Oct-2011
 

Tehran, Summer 1987

In the first years of war nothing looked like any of the images we’d seen in the movies. Tehran’s trees didn’t grow burnt leaves, or dead dangling legs. The mountains of the north, bordering the city, didn’t vanish behind fuming hurricanes of smoke. The black flock of planes didn’t drop bombs over the shelters where women and children screamed and hopeless men held their heads high to die with dignity or patriotism. An expanding mushroom cloud didn’t rise in the horizon to give us incurable diseases. Every minute, the injured sirens didn’t blast their annoying moaning in the background of our conversations. Hunger didn’t bloat our bellies and we weren’t totally deprived of water, gas, or electricity. The school bells didn’t go silent and Mrs. Principal, unfortunately, didn’t disappear. Our martyrs didn’t look heroic and their photos, displayed on tree trunks, on streetlamps, on crooked walls of abandoned gardens, and on all the windows of Daryani chain of grocery stores, didn’t look clear, as if the picture had been taken a long time ago when war was just a movie or the half a book title, and death still seemed like something unimaginable.

When we were thirteen, on a cold winter day, during religion class, while Sheerin and I were making paper planes under the table, the new teacher gave us two options: writing ten different names of God or five common traits of the Shiite Twelvers. I raised my hand and asked Mrs. Maloof if I could write about seven definitions of happiness in the Quran. The teacher looked at me blankly, and the class went mute. She approached me, her black chador revealing her long face, her thin mustache, her sad eyes and her colorless lips sewn together. “Happiness is not an Islamic concept,” she finally said tenderly. “The West has invented this idea to corrupt your mind."

We lived among our worst enemies, the enemies of happiness, still we felt lucky, because none of the buildings of our apartment complex got demolished. Even the death of Mr. Jalali’s son in the war front didn’t seem overly alarming, since his wife still waited in different lines with us, her booklet of coupons in hand, squeezing it hard as if her life depended on it, and we didn’t take her loss seriously given that each time we said hello she replied with a soft nod and a fainting hi.

The war went on for years, with a few bombs here and there in Tehran, and the thousands of soldiers rotting on the hot and humid shallow shores of Karoon River under the sunshine.

Still, we kept our routines; in the evenings, Sheerin danced in front of a mirror in her room, in the dark, to lose weight, while her mom washed the dishes. Before bedtime, Auntie, my new mom, murmured a song from pre-revolutionary times when she was married and in love, when her beloved Mohsen Khan hadn’t left her yet. In those nights, Auntie rubbed the cloth hard over the plates and cups and forks and spoons and spatulas and dried even things that didn’t really need to be dried, as if everything looked wet from behind the curtain of memories.

Auntie rarely socialized, but it had nothing to do with the war. She was too busy, so we stayed at home and when my homework and the dishes were done, if the power outage hadn’t made us sleepy, we watched a pale duplicate of Gone with the Wind, Auntie’s favorite. Otherwise we played cards on the kitchen table and under the yellow flickering light of a candle. Every day Sheerin and I grew taller than the day before, while Auntie lost her fat cheeks and her round belly and her soft skin and her nostalgia became the only part of her that grew taller than us. Sometimes when the electricity was cut, Auntie told me stories she knew by heart, tales and fables that weren’t true, because we couldn’t stand the truth anymore. As long as the war kept on, we were going to read happy-ending stories where the hero never dies or kills himself.

Most of the times Sheerin and I weren’t happy, still sometimes we laughed so hard that it looked like crying. We were told respectable young girls shouldn’t laugh in public. That’s why we only pretended to laugh when we knew we were watched; otherwise we were really sad inside. Our dark rooms, our pink pillows and our pink blankets kept our secret and our loose headscarves and our tight shiny overcoats and our American blue jeans covered up our gloom so nobody could mistake us for any of those sad-looking respectable young girls.

One night, when I was alone in my room, I lay on the scratchy carpet, a single candle lighting the room. I stretched my hand over the petty flame to feel its warmth. The heat went up my arm and my shoulder, as I was bringing my hand lower. It reached the tip of the blazing fire. My fingers were going to melt, I thought, my flesh dripping on the carpet, making a mess.

Watching my hand burning, I had the thought that if it was someone else’s palm, I’d have never guessed its pain.

That’s how we grew up, going on, but there were days we couldn’t. Or we didn’t want to; days we skipped school or dinner. Days we stayed in our rooms, to fall asleep at six and to wake up the next day, at three in the afternoon.

We had nothing to do. We had so much to imagine.

Even though instead of dreaming of the future we just had fantasies about the past, even though we didn’t live in peace and we were scared of almost everything, without ever remembering a time when we weren’t scared, we felt confident; we knew we were invincible and great things were about to happen to us.

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more from Azarin Sadegh
 
Azarin Sadegh

Thank you!

by Azarin Sadegh on Wed Oct 05, 2011 04:39 PM PDT

My dear IC frinds,

Thank you so much for your lovely feedback! Actually, this is the piece I read at West Hollywod Book Fair last Sunday for my last reading as a PEN USA Emerging Voices fellow!  

Alas, no more pampering for me... (Deep sigh :-) It's time for me to go back to a normal life, while working on the second draft of the novel (deeper sigh)

Again, I remind you that this is a work of fiction and I was not 13 during that time.

Thanks again for being always so kind to me....Azarin

 

 


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Raoul1955

Enjoyed

by Raoul1955 on Wed Oct 05, 2011 02:37 PM PDT

It Azarin.  Loved this piece.


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Cost-of-Progress

Enjoyed reading this story

by Cost-of-Progress on Wed Oct 05, 2011 09:34 AM PDT

I am sorry, for the experiences you talk about at that age should have been sweet and unforgetable (in a good way).

When I compare your experinces to mine at the same age (which would be just a few years before the so called revolution), I realize how lucky I was and that what I now consider normal teenage years were not so normal during those tumultuous years following the islamic takeover of our motherland. 

Thank you and stay strong.

____________

IRAN FIRST

____________


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Souri

Very powerful!

by Souri on Wed Oct 05, 2011 07:40 AM PDT

Azarin,

I admire your skill of writing!

I truly enjoyed reading this piece and could even relate to some parts of it. Reading your story, gives me the feeling as if I were there  with you, in every scene and every feeling you had.

You are a great writer, my friend. I am so proud of you.

Thanks for sharing this amazing piece with us.

 


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Multiple Personality Disorder

Your story is excellent!

by Multiple Personality Disorder on Tue Oct 04, 2011 07:52 PM PDT

I was a circumstantial visitor in Tehran for six months in the last year of the war, having had not much of any options but to leave the country two mouths short of the end of the war.  The way you have the war described in your story is very close to how I remember it in the big city at the beginning of my visit; not much happening in the way of the war, except shortages of goods and services, long lines, displaced war front refugees trying to put their lives back together, occasional false air raid sirens here and there, and the mood of the people being somber outdoors but still celebrating occasionally the happy events in their lives inside their homes.

And then hell broke loose in February 1988, when Saddam began his deadly "war of the cities".  Over the next two months, Iraq fired over 200 missiles at the Iranian cities, and overwhelming population of the major cities, including people of Tehran, including us, evacuated the cities.

Your story is excellent.  Your English is perfect.  And I, I am anxiously waiting to get my hands of that free copy of the book, and read it from cover to cover.


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vildemose

 Very powerful and moving.

by vildemose on Tue Oct 04, 2011 05:26 PM PDT

 Very powerful and moving. Thank you sharing.

 

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." - Louis D. Brandeis


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Anahid Hojjati

Thanks Azarin for your story

by Anahid Hojjati on Tue Oct 04, 2011 07:50 AM PDT

Indeed they were and still are enemies of happiness.  My favorite part of your story was this one:

"We lived among our worst enemies, the enemies of happiness, still we felt lucky, because none of the buildings of our apartment complex got demolished. Even the death of Mr. Jalali’s son in the war front didn’t seem overly alarming, since his wife still waited in different lines with us, her booklet of coupons in hand, squeezing it hard as if her life depended on it, and we didn’t take her loss seriously given that each time we said hello she replied with a soft nod and a fainting hi."


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Jahanshah Javid

Much truth

by Jahanshah Javid on Tue Oct 04, 2011 03:01 AM PDT

There's much truth in observations that happiness, joy, laughter are suppressed in favor of grief and misery. That's the public, official state. But in private, within walls, in basements, it's a different story. Religion... it's a bummer... sucks the life out of you.

Thank you for sharing your tender and revealing story. My favorite passage:

"One night, when I was alone in my room, I lay on the scratchy carpet, a single candle lighting the room. I stretched my hand over the petty flame to feel its warmth. The heat went up my arm and my shoulder, as I was bringing my hand lower. It reached the tip of the blazing fire. My fingers were going to melt, I thought, my flesh dripping on the carpet, making a mess."


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Azarin Sadegh

Dear Maziar,

by Azarin Sadegh on Mon Oct 03, 2011 09:39 PM PDT

Thank you for your kind words about my work! Actually, I chose the name of the teacher without knowing any "Maloof" in the real world! Now, I might have to change it...especially because I hate Vegas! 

There is no Persian version of this novel. I write in English, but hopefully one day it would be translated in Persian.

Thanks again, Azarin


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Azarin Sadegh

Dear Divaneh,

by Azarin Sadegh on Mon Oct 03, 2011 09:33 PM PDT

Thank you so much for reading my work, and also for your lovely comment! It made my night!

This piece is part of my novel in progress, The Suicide Note, which is the coming of age story of a girl who loses her mother at 8 and grows into a rebellious 15-year-old teenager. The book is divided in 2 sections: Childhood and Teen Years.

This piece is the first chapter of Teen Years which is purely "Telling" without a real "showing" scene...but it tries to summarize the gist of what has happened during the previous 7 years!

Actually, like you, I reached the same conclusion about Islam and Happiness when I tried to search the word Happiness and couldn't find it in the quran.

 


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maziar 58

....

by maziar 58 on Mon Oct 03, 2011 06:56 PM PDT

simply a beautiful world as seen by a 13 yrs old young and smatr.

BTW  hope she is not related to famouse las vegas developer George Maloof !

wish I could read it in farsi to get a better touch.

Maziar


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divaneh

Brilliant

by divaneh on Mon Oct 03, 2011 05:01 PM PDT

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Thanks for sharing. Is it part of a longer story or do we have to imagine the great things that will happen to you and Sheerin?

I think Mrs Maloof was right about Islam and happiness. I once came across a verse in the Quran that said "Allah does not like the happy people". He is a pretty sad creator.


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