Bitter Immigration

By Manouchehr Pajoohesh

This book is about a clever Persian (Iranian) boy that is very interested in education. Since his family is poor due to having a father who is addicted to opium, he must struggle to achieve even a high school education. Most of the book is set in a mountain village that the family moves to in an attempt to change their fortunes. Aside from having a school that only goes up to the fourth grade, the other hardships that are faced in the village include fierce winters and a deadly outbreak of measles. With much determination and effort, the boy finally finishes his high school education by self-study and finds a job in the city.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514468531

Manouchehr Pajoohesh

Manoacheh Pajoohesh was born in January 1944 to a poor family in Shahrekord, Iran. Due to poverty and the addiction of his father to opium, he struggled to get a high school education and could not go to university. To support his family, he took a job in a bank. He started writing while he was working for the bank. After retiring, he began to publish his work. So far he has published four books.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Manouchehr Pajoohesh.

Cover Photo by Negar Fadaei

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

All of the characters’ and villages’ names are imaginary and any possible similarity between them with people and villages is completely accidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/20/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

733830

For my son Pedram

Introduction

This is the story of a child or young person who is clever, maybe even a genius, whom cannot continue his education due to not having an advocate. At the same time this is the story of thousands of clever children in this land (Iran) who for reasons like poverty, selfishness of parents, injustice and inequality in society,…have their talents buried.

If provided with optimal conditions, these children could definitely become geniuses known in their own country and throughout the world. It is a pity that the absence of support causes everything within them to die and that a deep hate and anger, born of deprivation, will remain inside them until they die

We wish that one day we will witness justice and the respect of children’s rights in the world.

I was all love and enthusiasm.

I was the light of the candle of knowledge.

With bitter desire, the wishes within me died.

In this world I was a patch that matched no cloth.

There was a sad silence in the room whose only light was from the weak flame of an old American-made lamp. My father was sitting with his legs folded in front of a brazier with his head down while he used the tongs to play thoughtfully with the ashes. My mother, in the other corner of the room, was patching his shirt.

My sisters and two younger brothers were in a deep sleep in another corner of the room. Only I was in front of my father, sitting crossed legged next to the brazier. An unknown feeling was disturbing my wishful childish world.

Drafts of cold dry fall air entered our room through seams in the wooden door. The compound was home to several families and my uncle had a room on the northern end. He was one year younger than my father and had three children.

Suddenly the door opened and my uncle entered the room with a plate that had a kooftah and a piece of naan onto it. With a soft voice said to my father, The food was too much, I brought some for Ayatollaah. He put it in front of me, kissed my face, and said, uncle it is delicious, eat. Before my father could say anything he left the room by some excuse.

At once, and without looking at either of them, I jumped on the plate and ate with an eagerness which perhaps was far from my usual appetite.

When I brought up my head, I saw a wet tear in my father’s eye. He was looking at my mother who was looking back at him with contempt and hate. For one moment their eyes met and everything could be guessed from their expressions: poverty, deprivation, harshness, and a hatred of everything.

My mother, who had pulled her scarf down to her forehead said, Mother are you full? and I responded with some shame, yes. My mother looked at my father and said, What do you want to do? Nothing has remained for us, we sold the last sheep and used the money and you are not energetic enough to be a laborer! Your brother is nagging you all of the time, so let’s immigrate.

My father became happy at this suggestion and said, That is right, we don’t have any remedy, if this situation continues we will lose our honor with both our friends and our enemies, so we will move to Mardijan.

Mardijan was a village where two times in the past he had gone alone and had worked as a butcher and felt maker. Their decision created a black storm in my brain. My father had taken me there once and we had lived by ourselves. A dusty cloud of poverty and slavery was formed in my mind.

People in that village were like people that have survived war and bombings only to find themselves weakened and lying directly in the path of other disasters like cholera and plague. There was no sign of a primary school or doctors, and hygiene was nonexistent. When I got sick there, my father had to bring me back to the city. But how did this decision ever come to their mind? They could not farm, but they choose to go to a village instead of another city. Even if they could farm, farming under the shadows of a village’s feudal landlords couldn’t possibly have any benefit for them, and if so, how much?

I remembered one day in village. That day, in the comfort of the alley’s morning sun, the conversation was about the beating of a farmer’s son. The boy, named Ishmael, had thrown a stone at the horse of a miserable little aristocrat and slightly injured its eye. This noble ordered his foreman to whip the child in front of his father in a square, which was a squalid place surrounded by filth and garbage. The beating went on until his father, and others mediating for the father, were forced to go on their knees begging for mercy and kissing the noble’s feet to save the crying and dangerously exhausted son.

Even with this occurrence my father always used to say, Poor and genteel people should live in the village and be hidden from the world. That way they do not have news from anywhere and no one has news about them. He preferred the village’s poorness of culture and closed-mindedness to knowledge. Sometimes he talked about the perversions of city people and the holiness of villagers.

My mother was not better than him and followed his decisions. Perhaps, since she was always having fights and arguments with my uncle’s wife, she was willing to leave at any price.

Eventually, as winter was approaching they solidified their decision for the next spring.

Our room was like a chicken’s nest that has been built in a box that the chicken and its children were forced to accept whether they liked it or not.

My father used to leave my mother with the other children in the evening and take me with him to his cousin Karim’s home where he had originally become addicted. Even though I did not like to be far from the family and go there, my father wanted it this way.

Karim’s family would also be heartily displeased that I was with my father, because when it was the dinnertime I would eat something. But my father never recognized this dissonance, until one day during an argument they taunted him, man, why do you bring your child with you?

In the winter of that year my sister’s hair started falling out because of a skin disease, and she became bald. My mother with much insistence pushed my father to take her, by any means, for a complete cure to the city of Isfahan. She even agreed to sell her earrings. But my father blocked this, believing that it was too late to do anything and that it would be useless to spend the money.

Winter ended and spring began. The joy of spring in our busy court-yard was announced by the sprouting of the shabby old willow tree that was next to a wall near the courtyard’s well and right in front of our room.

In the warmth of summer our courtyard was a safe place for us and our neighbors’ children to gather for play. But, for me, it was also counted as a primary school.

Because of my tremendous interest in studying, I used to sit on a piece of old felt with a pencil and paper in my hand and draw or write numbers.

On one of these days, one of the neighbor’s kids grabbed the pencil from my hand and ran away. I was crying very hard and my mother grabbed the pencil from him and gave him a strong slap. This caused a fight between the two families and there was much cursing back and forth.

Even in that happy spring season, the old willow tree seemed to be depressed and looking at me with grief. Maybe this was because, I, its only close friend, was soon going away.

The tree felt that it had been abandoned in a desert and was the object of everyone’s disrespect. The neighbors’ children peed on its back, their mothers soaked its roots with soapy waste as they washed their cloths, and every kind of garbage was thrown beneath its branches.

Two months later we started preparing to emigrate from the city of our roots. The neighbors, especially my uncle’s wife, since they heard that we want to emigrate, had changed their behavior towards us and seemed kinder. They looked at me, the most popular child of the family, sadly and kindly.

Maybe they felt that there would be one less poor family in this impoverished compound and the place left empty could only be filled grief and regret.

In an attempt to make my mother more optimistic and hopeful about our emigration, father would come home every night and talk about lightening his debts and designing a plan for his future.

My mother objected to his opium smoking less and petted us more. But my question for them was always whether there was a school that we could attend in the new place and we would be able to study. My father answered, There is a four year primary school there, and when our situation becomes better and you have studied for four years, we will come back to our city where you can continue your studies.

My mother also confirmed his words. They were both unified in fooling me.

Time was passing very quickly. Every day the horizon was getting narrower and sadder for me as it was getting wider and shinier for my father and mother.

My father, unlike always, came home sooner and in happy spirits every night. Parties and visits with relatives and neighbors’ that usually happened rarely were now happening all of the time and sometimes lasted until one or two o’clock in the morning. The talk was mostly about our trip and their points of view on the subject. Most of them believed that my father was making a mistake. If he lived with poverty now, in the future, when he got older, we children would be grown and able to end his problems.

My uncle told him, My life is not better than yours, but I think about my children’s future. If they are not able to study in the city, at least they can learn a profession and whatever talent they have will be fruitful in that direction. But in a village, not only there is no primary school; there is no other way for children to develop their talents.

Some others that were in the minority considered it as a possibility to change our life and believed that the village would be a safe place to live. They saw the village as place where people did not criticize a man and people held attitudes that were far from blaming and taunting.

My grandmother, who lived with my uncle, came to our home one of those nights and was constantly saying holy words while turning a string of beads in her hand. She told my father, my son what you are doing is good, you have a big family and daughters. Don’t you remember that our neighbor Jamileh, the clothes-washer, gossiped your wife, saying, She brings baby animals into this world and does not think about them and I, who am only a servant, put a fresh shirt on my children every day. These people give birth every day and say God will help us. My son, people are waiting to see you become a failure. My son, if I was in your stead, I would leave this place in one night. Everything that God wants will happen.

Then she looked at the domed ceiling of our room where a spider had produced webs in every possible location and said look at your house you that have not been able to paint. Black brings black chance. I was the one who was listening to grandmother the most, as I sat next to her drawing on an empty box of tea with a pencil trying to copy the writing on the box.

I told her, with an innocent look, Grandma I cannot study there, there is no school there. My grandmother said, Grandson, do not nag, study study!, who sent your father to school that he should send you to school now?

Her hopeless words on my childish heart were like a hammer on glass.

I looked at her old and wrinkled face and her grey and untidy hair, some of which had slipped out from under her scarf, passed over her short forehead, and covered her eyes. I asked her a question which still is in my mind. A deep and admirable question in my raw childish mind, and how brave I was to allow myself to ask it, "Grandma you always say God is kinder than a man’s own father and mother, and does not differ between his people. Why is it that, despite the fact that we work hard, we are poor, while Hasan, who always drinks wine and aragh¹, has so much wealth that my father and my mother, who always pray, have to borrow money from him? One day you said that he sucks the blood of us poor people. Really grandma, where is the God? Why don’t we see him? Suddenly, I was faced with my grandmother’s rage. With the hand that had the string of beads on it she hit her other hand very strongly, and said, God forgive us, bite your tongue. What has your black haired² mother taught you? If she had taught you to pray you would not say these words." To avoid bursting into tears, I pressed my face on her chest.

She petted my hair. My father and mother were still quiet and it seemed that they have been touched by my childish discussion. At that time, my brothers and sisters were playing; my younger brother had taken my sister’s comb and was not returning it to her and my sister was threatening him with a tired voice.

It was Taurus fifteenth, when we received my uncle’s letter. This was another uncle of mine who had a grocery shop in the village and lived with his family there. In terms of money, his situation was better than ours. He had written in his letter that he had rented a house for us which also had a shop. Its rent was low. Also, he had suggested to my father that when he comes become a butcher (my father also had this intention) because there was no butcher in the village and there was a sickness of tabaghe that had appeared in the beasts of the Bakhtiari nomads. The sheep were dying and for lack of a butcher in the village, the nomads were forced to either feed them to their dogs or let them rot. He said it would be better to move sooner and that not much money would be needed. My father could get a good start by buying with credit and selling for cash at this time when people in the village were short of food.

My other uncle, my mother’s brother, was lying on the bed reading the letter for my father. He folded the letter after he read it and threw it gently toward my father who was sitting next to the brazier and just had finished smoking his opium. My uncle asked, Now what do you want to do? Is your decision certain? My father, who seemed tired of this argument, with a sharp tone said, It has been two months since I have made my certain decision, why are you still talking about a decision? My mother was out of the room and in the yard. She had just put the bucket of water that she had pulled up from the well on the ground and had started talking with one of the women. My father tried more aggressively to make my uncle’s opinion look wrong in her short absence. My sisters and brothers who were indifferent to our immigration and were busy in their childish world, interrupted my father, and asked Father when are we going? Are we going by car or by walking? and so on.

My father, who was a little bit angry because of the argument with my uncle, sharply said, Don’t make a lot of noise, are you going to shut up or not?

One of my sisters, who was older than all of us, had sad feelings like me. She was looking at my uncle with an expression that was thoughtful and worried. With no doubt, she was asking herself this question, Will my uncle be able to convince my father not to go?

At that time, my mother arrived. My uncle was talking very snappily and was no longer resting on the pillows behind him. He crossed his legs, brought out his string of beads, and after saying hello to his sister, gave her a sign to sit. My mother came closer to the brazier, poured a cup of tea for her brother, and put it in front of him.

It seemed that she realized that there was an argument between him and my father. My uncle said, I do not drink the tea you drink. Finally, my uncle forced himself to drink the tea and with a pitying tone asked his sister, Did you decide to go? I wish god protects you.

He looked at my father and said, At least stop smoking opium when you go there. Forget about my sister, consider your children, your immigration is because of poverty! Maybe if you were not addicted you would not be here insisting to leave your city to save face. By continuing with the same plan over there you will make life harder for yourself, they don’t just give money away over there. You are more or less young you have the best chance to save yourself from this trap. You know that your brothers did it to you so that they could take more advantage of you. When they noticed that you didn’t have your previous energy they treated you like an old animal! And finally, they left you to your fate and separated themselves from you. Now that you are separated from them, no one is going to support your life except yourself. You also cannot stay in a foreign city forever."

My father, who felt that he had been humiliated in front of my mother by my uncle’s words, flew into a storm of anger and screamed, If you did not enter yourself in my life, it would be better! Why was it that you were silent when my brothers were taking advantage of me? The day that I left them you took your sister from the carpet weaving workshop and told her not to weave, so that my position would be even weaker. You sided with them because they gave you good treats sometimes! I do not have any star in the seven skies. I wish I did not have you people as relative. You wait to see me laid low and then you are sarcastic with me. You never helped me.

My mother, who was familiar with his sharp attitude, interrupted him and said, Why do you become upset? My brother wishes good for you. She looked at us (as usual, when there was a fight in our home, we had gotten together in one spot of the room and started crying and pleading with them not to fight) and said, Do not worry! Dad and uncle never fight.

My uncle, in a very cold and unhappy way, said goodbye a moment later left. I don’t remember what happened after that.

It was the fifteenth of Gemini and we were going to leave the