I Kept Walking: The Unlikely Journey of a Persian Woman with Polio

By Minou S Michlin and Gali Kronenberg

I Kept Walking opens in 1940s Tehran when a misguided prank leaves three- year-old Minou frozen in fear. Days later, a doctor breaks the news to her mother: "Your daughter has polio."

To understand why nothing is as it seems-the cause of her polio or why

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laleh Press
• Release date: Mar 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985847116

Minou S Michlin

Dr. Minou Soumekh Michlin is a professor emeritus of social work at Southern Connecticut State University. She worked as a social worker in Tehran's Jewish ghetto and oversaw day cares across Iran. Minou is married to David Michlin and has two children and five grandchildren. She lives in Beverly Hills, CA.

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Iranian passport photo of Maman and me, eleven, shortly before our departure for my first surgery in Jerusalem. Tehran, 1953.

Minou Soumekh Michlin

I Kept Walking

The Unlikely Journey

of a Persian Woman

with Polio

with Gali Kronenberg

Laleh Press

Publisher, Copyright, and Additional Information

I Kept Walking by Minou Soumekh Michlin

Laleh Press

Copyright © 2022 by Minou Soumekh Michlin with Gali Kronenberg

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 the written permission of the authors, except where permitted by law.

www.IKeptWalkingBook.com

www.LalehPress.com

ISBN- 979-8-9858471-1-6

Cover design and interior design by Rafael Andres

Copy editing by Sohini Ghose

Minou Soumekh Michlin author photo by Laleh Soomekh

Gali Kronenberg author photo by Jeffrey Vasquez

FIRST EDITION

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt gratitude to Gali Kronenberg, who transformed the stories I shared at my kitchen table into the luminous prose of this book. An incredibly talented writer, Gali is deeply compassionate, and I found myself confiding stories I’ve never told anyone. Each week, his vivid fresh pages transported me back to my family’s home on Neshat Street, my hospital room in Jerusalem, and to the moment I bid farewell for the last time to family and friends at Mehrabad Airport. This book would not exist without my friend Gali.

I also wish to thank early readers—Steve Harper, Dr. Marty Cobern, Dr. Mahvash Rafii, Dr. Wilma Peeples-Wilkins and Guity Myers—who assiduously corrected wayward spelling and punctuation. Many thanks to Jacqueline Soomekh, Nona Farahnik, Tina Hay, Nina Molayem, Kit Loeb Harper, Elham Yaghoubian, Josh Finkel, Sherene Michlin, and Saba Soomekh for your encouragement and support.

To my helper, Catalina Florecin Perez, thank you for keeping Gali and me well fed while we worked and for taking such good care of David and me.

To my husband David, thank you for your unconditional

love and support. I extend my deepest love and gratitude

to Sherene and Aron.

May God Watch Over You

I was born in an anxious era.

Three weeks before my birth the madness of World War II landed at our family’s doorstep. My father, Agha Jahn, was away on the hot August night when the rumble of aircraft and the high-pitched whistle of falling bombs pierced the air. Maman cowered in a narrow corridor of our home with her five youngest children. A shrill siren resounded. A second bomb exploded and the earth shuddered. The thunderous explosion rattled our home.

My siblings, all under eleven, clung tightly to Maman. The youngest erupted in tears. Maman—her belly swollen with me—stretched out her arms over my siblings’ heads.

She recited a Hebrew prayer.

Ye’varech’echa Adonai ve-yish’merecha…¹

British warplanes were bombing Iran. But for our family and other Jews across Persia, the attack was a blessing. The coup d’état that put military commander Reza Pahlavi in power, and later anointed him as Shah, marked a dramatic shift in the lives of Iranian Jews. The Shah’s rebuke of the Shi’a Muslim clergy and his embrace of science and modernity benefited Jews, who were permitted to serve in the government and army.

At first, Reza Shah Pahlavi’s irreligiosity improved the lives of Jews, though his autocratic tendencies made him sympathetic to Hitler. The Shah’s admiration for Germany spread to the public. In our small town of Hamadan, Muslim students painted swastikas on the chalkboard of the school my siblings attended and thrust their right arms into the air, crying out: Sieg Heil!

German broadcasts in Farsi referred to Hitler as the Shiite Messiah who had returned to destroy the Jews. German propaganda compared Hitler’s efforts to annihilate Jews to the Prophet Mohammed’s clashes with Jewish tribes in Arabia. Antisemitic slogans appeared on the walls of Jewish businesses. Muslim neighbors spoke openly of their fondness for Cousin Hitler.

A sense of desperation hung in the air.

Shortly before I was born, my mother’s maid offered her an audacious bargain.

Give me what you have, she said, and I’ll protect it for you.

Maman listened in silence.

Khanom, when the Germans come, they will take everything. Give me your house. I can hide you and your children in my village. You can go there to have your baby.

Maman made no such bargain. The family remained in Hamadan.

On August 25, 1941, despite the country’s neutrality, British planes began bombing Tehran, Qazvin, and Hamadan. The Soviet Red Army troops that rolled into Tehran and the British bombing raids kept the Germans out of Iran, preventing Reza Shah Pahlavi from aligning with Hitler. Within a matter of days, Iran’s military was overwhelmed. The Allied invasion forced the Shah to order his military to stand down.

In perfect British etiquette, the Anglo victors sent a message to Reza Shah: Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favour of his son, the heir to the throne?

On September 16, 1941, His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah Pahlavi was sent into exile, and his son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, viewed as more sympathetic to the British, ascended to the Peacock Throne at the tender age of twenty-two.

Two days later, Maman gave birth to me. She named me Minou, meaning Heaven. She also gave me the Hebrew name Esther.

---

1 May God bless you and watch over you.

The Girls Who Gave Me Polio

My fingers trawled the cool water of our fishpond. Seated cross-legged in the shade of a sycamore tree, I watched mesmerized as orange-speckled goldfish swam lazy circles just below the surface. Almost four, I named each fish—the one with the yellow marks and a pair with orange blotches. They were my friends. I’d sit quietly and keep them company until one of them would rise to the surface to greet me.

A bright yellow koi, the one I called Khoshgal, Pretty One, was tickling my finger, when a deafening Boo! erupted directly behind me. I emitted a scream of terror. My body froze. Once I was able to move, I turned to see three older girls giggling as they fled back to the yard next door.

My grandmother raced down the back stairs to the garden to see what had befallen me. She pulled me into her arms, and I began to sob uncontrollably.

Our family had moved from the small town of Hamadan to Tehran. Our garden offered a welcome respite from the bustling city and its scorching summers. The whole family slept in the garden in summer. Not long after my fright, I awoke one morning to the scent of jasmine. A honey light fell over my face through the gauzy canopy of mosquito netting that tented my bed. A butterfly fluttered overhead.

I rolled over to stand up, but my feet fell limp.

How can this be? I run, skip, and jump. How can my legs fail me?

Maman, I can’t get up!

My mother, still in her bed a few feet from mine, walked over to my bedside. With a tender smile on her face, she said, Here, Minou Joon, Maman will help you.

Cradling my torso with her hands, she lifted me to my feet. The moment she released her hands, she had to quickly grab my frame as if catching a fragile object before it fell. In an anxious voice, she cried out, I think she’s paralyzed!

Agha Jahn glanced over the top of his morning paper. I’m sure Minou is fine. You always imagine the worst.

Maman rushed me by taxi to the doctor. Our elderly family doctor squeezed and prodded each of my legs. When I sneezed, he told Maman, Khanom, your child is sick with a cold. She has a runny nose and slight fever. Everything is fine.

Two, then three days passed. I still couldn’t stand.

How could I have chased my brother just the other day only to have my legs stop working like Nader’s rusted bicycle?

The whole family fussed over me. My siblings sang to me, read me stories, and brought me treats. But then after a few days, something changed. I could hear a sense of worry in their voices. From my small bed upstairs, I overheard two of my brothers whispering in the stairwell about two girls my age who lived on Viziere Street.

Those girls can’t walk either, Nader said.

The next morning, I still couldn’t move my legs.

Maman told Agha Jahn, I am taking Minou to see a new doctor.

An hour later a much younger doctor with a thick black mustache was leaning over me and tapping my knee with a toy hammer.

Can you feel this? he asked.

He pricked each of my legs with a needle, but I didn’t feel anything. He then had me sit up with my feet dangling over the edge of the exam table.

Can you straighten them?

I tried but my legs wouldn’t listen.

Matter-of-factly the doctor said to Maman, Khanom, your daughter has polio.

Maman braced herself against the exam table. You should be grateful, he said, your daughter’s polio isn’t severe.

Maman hugged me, pulling my head to her bosom. She took a deep breath and asked the doctor, What can we do?

On a small pad the doctor wrote a list of instructions which he handed to Maman: vitamin B shots, hot baths, massages, and exercise.

What did this strange-sounding word polio even mean? Whatever it was, I was certain it was the fault of the mean girls who had frightened me. Their ambush in the garden had scared me so much my legs froze.

No one asked me why my legs stopped working so I didn’t tell anyone. Perhaps, I kept the the real reason to myself because I didn’t want to admit that a scary Boo! had frightened me so much I couldn’t walk.

Maman, my grandmother, and my fourteen-year-old sister, Mahin, devoted themselves to my care. Mahin, eleven years older than me, became a second mother to me. She taught me songs, rolled balls on the floor for me to catch, and patted each of my legs up and down the way Maman had shown her.

The doctor prescribed daily baths. Every afternoon a large copper basin used for washing clothes became my bathtub. A servant boiled water in a black iron cauldron atop a wood-fired stove. Maman slowly added hot water along with fistfuls of salt. To a stranger, the scene might have seemed from a witch’s tale. Daily baths were a luxury. Everyone else in the family bathed only once a week on Fridays at the neighborhood hammam.

Polio made me the center of Maman’s world. Massaging my legs while I soaked, Maman ran the household from my side, calling out items for the cook’s shopping list or scolding one of my five rambunctious brothers.

Six months passed before I was able to stand on my own two feet. For a while, I believed I was normal. But the more I grew, the more my body betrayed me. Or at least parts of my body. While the rest of me grew taller, the muscles on my right leg refused to grow. I must have looked like a little girl practicing ballet. I walked on my right toes with my heel raised more than an inch in the air. At night, in bed, I’d stick my bare legs out from under my blanket and stare down at my two ankles. The right one was noticeably skinnier than the left.

My brothers Nader and Hamid raised pigeons. Some days, I’d lay on my tummy in front of their rooftop wire mesh coop and stare at the pigeons’ frail, skinny legs. It made me think of my legs. I’d tell myself, Despite their skinny little legs, they can walk and fly!

A Big Bird Caught Her

It seemed everyone had heard of this ailment. Although polio was widely known, it was widely misunderstood. I’d once overheard our cook say to the gardener that foreigners had brought polio to Iran when they invaded during World War II. Agha Jahn once read aloud an article from Ettelaat to Maman that blamed the spread of polio on flies. He explained to Maman that what puzzled scientists was that polio was more widespread in developed countries like the US and Europe than it was in poor countries like Iran.

My cousin Amir moved from Hamadan to live with us for his first year of medical school. I couldn’t follow when he talked about something called antibodies. He told Maman that polio had nothing to do with flies but rather sanitation and contaminated drinking water. He showed Maman a picture from one of his medical books with a drawing from the time of the pharaohs in Egypt. It depicted a priest with one skinny leg walking with the help of a staff. Amir said this meant polio had very likely been around for more than 3,000 years.

Agha Jahn told Maman that Americans were more afraid of polio than people in Iran and that across the US, schools, businesses, and public swimming pools were shuttered.

In the waiting room at my frequent doctors’ appointments, I saw children whose polio was far more serious than mine. Some of them had to be carried by their parents. Only much later did I learn that polio could also paralyze the muscles around the lungs.

The doctor tried to reassure Maman.

Once she’s grown a bit more, she can have corrective surgery.

He also made clear that my polio wasn’t as severe as others.

Your daughter was thrown out of an airplane, he said, but a big bird caught her and gently placed her on the ground, and all she ended up with was a little scratch.

Polio made me serious. I felt as if Maman expected me to be stronger than my malady. When other kids asked, Why do you walk like that? I didn’t pretend not to hear. I’d simply reply, I have polio.

One afternoon, I was playing five stones by myself on the Persian carpet in our living room when I turned on the radio that Agha Jahn always had set to Radio Iran. A news reporter was saying something about a scientist who worked in America and had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Though I was only six, the idea that a woman had invented something that helped sick people inspired me. When I grow up, I vowed. I’m going to do that. I am going to help people and I will win a Nobel Prize!

Years later, on April 12, 1955, Maman and I were sewing a new skirt for me at the dining-room table when a news flash interrupted the music program we were listening to on Radio Tehran. The announcer said that an American doctor, Jonas Salk, had developed a safe and effective polio vaccine.

Maman broke into tears. "All these years, whenever I lit the Shabbat candles, I prayed that no other child would get polio."

Jamshid and me, ages eight and five, at our home on Shah Avenue.

Tehran, 1945.

Me, six, wearing a sailor suit and white bow, all sewn by Maman.

Photo studio, Tehran, 1947.

"Half of the Time,

I’m Ahead!"

Maman’s view, which she demonstrated to me in countless ways, was that one cannot allow a tragedy or illness to serve as an excuse.

One must soldier on!

She made it clear that she expected no less from me.

Speckled-pink geraniums and violet pansies grew in neat flower beds behind my red brick kindergarten. At recess, a few school chums and I would lie on the grass and stare up at the sky. In the fluffy clouds, I could spot a baby elephant, a puppy, or a white bunny rabbit.

On summer days, when the heat quivered up from the asphalt, our teacher read stories to us beneath the plane trees in the garden. I liked school, but on blistering hot days I longed for our shaded garden, where I could dangle my feet in our cool pond.

I tripped a lot in those years and the navy skirt I wore to school exposed my bruised knees. Our teacher, Miss Armin, who I adored, let us organize our own games during recess. A few older girls, whom I was slightly afraid of, would set the rules. One day, a tall skinny girl with long braids ordered the rest of us to line up at one end of the fence that surrounded the school swimming pool. This is a walking race, the bossy girl explained. "The rule is you have to walk around the pool five times. No running allowed! Whoever comes in first, wins."

Before I knew it, the girl shouted, Ready. Go!

Within moments, the other girls were far out front leaving me in last place. My first instinct was to drop out of the race rather than face the humiliation of coming in last. But then I saw that the rest of my classmates had rounded the pool. For a few seconds, it appeared that I was the one in the lead. With each lap, the same thing happened. For half of the lap, it seemed I was in last place. But then moments later, it looked as if I was the one out in front. Seeing this, I no longer wanted to quit. It felt like a kind of a victory. I told myself, Well, at least half the time, I’m ahead.

Agha Jahn (Haji Davoud), Tel Aviv, Israel.

Maman (Touba), holding Nasser, and Agha Jahn (Davoud),

who appears to be trying to keep Menachem still for the photo,

on the second floor balcony of Baba Moshe’s stately home. 1926.

Agha Jahn

To understand my story, I must first tell you a little about my parents, their past, and the precarious history of Jews in Iran.

Agha Jahn tore open the first of two packs of unfiltered Homa cigarettes. Smoking was a habit he’d picked up at twelve, when he began working for his father buying and selling fabric in the markets at Qazvin, Hamadan, and Rasht. After World War II, Agha Jahn struck out on his own, brokering the sale of fabric in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. He knew well its labyrinth of narrow alleys where merchants sold everything from gold, spices, carpets, watches, and slippers. The centuries-old bazaar was a world of men and resounded with the cries of merchants beckoning shoppers, the muezzin’s call to prayer, the mellifluous voice of the female singer Marzieh on a crackly radio, the clicking beads of a trader tallying accounts on an abacus, and heavy breaths of peddlers pushing wooden carts laden with goods. Davoud Soumekh, or Agha Jahn as our family always called him, would become a bazaari himself, not a shopkeeper, but a middleman who earned a living finding buyers and sellers of fabric.

Tall, tanned, and broad-shouldered, Agha Jahn weathered the market’s precipitous ups and downs, working long hours to provide for Maman, Naneh Joon, and my eight siblings