Читать книгу My Prison, My Home - Haleh Esfandiari - Страница 13

In December 1945, when I was almost six years old, Mother took me to Europe. She had not returned to Vienna since coming to Iran—Europe had been at war—and she had been longing to go back. Her youngest brother had died in the war and her two older sisters had moved to the United States. Her older brother, my uncle Max, was a successful merchant in Prague and she was eager to see him and her beloved Vienna again.

Father arranged for us to fly to Moscow on a plane that was taking Iran’s new ambassador to the USSR. From Moscow we were to take the train to Prague. For a child who had seen only Karaj and Tehran, taking an airplane, staying in a hotel, and traveling by train was a sensational experience. Yet all I remember of Moscow are the dreary, dark afternoons and the large, cavernous hotel. In the evening, Mother would take me downstairs to the near-deserted restaurant for dinner. There were always one or two couples on the dance floor, but they looked forlorn in the empty dining room. We would rush through dinner and hurry back to our room.

On the day of our departure for Prague, the Iranian ambassador arranged for his car to drive us from the hotel to the train station. A woman from the Russian Intourist Agency, who had made our arrangements, put us in a first-class compartment and gave us food for the long journey. There was none to be bought on the train. The conductor who checked our tickets told Mutti to keep the door of our compartment locked at all times. We were also given a small cooking lamp, which Mutti could use to warm our meals. I can’t remember how long the trip to Prague took, but I was glued to the window. Images from the journey remain etched in my memory: a desolate, gray landscape; burnt and demolished towns and villages; people lying huddled in the snow along the railway tracks; signs of hunger and illness evident even to a young child. At each stop, a mass of people rushed onto the train and banged on doors. I huddled against Mutti, crying in fear. At the Czech border, the conductor carried our suitcases to the crossing as we walked beside him in the snow. We were among the first passengers crossing here since 1940.

Prague, to my eyes, was a miracle of a city. My uncle Max picked us up at the train station. He was a tall, handsome, and very elegant man. He wore his hat tilted to one side, unlike my father, who wore his hat flat on his head. Uncle Max’s wife, Inka, was a beauty. They lived in an apartment of large rooms and high ceilings: there were Persian rugs on the floors, antique furniture, walls covered with paintings, closets full of very fine china. A plump maid in a neat black dress and white apron came every day. Mother, who did not believe in idleness, immediately enrolled me in the neighborhood school, where I learned to speak Czech. (I promptly forgot it once we returned to Tehran.)

Uncle Max took Mutti and me to the biggest toy store in Prague and bought me a fair, blue-eyed doll. I was bedazzled. I had never seen so many toys. After two hours Mutti and Uncle Max had to drag me out kicking and screaming.

The food in Prague was also a revelation. There was ham and salami and sausages for breakfast and fat-laced meat and different sauces for lunch and dinner. I loved the dumplings and the black bread covered with lard. Uncle Max even took us to Spiendelmuehl, a very posh winter resort in the mountains. I had never seen so much snow! A carriage drawn by two horses would take us from the hotel to the ski slopes. I learned how to sled, and Mother, elated to be back in Europe, skied the whole day.

Mutti was impatient to get to Vienna. Uncle Max tried to dissuade her or, at least, to prepare her for the devastation the city had endured from bombing during the war. But she was adamant. She wanted to visit her mother’s grave and look up some of her old friends. Finally, he bought us first-class train tickets and packed two suitcases full of food to take with us. Food was scarce in Vienna, and people could not be expected to share their meager rations with visitors or strangers.

The train departed in the evening. At first, Mutti and I were the sole occupants of the first-class compartment. Uncle Max warned Mutti not to accept any packages from strangers and not to engage in conversation with other passengers. A lot of counterfeit money, false documents, and contraband were being smuggled from Czechoslovakia into Austria.

We had been on the train for more than an hour when the door opened and a tall, well-dressed woman entered the cabin. She was wearing a mink coat and hat and leather boots; she carried a large leather bag. She sat across from us without exchanging a word. Mother continued to tell me stories in a very low voice. As we neared the Austrian border, the woman closed the curtain and turned off the lights. She needed to sleep, she told my mother. Suddenly the door of the compartment opened and three or four Austrian and Czech officers flipped on the light and asked to see our passports and our bags. They didn’t bother much with us, but they went through the woman’s suitcase and handbag, item by item. I started crying and clung to Mother, wishing again we had stayed in Uncle Max’s beautiful apartment; the woman scolded the officers for frightening a child.

The officers left with our passports, and one of them soon returned and handed Mutti our documents but told the woman to follow him. I remember her saying in German, “So eine Freschheit”—Such rudeness. As she bent down to put on her boots, she threw a small package at Mother’s feet and walked out. With a quick motion of her foot, Mother pushed the package under the woman’s seat. All this took place in the dark and in a split second. An hour later, the woman reappeared and without turning on the light asked Mother where her package was. Silently, Mutti pointed under the seat. She retrieved her bundle, took her suitcase and hat, and walked out of the cabin without a word. Uncle Max was livid when he heard the story. Had they searched the cabin, he said, the woman would have denied the package, most probably counterfeit money, was hers, and we would have been in serious trouble.

My father had arranged for us to stay with an Iranian friend of his, Ali Asghar Azizi, who had married into a well-to-do Austrian family. When Mother presented the Azizis with our two suitcases of food, Mrs. Azizi put the ring-shaped salami around her neck and danced across the kitchen with joy.

Yet Vienna turned out to be a journey into almost unbearable loss for Mother. I had never seen her this way, as if in mourning, the hurt written all over her face. Every day of our three-week visit, we would leave the house and take the tram into town. Holding me tightly by the hand, Mother would wander from street to street, from neighborhood to neighborhood, tears rolling down her cheeks. At every turn another piece of her heart would break. She would point at the ruin of a house or building: this was where she had lived as a child; this was where she had gone to school; this was the park where she played; the theater she attended. She kept on whispering, “Mein armes Oesterreich”—My poor Austria. We went in search of the building where Father had lived as a student and to the Faculty of Agriculture at Tuerkishenspark where he had gone to university.

We walked along the Stadtpark, where she and Father had danced the waltz, past the opera house and the very exclusive Sacher Hotel and Café Mozart. Vienna was an occupied city, divided into American, British, French, and Russian zones. One evening when we were going home, a group of Russian soldiers boarded the tram. An old man was sitting in the front, holding an empty tin in his hand. One soldier grabbed the tin, put it on his head, and ridiculed the old man. Even as a child I felt his shame and humiliation. Frightened, we got off at the next stop, ran to another street, and waited for an hour in a café before making our way back to the house.

Vienna was a wrenching three-week hiatus during what turned out to be an enchanted eight-month stay in Prague with Uncle Max. I saw beautiful shops, beautiful homes, and elegant hotels and restaurants. I saw my first puppet show and my first children’s play. Mother took me to the opera to see La Bohème and Madame Butterfly. I was given dazzling picture books and toys. I loved the food and the sweets. In the spring, when we boarded a train for Ankara, where a cousin of my father served as the Iranian ambassador, then another train to Baghdad, and finally a bus to Iran, we left my fairy-tale city behind.