Chapter 7 - Nazanin
Late August, 2002
Somewhere near Tehran
It was hot, so oppressively hot the one day she opened her eyes and looked up to find an unknown man staring back at her. She didn't know where she was, how she got there or even who she was. She couldn't speak and for a time her thoughts came in forms of a language she was not familiar with - eventually she would discover it was bits of English, Russian and Japanese.
They kept her in a hospital, locked away behind heavy metal doors and walls with the paint chipping off. It smelled of chemicals and the bed she slept in was barely more than tufts of cotton with springs sticking out of it. There was no air conditioning and so a fine sheen of sweat soaked the clothing she wore. Time skipped along, days bleeding into longer days until she didn't bother counting and then, one day, he showed up.
Tanned skin, dark eyes and hair, absolutely good looking, charming and concerned. "Nazanin!"
"Who are you?" It was the first time she would speak, the words spilling off her lips in almost perfect Farsi. The man stepped towards her, collecting her into his embrace with familiarity although she didn't want his touch. She cowered away from him, huddled in the corner despite kind eyes and a look of absolute adoration. "Don't touch me."
"Don't you remember me?" He asked, coming down to his haunches in front of her but keeping a safe distance away. The man reached out, his hand brushing the side of her face not covered by the headscarf. He seemed to admire her beauty, the tone of skin that was a clear indication of Iranian blood flowing through her veins. Holding his breath, he inched forward. "I am your husband, Farid. My sweet Nazanin,I thought I'd lost you forever."
"Nazanin?" No, that didn't seem right. As pretty as it sounded, that wasn't her name she was… she was… her hands came up to her head, squeezing her temples in effort to stop the pounding, the scrambling of thoughts that led to nowhere. "I'm not Nazanin… I am… my name…"
"Oh my love, I am so sorry… Allah saved you, brought you back to me. Don't you remember what happened?"
She didn't. Her memories were hazy like trying to see through a thick sandstorm and unable to focus on anything. The more she tried to search her mind for clues, the deeper the haze grew until she gave up. There were only a few things she held true, her hair was cut far too short as it had yet to grow past her shoulders. And then there were scars, one at her throat that seemed to be from surgery years ago given the appearance, one on her right thigh which was almost circular. But the ones that itched and ached from time to time were wrapped. A long gauze covered her left forearm helping heal the burns she couldn't remember receiving.
The man standing before her now seemed just as perplexed, delicately raising her arm to see the covering. "Nazanin, they said you were hurt."
"I'm not Nazanin!"
She rebuked that name although the man she learned was named Farid managed to take her from the facility just a few days later and whisk her away to a home that she never dreamed existed.
At once she was showered with gifts, given her own rooms with others that would wait on her hand and foot. Farid was a young but patient man and would visit daily along with the medical staff that saw to her injuries. She was given proper clothing, garbs that she hated but soon became part of life, of ritual.
She found she knew the Quran, could quote passages from it with ease and so she began to pray to mold herself into the woman she scantily remembered. Farid was never far away from her and one day his patience ran thin. "You will marry me, Nazanin."
"I thought I was already your wife?"
It was a challenge that earned her a stern slap and just as quickly he was caressing her face, easing the stinging sensation with a gentle touch. "We must marry again, my love. You will learn to love me."
The wedding was held at an estate by the sea, protected by the same heavy security that watched over their home. It was a small ceremony and she was allowed to wear an intricate, peach wedding dress covered in beautiful designs of chiffon and lace. She wouldn't have to hide her face then, wouldn't have to be known by only her eyes. Farid seemed more enamored than ever, treating her like a queen, promising her things she never realized she wanted.
Passion he would offer taking her through a night of exquisite ecstasy that was their wedding night. He was a consummate lover, made sure she was pleased and cared for, loved. Their honeymoon took them to different beaches, private yachts all part of a life of luxury she never knew existed. Farid was right, her heart began to grow and fill,her mind too began to realize one key thing - she was falling in love with a man she scantily knew.
The union would come with a price given Farid's future position in politics but he made sure to keep them out of that limelight, the prince that cared for his princess like she was a priceless jewel. Oh yes, he cared for her so much...too much until her habit of speaking out of turn would wreck their little peace.
It was then that he would lash one specific punishment, a hard slap that would remind her of her place in this world where women's headstrong opinions did not matter. The niqab did a wonderful job of hiding her away from the world, of making her feel unimportant, forgettable and at times it made her remember a past life.
A past life on some military base that she knew was nothing more than just a dreamworld. She had much shorter hair with scattered red highlights, a black robe covering her body. She threw the headscarf in her hand angrily across the room with such a feeling of intense anger and satisfaction and then whipped to face a man with a light coloured suit. A faceless man that was not her husband.
Almost a year into their marriage and still no memories of her past not even a speck that she would hold on to and use to recall who she was. All Nazanin knew was that she'd been in a horrible accident, one that left permanent burn marks and a loss of all her memories. All she knew was the life Farid surrounded them with.
He realized she was well educated, far more than any of the women he'd ever known and was much more than a woman to sate his basic desires. He enjoyed listening to her thoughts and Nazanin became the person he would turn to for counseling to help fine tune the position he was finding himself being groomed for.
Farid also discovered a secret he hadn't even known existed within her - the warrior beneath the beautiful skin that warmed his bed at night. It was a fact he learned one morning while they walked along the booths of a market. He had a security team and no care in the World because the men around them were paid well to protect and show fealty. Not all men shared that sentiment as it would be two of his vetted security force that would attempt a kidnapping - his.
Any other woman would have cowardly, ran, screamed but Nazanin stood rooted in place accessing what was happening before her. She had stopped to look at flowers, roses to be exact staring at each delicate bloom only to wonder why her heart suddenly began to beat faster. Those particular flowers held a piece of her mystery, she knew - a past her mind was too stubborn to unlock. Nazanin closed her eyes and breathed in the delicate fragrance only to find visions of a woman dressed in a drab green costume with a hat and shiny objects attached over her left breast.
It was her, standing tall, holding out her hand to one of three men, all faceless and unwilling to be seen. She felt a warmth on her palm, a static kind of electricity that crackled when the taller of the men held her hand and wouldn't let it go. The scent of roses wafted around them and as quickly as the memory came it disappeared and she found herself in the middle of a melee.
Sounds of screams, of glass shattering and tables being toppled over scared her out of the stupor. For some reason, some ingrained part of her mind opened up and out of muscle memory she went on the attack. Nazanin ripped a wooden leg off the flipped table and used it like a baseball bat striking through one of the kidnapper's faces. It rendered him unconscious and so she used the same tactic on another man. The third was ready, he overpowered her, pulled the wood out of her hands which caused her to fall forward into his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her tightly, trying to use force that would have worked only Nazanin's forehead slammed into his nose breaking it. He then let go, stumbled backwards holding his face with blood streaming from it. Her actions were enough to thwart the attackers and bought time for the security detail to assemble and rush them both to safety.
"How did you do that?" Farid asked, suspiciously eyeing the woman.
Nazanin was shaking both from fear and adrenaline. She could only shake and look at her hands that had brought so much destruction without warning. "I don't know. I was remembering something and then...who was I?"
As usual, he had no answers. Her past was a mystery.
September 2002
Somewhere Near Tehran
"What is this?" That morning she was presented with a box and inside a beautiful dress much like the one she'd worn to her wedding just a pale shade of yellow. It was lovely and could only mean there was some private event that would allow her to shed the niqab and dress more openly. Nazanin lived for moments like these, so few that they'd been because it also meant they would leave the mansion and head elsewhere - hopefully with Farid.
The last two months she'd sparsely seen him and when he visited it was less like a lover's visit and more like that of a friend. He was always too exhausted to perform his husbandly duties and she wondered if there was something about her he just stopped loving. The answer came a few hours later when she stood inside of the same great hall that her wedding had been performed. It was decorated tastefully albeit much more lavish than her own. What she couldn't expect was that the groom would be so familiar to her - a man she'd shared herself with.
"Farid? Why?" She asked after the ceremony knowing better than to make a scene that would only cause her pain. Nazanin cried as the pain and shame of humiliation reared its ugly head.
Farid had not fallen out of love, he swore. "This is custom and nothing more. It is you I truly love."
The blow hurt more than she could imagine and the time she spent with him was far less about consummating their love and more about keeping their friendship. The physical intimacy, the basic union between husband and wife had been replaced by conversation and more of a need for a husband to vent about his father and uncle's unfair treatment of him.
A few more months passed and Farid added yet another wife this one younger still, barely of age and stupid. He would punish her severely, Nazanin could hear the women's screams from the angry slaps of his belt across her skin. She would often enter the room when he had left, tasked to care for the other two like a mother more than a sister wife.
For some reason Farid turned cold, hurtful towards all of them but at least Nazanin was spared the physical abuse. She was still his 'Sweet Nazanin' and that only garnered animosity between herself and his other wives.
October 1st, 2006
Hotel Le Meurice
Paris, France
"Why do you continue to defy me, Nazanin?" A doctor had been called to their suites attending more to Farid's injuries than her own. The tall American that came out of nowhere had beat him severely, breaking Farid's nose, the force sending his head back into the side of the building causing a small cut on his skull.
His ribs were not fractured although the doctor stated they were badly bruised. Hers however hurt everytime she breathed but no one bothered to check if they were cracked or if she was hurt by Farid's own sudden attack. They were alone now, his other wives sent off to their own suites with a security detail while Parisian police spoke to both Farid and Nazanin trying to gauge why an American Naval Officer would suddenly attack.
"The man is an animal! He ran across the street like a mad man, attacked my sweet wife. What could I do? I tried to defend her and then he turned his aggression on me!" He'd lied for his own benefit because none of the men of the police force would sympathize with a man that regularly beats women.
She'd asked for it, of course. Dared to bring up his inebriated state, her exhaustion and the want to return to the hotel. A good, obedient wife would not do such a thing and because Farid was with a friend the punishment needed to be swift and public. He needed to show what kind of man he was.
Nazanin could only lower her head in shame. Beanthe the scarves she could smell the blood, hers and knew there would be no one to patch her up. The other wives despised her as much as she tried to help them when Farid unleashed his wrath on them. "I was in pain. I needed to rest. I meant no disrespect to you."
She visibly winced when he walked over and tore her coverings off, an effort to see her as he wished now that the doctor had gone. "Do you hurt?"
"No." Even then she still defied him refusing to give into the threatening look in his eyes. His hand found the edge of her lower abdomen where he pushed hard. Of course that would hurt, she made sure of that herself. A tear slipped out of one eye but she wouldn't audibly admit to her suffering.
"You are obstinate. The only reason I haven't disposed of you is because I still love you. Stupidly, my heart belongs to you and only you." He removed his hand and then went to the bathroom retrieving a wet rag that he used to clean the dry blood from her face.
Nazanin never understood how he could be so loving and cruel. It was like a switch he would flip at any time. Bipolar is what she imagined he was because at his most sweet with her, she'd give him anything. Maybe she was manic as well? Maybe he'd conditioned her in the last few years to be pliant? There was still a fire inside her but it was slowly being smothered.
"Why did you not want my child?" He gathered her into his arms after he was done cleaning the blood, forcing her head to rest against his chest. "Father said you should die for that act alone. I told him you were mentally sick, my love. I told him you knew not what you did."
It had been one of the servants that had offered to help the moment she realized Nazanin was pregnant. The first year they tried and never had she created a life. Yet one night six weeks ago it had happened. One night when he finally decided to share a bed with her again.
She had cried over the life they created and not from happiness. Nazanin was terrified to bring a child into this World especially given the gossip she'd walked in on, that if it were a girl she'd be sold or killed. Instinctively she knew the life inside of her was female and she refused to let that life grow only to be terminated.
"You can't have that child." Neda, the woman who had tended to her since she'd been brought to Farid's mansion, spoke. "I think you know she will die."
"She? How can you be sure?"
"How can you? My dear, you don't belong here. I don't know how you came to be here but this is not your life. I can't help you escape but I can help with the child." The older woman had helped, and waited for Farid to be away on business.
The act itself was carried out in a dank region of the home inside a cellar where Nazanin's cries of pain could not be heard. She cried for the life she willingly put to death. She cried because the pain was so great both physically and emotionally. Some time later she cried because someone had told and Neda was murdered. Nazanin refused to cry when Farid hit her. Inner strength forced her to become tougher, stoic.
"Oh my sweet, sweet Nazanin." She fell asleep in Farid's arms that night and despite her resentment and anger there was still a sliver of love for him.