Scattered Pearls Read online

  I said nothing more, but a few days later I had to ask again. We argued – probably our longest fight yet as it was one of the few times I had any courage to answer back. Then I packed my bag, put Ali in his pusher and headed for the door. ‘You can relax as long as you like, but I will go.’

  Reza’s voice was unlike I had heard it before – deep and seething. ‘If . . . you . . . put . . . one foot . . . outside that door . . . you will go and never come back.’

  I glared at him. Finding a strength I didn’t know I had, I opened the door, pushed Ali into the hall, then turned and picked up my bag and put it over my shoulder. As I started to pull the door closed, I felt an excruciating pain on my backside and between my legs. I fell forward into the passageway, my bag dropping to the floor. As tears started to well in my eyes, I looked back to see Reza, at full height, step back and slam the door.

  I stayed on the ground, on all fours, for a few moments, trying to understand what had happened. The tears flowed and the pain grew as I unfolded myself, realising as I did so that my husband had kicked me . . . kicked me very hard.

  Picking up my bag again I did the best I could to guide Ali’s pusher towards the lift. We went down, out of the hotel and along the alley to the main road. There, pushing Ali aimlessly along and with my tear-swollen eyes, I finally started to come to terms with what had happened.

  Except for the time after the incident with Elahe and the boys in the car, I had never been struck by a man before. Yes, my father was a brute who swore and yelled, but it was very rare for him to hit us. Reza too, for all his faults, for all his similarities to my father, had not beaten me – until now.

  I was crying because of the pain, but I was crying more from the shock and humiliation. From the confusion. From the deep loneliness I felt. As I walked the streets, the tears kept flowing, people passing me with indifference. What were they going to do with a tiny, distraught, foreign woman anyway?

  Slowly my mind turned from the immediate past to the future. Every door was closed. Returning to Iran was no option. The indignity would be unbearable, and in any case I had no money. I couldn’t stay here in Thailand either. I couldn’t even find myself another hotel without any money. I couldn’t go to Australia because I had no visa and no way of getting one.

  No matter which page I turned to, I had to accept that my future was connected to this man. It had been since the day I married him. It had been – by my own making – since the day I met him.

  And now the hatred started to well up. I wanted to scream. I hated Reza. Hated. Hated. Hated.

  Now Ali was crying and needed changing.

  I turned back towards the hotel.

  Pausing at the end of the alleyway, I looked towards the hotel, perhaps a hundred metres away. There, standing at the entrance, was Reza.

  My head bowed, I shuffled towards him.

  When I reached him, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Why do you do these things?’

  ‘You hit me,’ I said.

  We said nothing more.

  Upstairs, back in our room, Reza was more attentive, in the way a man can be when he regrets what he has done but cannot bring himself to say sorry for it. Even if he had, ‘the milk was already spilt’, as we say in Persian.

  The next day we went back to the embassy. A telegram was waiting for us – from Jack Sutton. He told us that he was actively trying to get visas for us. But still we were declined.

  That afternoon, I packaged up all the gifts we had been given when we left Iran. As I prepared to go out, Reza asked me where I was going.

  ‘I’m tired of just sitting around. We need money. I will sell these things.’

  He shrugged his shoulders and continued smoking.

  I took Ali and we went out to the street. Though our hotel was very basic, it was in the area of a number of high class hotels, and there were many beautiful jewellery and gift shops serving their European and American guests. I walked from shop to shop and showed them what I had, eventually finding a store run by two beautiful Thai ladies. They were very kind to me. They especially liked the khatam-kari marquetry and the samovar. The women offered to put my crafts in their front window; they would take them on consignment: if they sold something they would pay me, otherwise they would give the items back.

  As I left this shop I was the happiest I had been since arriving in Bangkok.

  Back at the hotel, Reza was still lounging in his chair. He raised his eyebrows in disbelief when I told him what had happened. He seemed shocked that I was capable of doing such a thing, and that I had made it work without knowing a soul in this city.

  A few days later we were back to the embassy again. This time the receptionist, a local lady sitting behind a glass screen, was quite curt. Probably she was sick of seeing us; perhaps she had decided that our constant rejection meant there was something about us to be distrusted. She told us to take a seat and said that we would have to wait some time.

  Reza said nothing as we sat and waited. He just stared ahead and tapped a foot on the floor. Then he stood up and walked back to the reception desk.

  ‘Get fucked,’ he said, and stormed out of the building.

  The receptionist sat motionless, her mouth and eyes wide open. I waved apologetically and, pushing Ali ahead of me, went after Reza.

  Now I became very worried again. The day before I had taken Ali to a doctor. He had given me some medicine but it only seemed to make him worse. I was so concerned about him. We just had to get out of this stifling place. And now Reza had abused one of the only people who could help us. What if she complained to her bosses? What if they decided we would never get a visa?

  I recalled the incident with the phone box when we were travelling with his brother and sister before we married. Reza’s explosive temper could detonate at any time. The same temper that I was reminded of every time I sat down on my bruised bottom. Fear combined with my anguish and I could hardly walk.

  And then, after all that, we discovered after a few more days that Jack’s lobbying of the embassy had paid off. He had been able to show them enough evidence that we were in business together. We would both be granted new temporary visas.

  I was so happy I could hardly fit into my own skin. Good food and clean, temperate air were all I wanted, especially for my son. And a long bath. Now these things were in sight.

  When we went to collect our passports I grew worried again. What if the receptionist was angry? I so hated making people angry. Even a frown from her would mean the end of the world to me. Then Reza suggested we should write that our visas had been approved on a piece of paper – so we could show her without speaking to her. This made me even more concerned. I thought she might take it as thumbing our noses at her. Nevertheless, I did what Reza suggested. And when I held up the note to the security glass, the receptionist smiled then laughed. My relief felt like a weight lifted from my chest.

  Along with organising our visas, Jack also generously sent us some money, allowing us to pay off the debt we had accrued at our hotel. In return he asked Reza to stay back for one more week and try to find him an agent in Bangkok. I would return to Australia alone with Ali. It was now early March 1983.

  ~

  Is there anything better than returning to your home after months away? I felt like I had been freed from prison. At the duty free store in Bangkok I had even bought myself a lipstick for the first time since we had been married. (I had that lipstick for years.)

  We had only been in Chelsea Heights for a short time, and it was still isolated, lonely and very hot, but after the anxiety and pain of Bangkok it felt decidedly homely. Cleaning up the inevitable dust after six months and being able to wash our clothes properly was almost enjoyable. I took Ali to the doctor, and with good food and the right treatment he seemed to start improving within days. This must have been the happiest week of my life for many years.

  When Reza returned a week later it was ‘the same soup in the same bowl’. He had not found anything for Jack. H
e sat on the sofa, watched television and smoked.

  And he acted strangely.

  One day I must have said something about the smell of smoke in the house. He became upset, so I said nothing more. I didn’t want an argument and was cross with myself for speaking out. I told Reza that Ali needed milk, and that he and I would go to the nearby milk bar to buy some. When we got there, I also bought a packet of cigarettes for Reza hoping, I guess, to appease him. Returning home shortly afterwards, and not having a house key with me, I knocked on the door for Reza to let us inside. He did not answer. I knew he was still in there, so I shouted for him to open the door, but got no response. So I sat on the front step and waited. And waited. I knocked and shouted again after about an hour, telling him that Ali needed changing, but still there was no response. It was three hours before my husband opened the door. When I asked him why he would not let us in, he said nothing. He just gave me a smug smile, as if to say, ‘Because I could’.

  A week or so after Reza returned from Bangkok, Jack Sutton came to see us again. His attitude had changed. He was very disappointed that not one lead had come from this long trip, especially after he had paid for all our travel and our hotel in Bangkok, not to mention the effort he had taken to help us get our visas. He was still nice to me, but he had lost patience with Reza. Unfortunately, he said, he could no longer allow us to stay in his house if we could not pay any rent. Unless we could come up with $500 per month – impossible with neither of us working – we would have to move out.

  This was the end of our relationship with Jack Sutton. It also brought a quick end to my ‘holiday at home’. Reza seemed unaffected by Jack cutting us off, continuing to watch television and smoke as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, I went out to try to find us somewhere to live. I also started looking for a new job. We would now need to pay rent on top of our living expenses so we would need more money coming in.

  In May 1983 we moved to a flat in Seaford, two train stations further down the line. Thankfully the flat was furnished because we had to sell what furniture we did have in order to have enough money for the bond. In many situations our new address would have been the perfect location: a short walk to the railway station, and across the road from a benign beach. This should have been paradise. But my life was about to enter a darker phase, and the best location in the world wouldn’t have made it any better.

  ~

  The eighth of May 1983 was Mother’s Day, and I was given the gift of a small diary. Inscribed on the inside cover were the words: ‘A present by Mr Ali on Mother’s Day for his kind and dear mother, darling Sohila. From Ali and his father, Reza.’

  That night I wrote my first entry in the diary, noting that I had made a great decision the previous day: ‘From now on, I will be a kinder wife’. I had been too harsh on Reza. The tension between him and me was not only due to him . . . I was part of the problem. From now on I would work harder at our marriage.

  The next entry in the diary was made two weeks later.

  May 21, 1983 – Chelsea Heights

  I’m very upset, my heart is broken. I don’t know what to do. I hate everything. I only love Ali.

  Reza, who took to ‘inspecting’ my diary, made a note after this comment: ‘And my everlasting love, Reza’.

  At 9 pm I took Ali to the park next door then we went to the milk bar and I bought chocolates and a packet of cigarettes for Reza with the five dollars that I had.

  Reza added: ‘Thank you my dear wife’.

  Another two weeks later, in the space of a single entry, I wrote:

  Thinking to end this stupid life and go with Ali somewhere else . . . Maybe my behaviour has been wrong? . . . I ask God to put out the fire that is burning our relationship . . . Reza knows that I love him and that he loves me . . . All I want he has given me, especially Ali . . . Shut the door on yesterday and throw away the key. With your actions today make tomorrow.

  This entire entry is crossed out – I must have done that later – with a note (from me) added at the bottom: ‘You stupid idiot’.

  What I didn’t realise at the time I received my diary was the godsend that it would be. In its pages, and those of several subsequent diaries, I recorded details of the next four years which otherwise would have remained a maelstrom in my mind. The entries are consistent in their inconsistency as my emotions swung from self-loathing to Reza-loathing and back. These would be my most tumultuous years – much more grim than anything I had experienced as a child.

  ~

  For the first few months after we moved into the Seaford apartment, life was relatively stable though I was deeply unhappy.

  Reza’s life continued as it had – sleeping late, smoking, gambling, television and no effort whatsoever to find work. He seemed happy that we scraped by on the unemployment benefit with no car, no phone, no entertainment and only the occasional clothing purchase for our growing son. Our meagre income was spent on rent, electricity, the cheapest groceries I could find and a monthly rental payment on the television. And gambling. Our new home was a 15-minute walk from the nearest betting shop and he would take himself down there and back sometimes several times a day. That walk and his daily regime of arm pumping were the only concessions he made to his laziness.

  If he was winning at his gambling, I didn’t know about it. I suspect he gambled any ‘profits’ away as quickly as they were earned. Whenever I expressed concern about his betting he would be dismissive. ‘I am not a gambler. I only play for fun and that is all. A gambler has some special characteristics that I don’t have.’ He saw his bets as trivial: ‘Whether I gamble or not won’t change anything. Ten dollars or 50 or 100 is not real money. One does not get rich or poor with these small amounts. Real money is more than $100,000.’

  Which of course was completely fantastic. We were poor, and every cent he spent on gambling took money away from the little I had to spend on our household.

  My attention turned again to searching for work. We desperately needed more money, and being at home with Reza all day every day caused me great pain and frustration. I would pore over the newspaper and apply for every job I thought I had the smallest chance of getting. I would then scrape together enough change for copying, envelopes and stamps so that I could submit applications. We couldn’t afford our own telephone connection so I made calls from public phone boxes and was sent telegrams from companies advising me of the results of the few interviews I was granted.

  I applied for as many jobs as I could manage to – more than 30 – without any success. With every month I grew more exasperated. I had many interviews but no success. My confidence drained away; my head became numb. Reza and I now argued often. When I had been working previously at least I’d had daily relief from his idleness and gambling. And of course I had not had a child to look after then. Now I was drowning in the poison of his presence, swinging between loathing and resignation.

  By November, the fragile stability of life in Seaford was about to crack.

  Early in the month I was blessed by the arrival of my 20-year-old sister, Fariba. When we’d been back in Iran I had encouraged Fariba to move to Australia. She had finished school and was keen to become a nurse. I knew she would find good nursing opportunities in Australia with much better working conditions than she would ever hope for in Iran. And as I was already in Australia I could help her with a visa application so she would not experience all the painful problems we’d had securing our visas. After she arrived Fariba lived with us and made my life much easier by helping with Ali and around the house, which also gave me more time to look for work.

  Reza was not happy about someone else being in the house, but I gave him no choice. In Persian culture family are always welcome, no matter the circumstances. His response was to be even more lazy, if that was possible. He now had no reason to lift a finger at all.

  And then the beatings started.

  Since Bangkok, Reza hadn’t physically assaulted me again. He had pushed back on my complaints with only words.
He often told me that he was free to do as he wished, and that if I did not like it I could ‘piss off’. But, he would say, knowing exactly my weak spot, ‘You cannot take our son’.

  Over time I allowed myself to believe that the kick in Bangkok had been a one-off bolt of lightning. I was wrong. Perhaps emboldened by Fariba’s arrival, my complaints about Reza’s sloth and gambling became more and more vocal. The tension in our arguments rose. Reza started to stand over me and prod me, hard, with a thick finger. One day he slapped me, almost playfully, on the side of the head. Then he started pulling my hair, again just hard enough that it hurt but not hard enough that I could accuse him of violence.

  Having started again, his use of violence as a response to my frustrations became more regular. It didn’t happen when Fariba was around – we found plenty of time to argue when she was out with Ali or doing some shopping. (I didn’t tell Fariba about what was happening either – Reza’s abuse of me was something I had to manage on my own.) Before long, the slaps got harder and Reza started pushing me around more often. If I objected, he would deny hurting me. ‘I am not hitting you,’ he would say. ‘I am massaging you. If I really wanted to hurt you, you would be dead by now.’

  He took to calling me kos khol khanum: kos khol is a Persian expression that means something close to ‘silly c__t’; he added ‘khanum’ to it which translates to ‘Mrs’ or ‘Madam’, so the expression in effect became ‘Mrs Silly C..t’. I vehemently hated this, and he knew it. Over the coming years he would use the term more and more, many times a day.

  June 17, 1984 – Seaford

  Today I have made a big decision: I don’t care any more.

  I have no feelings for Reza. Actually I hate him. I’m tired. Blood comes from my eyes.

  Yesterday Reza took $10 and went to the TAB with Mansoor. He lost it all. What kind of a life is this?

  Today his lunch wasn’t ready and he behaved like a child. What have I done wrong to him? Have I sold him wet wood?

  He has no goal in life but to ‘defeat the TAB’. I don’t feel like a woman – just a slave.