I, Who Did Not Die Read online

  It wasn’t clear to me why we were fighting Iraq, but Ayatollah Khomeini said the war was a “gift from Allah,” because it was the chance to give Islam to the whole world. Islam, shmislam. Me, I just wanted to stop being aimless. Mostafa gave me a job out of pity. And I wasn’t much help, anyway, because I was too small to do any heavy lifting. I was more like a wife, fixing him meals and listening to his long, boring stories. I needed to do something that mattered, like avenging Farideh from those murderous Arabs. Omid was just copying me, like a puppy, because I was his hero, but I didn’t mind. He could come with me if he wanted; war was an adventure big enough for two.

  Once inside the mosque, I said a small prayer of thanks—for air-conditioning—and we joined a long line of volunteers snaking down a hallway. I noticed we were some of the youngest in the line, but I did spot some boys who looked to be eight or nine. A chubby recruiter with popping eyeballs like a goldfish approached Omid and me and ordered us to follow him to his office.

  “How old are you?” he asked, plopping himself into a swiveling armchair that wheezed under his weight.

  “Thirteen!” Omid said.

  “And a half,” I added, standing up taller. I really was thirteen and a half. Omid was twelve.

  “Why do you want to join the Basij?”

  To get into the Basij, you had to be religious. You had to pray to God in Arabic many times a day like the Muslims do. You had to listen to mullahs and do whatever they said. I knew a little bit about religion from watching Mostafa bow down on his rug, but still I stammered trying to answer the question.

  Omid jumped in and saved me, ready with a line he’d picked up from Radio Tehran: “Our religious and national duty demands it of us, the children of Islam, to go fight the devil, or else Islam will be in danger,” he said.

  The goldfish frown flipped into a wide smile.

  “Do your parents approve?”

  Omid nudged me with his elbow, and I handed over the letters, damp with my sweat. The man unfolded the papers and glanced at Omid’s phony permission letter on top. Then he folded both pages again, not even bothering to look at mine.

  “God bless you, worthy children,” he said, spiraling his pen across some forms. He stood and shook our hands, then held a cardboard box before us. “Choose one,” he said.

  The box held headbands, red or green, each with the name of a prophet written on it in Farsi script. They were meant to protect soldiers in battle, and I’d seen Basij soldiers wearing them on TV. Omid chose a red one that read “Ya Husayn!” I chose green, the martyr’s color. Mine said “Allahu Akbar.”

  The goldfish then waved us toward the back of the mosque, where more officers ushered us through a back door and onto a waiting bus filled with loud boys beating their chests and chanting “Long live Khomeini!” The driver put the bus in gear, and as I turned to look at the pandemonium outside the mosque, I couldn’t believe our good luck at getting plucked from the crowd for the last two seats on the bus. All the passengers were chattering so fast, it was like we were a rolling birdcage overstuffed with finches. I closed my ears to the churring and dreamed of the adventure ahead. I imagined myself around a campfire, comparing escapades with other soldiers while opening cans of food with my bayonet. At night, I’d sleep in a tent with Iraqi heads hanging across the entrance. I felt hands lifting me up as they carried me through the streets of Masjed Soleyman, singing for their hero who kicked Iraq back across the border with the toe of his massive boot.

  “Hey, Omid, you think we’ll get pistols?”

  “This isn’t World War II, dummy; they will give us serious weapons. Machine guns. Rocket launchers.”

  “What about tanks or fighter jets?”

  “You gotta have training for that stuff,” he said. “We’re the militia—the crazy combat guys on the ground.”

  After a two-hour drive northwest toward the border, the bus stopped before an enormous rectangular compound ringed by pointy mountains made of layered orange rock, like a giant had smashed birthday cakes together and just left them in a jumbled pile. Tangles of bright green trees knotted with vines sprung from the canyons in the rock, and thin waterfalls spilled to the river below. Armed guards stood at fixed posts all around the encampment, and a line of officers waited at the entrance, ready to greet us. When I got off the bus, the air was wet and thick, and the heat was so intense it felt as if it was massaging the marrow of my bones.

  “It’s like we’re in the jungle,” Omid whispered as we walked toward the entrance.

  “Do you think Daryoosh is here?”

  Until he left me behind to join the Basij, my neighbor Daryoosh and I were the kite-flying champions of Masjed Soleyman, rulers of the airspace above the Zagros Mountains towering over our street. Just the previous summer, we’d ripped all the pages out of my math textbook and made a monster kite that was three feet wide and ten feet long, so big that it took both of us an hour to carry it up to the hiking trail to our flying spot. Dozens of neighborhood kids competed against us, trying to jab holes in our kite or loop their strings around ours and yank it from the sky, but all failed. We had a secret weapon they didn’t know about—a special glue that one of my uncles showed me how to make by mixing Styrofoam and gasoline. That glue made paper turn as hard as plastic. We never told anyone how we made our kites, and we never lost a contest. Daryoosh was all thumbs in real life, but he could make a kite look like a ballet dancer in the sky. Ever since he’d left, I hadn’t felt inspired to compete.

  “We can look for him,” Omid said.

  I smiled just thinking about having my two best friends with me.

  “Soldiers of Muhammad, welcome to the Karkheh battalion,” said the first man in the greeting line as he shook my hand, making my arm flap like a rubber band. He must have been the leader, because he was wearing many shiny pins on his shirt, and he was the tallest. As we made our way down the row of handshakes toward the collection of tents and warehouses that made up the compound, my excitement meter hit tilt. All I had with me was a handful of coins and the worn-out clothes on my back, and somewhere in this complex there was a tent and a uniform and a weapon just for me.

  Omid and I walked toward the parade grounds in the center of the base to wait for further instructions. We took inventory as we went, noticing the commander’s building with thick cement walls and ceiling fans, the camp mosque, the mess tent, a medical clinic, and a repair shop. There were offices for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, with desks for the morality police who enforced Sharia law and proper religious behavior, and a wing for counterintelligence, and a shooting range. It was like a perfect little city, every little piece snapped in the right place.

  At the parade grounds, each of us was given a box containing a tan uniform and boots, blanket, skillet, toothbrush and toothpaste, shoe polish, soap, and fork and spoon. I lifted out a pair of boxers and sized them against myself, but they extended past my knees. I dug through my box again, feeling around for a weapon of some kind. They didn’t think I was going to defend myself with a fork, did they?

  “Be patient,” Omid said as we carried our supplies to the mosque, where all the new boys were going to sleep that night until we got our tent assignments. Omid and I wanted to get to the mosque early and claim a spot on the floor with our blankets. There were so many of us, I didn’t know how we were all going to fit inside. “I’m sure they don’t pass out guns on the first day,” Omid added.

  We walked by a cinder-block building we hadn’t seen before, and as we got closer, we spotted a small sign painted in sun-blistered paint on the wall: MORGUE. We looked away and picked up our pace.

  After dinner in the mess hall, as I settled down on my blanket in the mosque, I was too afraid to go to sleep because I might wake up back at Omid’s house and this would all have been a dream. I felt so free, freer than the day I stole Baba’s money and went to the movies. That freedom had been a one-shot deal. Now I was truly cut loose from my family, and every decision going forward would be mine, all m
ine. No more fixing cars, no more making deliveries with Mostafa. I was the boss of me now, and no one could take that away. That fact alone made me feel an inch taller already. The mosque was noisy with so many boys, and every time someone farted, it set off a whole new round of giggling and kicking. Some sort of competition was under way, seeing who could produce the loudest gas. I reached over and poked Omid in the back.

  “You can beat them all.”

  He stayed curled in a ball and ignored me. I poked him again. Nothing.

  “Hey,” I said, leaning in close to see if he was snoring. I heard a small sniffle and rolled him over to see that he was crying. “What’s this?” I asked.

  “I miss my mom,” he whispered.

  I sat up and flicked him hard on the forehead to snap him out of it. “Are you kidding? You’re going to wimp out on me?”

  He slapped my hand away and cried harder. “I want to go home!”

  “Listen,” I hissed, “go home if you wanna be a mama’s boy. But fuck you if you do.”

  “Fuck you back,” he said.

  “Fuck you, period.”

  “Fuck you, exclamation point.”

  “Fuck you, infinity!” I squealed.

  Then we were wrestling, then we were laughing, then he farted on me for good measure—the ultimate challenge. That left me with just one weapon in my arsenal. I got on all fours and did my donkey impression. I rocked my head back and forth and hee-hawed with ridiculous gusto, and Omid fell into a spasm of giggles. “Hi, I’m Omid. Have you seen my balls?” I said, using my best idiot-donkey voice. I looked left and right and under the blankets. “I seem to have misplaced them.”

  Once Omid relaxed, I waited until I heard him snoring, then I closed my eyes. Everything was as it should be again, but I’d have to keep an eye on that kid. If Omid went home, I’d be very sad, but I wouldn’t follow. He had a happy family to return to, and I didn’t. Maybe he was too young for this, and if he needed to go home, I’d understand. But I was going to do my best to toughen him up so he’d stay with me.

  I have to say it was a huge disappointment that my first day as a new soldier began at five in the morning with prayers, then an hour of exercising, then a whole day of filling burlap bags with sand for battle shelters. If I thought the heat was bad in my hometown, I take it all back. This was a dryness that peeled off layers of my lips and opened up deep cracks in my heels. Dust mixed with snot and created erasers that plugged my nostrils.

  The second day started out as an exact repeat of the first, and they still hadn’t assigned us tents yet. This was beginning to be a big problem, as the smell of so many feet in the mosque was making it impossible for me to sleep at night. This was not the war I had signed up for; this was more boring than long drives with Mostafa in his truck. I might as well have joined an orphanage.

  I topped off another burlap bag and tied it off with rope. Two boys working with me squatted down, lifted the bag together, and walked it toward a flatbed truck. I was scooping sand into the zillionth bag when I heard a scream. One of the boys had lost his footing when he swung the bag onto the truck, tripped, and sliced his palm open on a barbed wire fence. The cut wasn’t too deep, but there was a lot of blood, so much that Omid took one look and fainted, of course. Blood didn’t bother me, so I helped the boy wrap his hand in his shirt and offered to walk with him to the clinic.

  When we arrived, one of the busy medics handed me some gauze and tape with a pleading look that said “Can you please take care of this?” before he ran back to a waiting ambulance. I washed the boy’s hand in a sink and wrapped the white cloth around his wound, winding the strips around his thumb and wrist so the bandage would stay in place. I copied the movements that Omid’s mom had made when she wrapped my scalded foot, making sure it was secure but not overly tight.

  Just then, the doctor walked by.

  “You two. Come here,” he barked.

  A chill engulfed my body. We had barged into the hospital without permission, and now both of us were going to be punished. We walked softly over to the doctor, keeping our eyes down. He reached for the boy’s hand and held it up, examining the bandage from all angles.

  “Where’d you learn to do this?”

  I looked up from the floor, wondering what the right answer was. I decided it was the truth.

  “I’ve had injuries before, sir. Burns, mostly. And good nurses who took care of me.”

  The doctor nodded slowly.

  “I need another medic. You could be useful to me.”

  I beamed. Even though medic was considered one of the worst war jobs you could get, like a battlefield janitor who swept up the dead without ever getting a chance to fight, all I cared about was that a real doctor had complimented me. What do you know? I had a skill. I gratefully said yes.

  That night, Omid and I were assigned to a tent that already had four boys in it. As we approached, I heard a familiar voice and picked up my step. Omid heard it, too, and we simultaneously broke into a full run.

  “Daryoosh!”

  His skinny frame appeared in the doorway, and he held his hand up to block the sun so he could see who was calling him. It took him only a second to recognize us, and he let out one of his high-pitched yelps and came running. The three of us clutched one another like we’d just won the World Cup soccer trophy.

  “I knew you’d be here!” I sputtered.

  “I knew you’d have to copy me,” he said, cuffing me on the shoulder.

  “Have you seen any action?” Omid asked.

  Daryoosh kicked the sand. “Nah. But there’s talk we’re going to be sent to the front soon.”

  We nodded like we knew that already.

  “Do you have a gun?” Omid asked.

  “Not yet. C’mon, let me introduce you to the guys.”

  I take back what I said about military camp being boring. With each day, I met another boy from my neighborhood or one of the nearby towns. All you had to do was talk to a stranger for five minutes and you’d discover you were related or that you had a friend in common. Omid’s spirits lifted, and he found out what his military skill was. He was really good at taking apart a machine gun, cleaning it, and putting it back together. Ever since he got assigned to help the fighters with their equipment, he’d thankfully stopped whining about his mom so much. If he got really fast assembling the weapons and delivering ammunition, he could get a machine gun of his own. Medics didn’t get weapons, but he promised he’d show me how to shoot his.

  My training began immediately. Or, more precisely, at two a.m. the next day, when the doctor came into the tent I now shared with Omid and four other guys, and shook me awake.

  “Follow me. Now.”

  I stumbled into my boots and lumbered after him, huffing to keep up. He scurried through the hospital front doors, toward a set of stairs that led to a basement. He paused before he went down the stairs and turned to me with an irritated look. “Hurry up, son, this isn’t your fucking aunt’s house!”

  We descended to an underground surgery room, with smooth tiles so shockingly white that I stood transfixed for a second as if I had fallen into a parallel universe, one without dirt and sweat. He led me to a sink and showed me the proper way to scrub my hands and to dry them by spreading my fingers wide and waving them in the air. Then he parted a curtain, and I jumped back. There, on the operating table, was a mangled boy of about fourteen or fifteen. His body had been ripped open from his throat down to his stomach, and I could see his intestines, quivering with his breath. My skin went clammy and my ears started to ring, blotting out all other sound. All the different reds and pinks of the boy’s insides swirled in my vision and I doubled over and vomited . . . all over the doctor’s shoes.

  “For fuck’s sake!” he said, hopping out of my puddle.

  I grabbed the metal operating table to steady myself, and the doctor slapped me so hard that I spun around.

  “Get out!” he roared.

  This couldn’t be happening. I didn’t realize how mu
ch I needed to be a medic until he had chosen me. It suited me because I had experience with injuries, and Omid’s mom had taught me all I needed to know about healing. If I could be a medic, then I would be saving people instead of killing them. I could serve my country in this clean, safe surgery room out of the line of fire.

  “Please . . .”

  The doctor couldn’t kick me out; he just couldn’t. It wasn’t my fault I’d never seen someone’s guts close-up before. But I could handle it, if he’d just give me another chance.

  “Out!”

  I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry, so I held my breath as I walked toward the stairs, tears streaming down my cheeks. I was two steps up the staircase when I heard him call me back. I quickly wiped my face and turned around.

  “This boy has to be stitched up now, and I don’t have anyone else,” the doctor said. “I need you to hand me the tools. Look away and hand them to me over your shoulder if you want to be a girl about it.”

  And so I did. I didn’t know the names of all the instruments, but he yelled at me until I learned the difference between a scalpel and chisels, forceps and calipers. It was a two-hour crash course in nursing, even if I couldn’t see what he was doing with the tools. I told myself it was better that way, to start with basic vocabulary lessons and work my way up to blood and guts. The doctor cussed his way through the operation until finally I felt his hand on my shoulder.

  “You can turn around now.”

  The boy still looked like he was sleeping, but now he had a huge line of stitches like a railroad track running down his chest. I put my finger on his wrist to check for a pulse, and the power of what we had just done surged through me like an electrical current. The awe of it—of being able to give a person his future back—took my words away.