Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir (No Series) Read Online Free PDF

always clean-shaven face, and amber eyes.
    “Good morning, Papa. Bahboo wants to know if you would like a cup of tea.”
    “No,” my father snapped without looking at me, and I turned around and retraced my steps.
    Sometimes, when I woke up early in the morning and everyone else was still asleep, I went to my father’s dance studio. I imagined the music, usually a waltz, because that was my favorite, and spun and danced around the room, imagining my father standing in a corner, clapping and saying, “Bravo, Marina! You really know how to dance!”
    When I entered the kitchen, Grandma was chopping onions, tears rolling down her face. My eyes started to burn.
    “I hate raw onions,” I said.
    “You’ll appreciate them once you get older. Then, when you need to cry and don’t want anyone to know you’re crying, you can just chop onions.”
    “You’re not really crying, are you?”
    “No, of course not.”

    When my parents married, during the Second World War, they rented a modest apartment at the northwest corner of the intersection of Shah and Rahzi Avenues in downtown Tehran, the capital of Iran and its largest city. There, above a small furniture store and a small restaurant, my father, Gholamreza Nicolai Moradi-Bakht, opened his dance studio. Since many American and British soldiers passed through Iran during the war, Western culture became popular among the higher class, so my father found many faithful students who wished to learn to dance like Westerners.
    My mother, Roghieh Natalia Fekri, gave birth to my brother in 1951. When he was about two years old, my mother went to Germany, even though she didn’t speak German, to take a hairdressing course. When she returned six months later, she needed a place to open a beauty salon. There was another apartment identical to my parents’ beside theirs, and they rented that one also and connected the two apartments.
    I was born on April 22, 1965. Since 1941, the pro-Western and autocratic Mohammad Reza Shah-eh Pahlavi had been the king of Iran. Four months before my birth, Iranian premier, Hassan Ali-eh Mansur, was assassinated by reputed followers of Shia fundamentalist leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who was pushing for a theocracy in Iran. In 1971, Amir Abbas-eh Hoveida, who was the prime minister at the time, organized lavish festivities at the ancient ruins of Persepolis, commemorating the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire. Twenty-five thousand guests from around the world, including kings and queens, presidents, prime ministers, and diplomats, attended this celebration, the expense of which reached $300 million. The shah announced that the purpose of this celebration was to show the world the progress Iran had made during recent years.
    When I turned four, my brother left home to attend Pahlavi University in the city of Shiraz in central Iran. I was very proud of my tall, handsome brother, but he was rarely around and never stayed for too long. On those treasured occasions when he visited, he would fill my bedroom door frame, smiling at me and asking, “How is my little sister?” I loved the way the wonderful smell of his cologne saturated the air. He and Grandma were the only people who ever gave me gifts for Christmas. My parents thought Christmas was a complete waste of time and money.
    Grandma took me to church every Sunday. The only Russian Orthodox Church in Tehran was a two-hour walk from our apartment. Our path to church took us through the streets of downtown Tehran, which were lined with stores, vendors, and ancient maple trees. The delicious aroma of roasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds floated in the air. Nahderi Avenue with its toy stores and bakeries was my favorite part of the trip. The scent of freshly baked pastries, vanilla, cinnamon, and chocolate was intoxicating. And there were many sounds, which became entangled and hung over the street: cars honking, vendors advertising their merchandise and haggling with their