Stolen Moments in Shiraz

 By Afdhere Jama

It is early Friday morning, and Massoumeh is hurrying back home before her husband gets upset. After she made and served breakfast, she had to run to a store to buy some things to prepare his favorite lunch later—Chelo Kebob, a popular Iranian grilled meat (of any kind), served with saffron-flavored Basmati Rice, which her husband likes to eat nice and hot right after he gets home from the Friday prayers at the Mosque.

If he sounds a bit demanding, he is.

“He won’t eat anything else,” complains Massoumeh, a 33-year-old wife and mother of three. “He doesn’t even care to know what I or the children want. He wants the same thing, cooked the same way, on every Friday. I have no choice but to listen to him.”

A few weeks earlier, when Massoumeh defied her husband on the occasion of her son’s birthday and cooked the son’s favorite food instead, she says he beat her so hard she ended up in the hospital. “I had bruises all over that I could not leave the house for days,” she adds.

The other side of town, Nahit is struggling to decide what to eat for breakfast. Her husband had been out all night with his friends—playing cards, drinking and God knows what else. He only came home after sunrise. Unlike Massoumeh, she is on her own as far as breakfast and lunch go. Nahit and her husband are both Jewish, but he neither observes the Sabbath nor cares for what day of the week it is. So, instead of cooking, she eats some oatmeal and heads to Massoumeh’s house.

“He does this all the time! What can I do? I have no control over him,” complains Nahit, a 28-year-old who is pregnant for the first time. “I still need to eat because of my child. Before this [pregnancy], I used to eat whenever I go over to Massoumeh and we would share a meal like loving people should. But now I must eat on certain times of the day.”

The two women are lovers. Seven years ago, they met when Massoumeh responded to an Internet ad posted by Nahit on a small Persian list for lesbians moderated from Los Angeles. At the time, a then 21-year-old Nahit was to be given in marriage. And, freaking out of the prospect of spending the rest of her life with a man, she posted a little cry for help. Meanwhile, Massoumeh had given birth to her second child and was falling into a life she did not want.

“We carried a very gentle friendship at first,” says Nahit, “I wanted to go faster but Massoumeh was not up to it because she had a problem with having a Jewish lover. But over the years, it has indeed developed into a sweet, meaningful relationship.”

In a country where most queers don’t even identify as gay or lesbian, it is truly amazing to hear these women refer to their relationship for what it is. “But it has taken us some years to get to this point,” explains Nahit. “At first, it was hard for me to accept I’m a lesbian—even when I was on a lesbian chat list. And we are still struggling because we live on stolen moments.”

This morning, Massoumeh knows Nahit is on her way. And she is praying Farid, her husband, will be gone by the time she gets here. If she is lucky, he will decide to go to the Mosque and read a few portions of the Qur’an there before the service. “He always starts questioning me why I have people visiting. I don’t want him to suspect anything,” she says.

During the working weekdays, which in Iran are from Saturday through Wednesday, they don’t have this problem. Farid works as a Civil Engineer. He is gone most of the day; from early morning until evening. Sharokh, Nihat’s husband, owns a shop in a local Bazaar (mall.) Sometimes, Sharokh leaves early in the morning as well and doesn’t come home at all until a day or two later.

“While they are at work, and the children are at school, it gives us sometime to be together,” says Massoumeh. “My oldest is nine. And she is beginning to be at that age when they understand things, and I don’t want to risk anything.”

Massoumeh is freaking out because she certain if her husband discovers about the relationship she has with Nahit, he will expose her to the government and that she, along with the love of her life, will face humiliation, jail time and ultimately be executed in public.

“It really does happen a lot in Iran,” explains Massoumeh, “I think people don’t know this outside of this country. There are many executions every day. Heterosexual adulterers, men and women accused of homosexuality and all sorts of other people that the government finds offenders of many idiotic laws. I’m scared all the time, but not Nahit. She thinks nobody cares. ‘As long as we keep our husbands everything will be fine,’ she always says but that is not true. The fact that we are both married women—we will be stoned to death.”

Nahit, on the other hand, feels their relationship is worth the risks. “I just don’t have fears because I know what our married life is like,” confesses Nahit. “I’m married to an absent husband, who spends the nights away from me, abandoning me in cold bed by myself while he keeps whores with himself in the store. And Massoumeh is married to a monster that beats her up everyday for the littlest things imaginable. It is amazing, truly. This is a man who prays five times a day to God, and yet if his wife irons his shirt the wrong way he beats her. So, we would be dead without each other anyway. Are we going to be exposed? I don’t care. Let them expose us.”

Not today. Farid decides to leave for the Mosque early with his seven-year-old son. Massoumeh, her nin-year-old daughter and four-year-old son are left in the house. Only twenty-five minutes after he leaves, Nahit gets there. The two women are happy to be alone for a few hours together. Now, all they have to worry about is getting that Chelo Kebab ready for Farid.

Afdhere Jama is the editor of Huriyah. His new book Illegal Citizens: Queer Lives In the Muslim World is released in July by Salaam Press. Reach him via info@huriyahmag.com

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