Irans Past and Future :: Iran Social Change History Essays

Iran's Past and Future â€Å"Does this look like love?!† Janet yelled at her mother-in-law, shoving the dented gold bracelet towards her. Her mother in law didn’t notice; she was talking as well, â€Å"He even threatened me, saying that if I or anyone else asked him about his personal life, they wouldn’t be allowed to come to his house any more.† Neither woman was listening; Janet just kept talking, â€Å"Last week, I caught him burning his hand with a cigarette in the basement.† Both women were talking about Ben, Janet’s husband. A few minutes before, he had left their six thousand square foot home in the foothills outside Tehran, Iran while Janet lay unconscious on the floor, bruised from the latest of his beatings. While Janet continued yelling about her husband to her in-laws who lived next door, he was headed to her parent’s house for reasons that would take her years to understand. Janet wasn’t actually at the scene of the crime, but she remembers the stories and the court testimonies later. She knows what happened. She knows that her parents got in the car with Ben after he drove to their house. She knows that he told them that he had beaten their daughter to death with his bare hands and she knows that her father reacted as most fathers would, he was angry beyond words. He pulled his knife and let it fly. She knows that her mother tried to stop him; her hand was sliced and bandaged later. And she knows that the car wrecked and that it was her father that called the police. She knows all of this because she spent too much time living it and too much time thinking about it. But what she doesn’t know is why it all had to happen to her. A lithe, middle aged Armenian woman whose smile overshadows her worry lines, Janet Lelham was unable to handle her story, her nightmare, until just a few years ago. Now she can tell you as much as you’d like to know. She can tell you the five minute, abbreviated version, focused on the horrors of running from her home and hiding in foreign countries as a refugee. Or, if you have the time, she can tell you a little bit more of the story, this time replete with images of the death of both her husband and her father.