The horrid image in the news of a column of smoke rising above the city of Tehran — an abyss of darkness against the gray sky — arrests my attention. I stare at the computer screen. My eyes try to reconcile the city of my birth with the spectacle of destruction. This image of the explosion activates something else in me: an old memory.
The city of my childhood stands eerily still. Apartment blocks stand in rows, their windows flickering with fire. I imagine the distant, snow-capped Alborz Mountains, though hidden from sight by billowing dark clouds. The smoke rises like a dark tower, growing and widening as it drifts upward, threatening to overtake the city. The streets below are empty. Yet it is not the cloud that unsettles me, but the sound: the sonic boom of the bomb. The sound returns to me from another time. It is a sensory experience that suddenly unlocks a buried memory.
It is February 1984. The Iran-Iraq War is four years into its deadly course. With the lack of territorial gains, the war shifts toward the bombing of cities to break civilian morale. With the first attacks, Iran retaliates, which means that an Iraqi child — just like me — is also experiencing fear, shock and uncertainty.
The first time a bomb was dropped, I found myself at the bottom of the stairs in our apartment. My mother, sister and grandmother huddled around me, their hands over their heads. I can still hear the murmur of my grandmother’s prayers. My sister’s face carried uncertainty. I do not recall my mother’s face. Her face is a blur. In my fragmented memory, she seems silent: no words, just silence. As for me, I was a ghost child hovering over the others, as my imagination carried us beyond the basement into the skies, where we could fly to the bombs and ask them to choose a different path.
It is two in the morning.
A few hours had passed since I had finished preparing for an English exam, repeating simple phrases of hospitality: “My name is Ali. I would like to be your friend.” Each repetition of the lesson brought me to the edge of the room, where I would look out of the window into the vast city of Tehran, the endless city of my birth.
The sirens wake me. Their sound travels across the city, echoing through buildings, entering rooms uninvited. They rise and fall across the Tehrani sky, signaling death for anyone who fails to find shelter.
I run to the living room. My mother is dressing. My sister grabs a bag. My grandmother is heading toward the door while praying. We descend four stories. At the bottom of the stairs, we crouch and wait. Then the roaring begins. Anti-aircraft fire tears through the night. Then the blast. I cover my ears. My sister screams. My grandmother’s prayers intensify. My mother — I still cannot see her face.
An odd silence follows a massive explosion. The echo lingers, dissolving into an infinite void. That night, as the rocket struck a residential area, I felt the deep sorrow of the night dripping from black branches, the air collapsing like debris.
Months passed. The War of the Cities continued.
As Tehranis lived between anxiety and waiting, hundreds of missiles struck the city, bringing more destruction and deaths, until the attacks ceased in 1988. But the memories remained. By then, I had migrated to the United States — a teenager in suburban California, far from basements and explosions. Suburbia offered calm — palm trees, bright skies — but the inner memories of that youth hid something dark underneath: a history of trauma.
The news image of a column of smoke comes back to me as Tehran experiences a new wave of relentless bombardment from new smart weapons of death. Beneath the smoke, I imagine a little boy crawling beside his mother at the bottom of the stairs. I imagine him hearing the sirens, the explosions and the silence that comes after. I now see the boy flying into the sky, asking each approaching bomb to choose a different path.
Rahimi is professor of Middle East studies at UC San Diego.