Holiday memories of Iran's Caspian Sea

theguardian.com

The gray above the Caspian was so heavy the color seemed to seep into the sand. From the villa, there was a path through a wooded forest to a secluded beach, like many stretches of beach in the winter, as if nobody had ever been there.

I was born in a town called Babolsar, not far from the villa at which we were staying. My sister was born there too. We spent our early youth there, and much of the summers we were in Iran. It’s where one of my favorite baby pictures was taken, among the gently lapping waves.

In 1980, after the revolution, we made the first trip back to the Caspian Sea. During the four-hour drive from Tehran to the northern coast, or Shomal, as we call it, the stress of the past year seemed to fall away. And by the time we got to the isolated villa, post-revolutionary Iran seemed like a bad dream.

The villa at which we were staying belonged to relatives of relatives, who had fled. I couldn’t tell how far their property stretched, but there were no signs of neighbors anywhere. Perhaps they too had all fled. The whole world felt a million miles away as I buried my head into the towel and closed my eyes, feeling the sun on my skin after a year in which it had been buried in mandatory hijab.

I was awakened by the angry voice of a stranger. Two revolutionary guards in fatigues stood over me, machine guns slung over their shoulders. I guess the Soviet Union was not that far on the other side. I threw a towel over my legs and ran to my mother’s side. They walked over, as amazed as we were stupefied. “Where do you people think you are, in the south of France?” the older one angrily demanded.

In relative calm, my mother apologised, pointing out that we thought we were alone here. That infraction could have earned us a lashing, but we were spared. I sat up shivering that night, expecting them to return with a posse. They did not. And I never went back into the water that year.
Swimming pool in Tabriz, Iran Learning to swim with my father in Tabriz, Iran. Photograph: Golnoush Niknejad

Several summers later, when we returned to the Caspian, the fundamental Islamic government, thanks partly to the Iran-Iraq war, was deeply entrenched in power, as well as in each and every one of our psyches.

On this second post-revolutionary trip back to the Caspian coast, I dashed into the waves in a chador, the long Islamic ghost-like cloth that falls all the way down to your toes, thinking I could safely unwrap it once the water covered my body.

We were with my cousin and her cousins and their families. Children screamed with joy as they were embraced by the waters of the inland sea. The adults were looking after them, so when the chador coiled around my legs and the currents started to carry me, no one noticed. I was a good swimmer and kept thinking I would pull out of the sea’s grip, but I kept getting knocked around by the waves. My energy quickly washed away. I looked out desperately to the shore, hoping to catch someone’s eye. And just as I felt the fear of death kick at my gut, my aunt’s husband appeared out of nowhere. He helped me back to the shallow water and told me not to wander off in the deep by myself. He also suggested I get rid of that chador.