The Exiled Heart: A New York Times Correspondent’s Story of Fleeing Iran with Her Family

VOGUE

When reporter Nazila Fathi and her family were forced to flee Iran, she thought they would be gone just a few weeks. Then the weeks turned to years. . . .

The officer took one look at the names in our passports and disappeared. Clenching my clammy hands into fists, I surveyed the vast marble expanse of Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. It was 2:00 a.m., and the departures hall was almost deserted. My eyes darted from door to door, looking for the undercover agents I knew must be coming for me, as they had come for so many others over the past few weeks. Beside me, my husband, Babak, nervously tapped his fingers on the counter. Our five-year-old son and three-and-a-half-year-old daughter sat in their twin stroller, awake and wide-eyed. Desperate to protect them from the worst, I bent down and, in my calmest voice, whispered, “I don’t want you to worry if I end up going to Canada alone.” They stared back at me in silence. It was better for them to think their mother was going to Canada than going to prison.

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