Care

First my father and then my mother were gone, but I do not remember the leaving. I do remember the absence of them though, the strange calm that settled over me when I believed that my life had irreversibly adapted to new routines, different fingers to sift through the tangles in my hair, different lips to kiss my forehead when the lights were turned off at night. How long would they be gone? I had no way to understand these things. As always, my sister was my rock, and I was calmed by her steadfast confidence, and soon just stopped asking the questions. It had been 8 months since we had arrived in Iran which was a lifetime of days and naps and dinners and breakfasts in the courtyard. The crisis of my grandfather's illness had passed as mysteriously as it had come. Life was constantly redefined.

The phrase “jeesh dahram” earned me a trip out to the toilet room which was across the courtyard outside and not in the house. I never visited that drafty room alone, unable to reach the slender chain that hung from the bare bulb above my head. I had long since adapted to the low crouch over the white porcelain hole in the concrete floor, and the strain to see over my pants wadded at my knees to watch the stream of yellow emerge from my body. I would say “tamom,” when I was through, and then felt warm water being poured over my bare skin from the long arched spout of a plastic water pitcher.

In Iran, just as there were not toilet seats, there were also no bathtubs. I became accustomed to taking showers with my Aunty Mary and baby cousin, clothes shed outside the door and water beginning to fall all around me in a tall tiled room with a drain as big as my hand in the middle of the cool floor. Aunty was thin, and she stood over me, as she held my baby cousin’s slippery body close to her breasts.
“Come on, joonam, you’re not afraid of water are you?” Her voice echoed off the dripping walls of the cavernous water room, and tried to lure me from where I stood. With her arms full of squirming baby skin I knew that, for the moment, I was in charge even though I was fearful of the way that water burned my eyes when it dripped down my face. I did not move my feet as I watched how their silhouette against the high window made their faces dark, and steam swirled around them. I felt the warm water circle around my toes as it moved across the floor. I waited until my turn to be in charge was over, and baby Mariam was handed to the towel and arms that emerged in the doorway. I let myself be picked up and lifted to the soft breasts of this woman, draping my arms over her shoulders and nesting my eyes in to the warm skin of her neck.

“It’s not so bad, is it, my dear,” I knew she was saying to me in her voice that was different from my mother’s, and for the time it took her to wash my back with her scratchy cloth, I was her baby, and I belonged to her. I let her place me back on my feet, and looked past her long dripping lashes into her brown eyes as she picked up each foot, resting it on her crouching thigh, and moved the sudsy cloth between each of my toes.

Prayer

Dear persianchyld readers:
My apologies for not writing for several months. There have been big changes in my life - good ones - and I now plan to start up again. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Tadjrish,Iran
June 1971

It was thirst that drove me down that dark hallway. As I passed the bedroom doorway I caught her shadowy figure out of the corner of my eye – my grandmother, with her back to me. She stood facing a blank wall, ghostlike, wrapped in her thin cotton chador adorned with a delicate pattern that I knew would be gathered closely under her chin. I cocked my head to one side. Her prayer reached my ears and it made me stop and linger there with my small fingers wrapped around the doorframe. I watched her raise her hands, palms up, as high as she could reach, and then cover her face with the invisible prayer. Then, quiet again, she knelt down and touched her forehead to the gather of beads on the small prayer rug at her feet. This odd ritual was repeated multiple times every day and I found her there often, as if asleep and in a dream state, following some mysterious pattern with half-cast lids. Entering the room and standing in her line of sight would not awaken her – I had tried that already – since she could tune out every person and sound around her and only listen to the sound of her own voice. Her feet were bare, and I could hear the soft crack of her bones as she rose from her prostration and stood tall and still again. There was strength in her stillness that I struggled to understand, a strength that seldom surfaced, but that made me stare at the rounded shoulders and the backs of her heels that poked out from under the light cloth.

Grandmama was a small woman - I could tell because my big sister was almost as big as she was. My grandmother’s voice never echoed off the walls like my mother’s could and she usually moved quietly about the house, shuffling in soft house slippers, tending to my grandfather’s needs, prepping the dinner, or brewing the tea. My Daddy had left Iran the week before, and it seemed my grandmother was putting me to bed as often as my mother now. The pads of her fingers always felt cool and soft on my face when she brushed my hair aside.

The routine began again and she shrank back down to the rug. I took a step to continue on my way to the kitchen, but the floor creaked loudly and I froze there, afraid to move. My eyes fixed on the curve of her back but I did not see her look up, did not see her break her trance to peak at who might be watching her. I did not move in the same world as Grandmama when she prayed, and it would take her another 20 minutes at least to complete the steps, and the prayers and to fold her chador in the prayer rug with the beads and the heavy leather bound book that she read from. My glass of water would have to wait, so I pivoted around to head back to my room, to climb on to my sister’s bed and wait.

A slice of America

Tadjrish, Iran
May 22, 1971

A table was delivered shortly after we arrived back at home from our trip to Mahabat: a rectangular table with six matching metal chairs that my mother had ordered for my birthday party before we’d left. I watched as my uncle removed the chairs from a mess of cardboard and plastic, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, squinting as the smoke reached his eyes.

Tall, pointy party hats were placed at each place setting, an army of beaming clown faces of blue, red and yellow smiling at attention. These things were very difficult to find in the Tadjrish bazaar: balloons, paper plates, colored napkins, party hats – and as the children filed in to the courtyard that day, children of adult friends of my parents and cousins, they crossed over in to my world, a little slice of America of my mother’s creation, within my grandmother’s stone walls. Throughout the day, American music played from the courtyard radio while mothers doted on children and fathers sat on garden chairs and smoked cigarettes with my grandfather, their long legs stretched out in front of them.

My grandparents traveled to Qom the next day, with my grandmother's brother, on a holy pilgrimage for a day of prayer. We were staying behind because it would be a strenuous hike, many hours on foot to shrines and tombs under the hot sun.

“Yah Yah, stay at home my brother,” said my great-uncle Diyee June. “You don’t need to come. The great Imam Ali would not want you to push yourself too hard. You look tired already – stay at home and rest.”

My grandfather had no intention of being left behind.

Grandpapa took his place in the waiting Peugeot, and I set about waiting out the long day till they would return. The sun finally inched its way across the sky and disappeared over the walls, but it was long after dark when I heard the car pull up. My mother followed the sounds out the gate to greet them, but when she emerged back in to sight, she was half-carrying my grandfather, his shoulders hunched and downcast. He didn’t speak, no winks or smiles, and he was helped into his dark bedroom and out of his clothes. To the sounds of hushed voices I was sent to bed, only to find my grandfather still in bed the next morning during the hour that he was normally enjoying his breakfast with me. My grandmother and my mother took turns visiting him in bed, making clear broths, and by lunchtime he was back in the Peugeot to see his doctor. This went on for days – no one left the house except to take my grandfather back and forth to the hospital until on the fourth day my grandfather did not return.

“Where’s Grandpapa?” I wanted to know.
“He’s sick, baby jon, the doctors are trying to help him.”

A week had gone by since my birthday and things had not returned to normal. My father’s departure date was only a few days away - but without encouraging news from the doctors about my grandfather’s condition there was little talk about it. Then, on the day my father was scheduled to leave Iran, we said our tearful goodbyes only to have him home again a few hours later because of a problem with his exit visa. Then, the morning of my father’s second attempt, on June 2nd, the phone rang in the early morning. My grandfather’s kidneys were failing him, he was unresponsive. My uncle feared that Grandpapa would not last the day. The adults spoke sharp words, batting them back and forth with furrowed brows, and the kitchen filled with the smoke of their cigarettes. I stayed away and played at the garden pool, trailing my fingertip in the dark water, hoping to hear the sound of a car bringing my grandfather back to me.

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He was unwell, so weak, and when he could leave his bed he would remain in the plastic chair for long hours, dropping off to sleep.

Sunshine

Tadjrish, Iran
Summer 1971

I watched my grandmother, squatting before a huge bowl of greens, picking through them with her delicate fingers. Preparation for dinner began just after breakfast, and could last throughout the day.

“Poffak Namakee?” I asked my grandfather. Most often he would oblige, pulling himself out of his chair with his cane and disappearing in the house to get this coat and hat. I ran behind my grandfather in to the house, calling out “Sissy! Ganpapa’s taking us fo’ Poffak Namakee!” skipping through doorways to find her. “Sissy!”

She emerged in the doorway. “He’s gedding his coat right now!” I said excitedly.

She pulled the door closed behind her and we both found our shoes by the kitchen door.

With my grandfather and my sister steadily making their way up the side alley alongside our tall garden walls, I danced, I skipped, and I made quick tottering circles around both of them. My mouth watered and I hummed to myself, and ran ahead to be the first to reach the doorway of the tiny shop. “Com’on!” I shouted back to them, hopping impatiently. The shopkeeper was there and he smiled down at me with his funny crooked smile, dark gaps where teeth should have been.

“Salom koochooloo,” he said - he always said - and I always gave him a “salom” back which always made him chuckle. There was not enough room to step in this shop, for it was only big enough for this man and his bright packages, small boxes and the big metal vat that held the Poffak Namakee. 

I loved to watch as he made me a white paper cone and scooped the cheesy puffs in to it until the orange peeked out the top of the paper. I always got mine first and could barely wait until that cone rested in my hand before I reached in to put the first one in my mouth. Closing my eyes, I let the warm, salty powder dissolve on my tongue, turning my tongue orange, and I sucked on the puff before I let my baby teeth grind it down. When I opened my eyes again, my sister was being handed her paper cone and my grandfather was placing two coins in the shopkeeper’s big palm. Our walk back down the alley was slower and my grandfather’s pace, as he leaned in to his cane, suited me fine as I stopped every second step to bathe my mouth once again in sunshine.

Flashback

January 1971
Tadjrish, Iran

It is winter and we are going to a party at Uncle Hussein’s house. My father arrived from the U.S. only a few days ago and is snapping his camera as we climb the hill behind Grandmama’s house to the busy street blocks away. The streets are wet from a recent rain and the concrete and grey clothes of passing strangers contrast with the bright red of my winter coat . My mother is in chador and its black billowing folds dance behind her as I skip to keep up with her step. I am really excited to be going to a party because I love them so much – the chaotic crowds of strangers that gravitate to my mother as I hold close to her leg, the music that erupts, the loud voices, the children that move in groups unnoticed. My sister and I will dance in this crowd and fill our bellies and minds with more than warm stews and rice, we will be one with the craziness and will feel we belong in it.

We arrive at the main street and my father points to it, the bus that will take us to Uncle Hussein’s house. We will ride this bus? I ask. It is taller than any bus I have ever seen, and it is red like me. We board and pay our fare and I see the curly stairs behind the driver. We must climb the stairs and Daddy, you must hold my hand as I climb them. These steep stairs shake and jolt as the bus pulls away from the curb. My father steadies me as we climb the last step and emerge at the top, sitting at the first empty seat we can find. My sister, my mother, and my Uncle Firooz join us, and I kneel on the seat so I can place two flat palms on the cold windows. The world flies by below us and the red bus and I are like birds swerving and diving past trees, buildings and cars. We are birds flying to a party at Uncle Hussein’s house.

My mother taps my father’s shoulder to let him know it is time to climb down the stairs and off the bus. I don’t want to go but I obey and my father lifts me into his arms so we can climb off quickly before the driver sweeps away from the curb again. At the curb we follow my mother’s black shape up a narrow street to a tall concrete building. She rings the bell and we wait feeling the icy air penetrate our clothes. My sister stamps her feet and blows in to her fists. I see a cloud of steam escape her mouth. Finally the door is opened with a loud buzzz and we enter the building’s entryway. We’re riding the elevator to the 3rd floor and my sister is allowed to push the lit up 3 button that will take us there. It looks like a clown’s nose that 3. I don’t like the clowns at the Barnum and Bailey with their scary faces that don’t look regular. I usually hide from them but I don’t now because it is only a button and anyway, we are in a tiny elevator and there is no where to hide.

Uncle Hussein’s house is not so big, not like Grandmama’s house. There are so many people already there that our entrance is hardly noticed at first. We remove our coats and remove our shoes. I move a little closer to my sissy because I know she is braver than me and will talk for me when I can’t find my words. My parents are busy kissing all the people, both cheeks for each, and they make a circuit around the entire living room as guests rise from the pillows on the floor in their stockinged feet. I’m called over to have my cheeks pinched, hard (ouch!), and they feel hot. They look down at me and smile and I smile back because I don’t mind so much. The sing song of Farsi is like a lullaby, one that embraces me. It is the language of my mother so when the words pour out they speak of her and the way she holds me when I am sleepy. I like the feeling so I like these people too. They are all my mother, they are all my family.

My sister and I roam and find the sweets in small bowls on the low glass table. I pick up the white nuggets between my fingers and pop them in my mouth. They taste like crystal to me as my teeth grind them down. Breathy flutes are singing on the stereo, a song that winds up and down and up and down, followed by strings and a woman’s voice. Drums follow. I want to march to the beat and twirl with the woman’s voice and I do this in the center of the room, for what better place to do this than the center of the room? And what better moment than when I feel it most? My sister doesn’t dance – but she watches as I do. With the sweetness still in my mouth, the music swirls around me and I smile deeply for the moment. Sissy sees other children coast by, a group of three, or were there four? I reach down to pick up another sweet and when I turn back she is gone, riding the wave of children than has just passed. That’s okay. She’ll circle back. I join my mother and sit in her lap as she waves her hands around, a cigarette wedged between two fingers. She is talking to the woman next to her and taking puffs in between her long rambling sentences. She likes it that I am sitting with her and I am content for a few minutes until I am not content anymore and decide to go in search of my sister.

I swim between tall grownups, their voices rising and falling around me, I have my eye on the kitchen door which is a few feet away and I can hear the water pouring out of the faucet as some women are washing dishes. I also hear the hiss of a round cage sitting on a low table and its sound draws me closer. It reminds me of the tiger cage at Barnum and Bailey, the cage that the brave man enters to talk to the tigers. Inside this tiny cage is a bright object that glows red like my coat, red like the bus. It feels hot as I get closer, but the color and the memory of our bus ride draws me in. I reach my hands out because I want to touch the red, but the cage meets my palms first and a seering pain, cold like ice but cutting like a sharp knife, tears in to my hands. I scream. I scream. I scream. I have already let go of the cage, but the pain has not let go of me and I fall back on to the floor holding my burning hands in front of me. Make it stop, make it stop! There are people all around me, why can’t they make it stop? I am lifted in to arms and carried to that pouring water and the two women part so I can be brought down to run water over the pain. The tears are pouring down my face and I see the water running over my hands which are red and puffy. My screams fill the kitchen and I know there are lots of people that I don’t know around me, until I feel my mother lift me into her arms. I don’t want to take my hands away from the water because it gives me relief from the cold, cold pain that tears through me. But I want her to hold me tightly and not let go and she does. After a few more minutes I calm down and my cries are hiccups that wrench through my stomach. I shake uncontrollably, but my tears are subsiding. All these grownups are crowding in to the kitchen and watching me as I wash my hands and I look around in to their faces. I see my father, my sissy and my Uncle Firooz, I see Uncle Hussein.

My mother shouts out commands and a woman brings a cake of butter. She puts a big smear of the slimy butter in my palms and rubs it in and I scream because it feels like my hands are back on the cage, back on the burning red object, the red bus, my red coat, my pinched cheeks. The tiger cage. I pull my hands away with all the strength I can muster and reach for the water still pouring out of the faucet.

It is decided that we are leaving and wet rags are wrapped around my hands which doesn’t feel very good at all. My red coat is wrapped around me and I am carried out to the waiting elevator. A taxi is waiting outside and I am sitting between my mother and father. It’s dark already and we are driving for a long time. I didn’t get to eat my dinner so my stomach rumbles. “I’m hungry” I tell my mother, and she looks down at me with sad, sad eyes, eyes that want to give me the world, eyes that are so present that I forget my hunger and lean in closer to her.

When the taxi stops, my father pays and we all get out. This isn’t home. “where are we going?” I ask softly in to my father’s ear as he lifts me in to his arms. “The doctor needs to see your hands,” he replies.

The hospital is bright, so bright that I squint and bury my face in my father’s shoulder. My hands hurt so much, the cloth that had been wet at Uncle Hossain’s is now dry and rough against my tender palms, but the brightness assaults me even more and I forget about my hands for a moment. Just a moment. My sister is told to sit in the waiting room with Uncle Firooz and I am carried through the big doors. I know that children are not allowed in hospitals unless they are sick. When my sissy was in the hospital I was not allowed to visit her there. I begged and begged, but I was not allowed in the building, left to wait outside that big Russian hospital with Aunt Mehry. But this time I am carried in, invited even, even though I am not wanting to be there at all.

“ I want to go home!” I cry and once again the tears roll down my cheeks. He holds me closer until words are exchanged and I am carried in to a small room where there is a man with a white coat waiting. I am sitting on my father’s lap and the man unwraps the cloth from around my hands. I am alarmed that there are puffy bumps all over my palms, and the skin is red and raw. This scares me and I cry louder. I don’t pull my hands away from this man because these are not my hands, these are not the hands I had eaten sweets with an hour ago. The doctor takes my hands in his but his skin is hot and now I do want to pull away. Where is the rag? My father holds my arms in place so the man can look closer at the puffy bumps, touching them, is he cutting them with his fingertips? Why are his fingers so sharp? My eyes fill with tears so that I cannot see clearly, the man’s white coat and my red, red hands are swimming in the tears that have filled my eyes. I feel woozy and my stomach begins to hurt. When the man finally goes away I reach up for my mother and she takes me in her arms, saying soothing words in to my ear. “Baby jon, my poor baby jon.” I am her baby jon.

My hands are washed which alternates between feeling soothing and painful, but then another person in a white coat arrives and sticks a long needle in my arm. It pokes me and I scream because the needle is inside me. I am spent, so exhausted that by the time the needle is taken out I feel my lids heavy and the pain in my hands recede. I am floating now and need to sleep. I am no longer here.

Our Northern Adventure

May 11-19th, 1971
Mahabat, Iran

In May we departed on a week-long road trip to the north, to the cities of Tabriz and Mahabat in the Azarbaijan region of Iran. I slept my way through most of the 11 hour bus ride to Tabriz and was amazed to wake up in an altogether different kind of place. My eyes were glued to the scene during the bumpy jeep ride that took us on the last leg to Mahabat. Gone were the wide streets of Tehran, and in their place I saw primitive roads and people dressed in a village costume that was colorful and festive. This was a Kurdish region, surrounded by rolling hills filled with wildflowers and spotted with adobe and brick huts. My mother’s friend, Hon Joon, delivered us safely to a cozy brick house with bedrooms, and a kitchen – a magical home away from home away from home. The world was proving to be much larger than I had ever imagined.

This northern adventure was set up by my mother’s relatives and friends, new names to remember, more faces to recognize, and every day there were new ruins to explore, and dimly lit bazaars to ramble through. My father was beside himself with excitement. Unable to converse in Farsi he used his camera to dig deep, and reach further in to absorb the immensity of images, smells and sensations that met us each day. We were accustomed to the pace of his camera, the click click and the smiles that followed, the conversations with wide gestures and pats on the back, tea delivered on a silver tray by a small boy not much larger than my sister. The scenes seemed to unfold for my father and we watched with wide eyes as he embraced it all.

One day, on an excursion in to a Kurdish village outside of Mahabat, my mother negotiated with a Kurdish villager to have her dress me and my sister in her children’s clothes. I complained bitterly about being stripped down and redressed in layer ofter layer in the hot shadows of her hut. My mother watched the Kurdish woman wrap a long scarf round and round my middle, and place a tall headdress on my head, and with my sister I was paraded in front of my father’s camera, squinting in to the sun. In spite of my tearful protest, the memory was collected on Kodachrome – two American children masquerading as Kurds, on either side of an unknown Kurdish villager. Lygeia managed a smile, but a smile was more than I could muster, for I was too uncomfortable and sweaty to appreciate the moment.

From my father's journal:

Today, some six families, others, about 30 in all, head west along the Mahabat Lake for what can only be called a "Persian" picnic. A caravan of seven cars filled with people and food in search of a sylvan setting. Arriving at the approximate site, I can only describe what followed as a fitful-fretful orgy of tug-of-war, a 1 1/2 hour search for the perfect spot. At one point, Behrooz relieved his frustration by driving straight across a wild looking field whereupon he got decidedly stuck in an irrigation ditch. We towed him out with a jeep. We found our sylvan setting under a grove of apricot trees faced by a flowing fields of green hills - what a picnic! Hon June brought out a great big pot of osh (soup) and only the darkness of approaching night brought our caravan together on the road.

The party never ended, but only faded to dreams as I dozed on a colorful rug with a breeze blowing by my face. Another bumpy car ride and then another party would begin, as simple as rugs being thrown down on the road, food delivered in massive tin pots and voices all around in jovial tones. The grown-ups were absorbed by one another and their drink, and I would settle in to a contented wandering, watching the children's games until sleep or hunger would overtake me again.

From my father's recollection:

The court jester who (happened to be the chief of police of Mahabat) officiated an all night party in the main street that faced our Mahabat habitat. He closed the entire street (to my amazement) and this hearty bull of a man served as conductor and master jester...We danced, dined, recited poetry and there was story telling--we devoured potfuls of rice, meats, osh soup, mast and vodka until well past midnight and long past your bedtime. So long as the "chief" was the master of ceremonies the party kept going until nearly 2:a.m. but only when he--our "court jester" decided it was over.

A few days later we were boarding a night bus from Tabriz to Tehran and back to the familiar sounds of Tadjrish. It was a Thursday in the early hours of the morning when we pulled in to the Tehran bus station, the 20th of May, and by breakfast time I was settled back at home, expectant of my birthday which was only a few days away, for while Christmas and Easter may have passed hardly noticed, my birthday was set to arrive on mark.

Learning the Ways of the World

April 1971
Tadjrish,Iran

Through the window, the light of the courtyard had a bright glow, alit with midday sun reflecting off the brick and tile all around. A canopy of green leaves and delicate white flowers burst up from slender trunks like bouquets of wildflowers erupting from big squares of fresh spring dirt in neat rows. I spied her there, my sissy, under one of the trees, her auburn ponytail following the curve of her back. She was hunched small and balanced on plastic shoes, the sharp angles of her shoulder blades moving rhythmically through her red t-shirt. I marked the spot with my mind where I was going to plant my feet down next to her, planned my route through the house, and was there already before my feet could carry me.

“Watcha doin?” I asked, studying her profile and the wisps of hair that fell around her ear. I looked down to watch her fingers clawing at the ground. We’d stepped off the paving and were crouched at the base of one of the trees, my smaller body shaped like a mirror image of hers, squatting small like we’d seen our grandmother do so many times before. I rested my chin on the soft dimples of my knees.

“Watcha doin?” I asked again.
“I’m digging for almonds.”
“Oh.”
I looked again at her fingers in the dirt. “How come?”
“Huh?”
“Why ya digging all-mans?
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “You can eat ‘em.”

My cheeks flushed with shame of all the things in the world that I did not yet understand.
“Can I help?”

“Uh huh.” She nodded her chin towards her toes. “I found three already.” I studied the jumble of creamy-colored almonds, speckled with dirt, lying on the ground between us.

Sissy’s fingers discovered another one poking out from under a couple of twigs and leaves.

“Yuh eat ‘em?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She lifted the dirty pod to her mouth, fingernails blackened with dirt. I watched her chew it down.

“We can find more. You dig over there and I’ll run and get a bowl we can put ‘em in.” She rose and ran off and I listened as her footsteps followed her into the house. I popped one of the tender white nuts in to my mouth. It was sweet and smooth on my tongue.

By the time my sister had returned with one of Grandmama’s plastic bowls, I’d found two more almonds along the base of the tree, and I plunked them in the bowl with the others she placed there. Pretty soon we had a dozen and couldn’t find any more, and I followed my sister through the kitchen door as she delivered the bowl of almonds to our grandmother.

“Baricallah!” Grandmama remarked with praise, and planted a kiss on sissy’s forehead. In response, my sister beamed - she offered to Grandmama a Persian smile that seemed to stretch all the way across her face and made her pale skin glow, her nose crinkling and eyebrows raised – the kind of smile she only gave in Iran, and saved especially for Grandmama.

That night after dinner a small dish of almonds were brought out to the table. I marveled as I watched my family sprinkle salt on the tiny pods and pop them in their mouths – the world, so full of mystery, offered up almonds from the ground, and Sissy had known how to find them, confirming for me once again that she was the smartest girl in the world.

The 13th Day of Norooz

Friday, April 2nd, 1971
Tadjrish, Iran
Sizdeh Bedar

From my father’s diary:
The 13th day of Norooz – The period of visitations is over. This is the traditional picnic day. Everyone leaves the city in a kind of mass exodus for the countryside….

For the two weeks following Norooz there was a bustle of guests, grownups spending long afternoons talking Farsi over tea and sweets. Some days there would be car rides to the homes of others, but most days I was allowed to stay at home to be ruled only by the schedule of meals, the unpredictable weather, and the arrival of dusk which marked the time to be ready for bed. The weather was still cold, some days cloudy and raining, punctuated by beautiful crisp spring days throwing a sharp sunlight in to the dust clouds we stirred up in our soccer games. Sometimes my half-brother, Ramin, would join us, sometimes it would be my cousins. Often, any child that happened down the road would be invited in to our game. I felt wild, inspired by Lygeia’s bold movements, content to observe the world at her heels to watch the older children kick our ball across the dusty road outside our courtyard door. When she ran too fast for me, I stood with my back against the stone wall, my hands cushioning me from the sharp places. When the ball came near enough I was allowed to chase it down and throw it back in to the circle of children, my face flush from the excitement of my moment in the game.

Sizdeh Bedar, the 13th day of the new year, was a cloudy and wet day, and we woke to learn that there were big plans in store for a party, a picnic outside of the city. My grandmother had prepared a tremendous pot of soup, steamy and fragrant, and the food was packed in to my grandfather’s idling car. Another car arrived, and my father, mother, sister, Aunty Mehry and the baby and I climbed in, bundled in heavy winter clothing. I sat on my mother’s lap in the front passenger seat, and listened to everyone sing festively as we drove through the crowded streets of Tehran, surrounded by other cars as packed as ours, honking and joyful, everyone in a party mood, defiant of the brooding clouds above us that only grew darker. As the drizzle became rain, and grew to a pelting, rhythmic beating on our windshield, my mother’s mood grew quieter and I descended in to a deep sleep.

BANG. A crash and we all heaved forward, and in my half-asleep state I felt my mother’s arms tighten around me. A tiny scream erupted from my sister in the back seat followed by whimpering, and loud voices. Bang again and my mother’s arms tightened further. I could hear my Aunt Mehry and Lygeia crying. My mother’s voice sounded angry, and then I opened my eyes.

White, everything outside was white, and steam had formed on the inside of the windows. I woke to a chaotic scene, snow, cars all around us. I held on tightly to my mother. Minutes passed, half-an-hour, and we could not move, wedged in to a 6 car pile-up, a blizzard attacking our picnic plans and trapping us inside our car. My father, in the back seat, pushed his door open roughly and disapeared in to the white whirls of snow. Minutes later, a rapping on our window, and my mother rolled it down bringing in a cold and wind that assaulted our skin. I burrowed my face in her chest and let tears pour from my eyes, letting my cry drown out the sound of her voice. More doors opening, slamming and I was lifted through the open car window, torn from my mother's arms. Squinting, my tears felt icy cold on my cheeks and the world looked like a white swirling cloud. I felt hard pellets attacking my eyes from all directions and couldn’t see whose arms held me tightly and carried me through the driving snow. Bitterly angry, I struggled and screamed, until wet and miserable I was settled into another car. Once I felt brave enough to open my eyes again, I discovered I had been in my father’s arms all along, and released a flood of new tears onto my father’s already wet coat.

From my father’s journal:
A man alone in a car stopped and took us in – the Major stayed with his crushed car – and we began a difficult journey to Karaj as our “angel of mercy” could not make his windshield wipers work. For 3 ½ hours we crawled through the howling storm bumper to bumper towards Karaj, when we stalled for 2 hours just outside of the city. We decided to walk in to town. With our shoes and clothes splashed with mud and snowy slush, we made our way past hundreds of stalled and frustrated cars. It was 5:00pm before we made it into Karaj.

The blizzard had subsided, but had left snow everywhere, melting in to muddy puddles at the side of the road. In my father’s arms I held tightly to his neck, and complained bitterly against the cold.

“I gotta pee” I whispered in his ear, and he lifted me down so that I could squat at the side of the road. My sister clung to Aunt Mehry, and Aunt Mehry clung to her baby Maryam, wrapped completely in a white polyester blanket, her tiny feet poking out the bottom. We were a motley crew, a wet disheveled mess, but we held out hope of finding Grandpapa’s car somewhere in the Karaj square.

From my mother’s version:
We were in the Karaj square and there was no sign of Baba’s car. We were in a horrible state. Suddenly my cousin Parvin and sister-in-law Mehry got very excited. “Stop a car, stop that car!” and I began waving my arms in the air until the lone driver in the blue Mercedez came to a stop. “Can you help?” I asked him. “We have children. We need to get back to Tadjrish. We had a bad accident on the Karaj highway and we’re all very cold.” He was very gratious and agreed to help. Your father sat with you in the front seat and tried to hold a conversation but the fellow didn’t speak much English. It was a few minutes in to the ride when I noticed that Mehry and Parvin were giggling and whispering to one another, and then began to notice that the cars around us were slowing and the passengers were pointing at us. Who is this guy? I asked and Mehry and Parvin told me he was a famous TV star named “Cardon”. I hadn’t heard of him since I’d been living in the US for the past 5 years, but he was well known by everyone except your father and I.

From my father’s journal:
Roshan had flagged a car and I thought we were in a taxi – but lo and behold we were in the car of “Cardon”, one of Iran’s most famous artists and TV personalities. This gracious man drove us all to our door in Tadjrish. The drive was punctuated by people passing us in screaming delight at seeing the famous Cardon. But WE had him to ourselves! At home, that night, with everyone reunited, we had a happy carnival with food and drink, a delight by candlelight and song that lasted in to the late hours of the night. Thus had come our 13th day of Norooz, on the heels and wind of a storm, and a calamity to bring us an omen of life, a reminder that to expect and know joy one must be bitten too by despair.

A Persian Name Revealed

March 20, 1971
Tadjrish, Iran

My Uncle Sia and Aunty Manijeh arrived at the courtyard door with gifts under their arms. They planted kisses on both cheeks of each person in our household. I felt the cold air on my bare legs and stayed long enough for my curiosity to run out and until the soreness of my pinched cheeks drove me away.

“Farhad, Mehry! I’ll take the baby. My, she is growing so big!”
“Mama, Baba, Happy New Year! I can smell your cooking from here! Is that Ghorme Sabzi? Eh baba! Is it time to eat yet?”
“Firooz, what a handsome suit! Let me get a look at you!”

My father snapped picture after picture. He didn’t have half the Farsi I did by this time, so he followed my mother around as she translated for him, with a smile so wide on his face he seemed to almost burst with pride.

My cousin, Sohail, strolled in the courtyard gate after his father, dashing in a navy blue blazer with a bright red carnation in the breast pocket. His little sister Sepideh appeared behind him, her round face framed by the bright red collar of her dress. She clutched at the plastic baby doll that she had gotten from my parents for Christmas.

Lygeia led the gaggle of children to our table display in the dining room and together we watched the colorful goldfish swim in circles in the bowl. Sohail was just tall enough to reach his fingers into the water which only made the fish swim faster in excited circles. In twos and threes, the adults joined us, until the dining room could hardly hold all of us around the table. Voices echoed off the walls, everyone talking loudly, excitedly, until, in a crescendo, all faces turned to my father who held above his head a wrapped gift as big as a toaster.

“For you, Baba,” he said, and he placed the package in my grandfather’s hands. My grandfather sat at the head of the table, with Grandmama at his side, and carefully unwrapped the gift. What seemed to me to be a toy, revealed itself to be a shot-glass caddy disguised as a model car, with a fat bottle of whisky in its belly. He busied himself with studying how each glass fit in the car’s cab. With a nudge from my father the whiskey was opened and the glasses were filled.

Next, my sister was given a colorful necklace and matching earrings and she proudly wore them both. I was taken with this display of gift-giving without the mysterious delivery by invisible reindeer. The scene was so distant from my expectations, that when my gift was presented to me I was taken by surprise.

“Your uncle has something to give you too,” my mother said from behind me and all eyes were on me as I turned and extended my chubby arm to have a tiny gold bracelet fastened around my wrist by my Uncle Farhad.

“Do you see the engraving? That says ‘Roia’,” my uncle pointed out dragging his finger along the curvy lines and dots on the bracelet’s flat face.

“It’s your name in Farsi, see? Re, vov, yeh alef, R-o-i-a, Roia,” my mother repeated. All at once I understood: my name, a Persian name, was revealed to me in the language it was intended for.

I knew this gift was important and that no one else received one like it. I placed a single kiss on each of my uncle’s cheeks, and turned to show my sister this treasure that was only mine to keep. That tiny strand of gold on my wrist named me in this now familiar place, this new home. The day stretched out before me full of food and music and loud relatives and I surveyed the scene with a new perspective on it all. I finally felt I belonged.

Norooz - the new year tradition

This was our ceremonial Norooz table called "haft seen" (or "seven dishes") Each of the seven dishes begin with the Persian letter cinn. The number seven has been sacred in Iran since the ancient times, and the seven dishes stand for the seven angelic heralds of life-rebirth, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty. The symbolic dishes consist of:

1. Sabzeh or sprouts, usually wheat or lentil representing rebirth.
2. Samanu is a pudding in which common wheat sprouts are transformed and given new life as a sweet, creamy pudding and represents the ultimate sophistication of Persian cooking.
3. Seeb means apple and represents health and beauty.
4. Senjed the sweet, dry fruit of the Lotus tree, represents love. It has been said that when lotus tree is in full bloom, its fragrance and its fruit make people fall in love and become oblivious to all else.
5. Seer which is garlic in Persian, represents medicine.
6. Somaq sumac berries, represent the color of sunrise; with the appearance of the sun Good conquers Evil.
7. Serkeh or vinegar, represents age and patience.

There were other objects on our table that do not start with the "s" sound, but are considered traditional: the Koran, a photo of loved ones that could not be with their family (my uncle in the U.S.), a photo of the prophet Ali (the person who Shi'ites believe was the first to profess his faith in Islam to Muhammad), oranges and goldfish to symbolize the sun, dyed eggs (perhaps a nod to the Christian Easter) and sweets of all kinds.

Norooz celebrates the beginning of the Persian year, which is also the spring equinox. The spring equinox is one of the two days of the year that the Sun moves across the celestial equator, the imaginary line among the stars that lies directly above the Earth's equator circling from east to west. The Sun's crossing of the celestial equator occurs one other time, on the autumn equinox. Both times this crossing occurs, the Sun rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.

Norooz is like Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years Eve put together. We eat a meal with family, we exchange gifts, we celebrate spring, and we count down to the new year which is the exact beginning of spring, which every year falls at an exact time down to the second.

sources:
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050318_equinox.html
http://souledout.org/nightsky/springequinox/springequinox.html
http://www.farsinet.com/norooz/

Through the Courtyard Gate

March 20, 1971
Tadjrish, Iran

I woke on Norooz morning, the 20th of March, with my new white dress and matching white Mary Janes laid out on the chair next to my crib. I felt the cold marble of the floor bite into the soles of my feet as I jumped down and slipped on the tiny cloth slippers.

“Mommy!” I called out as I emerged into the kitchen through the swinging door. I found her and my grandmother and the maid, Zahra, sitting at the small table and surrounded by colorful plastic bowls heaped high with cut greens. My mother looked up from her cutting board, her hands wet and speckled green with sabzi.

“Can I put my new dress on now?” I wanted to know. I half expected to hear the same answer I’d heard every day until this one. No, the new dress waits until New Years Day.

“What are you doing up so early! Everyone else is still asleep Roia joon, try to stay quiet. Yes, I’ll help you with your dress, but then you are going to have to stay out of the dirty corners of the courtyard, can you do that?” This was an immensely difficult promise, with this new day still spread before me yet to be explored, but there was only one answer to give so I nodded. I had to wait, shifting from one foot to the other, my bladder full from the long night, as she washed her hands at the sink and dried them with the flowered towel hung on the wall. After an icy trip to the outhouse, the dress, still stiff and giving off the musty smell of the store where we’d found it, was unwrapped from the plastic and removed from the hanger. I lifted my arms as my mother slipped off my nightgown and I stepped into the dress with my hand resting on my mother’s shoulder to steady myself. She turned me with one strong hand and buttoned me up the back. My feet ached to feel the cool white socks and the firm hold of those Mary Janes, but knowing that I was not allowed to wear shoes in the house I carefully placed them by the screen door for when I would go out.

Over the course of the morning, as my father and grandfather, my uncles, and my sister rose from sleep, I watched with newborn eyes as the day unwrapped before me, in spite of me, in a bustle of activity. My grandmother brought objects out of drawers and boxes and placed them on the dining room table and then disappeared to change in to her best clothes. The tabletop display of seemingly ordinary objects was given great importance and I circled the table over and over, my eyes barely higher than the tabletop, my fingers curled around the table edge. I studied the objects I could see from the edges - a mirror, a leather-bound book, a bowl of colored eggs, a plate of bright green grass reaching up in tiny spears and wrapped with a bright blue ribbon.

Mid-morning, as the smells of fried fish and steaming basmati rice filled the house, my father lifted me up into his arms and carried me back to the dining room display. From my father’s arms I studied the objects on the table from this new angle. I spied a bowl of chocolates and another with shiny coins, and bowls of powders and pastes in varying shades of browns and reds which gave off salty, sweet and sour smells all mixed up in the air. A shallow bowl of bright orange goldfish created a colorful and constantly moving centerpiece.

“See the picture in the frame?” He pointed with his free hand at a framed black and white photo set to one side, a photo of a sculpted face with high cheekbones in a blurry field of white. “That’s your Uncle Khosrow, your cousin Nooshin’s father back in California. You know him, right?” I pictured his face in my mind, I heard his deep voice and saw his jet black hair as part of my memory of home. I nodded. “Grandmama puts pictures of loved ones on our special table, family that can’t be with us on New Years.”

Voices suddenly rang out loudly through the house, “Farhad koo? Farhad, where are you? Go on, out the door, it’s almost time! Mehry, go pick up the baby! Roshan, bia! Baba, kojaii? Bia digeh!” My grandmother’s voice beckoned each of us from the far corners of the house so my father helped me on with my shoes and we walked together out to the courtyard.

“I’m going out! Tell me when!” my Uncle Farhad said from across the courtyard as I caught sight of him handing baby Mariam to Aunt Mehry and he slipped out the courtyard door and into the alley outside.

I tugged on my father’s arm and he bent over so I could whisper in his ear.
“Where is Diyee Farhad going?”

“Your Mommy says it is good luck for Farhad to be the first to walk in at the New Year. He does it every year. He’ll come right back in.” There was an aura of privilege and confidence that surrounded my Uncle Farhad and my mother both, a birthright that seemed to make the world kneel before them. I could hear it in the volume of their voices in the courtyard, in the way everyone would shift and turn to them when they entered the room. I could sense it when they would recite poetry or tell jokes and crowds would hang on their every word.

A hush fell as my grandfather, a few feet from the courtyard door, studied the Russian watch hanging from his wrist, and with his ringed hand counted out the seconds as if with an invisible baton.

“Se, doh, yek!... Aide shomah mobarak!” they all called out in unison, Happy New Year! and all eyes fell on the door even as their voices still hung on the air. I studied the silence, holding my breath, and when I heard the sound of knuckles rapping on the wood door I squealed with joy, clapping my hands. My uncle strutted through the opened door, taking long strides, his chin high, his sideburns like dark shadows on each side of his face. I dropped my father’s hand to run to him.

“Happy New Year!” He shouted, as I wrapped my arms around his legs. I felt others up close as I nuzzled my nose in to the wool of his freshly laundered suit, the sound of familiar voices all around me. “Aide shomah mobarak! Aide shomah mobarak Mama, Baba! Happy New Year!

“It’s good luck again this year for us all,” my Grandpapa said, pulling me off my uncle and lifting me up to kiss each cheek. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of his cologne. He was such a small man; he and my grandmother, the both of them like a match set of tiny people barely taller than my sister, his hair so white, like cotton set atop his head, and hers black like a frame around her face. He set me down and took my hand as we all headed back to the dining room for the presenting of gifts. It was an odd sight, my grandfather back again dressed in that suit and tie, like his son that had just walked through the courtyard door, cocky and proud.

Sacrifice

From my father's diary:
Sunday, February 7, 1971
Holy day of Ghorban

In the still dark of early dawn the black lamb was made ready. The craw of a crow sounded in the cold early light. Tied and bound the lamb laid on its side awaiting the hired man with his knife. Quickly his blade cut through the throat as the lamb now unable to cry as he broke the cord with all his might. Held down in the struggle, the knife deeper still severed the life of the black lamb. A long hollow metal rod was then thrust in the hind leg of the lamb opening a deep channel into the body. The man brought his lips to the opening of the rod and began to blow his breath into the rod as the lamb began to swell and swell like a balloon. For fifteen minutes he blew until the lamb was twice its normal size. He then proceeded to cut away the lambs black fur as easily as removing a coat. The naked meat of the lamb was now steaming in the cold morning air, ready for the deeper incision to lay bare the intestines and stomach sack. I could see Lygeia and Roia, with their noses pressed to the window as they watched this religious rite with open eyed fascination. The severed head and hoofs of the lamb lay nearby. Now in a heap upon the skin lay all the soft inner life of the sacrificial lamb. The meat of the lamb was now carried to a ladder scaffold and hung, awaiting the carving knife. In a nearby pan the lamb would fall in pieces ready for the beggars and the poor--a thanksgiving offering. That night, we too, feasted.

***

February 7, 1971
Tadjrish, Iran



The window was cold against my nose, but I kept it pressed there still. There were strangers in our courtyard, and after breakfast they had appeared there with a bleating black lamb, its tongue hanging from its mouth, and struggling against the rope tied tightly around its neck. The snow was in patches around the yard, and the men outside were taking steamy breaths between puffs of their cigarettes. My sister and I stood at the window, while my father and uncle stood outside watching as the three strangers offered the animal a bowl of water. It planted its hooves wide and brought its nose down into the faded plastic bowl. For a brief minute the animal was silent as it drank.

“Mommy!” I called over my shoulder. There was a muffled rattle of shaking dice behind me, followed by an open, sharp crik, crik, crack! as they hit the backgammon board. I turned back in time to see the lamb bring its nose up from the bowl. “Who ar’ dey?”

“Roia joon, come away from that window,” my mother insisted, patting her lap. “Come sit wit me and watch me play wit grandpapa. Do you want to tro’ de dice?”

My eyes were locked on my father outside who was snapping pictures of the strange men posing together. One of them was showing a long metal knife to my father’s camera. My breath was leaving a fog on the window making it difficult for me to see and I wiped it away with my hand, briefly distracted by the drips making their way down the glass to the sill.

“Wow,” my sister exclaimed at the window next to me. “Did you see that?” I looked up at her profile and the fear laced in her voice sent a chill through me. Is this scary? Are these bad men? What followed was like nothing I had ever seen before. Dark blood spilled on the courtyard floor and the lamb was put to sleep in the puddle. Sissy squirmed and groaned and my mother made more attempts to pull me away from the window with her voice, but without success. After a few small jerky movements the lamb moved no more, and my father snapped pictures and smiled jovially at my uncle next to him. To the sound of my mother and grandfather chatting over their game, I watched one of the men blow up the lamb with a pipe, “The lamb’s a balloon!” I exclaimed, and my mother came and joined me at the window for a few minutes.

Instead of bobbing in the air at the end of a string, this black balloon stayed anchored to the ground, misshapen and awkward.

Hiccup

My sister looked down at me and giggled, and I felt a brief moment of calm wash through me before, hiccup, the shudder went through me again.

I felt my mother’s fingers wrap around my hand and I let her pull me in the direction of the game table. I was lifted up and placed on her lap, and I looked across the board and its round pieces up in to my grandfather’s lined face. He smiled.

“Hold your breath,” she said softly in to my ear. Hiccup. I turned to glance at my sister, framed in the window, still glued to the events outside, and drew in a breath to hold.

“Hold it… hoold it…hold it,” her voice went up like Uncle’s car. Hiccup, and I let the air out in a short blast, briefly remembering the last blue balloon I’d gotten at my sister’s school carnival back in California, bobbing from the delicate knot around my wrist. I squirmed around to bury my face against my mother’s breast, feeling her warmth on my cheek. My body became still.

“It’s my turn?” she asked my grandfather, her voice rumbling through her chest, and I heard the crik, crik, crak and the jerk of my mother’s body as she threw herself back in to the game, taking me along for the ride.

School Daze, Lonely Days

Tadjrish, Iran
January 1971


Even school days became routine, and I grew to depend on my sister’s warmth on the bench next to me less and less as the days grew shorter and colder and the cobblestones were more often wet with rain. I would wait all morning at my desk for lunchtime when the black-clad women would carry the heavy aluminum pot to rest on the table at the head of the room. As the littlest in the class, I sat in the front row, my feet dangling over the edge of my bench, and I was the first to smell the shriveled brown lime soaked with chunks of beef, kidney beans and greens. I learned to say “I like it” “more please” and “I want some stew” long before any other phrases out of my school reader.

On the school yard, the children admire my cousin for being related to us and in their confusion about whether to accept us as one of them, they alternate between throwing stones and treating us as royalty, pushing on each other to give dark-eyed stares and offering favors and sweets to Sohail for opportunities to play with us. I stand by, able to stand at my sister’s side without clutching at her now, silent, as they rattle off questions.

“Beatles mishnahsee? rohk an’rohl??” a boy with tossled hair asked her with a sidelong glance at her long spindly legs. She would reply in short carefully crafted sentences, her grasp of the words she spoke paper thin and tenuous.

“How come your sister doesn’t look anything like you?” he threw back and her reply brought louder gasps as the children began to understand that she and I were related only through our father.

Where is your mother? How come you aren’t with her? How come you came to Iran? How come your sister has an Iranian name? What kind of a name is Lygeia? Are you ever going back to America? Do you like it here?

“These are my cousins. They are Americans,” my cousin Sohail would say puffing out his chest and giving a big smile showing the missing two front teeth he had recently lost. So many questions, and when my sister’s broken Farsi was not enough to explain my cousin would break in and fill in the gaps. As our handler, he would decide when we’d had enough questions for one day and would shoo them off to the nether reaches of the yard with their slap slap of plastic shoes fading off into the distance.

* * *

Shortly after my father arrived from the U.S. school days ended suddenly when Sissy’s cough became a fever, which became long days in bed with blankets piled high all around her. I crept through the shadowy rooms of my grandmother’s house, trying to stay quiet as a mouse as my sister slept, watching Grandmama pray, listening to the sound of dice thrown against the mohogany backgammon board and loudly echoing off the garden walls. Days were punctuated by visits from cousins and more doctors and more cousins. Even Christmas came and went with little fanfare. Pictures were snapped with my cousins sitting on either side of me, my new Barbie in my lap, our legs stretched out in front of us. The makeshift Christmas tree was a simple potted plant with a few colored balls hanging off its branches.

One morning, Sissy was taken from the house wrapped and weak and placed gingerly in the backseat of my uncle’s car. I felt her absence like hunger, forlorn, and I visited her each day, holding my Aunt Mehry’s hand during the long car ride to the hospital. The entire scene was a monochrome of grey, my feet planted on that bare sidewalk next to my kneeling aunt as she pointed up to a tall concrete building, a massive checkerboard of windows rising above me. At the 6th floor a tiny head poked out of a window, too far away to recognize anything familiar about the face or the hand or the window or the building.

“Where? I can’t see her. Can’t I go in with my Daddy and Mommy?”

“There, do you see? Negahkon, your sister is waving to you. Wave back so she can see you too.” I waved feebly in the direction that my aunt pointed.
“Can’t I go in and see her?
“No, joonam, she is too sick to come outside. And children are not allowed in.”

But she misses me.

I was so insistent, but I still left each day disappointed and inconsolable. The four walls of Grandpapa's garden seemed suddenly silent and imposing. Without my sister to translate for me, I was unable to ask for a turn when my cousins played, and so I kept to myself mostly, crying easily when things didn't go my way, barely holding it together.

Then one day, after weeks of the strange waving ritual, my sister returned to my grandmother’s house, walking feebly through the courtyard door and delivered straight to her waiting bed. She was able to tolerate short visits from me as I carried in cold drinks to soothe her scratchy throat. She grew stronger as spring approached and the cherry blossoms began to bloom in the courtyard. She found it harder and harder to find time away from me as I refused to let her leave my sight, worried that she'd disapear again and leave me alone in the garden walls.

Grandpapa's Welcome

Tadjrish, Iran
January, 1971


My father arrived in Tehran on a cold winter night in January. Lygeia and I sat huddled in the dark car with aunty for what seemed like hours as we waited for him to emerge from the glass doors of the airport. My mother had disappeared through those doors leaving us the promise that she would return with him, and after months without him in Iran it seemed an impossible miracle that it could be true. When he finally appeared, weighed down with handbags and dragging two heavy suitcases, my mother at his side, the exhaustion of the late hour ran off me as if a light switch had been turned on in my mind. I squealed and I squirmed, bolting upright to reach for him in the front seat to wrap my arms around his neck. Before long, I nestled my head in to my mother’s lap in the back seat and listened to his voice tangle topsy turvy with the rumble of the car as we made our way back to my grandfather’s house.

At breakfast the next morning, my grandpapa had gained a formality that seemed odd and awkward. Instead of the cotton pajamas which he had always wore all day around the house, I found him eating his breakfast in a suit, with a crisp white shirt and shiny black shoes instead of his leather slippers. When my father emerged from the house, beaming and excited, Grandpapa rose and I watched him shake my father’s hand stiffly.

“Baba,” my father called him. “I am so pleased to finally meet you.” He pumped my Grandpapa’s arm vigorously and smiled. Grandpapa tipped his head forward, his eyes down, bowing slightly towards my father. “Ekhdiarderee,” was all he said, a slight smile on his lips. He laid his cane down on the ground and settled in to his chair, gesturing for my father to sit in the chair next to him.

I jumped in to my father’s arms as soon as he was free to catch me, and I remained planted in his familiar lap as he sat quietly at my grandfather’s side.

“Put your cheese in your bread, Daddy,” I explained. “and don’t forget the jam!” I erupted into giggles at the thought of him eating the dry bread with the cheese. “That’s sugar for tea, Daddy. Grandpapa puts sugar in his mouth. See?” We both watched as my grandfather drank down his warm tea and let the sugar dissolve in his mouth.


“Like this?” my father asked, and my Grandpapa smiled and nodded in agreement as my father placed the sugar cube from his saucer in his own mouth and reached for his glass of steaming tea.

The next week flew by quickly, pulling my father’s hand through the narrow streets, through the bustling bazaar and up the steep hill behind Grandpapa’s house to buy a snack, warm Pofak-namakee, like American cheese puffs. I suddenly had someone I could show around, someone who knew less about this place than me, and Lygeia and I enjoyed laughing at the way he pronounced all the new words we had learned, “sheer,” “ob,” and “madreseh.” Grandpapa seemed stiff in his suit, but he could not be convinced to change back in to his cotton pajamas, which he normally had only changed out of when he was planning to leave the heavy courtyard gate.

“Baba, really,” my mother would implore. “Do you think my husband cares whether you’re wearing a suit?”

“Hhmmf,” he would grunt and glare at her. He did not want it discussed.

It was about four weeks after my father arrived that Grandpapa’s suit began disappearing like a subtle strip tease in slow motion. First, the carefully shined shoes were replaced by the worn leather slippers that had been waiting patiently by the door and he returned to his shuffling walk and lost the clop of hard soles on the concrete patio.

Another week went by and my grandfather shed his suit coat and then after a few more days his tie, leaving them hanging over a chair, or laid out on his bed. After another week, his button-up shirt was replaced by his crème-colored cotton pajama top with the brown trim. Piece by piece my grandfather was restored to his normal self until two months after my father’s arrival he finally arrived at lunch, a springtime lunch under the blooming plum tree, without any sign of the formalities of the previous weeks. He settled himself at the head of the table, as if he had just rolled out of bed, resting his cane at his feet, and let out a tremendous fart which held a tone like a lengthy blow on a paper party favor. My grandfather was looking down at his food and his expression didn’t change.

“I’ve finally arrived!” my father exclaimed happily looking around the table and he, my mother and my uncle burst into hearty laughter. A sly smile crept on to my grandfather’s face and he peeked up through the long white hairs of his bushy eyebrows.

“That sound must be from a little mouse under the table,” said my uncle jokingly and I peeked down between my legs to try to catch a glimpse of it before it could scuttle away.

“Yes, a mouse,” my mother replied, smiling, and we all dug in to our rice and stew as if it was our first meal as a family reunited.

Recipe

This recipe is dedicated to Leila at http://persiankitchen.wordpress.com - Leila is tops in how she teaches us how to cook Persian food, so I know I'm not even trying to replicate her blog postings. But, this is a callout to her about my favorite persian stew Ghormeh Sabzi. If you read my posting "Watching over me" this stew was what I ate on that first day of school. The smell is of dried lime and is exquisite.

Cooking a traditional Persian stew:

Koresh-e Ghormeh-Sabzi

The unique ingredient is dried lime, which can be found at any local Middle Eastern grocery store like those found around San Pablo Avenue and University in my town of Berkeley.

1. Saute onion, add garlic and meat of your choice (normally this is lamb, beef or chicken cut in very small stewing pieces). Saute until golden brown. Add salt, pepper, 1 tsp Tumeric, 4 whole dried limes pierced with a fork, and 1/2 tsp saffron dissolved in a tablespoon of hot water.

2. Pour in 4 1/2 cups of water and and 3/4 cup cooked or canned kidney beans. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cover, simmering for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Meanwhile (this is the hard part) fry in 3 tablespoons of oil the following, all finely chopped:

4 cups parsley

1 cup leeks, scallions or chives

1 cup fresh coriander

1 cup fresh fenugreek

If you work and don't have the time to find, buy and chop all these hard-to-find vegetables, visit that same Middle Eastern market and check their freezer section for pre-chopped, even pre-fried vegetables for Ghormeh-Sabzi. Yes, Iranians are too busy to always do this fresh, so don't let step 3 stop you from making this really great stew.

4. Add the sauteed vegetables to the pot of sauteed meat, and add 4 tablespoons of fresh squeezed lime juice. Cover and simmer the stew for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the aroma of the vegetables begins to rise from the pot, you know it's done.

Serve with long-grained or basmati rice. Yum!!

My crockpot adaptation:
Do step one the night before - and refridgerate overnight.
In the morning, add in the pre-fried (now thawed) vegetables, water, and kidney beans. Put crock pot on low for 8 hours.
When you get home from work you've got a wonderful persian stew!!

The Early Morning Gift

Tadjrish, Iran
Fall 1970

When I woke, the house was silent and still shedding its darkness with milky early morning shadows. I watched them through the slats of my crib with half-opened eyes. The noises from the night before, the rhythmic bark of the kitchen door as it swung like a heavy wooden pendulum when anyone pushed their way through, and my mother’s voice, piercing, all had fallen away in the night and in a moment’s time it seemed had turned in to this silent morning. I rolled over, tucking my knees underneath me, and sat up, rubbing my eyes with balled fists to clear them, smelling the moistness of my thumb which I had been sucking most of the night. The small rolling hillside of my sister’s back did not move in the next bed.

Since arriving in Iran we had been spending most of our days in Tadjrish in this big stone house and courtyard within the safety of the tall stone walls that embraced all that had now become familiar. The pond where my grandmother rinsed her pots, the folding table where Grandpapa played backgammon with my mother, the small garden plot that Grandmama tended, the slender trunks of fruit trees, these were the resting places, and the passages between them were my playground, my race track and my dance floor. No one seemed to know how to traverse the space like I could and I found joy in discovering its hiding places, its subtle changes with each passing day.

I heard the sound of steam escaping from the kitchen teapot and knew that meant Grandpapa would be waiting for his breakfast in his usual place. The springs under my mattress creaked under my weight as I stood and lifted my leg and rolled over the crib wall, dropping to the floor. At the window I could peer over the sill to spy him sitting patiently with his hands resting on his cane, his hair a bushel of whiteness, his eyes fixed on some far away spot on the garden wall. There was an empty chair next to him. The breakfast had not yet arrived.

When I arrived at his side with a polyester robe over my shoulders and a pair of plastic slippers on my feet, he turned to me and smiled with his eyes, patting the empty chair next to him. I settled into the chair and searched for the spot on the garden wall that had caught his attention and joined him in staring at it. I glanced up to take in the colorful umbrella of branches and brittle leaves that autumn had brought and watched them vibrate in the breeze. I wondered what he would have said to me if I could have understood him. I wondered how long we would sit before Grandpapa’s breakfast would arrive. He sat quietly, patiently and the deep lines on his face were a maze of cracks that made him seem like a statue, but one made of soft warmth and not the coldness of stone.

It took two trips to the kitchen to bring the spread of food out to him – a small shapely glass of steaming auburn tea with two white cubes of sugar balanced on a glass saucer, a basket of warm flatbread dusty with flour and tiny jars of dark jams in reds and purples. Some phrases were exchanged between my grandparents, and the second tray brought small cubes of white cheese in a bowl. I wanted to reach out for a square of cheese, to feel its wetness between my fingers, and the saltiness on my tongue, but instead I waited. I’d joined him already enough times to understand that he would share with me.

Grandpapa placed a square of flat bread in his palm and a square of the white salty cheese in its center. A spoonful of cherry preserve was dripped on top from a silver spoon coated with its sticky sauce. He rolled the bread closed and handed it to me with a napkin under it. I gladly took it from him, quickly letting the napkin fall to the ground as I sank my teeth into the sticky mixture of sweet and salty wetness and dry bread. When I was through I licked my fingers clean.

In the tea was a miniature metal spoon and I watched next as Grandpapa placed a white cube of sugar in his cheek and removed the spoon before he brought the glass to his lips to drink. Threads of dark tea leaves floated in the tea which shone red as I watched him drink it down in one smooth gesture, and place the glass back on its saucer. When he reached out for another slice of bread my brows went up in earnest.

Did you forget? My eyes asked, eyeing the last cube of sugar that remained on his saucer. Will today be the day that you forget? But he did not forget, and before long I had the cube on my tongue, dissolving it slowly to fill my mouth with sugar juice. The last taste of sugar to leave my mouth marked the end of breakfast, and the tray was returned and the jars and basket were cleared before the sun could peak over the courtyard walls. The city woke around us with the sounds of cars and peddlers unseen, and our courtyard filled with the busyness of the day. My grandfather and I would begin again the next morning, and once again I would leave the warmth of my bed to be the recipient of his early morning gift.

Poetry

At times it returns,

in the motionless calm of the day, that memory

of living immersed, absorbed, in the stunned light.

Excerpt from "The Night" by Cesare Pavese

The leaving

Oakland, California

1970

Roshan had not been back to Iran for 8 years when my father’s teaching job offered him a sabbatical year, and it was decided we all would go to live with my grandparents in Tadjrish, just outside of Tehran, Iran. My mother would be returning to her family home in Iran a married woman again, married to an American no less. Our big white house on the hill in Montclair, with the addition my father had built for my nursery, it would have to be sold. We would be gone a year, so there was no sense leaving it to stand empty and waiting. We would have to start over when we returned.

Roshan was an alluring symbol of a wider world that none of us had ever known. Even my father, already 47 years old, had never traveled as a tourist before. His only time out of the country had been as a soldier in Iwo Jima during World War II, and he coveted old photos of himself, youthful, and bare-chested with a rifle in his hand, as if he’d been in swim trunks on a beach in Bali. He wanted nothing more than to follow this dark-haired Persian girl around the world, this sad-faced mother and wife that longed to be a daughter and sister again if even for a short time.

My half-sister Lygeia was seven years old that year, a tall child that had weathered too many emotional storms already for one so young. She’d been the motherless small child in my father’s life when he met Roshan, and became a pawn in the emotional powerplay that resulted in their marriage and my birth. By the time I emerged as the fourth member of this new family, Sissy, as I called her, had already become guarded, for the adults in her life had proven to be unpredictable, careless. The world shifted constantly under her feet. The trust and security that I took for granted were not hers to hold. But at three I recognized none of this. I adored her. For me, the sun rose and set on her face, and as long as I could be near her all would be well.

A whirlwind of preparations swept us all up in haste, matching dresses for my sister and I to be sewn, suitcases to fill, gifts to be bought. As a tiny, moon-faced three-year-old, my concept of travel was long, boring bouts in the back seat of my father’s Mustang. Life was simple, predictable: long climbs up the winding stone staircase to our house, trips to the supermarket, and barefoot mornings at nursery school. My world was small and I moved confidently in it. I thought it could never change.

My mother, my sister and I left for Iran first, in the fall of 1970, with the understanding that my father would follow after the house and car were sold and he had completed the fall semester’s classes. That we left behind the only home I had ever known, our metal swingset surrounded by towering pine trees, that we left behind our dog, my sister’s school, my father’s students, none of this mattered – we were all swept up by mother’s sheer enthusiasm: the wild fire in her eyes. But while the leaving seemed to be about her, what we would find once we were in Iran was unique to each of us, and wholly personal. My father and my sister longed for context, the smells and tastes of this culture that set my mother apart from others around us. I was only along for the ride. But it was in Iran that my senses were awakened and my memory was born. I was too young to understand that a chapter of my life was ending and that I would forever categorize events in my life as “before” or “after” our year in Iran.