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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Originally uploaded by Roia

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.