Jackson.
They liven up to one memory. This one is surprisingly clear; they fill in all the details I had forgotten. As it comes back to me and images form in my mind, their voices interrupting one another, Jim Morrison fades into the background. Yes, Yassi was there that day, wasnât she? They remember my whole class, but Yassi is the one they remember most, because at a certain point she became so much a part of our family. They all did: Azin, Nima, Manna, Mahshid and Nassrin were frequent visitors. They used to spoil my children, bringing them gifts, despite my disapproval. My family had accepted these intruders as another one of my eccentricities, with tolerance and curiosity.
It happened in the summer of 1996, when my two children were home from school. It was a lazy morning. We had puttered about the house and prepared breakfast late. Yassi had stayed over the night before. She did that regularly now, so we came to expect her. She slept in a spare room next to the living room that was supposed to be my office, but it was too noisy for me; I had moved my office downstairs, to a basement room with windows opening onto the small garden.
It was an odds-and-ends room, with a desk and a very old laptop, some books, my winter clothes and Yassiâs makeshift bed and lamp. Sometimes she spent hours in that room, with the lights turned off, because of her headaches. Almost every time she came from a visit to her hometown, she had these headaches. That morning she looked radiant, I remember. This is how I see her: in the kitchen or in the hall, standing or sitting. I imagine her mimicking some comical professor, doubling over with laughter.
That summer there were many days when Yassi would follow me around the house, telling me stories. Our place was mainly in the kitchen or the hall, and I enjoyed the fact that, unlike the grown-ups and like my own children, she actually liked my cooking. She loved my so-called pancakes and French toast, my concoctions of eggs, tomatoes and vegetables. Never once did she smile the indulgent smile that my grown-up friends gave me, as if to say, When will you learn? As I cooked or chopped, she would move with me and spin stories, mostly about her classes. Negar, who was eleven by then, would join us and the three of us would talk for hours.
That day Yassi was holding forth on her favorite subject: her uncles. She had five uncles and three aunts. One uncle had been killed by the Islamic Republic, and the rest lived in the United States or Europe. The women were the backbone of the family, the ones on whom everyone depended. They worked at home and they worked outside the home. Their marriages had been arranged, at a very young age, to much older men, and apart from one of the sistersâYassiâs motherâthey all had to put up with spoiled, nagging husbands, inferior to them intellectually and in every other way.
It was the men, the uncles, who always held the promise of the future for Yassi. They were like Peter Pan, descending every once in a while from never-never land. When they came to her city, there were endless gatherings and celebrations. Everything the uncles said was enchanting. They had seen things no one else had seen, done things no one else had done. And they would bend down and play with her hair and say, Hey, little one, what have you been doing?
It was a quiet and peaceful morning. I was in my long housedress, curled on a chair in the living room, listening to Yassiâs tale about a poem one of her uncles had sent her. Tahereh Khanoom was in the kitchen. From the open dining room door we could hear different noises, the sound of running tap water, the thin clink of pots and pans, half a sentence addressed to the children, who were in the hall by the kitchen, alternately laughing and quarreling. I remember yellow and white daffodils; the whole living room was filled with vases of daffodils. I had put the vases not on the tables but on the floor, beside a
They liven up to one memory. This one is surprisingly clear; they fill in all the details I had forgotten. As it comes back to me and images form in my mind, their voices interrupting one another, Jim Morrison fades into the background. Yes, Yassi was there that day, wasnât she? They remember my whole class, but Yassi is the one they remember most, because at a certain point she became so much a part of our family. They all did: Azin, Nima, Manna, Mahshid and Nassrin were frequent visitors. They used to spoil my children, bringing them gifts, despite my disapproval. My family had accepted these intruders as another one of my eccentricities, with tolerance and curiosity.
It happened in the summer of 1996, when my two children were home from school. It was a lazy morning. We had puttered about the house and prepared breakfast late. Yassi had stayed over the night before. She did that regularly now, so we came to expect her. She slept in a spare room next to the living room that was supposed to be my office, but it was too noisy for me; I had moved my office downstairs, to a basement room with windows opening onto the small garden.
It was an odds-and-ends room, with a desk and a very old laptop, some books, my winter clothes and Yassiâs makeshift bed and lamp. Sometimes she spent hours in that room, with the lights turned off, because of her headaches. Almost every time she came from a visit to her hometown, she had these headaches. That morning she looked radiant, I remember. This is how I see her: in the kitchen or in the hall, standing or sitting. I imagine her mimicking some comical professor, doubling over with laughter.
That summer there were many days when Yassi would follow me around the house, telling me stories. Our place was mainly in the kitchen or the hall, and I enjoyed the fact that, unlike the grown-ups and like my own children, she actually liked my cooking. She loved my so-called pancakes and French toast, my concoctions of eggs, tomatoes and vegetables. Never once did she smile the indulgent smile that my grown-up friends gave me, as if to say, When will you learn? As I cooked or chopped, she would move with me and spin stories, mostly about her classes. Negar, who was eleven by then, would join us and the three of us would talk for hours.
That day Yassi was holding forth on her favorite subject: her uncles. She had five uncles and three aunts. One uncle had been killed by the Islamic Republic, and the rest lived in the United States or Europe. The women were the backbone of the family, the ones on whom everyone depended. They worked at home and they worked outside the home. Their marriages had been arranged, at a very young age, to much older men, and apart from one of the sistersâYassiâs motherâthey all had to put up with spoiled, nagging husbands, inferior to them intellectually and in every other way.
It was the men, the uncles, who always held the promise of the future for Yassi. They were like Peter Pan, descending every once in a while from never-never land. When they came to her city, there were endless gatherings and celebrations. Everything the uncles said was enchanting. They had seen things no one else had seen, done things no one else had done. And they would bend down and play with her hair and say, Hey, little one, what have you been doing?
It was a quiet and peaceful morning. I was in my long housedress, curled on a chair in the living room, listening to Yassiâs tale about a poem one of her uncles had sent her. Tahereh Khanoom was in the kitchen. From the open dining room door we could hear different noises, the sound of running tap water, the thin clink of pots and pans, half a sentence addressed to the children, who were in the hall by the kitchen, alternately laughing and quarreling. I remember yellow and white daffodils; the whole living room was filled with vases of daffodils. I had put the vases not on the tables but on the floor, beside a
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