Tapestries of the Heart by Nooshie Motaref

Author:Nooshie Motaref [Nooshie Motaref]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909477582
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
Published: 2014-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

10. Love

Shiraz, Persia, 1941

Iran (17)

Since I came back from Abadan, my father treated me as the lady of the house and gave me money. I was in charge of the household.

“Iran joon,” he said, “every day, write a ledger listing what you buy, and how much money you spent.” He gave me a notebook, and ten tuman bills. “This is enough for one month’s expenses. Make sure to have some left over at the end of the month.”

These days, typhoid fever stretched its black wings throughout the country. It had a strong presence in Shiraz. Thanks to Baba, he walled all of us in the safety of our house. As soon as he read in the newspaper about the death of some children, he ordered my younger brother, Amir, to close the water passage between our house and the rest of the city, and to cover the pool.

“Iran,” Baba instructed me, “every morning boil the water from the pool for everyone to drink—from now on, no water from outside.”

“Not even shahi-water?” It was the drinking water delivered to us each day.

“No!” His firm voice nailed me to the ground. “Boil the water from the pool before drinking it.”

Like a mill, I ground Baba’s plan to perfection. Every day before going to school, I repeated, “Mamani, boil the water before giving it to the children.”

Days went by fast. Sometimes, I even forgot my weeping heart, or to think of my mother, Shirin. Meanwhile the grief of her death seemed like a molehill compared to the grief of the whole world. Germany, like a ghoul, Godzilla, was devouring Europe. The combat had begun on the other side of the globe, but in recent months, this demon even tried to swallow our next-door neighbor Russia, too. Thanks to His Majesty Reza Pahlavi, he kept us inside our walls. The bloodshed spread all over. Praise God that in our homeland, we only dealt with a shortage of tea and sugar—they were rationed. We had to change our tradition and were no longer able to have a cup of tea with our flatbread and goat cheese for breakfast. I woke up every day before sunrise with our grandmother, Zahra. She performed her ritual ablution before her prayers, and I boiled water, not in our huge samovar, but in a small kettle, to make tea for Baba, and I did the same when I returned from school. Most days, we served boiled vegetables and beans instead of lamb stew and rice with saffron. The food was barely enough for all thirteen of us. I, as the oldest child, had to stop eating before I felt half full. Sometimes I skipped a meal or two to make sure the younger ones had enough. As a habit, Baba had his dinner in his room late at night after everyone had gone to sleep. His dinner was a small lamb shank. The neighborhood butcher saved it for him, knowing he was from a royal family. I was in charge of cooking it to his taste.

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