The Knot in the Rug by Behnoud Masoud;Phillips Sara;

Author:Behnoud, Masoud;Phillips, Sara;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Garnet Publishing (UK) Ltd
Published: 2012-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 38

Europe, land of our dreams! We went first to the Côte d’Azur, to the house that my aunt had bought a couple of years before. With the flowers climbing up the door and over the roof, the house resembled a picture postcard. Not long after, however, we went to the Italian Riviera, supposedly cheaper and better than France, where we were neighbours with the deposed Ottoman imperial family. Noruz was approaching, bringing us happiness and new clothes. Every time I looked through the window I saw the neighbouring houses with their red roof tiles. I imagined, upon Saeed’s arrival, one of those houses becoming ours, and yet again I began thinking about furnishing our home.

The magical spring of the Côte d’Azur was upon us and we had gathered around the ‘Haft Seen’.14 We had also placed the photographs of the absent members of the family, the Shah and the crown prince, on the table next to the Haft Seen. Since we were now in a different time zone the Revelation was fixed at around two o’clock in the afternoon. After all these years Malakeh Jahan still insisted on celebrating Noruz in its full glory: she had bought everyone new clothes and had placed a few vases of flowers on the table, which was covered in termeh, as well as a bowl of water with a goldfish inside. It was not as red as the fish in Shah Baba’s tank in Tehran, but very much the same sekkeh,15 serkeh,16 seeb,17 somaq,18 seer19 and even samanou.20 There was also a clock in the middle and its tick-tock resonated in the room.

My uncle, who was by then far removed from his throne, seemed calmer and more at ease than he’d been in Tehran. He put on spectacles, opened the Qur’an, and began to recite. When the clock chimed for the Revelation, we recited a prayer and embraced one another. I was given a peck on the forehead and everyone was given gold coins. Ashraf, too, was given a gold coin. We then got together with the Russian general, Dr Jarozelski, and their wives, as well as with Khan Baba Khan and the rest of the group in a restaurant by the sea; my very first time. We drove in a black car with large round headlights, which took the men first. By then we had abandoned the Turkish chador and donned scarves and coats so that we did not stand out. The men and boys wore black suits with red and blue ties against their white shirts. Ashraf and the servants remained behind. The Empress and Dr Jarozelski’s wife wished my husband could join us. Indeed, watching the men and women sitting behind the tables with their heads together laughing made me pine for Saeed; I wanted to sit with him at a candlelit table with a polite waiter hovering around.

Everything was a novelty for me; it was as though Europe had to reveal all its beauty to us in a single evening.

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