Wedding Song by Farideh Goldin

Author:Farideh Goldin [Goldin, Farideh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781611683899
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The First Grade

My father visited the principal of Mehr-ayeen School again without me six months after our first visit. I don’t know what transpired between them, if he raged or gave a gift, or if he took a more influential person with him. I was enrolled for the following year.

For the first month of school, my father proudly walked me to school every day in my new gray uniform. He stopped by the bakery and bought a slice of sponge cake for my snack. In America, I have learned that sponge cake is a symbol of Passover, filled with cholesterol from as many as twelve eggs that make it fluffy. To me, it is still the sign of my father’s love, on which I gorge myself every Passover without any self-control.

On the first day, I was surprised to find two other Jewish girls in my class, neither of whom I had ever met. I knew all the children in the mahaleh at least by appearance. I knew the boy with the football-shaped skull whom we called khiaree or cucumber-head, who played a game of sticks every time I passed by him, hitting me on the head. I knew the snotcrusted faces of the many children playing in the dirt of the unpaved streets, who my mother complained never got sick while her clean children did.

Meena was my best friend next door, of whom Mahvash had been jealous enough to convince me to pray for her death. I knew the kids with a lisp, the ones with crossed eyes, the ones with sores on their legs that were a feast for the flies, and the albino kid, of course, with glassy eyes. So many kids had problems that I assumed that was the way of the world. I knew the little boy from an entertainer’s family, who dressed up as a girl to dance at happy occasions. I knew all the girls in a permanent state of curved spines, who didn’t go to school and carried little babies on their hips. I knew all the boys my age who were pa-do-ak, a word literally meaning, “running legs,” who were hired to run errands for shopkeepers. At school, for the first time, I realized that there might be Jews who lived outside the ghetto. Wealthy Jews.

Accompanied by her well-dressed mother, Fariba arrived late on the first day of school, wearing a beautifully tailored uniform. The fabric was a rich gray color, I noticed with jealousy, made of soft wool. I wished I could touch it. My own new cotton uniform felt dull and scratchy. I felt that there was a wall between us that was too high for me to leap over and meet her. Our Moslem teacher, Mrs. Khatami, jumped from her seat to greet them: “Salam, hello, Mrs. Doctor, welcome.”

So her father was a doctor. Money and education wiped out some of the Jewish dirt, I thought—first lesson of the day. She made another girl move so Fariba could have an aisle seat, which her mother said she preferred.

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