vignettes
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The Ameh Shokat Doll
Salty Eye, Sweet Play. Written in Four Vignettes, No. 2. Niku licked her new doll on its button eye. It was as cold and tasteless as the shop windows she and her brothers stuck their lips against on Jaleh Square, and it was her last hope. For weeks now, she had overheard neighbours and relatives…
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Fet-Fet
Salty Eye, Sweet Play. Written in Four Vignettes, No. 1. “That child has a salty eye, I’m telling you.” The two neighbours who wore too much makeup crossed their fat nylon calves and exchanged lipstick-smudged theories between bites of lipstick-smudged halvah. “Sameni women have always brought on bitter ends. It’s all the black they wear. …
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White Mulberries
The story of my great-grandmother, Khanum Bozorg. Written in two vignettes, No. 2. Ever since she fell off her horse and broke her nose into a calligrapher’s mim, Khanum Bozorg lost the ability to smell and taste food properly. She couldn’t tell the difference between rotten meat and fresh meat, wouldn’t know it by the sweet…
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Leila Mishmast
The story of my great-grandmother, Khanum Bozorg. Written in two vignettes, No. 1. Before her three sons and three daughters gave her grandchildren, Khanum Bozorg was not Khanum Bozorg at all. She was Leila Mishmast and she was a “fire-whirl.” At least that’s what her mother used to call her. Her mother’s entire life revolved…
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Shuku and Niku
Mahin Banu’s Baby. Written in four vignettes, No. 4. Shuku propped the bisque-faced doll up on her lap. It was an ugly doll. Nothing like her delicate, golden-haired bébé. Flat, black eyes covered half its vacant face. Its painted eyebrows stretched from one temple to another, like the shadow of a bird in flight. Its…
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For Name’s Sake
Mahin Banu’s Baby. Written in four vignettes, No. 3. Every woman who married into the Moftakhar family was given a new name and a laqab, a descriptive title that replaced however unadorned a past a girl may have had in her father’s household, with the silver-threaded (albeit slightly moth-eaten) flourishes of her husband’s home. Over…
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At Mohtaram Khanum’s
Mahin Banu’s Baby. Written in four vignettes, No. 2. Mohtaram Khanum lived in Shahbdolazim, in the ancient city of Rey. Home to the shrine of Shah Abdol-Azim, Rey was reconnected to Tehran under Nasser ed-Din Shah Qajar by the Tehran-Rey railway – known affectionately by locals as the machine dudi, the “smoke machine” – and…
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The Persian Princess and the Pea
Mahin Banu’s Baby. Written in four vignettes, No. 1. Smoky silhouettes of Mahin Banu’s death lingered for some time in the Moftakhar household, acting and re-acting the events of that solemn day on the walls in a macabre shadow play. Aware of the chaos that was sure to ensue, Mahin Banu’s eldest sister, Badr al-Zaman,…
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Aban, 1943
The story of my grandmother, Mahin Banu (Persian for “lady like the moon”). Written in three vignettes, No. 3. “I don’t want this one,” Mahin Banu whispered to her miniature mother over tea. She was pregnant with her third child and was convinced it was another girl. How she knew she was bearing a daughter…
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Baby Bites
The story of my grandmother, Mahin Banu (Persian for “lady like the moon”). Written in three vignettes, No. 2. Mahin Banu’s imagination, though impressive, was still only second to her temper; a peppery teenage temper that could bite and scratch and claw out the beast. But it wasn’t a patient mother or a loving father…
al-majus 