writing
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A Fine D’Artagnan
Salty Eye, Sweet Play. Written in Four Vignettes, No. 4. “You always get to be D’Artagnan!” cried Morteza. “Well, I am the oldest,” said Mehdi. “No, you’re not. Niku’s the oldest.” “Niku’s a girl! A girl can’t be one of the three musketeers!” “D’Artagnan isn’t one of the three musketeers, Mehdi,” said Niku coolly, leaning…
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Hammam Days
Salty Eye, Sweet Play. Written in Four Vignettes, No. 3. Thursday afternoons at the public hammam were hot and uncomfortable and to be avoided at all costs. Besides the white veil of steam that cast a certain mystery over the otherwise simple old bath house, the hammam was not half as romantic as the European…
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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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Notes on Fet-Fet
Or rather on Persian halvah. Halvah is a confection of Persian origin with an Arabic name (Arabic root ح ل و or ḥ-l-w, meaning “sweet”) with varieties that stretch from Northern and Eastern Africa up to Eastern Europe and the Balkans, down all the way through West, Central and South Asia. Persian halvah is a paste…
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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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Notes on White Mulberries
If real events are the bones of these stories, and my shall we say, “embellishments” make up the rest, then this particular tale of Khanum Bozorg’s death is perhaps best described as an inner ear. There are only three tiny truths buried in this little vignette: one, Khanum Bozorg was my mother’s primary caretaker when…
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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…
al-majus 