door replied when Mom asked how come they had kept the old house the way it was. “My brothers and I all grew up here, got married here, and now I live here with my family. We rent out the other house. We would never even think of demolishing this house. It has been like a lucky charm for all of us."
Mom had told me about these fantastic old houses and now I was seeing one up close. I was only six years old but perhaps the love of architecture was in my blood, since I remember how excited I was to see the old house - though Mom’s wonderful stories about her childhood must have had something to do with it as well.
Mom had explained everything to me: typically these houses consisted of two buildings, or rather two separate houses. The smaller house, called Birooni, which loosely translates to “the external (house)” – was accessible from the main entrance. The Birooni was considered a less private house built for socializing and other public affairs, such as business meetings, or religious feasts. The other building, called Andarooni – which loosely translates to “the internal (house)” – was the main house, where the family lived.
My six-year old eyes were feasting on the architecture. Each house had its own yard with a pond in the middle. There were two sets of doors, one connecting the two yards and one connecting the two buildings. We entered the Birooni, passed the yard and used the connecting door to enter the Andarooni. Usually a much larger house, the Andarooni was built with the family's privacy in mind. The walls were tall and lined with shrubs or trees for additional privacy. Here, a row of Sarv trees (Persian Cypress) near the walls created a narrow passage around the yard, perfect for escaping the afternoon sun or hiding from everyone else. All the downstairs rooms opened to a large porch via gorgeous wooden double doors, decorated with colored glass, encased in rich dark walnut wood. Each house had a large pond with a fountain in the middle of the yard. The water in the Andarooni’s overflowing pond was gently pouring out onto the ground with each gush of the fountain. I loved the smell of the water on the ground in Mom’s childhood house.
In one of Ezy’s stories, the heroine enters the large pond in the middle of the yard to rescue a young man, imprisoned by a witch and held in a torture chamber underground. It felt like this was the perfect pond for the heroine to emerge from with the rescued young man - though all I saw in this pond were goldfish.
“I had my friends come to this room to play when they visited,” Mom pointed to a large sunny room downstairs. “We played inside and then brought the rug to the porch to eat our lunch outside.”
In my mind’s eye I saw the girls, sitting on the porch on a colorful small Persian rug, whispering and giggling while eyeing my good-looking uncles – I had three. My grandmother, Gilaan, was watching the girls from inside through the lace curtains, as she sometimes watched me when I was playing in the yard. The servant surprised the girls by entering the porch with a tray of tea and sweets. The girls stopped giggling at once and sat up straight. I saw my grandmother smiling behind the curtains.
I look at the Shenaas-Nameh in my hand. None of the stories Mom had told me about the old house, nor any of her other childhood memories, are recorded in it. Not even the one about a neighborhood boy she had a crush on when she was only thirteen, years before she fell in love with Dad. Mom must have been very brave for telling her father about him. And my grandfather must have been quite open-minded for his time, since he had surprised Mom by first thanking her for coming to him with the story, then telling his Yeki-Yek-Dooneh daughter that the boy was not good enough for her but that she had to find out for herself. My grandfather then made Mom promise that she would not meet the boy without letting him know. Maybe here in the States a story like that is not unusual – though I doubt that since the story is over 80 years old. But in Iran, the story is rather atypical. Yet the Shenaas-Nameh omits all these wonderful stories. It doesn’t even note if one had a happy childhood or a miserable one.
I notice Mom looking at her Shenaas-Nameh with a hint of worry in her eyes. It looks as if the Shenaas-Nameh might slide out of my hand. I adjust the document and she smiles.
“I had a great childhood. None of my friends were treated as good as me. My parents never punished any of us. Not even when we acted stupid and naughty,” Mom says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears.
Mom did the same with me, she never punished me not even when I broke her antique vase as I was playing soccer in the living room. I am reminded of a story from Mom’s childhood when she and my uncle disappeared for a short time.
“My mother, your grandma, was very busy that day. I was six and your uncle was four. We heard the street merchant selling candy. We ran to the street to buy some sweets without telling our mother. I was wearing a pair of gold and ruby earrings, which caught some guy’s eye. He tricked us into believing he had better candies. We believed him and followed him into a quiet alley. He then bent down and took one of my earrings off. I protested and started to scream.. He got scared, picked me up and started running. Your uncle, despite being only four, ran alongside him and kept yelling at the man to put me down. I too, screamed, and started punching him with my small fists. At that point, people started to notice us and came to our aid. The man finally put me down. But we, your uncle and I, pulled at him and demanded he return my earring. Some people were closing in on him so he took my earring out of his pocket and wrapped it in the handkerchief he got from his other pocket, and handed it to me. He maneuvered between the people who were trying to catch him and disappeared. People brought us home once they knew who we were. Our mother was in the street, pale and frightened, asking passersby if they had seen us. I felt awful when I realized the man had given us a piece of rock instead of my earring. My parents, however, were not upset. They said we had learned a valuable lesson and Dad bought me a new pair of earrings, even prettier, the next day.” Mom has told me this story many times.
I smile and turn the page to find a table for recording one’s marriages in the Shenaas-Nameh. There is no mention of one’s crushes on the neighborhood boy, nor the first real love, nor the first kiss, and not even the first time one made love. Instead the Shenaas-Nameh has multiple rows to record each marriage. The Shenaas-Nameh doesn’t care if the marriage was the result of someone falling in love, interested in digging gold, worried about the ticking biological clock, lacking better opportunities, or being forced into marrying someone they didn't love – which still happens around the world. I am puzzled by the numerous rows for recording marriages. How many times does an average person marry? I spot Dad’s name on this page of Mom’s Shenaas-Nameh alongside his Shenaas-Nameh number, but nothing about where and when they met – just a place for the date of their marriage.
“The divorce is not in her Shenaas-Nameh,” I remember my birthmother once told me many years ago. “He wanted to have the chance to get back together with her.”
I look through every page of Mom’s Shenaas-Nameh, even though I know the divorce should be recorded right next to the marriage to mark its end. But I can’t find any reference to it, to my parents’ divorce. My birthmother was right after all. How did she know? Did Mom know too? What document did my parents sign when they went for the divorce? How could Dad remarry then?
I wonder if I can ask Mom about it but when I look up, she has disappeared again. She does that all the time. I thought she would have stayed longer this time since she seemed worried about her Shenaas-Nameh.
The painful memory of meeting Dad’s new wife for the first time rushes over me. I am ten years old and standing at the front door. It has taken me months to make it this far. Mom didn’t want me to come. She is still not happy about it but has given me permission to visit nevertheless, mainly because of my dad’s persistence in asking me to come over.
I had known this door as the entrance to my home, but only for a few short months. My arm knows well it needs to go up and ring the bell, but it refuses to do so. It feels heavy and useless at my side. This must be what Grandma felt after her stroke, or at least this is the best comparison I
can think of with my ten-year-old brain, about an arm that has never failed me before.
I take a quick look at my watch. Dad is always on time, down to the second, and has taught me to be the same. Mom is punctual too but unlike Dad, she is not vocal when someone is late. I still have a few minutes so I step aside from the door and look around. I am hoping my arm will feel better once I have given it a few minutes to gather its strength and courage.
It is late afternoon on a summer day and the street is quiet. Across from where I am standing, in the house on the other side of the street, live the only kids in the neighborhood with whom I had talked while I lived here. I remember that spring day vividly. I was standing in front of the house waiting for my cousin holding a dark green jar in my hand. The neighborhood boys got curious, came over, and asked what was in the jar. A rush came over me. I was new to the neighborhood and had no playmates. I had wanted to make friends with the kids in the neighborhood ever since we had moved here a couple of months ago. This was my opportunity. The fact that these boys were older felt even better and made me feel important. Proudly, I held up the bottle