November 1950
From then on, we fled to one another naturally. It was with Homa that I mastered jump-rope games, her back that I massaged by stomping my feet on it as she lay facedown, from her that I learned how to spit cherry pits out far (and far away from the eyes of my disapproving mother).
It was in Homa’s kitchen where I first learned to use a knife. Under the guidance of Monir Khanom, we placed an onion on the counter. Together, we peeled away the thin, crackly skin, the membranes underneath surprisingly slippery and slick against our fingers. Monir Khanom opened a drawer and took out a giant knife with a multicolored abalone handle. She brought the knife right to Homa and me, placed our hands on the sparkling handle, covered them with her own, and guided us into halving the onion, slicing each half facedown, rotating it and slicing the other way in rows. When Homa’s mother slowly pulled back the knife to reveal a heap of perfect tiny onion cubes, I felt we had performed magic. I couldn’t believe the control we had over changing the shape of things.
At home, Mother sat on her floor-cushion seat, seeming to disappear more and more into the wall. She continued to complain about my “cavorting with riffraff” and mixing with “the lower types.” But she did not stop me from going to Homa’s house. Perhaps part of her—the motherly part—wanted to preserve my newfound happiness. That’s what I wanted to believe. Desperately.
The skills I learned in Homa’s cool stone kitchen were skills I brought home to Mother. She let me take on more and more of the meal preparation, though I still wasn’t allowed to use the stove.
I made for my mother the shirazi salad of chopped onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes and served it with fresh mint. I increased the lemon juice and lessened the salt and dared to drizzle some of the olive oil Uncle Massoud had brought. Mother couldn’t resist the taste.
And I couldn’t stay away from the magic of that stone kitchen.
The process of cooking captivated me from the instant I first stood by Monir Khanom’s side. How a simple onion could transform from the peeled orb to the thin white slices to the petite cubes and then the sauteed brown translucence from heat and fat in the copper pot, the caramelized scent that infused the house as the onion sizzled.
That lone onion could be a base for savory stews like Monir Khanom’s ghormeh sabzi herb khoresh or the yellow split pea and beef khoresh my mother said had been my father’s favorite (she never made it again after his death, claiming the memories were too difficult). I was shown how fried onion could garnish aush soup when mixed with dried mint or act as filling for grape-leaf dolmehs when combined with leftover rice and herbs. Monir Khanom taught Homa and me how to cook pomegranate seeds on the stove slowly and deliberately until they became a molasses that could be used in the walnut and pomegranate fesenjoon stew Homa loved so much.
Inevitably, after our frequent playdates, Homa and I descended the smooth cool stone steps that led into the cave-like kitchen. There her mother would be, chador-less in a skirt and flowered blouse, her slippers torn but worn-in to envious comfort. Sara crawled around, babbling and banging pot lids as she pursued her own strange but specific goals. Homa and I stood side by side near the large stove by Monir Khanom, delighting in the shape of an eggplant or the juiciness of a lemon.
And when after many months I worked up the courage to ask how her family could afford this food—this impossible array of color and subsistence—Homa looked at me as if I had asked a most ridiculous question.
“Because of where my father works, silly. Otherwise, we couldn’t afford any of it.”
“I thought your father was a communist.” I had imagined Homa’s baba demonstrating in the streets or holed up in a basement somewhere, drafting plans to overthrow the Shah.
“Communists work too! He’s the headwaiter at the Palace Hotel restaurant. Whatever they don’t use and want to throw away at the end of the day, he and a few of the other waiters get to bring home. Aren’t we lucky?”
“So, so lucky,” I said as Sara nuzzled against my ankles like a little cat.
Lucky to have this mother who trusted Homa and me enough to teach us how to feed ourselves and who made us feel competent and in charge with a casual respect I had not experienced from any other adult.
Lucky for the communist father with access to food, a man I had never met but whose income and lack of dying meant Homa’s home wasn’t tied to the whims of an uncle.
Lucky for the big-eyed, gurgling baby sister who sucked her thumb and smiled up at me with pure joy.
Lucky for all of it.
I loved Homa’s house, and when I walked home from any of our playdates and cooking lessons to go back into the coldness of the space where my mother’s grief reigned, Homa’s comforts created in me that particular and palpable ache of which I was continuously ashamed.
“You’re late,” my mother would say no matter what time I returned.
“Bebakhsheed,” I would respond. Forgive me.