QUINTESSENTIAL PERSIAN PROFESSION
The memorial service was simple: Once everyone arrived (about an hour after we asked people to show up because, as a people group, Iranians are predisposed to tardiness), Mom said a prayer, first in English, then in Farsi, then in halting Dari. She talked about Ardeshir Bahrami’s life growing up in Yazd: how he was born into the Zoroastrian community, went to school, opened a shop, weathered the revolution, raised three kids and eight grandchildren (with a great-grandchild on the way). How he was kind, thoughtful, generous. How he was a demon at Rook. How he loved his garden.
“The only thing my father loved more than his garden was his wife, Fariba. And the only thing he loved more than Fariba was her cooking.”
Everyone had been somber up to that point, and some people were even crying. But when Mom said that, the whole room’s mood changed. First there was a little chuckle here and there, and then some uncomfortable giggles, and then finally some actual laughter.
At the table right behind us, Javaneh’s dad let out a full belly laugh. He—like most of the men in the room—was dressed in a suit.
Clearly I had once again failed to accurately gauge the appropriate iteration of Persian Casual for the event.
Mom wiped her tears and smiled. “I wish my mom were here to cook for us tonight. But instead we have Kabob House. Noosh-e joon!”
Grandma and Oma got up to help at the buffet. I got up too, and took Laleh’s hand.
“Can I help?” Landon asked.
“Sure.”
Laleh manned the bread station—her favorite—while Landon scooped rice onto people’s plates, and I portioned out the tah dig, which Kabob House made with thinly sliced potatoes on the bottom of the pot.
The line moved slowly, as everyone took time to talk to each other, sometimes in Farsi and sometimes in English and sometimes both, arguing and taarofing and catching up with friends they hadn’t seen since the last time everyone came to the PPCC.
Landon gave me this bewildered smile when two older Iranian ladies, who I recognized vaguely but whose names I didn’t know, stopped in front of us, arguing in Farsi. Their voices rose, shrill and sharp over the din, until they suddenly cackled. They turned to me.
“Darioush!”
“Hi.”
“Look at you. You’ve lost weight.”
“Um.”
My ears burned.
“Who is this? Your friend from school?”
“My boyfriend,” I said. “Landon.”
The woman on my left, who wore her brown hair in an elaborate bun, turned to her friend and asked something in Farsi.
Her friend, who was taller, with long black hair and ornate gold hoop earrings, said something back. She eyed me, and then Landon, then said something else to her friend. “Just tah dig for me, Darioush,” she said.
I gave her a wedge with a nice chunk of potato. “This okay?”
“Perfect.”
Her friend kept looking from me to Landon and back.
“No rice for me, thank you,” she said.
And then she said, “Nice to meet you,” and moved along.
“What just happened?” Landon whispered to me. “What were they talking about?”
I didn’t catch enough to understand.
I was pretty sure I didn’t want to understand.
“Not sure.”
Javaneh’s dad, a doctor, held his plate out for Landon to spoon him a wedge of rice. He had a mustache that reminded me of Babou’s, though his was black and trimmed instead of gray and bushy. “Oh, just a little,” he said, when Landon offered him a big scoop.
“Sorry,” Landon said, and started to put back half the rice.
Panic flashed across Dr. Esfahani’s face.
“Please have more. There’s lots,” I said.
“If you insist.”
Landon glanced at me, baffled, and then gave Dr. Esfahani his rice.
Like I said, Landon still hadn’t mastered the art of taarof, which required you to politely decline food even if you actually wanted it, and to force people to take food they said they didn’t want.
“Darioush. Javaneh said you’re on the soccer team this year.”
“Yeah.”
“How’s it going?”
“Good. We’re six and one.”
And Landon said, “He’s the best defender on the team.”
I blushed and shook my head.
“Of course he is! Persians are excellent at soccer. It’s genetic.”
As a doctor—a quintessential Persian profession if ever there was one—Javaneh’s dad was always claiming things were genetic.
Dr. Esfahani accepted a big piece of tah dig without argument—he was clearly still shaken up by his near-miss with the rice—and moved down the line toward the kabob.
I served Javaneh’s mom, who was also a doctor—a PhD, who taught physics at Portland State—and then Javaneh’s two brothers, who were still in middle school.
When our first tray of tah dig ran out, I took it and a couple other empties to the back. Mom was in the kitchen too, refilling huge thermoses of tea from the hot water spigot on the coffee maker.
“Oh, Darius. Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Yeah, sure. Are you doing okay?”
Mom nodded. She’d made it through the day so far without smudging her mascara.
I had already cried four times myself.
“What’s up?”
Mom pursed her lips for a second.
“You know, a lot of our guests are more . . . traditional Iranians.”
“I know.” I held up my hands, nails out.
Mom’s eyes fell.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Mom looked at me like she wanted to say something else, but Oma stuck her head in. “We’re almost out of kabobs.”
“I’ll get some.” I turned back to Mom. “Have people been saying things about Oma and Grandma?”
“No. You know Iranians. They’ll just mutter to each other.”
“Okay.”
Mom grabbed my arm.
She looked at me for a moment.
“Make sure Landon gets enough to eat. It was sweet of him to come.”
Once the line had died down, I helped Landon make a plate. It was his first true chelo kabob experience, so I showed him how to make the most of it: layering his plate with bread to soak up the juices, explaining the different philosophies for rice (butter or no butter, mixed with chopped-up grilled tomato or not), introducing him to sumac as a seasoning.
“I think you gave me too much,” Landon said when he beheld the heaping pile of rice and meat and vegetables I had squeezed onto his paper plate.
“That’s Persian tradition too.”
He snorted and smiled.
“Thank you for being here. Really.”
“Of course.” He set his plate down and brushed my hands with his. “I’m glad to do it.”
I made a plate for myself and then we sat next to Laleh, who was already shoveling up her rice with a serving spoon wider than her mouth.
After dinner, while everyone drank tea and ate zoolbia—essentially a syrup-soaked, starchy Persian funnel cake—Mom and Laleh and I told stories about Babou.
“The first time I met Babou he was on the roof of his house,” I said. “He wanted to water his fig trees.”
“He loved his fig trees!” Mom shouted. “I think he loved them more than he loved his children!”
That made everyone laugh, especially because there was a non-zero probability that it was true.
“He was all dressed up too, in dress pants and his nice shoes.”
Mom nodded and laughed, but her eyes were sparkling. I wasn’t sure if it was from laughing too hard, or because it was finally getting to her.
Maybe it was both.
“He kept shouting at Sohrab to help him. Sohrab’s his neighbor. My best friend. Anyway, Sohrab was trying to untangle the hose, and I was there watching the whole thing, and Babou was like, ‘I’ll be down in a minute, I don’t care you just flew across the globe to meet me, I need to finish watering my figs.’”
“You didn’t tell me that part!” Mom shouted.
After that, Laleh told everyone—through occasional hiccups and tears—about watching Iranian soap operas with Babou, who knew every character and every plot line going back twenty years.
There was a lull after that, and I refreshed Landon’s tea for him.
“Thanks,” he said. I squeezed his hand under the table, and he looked at me kind of funny.
“Hey Mom,” I said. “Have you told everyone about Babou and the aftabeh?”
Mom’s eyes got huge as the crowd around us tittered.
“Who told you about that?”
“Zandayi Simin.”
“I am going to kill Simin-khanum!” Mom said. She sighed, and then started talking in Farsi.
Behind me, Grandma asked, “What’s an aftabeh?”
“It’s kind of like a watering can. You use it sort of like a bidet.”
Oma snorted, and Grandma covered her mouth, but then I couldn’t say anything else over everyone cracking up.