Khala Rosa and Her Trip to Beirut
It was a late winter afternoon. My mother and I drove over to Khala Rosa and Uncle Isaac’s home. Mama liked to go there almost every weekday afternoon. We did not have too much family in Tehran; most of the family was still in Baghdad. Khala Rosa and her family had recently arrived in Tehran. Khala Rosa was Mama’s mother’s sister, the closest thing to a mother to her. Mama must have been about twenty-three or twenty-four. She had already had her three daughters; Gilda was a baby and Nora a toddler. When I think of that in retrospect, she really was so young, but to me then, she was so old! At any rate, every afternoon she would go visit her aunt. During the wintertime, there would be a portable kerosene heater with a kettle of water perched on top of it, humming merrily to itself. On top of the kettle, a teapot was nestled, ready to offer thimble-sized glasses of tea to anyone who desired some. The family consisted of my great aunt and uncle, their daughter Semha, and their sons Moshi and Aboud. They lived in a cozy flat not too far from where we lived. Uncle Isaac and Khala Rosa would prepare the tea table. He loved to make homemade wines and pickles. Those would be served with hard-boiled eggs, boiled waxy delicious yellow potatoes, turnips cooked with dates, jams, and cheeses. The baker’s assistant would have come earlier, announcing his hot, delicious breads. “Noonie, noonieh! It’s the baker, the baker delivering hot bread!” he would call out as he bicycled through the narrow streets in the early dusk. Uncle Isaac would go down from their tiny flat to the front entrance and buy bread. My Auntie Semha would help arrange everything on the tea table. It was an everyday ritual. Mama was like another daughter to them, and Aunty Semha was like a sister to her. As we entered the flat, the tea paraphernalia was set. All we had to do was sit and eat. We could feel the warm welcome and love of all of them. That evening, we were not the only visitors there. Uncle Isaac’s brother’s wife was there as well. I loved listening to the adults making conversation as we sat down to tea. They always had such interesting stories to tell. Aunty Semha and her brothers would crack jokes, and everyone would burst out into amused laughter. Although I really did not understand some of their jokes, I felt engulfed in love. At some point, the conversation turned to food. Khala Rosa turned to her sister-in-law and asked, “Do you remember the trip we had taken to Beirut?” Her sister-in-law nodded her head. “What a wonderful time we had! And that restaurant we went to? I never tasted chicken legs as delicious as those.” Her sister-in-law looked at her and burst into laughter, “My dear Rosa, those were not chicken legs! Those were frog legs!” My great aunt looked at her in disbelief. She turned green. She rose from her seat and hurried to the bathroom in as dignified a manner as she could manage. From where we sat, we could hear her discreetly vomit the frog legs she had eaten twenty or so years ago. I was a little girl of perhaps five or so, yet I can still remember the feel of that winter afternoon, the warmth of being with people you loved and who loved you back. I can still remember the intimacy of that late afternoon and the snow falling outside, as we sat safe and warm in my great aunt and uncle’s home…