Childhood Echoes on Khiaban Pahlavi
If you go up Khiaban Pahlavi south to north, you will pass many enclaves. When my sister Nora and I were young, we lived in a sprawling three-story house all the way in the south of Tehran. We were neighbors with Dr. Mossadegh and the Russian Embassy. Other notables lived there, but I cannot remember who they were. I was a little girl then, of four or so. Nora was two and a half years younger than me. She still is, of course. Gilda was later born in that house.
In summers, I loved to go to the Russian Embassy. There was a guard at the entrance. He knew me. I would skip down the graveled path, veering to the left. There was a lush aroma of fragrant flowers flanked by green bushes. There was a little garden by a little house which I think was their clubhouse. Old men would sit outside in the cooling summer afternoons, drinking little thimbles of tea. They would be concentrating on the chess boards in front of them. As I approached, I would choose a lap to sit on. Sometimes I chose the lap of Mr. Sobhi. As I grew older, I loved Mr. Sobhi because he told the most beautiful stories on the radio on Friday mornings. I looked forward to his program. At this time, he was just a comfortable lap to sit on. Another lap I loved to sit in was the soft lap of a jolly old Russian man. His blue eyes always twinkled, and he had pink cheeks and a big, huge smile on his face. He reminded me of Santa Claus. Best of all, he would allow me to dip my sugar cubes into his tea. I still remember the embassy vividly. I can smell the aroma of the garden and sense the feel of the gravel beneath my feet as I ran in to sit with the old men.
In 1948, when the State of Israel was born, Papa and Mama opened their home to the countless people who fled Baghdad to be part of the new country. Their friend Dr. Solomon would use Papa’s study to examine the countless people who had escaped. I remember once skipping into the room when Dr. Solomon was extracting leeches from the throat of a poor soul who had been thirsty along the way. The receptacle by the doctor’s side was filled with writhing leeches. With no clean water to drink, he had quenched his thirst at a little stream. In doing so, the leeches migrated into his throat and prevented him from either speaking or breathing easily. Needless to say, I was ordered out of the room that day.
Although we had a car and a driver by the name of Gholam Hossein, summer evenings Papa and Mama preferred to hire a horse and open carriage that would drive us over the cobbled street to Cafe Shahrdari. I loved going there. The cafe was in the middle of a park. There were water fountains that trilled away merrily. Accompanied by the orchestra which played Strauss waltzes, one could not help but feel thrilled right into one’s soul. I loved the food also. You could have Chicken Kiev, or Beef Stroganoff, or Karski, or Wiener Schnitzel…
By the time my brother Jacky was born, we had moved once more. This time we moved a bit further up on Khiaban Shahreza to a spacious apartment. It was at that time that my father decided that Nora and I should go to boarding school in England. I was gone from 1957 until 1962. When I returned, we moved once more. We traveled even further north. This time we moved to a modern villa with a weeping willow shading the pool.