The Aunties
The aunties really did not have too many relatives in Iran. They had come from Iraq. The nucleus of the family still lived there. Mama, Papa, and me, as a toddler, were first to arrive. Then her sister, my Auntie Marcelle, and her family came next. A few years later, my great Aunt Rosa and her family arrived. They stayed long enough to marry off Auntie Semha and become grandparents. They moved on to Israel. Auntie Semha and my mother were inseparable, just like my sister Gilda and Ketty are, despite an ocean separating them. They call each other every day, sometimes several times a day. They have done so for so very many years. I can hear my father admonishing my sister mildly, “Have you heard of letters? Why this waste?” But times have changed. It’s no longer wasteful, for we now have the internet.
But this story is not about our generation. It’s about the aunties’ generation. There were just a few of them, and they cherished their familial closeness. The only person who was not family was Mme. Rey. She was an elderly lady. She and her husband had only one son, and he lived very far away. He lived in Washington D.C., far, far away, across the oceans. In those days, it was a long journey, and traveling back and forth was not taken lightly, so they rarely got to see their son. “He works for the World Bank,” Mme. Rey would say proudly. As a little girl, I did not know what the World Bank was, but it sounded rather important. Mme. Rey served as the pseudo-mother to our mothers. Their mothers were not around, neither was her son. She needed to mother; they yearned for some mothering. My mother was in her middle twenties; Auntie Semha was younger still. Auntie Marcelle was the oldest of all of them. It was quite perfect to all of them.
Each Wednesday afternoon, these ladies met. They did not live too far from each other. In good weather, they walked at the most a half an hour to each other’s homes; otherwise, they could take a taxi if it got dark or it was inclement weather. They felt close to each other. They were the only female family they had in the country. They served cakes and bâton salée that they made. They would fry eggplants and boil new potatoes. They would make pastries stuffed with almonds, dates, and cheese. In winter, they prepared turnips slowly cooked with dates until they turned to the colour of caramel and were so very delicious! Just the memory of the aroma of that dish makes me drool to this day. In summers, they would be accompanied by their children. I remember how we would walk with our mothers. The girls would be in their pastel, starched dresses. The boys would be in their little shorts with trouser straps crossed in the back and buttoned in front. They wore white poplin blouses with rounded collars edged with delicate lace. Boys and girls both wore shoes with straps and white ankle socks. Our mothers looked like proud mother hens walking their brood to whichever home they visited that day. Once we got to wherever we were going to, we, the children, would play with all our other cousins while our mothers and Mme. Rey chatted away. They drank thimblefuls of tea, nibbled on nuts and dried fruit. In summer, ice-cold glasses of homemade sherbets were offered. The ladies would take out their rather elaborate fans and fan themselves. Some of their fans were works of art. They varied. Some were hand-painted silk ones. Others were elaborate lace ones. They seemed to have a collection of them, a part of their wardrobe. In each house, there would be an assortment of fans with long handles of intricately woven straw supplied to anyone who felt the heat. An electric fan would oscillate to cool the air, but the handheld ones were de rigueur. They were as necessary as the fine lawn, intricately embroidered and lace-edged handkerchiefs that they used.
When it came time to eat, if we were offered food, we were taught to say, “No thank you,” two times before accepting to partake of the food the third time it was offered to us. Many years later, while I was in boarding school in England, I did what I was taught. Imagine my dismay when the dish was not offered to me a second time, never mind a third, when I would have politely accepted. My eyes went round in astonishment! “How rude!” I thought. Very soon, I realized that their ways are not ours. I learned to accept or refuse politely what was offered the very first time.
But I digress. During the summer, sometimes the uncles would come to these teas after work. We would sit in the garden in the cool air of the evening. Since it was summer holidays and we children had no school, we were allowed to stay up late. Then the whole atmosphere of the tea party would change. It became more boisterous and less genteel. The men added a more masculine aura to it. They joked and told stories of their days at work. We climbed into our fathers’ laps for a while, got bored, and then ran off to play once more.
During winter, it was entirely different. There was homework to be done. We had to sleep at our set bedtime. We were not allowed to accompany our mothers. I loved it when it was Mama’s turn to entertain. Instead of doing my homework, I would unobtrusively sit in a corner and listen to the aunties’ conversations. Sometimes their conversations made me wide-eyed with wonder! I would inadvertently gasp. Conversation would come to a standstill. They would turn around to see where the gasp came from. All their eyes would turn to look at me. Mama’s eyes glinted in a certain way that told me she was displeased. “What are you doing here? Go to your room at once and finish your homework!” she would exclaim. Embarrassed as all of them looked at me with silent disapproval, I would sheepishly hang my head down and, dragging my feet, would slowly walk out of the room. They would not speak until they were sure I was in my room.
In winter, on Friday afternoons, which are the equivalent of Sunday afternoons here, the aunties would take turns to entertain this small and intimate group with the husbands. When it was Mama’s, if she hadn’t baked a cake, she would order an array of pastries like éclairs, rhum baba, Napoleons, and other mouthwatering delights from Lila’s Bakery. His pastries were excellent. It took me quite a while to find a confiserie as good as his when we came to New York. About twenty years ago, a young pastry chef opened his bakery on the Turnpike. He is just as good as Lila. By a strange coincidence, his shop is called Lulu’s. Lila, Lulu, get it?
Years passed, and more and more of the family escaped from Iraq. Some stayed temporarily and left for Israel or England. Auntie Semha’s sisters-in-law stayed in Tehran. Other cousins came as well. Their circle grew. They lost that special intimacy they had in the beginning.
Sixty-something years later, our parents are all gone. They have all passed away, but between us cousins, there still is that special closeness. More special still, our children also experience the same closeness as well, even though we are scattered across the continents now. It is as if an invisible bond draws them close, the same bond as we had and still have.