Khadijeh
When my sisters and I were young girls, three or four times a year, my mother hired a young woman to sew for us. From the perspective of the little girl that I was then, I thought of her as an older woman. Now, I realize that she must have been about eighteen when she first began to come to us. Her name was Khadijeh. Khadijeh was quite pretty. She had light brown wavy hair which cascaded down her back, greenish eyes, and a ready and pleasing smile. In normal circumstances, she would have been married with a young family of her own. However, Khadijeh was not so fortunate. One of her legs ended where her knee was on the other leg. Because of this, she had to wear special shoes to enable her to walk more easily. Also, because of this handicap, no man wanted to marry her, even though she was quite attractive and had a very sweet disposition.
I must have been six or seven years old when Khadijeh first entered into our lives. She would arrive at the start of every season and stay for a week or so. In September, she would sew our school dresses, our nighties and pajamas, our slips and underwear, for in those days there were no ready-to-wear clothes. On occasion, she would sew Mama’s silk nighties, and if there was any silk fabric left over, one of us would be the proud owner of some article of intimate wear. Once there was enough fabric to make my sister Gilda some panties. She was three years old at that time. The first day she wore them, she kept lifting up her skirt in public and saying proudly, ‘Look at my silk panties! Look at my silk panties!’ Mama would pull her skirt down quickly and say, ‘Shush, Gilda.’ But it was to no avail, for Gilda was and always will be indomitable. That is our Gilda!
But back to Khadijeh. When she came to sew for us, we would hover around her in excitement to see what she was cutting and for which one of us. Mama would give her two fashion catalogues, one for young girls and one for ladies. She would show Khadijeh what she required and go about her day with a stern warning to us not to annoy Khadijeh. But the minute Mama departed, the three of us would twitter like little birds and surround Khadijeh with our numerous questions and affection. She would smile as her foot moved up and down on the treadle of the sewing machine and her hands guided the fabric. If it was winter, as it is now, the big pot-bellied stove would churn up warmth into the room. At lunchtime, if Mama and Papa were not in, the three of us would sneak to the servants’ quarters where there would be a korsi in the middle of the room with mattresses all around, covered with thick quilts. I loved that room, for we were not allowed to be there. However, when the cat is away…
To describe a korsi: A brazier is lit with charcoal and placed in the middle of the tiled room. On top of that, there was a low square table, and on top of which, there was a huge quilt that surrounded all four sides of the room. There were mattresses and bolster pillows to lean on. I always envied them that room in winter, for it was warm, cozy, and intimate. On the brazier, there would have been a kettle of tea to be served in little thimble glasses after the meal.
If my parents were not around, we would all gather around the korsi with Khadijeh, Maryam Barbari, and the cook. They would eat and chat, and their fingers would busily knit the most elaborately patterned woolen sweaters and socks. To us sisters, being in that room felt so special. Even the food tasted different and more delicious. It felt as if we had traveled to another place and time. We had. There was such a vast difference between their room and our living quarters. I really wished that we had a room like that.
After the meal, Khadijeh would go back to her sewing, and we would follow her. She came from the north of Iran. I cannot remember where in the north, perhaps a village near Tabriz. I don’t know what circumstances brought her to Tehran or if she had family there. All I knew was that each change of the seasons, Khadijeh would appear just like Mary Poppins did in the storybook. Her clubfoot was not a matter of curiosity to us. Perhaps we were too young. To us, she was just the gentle, soft-spoken Khadijeh whom we loved. But as I grew older and became more aware, I began to wonder about her life, especially when I realized how she was discriminated against because of her clubfoot. She was very pretty with a good figure and a pleasant disposition. Because of her disfigurement, she was doomed to becoming an old maid. In a country where marriage was the most important attribute of womankind, she was condemned to a life of loneliness and being pitied. In her later years, her family would grudgingly take care of her. She would not have loving children or a husband to cherish her. What a hard lot was hers, just because she had a clubfoot. How sad, how dismal her life was to be.
I have never forgotten her over the span of the seven-plus decades or so that have passed. We were all young then. We believed in happily ever after. However, that is not what happens in life. There is rarely such a thing as happily ever after in life, but I am a cockeyed optimist, and I am hoping that, despite her deformity, despite the prejudices in Iran, despite all the odds being against her, she met someone who loved her for herself; someone who recognized her inner beauty and gentle ways; someone who became her knight in shining armor; someone who loved her and lived with her and had children with her in the land of happily ever after, forever and ever… A person can wish, can’t she? That’s what I wish for Khadijeh. I hope she got it.