To be honest, even though I had seen plenty of pictures, I still kind of expected Yazd to look like a scene fromAladdin: dirt streets lined with palm trees, domed palaces made out of sparkling alabaster, laden camels carrying goods to a bazaar of wooden stalls covered in jewel-colored fabric awnings.
There were no camels anywhere in sight, despite what FattyBolger might have claimed. I didn’t even know camel jockey was a legitimate slur until the first time he called me one. Trent Bolger was not particularly creative, but he was thorough, and subtle enough to evade detection by the enforcers of Chapel Hill High School’s Zero Tolerance Policy toward racial and ethnic slurs.
The streets of Mamou’s neighborhood didn’t look so different from the streets back home: dull gray asphalt.
The houses didn’t look so different either, except they were made of whitish bricks instead of seamless siding. Some had ornate wooden double doors in front, with elaborate metal knockers. They almost reminded me of Hobbit-hole doors, except they weren’t round.
Dayi Jamsheed pulled up in front of a white house that looked more or less like all the others. It was a single story, with a thin strip of yard full of sparse, scrubby grass in front.
There were no cacti anywhere—another oversight on Fatty Bolger’s part, because I looked it up, and cacti are actually native to the Americas.
Dayi Jamsheed parked the SUV under the shade of a gigantic walnut tree that hung over the street and thrust its roots beneath the cracking sidewalk.
“Agha Stephen,” Dayi Jamsheed said. He pronounced itesStephen, which is what a lot of True Persians called Dad. In Farsi you couldn’t start a word with two consonants. You had to put a vowel before them (or between them, which is why a few people called Dad “Setephen”).
“Wake up, Agha Stephen.”
His voice sounded like the crack of a whip, and he was always smiling, eyebrows arched and mischievous. My uncle had twodiscrete eyebrows—not a single connecting hair between them—which was deeply reassuring, because I had always worried about growing a Persian Unibrow.
Dayi Jamsheed started unloading our stuff from the back. I shook the sleep off my head and slid out of the SUV after Mamou, while Dad tried to rouse Laleh. “Let me help you, Dayi.”
“No! You go in. I’ve got it, Darioush-jan.”
We had a lot of suitcases, and Dayi Jamsheed only had two hands. It was clear he needed help, but he was genetically predisposed to refuse it.
It was my first official taarof in Iran.
Taarofis a Farsi word that is difficult to translate. It is the Primary Social Cue for Iranians, encompassing hospitality and respect and politeness all in one.
In theory, taarof means putting others before yourself. In practice, it means when someone comes to your house, you have to offer them food; but since your guest is supposed to taarof, they have to refuse; and then you, the host, must taarof back, insisting that it’s really no trouble at all, and that they absolutely must eat; and so on, until one party gets too bewildered and finally gives in.
I never got the hang of taarofing. It’s not an American Social Cue. When Mom met Dad’s parents for the first time, they offered her a drink, which she politely declined—and that was that.
She really did want something to drink, but she didn’t know how to go about asking.
She had yet to learn the proper American Social Cues.
Every Thanksgiving, Dad tells the story again, and everyyear, Mom laughs and says she’s going to kill him if he tells it one more time.
Maybe joking is the Primary American Social Cue.
“Please,” I said. “I want to help.”
“It’s fine.” Like Mamou, Dayi Jamsheed had a funny way of twisting the ends of his words. “You’re tired. You are a guest.”
Both of those statements were technically true, but truth was irrelevant when it came to taarof.
“Um.”
Mom came to my rescue. “Jamsheed.” She reached into the SUV to extract Laleh’s unconscious body from Dad. My sister was pretty much a rag doll when she was asleep. “Let Darioush help.”
Dad unfolded himself from the back of the SUV while Dayi Jamsheed argued with Mom in Farsi. For a beautiful, poetic language, it sounded harsh as Klingon when they fought, especially when Mamou joined in and turned it into a three-way argument.
Laleh still hung in my mom’s arms. I didn’t know how she could sleep through it.
Dad yawned and swung around doing trunk twists. He blinked at me and cocked his head toward Mom.
I shrugged. “Taarof,” I whispered, and Dad nodded.
