The House On Sun Street by Mojgan Ghazirad: Excerpt
A young girl grows up in a family uprooted by the terror of an Islamic Revolution, where her culture, her gender, and her education are in peril.Excerpted from The House on Sun Street, by Mojgan Ghazirad. Blair, 2023. Reprinted with permission.
Maman claimed she had seen Prince Shapour from the rooftop of the house while he was strolling in his vibrant garden. I believed her, but every time I looked from the second-floor windows, I couldn’t see anyone. The prince’s beautiful mansion neighbored my grandfather’s house, and the windows facing the backyard had a view to his garden. He was the younger brother of Mohammad Reza Shah, and he stood in for the Shah on many ceremonial occasions, especially the national sports events. Many people believed the prince was responsible for the mysterious death of the beloved Iranian wrestling champion Gholamreza Takhti. Rumors had it that he was outraged when he noticed the crowd didn’t applaud for him as he entered the arena for the wrestling championships but cheered and hailed Takhti as soon as he stepped on the wrestling mat. His dark, dodgy reputation of being the murderer of the champion floated everywhere among the people of Iran.
Hidden between the crowded Corsican pines, we could only see Prince Shapour’s mansion at night, like a constellation of glowing stars seen from afar. A giant shallow pool decorated the center of the courtyard. Water trickled from a circle of fountains in the pool, creating a mesmerizing scene with its harmonious cadence. Clean-cut boxwood shrubs snaked through the green grass and hedged a narrow cobblestoned path that vanished into the pines. If it weren’t for the occasional view of the old, stooped gardener carrying his wheelbarrow around, planting white-purple violas and yellow daffodils in rows around the pool, I would have thought an ifrit had cast a spell onto the courtyard. No one walked in that luxurious garden. I conjured up the charming Prince Shapour treading the cobblestone path, bending over and sniffing the aroma of the blooming flowers. But I was never lucky enough to spot him.
The house on Sun Street was located in the royal neighborhood of central Tehran, and Marble Palace was a couple blocks away from it. Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty, lived in that palace, and after his death, from 1970 on, it became a museum of his heritage. The house was a two-story structure with spacious rooms. The lower rooms had French doors that opened to the terrace in the front garden, and the upper rooms had tall lattice windows decorated with stained glass. It usually took us about an hour to get to Agha Joon’s house from our apartment, which was located on the northeastern side of Tehran. I loved my grandparents’ house more than our apartment. Except for the guest room and Agha Joon’s room, I could play in any corner of that giant house. Once a week we visited my grandparents and stayed with them for the weekend. Some days even during the week, Maman took us there so that Azra could take care of us while she attended after-school meetings at the middle school where she taught mathematics.
Agha Joon’s room was on the first floor, overlooking the back garden. Golden-straw shades rolled over the stained-glass windows, giving a misty look to the objects in his room. There was a floor-to-ceiling closet embedded in the wall opposite the win- dow. A tall mirror was hung on the closet door, reflecting the colorful light that combed through the blinds. Agha Joon didn’t let anyone enter his room, let alone allow a curious girl like me to peek into his closet. A couple weeks after he’d started reading One Thousand and One Nights, I snuck into his room when he was busy with the fig trees in the front garden. Mar Mar was helping Agha Joon outside, and Azra was cooking her favorite aash in the kitchen. I left the garden to go to the bathroom. When I came out of the bathroom, I noticed the door to his room ajar. All the magical gifts were coming out of the closet in that room. How could I resist the temptation to get a closer look?
I crept into his room. The closet door squeaked as I slid in the space between the door and the shelves. I could perfectly fit in that space even when the door was shut. The closet was full of mysterious things, as if an ifrit had cluttered his treasures in it. I spotted Agha Joon’s book on the middle shelf. I unwrapped the termeh and peeked through its rosewater scented pages. I loved the touch of the old, yellow papers on my fingertips. In the dim light that seeped from the room, I saw drawings of beautiful ladies dancing with long patterned skirts, naked girls with upright breasts swimming in a large pool, a young lad peeking at them from behind the trees. I was fascinated by their nakedness and the playful poses they struck in the pool. They were the ravishing women of One Thousand and One Nights, whose stories Agha Joon had only begun to tell us.
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Mojgan Ghazirad is a medical doctor and currently works as an assistant professor of pediatrics at The George Washington University. She holds an MFA in creative writing and has published three collections of short stories in Farsi. Her essays have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Idaho Review, Longreads, The Common, Bombay Review, and Assignment. She lives with her family in Great Falls, Virginia.
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing
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