George Sand Speaks

Roghieh used to cook and clean our house. Legend has it that many moons ago, Roghieh was a beggar. By luck or destiny, one day, she knocked on my grand mother’s door asking for money. Instead of cash my Aziz offered Roghieh a job, “don’t beg woman” she said, “work and earn money”. And so Roghieh did!

Roghieh was a chatter box and so was Aziz. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship: an old woman reaching out to an impoverished soul. My grandmother taught Roghieh how to clean and cook and then, introduced Roghieh to the rest of the family. For her part, the beggar woman kept Aziz busy. There was something inherently cruel in Aziz’s undeniable act of charity. Did Roghieh see this lucky break as a dignified means to earn money or did she feel belittled and humiliated? 

Roghieh was our baby sitter, nanny, maid, cook, helper etc. There was nothing she couldn’t do. She was deeply loyal to us and we loved here. She also loved gossip and I loved listening to her. It was a privilege to have secret knowledge of unsuspecting adults.  

For example, I knew my uncle’s wife had a French cream that made her breasts grow bigger. Wow. Roghieh had seen it with her own eyes! She kindly offered to get more details if my flat-chested mother was interested. No matter how many times my mother explained that no such product exists, Roghieh would still offer to ask! Even today when I talk to my uncle’s wife, I wonder about the “crème”. 

Roghieh had an accent. Where was she from? No one quite knew. She once told me she was from a village in beautiful and green Mazandaran. She used funny words. Instead of “havaa peymaa, toilet, aaraayesh, shohar”, she said “tayyaareh, mostaraa, sorkhaab-sefidaab, aaghaa”. 

While cleaning the house, Roghieh played hide and seek with us. Whenever I didn’t have enough time to hide, I would just stand still in a corner and she would pass right by without even noticing me. I used to crack up laughing at her oversight and give myself away but I overcame that weakness later on. I’m convinced I won every game fair and square. Once, when it was Roghieh’s turn to close her eyes, instead of hiding, my sister and I just left her there and went to our neighbor’s house. Poor Roghieh spend 15 minutes looking for us. When we came back with our friends and yelled “PEKH”, she was not amused. 

The night before I left Iran for good, I dreamt of my deceased Aziz. I only told Roghieh about it and she interpreted my dream. Together, we walked to the spot in my dream and said goodbye to Aziz one final time. Roghieh understood that without closure, exodus is more complicated. She had lived through migration and perhaps Mazandaraan clung to her more than it should have, she didn’t want that for me. She told me she didn’t want me to look back and see Aziz in that spot, because departure is a new beginning. She said: “Bebin, Aziz inja nist, khodafezi kon ke dige fekre inja ro nakoni”. When we pulled out of the parking lot on our way to the Airport the next night, she stood by the side of the street waving. I begged my parents to fix her paper work so we could take her with us. Alas, it was a bitter impossibility I accepted but didn’t understand. 

Whenever my mother would leave the house, Roghieh would ask me to call her various employers and see if anyone had work for her. Since she was illiterate, her clients wrote their own contact information in her note book. I had to read through many different hand writings before I could get to the name she needed. I dialed and passed the phone on.

I was always frustrated with this experience because Roghieh was young enough to be able to see well. We had a rotary phone and it had all the numbers written on it. All she had to do was match each number with the ones in her note book. But she was uncooperative and after spending decades of her life asking for other people’s help, she didn’t want to try on her own.

At that time, I think Roghieh was probably in her early fifties. She always hid her white henna covered hair under colorful scarves. Deep orange henna, the kind you only see on white hair. She always smelled of sweet tea and feta cheese!

One funny thing about Roghieh was that she always wore long, mismatched socks. One time, my sister asked her: “Roghieh joon, shoma chera hamishe joorabetoon ghar ghaatieh?” she replied, “man kalleh sahar az Karaj ke rah mioftam, hame jaa tarikeh naneh, cheshaam khoob nemibineh”.  Aside from this peculiar fashion statement, her semi worn out clothes was always clean and tidy. 

I endured the frustration of dialing her numbers probably from first grade until fourth grade. It was embarrassing. Roghieh was part of the family. I was ashamed that no one had tried teaching her the alphabet. Why didn’t Aziz get Roghieh an office job instead of teaching her how to cook? Weren’t we all somehow accomplices in keeping Roghieh “stupid” or worse yet, poor? 

Eventually, I decided to teach Roghieh how to read and write, on my own! I was convinced I could do it, if only she would cooperate. If only she would dedicate herself to a life changing experience…with me!  I started gently scolding her about her illiteracy. I told her it was a shameful thing; even Mohammad received the gift of literacy. Learning was practically a religious duty. I told her about the literacy program for the poor and I told my mom to call Mahmood, Roghieh’s son, and get her registered. Roghieh relented and started attending class. She was very proud of herself and very excited.

I taught her how to hold a pen properly and did everything I thought was necessary to get my pupil going. I honestly believed she would attend university some day. We were going to conquer the world. Why not? It could happen. I would convince baba to pay for it, all I needed was to bring up the Mashrooteh movement (of which I knew practically nothing) and something about Iran’s future; he would help too.

Roghieh focused on learning for a few weeks, I think she had one or two hours of class per week. We even did our homework together. But one day I noticed Roghieh was writing her home work without paying attention to the text book. Even I couldn’t do that! She was also surprisingly smooth in her reading. Something was off. 

Then it hit me! Roghieh wasn’t reading. She had memorized everything. It was a good strategy at first, I had tried it myself in first grade, but it gets harder as the words pile up, there are only so many patterns one can learn to “draw”.

I asked her to write a very simple sentence…back word, starting with the last word. She failed miserably. She looked at me and I knew from her apologetic expression that she had no clue what she was doing. She was still illiterate. But why? She had support. Mahmood was helping her. My mom was helping her. I was helping her. All she had to do was put in a little effort and just learn. She should’ve done it for Hazrat Mohammad!

My failure at nurturing her intellect all the way to medical school made me cry. We weren’t going to save the world and rid Iran of illiteracy and poverty after all. The enthusiasm and labor was futile. What a fool I had been! Watching me cry made Roghieh cry. We both just sat there crying. My mom came over and saw the two of us crying. I couldn’t manage to tell her the bad news but it didn’t matter. She had started crying without even knowing what we were crying about! This of course made all three of us laugh. 

The truth was that Roghieh had cracked under the pressure! Needless to say, she dropped out. If I had taught her myself, slowly, instead of pushing her into a class, she would’ve done better. But her theory was that instead of reading, she should learn sowing, it was a competitive advantage! If I objected, she would threaten me: “noozdah saaleh shoharet midam mifrestamet shomal…” my reply was always: “koja? shomaleh karaj?” 

After a while, the disappointment wore off. Roghieh learned enough to dial phone numbers on her own. She could even read and write her full name, and her children’s names. It was a start.