Houses
Look out of the window on the second floor landing, and the man is sitting in his pajamas on a banquette, looking like he just woke up from his nap. He is supposed to be an important man, but he looks like any other. No uniform with gilded epaulettes, no medals, no pomp. Just a man in pajamas sitting in his garden. A man servant brings him tea. In my family, we referred to events by indexing them to the house we lived in at the time. This was the Mossadegh house, because he was our next door neighbor. My parents were new refugees to Iran in the 1940s and somehow ended up renting a house next door to the man who would become the prime minister of Iran under the Shah. While we were neighbors, Mohammad Mossadegh was a member of parliament. At the end of our cul de sac was the Soviet embassy, and several times a day, black cars with red flags flapping on each side of the windshield would pass by and disappear behind a large iron gate. When it opened to admit the cars,