I wore a dirndl that day. Of the three I owned, this one was my favorite, green, with small roses on it. It was warm in Teheran, the sun was blinding. On the back of the photo it says "October 1966," written in the round cursive hand of my then 31-year-old mother. The black ink of the fountain pen she used has with age turned a deep, dark aquamarine. And the only explanation I have for the fact that I can remember this incident at all, athough I had only just turned three, is that similar incidents must have happened within our family on more than one occasion.
My memory is fragmented, porous, and imprecise. But one thing I recall very clearly is the word that the man standing next to me on the photo had said, grinning from ear to ear. It was to become a part of my life's acoustic memory, as if a part of me knew its importance already then, knew the weight it carried, although at the time it was still veiled in mystery for me. And it would take a good twenty years before I could really begin to understand that which had been captured there on celluloid and photo paper, a black-and-white remembrance now lying on my desk, a finely-woven pattern in the tapestry of my life.
My mother is in black French stilettos, a dark silk-cotton top with three-quarter length sleeves, a knee-length shapely skirt, her hair pinned-up in the latest style. She is bending down over my little brother who is sitting in a baby carriage, which we today would probably call a stroller. I'm smiling into the camera. Next to me there is a young man, maybe 17 or 18 years old, wearing a suit and a white button-down shirt; his reality is clearly different than that of my family, as far as the availability of money and education is concerned. He is beaming and giving me a wink. His soft, melodic, and perhaps somewhat proud voice "because of his education" still rings in my ears.
"Oilitleh!" he had said, with a glint in his eye. He repeated the word a second time, and that's when my mother, a polite smile on her lips, had turned and looked searchingly at my father, who was busy taking the pictures.
I don't remember what happened after that. But I do know that later, in the car, I asked what the man had said. I didn't know what the word meant and I sensed that something was wrong.
"Oh nothing," my father replied. "The man just said Oilitleh. Many of my countrymen think that's the proper way to greet Germans."
I turned the word into a little song and this made my father laugh. "Oilitleh, Oilitlehe, Ohoilitleh!"
I went on and on, until my mother, sitting in the passenger seat, spun around to face me, and giving me an angry look, told me to hold my tongue. Stunned at being treated in this unexpected way, I stared down at the floor, feeling ashamed and confused. Without another word, she turned back in her seat and remained unwaveringly silent for the rest of the ride.
Later, when my father brought me to bed, I asked him, "What does it mean? What does Oilitleh mean?" The fact that my mother had forbidden me to say the word, or more accurately, forbidden me to sing the word, had made me nearly obsessed with it. And why had the man stuck out his arm in such a strange way when he had said it?
My father stroked my forehead.
"There once was a German king," he began. "His name was Hitler and he believed that the best people in the world came from Iran. He called them Aryans. And, as you well know, our king Shâhanshâh Âriâmehr bears the title King of Kings, Light of the Aryans. That's why Germans like Iranians, and Iranians like Germans; it's similar to the way your mother and I love each other. This king was greeted by his people in the same way that the man on the street greeted your mother when he realized that she was German. You extend one arm and say "Heil Hitler!" With a Persian accent it sounds like 'Oilitleh'."
I thought hard about this old German king, but something still didn't make sense to me. My father had already turned off the light, but I called him back.
"But why can't I sing about the king?" I wanted to know.
"Because he was a bad king. And it's not good to sing about bad kings," was my father's reply.
When my father closed the door to my room, I realized that his explanation was going to be the last word on the subject. And obstinate as I was, I hummed my little Oilitleh melody to myself until I fell asleep. And I continued to do so for several weeks afterward.
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