Together Tea by Marjan Kamali Page A

all he had done for the country—brought them wealth, created reform, made them modern and Western. The textbooks were filled with his accomplishments. One did not speak against him. But Darya had.
    Baba returned with a glum-looking Hooman and Kayvon behind him.
    â€œShe said very, very bad things about the Shah,” Mina whispered. She needed Baba to set her mother straight.
    â€œShe’s right.” Baba shrugged.
    And Mina was left feeling suddenly alone.

Chapter Fourteen

    Pumpkin Stew
    I t wasn’t easy leaving. They waited longer than most. Some families left when the Shah’s tanks entered central Tehran. But Mina’s parents said the upheaval might turn out to be a good thing. It could bring democracy. Freedom. Mina detected in her parents an actual desire for the monarchy to end, which she found blasphemous. Mina loved to watch the parades on TV celebrating the Shah and his wife, Farah. The king and queen looked absolutely fabulous—dressed in burgundy velvet cloaks draped over intricately embroidered silver coats, golden crowns encrusted with diamonds and rubies balanced on their heads. Their jewels sparkled. At the sound of trumpets, hundreds of men saluted. The music was majestic. Mina would leap up off the Persian rug to salute the Shah along with the masses. She couldn’t help it.
    Hooman bought posters of the new revolutionary leaders. He listened to their speeches and tried to grow a beard. He put away his fancy polo shirts and wore simple peasant-style cotton shirts and baggy pants. Girls whom Mina used to see walking home from the university in their platform shoes and miniskirts, their long hair swaying seductively down their backs, began to don headscarves and stopped wearing makeup. Everywhere she looked, Islam was in, and anything that reminded people of the Shah or his Western ways was considered old, outdated, and plain uncool.
    One day the Shah left and the world changed. The revolution’s new religious leaders took over. People spray-painted the words “FREEDOM,” “REVOLUTION,” “ISLAMIC REPUBLIC” on street walls. People whom Mina had never seen observing the Muslim faith before started to become religious. Aunt Nikki’s daughter, Maryam, emptied out her drawer of makeup and lipstick and filled it instead with prayer beads and prayer stones. Maryam threw out her skimpy dresses and tight tops and went to the bazaar and bought simple headscarves and Islamic uniforms.
    It was hard to keep up with who was on which side. Revolutionary or anti-revolutionary? When Mina and her family went to people’s homes, sometimes wine was served and other times sermons were given on the evils of alcohol. Sometimes one spouse served wine while the other angrily denounced it as it was being poured. Families were divided.
    Every afternoon Baba used a stepladder to remove the pictures of the new leader that Hooman had put up in the house. With increasing fervor, Hooman climbed on top of bookshelves and furniture to tack the pictures back up.
    â€œWe have gotten rid of the dictator,” Hooman said in his changing voice. “We have freed the country of his contamination.”
    IN THE KITCHEN, AUNT NIKKI WHISPERED to Darya while Mina eavesdropped.
    â€œMy kids are slipping away from me,” Aunt Nikki said. “My kids tell me I’m wrong, old-fashioned, too Westernized. Sometimes it feels like my children aren’t even mine anymore. It’s become like they’re theirs . Children of their propaganda.”
    Darya leaned against the kitchen counter, thinking. Then her face lit up. “Invite them over. They can’t resist my pumpkin stew. I’ll talk to Maryam. Parviz will talk to Reza. We’ll talk some sense into their fanatic teenage skulls.”
    Aunt Nikki frowned at first, but then she thanked her younger sister. A time for the dinner was set. For the first time in weeks, Mina saw Aunt Nikki relax again. Darya said