Live-ins

When our family arrived in Tehran, the city of four million was careening frantically into the late 20th century as modernities merged with the antiquities of culture and technology. One of my most vivid memories of the day we moved from the Hotel Intercontinental into our leased home down an alleyway called Kooche Kaj—just off Saltanatabad Boulevard, not far south of the Shah's palace—was the sight of a typical meat truck making daily deliveries to local establishments. The truck turned onto Saltanatabad at a rather high speed, sending freshly butchered goat carcasses hanging from rails in its open-air bed swinging and bouncing while flies energetically chased it. I couldn't actually see the flies until the truck was forced to stop before merging into traffic on the thoroughfare. Then they became obvious, and I silently vowed never to eat meat again while living in Tehran. I failed to maintain that vow, of course, but I never fared poorly from eating mutton there—proving, I suppose, just how hardy my constitution was. And as little as I cared for mutton it was a dish I ate a lot of.

Arriving at the house on Kaj, my parents introduced me to another aspect of living there which took some getting used to: live-in help. It was something I'd only seen in movies and never cared for much either. To my raw average-American sensibilities, the idea of being waited on by servants sat in my stomach like rot. It felt as unappealing and primitive as flies on freshly-slaughtered carcasses, swinging and swaying along in a truck bed up and down the boulevard. I viewed it through a lens of immediate, judgmental revulsion. But that setup allowed me to learn a lot more about Iran and its cultural richness than anything else I experienced while living there. Now I fear for its survival.

The leased home on Koocheh Kaj wasn't opulent by any 20th century measure but it was pretty damn nice. Situated on a quiet side street in the northern Saltanatabad district, it was nestled against the dramatic backdrop of the Alborz Mountains. The living arrangement we had never experienced before consisted of a live-in Iranian matriarch, Haj, her husband Mohammed and her youngest offspring Ali, her only son. They resided in a modest basement apartment on the property compound.

Technically, they were servants to the home's owner, which meant they became servants to our family for the duration of our stay from 1972 to 1974. Their duties were discreet and steady—keeping the house spotless and tending to the meager landscaping needs of its high-desert garden, coaxing greenery out of nutrient-poor, arid soil.

Coming from a background where live-in help was entirely unfamiliar, my family initially wasn't sure how to handle ourselves. We were self-conscious about the social dynamic and hesitant about how to interact without appearing overbearing or culturally insensitive.

Those worries vanished almost immediately thanks to Haj, the matriarch of the family living downstairs.

Haj was a late-middle-aged woman whose gentle presence and warmth transcended language barriers. From our very first days, she was so genuinely welcoming that it was impossible to maintain any artificial distance. She managed the household with effortless grace, making us feel less like employers and more like honored guests in her homeland. We could react no other way but to return her hospitality in kind.

Not everyone understood our approach. I vividly recall a hired driver warning my mother not to spoil (his word) Haj and her family, suggesting that too much warmth would disrupt the traditional boundaries between household staff and employer.

My mother's response was immediate and steadfast. She explained that she couldn't stop herself from being kind and respectful to Haj and her family—because good friends bordering on adopted family deserved to be spoiled.

For two years, our lives overlapped in that house on Koocheh Kaj. We shared small daily moments, quiet gestures of respect, and a deep mutual affection that turned a foreign house into a true home. And when Haj saw my mother taking lessons speaking Farsi from a visiting instructor, she eagerly engaged with Mom to help her learn more about the language, too.

Watching reports covering the human fallout of the current conflict with Iran-like a war-damaged and displaced family standing bewildered and heartbroken in the arid Iranian landscape under the gaze of news cameras-brings a heavy, familiar sense of dread. It feels hauntingly reminiscent of the nightly news broadcasts that filled our living rooms in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Back then, television screens regularly brought home the devastating human toll of the war in Vietnam, where political posturing, arrogant foreign policy, and aggressive anti-communist rhetoric routinely cost the lives of innocent civilians on the ground.

Today, as news cycles again echo with mounting threats of devastating kinetic force and on-the-ground military escalation all for the sake of political grandstanding, that same cycle of destruction threatens to repeat itself in the cradle of ancient Persia. The emerging prospect of renewed conflict brings back those ghastly, familiar images—a grim reminder that beneath the geopolitical rhetoric lies the immediate, catastrophic reality forced upon ordinary people who simply want to live in peace.

Decades have passed since we packed our bags and left Tehran in 1974. Given the passage of time, Haj and her family are very likely long deceased by natural causes now. Yet, having become acquainted with them so intimately during those two years in Saltanatabad District has kept them vividly alive and deeply cherished in our family's memories ever since—an enduring testament to the innocent lives and gentle souls who always bear the true cost of war.

Our photos of the time we lived in Iran were all destroyed in the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, a wildfire born out of a prescribed burn carelessly ignited and mismanaged to explode into the largest wildfire in New Mexico history by the same nation's government now carelessly assaulting innocent peoples of Iran for nothing more than political leverage and gain at home during an election cycle. A disaster from which I am still struggling to be made whole again per false promises from overbearing, bungling government leadership, still more damage being applied on top of actual losses to the fire. But that's another hard story.

The US government's deception and cruelty did not work in Vietnam to garner political support, and it will fail in Iran as well. These are indeed dreadful times for everyone being viciously forced to live through them by their viciously scheming, unfeeling governments.