Anchors

A few days ago I had a cleaner in. The only display cabinet we have in the house is a narrow rectangular glass case by the kitchen entrance, and even this does not contain “proper” display objects like vases and crystal, as is usual in Iran. It houses an assortment of odd objects, and the cleaner had a thing or two to say about this.

The top shelf contains a miniature bronze samovar with a baby teapot sitting on it, six antique teacup holders, and an old, faded melamine plate resting against the back of the cabinet, all anchors to the past.

“What’s all this?” the cleaner asked. I knew where she was coming from. In her experience, such objects have no display value: only freaky foreigners who don’t know any better would put these on display.

“The samovar and the cup holders were my mother-in-law’s, so they remind me of her.” In fact, they remind me of something else too, but that was a long story to tell. Over the years Maman-jun had collected all sorts of decorative objects in anticipation of the time when she would move to a bigger house and she would have the space to display them properly. Until then, they were kept in an attic storage room.

Eventually, in the spring of 2002, they sold the old house and bought a new one. She arranged her crystal and china in a display cabinet, so her wish had finally been fulfilled. Six months later she came to London to visit us and she unexpectedly passed away there. My father-in-law, Aqa-jun, and her sons and daughters could not bear living in that house anymore, so less than a year after it was bought, it was sold again, and Aqa-jun and his youngest son moved into a flat. Maman-jun’s china and things went into storage once again, until we moved to Iran in the summer of 2007. By that time Aqa-jun had also left us, and the youngest son-on-law with his young bride lived in the flat.

One evening all the children of the family gathered in the flat to clear out the store room. Maman-jun’ things, all those serving dishes and fruit plates and vases she had lovingly collected, were bought upstairs. Her daughters, daughters-in-law and granddaughters chose the things they would like to keep, and the rest was packed to be given to the poor. As the boxes were being stacked near the front door, I thought of the futility of life.
This is what the samovar and the teacup holders also remind me of.