Mehran

Not all names carry meaning, but most Persian names do. Mehr is one of the richest words in Farsi. It means love, affection, also light and sun. With the suffix “-an” — Farsi for “from” — the name can mean the one who embodies love, or full of light and affection, belonging to Mehr.

I have a cousin with the same name, but when I hear Mehran, I think of him. My music teacher, who died young.

I was twelve, maybe even younger. I remember when the idea came up to change my music teacher — to someone who didn’t live within walking distance, someone I had to take public transit to see, all the way to downtown Tehran — I freaked out. I wasn’t confident enough to get to that part of the city, which in my mind felt sketchy. My parents, on the other hand, wanted me to take more risks, to be more independent, and they pushed me to go.

The first day was the scariest. I wasn’t only worried about the commute, but about meeting my new teacher. I had seen him before, at my parents’ gatherings when music was involved, but I had never spoken to him. My only memory of him was his dark beard and his pitch-black eyes.

The commute was not as bad as I had imagined. I needed to take the right bus, the one that would take me all the way to one of the oldest squares in Tehran. The translation of its name was Revolution Square, its history tied to the 1978 revolution. When that change happened, and the lives of Iranian people were disrupted, I was only one. I had no memories from then.

What I knew was that I was growing up in a different society, one where I had to cover my hair in public, even as a teenage girl. In my imagination, the girl I was back then didn’t feel like me. I was living a parallel life in my mind — the one where the tall, free girl inside me looked more like my mother, with her effortless fashion and long, loose hair falling over her shoulders, when she was studying in the U.S.

My memory of arriving at the stop — a ten-minute walk from the teacher’s place — is mostly filled with the smell of gasoline from buses, cars, motorcycles, and the grey, hazy sky of Tehran. The walk was short. I had written the name of the street on a small piece of paper and kept it in my hand. By the time I reached the intersection, I could barely read it; the text had blurred from the sweat in my palm, I could only see 12, the house number. I was nervous. It was my first time meeting a young man alone. The building was Tehran modern-era architecture from the 40s, three levels and a basement connected by an interior stair.

I pressed the top buzzer, the one my mom had told me about twice, emphasizing that he lived with his mother and that I needed to buzz the top one. No one answered. Then the door opened with a loud click. I went in and started climbing the stairs. I knew the way. The building was exactly like my grandfather’s place, where I used to rush up the stairs to reach my favorite cousin’s attic-style room on the top floor.

The first greeting and class are a blur. I only remember how comfortable he made me feel, right away. There was something about his extremely good-looking face — something he couldn’t even hide under that beard — that made everyone around him feel at ease. After a month of weekly classes, I understood why my parents had chosen him. He made music classes fun. We even danced together! We listened to world music, indigenous cultures, music from rural parts of Iran, and tribes from all over the world, including Africa. I now know why my Spotify is full of Ya-Ya music. It was his influence — one that, unfortunately, didn’t last long.

I don’t remember how long I went to his room for music classes, but I remember the walls, full of books and music cassettes. Posters of famous musicians hung above them. A room full of life. A dark Persian carpet covered the floor, where we sat for our one-hour lessons. I don’t remember the day the classes stopped, but I remember the day at the kitchen counter, where my mom and dad, along with their close friend — the one who had connected us to Mehran — shared the news of his passing in a car accident.

I didn’t know him or his backstories. I was just a kid who went to his music classes for a short time, but somehow those dark eyes, his charm and laughter, his love for music and dance, and his complex relationship with his mother stayed with me. Digging into my childhood memories, as I fine-tune the character of my debut novella, I see traces of him in my work. Mehran didn’t live a long life, but his legacy — his deep touch on people’s lives — is resurfacing decades later, quietly, in fiction.