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ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Love and War in the Jewish Quarter
“Dora Levy Mossanen is a master storyteller of historical fiction. In Love and War in the Jewish Quarter she serves up yet another feast, telling this tale with sensitivity and insight that makes the novel infinitely rich and nuanced. Fascinating characters, truly beautiful prose that is a Mossanen trademark and an incredibly complex plot make this book simply unforgettable.”
—M.J. Rose, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Tiara
“Dora Levy Mossanen’s new book commands our attention, not only for the range of its subject matter and literary artistry, but for weaving in a personal narrative within the context of Iran’s historical, political history and cultural practices. Love and War in the Jewish Quarter is both lyrical, informative, and very moving—an extraordinary addition to depiction of the lost worlds of Iranian Jewry.”
—Angella Nazarian, author of four books and the newly released: Creative Couples: Collaborations That Changed History
“With the signature lush economy and exuberant precision of her prose, which any poet would envy, Dora Levy Mossanen explores the intricacies of history’s lesser known side streets, as she introduces a new cast of unforgettably colorful characters, not all of them fictitious, including Iran’s Queen Fawzia, and the city of Tehran, itself, as it was in WWII. In full command of her uncanny powers of observation and inexhaustible imagination, Levy Mossanen crafts an exquisite balance between drama and comedy, idealism and worldliness, strength and weakness, risk and triumph, set in the midst of humanity’s two polar constants—love and war.”
—Leslie Monsour, poet, author of The Alarming Beauty of the Sky and The House Sitter
“With a love and gift for language, Dora Levy Mossanen lushly paints a tale of life, love, and war during mid-twentieth century Tehran. Right from the start, she captures your curiosity as she whisks you into opulent Persian palaces, colorful bazaars, and flourishing fields of opium. This is an intoxicating tale that takes place in Iran during the tension-filled years of World War II. A fascinating read.”
—Esther Amini, author of Concealed: Memoir of a Jewish-Iranian Daughter Caught Between the Chador and America
“Love and War in the Jewish Quarter is Dora Levy Mossanen’s best book yet. Set against the backdrop of World War II, the author shows mastery in blending Iranian history, the European turmoil, and Jewish life in Iran with a subtle touch of erotica. Trained in Europe, Soleiman Yaran, a humble but capable dentist, brings together the opposite worlds of Iranian royalty in gilded rooms and that of the Jewish minority consigned to the crumbling Jewish ghetto. Above all, this is also a story of women’s lives, of their fears, desires, ambitions, love, lust, loss and hope. Love and War in the Jewish Quarter is an enchanting rendition of how life may have been in Iran at that time. Although love, lust and desire palpitate throughout the novel, Mossanen masterfully controls its scope in favor of a more dramatic historic novel.”
—Farideh Dayanim Goldin—author of Wedding Song: Memoirs of an Iranian Jewish Woman and Leaving Iran: Between Exile and Migration, and founder of www.foodmemory.net
“Set in an Iranian Jewish Quarter during World War II, yet seemingly drawn from the Arabian Nights or Persian Book of Kings, two worlds collide in this tale of impossible love between a Jewish doctor and the Muslim Governor’s wife. Dora Levy Mossanen’s novel Love and War in the Jewish Quarter is at once down-to-earth and fantastical, modern and ancient. It is full of atmospheric and astonishing detail, whether she is describing a dental procedure or an exotic palace, and keeps the reader riveted until the redemptive end.”
—Lyn Julius, author of Uprooted: How 3000 years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab world Vanished overnight (Vallentine Mitchell)
“An utterly captivating and poignant tale that braids history, religion, and an improbable love story. Love and War in the Jewish Quarter offers the reader entrée to a world at a crossroads and the people who are caught between their own deeply rooted pasts and the unknown future. A mesmerizing read!”
—Angela Himsel, author of A River Could be a Tree
“Love and War in the Jewish Quarter, the newest novel by the very talented Dora Levy Mossanen, is pure pleasure from start to finish. It is a perfect blend of historical fiction set in one of the most crucial periods in modern history—World War II—and the tale of a marginalized Jewish dentist who is indispensable to those in the highest echelons of power, including the Queen of Iran. Striking the exact balance between the intimately personal and the crushing sweep of human history, this enchanting novel is steeped in an intoxicating mix of flavors ranging from Persian culture and history, to Jewish rituals of mourning, to touches of magical realism. Love and War in the Jewish Quarter is a story of worlds that are far from our own and, at the same time, evergreen truths of human nature. It grabbed me on page one and stayed with me long after I closed the book.”
—Deborah Goodrich Royce, Award-winning author of Ruby Falls and Finding Mrs. Ford
“The setting, dialogue, and details create the ideal backdrop for the tension and intensity of this lush and lusty tale of beguiling romance. A captivating historical gem.”
—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Omega Factor
“With her lyrical, evocative prose, Dora Levy Mossanen transports the reader to Tehran in the 1940’s and delivers both a love story filled with passion and forbidden love and a novel rich with history and the turbulence of another era. Love and War in the Jewish Quarter is perfect for book clubs and for anyone trying to understand the strife that is still so relevant today.”
—Anita Abriel, author of the international bestseller, The Light After the War
Dora Levy Mossanen has been called “an Isabel Allende of Persia” for her elegant and exotic historical novels. Born in Israel, raised in Iran, and living in the United States, she credits the intriguing characters and compelling plots of her bestselling novels to her experiences in such diverse cultures.
Her widely acclaimed novels Harem, Courtesan, The Last Romanov, and Scent of Butterflies have been translated into numerous languages and distributed worldwide.
Her novels have been praised by many celebrated authors, among them: Amy Ephron, Steve Berry, Jonathan Kirsch, John Rechy, Robin Maxwell, and M.J. Rose.
Her awards include: San Diego Editors’ Choice Award, Barnes and Noble Editor’s Pick, Selected best Historical Novel of the Year by the Romantic Times, and Editor’s Top Pick from the Romantic Times. She has also been featured in various media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, KCRW, Radio Iran, Radio Russia, and Jewish Women’s Theater, and has appeared on several television programs.
A POST HILL PRESS BOOK
Love and War in the Jewish Quarter
© 2022 by Dora Levy Mossanen
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-1-63758-556-6
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-63758-557-3
Cover design by Alan Dingman
Interior design and composition by Greg Johnson, Textbook Perfect
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Post Hill Press
New York • Nashville
posthillpress.com
Published in the United States of America
To Nader
For making it all possible
and to David Ascher
for being there
In memory of Paulita Shtrum
Nothing is the same
CHAPTER ONE
Tehran, Iran, 1941
Pride and fear travel fast in the Jewish Quarter, where everyone’s nose is in someone else’s business, and gossip gets trapped in the low-roofed shacks and blind alleys.
Dr. Soleiman Yaran is on his way to see Her Majesty, Queen Fawzia Pahlavi.
Men with skullcaps on their heads and prayers on their lips, ululating women with festive clothes and colorful scarves, bankers and merchants, butchers and fruit vendors, the shah’s Water Man and the Quarter Fool, the rabbis, and the Quarter Whore with her bleached hair and rhinestone-studded slippers are out to wish their beloved doctor a safe journey and a safe return.
Soleiman guides his restless stallion toward the Alley of Seven Synagogues, where his father stoops out of the door of his house. Soleiman leans from the saddle to give his father’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I’ll be back before nightfall, Baba, better off, I hope, and able to afford a house you’d walk out of with your back straight and proud.”
“Bowing to goyim is the least of my worries, son.” Eleazar the Redhead’s unruffled voice defies the constellation of blazing freckles sprinkling his pallid face. Having been accosted in alleys and under bridges, spat on and beaten, his head shaved with rusty razors, he no longer frets over the outdated edict requiring low doors on Jewish houses so that the occupants genuflect like servants when they step out. He slips a small Tehillim prayer book into the pocket of Soleiman’s coat. “Bottle up your pride, son, keep your eyes open and your mouth shut at all times, or you’ll end up hanging from a tree in a deserted alley. Don’t forget that even if you become the Queen’s de
ntist, to them, you’re still a najes Jew.”
Aunt Shamsi stoops her way out of the house as she swings a mesh fire-turner with crackling seeds of rue to ward off the evil eye. A backhanded slap on Rostam’s flank. “What did you eat for breakfast, Soleiman? Donkey brains? Look at you! Trotting to the Queen, all high and mighty on that smug stallion of yours.”
“Good morning to you, too!” Soleiman calls back to his aunt as he points his stallion toward Jacob Mordechai, who is rinsing the steps to his house, the paisley patterns on his silk, velvet-collard robe flickering in the wash of light tumbling out of the open door. He drops the hose and crosses the alley to greet his friend, grabs the reins, and lowers the stallion’s head. “It’s a big day, Rostam. You’re on your way to the palace.”
Soleiman prods Jacob with a playful tap of his riding crop. “And you, my friend, must have heard about the Queen’s toothache even before she felt it.”
Jacob steps back, clicks his crimson slippers, and raises his hand in a military salute. A member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, his sharp ears and eyes are tuned to Tehran’s pulse, which currently pounds with indignation at the court’s choice to elevate Soleiman Yaran above all the Muslim dentists in the country. “Good luck, Soleiman. Use your new position wisely. Travel permits for Palestine aren’t being issued, and negotiations with the British are at a stalemate. But the agency keeps sending me more orphans. Plead their case with the new Queen before she’s hardened like the others. Go now, and don’t you dare come back feet first.”
Tehran has expanded beyond her old walls, all the way north toward the foot of the Alborz Mountain range. Neoclassical buildings, designed by European and Iranian architects, line avenues newly widened to accommodate the passage of cars. Gone are the charming gates that once led to streets and surrounding hamlets. Gone are the buildings of the Qajar dynasty, with their ornate mosaics and intricate woodwork. Gone are the inner courtyards with cooling turquoise-tiled fountains. In their place, block-like houses face the wider streets that buzz with pedestrians, donkey and horse-drawn droshkies, trucks and buses, and the two-car passenger train running along the center of town.
The din of hawkers can be heard everywhere—juicy pomegranate and quince for veal stew, crunchy cucumbers, ripe watermelons, grilled beets and corn on the cob, sun-dried fruit, and jars of shelled walnuts swimming in saltwater. A blind man, amulets displayed around his neck, wrists, and fingers, peddles his wares—turquoise pendants, evil eye bracelets, and prayer pouches—at the side of the street.
British soldiers patrol in khaki overalls and shirts, sleeves rolled up, the stomping of their dusty boots an insult to the ears. Hard-eyed Russian soldiers bark and spit and crush foreign cigarettes under their boots as if this is their home and all is well.
All is not well!
The Second World War is in full force, and Iran, despite her declaration of neutrality, has been invaded by the Allies. The Trans-Iranian Railway that winds its way through the Alborz Mountains has come under the control of the Allies, serving as a major corridor through which tons of war matériel are transported to the Soviet Union. Hundreds of American engineers are working day and night to render the treacherous highways and archaic ports operational, so as to transport added supplies and ammunition to the Red Army, which is overwhelmed by the massive German offensive.
Most of the country’s harvested grain is impounded by Russian and British soldiers. Bread, rice, and most other food is scarce, as is gasoline and clean air to breathe. Lootings have become rampant, and the populace lives in perpetual fear of famine, influenza, and typhoid.
Soleiman observes the squeezed faces of children that peer out of the opening of a tarp-covered Red Cross truck on its way to one of the hastily erected Polish refugee camps around Tehran. Thousands of refugees, who fled the German occupation of Poland, drowned in the Caspian Sea on their journey to the port of Pahlavi. Those who survived became sick with malaria and typhus and were so desperate for food that thousands more overate, when food became available, and died from dysentery. The luckier ones found temporary refuge in the homes of residents like Jacob, who is in talks with the British authorities to allow the “Tehran Children,” as they are called, entry to Palestine.
The beats of hope in Soleiman’s chest echo the footsteps of an assembly of Imperial Adjutants in red and blue uniforms, who escort him into the grounds of the Golestan Palace of Flowers. He, a Jewish man, is welcomed into the royal compound, where, for more than two-hundred-and-fifty years, edifices have been erected, added, and destroyed to accommodate the visions and ambitions of kings. He will prove worthy of the Queen’s trust. The Muslim society will see his people for who they are and accept them in their own land.
Crested helmets aglitter in the sun, the adjutants escort Soleiman into the magnificent complex of royal buildings—the Ivory Hall, Brilliant Building, Mirror Hall, Diamond Hall, and Marble Throne. A walled citadel during the reign of the Safavid King, Tahmasp I, and the official residence and governing hub of the last reigning Qajar Dynasty, this is where formal receptions, royal weddings, and coronations are held now.
Riders trot about the perimeter of the grounds, around the Wind Catcher Building, its golden cupola a dazzle in the sun, its summer hall cooled by breezes directed down by four towers.
Deep in conversation, men in western three-piece suits and somber-colored cravats stroll in and out of the columned Khalvat-e-Karimkhani, its domed terrace a place for peaceful reflection, far from the mayhem of war and chaos outside the walls.
Soleiman is accosted by an imposing man of the Ghashghaei Tribe, tall and wide-shouldered, a black handlebar mustache slashing across his face like double scimitars. A nasty rumble in the man’s hulk of a chest, he signals to the doctor to open his medical case. “Inspections!”
Grip tight around the handle of his case, Soleiman tugs at a chain looped through a buttonhole across his vest and flips open the top of his pocket watch. “I don’t have time for petty inspections, Agha. Her Imperial Majesty expects me in six minutes.”
A bald, full-bearded adjutant steps forward to inform the inspector that the doctor is authorized. The inspector growls something under his breath and marches away. The adjutant waves to a groom who, wide-eyed with wonder, offers a sugar cube to the magnificent thoroughbred he will be in charge of. A grunt at the groom’s feathered helmet, an indignant whinny, and the stallion allows the groom to steer him away.
With a confident gait that conceals the slight shortness of his left leg, a result of childhood polio, Soleiman follows the adjutants into the palace, resplendent with magnificent carpets and antique furniture, the walls decorated with miniature paintings by Persian masters, Sevres vases and bowls displayed on buffets and consoles.
A set of interior doors open, and Soleiman steps into the Hall of Mirrors, where the Peacock Throne was housed before it was moved to the Treasury of National Jewels. The dazzling lights of thousands of brilliant arrows shoot back and forth from intricate designs of cut-mirrored ceiling and walls. Everything is multiplied ten-fold, the grand chandeliers, the latticed windows, the gold-leafed furniture, and the twenty-year-old Queen Fawzia, who leans back in a cushioned chair, one leg crossed over the other, her white summer dress tumbling just below her knees to reveal shapely legs and varnished toes peeping out of satin shoes.
None of her photographs do justice to the stunning beauty he faces, the torrent of black curls framing her translucent complexion, the brightly painted lips, the turquoise eyes regarding him with detached curiosity and arrogance.
The grandeur triggers anxiety. But there is pride and awe, as well. Among the many dentists Her Majesty could have had her pick of, she chose him, a young, newly minted dentist from the Jewish Quarter.
Ill-prepared for the formalities and complexities of court, he wonders how to address the recently crowned Queen. How close should he step to bow his respects? Aware that Muslims consider Jews najes and impure, he clenches his hands at his sides and waits for a clue.
The Queen solves the problem by raising her hand to him. He kisses the air a few centimeters above the back of her hand, close enough to detect the scent of lavender on her royal skin.