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• 2 • Lotfi in La-La Land I could not have asked for a better transitional threshold to my new life than Beirut, which back then, although still part of the Middle East, was very much like the south of France with its elegant boulevards, new Hollywood films, and American University. I arrived there and settled into a hotel, where I was to remain one week until the departure of the ship that would take me to America. My first night there was the first time I had ever been alone—and independent. With my perspirationsoaked money belt and traveler’s checks hanging up to dry, I sat on my bed, exhausted from the flight and the excitement of the past six weeks, and started crying. It was the last time I ever felt homesick for Tehran or my family. Then things started looking up. I boarded the SS Marine Jumper, a converted troop ship, along with a group of other students, all moving on to America to continue their education. During the three-week journey, we heard gunshots from Haifa and stopped at Alexandria, Athens, and Marseille, but nothing was as exciting as my first view of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. Arriving in New York, I was taken with the mystical feeling that I was coming home. I recognized landmarks from movies I had seen, visited Radio City Music Hall (showing Cass Timberlane, starring Spencer Tracy and Lana Turner), and saw Forever Amber with Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde at the Roxy, along with the remarkable stage shows that alternated with the film screenings. Dining at a local automat was a godsend for me; I had yet to learn the names of the foods in English, but I could look into the little compartments at the various dishes available and make my selection by dropping nickels in the slot. After a few weeks in New York, during which I connected with my 30 } l o t f i m a n s o u r i Tehran friend Harmik, I started the long train ride that would transport me to Los Angeles, then sat glued to the window watching the huge country pass in review. When I arrived in California, I contacted Ray, with whom I was to room. I also got in touch with a Mr. and Mrs. Stevens . Mrs. Stevens was the sister of an American missionary my mother and I had come to know through my Christian grandfather. She became a kind of guardian for me, teaching me English and taking me to major local events like the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day in Pasadena. After the 1947 Christmas holidays, I registered at Los Angeles High School for one semester to learn better English and study the terminology I would need for my pre-med studies. For the first couple of weeks, I wore a suit and a tie to class, but little by little I began to go native. The formally dressed Persian must have seemed like quite an oddity amid the other seniors at L.A. High. Six months after I got there, my mother unexpectedly showed up, saying she missed me. With the aid of the Stevenses, we found an apartment near the campus of the University of Southern California, where my mother had decided to perfect her English. The fact that I would be studying at ucla, a one-and-a-half-hour commute by bus from usc, never occurred to anybody. But one of the advantages of this place was that the woman across the courtyard gave piano lessons, so at least I could learn how to play the instrument. It didn’t take long for our small apartment to become a kind of social center for a large group of Iranian students. My mother was Lady Bountiful, bestowing her largesse on them all, cooking familiar dishes, entertaining them, and often continuing her matchmaking activities. A couple of marriages actually resulted from her machinations. With our apartment bursting at the seams with Iranian visitors, the only place I could study in peace and quiet was the library at usc. Finally, fed up with the chaos I thought I’d left behind in Tehran, I moved closer to ucla in Westwood, some eleven miles to the west, where I shared an apartment with a foreign student from France and an American from Wisconsin. This strained my relationship with my mother considerably. Nevertheless, after announcing that she would...

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