Читать книгу Westward. Encounters with Swiss American Women онлайн

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“London was my dream. At age 20 and thanks to my good knowledge of English I obtained a position in the British branch office of the Swiss Bank Corporation. I liked London a lot. Its international character and the business of a metropolis fascinated me.” For an admission fee of two shillings Rosa and her Swiss friend Gina once in a while went to one of the dance halls. “One night as I was ready to leave, a man invited me to dance – he was good-looking and charming.” It was love at first sight with Mehdi Tajbaksh, an Iranian student of agronomy. The two were soon inseparable. And when he flew home to see his family during the semester break, she followed him. “These were two romantic and adventurous weeks in a different world. Mehdi’s home was a large farm on a high plateau in the Iranian mountains.” Back in London she began to study Farsi, and the two decided to make their home in Switzerland. “In England I earned a mere pittance, and my friend wanted to continue his studies at the Agricultural School Strickhof in Zurich. We married in 1952 in Zurich. My father did not attend our small wedding. A foreigner as son-in-law and one from the Middle East at that – this was unprecedented and unacceptable to him.”