Learning the Ways of the World

April 1971
Tadjrish,Iran

Through the window, the light of the courtyard had a bright glow, alit with midday sun reflecting off the brick and tile all around. A canopy of green leaves and delicate white flowers burst up from slender trunks like bouquets of wildflowers erupting from big squares of fresh spring dirt in neat rows. I spied her there, my sissy, under one of the trees, her auburn ponytail following the curve of her back. She was hunched small and balanced on plastic shoes, the sharp angles of her shoulder blades moving rhythmically through her red t-shirt. I marked the spot with my mind where I was going to plant my feet down next to her, planned my route through the house, and was there already before my feet could carry me.

“Watcha doin?” I asked, studying her profile and the wisps of hair that fell around her ear. I looked down to watch her fingers clawing at the ground. We’d stepped off the paving and were crouched at the base of one of the trees, my smaller body shaped like a mirror image of hers, squatting small like we’d seen our grandmother do so many times before. I rested my chin on the soft dimples of my knees.

“Watcha doin?” I asked again.
“I’m digging for almonds.”
“Oh.”
I looked again at her fingers in the dirt. “How come?”
“Huh?”
“Why ya digging all-mans?
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “You can eat ‘em.”

My cheeks flushed with shame of all the things in the world that I did not yet understand.
“Can I help?”

“Uh huh.” She nodded her chin towards her toes. “I found three already.” I studied the jumble of creamy-colored almonds, speckled with dirt, lying on the ground between us.

Sissy’s fingers discovered another one poking out from under a couple of twigs and leaves.

“Yuh eat ‘em?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She lifted the dirty pod to her mouth, fingernails blackened with dirt. I watched her chew it down.

“We can find more. You dig over there and I’ll run and get a bowl we can put ‘em in.” She rose and ran off and I listened as her footsteps followed her into the house. I popped one of the tender white nuts in to my mouth. It was sweet and smooth on my tongue.

By the time my sister had returned with one of Grandmama’s plastic bowls, I’d found two more almonds along the base of the tree, and I plunked them in the bowl with the others she placed there. Pretty soon we had a dozen and couldn’t find any more, and I followed my sister through the kitchen door as she delivered the bowl of almonds to our grandmother.

“Baricallah!” Grandmama remarked with praise, and planted a kiss on sissy’s forehead. In response, my sister beamed - she offered to Grandmama a Persian smile that seemed to stretch all the way across her face and made her pale skin glow, her nose crinkling and eyebrows raised – the kind of smile she only gave in Iran, and saved especially for Grandmama.

That night after dinner a small dish of almonds were brought out to the table. I marveled as I watched my family sprinkle salt on the tiny pods and pop them in their mouths – the world, so full of mystery, offered up almonds from the ground, and Sissy had known how to find them, confirming for me once again that she was the smartest girl in the world.

The 13th Day of Norooz

Friday, April 2nd, 1971
Tadjrish, Iran
Sizdeh Bedar

From my father’s diary:
The 13th day of Norooz – The period of visitations is over. This is the traditional picnic day. Everyone leaves the city in a kind of mass exodus for the countryside….

For the two weeks following Norooz there was a bustle of guests, grownups spending long afternoons talking Farsi over tea and sweets. Some days there would be car rides to the homes of others, but most days I was allowed to stay at home to be ruled only by the schedule of meals, the unpredictable weather, and the arrival of dusk which marked the time to be ready for bed. The weather was still cold, some days cloudy and raining, punctuated by beautiful crisp spring days throwing a sharp sunlight in to the dust clouds we stirred up in our soccer games. Sometimes my half-brother, Ramin, would join us, sometimes it would be my cousins. Often, any child that happened down the road would be invited in to our game. I felt wild, inspired by Lygeia’s bold movements, content to observe the world at her heels to watch the older children kick our ball across the dusty road outside our courtyard door. When she ran too fast for me, I stood with my back against the stone wall, my hands cushioning me from the sharp places. When the ball came near enough I was allowed to chase it down and throw it back in to the circle of children, my face flush from the excitement of my moment in the game.

Sizdeh Bedar, the 13th day of the new year, was a cloudy and wet day, and we woke to learn that there were big plans in store for a party, a picnic outside of the city. My grandmother had prepared a tremendous pot of soup, steamy and fragrant, and the food was packed in to my grandfather’s idling car. Another car arrived, and my father, mother, sister, Aunty Mehry and the baby and I climbed in, bundled in heavy winter clothing. I sat on my mother’s lap in the front passenger seat, and listened to everyone sing festively as we drove through the crowded streets of Tehran, surrounded by other cars as packed as ours, honking and joyful, everyone in a party mood, defiant of the brooding clouds above us that only grew darker. As the drizzle became rain, and grew to a pelting, rhythmic beating on our windshield, my mother’s mood grew quieter and I descended in to a deep sleep.

BANG. A crash and we all heaved forward, and in my half-asleep state I felt my mother’s arms tighten around me. A tiny scream erupted from my sister in the back seat followed by whimpering, and loud voices. Bang again and my mother’s arms tightened further. I could hear my Aunt Mehry and Lygeia crying. My mother’s voice sounded angry, and then I opened my eyes.

White, everything outside was white, and steam had formed on the inside of the windows. I woke to a chaotic scene, snow, cars all around us. I held on tightly to my mother. Minutes passed, half-an-hour, and we could not move, wedged in to a 6 car pile-up, a blizzard attacking our picnic plans and trapping us inside our car. My father, in the back seat, pushed his door open roughly and disapeared in to the white whirls of snow. Minutes later, a rapping on our window, and my mother rolled it down bringing in a cold and wind that assaulted our skin. I burrowed my face in her chest and let tears pour from my eyes, letting my cry drown out the sound of her voice. More doors opening, slamming and I was lifted through the open car window, torn from my mother's arms. Squinting, my tears felt icy cold on my cheeks and the world looked like a white swirling cloud. I felt hard pellets attacking my eyes from all directions and couldn’t see whose arms held me tightly and carried me through the driving snow. Bitterly angry, I struggled and screamed, until wet and miserable I was settled into another car. Once I felt brave enough to open my eyes again, I discovered I had been in my father’s arms all along, and released a flood of new tears onto my father’s already wet coat.

From my father’s journal:
A man alone in a car stopped and took us in – the Major stayed with his crushed car – and we began a difficult journey to Karaj as our “angel of mercy” could not make his windshield wipers work. For 3 ½ hours we crawled through the howling storm bumper to bumper towards Karaj, when we stalled for 2 hours just outside of the city. We decided to walk in to town. With our shoes and clothes splashed with mud and snowy slush, we made our way past hundreds of stalled and frustrated cars. It was 5:00pm before we made it into Karaj.

The blizzard had subsided, but had left snow everywhere, melting in to muddy puddles at the side of the road. In my father’s arms I held tightly to his neck, and complained bitterly against the cold.

“I gotta pee” I whispered in his ear, and he lifted me down so that I could squat at the side of the road. My sister clung to Aunt Mehry, and Aunt Mehry clung to her baby Maryam, wrapped completely in a white polyester blanket, her tiny feet poking out the bottom. We were a motley crew, a wet disheveled mess, but we held out hope of finding Grandpapa’s car somewhere in the Karaj square.

From my mother’s version:
We were in the Karaj square and there was no sign of Baba’s car. We were in a horrible state. Suddenly my cousin Parvin and sister-in-law Mehry got very excited. “Stop a car, stop that car!” and I began waving my arms in the air until the lone driver in the blue Mercedez came to a stop. “Can you help?” I asked him. “We have children. We need to get back to Tadjrish. We had a bad accident on the Karaj highway and we’re all very cold.” He was very gratious and agreed to help. Your father sat with you in the front seat and tried to hold a conversation but the fellow didn’t speak much English. It was a few minutes in to the ride when I noticed that Mehry and Parvin were giggling and whispering to one another, and then began to notice that the cars around us were slowing and the passengers were pointing at us. Who is this guy? I asked and Mehry and Parvin told me he was a famous TV star named “Cardon”. I hadn’t heard of him since I’d been living in the US for the past 5 years, but he was well known by everyone except your father and I.

From my father’s journal:
Roshan had flagged a car and I thought we were in a taxi – but lo and behold we were in the car of “Cardon”, one of Iran’s most famous artists and TV personalities. This gracious man drove us all to our door in Tadjrish. The drive was punctuated by people passing us in screaming delight at seeing the famous Cardon. But WE had him to ourselves! At home, that night, with everyone reunited, we had a happy carnival with food and drink, a delight by candlelight and song that lasted in to the late hours of the night. Thus had come our 13th day of Norooz, on the heels and wind of a storm, and a calamity to bring us an omen of life, a reminder that to expect and know joy one must be bitten too by despair.

A Persian Name Revealed

March 20, 1971
Tadjrish, Iran

My Uncle Sia and Aunty Manijeh arrived at the courtyard door with gifts under their arms. They planted kisses on both cheeks of each person in our household. I felt the cold air on my bare legs and stayed long enough for my curiosity to run out and until the soreness of my pinched cheeks drove me away.

“Farhad, Mehry! I’ll take the baby. My, she is growing so big!”
“Mama, Baba, Happy New Year! I can smell your cooking from here! Is that Ghorme Sabzi? Eh baba! Is it time to eat yet?”
“Firooz, what a handsome suit! Let me get a look at you!”

My father snapped picture after picture. He didn’t have half the Farsi I did by this time, so he followed my mother around as she translated for him, with a smile so wide on his face he seemed to almost burst with pride.

My cousin, Sohail, strolled in the courtyard gate after his father, dashing in a navy blue blazer with a bright red carnation in the breast pocket. His little sister Sepideh appeared behind him, her round face framed by the bright red collar of her dress. She clutched at the plastic baby doll that she had gotten from my parents for Christmas.

Lygeia led the gaggle of children to our table display in the dining room and together we watched the colorful goldfish swim in circles in the bowl. Sohail was just tall enough to reach his fingers into the water which only made the fish swim faster in excited circles. In twos and threes, the adults joined us, until the dining room could hardly hold all of us around the table. Voices echoed off the walls, everyone talking loudly, excitedly, until, in a crescendo, all faces turned to my father who held above his head a wrapped gift as big as a toaster.

“For you, Baba,” he said, and he placed the package in my grandfather’s hands. My grandfather sat at the head of the table, with Grandmama at his side, and carefully unwrapped the gift. What seemed to me to be a toy, revealed itself to be a shot-glass caddy disguised as a model car, with a fat bottle of whisky in its belly. He busied himself with studying how each glass fit in the car’s cab. With a nudge from my father the whiskey was opened and the glasses were filled.

Next, my sister was given a colorful necklace and matching earrings and she proudly wore them both. I was taken with this display of gift-giving without the mysterious delivery by invisible reindeer. The scene was so distant from my expectations, that when my gift was presented to me I was taken by surprise.

“Your uncle has something to give you too,” my mother said from behind me and all eyes were on me as I turned and extended my chubby arm to have a tiny gold bracelet fastened around my wrist by my Uncle Farhad.

“Do you see the engraving? That says ‘Roia’,” my uncle pointed out dragging his finger along the curvy lines and dots on the bracelet’s flat face.

“It’s your name in Farsi, see? Re, vov, yeh alef, R-o-i-a, Roia,” my mother repeated. All at once I understood: my name, a Persian name, was revealed to me in the language it was intended for.

I knew this gift was important and that no one else received one like it. I placed a single kiss on each of my uncle’s cheeks, and turned to show my sister this treasure that was only mine to keep. That tiny strand of gold on my wrist named me in this now familiar place, this new home. The day stretched out before me full of food and music and loud relatives and I surveyed the scene with a new perspective on it all. I finally felt I belonged.

Norooz - the new year tradition

This was our ceremonial Norooz table called "haft seen" (or "seven dishes") Each of the seven dishes begin with the Persian letter cinn. The number seven has been sacred in Iran since the ancient times, and the seven dishes stand for the seven angelic heralds of life-rebirth, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty. The symbolic dishes consist of:

1. Sabzeh or sprouts, usually wheat or lentil representing rebirth.
2. Samanu is a pudding in which common wheat sprouts are transformed and given new life as a sweet, creamy pudding and represents the ultimate sophistication of Persian cooking.
3. Seeb means apple and represents health and beauty.
4. Senjed the sweet, dry fruit of the Lotus tree, represents love. It has been said that when lotus tree is in full bloom, its fragrance and its fruit make people fall in love and become oblivious to all else.
5. Seer which is garlic in Persian, represents medicine.
6. Somaq sumac berries, represent the color of sunrise; with the appearance of the sun Good conquers Evil.
7. Serkeh or vinegar, represents age and patience.

There were other objects on our table that do not start with the "s" sound, but are considered traditional: the Koran, a photo of loved ones that could not be with their family (my uncle in the U.S.), a photo of the prophet Ali (the person who Shi'ites believe was the first to profess his faith in Islam to Muhammad), oranges and goldfish to symbolize the sun, dyed eggs (perhaps a nod to the Christian Easter) and sweets of all kinds.

Norooz celebrates the beginning of the Persian year, which is also the spring equinox. The spring equinox is one of the two days of the year that the Sun moves across the celestial equator, the imaginary line among the stars that lies directly above the Earth's equator circling from east to west. The Sun's crossing of the celestial equator occurs one other time, on the autumn equinox. Both times this crossing occurs, the Sun rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.

Norooz is like Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years Eve put together. We eat a meal with family, we exchange gifts, we celebrate spring, and we count down to the new year which is the exact beginning of spring, which every year falls at an exact time down to the second.

sources:
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050318_equinox.html
http://souledout.org/nightsky/springequinox/springequinox.html
http://www.farsinet.com/norooz/

Through the Courtyard Gate

March 20, 1971
Tadjrish, Iran

I woke on Norooz morning, the 20th of March, with my new white dress and matching white Mary Janes laid out on the chair next to my crib. I felt the cold marble of the floor bite into the soles of my feet as I jumped down and slipped on the tiny cloth slippers.

“Mommy!” I called out as I emerged into the kitchen through the swinging door. I found her and my grandmother and the maid, Zahra, sitting at the small table and surrounded by colorful plastic bowls heaped high with cut greens. My mother looked up from her cutting board, her hands wet and speckled green with sabzi.

“Can I put my new dress on now?” I wanted to know. I half expected to hear the same answer I’d heard every day until this one. No, the new dress waits until New Years Day.

“What are you doing up so early! Everyone else is still asleep Roia joon, try to stay quiet. Yes, I’ll help you with your dress, but then you are going to have to stay out of the dirty corners of the courtyard, can you do that?” This was an immensely difficult promise, with this new day still spread before me yet to be explored, but there was only one answer to give so I nodded. I had to wait, shifting from one foot to the other, my bladder full from the long night, as she washed her hands at the sink and dried them with the flowered towel hung on the wall. After an icy trip to the outhouse, the dress, still stiff and giving off the musty smell of the store where we’d found it, was unwrapped from the plastic and removed from the hanger. I lifted my arms as my mother slipped off my nightgown and I stepped into the dress with my hand resting on my mother’s shoulder to steady myself. She turned me with one strong hand and buttoned me up the back. My feet ached to feel the cool white socks and the firm hold of those Mary Janes, but knowing that I was not allowed to wear shoes in the house I carefully placed them by the screen door for when I would go out.

Over the course of the morning, as my father and grandfather, my uncles, and my sister rose from sleep, I watched with newborn eyes as the day unwrapped before me, in spite of me, in a bustle of activity. My grandmother brought objects out of drawers and boxes and placed them on the dining room table and then disappeared to change in to her best clothes. The tabletop display of seemingly ordinary objects was given great importance and I circled the table over and over, my eyes barely higher than the tabletop, my fingers curled around the table edge. I studied the objects I could see from the edges - a mirror, a leather-bound book, a bowl of colored eggs, a plate of bright green grass reaching up in tiny spears and wrapped with a bright blue ribbon.

Mid-morning, as the smells of fried fish and steaming basmati rice filled the house, my father lifted me up into his arms and carried me back to the dining room display. From my father’s arms I studied the objects on the table from this new angle. I spied a bowl of chocolates and another with shiny coins, and bowls of powders and pastes in varying shades of browns and reds which gave off salty, sweet and sour smells all mixed up in the air. A shallow bowl of bright orange goldfish created a colorful and constantly moving centerpiece.

“See the picture in the frame?” He pointed with his free hand at a framed black and white photo set to one side, a photo of a sculpted face with high cheekbones in a blurry field of white. “That’s your Uncle Khosrow, your cousin Nooshin’s father back in California. You know him, right?” I pictured his face in my mind, I heard his deep voice and saw his jet black hair as part of my memory of home. I nodded. “Grandmama puts pictures of loved ones on our special table, family that can’t be with us on New Years.”

Voices suddenly rang out loudly through the house, “Farhad koo? Farhad, where are you? Go on, out the door, it’s almost time! Mehry, go pick up the baby! Roshan, bia! Baba, kojaii? Bia digeh!” My grandmother’s voice beckoned each of us from the far corners of the house so my father helped me on with my shoes and we walked together out to the courtyard.

“I’m going out! Tell me when!” my Uncle Farhad said from across the courtyard as I caught sight of him handing baby Mariam to Aunt Mehry and he slipped out the courtyard door and into the alley outside.

I tugged on my father’s arm and he bent over so I could whisper in his ear.
“Where is Diyee Farhad going?”

“Your Mommy says it is good luck for Farhad to be the first to walk in at the New Year. He does it every year. He’ll come right back in.” There was an aura of privilege and confidence that surrounded my Uncle Farhad and my mother both, a birthright that seemed to make the world kneel before them. I could hear it in the volume of their voices in the courtyard, in the way everyone would shift and turn to them when they entered the room. I could sense it when they would recite poetry or tell jokes and crowds would hang on their every word.

A hush fell as my grandfather, a few feet from the courtyard door, studied the Russian watch hanging from his wrist, and with his ringed hand counted out the seconds as if with an invisible baton.

“Se, doh, yek!... Aide shomah mobarak!” they all called out in unison, Happy New Year! and all eyes fell on the door even as their voices still hung on the air. I studied the silence, holding my breath, and when I heard the sound of knuckles rapping on the wood door I squealed with joy, clapping my hands. My uncle strutted through the opened door, taking long strides, his chin high, his sideburns like dark shadows on each side of his face. I dropped my father’s hand to run to him.

“Happy New Year!” He shouted, as I wrapped my arms around his legs. I felt others up close as I nuzzled my nose in to the wool of his freshly laundered suit, the sound of familiar voices all around me. “Aide shomah mobarak! Aide shomah mobarak Mama, Baba! Happy New Year!

“It’s good luck again this year for us all,” my Grandpapa said, pulling me off my uncle and lifting me up to kiss each cheek. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of his cologne. He was such a small man; he and my grandmother, the both of them like a match set of tiny people barely taller than my sister, his hair so white, like cotton set atop his head, and hers black like a frame around her face. He set me down and took my hand as we all headed back to the dining room for the presenting of gifts. It was an odd sight, my grandfather back again dressed in that suit and tie, like his son that had just walked through the courtyard door, cocky and proud.

Sacrifice

From my father's diary:
Sunday, February 7, 1971
Holy day of Ghorban

In the still dark of early dawn the black lamb was made ready. The craw of a crow sounded in the cold early light. Tied and bound the lamb laid on its side awaiting the hired man with his knife. Quickly his blade cut through the throat as the lamb now unable to cry as he broke the cord with all his might. Held down in the struggle, the knife deeper still severed the life of the black lamb. A long hollow metal rod was then thrust in the hind leg of the lamb opening a deep channel into the body. The man brought his lips to the opening of the rod and began to blow his breath into the rod as the lamb began to swell and swell like a balloon. For fifteen minutes he blew until the lamb was twice its normal size. He then proceeded to cut away the lambs black fur as easily as removing a coat. The naked meat of the lamb was now steaming in the cold morning air, ready for the deeper incision to lay bare the intestines and stomach sack. I could see Lygeia and Roia, with their noses pressed to the window as they watched this religious rite with open eyed fascination. The severed head and hoofs of the lamb lay nearby. Now in a heap upon the skin lay all the soft inner life of the sacrificial lamb. The meat of the lamb was now carried to a ladder scaffold and hung, awaiting the carving knife. In a nearby pan the lamb would fall in pieces ready for the beggars and the poor--a thanksgiving offering. That night, we too, feasted.

***

February 7, 1971
Tadjrish, Iran



The window was cold against my nose, but I kept it pressed there still. There were strangers in our courtyard, and after breakfast they had appeared there with a bleating black lamb, its tongue hanging from its mouth, and struggling against the rope tied tightly around its neck. The snow was in patches around the yard, and the men outside were taking steamy breaths between puffs of their cigarettes. My sister and I stood at the window, while my father and uncle stood outside watching as the three strangers offered the animal a bowl of water. It planted its hooves wide and brought its nose down into the faded plastic bowl. For a brief minute the animal was silent as it drank.

“Mommy!” I called over my shoulder. There was a muffled rattle of shaking dice behind me, followed by an open, sharp crik, crik, crack! as they hit the backgammon board. I turned back in time to see the lamb bring its nose up from the bowl. “Who ar’ dey?”

“Roia joon, come away from that window,” my mother insisted, patting her lap. “Come sit wit me and watch me play wit grandpapa. Do you want to tro’ de dice?”

My eyes were locked on my father outside who was snapping pictures of the strange men posing together. One of them was showing a long metal knife to my father’s camera. My breath was leaving a fog on the window making it difficult for me to see and I wiped it away with my hand, briefly distracted by the drips making their way down the glass to the sill.

“Wow,” my sister exclaimed at the window next to me. “Did you see that?” I looked up at her profile and the fear laced in her voice sent a chill through me. Is this scary? Are these bad men? What followed was like nothing I had ever seen before. Dark blood spilled on the courtyard floor and the lamb was put to sleep in the puddle. Sissy squirmed and groaned and my mother made more attempts to pull me away from the window with her voice, but without success. After a few small jerky movements the lamb moved no more, and my father snapped pictures and smiled jovially at my uncle next to him. To the sound of my mother and grandfather chatting over their game, I watched one of the men blow up the lamb with a pipe, “The lamb’s a balloon!” I exclaimed, and my mother came and joined me at the window for a few minutes.

Instead of bobbing in the air at the end of a string, this black balloon stayed anchored to the ground, misshapen and awkward.

Hiccup

My sister looked down at me and giggled, and I felt a brief moment of calm wash through me before, hiccup, the shudder went through me again.

I felt my mother’s fingers wrap around my hand and I let her pull me in the direction of the game table. I was lifted up and placed on her lap, and I looked across the board and its round pieces up in to my grandfather’s lined face. He smiled.

“Hold your breath,” she said softly in to my ear. Hiccup. I turned to glance at my sister, framed in the window, still glued to the events outside, and drew in a breath to hold.

“Hold it… hoold it…hold it,” her voice went up like Uncle’s car. Hiccup, and I let the air out in a short blast, briefly remembering the last blue balloon I’d gotten at my sister’s school carnival back in California, bobbing from the delicate knot around my wrist. I squirmed around to bury my face against my mother’s breast, feeling her warmth on my cheek. My body became still.

“It’s my turn?” she asked my grandfather, her voice rumbling through her chest, and I heard the crik, crik, crak and the jerk of my mother’s body as she threw herself back in to the game, taking me along for the ride.

School Daze, Lonely Days

Tadjrish, Iran
January 1971


Even school days became routine, and I grew to depend on my sister’s warmth on the bench next to me less and less as the days grew shorter and colder and the cobblestones were more often wet with rain. I would wait all morning at my desk for lunchtime when the black-clad women would carry the heavy aluminum pot to rest on the table at the head of the room. As the littlest in the class, I sat in the front row, my feet dangling over the edge of my bench, and I was the first to smell the shriveled brown lime soaked with chunks of beef, kidney beans and greens. I learned to say “I like it” “more please” and “I want some stew” long before any other phrases out of my school reader.

On the school yard, the children admire my cousin for being related to us and in their confusion about whether to accept us as one of them, they alternate between throwing stones and treating us as royalty, pushing on each other to give dark-eyed stares and offering favors and sweets to Sohail for opportunities to play with us. I stand by, able to stand at my sister’s side without clutching at her now, silent, as they rattle off questions.

“Beatles mishnahsee? rohk an’rohl??” a boy with tossled hair asked her with a sidelong glance at her long spindly legs. She would reply in short carefully crafted sentences, her grasp of the words she spoke paper thin and tenuous.

“How come your sister doesn’t look anything like you?” he threw back and her reply brought louder gasps as the children began to understand that she and I were related only through our father.

Where is your mother? How come you aren’t with her? How come you came to Iran? How come your sister has an Iranian name? What kind of a name is Lygeia? Are you ever going back to America? Do you like it here?

“These are my cousins. They are Americans,” my cousin Sohail would say puffing out his chest and giving a big smile showing the missing two front teeth he had recently lost. So many questions, and when my sister’s broken Farsi was not enough to explain my cousin would break in and fill in the gaps. As our handler, he would decide when we’d had enough questions for one day and would shoo them off to the nether reaches of the yard with their slap slap of plastic shoes fading off into the distance.

* * *

Shortly after my father arrived from the U.S. school days ended suddenly when Sissy’s cough became a fever, which became long days in bed with blankets piled high all around her. I crept through the shadowy rooms of my grandmother’s house, trying to stay quiet as a mouse as my sister slept, watching Grandmama pray, listening to the sound of dice thrown against the mohogany backgammon board and loudly echoing off the garden walls. Days were punctuated by visits from cousins and more doctors and more cousins. Even Christmas came and went with little fanfare. Pictures were snapped with my cousins sitting on either side of me, my new Barbie in my lap, our legs stretched out in front of us. The makeshift Christmas tree was a simple potted plant with a few colored balls hanging off its branches.

One morning, Sissy was taken from the house wrapped and weak and placed gingerly in the backseat of my uncle’s car. I felt her absence like hunger, forlorn, and I visited her each day, holding my Aunt Mehry’s hand during the long car ride to the hospital. The entire scene was a monochrome of grey, my feet planted on that bare sidewalk next to my kneeling aunt as she pointed up to a tall concrete building, a massive checkerboard of windows rising above me. At the 6th floor a tiny head poked out of a window, too far away to recognize anything familiar about the face or the hand or the window or the building.

“Where? I can’t see her. Can’t I go in with my Daddy and Mommy?”

“There, do you see? Negahkon, your sister is waving to you. Wave back so she can see you too.” I waved feebly in the direction that my aunt pointed.
“Can’t I go in and see her?
“No, joonam, she is too sick to come outside. And children are not allowed in.”

But she misses me.

I was so insistent, but I still left each day disappointed and inconsolable. The four walls of Grandpapa's garden seemed suddenly silent and imposing. Without my sister to translate for me, I was unable to ask for a turn when my cousins played, and so I kept to myself mostly, crying easily when things didn't go my way, barely holding it together.

Then one day, after weeks of the strange waving ritual, my sister returned to my grandmother’s house, walking feebly through the courtyard door and delivered straight to her waiting bed. She was able to tolerate short visits from me as I carried in cold drinks to soothe her scratchy throat. She grew stronger as spring approached and the cherry blossoms began to bloom in the courtyard. She found it harder and harder to find time away from me as I refused to let her leave my sight, worried that she'd disapear again and leave me alone in the garden walls.