Laughing Without an Accent

by Firoozeh Dumas

  When we lived in Iran, we had many Jewish friends. There were, and still are, more Jews living in Iran than in any other country in the Middle East outside of Israel. It was no surprise that everything Susan ever told me about the Jewish culture felt familiar.

  One day Susan mentioned something about “a Jewish mother.” Even though I had heard the term before, I asked for the exact meaning. “It’s all about guilt,” she said. As she started to elaborate, complete with examples of Jewish mothers she had known, I was shocked. “That’s not a Jewish mother,” I told her. “That’s my mother.”

  Growing up, I assumed all parents used guilt as one of the key pillars of parenting. My mother was so stealthy that you never knew what hit you. It was like Andre Agassi’s serve. You can know it’s coming toward you, but there’s still nothing you can do. Andre Agassi is, coincidentally, half Iranian. It is entirely possible that his serve is nothing more than guilt redirected.

  I had always been familiar with guilt and its powers, but never more acutely than during my high school years. These years coincided with the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. My father had lost his job, and companies were not scrambling to hire Iranian men with unpronounceable names and thick accents. The few jobs he did find were in other cities, so my father moved around while my mother and I stayed in Southern California. My brother Farshid chose to attend a college nearby so he could live at home with us. Without his sacrifice, my mother and I would have had to return to Iran. Living on our own was out of the question.

  This was not a happy time in my life, coinciding with high school and adolescence, which are also not happy times. The constant beacons of light in my life were my friends. Like any other adolescent, I loved to hang out with them. The problem was that hanging out with my friends meant that I was not hanging out with my mom. My brother wasn’t home very much since he was attending college and working. His absence was understandable and expected. Mine wasn’t. Here was my mother, making the sacrifice to stay in America because of me, and I was abandoning her at every possible moment. (Say “oy” now.) I knew all this, and felt the guilt, but I was fifteen and really wanted to spend the night at Mary Ann’s so we could discuss all the boys we liked, and try to figure out why they never, ever liked us back. We never solved that one.

  The guilt scenario was always the same. One of my friends would call and invite me to spend the night. I would ask my mother for permission. The response was always the same: silence followed by a faint “Do whatever you want.” That was the first ace.

  As soon as I started to pack, my mother would appear at my door. “When are you coming back?” she’d ask. I always said, “I’m not sure.” I said this to limit the worrying, not that that was even possible. I had learned the hard way that if I said, “I’ll be back at nine” but got home at 9:15, my mother would let me know that for fifteen minutes she had nothing but visions of car accidents, lightning, shark attacks—you name it.

  Given that I didn’t smoke or drink, always got good grades, and hung out with an oddly responsible crowd whose worst crime was baking too much, I found my mother’s excessive worrying to be beyond annoying, but I still felt terribly guilty. I knew that in her eyes and the eyes of her generation of Iranians, I was a horrible daughter. A dutiful daughter would stay home and keep her mother company. But I just couldn’t help wanting to go to Mary Ann’s or Carolyn’s or Carol’s or Karen’s or Ruthie’s or Susan’s, where things were always rosier than at my house. Without my friends, I would have more than likely ended up as one of those adults living with and relating mostly to animals, and not in a glamorous way like Brigitte Bardot.

  Despite my mother’s guilt, I still managed to live a life, at least on the outside, that did not look too different from that of my American friends. The guilt was like a ball and chain that wasn’t quite heavy enough to keep me back, but loud enough that I could always hear it clanging.

  I realized years later that my mother’s use of guilt was her way of trying to corral me within the confines of her world. Like many immigrants, she was afraid that the unknown road I was taking would leave me with nothing but regrets. Even though her own life had not always turned out as she would have wanted, she wanted me to follow the same familiar road. At least then my regrets would be similar to hers.

  Ironically, today my life, on the outside, is not that different from hers. I’m a stay-at-home mom of three, I cook dinner every night, and am rather domestically inclined by American standards. But I took my own road to get here, a road that empowered me with a college education and allowed me to marry the man of my choosing. I traveled, pursued interests, and got lost sometimes, but having made my own decisions means that I cannot blame my parents when something goes wrong in my life, an option that I sorely miss.

  When I got married, my relationship with my mother improved enormously. For her, the fact that a nice man with a college education and no prison record wanted to marry me lifted an enormous burden from her life. After my engagement, my mother even made a point of telling my future husband what she considered my most annoying trait, just to make sure he knew what he was getting: “She reads all deh time. Non-estop.”

  “I do, too,” he said.

  A few months after our wedding, a day that my mother declared “the best day of their lives and the best wedding ever,” my parents decided to come for a visit. By now they had watched the three-and-a-half-hour wedding video enough times to give us cause for concern. “I keep it in my purse. Wherever we go, everyone wants to see it,” my mother had told us. “Too bad you don’t have a TV,” she repeated, hoping we would borrow one from a neighbor. Unfortunately, during their stay with us, we told my parents, they would not be able to watch us on tape but would have to settle for watching us live.

  My mother also kept telling us that she was coming with a surprise. “What is it?” I kept asking her. She refused to divulge.

  When we picked them up at the airport, all of us hugging and kissing while my mother cried, my father told my husband that he was happy that we were still married. “At this point, no returns on the wife, just exchanges. I have two sons,” he said, introducing my husband to his unique brand of humor.

  While we waited at the luggage carousel, my mother reminded us of the “soorprize.” Suddenly, we saw an enormous package struggling to come out of the tube that emptied onto the luggage carousel. It couldn’t come out. It was jammed. It was like a ten-pound baby being born to a petite woman. Yellow lights started to flash. An airline employee ran up the ramp to yank the package out. I knew that whatever impractical object that was, it was linked to my mother. “What is it?” I asked. “Soorprize for Fransva,” was the only cryptic message she would share.

  By the time we picked “it” up, we knew it was bedding. Due to the layers of large plastic bags and tape, we had to wait to arrive home to see it. On the way home, my mother elaborated: “Fransva, you have good taste. I buy dis Ralph Lauren for you. I know you like. Most beautifool. I know you like.”

  François, ever naïve, responded with “Yes, I love Ralph Lauren. That is very generous of you!”

  This may have seemed like a legitimate response, but it was the equivalent of double-bolting the fire escape. The Frenchman, untrained in the ways of guilt, had eliminated any possible out. We were doomed.

  After arriving home, we unwrapped the bedding. It was red, bright, bright red, and very fluffy in a bad way. My mother was watching us like a hawk. “So beautifool,” she said. “I loook all over for you,” she told us, cementing the guilt.

  I hated it, as would have anybody else not working at Mustang Ranch.

  My husband and I went in our bedroom, taking It with us to put on the bed to make my mother happy. My husband whispered, “No way is this Ralph Lauren. It’s ugly.”

  It wasn’t just ugly. It was loud and ugly. I remembered reading that one of the astronauts claimed that the Great Wall of China was the only man-made object visible from outer space. Now there was something else.
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br />   François looked at the tag to see if it was misspelled. “Ralph Lauren does not make anything this horrible,” he said.

  “Maybe Ralph was guilted into hiring his no-talent cousin for the summer and this is the result,” I suggested.

  Regardless, we were stuck with It. Thanks to my husband’s ill-timed compliment for Ralph Lauren products, there was nothing we could do but fake enthusiasm, which was not easy.

  My mother spent the next few days repeating her mantra of how beautifool it was and how she knew Fransva appreciated Ralph Lauren and how much she had looked to find something so beautifool.

  After they left, my husband said, “We have to get rid of It.”

  “We can’t just get rid of It,” I tell him. “We’ll never hear the end of it.” It was clear that when it came to guilt, his Catholic background had ill prepared him, regardless of claims otherwise.

  “Something has to happen to it,” I told him.

  “A theft?” he suggested.

  “Who would ever steal this?” I said, trying to sound educational and not angry.

  We came up with many possible scenarios, from the neighbor’s dog mauling it to blueberries staining it to losing it while on a picnic in Golden Gate Park. But none would have passed muster with my mother.

  Finally, we came up with a clever idea. We decided to wash it so many times that it would fade and then we could donate it guilt-free to a homeless person.

  Every week, as I hauled our clothes to the Laundromat, I took the comforter and an extra roll of quarters. I washed it in hot water and dried it thoroughly on the highest setting. As I watched it go round and round in the dryer, I thought about Ralph Lauren and my attempts to destroy what was undoubtedly a counterfeit. I knew that my mother had bought the comforter in good faith, but fakes are bad for the economy, I told myself. Even though what I was doing was bad for my mother, it was good for mankind. If Mr. Lauren could see me now, he would probably reward me with a real Ralph Lauren comforter. Maybe he would also give me an entire Ralph Lauren wardrobe or invite me on a duck hunt. Afterward, still in our jodhpurs, we would sit on rattan furniture, surrounded by beautiful people looking forlornly in opposite directions. Maybe we would become friends and he would give me a lifetime 10 percent–off coupon on all Ralph Lauren products, although frankly, it would have to be closer to a 75 percent–off coupon before I could afford his goods.

  But despite my concern for the good of mankind, I knew my mother would never understand. She had, after all, brought me a Chanel purse on their last trip to Iran, where, apparently, the people who stitched the tag were in a hurry and forgot the h, thus giving me the popular quilted “Canel” bag.

  Six months and several dozen washes later, our comforter faded to a lighter shade of red, one that didn’t quite scream “SOS” as loudly but just whimpered a faint “I’m an ugly knockoff.” I finally decided that it was time to find It a new home. Sadly, this was not difficult, since San Francisco has many homeless residents. We didn’t have to look far. There was a homeless woman with her dog who was a regular in our neighborhood. We handed her the comforter. She didn’t react much, but from then on we could see her from blocks away.

  François and I agreed that we wanted our next comforter to be blue and white, preferably with an Indian design. We decided to take our time finding just the right one, meanwhile enjoying the absence of It, which had taken our bedroom hostage for six months with its screaming color.

  During my next phone conversation with my mother, I mentioned casually that the Ralph Lauren comforter had ceased to be. My mother was quite dismayed and wanted to know how I had washed it. I didn’t want to say, “On the highest setting, every week,” so I lied and said something about “Gentle cycle, cold water.” The Inquisition continued. My mother asked me what kind of detergent I had used. I lied again and said, “Woolite,” even pronouncing it “Voolite” to make the conversation flow more smoothly and possibly end sooner. My mother concluded that I had ruined the comforter. I apologized. She asked if Fransva was very disappointed. “Yes,” I lied, again. My mother was very sad. I pretended to be sad, too. By then, with all my fibs, I knew that the devil himself was putting the finishing touches on a front-row-center seat in Hell, “Reserved for Firoozeh Dumas, Worst Daughter Ever.”

  A few months later, with the Iranian New Year approaching, my mother decided to visit us again. I cleaned the apartment thoroughly, even scrubbing the grout in the bathroom with a toothbrush. I bought her favorite kind of milk, the crunchy red apples she likes, and her preferred brand of tea. The hyacinths, part of the Iranian New Year tradition, were already on the table. I went to pick her up at the airport.

  She stepped off the airplane laden with gifts: homemade baklava, lavashak, a sour fruit roll-up, pistachios, and of course, saffron that she had ground herself. She also had her usual fried eggplants with her so she would not waste any time making khoresht-e bademjun.

  As we stood at the baggage claim, my mother brought me up to date on all the latest gossip in the family. Suddenly, midsentence, I saw, coming toward us on the luggage carrousel, an enormous bright red package. It was like a mirage, except that mirages are illusions of things that one wishes existed. This was the opposite of a mirage.

  I looked at my mother, who looked as if she were about to burst with joy. “I found another one!” she said. “I looked all over!”

  This serve was not just an ace. This was an ace that ricocheted off the back wall and hit me in the head.

  “I hated that comforter!” I blurted. “I can’t believe you bought another one!” I said, somewhat loudly, forgetting I was in a public place.

  My mother was shocked. “But Fransva loved it. You said you loved it, too,” my mother added, looking completely dejected.

  Meanwhile, the comforter had circled to where we were standing. I refused to pick it up.

  “The reason I didn’t tell you that I hated it is because I couldn’t,” I said, clenching my fists in frustration. “The way you set things up, it’s not possible!” I whined.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “You said you loved it and Fransva loved it and it looked so good in your room.”

  “We hated it,” I said. “We just said that. After all your stories of how hard you had looked to find something beautiful, we didn’t have a choice. You left no room for us to tell you the truth.”

  In the meantime, the comforter had circled a few more times. Sadly, nobody had stolen it.

  “What am I supposed to do?” my mother asked.

  “Let’s just leave it here,” I suggested.

  She looked at me as if I had suggested we rob a bank together.

  “Nobody but you would say that to their mother,” she said, looking away from me.

  There was no winning this match.

  I grabbed the comforter from the luggage carousel. “It stays in the car,” I said.

  My mother did not respond.

  We drove home in silence. I tried to make small talk, but the guilt in the car was suffocating us.

  “I’m very sorry,” I said, at least four dozen times.

  “But I brought this for Fransva,” she said. “He lied to me, too?”

  I had lost this tennis match and now the audience was throwing tomatoes at me.

  “Actually, he liked it,” I lied again, trying to cover up the truth.

  “So why don’t you keep it?” she asked meekly. “For Fransva.”

  “We’ll do that,” I said.

  “And,” she added, “this time, I found the sheets that go with it. We can surprise Fransva.”

  “Oh yes,” I said, finally speaking the truth. “François will be surprised.”

  Doggie Don’t

  I live in a lovely neighborhood full of mature trees and well-maintained lawns. Like all desirable neighborhoods, home prices here leave prospective buyers wishing they had been born into a different family, more specifically, a rich one. Most couples, like my husband and I, dream of finding an affordable ru
n-down property to renovate. After years of searching, we finally found a two-bedroom, one-bath fixer-upper near the railroad tracks. We considered ourselves very lucky, although we realized that when the realtor said, “You don’t really hear the train,” what he really meant is, “I want the commission from this sale.”

  The high point of the house was its garden. In the backyard, we planted trees and flowers that attracted butterflies and bees. In the front yard, we planted a Granny Smith tree, right in front of one of our large windows. I told my kids that since we did not have a TV, they could witness the four seasons on our apple tree. In addition, the tree attracted an endless number of squirrels, which are basically rats with really cute tails. These jittery creatures spent their days running up and down the branches, grabbing what food they could, and hastily eating it right in front of our window. “It’s our own Animal Planet,” I announced. My kids were young enough to be excited.

  One morning, I opened the blinds as usual. My eyes immediately gravitated toward a small pyramid next my apple tree. Somebody had allowed his dog to do what dogs do, on our lawn.

  Not only are there laws against these types of gifts, but I could not help but take this personally. Why would somebody do this to us? Was this someone who knew us? Did this have something do with the increasing popularity of Persian cats?

  I shared the news with my husband, who immediately went outside to investigate the evidence. “It’s a medium-size dog,” he surmised.

  The next day, I opened the blinds and there, in the same place, was an almost identical mound. Twice in two days meant only one thing: there was a serial defecator on the loose.

  My husband vowed to find the culprit.

  I took matters into my own hands and bought an orange fluorescent posterboard, which I attached to the large oak in front of our sidewalk. “Please clean up after your dog! It’s the law!” I wrote, making the exclamation points extra big to let everyone know I meant business.