Within a few months of our arrival, with his characteristic determination, Baba had established himself as a leader in the local Iranian community. He opened a carpet store carrying rugs made in Iran, and he worked hard, very hard. Sometimes, I thought I could feel the exhaustion from his eyes when he came home late at night – the weight noticeable from carrying his entire family on his shoulders while starting, once more, from scratch.
Baba would not be defeated – within two years, my parents bought a nice three-story home in Irvine, and tried their best to recreate an Iranian household uncorrupted by the influence of American society. On the outside, with the palms and flowering fruit trees, and inside, with deep plush rugs and the sacred Qur’an, our new household became a semblance of a traditional Persian home. It even smelled the same: the whiffs of cardamom and jasmine, aromas of Maman’s cooking. The new house held the same profound encapsulated silence, as if the rugs and decorations had also imported an atmosphere from the old world. I could inhale the scented peace and quiet – until it shattered.
Baba’s success in creating a business and purchasing a home were not matched by his ability to police and control the influences of American culture in our household. It was the eighties, and things were shaken up for all American teenagers. For young Iranian immigrants, it was a cataclysm – one that my two older brothers could not wait to enjoy.
Zain was the first to test our father’s limits.
One evening, I walked into the living room and witnessed Baba knocking a set of keys clattering to the floor as he tried to snatch them from Zain’s hand. “And you better take off that shirt or I’ll rip it off you!” he added.
Zain pulled the orange tank top over his head and threw it on the floor. “It’s summer and ninety degrees outside. I’m no ayatollah, Dad.” This was the first time I had heard Zain call our father “Dad” instead of the usual, “Baba.”
“You brought me here. I’m going to make it worth it and live here and do what other kids my age do. Everybody wears t-shirts and tanks, Dad.”
Maman placed a hand on Baba’s shoulder to calm him.
“He’s going through a phase. He needs time,” she said. “Please, Haji.”
Circling Zain as his son slouched on the sofa, Baba began shrieking, his hands stabbing in the air. The scene had a cinematic intensity, as at that moment, Zain was in his full regalia – naked from the waist up, face full of defiance, and a tiny diamond stud sparkling in the lobe of his left ear. He leaned over and picked up the keys, jiggling them in his hand, and then sat down, legs sprawled open, a pose I knew my father would regard as disrespectful and vulgar. Zain’s hair was cut short on the sides and the top was styled as a Mohawk, while the remaining back hair was tugged into a two-inch ponytail.
“Zain, you’re fifteen. It’s time to be a man, to take responsibility.”
In Baba’s worldview, wearing an earring and going to a dance made his older son Hadi’s recent behavior – crashing luggage carts into the airport police, getting expelled from school, collecting speeding tickets, and rejecting authority – seem like child’s play.
“You don’t understand how serious this is. A diamond earring! A dance! You need to get your hair cut to a respectable length, put on a shirt, get rid of that earring, go to school and work, and then maybe you’ll have permission to drive the car. Otherwise, it’s over.”
Baba’s voice was shaking as he pointed his index finger at Maman. “This is your fault!”
“I’m going to the dance, Baba,” Zain looked straight into his eyes. “That’s what all the kids here do.”
Baba pounded his fist on the coffee table. “Give me your car keys. Now!”
“Sure. Take them. But I’m going to the damn dance even if I have to walk there.” Zain tossed his keys on the table. Then he turned, stomped up the stairs, and slammed his bedroom door.
The house seemed to take a long breath. This was a new development. Even at his most reckless, Hadi didn’t dress like an infidel in tank tops or swear at Baba.
“You see what’s happening here?” Baba said, pointing a finger at Maman. “You told me to let the long hair go, then you told me to get the car repaired after he crashed it, and I listened. Now what? Now this?” Baba was yelling now. “You see how you’ve raised your son? You see how he has turned out?”
From the doorway, I felt my entire body flush hot with anger. In my mind, I couldn’t help hearing the sound of Baba’s hand smack Abdollah’s face when Abdollah refused to button his shirt collar. How could Baba blame Maman for this? Had he learned nothing?
Maman remained calm. “You can’t yell him into submission, Haji. He’s a teenager. We’ve lived in America for two years. What do you expect, azizam?”
He had not expected this – a son who now wanted to be called by an American name – Mike! – and who had adopted all these “American” ways.
Maman tried to soften Baba and help him understand that he wasn’t going to win the battle to save our souls even with stricter rules.
“Haji, he just wants to fit in, to be cool. That’s natural. We have to accept some changes.” Maman’s voice was soft.
“I can’t have a son who defies God!” He raised his voice and gave her a disapproving look.
I couldn’t help wondering how Baba knew that God disapproved of diamond studs, tank tops, and dances, but he seemed sure.
“We have to talk him through it,” Maman said. “We have to help him.” She placed her hand on Baba’s arm and guided him into a chair.
“You’re not a raging teenager, woman. You don’t understand what goes on in that mind. You think he innocently wants to go to a dance? Do you know where that dance leads next?” He took in a deep breath. “If I don’t stop him now, it’ll be too late.” Baba’s body appeared to deflate. “He’s the same age as…” Baba turned his eyes to the ceiling. “God help me. This will not happen again.” His shoulders sagged and he looked at Maman. “I will not let this happen again.”
We all turned as Zain pounded down the steps, clothes folded over one arm. “Maman, khodafez. Bye, don’t wait up for me tonight.” He slammed out the front door, shaking the mirrors hanging in the foyer. I imagined that the Qur’an caught a splinter of glass, and shivered in its case.
Tears trailed down Maman’s face. “Don’t you see? Your way is just pushing him further away from us.”
“Don’t cry, woman,” Baba snapped.
She wiped her face with the back of one hand. “I don’t want to go through this, Haji.” Tears glistened on her pink face. “I cannot watch this happen again.”
I trailed behind as Hadi caught up with Zain on the front steps.
“You can’t go, Zain. There’ll be girls and alcohol.” Hadi yelled.
“I’ll walk if I have to.”
“Zain, you can’t do these things. It has to stop.”
Zain shrugged. “I’m leaving. I don’t need another father Hadi.”
Hadi moved toward him; his glare flared red like a wild animal’s.
In America, Hadi had gone from brother to parent. He had also become even more religious than he was in England. Where was the prank-playing brother who swung upside down from tree branches? I missed him. Of course we didn’t want to lose Hadi our brother, but didn’t Zain see? Beyond the walls of our home where English was spoken, Hadi was our protector. Because Baba didn’t speak English, the school relied on Hadi for communication. One school even thought Baba was living abroad. On the streets, Zain and I needed Hadi to be a father.
“Let me see it.” I pointed to Zain’s ear.
Zain smiled for the first time as he moved his hair out of the way, “It’s got a diamond in it.” The little diamond stub was so small, it was hardly noticeable. This is what the fuss was about?
Zain kissed my cheek. “Well, got to go, Sis, I’m late.”
Hadi pulled his car keys from his pocket. “I’ll drive you.”
“No thanks.” Zain – now “Mike” – flung his jacket over his shoul
der and headed down the street.
I didn’t blame Zain for refusing a ride.
For all his strictness over dress and religious codes, Hadi was still wild in other ways. The little boy who raced and crashed cars was still alive and more dangerous as a young adult at the wheel. A typical drive with Hadi meant weaving between cars and eighteen-wheelers at one hundred and ten miles per hour. The last time we had let Hadi drive, we had to grit our teeth when he almost sideswiped a semi truck. Even after two dozen traffic tickets, Hadi kept a heavy foot on the accelerator. The speed limit was just his cruising speed, the point from which he soared forth, oblivious to traffic, sharp turns, and sudden stop signs. And forget “Yield.”
In my case, Hadi gave me rides to many schools. Anytime there was trouble with me refusing to wear shorts for gym class because of my dress code rules, or I was harassed for being the only girl wearing a scarf, or a teacher demanded to meet my parents because I refused to learn English, Hadi would step in and help me transfer to another school.
Some incidents were so bad, I did not even tell Hadi. I suffered alone. That first season in California was miserable and one instance was indelible.
It was a hot day. My scarf felt tighter around my neck, sweat gluing the knot of the fabric under my chin to my throat. I had a twenty-minute walk uphill to our house in Turtle Rock, in Irvine. This was the part of school I always dreaded: the walk home after school.
Keep going with your head down...don’t look up...you’re almost there, I had told myself today. Today he won’t see you walking home. Today you’re safe. I was hopeful, but I knew it was wishful thinking. For the last two weeks, everyday I took my walk home, the unseen teenager had been there, hiding somewhere in his house or the trees, ready to let me have it, and I could never see where he was. I never did look up.
On this day, my back was wet, and I could feel the drops of sweat roll down my chest onto my belly. Home was only twenty feet away. I had made it safely today. It was then that I felt the heavy slap of the water balloon against the back of my neck, jolting me forward. Ice-cold water spread down my spine. My heart stopped. My head dropped and my hands covered my face; I froze for the now–familiar water balloon beating. I heard the screams – “Towel head!” – as the second, third, and fourth water balloon soaked my cloak. I finally blinked, picked up my head, and with my eyes glued to our house in the distance, I walked the rest of the way home, drenched. If Hadi had been with me, he would have prevented this, or stopped it.
Hadi was my hero. He was the first in our family to learn English and master the system. We all counted on him. Hadi did everything for us and often. As he darted through traffic to get us from one place to another, I would catch Hadi’s eyes in the rear view mirror. He was running from something; I understood that.
Now, Hadi headed down the road after Zain.
Standing in the door, my little brother Iman was silent. He had only one father – Baba, the man he loved and admired – and even at his young age, Iman was calmer, an old soul respectful of Baba’s faith and tradition. Iman would never want to cause Baba the kind of pain his older brothers did. He loved Hadi and Zain, but Iman didn’t want to be like them.
Without realizing it, Iman was living Abdollah’s phantom life; the one Abdollah might have lived had he not become involved with the frozen snakes from Room 314 at the Rose Hotel. Abdollah himself still inhabited our home as a shadow presence, and though we seldom referred to him or what really might have happened, he was not forgotten. Whatever his fate, the mystery of it, the evasion of truth became a toxic cloud, poisoning our family. We might have imploded anyway, as new immigrants in culture shock; that implosion was twice as volatile for the unspent pressure within us that had ticked like a time bomb since 1979.
Back in the house, Baba stormed out of Zain’s bedroom with three muscle t-shirts ripped into shreds. He headed for the kitchen, threw the shirts in the garbage can, and slammed down the lid.
Swallowing my fear, I followed him and fixed a cup of water packed with ice. “Here, Baba, drink this,” I said reaching toward him in an attempt to meet his eyes.
Dropping into a chair at the table, Baba rested his forehead on his fists, and closed his eyelids.
“It’s filled with ice. Just the way you like it,” I said as I placed the cup close to his hand. “Zain loves you, Baba, but he wants to be like the other kids here. We’re in a different country than home. It’s like a completely different world, Baba.”
Baba began chewing on the ice. “He’s so obstinate,” he said, defeated.
“He’s no different than he ever was. Strong-willed, the way you raised all of us to be.”
I didn’t tell Baba that Zain was sneaking home in the early morning, just in time for prayers, and then sleeping all day.
“Yelling at him won’t make him do what you want. And blaming Maman isn’t right. You have to listen to Zain and help him be a man in this place. Otherwise, he’ll push you away and not tell you anything.” I put a slice of cold red watermelon on his plate.
Baba’s face was no longer flushed. He was thinking and I could see that he was listening.
“Your mother always did say you were a wise young girl.” Baba smiled at me.
“Talk to him, Baba Jaan. Ask him how he struggles to settle into school. It’s not easy for us, Baba. We’re like fish out of water here. Things are different. It’s been hard, very hard for all of us. For you, too.”
I didn’t tell him about the “towel head” or the water balloons, or that my classmates in America also called me “camel jockey,” and that every time I put on my headscarf, it was a reminder that I would never be at home in the U.S. I had gone through middle school and was now in high school, and felt even more like and outsider. I felt utterly alone, desperate to hear Persian spoken, to smell hyacinth blossoms at the nearby florist, and buy roulette and zaban sweets at the bakery on my way home from school. I ached for all of us, and, most of all, ached for my father.
Baba stared at me, lost.
“I’m sorry, Baba Jaan. I know this must be rough for you. And it’s hard for us, too. I’m only sharing this with you hoping that you and Zain can find a way to get along better.”
Baba cut a watermelon slice, stabbed a small piece with a fork and offered it to me.
Now I needed to take care of Maman.
Maman was in her bedroom; she was breathing hard, her face flushed, her eyes closed her head shaking, as she talked into space. “Khoda, please. Help me God! Tell me this isn’t happening again.” Maman recited a prayer in Arabic before succumbing to even deeper, heavy breathing.
Tears rolled down her face; she began to pull at the buttons of her shirt and slap at her chest to turn her pink skin a darker shade, almost scarlet. “I don’t know what to do. God, I don’t know how to stop this!” Maman repeatedly slapped her other hand on her knee. In the two years we had been in America, this wasn’t the first time Maman had an episode like this, but this one was the most severe. She was turning purple, and seemed as if she could hardly breathe.
I ran a cool cloth over Maman’s forehead and watched her face for signs of calm. I hoped that the glass of hot water with melting sugar crystals and rose water would help settle the flashbacks of Baba fighting with Abdollah. But her uncontrollable sobbing and labored breathing continued for another twenty-five minutes until Maman finally slumped onto the bed, exhausted and emptied.
As I put the bottle of Valium she had refused back in the medicine cabinet, I noticed a round very decorative metal cookie tin up on the top shelf of her closet. In Iran, Baba brought these pretty cookie boxes back from every Kuwait trip, and family members would line up at our house in Tehran to take a box or two home for their kids. I knew these cookies well; the cookies were as delicious – deep, chewy, sweet – as the boxes were decorative, an intimate memory from our past. When I looked and saw Maman deeply asleep, I reached toward the tin. A flash of guilt came over me. It was Maman’s closet, I told myself, and I was just strai
ghtening her medication. As I pulled up a chair, took down the box and popped open the lid, I knew why I had felt like a thief. Instead of cookies, the box contained a four-by-seven inch plastic-covered photo album on top of a stack of letters written in red ink. I felt my heart pound fast and my hands began to shake.
I flipped the soft album cover open, and then my eyes widened. My lost brother, Abdollah, stared back at me from a photo I had never seen before this moment. I flipped through the pages; more photos of Abdollah stared back at me. One photo was of Abdollah posing confidently, sitting in the sand with two other cousins. Some of the pictures had ripped and were repaired with curling yellowed tape. There was one snapshot with Maman holding Abdollah to her side as he held onto Hadi; they are little boys. Then, there it was: a wallet-size photo of Abdollah exactly as I last saw him as a free boy. Abdollah, with his big brown eyes, stares right at me. He is wearing his navy blue suit, the one that now hangs in Hadi’s closet. I shut the album, put the lid back on the container, closed the closet and took several deep breaths before going back to pull a sheet over my sleeping mother and reapply a fresh cool cloth on her swollen eyes.
In my room, I stared out the window; the bright sunlight made my eyes water.
I took refuge in my journal that night.
Dear Abdollah,
All this is tricky. I wish I were older than thirteen. Maybe you would know what to do. Brother, I’ve missed saying your name. I had secretly hoped that Hadi and Zain would find their own way, but now I’m worried that Zain has gone too far. I know he’s just trying to become his own man, but I’m afraid for him. I’m afraid he’ll be lost to us soon.
The Rose Hotel Page 15
