Everything Sad Is Untrue

by Daniel Nayeri

  “Is that what they did?”

  It occurred to me at this point that I didn’t want to hear this anymore.

  “The one who knew me looked just like your uncle Reza. He had a red beard. He was still very young, very respectful.”

  “Why didn’t you scream when they took you from the van to the house?”

  “No one would do anything. They would pretend they didn’t hear. Everyone was scared.” She paused. “And who would they call anyway? This was the police.”

  So they took her into the house where evil happened—next door to all the sweet families. “What did it look like?”

  “Akh. Khosrou. I’m working.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “It’s okay. The house was normal.”

  “Did it have a TV?”

  “No. No. There was no furniture. He took me to an empty room with just one chair in it.”

  “Did you sit in it?”

  “Eventually.”

  “They left you alone?”

  “For a while.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I cried. I prayed. I waited.”

  “So it was completely empty? Why didn’t you jump out of a window?”

  “There were no windows.”

  “It was just a box? What about the floor, could you pull up the floor boards?”

  “It’s not a Vam Bam movie. The floor was cement,” she said.

  “Damme.”

  “Don’t say bad words, Khosrou.”

  “That his name. Van Damme.”

  “I don’t like it. Taste this. It’s roasted eggplant with lemon and garlic.”

  “Good,” I say.

  “When you say bad words, they think you’re uneducated.”

  “Okay.”

  “I sat and waited.”

  “What were you thinking?” I said.

  “I stared at the grate in the floor. The whole room was tilted like a bathtub to a metal drain in the middle.”

  I didn’t ask her what it was for, because I knew.

  But in case you don’t know, it was for blood.

  * * *

  THE THING IS THAT Scheherazade was telling her stories to a king in the language they both spoke as babies. So she never had to explain the demons who believe in God, or what was rude. She just showed it in the story. But the shame of refugees is that we have to constantly explain ourselves. It makes the stories patchworks, not beautiful rugs.

  Anyway in Iran when you go to someone’s house, they put out a spread with tea and sweets on a rug, and you sit together and the host should offer you the best stuff.

  The only offering in front of Sima was the drain and the threat of a little river of blood winding its way across the floor toward it. That was why the Committee men left her alone in there to look at it. It was like bringing someone a tray of tea and putting a gun on the table next to it.

  I didn’t say anything for a while, because she was melting a little butter in the microwave in a mug, adding saffron, and then pouring it over the steaming rice.

  And because I was thinking this is the same person as the one in the story. It’s no myth. And she’s so small.

  The legend of my mom is that she can’t be stopped. Not when you hit her. Not when a whole country full of goons puts her in a cage. Not even if you make her poor and try to kill her slowly in the little-by-little poison of sadness.

  And the legend is true.

  I think because she’s fixed her eyes on something beyond the rivers of blood, to a beautiful place on the other side.

  How else would anybody do it?

  The dinner was finished, and she hadn’t told me everything that happened.

  I said, “So how did you get out?”

  She closed the oven and put the back of her wrist on her forehead and closed her eyes, like she was checking her own temperature. She said, “The one who knew me came in finally and said, ‘You can go now.’”

  “That’s it?” I said.

  “They had already asked me to tell them the names of everyone in the underground church.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “So they let you go?”

  “He said, ‘Please, Madame Doktor, they’ll kill you and your kids if you don’t tell them.’”

  “And then they let you go?”

  She nodded.

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “That I had one week to think about it.”

  “And then you just walked out the door? Nobody saw you?”

  “They saw me.”

  “You just walked home.”

  “I ran to the market.”

  “To get the car?”

  “And groceries. We needed dinner.”

  * * *

  KING OR QUEEN READER, this is a good place in the story to hold our breath—with Sima in the demons’ clutches, running through Isfahan, toward a home she knows she can never live in again—and ask a question that relates to this: Would you rather a god who listens or a god who speaks?

  Be careful with the answer.

  It’s as important as every word from Scheherazade’s mouth that saved her life.

  And everybody’s got an answer.

  A god who listens is like your best friend, who lets you tell him about all the people you don’t like.

  A god who speaks is like your best teacher, who tells Brandon Goff he has to leave the room if he’s going to call people falafel monkeys.

  A god who listens is your mom who lets you sit in a kitchen and tell her stories about castles in the mountains.

  A god who speaks is your dad who calls on the phone with advice for your life in America.

  There are gods all over the world who just want you to express yourself. Look inside and find whatever you think you are and that’s all it takes to be good. And there are gods who are so alien to us, with minds so clear, the only thing to do would be to sit at their feet and wait for them to speak, to tell us what is good.

  A god who listens is love.

  A god who speaks is law.

  At their worst, the people who want a god who listens are self-centered. They just want to live in the land of do-as-you-please. And the ones who want a god who speaks are cruel. They just want laws and justice to crush everything.

  I don’t have an answer for you. This is the kind of thing you live your whole life thinking about probably.

  Love is empty without justice.

  Justice is cruel without love.

  And sometimes, like Sima, you get neither.

  * * *

  OH, AND IN CASE IT wasn’t obvious, the answer is both.

  God should be both.

  If a god isn’t, that is no God.

  * * *

  HERE’S WHAT I KNOW about our escape from Iran.

  Sima had one week to “think about it,” which meant she had one week to tell the Committee men the names of all the people in the underground church. All those people I scared when I ran in with the bloody nose—all dead if the Committee got to them.

  She had one week or they would snatch her again.

  And they would kill us—my sister and me.

  She had one week to choose.

  And it wasn’t like she could go anywhere. The Committee was everywhere. In vans all over the city. Neighbors. The daughters of pistachio vendors. The sons of pharmacists.

  I was in kindergarten, remember.

  I only have a vague picture of a room, lying down on a carpet in rows with other kids like me for a nap time. And I remember once sitting at a table for school lunch, and hearing my teacher say, “Ooh!” like a happy bird and looking back and seeing my dad in a big coat. He bought kebab for the whole school. Maybe it was my birthday? I don’t remember that part. But even the teachers got some—the best kebab in Isfahan, with buttered rice and roasted tomatoes. We all got to eat it. Nobody was too poor or anything like that.

  My dad would pick me up from school in his gold Chevrolet. That day we got home an
d my mom was flying around the house like a bird in a panic. My dad thought she had finally gone crazy. She was shouting things we couldn’t understand, stripping pictures out of a photo album and throwing them into a suitcase. When my dad grabbed her by the shoulders, she looked at him like a scared bull, like he was a Committee man. And he let go like she was on fire. He said, “Tell me.”

  And I don’t remember more, because they spoke in the bedroom.

  I went to my room and got Mr. Sheep Sheep. If we had to go anywhere, he would be my first choice, because I was his shepherd, and he was my number one friend. After that, I stuffed my pockets full of the Orich bars from the toy clown’s pants on my desk (remember, there were more in the bus-shaped cushion, but I thought I would save those for when we came back). And then I remembered my Atari, which was my number one toy.

  I am told that from here on out in the story, my grandpa Arman (the severe) was present, but like I told you, I don’t remember him there. Maybe, like a djinn, he found little corners of the story to hide in. I don’t know.

  The story goes that we all got in the car and drove to the airport, even though we would probably be followed by the Committee men, and the moment we gave our passports to the soldier at the gate, a giant red alarm would go off, and everybody would be arrested.

  “Don’t you have to have papers and stuff?” I once asked when we were safe in Oklahoma. And my mom said, “We did.”

  “That same day?”

  “No. A couple days later.”

  I imagined it all in one day. One big chase scene. But my mom says I went to sleep that night in my own bed, holding Mr. Sheep Sheep, until my grandpa Arman could come to help.

  When my mom describes it all, she skips over the interrogation and the panic and says it was a time of three miracles—three things that couldn’t have happened without the intervention of angels. This is the part that the pastors of Oklahoma churches love the best, and ask her to repeat as often as possible for their congregations. And when I told it to Mrs. Miller’s class, I did the same as her, because this is her story. And if she says it was miracles, then it was miracles.

  “That’s crazy,” said Jared.

  “Jared,” said Mrs. Miller.

  “He’s just making it all up,” said Jared.

  But why would I make up miracles about paperwork?

  Why wouldn’t I tell you it was like Faranak taking Fereydun into the Alborz Mountains?

  That’s a real proper legend that everybody knows. And they’d think I was cool, if I was like that.

  If you’re going to make it all up, you’d make it so you were the hero.

  I’d be like, “Yo, this part of the story, I was the hero Fereydun. Put your hand down, Jared. I’m not taking questions right now.”

  And people would be like, “That’s cool.”

  Because it is cool. Fereydun was a stud finigonz, who was so cool that the evil king dreamed he was walking toward him with a hammer to destroy him. So the king tried to kill Fereydun while he was just a kid. Fereydun’s mom had to take him out of the country.

  And for a while, she gave him to a rainbow-colored cow to give him super milk while she was away. Then he grew up into a man with shoulders so broad, and a brain so fast, that he could only ever be a king.

  And in fact, in Persia, they would say King Fereydun shined with the light of greatness and wisdom, and people would have to cover their eyes when they saw him.

  Which is where salutes come from.

  And Jared—always Jared—he’d say, “Like military salutes?”

  And I’d say, “Yes, the salute is a Persian symbol for shielding your eyes from the light of greatness when a boss comes in the room.”

  Then Kelly would say, “Your story is kinda like that. Since you had to escape with your mother from an angry king.”

  And I would nod and say, “Except for the rainbow-cow part, yes.”

  And the whole class would stand up and give me a salute. And I would salute them back. We would all salute, and then play together at recess.

  That’s how you know I’m telling the truth, because I didn’t get the salutes for telling a good-sounding version. I just said what happened, which is that my mom says we saw three full-on miracles.

  And even though everybody was willing to believe a rainbow-cow story, for some reason they won’t believe miracles when they happen in offices and airports.

  Anyway, the miracles were these:

  1.  The papers

  2.  The police

  3.  The plane

  It was New Year’s, which is a two-week holiday, and nobody could get the papers to leave the country. And even if they could, we couldn’t because the secret police would have stopped it.

  So even though my mom had panic-packed a suitcase, and screamed at my dad, who had insisted there was nothing wrong and it would all blow over, even though she said it wouldn’t blow over unless she gave the names of the church, and he’d said, “So, maybe—” and she’d growled something, and he’d given up.

  Even with all that, they still couldn’t do anything, because they didn’t have the papers. We were all dead.

  The end.

  Oklahoma never happened.

  Except!

  That afternoon, my dad got a call. A dental emergency. A miracle tooth!

  I told you already, he was the best dentist in Isfahan.

  Well it just so happened that a minister of immigration, a mullah, a boss man in the government, had taken an eager bite of a peach and broken his left front tooth on the stone. The sticky juice was still in his beard as my dad reached in to fix it.

  It was like the story of the mouse pulling a thorn from the paw of the lion. Except my dad is the lion and the mullah is a toad. But we lived in the land of the toads and needed toad papers.

  That’s how we got them. If it had gone any other way, we’d be dead.

  The mullah goes for a pomegranate, we’re dead.

  My dad is the second favorite dentist in the city, we’re dead.

  But everything went alright and we all piled into the car. I imagine my mom as she crossed the street with her suitcase, looking in both directions for an unmarked van parked somewhere. I didn’t know we’d never see our birds again, or I would have said good-bye. I would have maybe gotten a sprig of jasmine from the yard and kept it in my pocket. I dunno. Maybe I’d have gotten one of my dad’s shirts. Anything.

  But I had Mr. Sheep Sheep and a pocket full of Orich bars.

  In the car, my dad drove like a mouse, scurrying down side streets to avoid any people we knew. He said, “Is there any food?”

  No one said anything, so I held out an Orich bar.

  “My son,” he said, which was like saying, “My great son, thank you.”

  My sister hit my elbow and said, “I want one.”

  So I gave her one. And another for my mom, because at this time, she was my favorite and she’d feel left out.

  I ate the last one, and that was the last Orich bar I ever tasted.

  * * *

  IF YOU WANT A god who listens, maybe all you want is pity for losing your only friend, like Mr. Sheep Sheep.

  If you want a god who speaks, maybe all you want is revenge.

  * * *

  I’LL GET TO THE other two miracles. For now, we’re standing in a brush field beside a parking lot: my mom, my sister, my dad, and me. I’m standing a little farther out and staring. I’m staring nervously at the tall grass swaying above my head and holding Mr. Sheep Sheep.

  There are no trees in the field. In the distance the airplanes come and go. There is no place to hide for a baby sheep.

  The grownies are staring at me, then looking at each other in code. I’m standing a bit away from them. I take another step back, clutching my friend tighter. I’m wearing my corduroy pants and plaid shirt. That’s what shepherds wear.

  My dad is wringing sweat from his mustache. He clicks his tongue to hurry this ceremony along. My sister—who never loved sheep—
sighs.

  My mom doesn’t want to force me.

  She kneels down and looks in my eyes. Her eyes are big and black and very very sad.

  “Baby joon,” she says to me. “It’s time to set him free.”

  I don’t think any shepherd has done this kind of thing before.

  But Mr. Sheep Sheep is a sheep. Am I the only one who can see he’s a sheep?

  You don’t set sheep free. They’re your friends.

  It’s unthinkable.

  Little sheep, left in the wild, are carcasses. Every story tells us so.

  Baby sheep, lost in the woods, must immediately search for their mothers—no distractions from strangers.

  Sheep wandering around alone in parking lots, like this one, would die. They would lose their lives. Wolves walking down the mountains, into the dry thinning scalp of the middle of Iran, would be looking for juicy sheep. For the long journey across the drylands, Allah would provide, they would think.

  And they’d pounce when they saw him.

  They’d crunch all the buttons of his eyes for the nutrients.

  They’d slurp all the stitching thread of his mouth and nose.

  I don’t want to do this.

  My mom’s eyes dart to every vehicle in the distance. “And we’re not coming back for him?” I say.

  “No,” she says.

  I remember looking at my dad and realizing this is news to him too. That we’re never coming back. His eyes grow wide and begful. His mustache becomes a red unhappy cut across his mouth. This is the look of sadness that I imagine on his face when we speak on the phone.

  My sister is reciting fairy tales and patriotic songs since the grown-ups haven’t been paying her attention. Our dad picks her up and she stops.

  “Let’s go,” she says.

  But we can’t go until we free Mr. Sheep Sheep.

  If we went into the airport with him, they would take him at the security checkpoint and cut him open with a knife.

  I didn’t know this at the time, but they told me in Oklahoma.

  They would cut his throat and look inside the stuffing for illegal drugs.

  Which is a cruel and ridiculous thing to do.