I always thought my mother’s insistence was strange since no one else in my family spoke Spanish. I figured Sheila insisted I speak Spanish because she wanted me to learn another language, but after reading those DNA test results, I wondered if there was another, deeper reason.
Lala’s departure meant that my auntie Lida, who was visiting from Iran for the holidays, had a room to stay in. As much as I missed Lala, I did love having Auntie Lida in the house. Auntie Lida was like the anti-Sheila. It was sometimes hard to believe they were sisters, and I imagined that when Auntie Lida was growing up, she must’ve constantly looked at her older sister and thought, I’m going to do the exact opposite of that. Unlike my parents, Lida loved to talk about the past, and I thought she could help inspire my genealogy project. After all, she still lived in Tehran, among all the ruins and monuments of my history. But every time I tried to ask Lida about the past, Sheila would say it wasn’t a good time. We had been busy showing Lida around Los Angeles, but my mom’s avoidance was annoying.
Finally, we had a quiet morning on Friday. Sheila and Baba were teaching Auntie Lida and me how to play bridge. No one was into the game. Baba was distracted because he was waiting for a call about the environmental impact report on one of his properties. Sheila was annoyed because Auntie Lida didn’t like card games as much as she did. And I was busy staring at my parents, trying to convince myself that they really were my parents.
Auntie Lida, exasperated by the game, threw her cards down and asked what else we could do. “Well,” I said, my mind fixated on my ancestry, “we could finally talk about my school assignment.”
“Of course,” Lida said. “You want to know about your past, right?” I nodded. “I wish you had told me about the assignment earlier. Your grandfather painted a whole family tree that went back centuries. It was incredible. He did so much research, and he painted a miniature next to each name. There were dervishes and politicians and farmers. You have so many interesting people you’re descended from. It’s such a beautiful painting. Did you know your grandfather was an artist?”
“I think Sheila mentioned that once,” I said. Then I turned to my mother. “Why don’t we have any of his art here?”
“It was too difficult to ship the pieces from Iran,” Sheila said. “And anyway, the mullahs destroyed most of them.”
“Unfortunately, he didn’t paint many pieces,” Lida said. “He stopped when our brother died.”
I turned to my mother, confused. “You had a brother, Sheila?”
Sheila looked away from me, nonchalant. “He died when he was very young.”
“Like how young?” I asked.
“He was two months old,” Lida explained.
“How did he die?” I couldn’t believe this was the first time I was hearing about him. What else had they kept from me?
“People just died back then,” Sheila said curtly. She stood up quickly. “I have an idea. Why don’t we have a girls’ trip to the salon? I’m sure Pasha is tired, and your highlights could use some freshening up, Lida.”
Lida laughed. “My hair is gray, Sheila. And most of the time, it’s covered by a chador, so I don’t feel the need to freshen it up.”
Sheila sighed dramatically. “I don’t know why you insist on letting yourself go, Lida. You could still be beautiful. You could still find a nice husband.”
Once again, Lida laughed. “You moved to America, and yet you think a woman is defined by beauty and marriage prospects. I stayed in Iran, and I think a woman is defined by her intelligence and independence. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“Of course I think a woman’s intelligence is important,” Sheila said. “But an intelligent woman wouldn’t let herself go like you have. And an intelligent woman would leave Iran. What is there left for you in that country?”
“It’s my home,” Lida declared.
“Iran isn’t a home,” Sheila said. “It’s a prison. You do realize my son would be hanged in Iran, don’t you?”
“I see you’re a big gay rights activist now,” Lida said. “I remember you wanted to hang him yourself when he first came out to you.”
I shot a judgmental gaze toward Sheila.
“I did not want to hang him.” Sheila looked my way apologetically. “I just needed time to accept it, that’s all. And now I have. And I’m glad we live in a country where he isn’t considered a criminal for loving a nice Chinese boy, and where he can hire a surrogate to give birth to his child.”
Baba finally inserted himself into the conversation. “Ladies, why does this have to happen every time you see each other? You’re sisters. You love each other. Just enjoy your time together.”
Sheila and Lida both sighed dramatically. Despite looking so different—Sheila with her cascading auburn hair and designer clothes, Lida with her loose gray hair and utilitarian outfit—their mannerisms quickly identified them as sisters. They had the same way of breathing out audibly when they were frustrated, the same way of rolling their eyes when they were annoyed, and the same way of tightening their lips when they were angry.
“I just don’t know how two people who were raised side by side can see things so differently,” Sheila said.
“I see a country I can’t abandon,” Lida said. “I see a mother who needs to be taken care of. What do you see?”
“I’ve told you a million times that you can send her to America. She can live with us!” Sheila exclaimed.
“Or she can stay in the nursing home with my mother,” Baba added.
I noticed Auntie Lida grimace a little bit, so I said, “It’s so nice there. Maman Homa loves it. Seriously.”
“You know what,” Sheila said. “I’ll go see our lawyer tomorrow and ask him to get her a visa. Then you won’t be able to blame me for not doing my share anymore.”
“Our mother? Leave Tehran?” Lida laughed at the notion of it. Then she turned to me. “You know she very much wanted to come see you, but she’s terrified of airplanes. Maybe someday you’ll come to Iran.”
“Not until they drop The Islamic Republic of from the name of their country,” Sheila said. “Until then, I am a Persian, not an Iranian.”
“You know not all Islamic people are bad, Sheila. We’re Islamic.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sheila said. “I’m agnostic.”
“But you’re culturally Islamic,” Lida shot back. “That’s a fact.”
“Islam isn’t like Judaism. It’s not a cultural thing,” Sheila said. And then she sighed and added, “I wish we were Jewish.” I had heard Sheila say this before. The majority of the Persians in Los Angeles were Jewish, and they had a strong sense of community that Sheila always felt just on the outside of. I remember asking Sheila when I was seven, “If you wish you were Jewish, why don’t you convert?” She told me it doesn’t work that way. I told her that Madonna converted to Judaism. But the subject was dropped.
“Well,” Lida said, turning to me. “Let’s keep talking about your assignment.”
But Sheila cut her off. “I think you’ve said enough, Lida. I don’t want this to get too depressing.”
“Why is it depressing?” I asked. “I already know about your brother now.”
Lida looked at Sheila sincerely. Her eyes swelled. “Oh, Sheila,” she said. “You haven’t told her, have you?”
“Told me what?” I asked as Sheila tensed.
“The past is the past,” Sheila said.
“But it’s a part of her,” Lida said. “It’s her history. It’s her roots. It’s not fair to hide it from her.”
“It’s not fair to burden her with it,” Sheila said to Lida.
“But I want to be burdened,” I said. “Please.”
Sheila sat down next to me and placed a hand on my cheek. “Daria,” she said, “it is a mother’s job to shield her child from as much pain as she can.”
“It’s a mother’s job to teach her daughter how to handle pain,” Lida said.
Sheila rolled her eyes. Then looked at Baba, who shrugged. He
was clearly staying out of this battle. Finally, Sheila said, “I haven’t spoken to you about my father much.”
“I know,” I said.
“There’s a reason I haven’t. And a reason I can’t bear to put his paintings on our wall. It’s because . . .” Sheila trailed off. Her voice trembled and before she could continue, a tear fell down her cheek. It was the first time I had seen my mom cry, and it made my eyes well up too. I always thought my mother was impenetrable. Now she was breaking, and it made me feel unsettled, like the ground that had kept me stable for so long was shaking beneath my feet. “It’s because . . .” But she still couldn’t finish the sentence.
“It’s because he was killed,” Lida said. “They killed him.”
The room fell silent. Lida took Sheila’s hand in hers and squeezed it hard. Baba stood up and massaged Sheila’s shoulders. I suppose I could’ve placed a hand somewhere on her body as well, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to be ambushed just then. It seemed like she needed space. I guess I was right, because she pushed Lida and Baba away, ran into her bedroom, and shut the door behind her.
From behind the door, I could hear her screaming into a pillow. It was a trick of hers that she taught me the day that Amir first came out to her. She told me that it wasn’t worth staying upset about anything for long, and that life was too short to spend on sadness. She told me that any time something upset her, she went into her room, put her head in a pillow, and screamed until she couldn’t scream anymore. “When I’m done,” she had said, “I let go of whatever I’m upset about. It’s like it never happened.” I always felt that there were two purposes to Sheila teaching me this trick. The first was to teach me how to cope with all the emotions inside me. The second was to tell me that I was to deal with those emotions quickly and privately, without ever airing them out publicly. And as much as I judged Sheila for being able to extinguish her emotions so effortlessly, I had somehow inherited this quality from her. I used the trick often, and it usually worked.
But this time, my mom was in her room longer than usual. Despite all my anger toward her about my stupid save-the-date, I felt real sadness for her. And compassion.
“She’ll be all right,” Baba said. “She just needs a minute.”
“Who killed him?” It was all I could think of to ask.
“The Islamic fundamentalists,” Baba said. “The revolutionaries. Whatever you want to call them.”
Lida turned to me. “Your grandfather was a great man. When he quit painting, he became an art teacher. He insisted his daughters get an education. He was so good that he became the personal tutor for one of the shah’s daughters.”
“They killed him for wanting to educate women.” It was Sheila again. She had emerged from her bedroom. “That’s what your revolution did.”
“It wasn’t my revolution, Sheila. Yes, I believed in freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Yes, I protested against the shah. He wasn’t perfect either, you know.”
“Well, his replacement was worse,” Sheila said.
“Yes, we can agree on that,” Lida said. “But it’s still our home. And it’s still a country worth fighting for.”
I took a deep breath, but my breath was shallow, and it felt like I couldn’t get enough air inside me. I struggled to take deeper breaths, but it only made me feel worse. Suddenly, I felt light-headed, and all these crazy thoughts filled my dazed brain. Like if Sheila was capable of hiding the fact that she had a brother from me, and of hiding the fact that her father was executed, then what else was she capable of hiding? Maybe the fact that Baba wasn’t really my father?
In what seemed like a millisecond, all the compassion and sympathy I felt for my mother turned into resentment. I was convinced that Sheila had an affair with my biological father and never told a soul. It wasn’t Lida who was the anti-Sheila anymore. It was me. I was so suspicious of her, and so mad. I wished I could have told her that there were so many gaps to my history that I felt like a piece of Swiss cheese or a piercing addict, full of holes. But I couldn’t say any of that. All I could say was, “I’m sorry, Sheila. I can’t imagine what losing your father must have been like.”
Baba put a hand on each of my cheeks. He had been doing this my whole life, or at least as long as I could remember. I closed my eyes and swayed toward him. It was like we were dancing, and for a moment, I felt like I could almost make sense of the world. “And you won’t ever have to imagine that, aziz,” he said. Which should’ve been heartwarming, except my father was talking about his death, which didn’t warm my heart at all. I was surrounded by three people who were supposed to be my flesh and blood, my family, and yet I felt completely alone.
Chapter Four
I THOUGHT I WOULD BE the last to arrive at the ice rink, but Kurt was the only one there. He had already put his ice skates on, and was skating in a zigzag through the middle of the rink as everyone else skated in a circle. I smiled at how quintessentially Kurt that was. He always did his own thing, never following the path laid out for him. I put on some skates and joined him on the ice.
“Hey you,” I said.
“You hey,” he replied.
We were standing, people skating around us, and we were surrounded by the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles, lit up in red and green for the holidays. That’s when it suddenly struck me that despite being part of the same group of friends, Kurt and I hadn’t really spent much time alone together. I mean, sure, there were some brief moments of solitude at parties, or in the hallways of school, but for the most part, Caroline and Joy were always there. In a group, Kurt was funny and confident, but alone with me, he seemed more shy.
“We’re ice-skating in T-shirts!” I said. His was striped. Mine was emblazoned with the face of She-Reen, my favorite Iranian rapper, who we were all going to see in concert in a few days.
“Yeah,” he said. Then he added, “You look really good.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said, blushing a little, grateful for the compliment. With all the ups and downs of the last twenty-four hours, I needed someone to make me feel good again. “Wanna skate?”
Kurt took my hand in his. If it weren’t eighty degrees outside, we would’ve been wearing gloves, and the moment wouldn’t have seemed as intimate. Our skin wouldn’t have touched, and I wouldn’t have felt how clammy his palm was, and how soft his fingers were, and how the edges of his nails were all jagged because he bit them all the time. It’s weird how just by holding someone’s hand, you can feel their heartbeat.
Kurt led me up the middle of the rink in his zigzag formation. Turns out zigzagging doesn’t work as well with two people, and we almost immediately fell down and started laughing. When the laughter stopped, Kurt looked at me intently.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Kurt said. “I was thinking that it’s fun to just hang out the two of us.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I’m sorry. Sometimes I can’t keep my mouth shut,” he continued. “It’s because there’s so much water in my chart.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just stammered and said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. The Authentics come first.”
“Right,” I said, grateful for the save. “The Authentics come first.”
I had to admit that tall, gangly Kurt was cute, with his mop of sandy-blond hair, always-crooked glasses, and unique ability to say things that were equal parts weird and sweet. But then I thought about how holding his hand didn’t make my heart beat any faster. Maybe I was distracted by my test results, but it should have made me feel something, right?
Kurt stood up and held out his hand to me. “Maybe we should just skate in a circle?” he said.
“Sure,” I said as he helped me back up on my feet.
“And maybe we should forget what I just said,” he added.
“Okay,” I said tentatively. “Is that okay with you?”
“It’s okay with me,” Kurt said.
We skated around in a circle, but this time we didn’t hold hands. If we were having a moment, it was gone now, and we both stayed quiet, until Kurt noticed Caroline and Joy tying the laces of their skates on the bleachers in silence. Kurt skated over to them.
“Hey,” he said. “How long have you guys been here?”
“Like ten seconds,” Caroline said. “Did we miss something fun?”
“Nope,” Kurt said. “We never have fun without you.”
Caroline stood up and joined us on the rink. “I’m just warning you guys that I have only ice-skated once in my whole life. I will fall. Many times.”
With that, Caroline skated off, and Kurt joined her.
I couldn’t help but notice that Joy seemed a little down. It almost looked like she’d been crying. “Hey,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, of course!” Joy said quickly.
“Okay,” I said. “We could skip skating and go get an iced blended if you wanna talk or something.”
“Thanks,” Joy said, taking a breath. Then, after a long pause, she laughed and said, “Hey, did I ever tell you about the brief period in my early childhood when my parents thought I might become a professional figure skater?”
“Um, no!” I said.
Joy shrugged. “They turned it into such an obligation. I swear they thought I was going to the Olympics.”
“I get it,” I said. “My parents used to make me play tennis all the time. They called Heidi and me the Persian Williams sisters.”
“That’s disturbing,” Joy said, finally smiling. “Wouldn’t it be nice if parents would just let you be who you wanna be?”
“That’ll never happen,” I said. “They pretty much tell you who to be from the moment they name you.”
“Well then, my parents really screwed me up when they named me Joy.”
We both laughed. Her mood seemed to have lifted. That’s when Caroline and Kurt came crashing into the wall. “Enough girl talk,” Kurt said. “Get on the ice, because I have an important announcement to make.” Once Joy and I joined them on the rink, Kurt continued. “Ladies of the Authentics, I know you guys have been waiting for me to come out, and now I’m going to do just that. The truth is that I am . . .” Kurt paused for a long time. We all skated in a circle together as he stretched out the moment, and then finally finished the sentence with the words, “A Neanderthal!”
The Authentics Page 3
