Dreaming in English (39 page)

I
’m here at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport with Hamid, folding in upon myself from nerves, feeling several decades older than my true age. This is all right; I don’t mind. Let them think I’m a harmless old lady. I
am
a harmless old lady! Everything that can be done to influence a smooth departure has been done. I’m wearing a chador, the most proper sort of Islamic dress for women. I’m unadorned and wear no makeup; I’ll save that for America. Since prison, where each of my interrogators, each of my guards, had one, I can’t stand the sight of beards, but I asked Hamid to grow one for this day, and now I remember there is such a thing as a decent man with a beard, for he has been so kind to me since I’ve agreed to go to the U.S., accompanying me to dentist and doctor appointments and even to hair appointments so that when I see my daughters, their first impression will be that I am, if not fashionable like their Persian and American friends, at least trying. I want them to know I’m trying.

Hamid has taken me for rose-water ice cream, which he did when we were first married. He has held my hand on the streets. He has said exactly enough, never too much, about his hopes for us in America. He wants to open a business, maybe a limousine service or a franchise of submarine sandwiches. You’ll help take care of the baby, he tells me, and I agree. Yes, I’ll take care of the baby, and my daughters, too. I’ll be the mother they’ve needed all these years. And where Tami goes, I’ll go, too, as often as possible, although I still hold out hope that she’ll get to stay.

Be greedy
, I have willed her every hour since our conversation. She’s so giving. She gives far more than she takes, but this is a time for her to be greedy. They might say Americans are the greedy ones—that they’re greedy for money and power—but everyone is greedy for something, if not for money or power, then for salvation, or to stop the self-loathing.
Be greedy for freedom
, I will my daughter.
Let your greed for freedom be greater than your fear.

We pass through the airport terminal seemingly unnoticed. We’re two among many, and others are so much brighter, louder, and take up more space. The Revolutionary Guards should stay busy with them, not us. We’re nothings, we’re nobodies. We’re just two people—good Muslims, see my chador and my husband’s beard and open-necked shirt?—with tickets to London, connecting through to America, a thirty-six-hour journey to our new life.

Still, when I hand my passport to the man at the ticket counter, my knees buckle. Not everyone knows this, but there are layers to fear—often, you realize this only when you move from one layer to a new, deeper one. I’ve talked to myself about how my fear at the airport will be an easy, outer-layer fear; me against myself, mostly. If the worst should happen—if I’m not allowed to leave—it’s because I’m not meant to.

This is what I’ve talked myself into believing, and yet when the woman in a chador appears at my side from nowhere when we’re at the ticket counter and says,
Sister, please come with me
, I resist. She’s with two other Revolutionary Guards, young men with machine guns. If this is my destiny, I’ll deny it. I shake off her hold on my elbow. No, please, I must catch my flight.

Beside me, Hamid pales. He has assured me repeatedly there will be no problems for me, that many who’ve been in prison have had no problems leaving. They leave all the time! And I did so little wrong in the first place; there’s no reason why my name would be on a list. I stood on the edge of a crowd and didn’t run fast enough when the crowd dispersed. It’s been twenty-five years since I offended the regime in this manner, and my punishment then was far more severe than any crime, committed or imagined. My crime back then was dreaming of something better for my country. That was my only crime: daring to dream. Ask anyone who knows me—I’ve been cured of that particular affliction.

“Please,” Hamid says. “My wife has done nothing and we really must be going.”

But the woman starts to lead me away, friendly, still, polite, still, but her delicate features are hardened by her mission. She takes pride in a job that many others find repulsive. I’ve sometimes hated these women the most, their piety and righteousness, their willingness to interpret an already gender-obsessed religion in their own, unique women-hating ways. These women call me sister, and yet this is not how sisters should be treated.

I almost cry out, almost whimper.

“There, there, now,” the woman says. “Don’t make trouble; this is nothing, no big deal. We’re just going to ask you a few questions.”

But the people around me, my fellow travelers, look at me in a way that tells me this isn’t nothing. It’s something, and it might be something big. It might be the thing that kills me. I trip over my chador as I look over my shoulder at my kind, bearded husband. He can do nothing for me now except to bear witness, and bearing witness isn’t enough. I think of the mirror I used to look into, asking my unanswerable questions.
Who or what will save me now?

You save yourself, an American would say, but some of us know better. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you say or who you betray or what ideals you cling to. There’s not much I can do in this particular situation to save myself, and so the question comes to me now, again:
Who or what will save me?

The guards escort me to a curtained area, which is flanked by more machine-gun-carrying men. The male guards leave me with the female one. In the area are other travelers, many others, all in various states of search and interrogation. This could take hours. I can’t sit down. I can’t be interrogated. I simply can’t. I have nothing to give them; there are no questions I can answer, no games left to play. If I don’t get on that plane, I’ll die, regardless of what they do to me. My life is there, in America, or it’s nowhere at all.

“Please,” I say, grasping the woman’s surprisingly soft hand. She doesn’t like my touch and tries to take her hand back, but I won’t let go. I can tell she’s on the verge of calling for backup. “Please,” I say urgently. “My daughter is having a baby.”

Her eyes soften.

“I’m begging for your mercy,” I plead. “Please. I must be there.”

“Your first grandchild?” she says. “Is this to be your first?”

Tearfully, I nod.

“Is the baby a boy or a girl?”

“A girl,” I say.

The woman smiles. “Bless her.” She pats my hand. “I’m a grandmother, too, and I know a daughter needs her mother in times like this. Don’t fret, sister. Save your tears for happy times. I’ll make sure you get on that airplane.”

An hour later, as the plane ascends—with me on it!—I think again of how I used to look into the mirror and ask that impossible question. I was pretty sure back then that I knew the answer: Nothing and no one will save me. But now I know better. Thanks to the woman who had the power to arrest me but chose not to, I know better. In the end, if we’re to be saved, it will be through the kindness of a grandmother. Through the kindness of a woman, through the kindness of a stranger.

In the end, it will be kindness that saves us.

A
fter I say good-bye to my mother and disconnect the call, I walk to the shore. It’s windy, but I don’t mind. I love how the ocean breeze dances its way through my hair, how the wind tickles my skin.
Take me
, I say to the wind.
Take me to a place where there is no pain.
In my hands, I hold the blue perfume bottle my father gave me for my fifth birthday, the one I was disappointed to discover contained not my mother’s perfume, but rather grains of sand he collected from these very shores.

I was so young then.

I didn’t understand what a precious gift it was.

I look out over the ocean with far eyes, and I see my house in Iran. I’m outside, looking toward the living room window. My parents stand inside, facing out. My father has his arm around my mother, and she leans her head on his shoulder. Their world is so small, and their regrets so large. Through their actions, they’ve set a powerful example for me about love, and freedom, and who I do and don’t want to be.

My father captured freedom in a bottle. My mother kept the lid of the bottle shut tight for all these years. In these past months, I’ve learned this: Freedom cannot be held captive forever.

Slowly, deliberately, not wanting to rush this moment, I unscrew the lid of the perfume bottle. After I give it a few shakes, the sand tumbles out, catching easily in the breeze and finding its way back to the shore it was taken from so many years ago.

Watching it sprinkle its way back to the earth, I realize that what’s true for freedom is also true for love. I have so much love in my heart for Ike, and if I leave now I’ll have to bottle it up forever.

And that would be wrong, because love only means something if you give it away.

 

 

 

I’m sitting prim and proper on the couch when Ike comes home. I’ve been here an hour, just sitting, thinking a little bit, when I hear his truck pull into the driveway. His car door closes, and Old Sport runs to greet him, but still I sit on the edge of the couch. I’m too nervous to move. I don’t know how our reunion will go. I don’t know if my coming back is too little, or if it’s too late.

Ike comes in, pets the dog, and sets his planner on the counter, which he then leans against. For a long moment, he says nothing, just takes me in.

“You’re back,” he finally says. And smiles! “I was sure you weren’t coming back.”

“I had to come back,” I say. “I have a date with a judge.”

His smile broadens. “That you do.”

It seems I’ve said the magic words, for he comes over, holds out a hand, and pulls me off the couch, tucking me into his safe, strong arms. “I’m glad you’re back, Persian Girl.” He smells of fresh air and faded aftershave and the Body Shop soap I bought for him. He smells like my husband, the one I almost lost.

“I’m glad, too,” I whisper. “I missed you, American Boy.”

He steps back. “You’re really going to court?”

I nod. “I’m really going to court.”

“And I’ll move to Canada.” He nods and swallows hard and reaches for my hands. “If things don’t work out in court, I mean. I want you to know that, Tami. Your coming back ... your willingness to fight—it means everything, absolutely everything. So you’ve got nothing to lose where I’m concerned. I’m with you either way, regardless of the outcome. Okay?”

Oh, my heart. I fear it might burst.

“For real?” I say.

“For real,” he says. “So the worst outcome we’ve got still has us making babies together. They’ll just be Canadian babies.”

“They’ll be hockey babies!” Laughing, crying, I throw my arms around him. “Thank you, Ike. Thank you so much. I was sure I was losing you.”

“You were letting me go,” he says quietly. “There’s a big difference.”

He’s right.

“I’m going to be strong, Ike,” I promise him. “I’m going to do my best in court—with my knees knocking and my voice quivering and all that. I’ll still do my best.”

“I know you will,” he says. “And as an added incentive, you’ll be happy to know that the inspector finally signed off on the certificate of occupancy today, the bastard.”

“Hey! Congratulations!” He did it! We did it! This was the last hurdle we faced, and it was a high one. “When do we open?”

“The sooner, the better,” he says. “Right?”

“Right!” I resolve that I’ll be here for the opening. Even if I lose my appeal, I’ll beg the judge to grant me this one wish. I want to ring up the first customer with Ike. Maybe as a joke we can offer free samples of tea. “We’ve got to celebrate, Ike!”

“We do.” His eyes twinkle. “What did you have in mind?”

He pulls me against him in the way that always makes me gasp, and
my God
, I love this man. I’m going to grow old with him.

“Same thing you do,” I say, but we don’t rush to ravish each other, not at first, for it’s brand new again between us. We were lost and now we’re found, and with my fingertips I have to re-memorize the curve of his eyebrows, the press of his cheekbones, the thickness of his hair. With my lips, I have to reacquaint myself with the soft skin of his neck, with the underside of his chin, with his tender earlobes. I kiss his collarbone, his wrists, the precious laugh lines around his eyes. Ike stands perfectly still and lets me do all this. He’s as patient with me as he can be, just like he’s always been.

I
t’s midafternoon.

The big day.

I’m waiting in the hallway of the courthouse for my hearing to begin. Ike sits beside me in a camel-colored suit, so handsome.

We drove here with Rose. She’s dressed for court, too, in a flowery cream skirt and a purple top. Beside me, she clutches her purse. I can’t tell who’s most nervous. It’s pretty even, I’d say, although I’m the only one who’s thrown up, twice. Thank goodness my lawyer, Mr. Robert McGuire, will take care of all the talking. Ardishir, Ike, and I met with him for a long time yesterday, and while he realistically thinks things are not likely to go in my favor, he hopes the fact that I’m a partner in a business and generating jobs for the community
with my husband, at this moment
, might be given greater consideration than it was at my interview, which focused only on what my family and friends did, in the past, allegedly without my knowledge or permission. If nothing else, it may enable me to get a different type of visa to come back sooner.