Dreaming in English (8 page)

Have I been living in an alternate universe for my entire life? How can any of this be true?

“But it’s our family’s dream.” I’m near tears. “Right? To all be together in America? Has that stopped being the dream and somebody forgot to tell me?”

“Of course it’s still the dream.” Maryam’s fists are clenched. “And now I’m having a baby, and they won’t be here.” Tears pour from her eyes. “They should be here. I need my parents to help me. I don’t know what to do with a baby! What am I supposed to do with a baby?”

I can’t believe this.
I can’t believe this.
How could my mother not want to hold her grandchild, this proof that there’s at least some beauty in this world? Don’t we all sometimes need affirmation of that?

“We have to tell them you’re pregnant,” I say. “That will get her to come.” Maryam’s no is very firm, but I persist. “She’ll want to know her grandchild.”

Maryam shakes her head. “I don’t want her to know. Not yet. Once I tell her, I’m just going to get even more angry with her. I know I will. I already have this ball of anger inside me—it’s bigger even than this baby is—and that’s not good. This baby should know nothing but peace and calmness and joy. This baby should know nothing but love.”

Her breath catches in her throat from emotion, and while she tries to slow her breathing, I grapple with how little I know these people I love. I had no idea of the depth of Maryam’s anger, no idea of the depth of my mother’s fear. And what does this say about my father?

“For years, I tried all these things to get her to change her mind.” Maryam’s voice is far away as she remembers. “I tried anything I could think of to convince her to come. Nothing worked. For a while, I called every day. I begged, I pleaded. Then for a long time I didn’t call at all. For years, I told her I wouldn’t have a baby until she was here to help me. I thought, you know . . .” She sniffles. “It’s a mother’s duty, isn’t it? To be there for her daughter when her daughter needs her?”

“She’d love to be here.” I’m sure of this. “You have to tell her so they can arrive in time.”

She shakes her head. “She’s a bad omen. A curse.”

She looks at me very directly. “Tami, this is my third pregnancy.”

I gasp, for I had no idea.
No idea.
Who are these people I call my family?

“I told Maman about my first two,” she says. “I thought—of course she’ll come! But she’s so wrapped up in her own sadness that my babies didn’t even matter to her.”

“You don’t know that.” I feel compelled to defend my mother, even as I can’t begin to understand her. “You don’t know what she’s been through.”

“I know she’s not here.” Maryam gives me a firm look. “Listen, I can’t have stress in my body right now. I can’t have anything negative in my heart. I told Maman both times before, and I lost both babies.” Her voice breaks. “I can’t lose this baby.”

My poor, poor sister, all alone for so long with no family. “You won’t lose this baby,” I assure her.

“I’ve already had some spotting,” she says. “Remember that night when Eva was over for dinner and I ran from the table crying? Well, that’s what was going on. I thought I was losing this baby, too.”

But she didn’t
say
anything! I’m her sister, her only sister! Why wouldn’t she share this with me? “Everything’s okay now? ”

Maryam nods. “I had an ultrasound, and the baby was fine. She had a good strong heartbeat, and I haven’t had any more spotting or other bad symptoms since then.”

Maryam smiles. “We don’t know yet, but it
feels
like a she.”

“Oh, Maryam! This is so exciting!” I’ll be Auntie Tamila, and Ike will be Uncle Ike. I’ll help take care of the baby, and Maryam, too.

“I can’t believe I almost missed this, Maryam! Thank you so much for going to Ike and working things out for me.” I brush the bangs from my beautiful sister’s face and forgive her months of bossiness and rules and pushing me to marry men who were so clearly unsuitable. She couldn’t stand the thought of being alone without family except for Ardishir again, especially not with a baby on the way. And I couldn’t have stood being back in Iran with a new niece or nephew here.
Family should be together.

“I’m here now,” I comfort her, promise her. “I’m here now for good. It doesn’t matter if Maman’s not. I’m here, and I’ll help you. You’re going to be a great mom, and she’s going to be the prettiest baby ever. She’s going to be perfect. And we’re going to be happy. We
are
happy, right?”

At last, the gleam in my sister’s eye is the look of excitement a pregnant woman should have. She throws her arms around me. Her hug tells me the answer is yes, but she warns, “Don’t say it out loud. That’s just asking for trouble.”

“What will you name my beautiful little niece?”

She laughs and takes my hands in hers. “I don’t know yet. What name would
you
choose?”

“Hope,” I say instantly. “I think you should name her Hope.”

“An American name,” Maryam says.

“Persians need to have hope.” I squeeze her hand. “Her name will remind us of this.”

Until Ardishir returns with the bananas and the nacho cheese sauce, my sister and I chat about happy things—about how we will turn my bedroom into the nursery, and how we’ll shop for her maternity clothes, the merits of an American name versus a Persian name, and about how I will go with her and Ardishir for their upcoming sonogram. We talk about all the good things that are to come.

As we talk, I feel a huge new appreciation for Ike. We didn’t have time to buy rings before we got married, or get each other gifts, but in marrying me, he gave me so many: The gift of love. The gift of America. The gift of keeping sisters together.

It’s only later, when I’m alone in my room with my candle lit and my Googoosh music seeping into my heart, that my thoughts turn again to my parents. To my mother, in particular. What I said earlier isn’t true. It does matter that my parents aren’t here. It matters a lot.

Our family’s dream is to be together in America. Until tonight, I thought it was a dead dream, one that could never come true. But if it can . . .

If what Maryam says is true, then they must come. If it’s not the Iranian government holding them back, but only my mother’s fear, then that’s something she has to overcome, because our family’s dream is to be together in America, and we cannot kill our own dream.

We’ve got to try, and try, and keep on trying. It’s our duty.

It’s what we owe one another.

T
he next day, I wake at dawn. My first thought is of Ike, and my vision of him is clear. He’s sleeping like a prince, shirtless, covered with only a sheet. His precious ocean blue eyes are closed, graced by delicate black lashes. On our wedding night—the one night we’ve spent together—I remained awake long after him, trying to memorize his face. He has a tiny scar at the corner of his eyebrow, left over from a childhood bout of chicken pox. I hadn’t noticed it before, hadn’t known about the chicken pox, either.
They might ask you about that.
I pushed the thought away, because my curiosity for him is pure. I want to know everything about him, even the smallest things. Paper or plastic? Whole wheat or rye toast?

But it’s true—they might ask me about that scar. At our immigration interview, they’ll ask us lots of questions, some easy to answer and others not so easy.
You didn’t move in together right away after your marriage—why not?

That’s one we’d have trouble answering, and how stupid and selfish would it be to lose America because of some silly-brained idea that it might be fun to “date” my husband instead of to live with him right away? I imagine myself saying,
I’m sorry, Baby Hope. I’d love to be there for you, to cuddle you and play with you and help your maman, but . . . well, I wanted to do things the American way when it came to getting married. Never mind that I lost my freedom as a result.

Maybe I did have some secret desire to live alone, but that was before I married Ike. Before we made love. Before we sat together in front of his parents and endured their anger and made our pact to walk together on our path. We’re comrades now. Kindred spirits. United in a way we weren’t even a few days ago. I simply can’t get enough of him and his tender strength. Kissing him, giving myself over to him, is like a prayer; it affirms God.

The person I want to talk with about this is my friend Rose. She’s been on my mind so often as the past week unfolded—first in all its horror and then in all its beauty. The last time I spoke to her, I was still engaged to Masoud, still intending to move to Chicago with him. Rose and I said our sad good-byes—and now, on this beautiful Tucson morning, I want to say hello again.

I dress quickly. Usually, Maryam is the first to awake in the household, but I’m glad to learn from Ardishir, when I find him in the kitchen, that she’s still asleep. This saves me from having to explain why she’s never heard of Rose.

Five, perhaps ten years older than my mother, Rose has never married. We became friends when she found me foolishly hiding a pair of shoes in her front-yard bushes. They were a gift from Ike, and at the time, my friendship with him was a secret from Maryam, and so I needed to hide my shoes. Rose was very kind, very accepting of me, even though it was such a silly thing, and as the weeks and months went by, I found myself confiding in her like she was my mother—not the quiet, sad mother I have, but the generous, happy mother for which I’ve always yearned.

I take the same route to Rose’s house that I always take to English class, which winds through the large-lot homes in the historic El Encanto neighborhood. The houses, the yards, the cars in driveways—the street signs, the birds calling, the sounds of traffic from nearby boulevards—none of it is new to me, yet it all feels so different. But I think it’s me who’s different this morning. I’m no longer a guest in this neighborhood, in this town.

I live here now. Tucson’s my home. It’s where I’ll raise my family.

I cross Country Club Road at Sixth Street, then continue through a church parking lot on my way to Third Street. As I walk past the lively playground of an elementary school, I overhear two girls teasing a third:
Jake and Ella sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

Curious, I stop in midstride and turn my attention to Ella, the redheaded girl getting teased. She looks forward to falling in love; I can see it by the coyness in the smile on her freckled nine-year-old face. I shake my head in wonder, in openmouthed awe. I think, as I so often do:
This would never happen in Iran.

Nine-year-old girls in Iran do not shout gleefully on playgrounds in public view of passersby. They do not draw attention to themselves; they do not go to school with boys. They do not swing their long red hair and expect with Ella’s certainty that romantic love is in their future. And they do not sing of sitting in trees with boys, kissing and producing babies! In the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is nothing innocent about a moment such as this. I know—I was a teacher there. I gave it up, because it was just too hard, taking part in a system of forced prayer, forced
hejab
, forced adoration of those who martyred themselves for the regime. Life either is or isn’t precious—you have to choose what you believe—and I believe it is, or should be. It was too hard being part of a system I didn’t agree with, one in which girls receive world-class educations and then are smothered as they try to use them to better their world.

Today, I wonder what it would be like to be a teacher in America.

Here, I think I might like it.

Here, everything seems possible for these girls in front of me.

With my ever-present camera, here are the pictures I take: Ponytails. Bony knees. Short plaid skirts. That neon-pink Band-Aid on Ella’s bare arm. I blur out the boys in the background and keep my focus only on these girls and the way their white socks fold down to their ankles. The easiness of their smiles. They are unburdened, these girls. So fortunate as to take their good fortune for granted.

After I finish taking my pictures, I lower my camera and catch the eye of a sad-looking boy. He clutches the fence, as if desperate to escape the playground—indeed, as if desperate to escape his life. Back in Iran, I never paid much attention to boys. The stories I imagined for them—the lives I imagined they would one day lead—never seemed as sad as the ones I imagined for girls. But this American boy seems so lost. So lonely. So in need of something no one’s giving him.

I can’t give him much, but I give him what I have: My best pretty-lady smile. I also wave, but he just stares at me and continues to clutch the fence, and so I go on, his eyes haunting me long after I’ve left him behind. I wonder how anyone can be sad in America, and then I chastise myself. Everywhere in the world, there is happiness, sorrow, fear, longing, and love—and hate, too. These emotions are universal; only the particulars are different.

 

 

 

Even though it’s not yet eight thirty, I know Rose will have been awake for hours. However, she doesn’t answer her door, so I go up her driveway, past her not-so-new Honda Civic, and peek through the painted-pink iron gate. It’s there, in her backyard, that I find my Rose, on her knees before a flower bed, tending her garden.

“Excuse me, Rose?” My voice sounds loud in the still morning air, but it doesn’t reach her old-lady ears. I raise my voice and call again. “Rose? Excuse me, please. Hi! Hi, Rose!”

Finally, she turns, and the pleased look on her face warms my heart. “Oh, my—Tami!” she says. “Is it really you?”

“It’s really me!”

Rose works herself to her feet and comes to greet me, removing her gardening gloves as she does. “I’ve been watching the airplanes in the skies all week, wondering which one you were on.” She stops before me, reaches through the gate, and caresses my cheek. “How are you still here?”