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In 1988, when I met the man I'd eventually marry,
I asked him where he was born. His English was flawless and
his mannerisms American. It was only his name that marked
him as foreign.
"Persia," he replied.
Now, geography has never been my strong suit.
But Persia? Where the hell was that, next to Tunisia? I had
no idea. I at least should have known its capital, because
I'd memorized the capitals of the world back in elementary
school and still remembered most of them. (The capital of
Tunisia, by the way, is Tunis.) I'd asked this handsome fella
a simple question - now where was my simple answer?
"Where exactly is Persia?" I asked.
"I forgot."
His creamy-coffee eyes stayed polite, but I
swear he gave a little here-we-go-again sigh. "Well,
what was the Persian Empire eventually got divided up into
many of the countries of the Middle East, such as Iraq, Iran,
Afghanistan, Pakistan."
Mmmm Hmmm. This guy was cute, but quite the
tap dancer.
"Well, so what are you?" I asked it pointedly this
time.
After a pause: "I was born in Tehran."
A more polite person (or a lesser flirt) would have let him
off the hook. But not me. "So that must make you….?"
"Iranian," he finally said. "I'm Iranian."
I grinned, victorious. He smiled back at me graciously.
And so it began.
What I learned that day still holds true: Nothing about Iran
is simple.
=+=
I've met several Iranian women during their
first few months in this country, and I've had the great pleasure
of getting to see the United States through their eyes. It's
quite a gift, for a writer to get to see her world through
fresh eyes.
"What's the biggest difference between
American women and Iranian women?" I asked my new sister-in-law.
Her answer was immediate. "American women
have wrinkles around their eyes from laughing so much. The
skin of Iranian women is much smoother."
Laugh lines. That's how we're different.
Stories are quests, and writing a story about
a woman in search of laugh lines struck me as a great one.
People who've read Veil of Roses have told me
they've found Tami Soroush to be a very endearing character.
How, they asked, were you able to write from the point of
view of an Iranian woman in such a believable manner?
Here's what I did: I took my own life and subtracted
from it every facet I'd have to give up if I lived in Iran.
I quickly realized how much my world would shrink. My day
usually begins with a jog through town with Julie, my running
partner. In the hot Arizona summers, we wear the bare minimum
of clothing as we can get away with. Couldn't do that in Iran!
If some jerks drive by and honk at us, we can flip them the
bird if we want to. Couldn't do that in Iran!
You can take it from there. I subtracted all
those things from my life, then tried to figure out what I'd
add back in, and what qualities would most be needed to create
the sort of life I would want if I got to do it all over again.
In many ways, I think it's harder to be happy in life than
it is to be unhappy, because it takes a constant recommitment
to the very concept of happiness. And it takes courage to
refuse to settle for anything less.
It's the quest of a lifetime, and that's why
I made it Tami's quest as well. She was on a search for happiness
(her very name, Soroush, means happiness). She was on a search
for laugh lines. I think she was on the noblest of quests.
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"Have you seen the Persian cat yet?"
he asks her with a smile.
Eva snaps her head toward me and waits
for my explanation. She looks at me like I am the crazy
one.
"We don't have a cat," I assure
her and turn to Ardishir to scold him in Farsi. "Why
would you say something like this?"
He laughs and replies in English. "That's
the first thing Americans always ask when they come
to our home. Where's the Persian cat?"
Eva looks victorious. "That's exactly
what I asked, and Tami acted like I was crazy!"
Now Maryam giggles.
"What is a Persian cat?" I demand.
"I grew up there and I've never heard of such a
thing."
"They're those beautiful long-haired
cats. Sometimes they have blue eyes that look like they
glow," Eva tells me.
"I've never seen such a cat."
I insist. "Nor have I heard of such a cat."
Ardishir chuckles once more. "I had
to look them up in the encyclopedia at the library when
I first came here. Back then, I never wanted to say
I was from Iran, what with the hostage taking at the
American embassy. So I always said I was from Persia,
and few people knew what I was talking about. Without
fail, they'd say, Oh, you mean where Persian cats come
from, and Persian rugs? I'd always say, Yes, where the
rugs come from, exactly."
"I think the cats actually come from
England," Maryam says.
"Is this all people know of our culture?"
I ask in wonder. "Cats and rugs?"
"Pretty much," Eva says. "Except
now we also think of veils and hostages."
"And the Ayatollah Khomeini denouncing
America as The Great Satan," says Maryam.
"And angry men in the streets yelling
Death to America," adds Eva.
"This is horrible," I say in
exaggerated misery and clutch my hands to my hair.
Maryam shrugs. "They see what the
news shows them."
"But we're wonderful people,"
I insist. "We are good people making the best of
a bad situation."
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