Because I Said So (32 page)

Our original wedding was on a bluff overlooking Tomales Bay, California. We created an untraditional wedding ceremony

“from whole cloth,” as the saying goes, writing our own vows and commissioning a rendition of
The Owl and the Pussycat
for violin and double bass. Overwhelmed by nuptial details, Farhad let his mother direct the Iranian portion of the wedding. Guity and her friends prepared the
Sofreh-ye Aghd
: a satin cloth laid out with candles, eggs, flowers, and sweets. During the ceremony they held a silk canopy over our heads while our guests rubbed pillars of sugar above it to ensure sweetness in our marriage. And Farhad’s sister Nasie surreptitiously instructed my sister to sew a few stitches into the canopy, a tradition that symbolizes sewing shut the lips of my future mother-in-law.

Following that ceremony, however, there was little Iranian flaI r a n i a n R e v e l a t i o n

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vor to our daily lives. It wasn’t until we became parents that I began to wonder what of my husband’s Iranian heritage would be passed on to our children. We gave them Iranian names, but would they speak Farsi, or be familiar with Iranian folktales? And who would teach them? It was beyond my scope, but it didn’t seem important to Farhad. When it came time for “family sharing” at Leyla’s preschool, I dragged Farhad in to present
Noruz
, the Iranian New Year. I had researched the holiday on the Internet and printed out pictures for the kids to color in. However, it took us a few years to transition from presenting
Noruz
at school to celebrating it at home. As Leyla got older and more captivated by ritual and tradition—and more curious about what it meant to be Iranian—our
Noruz
celebrations became more elaborate. But it was also clear that if we were going to observe
Noruz
or anything else Iranian, I was going to have to organize it. Farhad, seemingly indifferent to his heritage, had left the mining of his culture to me.

Farhad left Iran when he was just sixteen, sent to the U.S. by his parents in 1979 to escape the revolution. From his perspective it was a great adventure, liberating him from a protected childhood. Once here, he focused on blending in as best he could.

When I met him in college, he was barely distinguishable from his young male counterparts—a smart, funny, basketball fan with only a slight foreign mystique about him. And even though I’d known him thirteen years by the time we got married, I knew next to nothing about his Iranian past. He rarely mentioned it.

Instead, after Nasie moved to the Bay Area and we’d spent more time with her family and friends, I realized how
un
-Iranian he was. Nasie’s friends marveled at his nontraditional, enthusiastic parenting style and his renowned abilities in the kitchen—“such great
pad thai
,” they’d whisper to me, eyes wide.

Slowly, over time, the Iranian touches in our family life expanded beyond
Noruz
. Farhad served up pomegranate margaritas to our dinner guests and created his own version of the traditional
noon panir sabsi
appetizer, adding olives, dates, and nuts to the bread, cheese, and greens. Authenticity was less important than providing a tasty conversational gambit at parties, especially
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in a city where people are almost competing to be the most ethnic.

But aside from adding to the multicultural demographics at Leyla’s school, I still wasn’t sure what our children would gain from their Iranian bloodline. Would an interesting cuisine be all they absorbed of the culture? Would they feel cheated out of half of their heritage someday? Or would they just want to be thoroughly American, as their father had seemed to become?

Now, with our son’s imminent arrival and the pressure mounting for us to make good on our promise to visit his parents, it was time for Farhad to assume his Iranian mantle in earnest and get us married. After scouring the Iranian Yellow Pages, he found someone who would perform the ceremony. We drove with two friends—our witnesses, Fran and Arlene—to our appointment with Mehri, a smartly dressed woman who welcomed us into her small apartment.

Mehri began with counseling for the infidel. Sitting beside me on a couch, she looked me in the eye and informed me that I must give up allegiance to my Christian god. I stared back at her and nodded. I must become a devotee of Allah and subscribe to the teachings of the prophet Mohammed. Again I nodded, somehow maintaining eye contact. She knew I was lying. This was a marriage of convenience. I just wanted to sleep in the same hotel room with my husband.

After my drive-through Persian Pre-Cana, Mehri put Farhad on the spot. “What are you going to give your wife?” she demanded.

Farhad, unfamiliar with the Persian custom of giving a special wedding gift to his bride, stared at her blankly. “You must give her a present,” she insisted. “What about jewelry?”

“I’ve already given her a lot of jewelry,” Farhad sputtered. At this point Fran and Arlene chimed in, indignant that Farhad would try to shirk his culturally mandated responsibilities. He reluctantly suggested that he would buy me something. But Mehri demanded details—she was writing them into our marriage contract. “Gold?” she asked. “Diamonds?” Farhad was as vague as she’d let him be, and we got on with the ceremony. In the end she handed us a tacky certificate with a border of dot-matrix hearts,
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encased in a blue plastic folder. This hardly seemed a substantial foundation for my new citizenship, or my now official status as an Iranian wife in good standing.

Two years into our Muslim union,
I had seen no signs of wrath from Allah. Nor had I seen any significant jewelry, gold or otherwise. And we still hadn’t applied for our Iranian passports. But our son, Kian, was sixteen months old, and the pressure to visit Iran had intensified. We made a plan to take the kids in September of 2003, after the initial crisis of the Iraq war had settled down.

Despite years of cultivated apathy, Farhad was excited about taking the kids to see where he’d grown up. I was excited too, and curious. I wondered if the kids would be fascinated or bored, and whether the close-knit Iranian family would be cozy and welcoming or overpowering. Would Farhad come back with a renewed interest in the culture that he would want to share with Leyla and Kian? I was also wary about playing the Iranian wife, concerned about the unclear cultural expectations for an American mother of half-Iranian children. When I first met Farhad’s family, Farhad and I had been a couple for only a short time. And although I made great efforts to be warm and courteous—nodding and smiling as people chatted in Farsi all around me—it wasn’t enough.

Farhad could tell me only after the fact that I’d been perceived as cold and passive. Since then I’ve evolved in their eyes from the American girlfriend (whose loyalty to their son/brother/cousin was reflexively questioned) to a devoted wife and mother. I’ve won Guity over—sending pictures of her grandchildren and writing long letters detailing our daily life. Nonetheless, I knew that I would need to be on my best behavior in Iran for the sake of my husband and to set an example for my thoroughly American children. But meeting the standards of conduct in Iran would be a challenge, and I wasn’t sure how much direction I would get from Farhad, even now.

Preparation for our journey continued with pictures for our new passports. In compliance with Islamic law, I covered my head
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with a large paisley shawl I’d dug out of a drawer, and smiled for the camera. Leyla, then six, dressed up in a leopard print velour ensemble, brushed her hair, and smiled widely. Even Kian, held up against the wall in his jammies, presented a happy face. Then we enlisted Nasie’s help. She rejected my passport picture, which revealed my hair and neck. So I pulled a black turtleneck partially on so that only my face was showing. In the final picture, I looked grim and repressed. Perfect.

Once we’d completed the paperwork, it didn’t take long for our new passports to arrive. And before we knew it, September was upon us. The usual flurry of back-to-school mania was magnified by preparations for our trip. In the midst of all this, Farhad assumed an altered state. He often departs for his business trips before he actually leaves the house, his mind far away from home as he gathers and packs his things. But this time it was different: maybe it was the prospect of bringing his new family to his old home, or the pressure of having to buy gifts for everyone we would encounter in Iran—

from his parents and other relatives to the man who waters the pomegranate trees in his father’s orchard. His father had sent a lengthy list with requests for items he can’t get in Iran: disease-resistant tomato seeds, Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia, and human insulin

“to be kept cold throughout the journey.” Recognizing that this was not my husband and that the normal ground rules no longer applied, I adopted a “yes, dear” attitude that I suspected I’d have to maintain until we were home from Iran.

Nasie, veteran of many trips back home, came by one day with two huge rolling suitcases. Once these were filled to the brim with gifts and requested items I dragged them to the front hall where they sat, a huge hulking presence. I could barely lift them, but they were mine to carry for the first leg of our journey, along with my own luggage and the two kids. Farhad, traveling ahead of us to Paris, didn’t want to be burdened with extra luggage on his business trip. After I pressed him, he agreed to take one of the huge bags, but joked, “You’re a second-class citizen, baby, get used to it!” I wondered how much this would be true in the weeks to come.

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Driving Farhad to the airport the next day, happy at having been relieved of one of the suitcases, I was back in “yes, dear”

mode until Farhad mused, “You know, last time Nasie came back from Iran, she was by herself with
five
huge suitcases and two children. And one kid had diarrhea.” Resisting the urge to slam on the brakes and throw him and his luggage onto the side of the highway, I replied through gritted teeth, “If I had no choice but to carry fifteen suitcases and two vomiting children with me to meet you in Paris I certainly
could
. However, I was hoping you’d be happy to help me out.” I dropped him and his luggage at the curb and parked the car. When I met up with him in the terminal, Farhad apologized, back to his normal self again for the few minutes before he passed through security.

Still in America, I was already between two cultures, balancing both the familiar responsibilities of an American working mother and the unfamiliar assignment of Iranian wife. I spent my last precious afternoons driving around in search of the remaining items for Dr. Farzaneh. In addition to his list, I had myriad lists of my own: the list of things I had to do before leaving for three weeks, like informing my clients I’d be gone and getting keys to the house sitter; the list of toys and food that would keep my kids entertained and emotionally stable during the long plane trips; and the list of clothing I’d need to buy to comply with the Islamic dress code and still remain somewhat cool and comfortable. September is extremely hot in Iran, and according to Islamic law I would be required to cover my hair, shoulders, arms, legs, and ankles and conceal the shape of my body. All females over the age of nine must wear a
hejab,
or head scarf, a baggy trench coat, and trousers. I’d received no direction from Farhad in this area, and now he was gone. So I bought baggy linen pants and a linen overcoat—things I’d never wear at home—

and hoped for the best.

Predictably, the solo-parented flight to Paris was long and hellish, thanks to my screaming, writhing, kicking toddler. The next morning, in Paris, reunited with my husband, I folded my Western clothes and packed them, along with my American passport, deep in my suitcase. I put on the baggy linen pants and
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stuffed the jacket and paisley scarf in my carry-on bag. Though Nasie had rejected this scarf for my passport picture, Farhad had assured me that it would be fine in Iran: the rules in the street are less strict than for a passport. “That picture was going deep into the belly of the beast,” he explained. But at the airport, I looked around self-consciously at the Iranian women milling about the airline counter. There was a wide range of dress, from sophisti-cated Parisian pantsuits to black
chadors
—the all-encompassing head and body covering worn by traditional Muslim women. I felt like a peasant in my baggy linen trousers. Perhaps I should have worn more tailored pants instead. Were
any
other women wearing sandals? And when did I need to put my scarf on? Farhad didn’t know.

The closer we got to the gate, the more homogenous the crowd became, and the more the kids and I stood out. Even if my clothes had been more in line with what the Iranian women were wearing, my bright blue eyes would have given me away. The kids’ eyes are brown like their father’s, but their light hair betrayed their mixed blood, especially Leyla’s wavy, strawberry blond corona.

When we landed in Tehran, the women around me slipped on their scarves. Theirs were small and sheer, nothing like my heavy, woolen shawl. I struggled to get it on and keep it from slipping while carrying Kian and my bag off the plane. A man commented to Farhad in Farsi, “How can you possibly explain to a foreigner what we ask them to do in our country?”

In the crowded airport lobby we looked for Guity, who had traveled to Tehran from Farhad’s family home in the southern city of Shiraz to meet us. I spotted her and smiled—I hadn’t seen her since Leyla was a newborn. She stared blankly at first, not recognizing me with my head covered. Then she reached out her arms, laughing and crying at the same time.

As Guity dried her tears, Kian sprinted away from us across the lobby. I caught up to him just as he ran through the door to the outside. When I tried to re-enter the airport, I was stopped by an armed guard. At first I panicked—I had no money, no identifi-cation, and I couldn’t speak the language; I wasn’t even sure that
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