The Middle of Everywhere (7 page)

The same thing happened to us at this play.
State Fair
was a total conundrum to the family. They couldn't understand the cornball, out-dated language. They didn't know what a state fair was. They had never heard of a "lickin'," a competition for prize pigs, or the game of horseshoes. They clapped at the right times, but they might as well have been watching Kabuki theater.

At one point, when the judge in the play was getting drunk from eating brandy-soaked mincemeat, Shehla asked me if he had eaten some sour pickles and was getting sick. At another point, on the fair midway, women dressed in skimpy, faux Mideastern silk pants and scarves danced erotically to lure men into a striptease show. Tanya beamed proudly to witness such beautiful Kurdish women represented in an American play. I didn't have the heart to tell her they represented the sleaze factor at the state fair.

The sisters left the musical only vaguely aware of what happened to these apron- and overall-clad farmy Iowans. Graciously Zeenat said she liked the pines in the park and Leila admired the full moon.

Zeenat and the sisters arrived at our house with Tanya's famous biryani. They'd bought the meat from an Arab grocer who had killed the lamb that day. It was a typical Fourth in Nebraska, about ninety-five degrees with 90 percent humidity. The air smelled of smoke and gunpowder and Lincoln boomed with a frenzy of fireworks. It was so noisy outside that we couldn't talk. Firecrackers exploded next door. Dogs barked because their ears hurt.

Leila wore cotton slacks and a simple top, but the other sisters were in fancy holiday summer wear—tank tops, short shorts, and lots of makeup. Shireen had a Madonnaesque outfit with a little porkpie hat. She carried a small American flag. Tanya wore a low-cut black silk top and blue jeans. To the sisters, one meaning of freedom was the freedom to wear American clothes. I reflected that while their clothes were sexy, their intentions were innocent: a night with Jim and me sharing biryani and homemade ice cream, then going to see our city fireworks display.

We walked through my garden looking at flowers. Shehla smelled my wild sage and said it reminded her of the spices that grew wild in the Kurdish mountains. We took photos by the trumpet vines of this new American family in sexy American clothes waving a small American flag.

Later we drove to Holmes Lake for the big city fireworks display. Thousands of people were there, but eventually we settled in below the dam on a patch of grass. We lay down on blankets, so that we were looking at exactly the right piece of sky for the fireworks.

It was a happy time, all of us lying on blankets like sparklers in a box, a breeze came up, the stars came out, and we taught each other the Kurdish and English names for the constellations. Zeenat said this park reminded her of Islamabad, her highest compliment. Shireen waved her flag at passersby.

When the fireworks began to explode, we gasped at their beauty. But between bursts, the sisters said that the fireworks made them think of the bombs over Iraq. Tonight their favorites were the gold ones, the stars, and the ones that looked like golden rain or golden tears. Afterward we held hands as we walked back toward the car. We were all tired but happy to be celebrating together. On the way home, we drove past a man holding a sign that said
HONK IF YOU ARE AN AMERICAN
. I said to Jim, "Honk at the guy. We all are Americans." The family clapped. Shireen waved her flag.

On a September afternoon, the sisters, Zeenat, and I drove to a park along the Platte River. We drove past orange milo fields and men harvesting corn. The air smelled like we were inside a giant cereal box. It was a gorgeous day, blue sky, seventy degrees with the ten-foot-tall sunflowers blooming and red sumac and goldenrod in the ditches. It was a football Saturday with a Big Red game in Lincoln so the park was almost empty.

This was an old park with cottonwood trees and sand bottom lakes. We pitched our tents along the Platte. Nearby, coal trains passed on a regular basis. But when they were gone, we could hear birds singing and the gurgle of the Platte. The rustle of cottonwoods was hypnotic. So was watching the Platte meander toward the Missouri, its broad braided channel as slow moving as butterscotch pudding.

The geese were just beginning to move south, and occasionally overhead we would see a ragged V. A blue heron claimed a sandbar and we watched him as we talked. The girls noticed everything—a nuthatch walking down a tree trunk, the rose hips and poison ivy, the flop of a carp, and the dragonflies. Excitedly we planned our day.

Coming into the park, the sisters had seen a sign for horseback riding and they wanted to ride. They hadn't been on horses since their dramatic escape from Iran into Pakistan years earlier and I sensed this ride would be a corrective emotional experience. I agreed we would go tomorrow.

At first we were hot, but as the afternoon wore on and cicadas began to hum, the temperature dropped. Zeenat sat in a lawn chair and watched the Platte's muddy water roll by. Most of Zeenat's childhood had been spent outdoors. She seemed much more at home here than she did in the family's small Lincoln apartment. She rubbed Tanya's head in soothing therapeutic motions, an ancient remedy that went all the way back to the Stone Age. Tanya said it worked quicker than aspirin.

Meena, Shireen, and Shehla went swimming in a sandpit. They said lake water was alive, very different from swimming-pool water. It had layers, cool then warm, and little fish and currents. Meena said, "I wish we could stay here forever."

Shireen located my camera buried in a mound of camping gear. When I congratulated her on finding it, she said proudly, "I have always been good at finding things." Meena hugged me and said, "She found you for us."

Nasreen said the Platte reminded her of the Tigris River that flows through Baghdad. She said, "As a girl I walked along it every day. I read poetry on its banks. It was green, not brown like this, but it moved slowly and peacefully like the Platte."

I said that as a girl I had learned that the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers were the cradle of civilization. The sisters smiled proudly. I asked Nasreen if she read poetry now. She said no, that she couldn't read English. I encouraged her, pointing out that it wasn't too late to go to school. She said, "You haven't seen my credit card bill. I will work forever to pay it off."

I asked Shehla about her studies. She said she had gone to many schools over the years, but the schools were in different languages with different curricula. She said, "I have big gaps in what I know."

The sisters talked about their jobs. It was such tedious work and afterward they felt too tired to study. Leila asked me if my daughter had a job and I said, "Yes, she works for a nonprofit organization." Leila asked what shift she worked. I answered, "Day shift."

Tanya gestured at the beauty all around us and said, "We have spent our lives locked in little dark rooms. We love to be outdoors."

She spoke of all their journeys and losses and of the great sadness they all carried in their hearts. Shireen told of a lesson in writing class. The students were asked to make a life map, a time line with ten significant events. She said the American kids had no trouble, but she had a terrible time. The Americans listed birthdays, vacations, and maybe their grandparents' deaths. But all of her events were sad—escapes, family members being murdered, and things she couldn't write down because they were too painful to tell. She said, "I didn't do the assignment."

We prepared a beautiful ancient meal. Over the fire, using only sticks and their hands, Leila and Shireen roasted meat, corn, and potatoes. Tanya chopped eggs with some cucumbers and tomatoes. I'd brought a watermelon and an angel food cake baked by the Mennonites who sell cakes at the farmers' market. Zeenat helped me lay out plates and cups of lemonade. I served the watermelon, which Meena declared tasty. We ate under the rustling trees. It was one of the finest meals of my life.

At sunset the sun was a great orange ball with a three-quarters moon rising. We sat by the river and watched the sun go down. The river darkened and the bats came out. Shireen sang an ancient Kurdish song. We allowed our senses to feast on the scene. It is one the oldest of human pleasures, sitting by water with friends, watching the sun go down, and feeling the earth cool. Nasreen quoted a Persian poet writing about water and sunsets as "the place where gold and silver waters blend."

Later we gathered around a fire. Shehla and Nasreen had prepared strong tea,
chai
in Kurdish, in a silver pot. I taught them to roast marshmallows on our shish kebab sticks. They enjoyed the process more than the results.

Leila said that before the Muslim prophet, Mohammed, the Kurds worshiped fire. We talked about all people's love of fire, about what an ancient experience it was to sit with your friends, full and safe, around a fire, looking at the stars and telling stories. There is no happier experience for us humans.

We fell silent watching the fire, each of us deep in our own thoughts, all of us made calm and reflective by the time and place, by the rituals of food and family. One by one we peeled off and headed for our beds.

The next morning I was up first. I made coffee and then watched as a hundred geese lifted off the Platte. They flew across the pale blue sky toward the delicate pastel sunrise. Gradually one sister after another woke up. We fixed tea and shared a simple breakfast of bread and cheese. Meena said the wind, coming through the cottonwoods, scared them in the night. When a train roared through they wondered if it was a tornado. Slowly and reluctantly we packed up. I was glad we had horseback riding to look forward to. Even so, Leila pretended to cry as we left, and Tanya looked like she could cry.

As we drove to the horse camp, everyone was talking and pointing, eager to ride. The wrangler helped the women onto their horses. The sisters looked nervous but thrilled. Shireen took all their pictures. Meena borrowed a cowboy's hat and we all laughed at her Wild West look. We rode on a well-worn trail along the Platte and under old burr oaks. We rode past a flock of wild turkeys and a meadow of sunflowers. At one point Shireen shouted, "Look at me. I am in Iran. Now I am in Turkey. Now I am in Kurdistan."

The others all pretended they were riding their horses through the countries they had lived in. Then they had been hunted victims, afraid for their lives. Now they were in Nebraska with new American jobs, clothes, and dreams. In a different century, they would have been mothers in arranged marriages living nomadic lives. I would have been an Irishwoman digging potatoes and cooking with peat. But this afternoon we were in Nebraska. Today we were free, waving to each other and imagined crowds of well-wishers, riding proudly past sunflowers and prairie grass, riding into a future we would share.

The sisters wanted to see trick-or-treaters and carve pumpkins so we had a party at our house. It was good Halloween weather, windy and crisp, with the leaves blowing and branches hitting the houses in spooky ways. When I picked up the sisters, a storm was brewing in the west. It was snowing in the Sandhills, and Omaha had a tornado warning. Shehla was on the porch watching the sky. She ran toward me, shouting that she and Meena had passed their driving tests. Now three of the sisters could drive.

All the sisters came but Shireen, who worked night shifts. Zeenat came, too, eager to get out of the house. At my house Leila and Tanya took charge and happily cleaned and carved three pumpkins and a squash while the others watched admiringly. We put candles in the jack-o'-lanterns and displayed them on our porch. Then we took many Halloween pictures.

We had pizza delivered, but ate a sit-down dinner with candles and flowers. These little adornments were not much work, but they signaled a celebration. We toasted the new driver's licenses. We talked of school. All were discouraged by the big classes, the hard lessons, and the difficulties in finding time to study. Just coping with America took all their energy.

Tanya said they were exhausted after a day's work and the drive across town in rush hour traffic. Sometimes one of them would be kept late, and since they had only one car, the others would have to wait in the parking lot. Tanya felt demeaned by the work and insulted by the way she was asked to do things. She asked me for help controlling her temper. Nasreen worried about her credit-card bill with its high interest. She sighed. "I work all the time and I can never pay all my bills."

The older sisters had even considered returning to Pakistan or India, but Shireen and Meena wanted to stay in America. I worried about the possibility that the family would split up. Leila said, "Don't worry. We decided to always stick together."

Everyone groaned and laughed at the same time. We moved on to other topics—the quirks of our language, the geography and politics of America. The sisters reminded me of baby birds with open mouths hungry for food, only they had open hearts and minds and they were hungry for information. Their questions never stopped. "What's the name of that flower? What's the best way to drive to work? Is that the generator for your heat and air-conditioning unit? What is the purpose of a Pap smear? When does the Immigration and Naturalization Service send the permanent residency card?" They knew what they didn't know and they knew how to ask questions. This is a set of skills not all newcomers have.

Nasreen was upset by President Bush's bombing of Baghdad during the Gulf War and also by a news story about Kurdish refugees in a boat who had washed up in France. Seeing these incidents on television made them all realize how lucky they were, but also how badly the Kurds had it everywhere.

My friend Jill had baked us a sweet potato pie and the sisters sampled it carefully. Meena pronounced it tasty. She gave me a beautiful card thanking me for helping her learn to drive.

Soon Zeenat and the sisters were dancing Kurdish dances in our living room. They stood side by side, arms behind their backs, moving their hips and feet in a vigorous dance. Tanya then did her imitation of American sexy dancing. I jokingly warned her to not do it in public.