Together Tea (15 page)

As Mina crossed Queens Boulevard, she wondered for a moment if a new girl, from another traumatized country, hovering in a plane above the U.S. for the first time, would see those millions of lights that had stunned Mina when they first landed in America. And if that new girl could see from her plane, amidst the many shining bright lights, the flicker from B&K's Pizza where Baba dashed back and forth, the flashing sign from Wa-g Dry Cleaning where Darya sat stitching, and the light of the streetlamps under which Mina hurried home.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Yellow Blossoms and TV News

S
pring in Queens brought bursting purple flowers, tinges of pink and white on previously bare trees and tiny yellow blossoms that carpeted car hoods, wedged themselves into the crevices of baby carriages, and nestled into Mina's black hair.

Mina walked to school, her stomach full from Darya's food. Darya had mastered the art of food shopping in Queens. Israeli pickles from the kosher deli, melon from the Korean grocer's, ground walnuts from the Ukrainian lady, and baklava and turmeric and tea from the Iranian shop.

The Iranian shop in Rego Park was small and smelled like home. The owners were the Hakimians, Iranian Jews who had moved to America right after the revolution. The sign outside said “Persian Gourmet Foods” in English, but a smaller Farsi sign read “Maghazeye Irooni”—Iranian Shop. Mina and her brothers quickly learned that in America, “Iran” was a bad word associated with terrorists, mullahs, and hostage-taking.

“Just say ‘Persian' and make it easy for yourself,” Kayvon advised. “People associate ‘Persian' with good stuff—like fancy rugs and fat cats.”

“Fat, really cute cats,” Hooman said.

“Cats?” Baba looked up from practicing chopping tomatoes, looking as if he might explode. “Kittens? ‘Persian' should remind people of the empire that stretched from one side of the East to the other. The empire that set a new global standard, contributed mountainfuls to astronomy, science, mathematics, and literature, and had a leader, Cyrus the Great, who had the gumption to free the Jewish people and declare human rights!
That
empire! You can't be shortsighted when you look at history. History is long!” Baba was shouting now. He continued to slice tomatoes. “Cats! What have we been reduced to?”

THAT WEEK IN CLASS, MRS. KRUPNICK
assigned each student a state to research in detail. Mina got New Mexico. She memorized New Mexico's official state flower, the colors of its flag, and details about its geography. She learned where all the states were on the class map. There was no world map in class, only one of the U.S. Most of her classmates gave blank stares when Mina mentioned where she was from.

Only one boy knew.

“You from that place that took the hostages.” Julian Krapper's speckled blue eyes grew wide. “I know about that.” He flicked his pencil.

Mina burned with shame and anger when Julian brought up the hostage crisis. It was a story she wished would go away. But Julian went on and on unless Mina gave him what he wanted.

“Hey, Mina! Did you feed your camel this morning?” Julian asked. “Has your dad washed his head rag?”

Most of Darya's homemade meals from Mina's lunch box were handed over to Julian, and Mina obliged only to stop his yacking.

One yellow-blossom spring day, Mrs. Krupnick allowed the class to eat lunch at the playground because it was so nice outside. Mina sat on a bench under a huge tree and took out her enameled tin lunch box. Before she could take a bite out of her
kotelet
sandwich, a shadow appeared on the ground near her. She knew it was Julian Krapper without even looking up.

“What did Mama make today? Give it up.” He waved his hand near Mina's face.

Mina tried to ignore him.

“I said give me it!”

Darya had stood in the kitchen the night before, frying the
kotelet
after her shift at the dry cleaner's. Mina remembered how Darya had leaned against the counter after she was done, her face sallow and exhausted.

“They're not for you,” she said in her best unaccented English.

“Excuse me? Hostage taker, did I hear you correctly?”

“I said, it's not for you.”

“Listen, I-RAIN-ian. Do you want me to remind everyone about your mullah country again?” Julian's hand remained in Mina's face. “Because you know I will. Half these kids are so dumb they don't even know we have a terrorist in our class now. I'll tell them all about your backward-ass country and how it took Americans hostage for 444 days.”

“Go ahead,” she said. “Tell them.” Her body felt limp but her heart was beating faster and faster.

Julian lowered his hand. He walked toward the rest of the kids, ready to unleash a tirade of Mina-insults so that everyone would hear.

But before Julian could say a word, Mina stood up,
kotelet
sandwich in one hand, and the yogurt-seltzer drink
dough
that Darya had made in the other.

“I DIDN'T TAKE THEM!” Adrenaline pumped through Mina. “Got it? It wasn't me. It wasn't every Iranian. So shut the hell up and learn some history!”

Silence filled the playground. Julian Krapper froze. Mina could feel the stares drilling through her body like the sewing needle piercing through the clothes that Darya tailored.

Julian Krapper grew red and marched toward her. He came so close to her she could see every single speck in his bright blue eyes. His breath smelled of milk and soda. He held her chin with grubby, warm fingers.

“You'll be sorry,” he whispered.

Mina thought of Bita, how she always stood up for herself no matter what, how she didn't let Mrs. Amiri or anyone get the better of her. She thought of when Bita had linked her pinky finger with Mina's and said that their happiness couldn't be smothered.

“You know nothing.” Mina stared at Julian.

He let go and backed away, squashing yellow blossoms under his sneakers as he walked back to join his cronies. Mina couldn't believe how quiet the playground had become.

She sank back onto the bench, drained. Her fingers had stayed curled around Darya's
kotelet
sandwich during their exchange. Mina reached into her lunch box for a napkin, and found instead that Darya had packed the handkerchief embroidered with two yellow lemons that Mamani had made in that other world. The sight of that handkerchief and its old ink stains made Mina's heart tighten. Her arms felt limp. She remembered washing that hanky under the faucet in the school bathroom in Tehran. Walking back into the classroom, Bita looking up to check if she was okay, and later, Bita being sent to detention for identifying the whiskey bottle. What Mina would give to have Bita appear next to her right now and sit under that yellow-blossom tree with her. What she would give to talk to her old friend again.

Mina watched the other kids from a distance. Some boys took Michelle's jacket from another bench and stuffed it with leaves. Michelle and her friends squealed and tried to grab her jacket back, fake-screaming in that delighted we're-getting-attention-from-the-boys way. After a short chase, Michelle finally caught up to the boys, and she and Chad half-wrestled, half-just-got-mangled-and-touched. The chorus of girls soared in their squealing.

Mina leaned back. Blossoms fell around her forming a thick carpet of yellow on the ground. The bell rang. Lunch was over.

Mina did her best to create that yellow-blossom carpet in art class later that afternoon. She worked hard on her painting.

LATER THAT NIGHT, MINA TOLD
Darya about Julian Krapper. Instead of suggesting that Mina show him a miniature Persian painting, recite a Rumi poem, or have him over for Persian food to discuss Cyrus the Great (all of which Baba would have recommended in order to introduce Julian to the greatness of the culture he was missing), Darya just shrugged.

“
Velesh kon
. Let him go. He doesn't understand. He's confused Iranian people with their government. It's not his fault. It's that TV.”

Then Darya sighed as though the TV were a ranting abusive uncle torturing poor Julian Krapper.

Mina dreamed that night that she had punched a hole in the TV screen and toppled it over. She jumped up and down on the broken TV as miniature news anchors ran away. Mina lined up the network anchor figurines in a row and told them they had to start showing her country in a fairer way. Show the normal people, not just the crazy leaders. The TV anchors nodded and obeyed, promising it would be so. At the end of the dream, Mina shook hands with all three news anchors, holding in her fingers their tiny hands.

BABA AND DARYA LIVED FOR
the network evening news. When it was on, they hushed the whole family into silence and sat transfixed, waiting for a vision, any glimpse of that other country. Baba switched between CBS, NBC, and ABC—the three major networks. There was a sense of anticipation, hunger, mostly hope. But the news about Iran only contained clips of chadored women and bearded fanatical men. Sometimes there was footage of the Iran-Iraq War: pubescent soldiers with bandanas jumping out of army vehicles in the desert. The camera always cut back to the news anchors: Dan or Tom or Peter, where they sat in their perfect studios, cleanly shaven and calm, the picture of civilized men. Mina could practically smell their cologne and their minty breath. In perfectly modulated voices, Dan/Tom/Peter elaborated on the footage. So measured and controlled compared with that excitable riffraff in the Middle East.

Mina hated the news. It only gave Julian Krapper fresh fodder.

One evening after Dan showed a chaotic street in Tehran, Baba looked around, giddy. He put down his bowl of pistachios.

“Did you see,” he asked in an excited voice. “The beet seller's wagon? Did you see the beet seller?”

Hooman, Kayvon, and Mina stayed silent. Mina had seen bearded angry men in a mob, but she'd neglected to notice a beet seller's wagon.

“I did!” Darya piped up, like a child answering a question in class. “I did!”

“I could almost smell the beets!” Baba's face glowed.

Darya straightened the pleats on her skirt. “You don't suppose”—she looked up at all of them—“that there was a
balal
seller too?”

Balal
. Corn barbecued on a grill, then dipped in salt water. Suddenly Mina could smell the
balal
and feel the breeze from the peddlers' bamboo fans waving over the grill. The sweet and salty taste of barbecued corn filled her mouth.

“Perhaps,” Baba said. “There very well could've been a
balal
seller.”

“Nice to know the regime's not falling apart this week,” Hooman said. “Hasn't toppled yet, has it? And the war. Doesn't look like they'll be signing a peace pact anytime soon. Guess I can stop holding my breath. Cuz we're going back, ANY DAY NOW, right, Baba?”

Kayvon raised his eyebrows the way he did anytime Hooman made one of his this-will-get-under-Baba's-skin comments.

“Is this”—Hooman pointed to the TV—“the culture you want us to be proud of? Because it doesn't seem like I should be proud of that. And I'm not.”

Baba's arm stopped in midair on its way to the pistachio bowl.

Darya froze, her head cocked to the side, arms bent at the elbows, like one of the mannequins she now tailored on.

Mina sucked in her breath.

Kayvon shook his head again.

Like a soldier jumping into action, Baba dove toward the coffee table. With a sweep of his arm, he collected five or six thick books. Mina saw him flutter desperately through the pages. She knew he was searching for the most poignant accomplishments of the Persian Empire. Kayvon leaned in and tried to help his father. Hooman rubbed his face with his hand, resigned. They all knew that Baba would soon be telling them about their thousands of years of history and the many reasons they should be proud of their heritage.

Darya left the room then but came back and stood in the doorway after only a few minutes. She held a book, casually, as though she'd just come back from the bedroom where she happened to be reading on a nice spring evening.

It was the blue leather cover that made Mina's heart skip a beat. It was the golden lettering. It was the memory of the last time she'd seen that book, nestled into her grandmother's arms, lying next to her on burgundy carpeted cushions, hearing Mamani's voice read aloud from her book of poems.

Mina's knees weakened and she found herself sinking to the floor. She could feel the softness of the upper part of Mamani's arm against her head. She could smell the tea brewing on the samovar, the sound of her grandfather's voice. The living room in Queens with its TV set and coffee-table books melted away. She was there again, next to her grandmother, the big carpeted cushion scratching her elbow, the song of the evening prayer coming in from the loudspeakers outside. Mamani recited the poems loudly, confidently, proudly. Their stomachs were full from Mamani's thick
aush
soup. They had sat like that together, read like that. They had been like that.

Mina sat on the floor now, on her knees. To stop her body from shaking, she rested her forehead on the ground. She was crouched in a child's pose.

Hooman, Kayvon, and Baba were still studying the coffee-table books. “All of this was Persia,” Baba said as his fingers tapped across what must have been a map page. “All of this!”