
The boy who reminded me of me. Bastam, NE Iran.
TEHRAN, October, 2006—I step into a store to ask a question. There are, as usual, half a dozen friends and relatives of the proprietor sitting around chatting away the day instead of—God forbid—actually being productive.
I could be wearing my underwear on my head and they wouldn’t notice me, tangled so deep in some argument.
Then suddenly the room quiets and every eye is pinned on me.
I just said something that gave away my being a foreigner. I don’t even know what it was; too busy trying to act Iranian, trying to use hip terms to compensate for my nervousness.
I grin and sheepishly shuffle away.
My father says if I stayed eventually I would be able to fool people, “but right now”—he chuckles, then pauses, like he’s trying to think of words least apt to hurt my feelings—“you’re a foreigner. It’s obvious.
“I told you this before. Forget about having been born here. That doesn’t mean anything anymore.
“The country you were born in is long gone. The people whom you knew are long gone. And you’re a different person.
“Just think you’re visiting some other country as a tourist and you just happen to know the language. It will be easier on you.”
It’s good advice and this was exactly what I told myself repeatedly as I stepped off the plane a few days ago.
The good thing is that frustration fuels my appetite to write. I write and write and then I'm sitting in someone's home, being the good boy visiting from America, politely nodding and smiling at now-total strangers I last met when I was still mad at Santa Claus for not delivering to Moslem homes—and suddenly I'm pining to find a quiet corner and pull out the laptop.
[I can't though; way way too insulting to those present! I might as well bend over and moon them too.]
Being in Iran has so sensitized me to my own ignorance. I was born here, lived here until I was 15, studied it in graduate school, and thought I knew the place.
In fact, I hardly know anything about these people, I am finding out 28 years after I left, shortly before the Islamic revolution.
And then it hits me. My God, if I'm clueless, what about the fools huddled in underground war rooms on the other side of planet dreaming of post-invasion flowers and sweets?