The truth is that’s why I’m writing all this. Behind me is the elemental fiend of my memories crumbling into powder. I watch an arm disintegrate and instantly forget what was there.
Did I ever hug Baba Haji? What was that like?
Did he smell like a farmer or a shepherd? He was both.
Did his arms feel strong?
You don’t get to choose what you remember.
A patchwork memory is the shame of a refugee.
Did I tell you that already?
I could still tell you how I left the toys in my room. How many Orich bars I left in that bus cushion. But I couldn’t tell you what it feels like to have a grandpa.
I also forgot Italian when I learned English.
I also forgot all the bad things about my dad when I met Ray.
I also forgot my granddad on my mom’s side, but he’s less important because I think he’s a killer who married a child bride.
* * *
THE FARTHEST BACK I can remember on my mother’s side is a meadow outside the house of my great-grandmother—who we called Aziz.
Cutting straight across the meadow was a secret tiny river no wider than the length of my arm. I could hop back and forth, or straddle it like a giant. The green grass on either side was tall enough to flop over the banks and hide the river—that’s why it was secret.
If you looked from the house window, you’d see a crazy kid jumping ziggy-zaggy across the field. But the almost underground river wasn’t a brook or creek. The water flowed through it at river speed. If you slipped when you did a straddle jump and a foot went in the water, it would grab your ankle and yank.
I remember squatting by it and staring at the clear water rushing over the stones. My little hand wasn’t enough to block it. A few yards up the river, my sister put her hand in the river, but her hands were bigger, so every once in a while the water would stop and the stones would glimmer and tiny fish would flop between them. I would shout and she would lift her hand, and the water would come rushing back.
I believed—as deeply as you can believe anything—that one of those fish would pop its head above the water and speak to me like in the 1,001 Nights stories, because I was the one who told my sister to make the river flow again.
It would say, “O, happy boy, may the wise and eternal God bless you for saving me.”
I would reply, “He is wise indeed,” showing I’m a good guy in the story who believes in God, and not one of those djinns who speak against him.
Then the fish would go on, “But still, I am drowning in sorrow if not in air. I was once the prince of a great green city on the banks of a river one thousand times bigger than this, with skiffs and feluccas, and galleons sailing on it to bring my people silk, spices, and animals as you have never seen from the corners of the world.”
“What happened, honorable prince?” I would ask, “What brought you low?”
The fish would say, “I will tell you a tale passing strange and wondrous as a warning, so that what happened to the ox and the baker and my great green city might not happen to you.”
“Tell me,” I would say, “Tell me, please, Mr. Fish. Tell me the warning.”
Even though I would ask three times, the prince fish would dart suddenly back into the water and swim downstream.
To lose something you never had can be just as painful—because it is the hope of having it that you lose. The hope that in this world, there are magical fish who will give you advice and warning, when really, the future is unknowable and infinitely dangerous.
The story of the magical fish is just a nice thing I imagined. I never had anything like that. I remember hearing my sister walk across the meadow from upstream. “Hey Khosrou,” she said. “What’re you doing?”
I shrugged. The magic fish was long gone.
“Let’s play a game,” she said.
We played a game where she would stand upstream and drop a combination of wildflowers into the river. I would wait downstream and shout what I saw. “Yellow, red, red, blue.”
“No, it was red, yellow, red, blue.”
That was it.
Not really a game.
I would scoop the flowers out of the water and arrange them into piles. I could give them to Aziz, I thought. She would forgive that we had emptied her meadow.
The last set of colors was, “Yellow, blue, brown—”
When I scooped it out, I screamed, because it was a wet mushy poop. I threw it down. I smelled my hand. There was some left. I shook my hand and wiped it on the grass. I stuck it in the river, but my sister said, “There’s more in there.”
A new bulb of sewage flowed past. I pulled my hand out and shuddered. “There’s a woman up there washing diapers,” said my sister, nodding upstream.
My pile of flowers was ruined.
My magic river was just a drainage gully.
The game all along was to get my hand in a sewer.
* * *
I HEARD THIS ONCE:
When the immigrants came to America, they thought the streets would be paved with gold. But when they got here, they realized three things:
1. The streets were not paved with gold.
2. The streets were not paved at all.
3. They were the ones expected to do the paving.
* * *
THE TRUE STORY OF AZIZ is more interesting than a magic fish anyway, and took place beside a real river called the Aras. When she was a little girl, she lived in a big house surrounded by saffron fields. Do you know about saffron? Should I explain it? Okay, I’ll explain. It’s a spice that comes from pulling tiny threads from the middle of a flower. It’s delicate and impossible to harvest with machines—you have to pinch them out of the flower by hand. In fact, I bet it’s even more valuable than gold.
Aziz’s dad was a khan for owning all the fields. They say he rode his horse in top hat and tails—he was a gentleman farmer.
And they say he was kind to his workers. When the girls returned from the fields to the big house, everyone at the house could hear their laughter, because saffron has an aroma that makes people happy. Sometimes a warm rain would soak the fields and the flowers would give off their deep red color—rivers of red, like the yolk of sunset burst over everything. The workers’ hands would be stained yellow; so would the ankles of the khan’s white horse.
Aziz was the little princess of the khan’s grand floral sea. She read her books in the open courtyard sitting on the inlay tiles of the fountain, one foot dangling on each side, with an eye always on the horizon.
When her father’s hat peeked over the hill, and the laughter of the harvesters was a far-off chime, Aziz would run into the house to tell everyone, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
Aziz ran back across the orchard to the bonfire. The old cook got his kiss on the cheek from the princess, waited for her to leave, and began barking orders. The whole house prepared for the feast. Even Aziz. Her job was to fill two bowls with fresh yogurt from the sacks hanging in the basement larder, where the floor was packed dirt, and where the old cook kept his pickling jars.
Soon the dinner carpet was full with trays of kebab, grilled onions and tomatoes, platters of fresh chives, green and purple basil, cilantro, radishes, and dill. The mountains of steaming basmati rice were capped with drizzles of saffron butter. A stew of chickpea, lamb, crispy shallots, and fried mint was the khan’s favorite.