Just a Hat, page 8
Baba relaxed. This wasn’t turning into a public appeal for piano privileges. Joseph continued, “Recently I’ve run into some people who speak a lot of bad words. They call people names and try to embarrass them. Because I was wearing a kippah, I was called words that Baba won’t let me say in the synagogue . . . well, he won’t let me say them at home, either. And really, I don’t think those words should be said anywhere to anyone. Those words made me angry, and I got into a fight.”
Baba shifted and frowned again. Oops.
“But Baba gave me some good advice. He said that there are always people who will hate Jews. I guess they’ll hate anyone who is different. But Baba said there are always a few good people, and I should find them. I think these are the people who use good words to encourage others, not to humiliate them. These people are here today for me, and I hope that I can always be there for them. Thank you all for coming and reminding me that good words and good people go together. I hope to find many more as I go through life. Thank you.”
Joseph knew the candy was coming, so he pulled his new tallit over his head protectively as he ducked Shahla’s butterscotch missiles and the gentler showers of candy that accompanied the shouts of “Mazal Tov.” He grinned and whispered to himself, “. . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
18
HAT BAND
The reception was on the scale between upbeat and rowdy. A cousin informed Joseph that the local synagogue the family attended in Tehrangeles was fed up with the Persian immigrants. There was a proposal afoot to build them their own synagogue. Persians celebrated noisily, were prone to chatting during the service, and arrived late as a matter of course. It didn’t go over well with American Jews.
Rabbi Rothstein and the older men from the synagogue looked a little frazzled by the Iranian invasion and Farsi fun. For the most part, everyone had a good time, the Persians more so than the others. Mr. Ybarra was there with the twins. He was dressed so nicely in a Western suit, expensive ostrich boots, and a bolo tie, that he was nearly unrecognizable.
Thanks to the new electric cables, the Persian band was loud. The men danced in circles with the other men, leaping, twirling, and swaying. A few showed off by doing handstands. Some of the teenagers took turns jumping into the middle of the circle to do the worm or break dance. Joseph was sure he’d end up in a double knot if he tried either. He stuck with the shoulder-to-shoulder rhythm of the circle.
The band shifted to Middle Eastern modals and a heavy drumbeat. Mateo was a good sport, but Roberto really got into it. With a little coaching, Roberto did pretty good with the Persian dances. They required spreading and loosening one’s arms and hands and letting them undulate to the music. Morty Silver also danced like a drunken parrot, so beside him, Roberto looked like a professional.
Eventually, the men formed two lines facing one another across their side of the floor, and the two men at the end grabbed Joseph. With locked hands, they tossed him forward on his belly. It was a good thing he hadn’t eaten yet. That would make anyone lose his baba ganoush. Baba waited for him at the end, and the group collapsed around them. Joseph looked around for Rabbi Rothstein, but he didn’t see him. Maybe he’d taken a break from the Middle Eastern madness in his reception hall, or maybe he’d gone to his office to use his private bathroom. Must be nice.
Mateo returned to a table with Mr. Ybarra and LaLa, and they sat enjoying the hilarity. Mateo was probably taking mental notes for a social studies report on other cultures. LaLa was likely analyzing the band’s Middle Eastern style and testing it against her music textbook’s theory on Phrygian modals. No typewriter obituary music today. Surely her fall and spring recitals would be more interesting with some Middle Eastern music. Recitals Baba would never let Joseph be in.
When Joseph noticed his Israeli uncle Eli sampling the sweets, he joined him at the buffet. Time for the plan. Joseph grabbed a dessert plate and pretended to give the piles of honey-soaked pastries a careful look. “You sing as well as your father,” said Uncle Eli. “I’ll make sure you are called up for an aliyah at our synagogue when you come visit next summer.” The unwanted honor was sealed with a hearty, one-armed hug, and Joseph thought he felt something hard on his uncle’s hip. A gun? Seriously?
Shake it off, Joseph thought to himself. Work the plan. Ask him. “Uncle Eli, do you think we’ll ever go back to Iran? I’d like to visit the synagogue in Tehran.” There. Could there be any cleverer way to get Uncle Eli to say why they really left Iran?
What followed was a ten-minute Iranian history and politics lesson that made no sense at all. Uncle Eli gestured wildly, spilling baked sweets everywhere. He put down the plate when one hand wasn’t enough to describe how Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia had conspired to plunder a sovereign nation, and how greedy people and religious fanatics caused everything wrong in the world, and how it was impossible for a man to simply work a job and take care of his family in peace . . .
Uncle Eli was a human vacuum, and when anyone came close enough, Uncle Eli sucked them into the conversation. The little knot of men grew around the dessert table until it was swallowed. Joseph edged away. If there was an answer in Uncle Eli’s rant, it was buried in the melee. The men practically shouted at one another and waved their arms. To an outsider, a fight was about to break out. To a Persian, it was a nice chat. To Joseph, it was a dead end.
Joseph put down the plate and went back to the dance floor until he grew hot and tired. He took a break and joined Shahla at the punch bowl when he noticed Roberto talking to her way too long. “Your papá is looking for you,” Joseph said to Roberto.
Roberto grinned smugly. “No he isn’t,” he said, but he got the hint and wandered off.
Shahla rolled her eyes. “Bossy, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Joseph. “You should be used to it by now.”
“Cool it,” she said, and handed him a cup of punch. “I can take care of myself. I’ll talk to who I want to talk to.”
“Not when I’m around,” said Joseph.
Shahla threw a salted almond at him.
“Don’t you think Maman’s brothers from Israel are going a little too hard-core on this security thing?” asked Joseph. “I swear they are carrying pistols under those 1974 jackets. It’s nearly 1980 for heaven’s sake.”
“They are,” said Shahla matter-of-factly.
“How do you know?” asked Joseph.
“It’s just security, Youssef. You’re Jewish. You’re in a synagogue. There’s cars in the parking lot. Lots of people don’t like Jews. You don’t need to be an algebra whiz to figure that out. You can never have too much security,” said Shahla.
“Yeah, but . . .”
Shahla cut him a look, and he remembered.
“Sorry,” he said. “But where did they get pistols?”
Shahla shrugged in that way that said even if she knew, she wouldn’t tell him. Why was she so far out of the loop on some things, but so informed on others? When it came to being cautious, she was off the charts like the Israelis. Maybe it was because of how her parents died. Even if she didn’t know about the letters from Iran, maybe Shahla had picked up something they could piece together. Before he could ask her, Shahla went back to the women’s side of the dance floor.
19
HIGH HAT
His bar mitzvah was the most Shabbastic day Joseph could remember. The pretty girl that Joseph saw sitting with Shahla in the women’s section walked around with her. Joseph saw Maman’s Israeli brothers talking to the girl’s parents. It looked like more of an interrogation, but Israelis were kind of in your face like that. They wanted to know who you were and who you knew that they knew. Well, maybe that was more of a Jewish thing.
After an exhausting number of yai-yai-yais, Joseph took a break to eat something. He could eat light tomorrow to prepare for the fast. For now, he may as well load up on the abundance of Persian delicacies. After a cautious look around to make sure Uncle Eli wasn’t near the buffet, Joseph filled his plate and took a seat across from Shahla and the new girl. “Hey,” said Shahla in Farsi. “I found more Iranians, and I invited them. They’re glad to hear people speaking Farsi.” Shahla nodded to the girl, “Fereshteh, this is my cousin Youssef. He’s the bar mitzvah boy . . . excuse me . . . man. Youssef, this is Fereshteh.”
“Hello,” said Joseph. The girl had glossy black hair and eyes of copper like a lioness. Her nose was fine, not the norm for Persians, who tended to have big noses. Maman’s nose was a little big, but not bad. Baba’s wasn’t really big at all. Joseph checked his routinely to make sure his wasn’t getting too big.
“Hello,” said Fereshteh.
Shahla said, “Their family got out of Iran because things are getting so bad there. They ended up in Birmingham, Alabama, but then her father found a job in San Francisco, which is where they’re headed now. They stopped off here in Dallas for Shabbat and ran right into a Persian party. What are the odds of that?”
“Pretty slim,” said Joseph, who ran a few numbers in his head. No, you couldn’t calculate it without knowing how many Persian Jews lived in Alabama or whether this unfortunate family was the only one. It would be totally nerdy to say so though, and he was no longer a nerd. He was a jock. A Jewish man. He hadn’t missed a note or mispronounced one word in his Torah and haftara readings.
They chatted while they ate. When Shahla got up to go use the restroom, Joseph realized that Fereshteh’s lioness eyes were more like a cornered cat’s. She was FOB, a not-so-nice way that Los Angeles Persians referred to new immigrants. Fresh Off the Boat. Scared. Confused. Disoriented. Waiting for a fresh, steaming disaster of misunderstanding. Shahla was Fereshteh’s tiny island of security in a room full of strangers. Without Shahla, she was alone again, and she looked around for her parents.
“So you’re moving to San Francisco?” asked Joseph. “Are there Iranians there?”
Fereshteh’s FOB look deepened. “I don’t know. Baba says if there are Jews there, that’s enough to help us get established in a community, but until today, we’ve not met many Jews in America like us.”
Joseph nodded. He felt that burn in Hazel, but at least there were summer visits to Israel and occasional family events in LA. And there was Shahla to talk to every week and see at holidays. “How’s your English?” asked Joseph.
Another shade of worry crossed the copper eyes. Wrong thing to ask.
“I’m learning, and Baba speaks a little. Maman . . . very little.”
“My baba speaks really good English,” said Joseph. “Maman understands a lot, but it’s hard to get her to speak it. She should get out more, but it’s hard to make friends in the town where we live.”
“It looks like you have plenty of friends,” said Fereshteh.
“That’s the family from Los Angeles and some from Israel,” said Joseph. “They congregate for this kind of thing.” Joseph was getting tired of entertaining a sad girl, a girl facing hard times. Her life would get harder before it got easier. She needed something that she was good at to help her fit in, like math or football. Not much chance of that when you’re FOB.
“So is school in America hard?” asked Fereshteh.
“Nah,” said Joseph. “I mean, you have to figure out where you fit in and everything, and you’ll have to take English as a second language, and it’s hard to keep kosher in school . . .” Well, he wasn’t encouraging her much.
“Maybe we could write back and forth, and you could coach me,” said Fereshteh with all the hopeful sincerity of an abandoned puppy chasing every passing car up and down the highway.
“Are you kidding me?” said Joseph.
It came out wrong. All wrong. Her pretty face went from sad and hopeful to complete embarrassment. She blushed and looked down.
“I’m sorry,” said Joseph. “I mean . . . I have a girlfriend . . . and that’s a long way to . . .”
Abruptly, she stood and spun away, disappearing into the crowd.
Joseph knew he’d done something deeply wrong. He pushed away the feeling and got up to dance so he didn’t feel so mean. He danced only one dance before Shahla came up behind him and pulled him out of the men’s circle by the ear. She didn’t let up, either, and walked him out to the hallway. People grinned as Shahla pulled him along like a child leading a giraffe. Baba looked concerned, but he didn’t give chase. Baba knew that if Shahla was mad at him, there was a pretty good reason. Maman was inspecting the food table inventory and mentally calculating the amount of food in reserve down to the gram, so she wasn’t paying attention.
“Hey, let go,” said Joseph, and she finally turned him loose. “What was that for?”
“Youssef Nissan,” said Shahla. “You arrogant, mean, self-centered . . .”
“Hey, hey,” interrupted Joseph. “Take it easy. I didn’t mean it like it came out. I would have explained, but she just ran off.”
“So she outran you?” asked Shahla. “Mr. Football?”
“I’ll apologize,” said Joseph. “But it was inappropriate. Girls don’t ask guys to . . .”
“Don’t you even start that macho crap with me, Youssef. Do you have any idea how scary it is to be alone in a place where you don’t speak the language or know anyone . . . ?”
“Alright, alright. I’ll go apologize,” said Joseph, and he turned to the reception room door.
“It’s too late,” said Shahla. “They’re gone. I was going to give her my mailing address so that she could write me, but she was crying, so her baba and maman took her back to their hotel. Our uncles had already asked them a hundred nosy questions. Good job, Youssef. Very appropriate Torah portion for you. Jerk.”
Joseph sucked in his breath. “And die” was the difficult phrase of his Torah reading. He’d killed the sad girl with four words so he could get back to his party. And Shahla had used the worst insult in her limited vocabulary of insults. Jerk. That was a first time she’d ever called him one. He looked down. “Sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too,” said Shahla. “Sorry I introduced her to you. She was so impressed at how well you sang, and she thought you were so handsome. Just goes to show that people aren’t who you think they are.”
Fereshteh thought he was handsome?
“Not a great way to treat a Jewish girl, Youssef,” said Shahla. “Or any girl. It’s not like she asked you to marry her. Just be a pen pal.”
“I’m sorry, Shahla,” said Joseph. “Really, I am.”
Shahla searched his face. Joseph knew she’d forgive him, but she shrugged and left him standing there.
Back at the apartment, conversation with Shahla died once Baba and Maman retired for an afternoon nap. Shahla fell asleep on the couch. That left Joseph alone to think about the day. He swung back and forth between shame over what he’d said to Fereshteh and resentment for her ruining the perfection of his bar mitzvah. It was a quiet end to a noisy day.
20
CROWN JEWELS
Joseph was still thinking about Fereshteh when he and Baba walked to the synagogue for Yom Kippur prayers. Once he’d said the prayers of repentance, he felt better. Admitting what he’d done to God was like using an eraser on a chalkboard. Joseph could still faintly see the mistake beneath, but it was possible to write something new and better in its place.
Joseph tried to speed the walk to the apartment the evening after the last service of Yom Kippur, but Baba’s steps remained as steady as always. Maman and Shahla had left the synagogue a little earlier. They had a light meal prepared when Joseph and Baba returned. At the apartment, Shahla lay on the sofa with her head in Maman’s lap. Maman ran her fingers through Shahla’s long, curly black hair. One of them had loosened it from its more severe, Yom Kippur–worthy formal chignon. The black curls draped in Maman’s lap. They looked relaxed, at ease with one another.
Joseph stared at all the greeting cards and gifts stacked on the table. Now that Shabbat and Yom Kippur were over, he’d find out what his parents had given him. At Baba’s gesture, they all moved to the table. First, Joseph opened Shahla’s present of signed Astros caps, but she’d nestled a small flat box inside the bigger one. Inside the small box was a fine black leather wallet. Joseph rarely had more than a pocketful of chump change, but maybe the stack of gift cards included some cash to fill a real wallet. Just to be sure, Joseph thumbed open the wallet to see if there was money inside.
“Youssef!” Maman said, but Shahla laughed at his audacity. Joseph gave her cheek kisses to thank her, and he could see in her jade-green eyes he was forgiven.
“I have news,” Baba said once he’d made the blessing over the meal. “My company is paying for me to take flying lessons to obtain my pilot’s license. After that, I can use a company aircraft to fly to my jobs. I can finish site inspections faster and be home more.”
Joseph snapped to full attention. He loved flying. His dresser was filled with model planes.
“I’ve decided to pay the instructor for you to learn, too, Joseph. You want to be a pilot, but you will be a mehandes, an engineer. You can design the planes and make a lot of money. The manufacturers are in cities where you can live in a Jewish community. It will not be so difficult to keep Shabbat and to find kosher food. It will help if you can actually fly the machines you design, so we can learn together.”
Joseph wasn’t sure how to do a cartwheel, but his heart did. Although Maman didn’t hide her unease, Joseph could tell Baba had already talked to her about it. Joseph wanted to jump high and touch the ceiling like he did sometimes when he felt good. He settled for smiling his toothiest grin since Baba signed the football release form.
Baba pointed to the biggest gift on the table, one that had appeared while they were at the synagogue praying. It was a big square box wrapped in brown paper. “That is your second gift. The first part of it anyway. The second part is ordered. You’re growing so fast that it was hard to fit you.”
