Salaam, Love

by Ayesha Mattu

  For my mother, leaving me in an apartment with bare cupboards was the same as leaving me in the desert with no water. She feared for my very survival. We would climb back into our Toyota minivan and head to their favorite grocery store in the neighborhood adjacent to UCLA, known as “Little Tehran,” or “Tehrangeles.” It was an Iranian grocery store, and my parents loved it. The store carried all the specialty foods they could not find in Monterey. They moved through the aisles, grabbing enough crisp thin cucumbers, leafy greens, firm eggplants, cookies, fruit leathers, pistachios, watermelon seeds, flat bread, and braided cheeses to last me an entire semester.

  My father would take a grocery cart and make a dash for the produce. My mother would take her cart and head straight for the Persian pastries. I would make myself look busy with the newspapers and books arranged by the door, hoping I would not see anyone I knew.

  But that day, I found myself drawn inside. I noticed an olive-skinned Iranian girl scanning the price of some fresh olives behind the checkout counter. It was around seven thirty in the evening, and the setting sun cast a golden glow on her skin and picked up the flecks of gold in her eyes. Her face was radiant. Engrossed in her work at the counter, she did not notice me staring at her. I made my way into the store, watching the way the sunlight danced across her auburn hair.

  My eyes did not move from her face until I felt a small tap on my shoulder. “Quit looking at that girl. I am buying you all this food. The least you can do is help me.”

  At the sound of my mother’s voice, the checkout girl looked up to find me blushing, my face redder than the pomegranates she sold to her customers.

  My mom started to place the groceries onto the counter in her aisle and told me to finish while she pried my dad away from the produce section. After my mom left, the girl spoke, though the only word I could make out was khoobi?

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Persian,” I said, dumbfounded.

  “You don’t speak Persian? I can’t believe you Persians who grow up in LA. You forget your language. Your culture.” She shook her head disapprovingly. I was about to tell her that my parents were not Iranians but Arabs, Iraqis. But I couldn’t find the words to say anything. Maybe she’d be offended that my family came from the country that waged war on hers. I just nodded and smiled, becoming the idiot I felt like I was.

  My mom returned with my father, and I picked up the grocery bags with what dignity I had left and departed with my parents. They helped me take the groceries into my apartment and met my roommates, who had turned into perfect gentlemen. They moved their clothes off the sofa so my parents could sit down, and then pulled up chairs in front of them and made polite conversation in Arabic. But as soon as my parents left, they returned to being their regular uncouth selves. Clothes were piled back on the sofa, and the polite conversation turned to crude descriptions of the latest hot-girl sighting. I did not bring up the Iranian checkout girl. She was too special to mention in the raucous company of other guys—guys who would suddenly find reason to frequent the grocery store.

  Our apartment was that cultural universal, the bachelor pad. Girly magazines covered our dining table, the sink was filled with unwashed dishes, and our stained blue-shag carpet had not been vacuumed since the day they moved in three months before me to attend the summer school session. The only furniture we had was a blue sofa we picked up off the sidewalk. We spent our evenings there, on its deflated cushions, watching whatever happened to be on TV.

  Fadi and Samir were Palestinians who had been living in Kuwait until they were driven out by the 1991 Gulf War. I met them in 1993, just two years after they moved to the U.S., which meant they were both, for lack of a better term, F.O.B.s: “Fresh off the Boat.” There was no greater proof of this than Fadi’s fashion sense. His favorite T-shirt featured the words “Nice Vacation” on the front. Not “Have a Nice Vacation” or “I Had a Nice Vacation in California,” but simply “Nice Vacation,” with a little palm tree sticking out of the sand. His other favorite shirt had the periodic table of elements on it. That made Fadi a nerdy F.O.B.

  In addition to the Palestinians, we had an Afghan roommate, Akbar, which made for an explosive mixture of Middle Eastern testosterone in one apartment. The others in our complex jokingly referred to our residence as “the refugee camp.” Indeed, we sometimes embodied the volatile nature of Middle Eastern politics, forming shifting alliances against one another. The two of us who finally scraped all the hair out of the shower or washed the moldy mountain of dishes piled up in the sink would unite against the other two who stood by and watched. The alliances were temporary, and I would be best friends with one of the Palestinians one day, only to form an Afghan–Iraqi axis the next day in an argument with the United Palestinian Bloc.

  The morning after first seeing the Iranian checkout girl, I awoke feeling very scholarly. I scanned the course catalogue, looking for another class to add on to my schedule. But what would I take? How about Introduction to Persian? I looked up the times it was offered. I would have to wake up at the inhumane hour of 9 a.m. three times a week. It was a lot to consider.

  I tried to legitimize my actions to myself. After eight years of war with Iran, it was high time an Iraqi made the effort to learn the Persian language. Perhaps taking Persian would be inconvenient, but it might just help smooth ties between Iraqis and Iranians the world over. Besides, if I were to run into the checkout girl, and she were to hear my smooth Persian, fall in love, and soon after marry me, wouldn’t that be the greatest gift of all for our two cultures? Our children just might be the beginning of a beautiful Perso–Arab subculture.

  I arrived for my first Persian class at 8:55 a.m. the following Wednesday. I was the only person there. By 9:05, the teacher, Miss Haqiqi, or Khanom Haqiqi, as she insisted we call her, showed up. At 9:10 the other students slowly filed into the classroom. More students arrived by 9:20, unusually late for a university class. While the class was at 9 a.m. according to the UCLA schedule, in reality it started according to Persian standard time, which meant somewhere between 9:15 and 9:20. By 9:30 there were sixty Iranian students and five “foreigners,” as they called us non-Iranians, in the class.

  On the first day, we learned how to say “salaam” (hello) and “hal-e shoma chetawr ast?” (How are you?). I repeated to myself over and over again, “Salaam, checkout girl, hal-e shoma chetawr ast?” With those few words, the class ended. I could not wait to visit her again. It had been a whole three days since I’d seen her.

  I rode my bicycle to Tehrangeles, weaving in and out of the entourage of Persians driving black BMWs and Mercedes. My bike was also painted black, but somehow lacked the allure of the German sedans surrounding me. I parked a block away from the market, so the checkout girl would not see my pathetic efforts to tie my bike up to a parking meter. I even bought a BMW key chain to convince her that I owned a luxurious sports car.

  I entered the store and avoided looking directly at her. I wanted to appear the food connoisseur, so I went straight for a metal basket and headed to the back of the store. After spending fifteen minutes gathering some groceries, I reached the counter and realized she was not there. I was tempted to put everything back, but I felt the eyes of the owner, a balding Iranian man, on me. He was probably the girl’s father—my future father-in-law. I couldn’t make a bad impression. So I paid for an assortment of things I had no need for: spices, dried limes, sour cherries, and a few tomatoes. I returned for her on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. She failed to show, but her father continued to give me curious glances, no doubt confused by the odd combination of items I chose.

  Sunday came and I was confident that since she had not been in all week, she would be there that morning. I showered, shaved, and put on my best clothes, a white long-sleeve shirt stained under the arms, a pair of black slacks that were a bit short on me, and chunky black loafers that I wore with the only socks I owned, white gym socks. Besides those few items, my wardrobe consisted of various white T-shirts, shorts, and a pair of
sandals.

  I rode my bike to the market, parked it at the same parking meter a block away, and entered the store, looking directly at the counter. After a week, I was finally reunited with the checkout girl. I realized that she must work only on Sundays, the day when her father’s store was the busiest. She was such a loyal daughter that I felt sad for a moment at the thought that I would one day sweep her away, leaving him to face his Sunday shoppers alone.

  I grabbed a metal basket, but it stuck to the others and I knocked the entire stack down. She looked in my direction and shook her head disapprovingly. I was off to a bad start. I began placing groceries in my basket, grabbing items off the shelf, sending quick glances at her while walking between the aisles. After spending nearly forty-five minutes “shopping,” I approached the counter. My metal basket shook after I noticed her father standing by the fruit section, eyeing me suspiciously.

  I placed the items one by one on the counter and said triumphantly to her, “Salaam. Hal-e shoma chetwar ast?”

  She replied with several words I couldn’t understand.

  She waited for an answer, sighed under her breath, and shook her head again disapprovingly. Heartbroken, I took my grocery bags and left.

  Another week passed and I studied so diligently for my Persian class that I neglected my other courses. I was intimidated by the other students in the class, Iranian boys and girls dressed in the latest Gucci and Armani fashions, always in black. Even at 9:30 a.m. they looked ready for a night on the town, while I looked ready to wash cars.

  I was also intimidated by their language skills. Most spoke Persian at home and were taking the class for an easy “A,” to boost their grade point average so that they could get into the prestigious law or medical school of their parents’ choice. In that respect I did not envy them. My parents had the same wishes for me, but I had chosen to ignore their dreams and study Middle Eastern history. Most of my classmates still hoped to become members of one of the few professions esteemed among Middle Easterners: medicine, engineering, or law, to the neglect of the humanities and arts.

  I always sat next to an Iranian American student named Maziar, who was different from the Tehrangeles types. He wore jeans and a simple short-sleeve shirt. His mother was white and since he’d learned only the basics of Persian growing up, he was taking the class to actually learn the language. Unlike the other students, he made an effort to talk to me. He was curious about a “foreigner” trying to learn Persian. He had resisted his father’s pressure to study medicine and was studying film instead.

  Maziar was cynical about the other Iranian students, and he nicknamed our class the “kebab meat market.” After seeing a boy flirt with a girl, he shook his head and said, “I don’t even know why he bothers. Persian guys can only propose to the families of Persian girls when they have their law or medical degree, car, and house. By the time this guy has all those things, he’s going to be fatter and balder and looking for a younger woman. You’ll see. He’s not going to get married for at least another six to ten years. His future wife is not in this classroom. She’s just barely starting middle school.”

  Visiting the checkout girl on Sunday mornings became a weekly ritual. On Saturday nights while my roommates were out clubbing, I stayed home to rehearse Persian dialogues. On Sunday morning, when they were sleeping in, I was waking up, shaving, showering, and making my pilgrimage to the market.

  During one trip, I noticed she wore a Salvador Dali shirt, and it struck me how different she was from the other Iranian girls in my class, who were so preoccupied with their clothes and makeup. She wore no makeup and a simple T-shirt, and yet she was so beautiful. She did not notice me enter, and I brought my groceries up to her, ready to ask her out to a museum. Just as I was about to open my mouth, her father came and stood at her side. I bought the groceries without saying anything and headed out the door.

  As I was leaving, a white friend of mine walking on the street passed by and saw me through the store window. He entered and smiled at her, checking out my checkout girl. He pulled me aside and said, “Is she Mexican?”

  I pushed him out of the store, since he was far better looking than me, but he kept on insisting on going back inside.

  “Is she Latina?”

  “No, she is Persian.”

  “Damn, I have to go to Persia.”

  “No, I mean she is Iranian.”

  “I-ranian? She ain’t no daughter of the Ayatollah!”

  The next day, I sat in class dreaming about my checkout girl when Khanom Haqiqi demanded in her elongated English, “Ibrahim, read what is on the board!” The Persian alphabet was in itself an art form. A subtle dot or a line could change the entire meaning of a word. I learned that lesson the hard way that day.

  “K . . . ki . . . kiiir . . . kir.” All the Iranian students in the class burst into laughter.

  “Ibrahim, kir nagu, gir bagu!” In other words, “Don’t say ‘kir,’ say ‘gir.’”

  I had just read what I thought I saw on the board. I asked Maziar, “Why is everyone laughing at me?” He told me that instead of saying what the teacher had written on the board, the word “obtain,” I had said, “Penis.” The difference between “kir” and “gir” was one slanted line that I had failed to see.

  In spite of being painfully embarrassed, I wasn’t discouraged. On that day, not only did I learn the Persian word for a male body part, but I learned the phrase, “Qorban-e shoma,” which literally means, “I sacrifice myself for you.” It was simply a way of saying thank you. That phrase described my feelings for the checkout girl. I sacrificed my time and effort to learn her language, as well as my pride and dignity in her presence. For those few moments at the counter in the grocery store, I could honestly say to her, “Qorban-e shoma.”

  Over the course of the semester, I was able to converse with her in Persian. My greatest triumph was the small smile she gave me one afternoon when she noted the progress I was making. I had won her approval, and that moment of sweet reward was enough to bring me back to her counter week after week.

  One Saturday night, I decided that I had to tell her how I felt. I would do it early the next day. By then, I had garnered that my future father-in-law liked sleeping in on Sundays and generally walked in an hour after the store opened. I had convinced myself it was divine intervention that arranged our meeting. God’s plan began when my parents left Iraq in the sixties. What if my parents had stayed in Iraq? I could have been one of “them.” Picked up off the streets of Baghdad during the Iran–Iraq War and dispatched to the front lines. It could have been my hands that killed one of her relatives or my eyes that watched one of her family members get eaten alive by the corrosive chemical agents the Iraqi military used during the eight-year conflict. Or I could have ended up as a number, a casualty of battle, like the thousands of other young Iraqi men I had read about. What if the checkout girl’s parents had stayed in Iran? She might have read about my death among the Iraqi casualties and said, “Good. Those Iraqis deserve to die for attacking our land.” Instead, we were both the products of exile. And, thanks to our parents, we could look at each other across a checkout counter, instead of a militarized international border.

  On that Saturday night, Samir, one of my Palestinian roommates, stormed in wearing his nightclub uniform, a black shirt unbuttoned down to his belly button with his Black Forest of chest hairs on display for the world and tight black jeans, awash in sweat and cheap cologne. He was so upset that I knew something serious had happened.

  He threw himself on the sofa and sighed, “Yeah, so I saw this girl dancing and walked up to her and grabbed her. And you know, started to do the ‘grind’ with her.” He jumped up onto the couch and gyrated his pelvis into her imaginary body and then plopped himself back down. “And she pushed me away. And I was thinking, ‘What’s wrong with the beeetch?’ I see the guys. They do it all the time with girls on MTV.”

  “But those guys on MTV are rappers, and they have a lot of money. They can get away with
a lot of things you can’t,” I answered. Of all of us in the apartment, I was the only one who was American born, which carried a certain weight of responsibility. It was my duty to properly socialize my immigrant friends.

  I was not alone in this project. Being an Iraqi American meant that I could count myself among the other Arab American students. As a group we had a ranking system for those Arab students who had just arrived from the Middle East to study at UCLA, and the level of acculturation they would subsequently require. F.O.B. referred to anyone with a heavy Arab accent who tried so hard to fit in with the American lifestyle that he wound up standing out. For example, Arabs in cowboy hats, Arabs who misused slang terms, Arabs who watched the Super Bowl. An F.O.C. was “Fresh Off the Camel,” which we used only to refer to those students from Saudi Arabia (even we Arabs discriminate among ourselves). And S.O.B. stood for “Still on Board,” or, in other words, a student who did not realize he had left the Middle East and dressed like he was walking on the streets of Cairo. My Palestinian roommate was somewhere in between an F.O.B. and an S.O.B.—the latter in the original sense of the abbreviation.

  He continued, “Whatever. Then I went up to another girl and told her, ‘You must dance with me.’ She said, ‘No. Get out of here, you creeb.’ I told her, ‘You will dance with me. It will be berfect.’” Grinding his teeth and clenching his fists, he whined, “Ibrahiiiim, I need a blonde girl soooo badly. They turn me on soooo much.”

  The following day, I rode my bike into Tehrangeles and parked it once again a block away. The checkout girl had a cold that day. Although her nose was red from blowing into tissues, she still looked beautiful to me. I filled my basket until it overflowed, too nervous to approach. When the customer she was helping finally walked away, I approached her register and tried to muster enough courage to express my feelings.

  Just as she finished ringing up the last pomegranate, her father entered the store. He said good morning to her in Persian and then kissed her on her lips. I thought I was going to throw up. What kind of disgusting incest had I just witnessed? Then I noticed it—a thin gold wedding band on her finger. How had I never seen it before? I felt the heat rushing to my cheeks like it did when I’d been caught staring at her by my mom. And, just like on that day, my face turned redder than a pomegranate. All that time, energy, and money spent over the last three months. All those Persian lessons, groceries, and poetry—and she was married. It was fortunate that I did not confess my feelings for her while her husband was around. It would have led to an Iran–Iraq War in the grocery store, with pomegranates thrown instead of grenades.