LAX are Iranian), who stick their noses skyward as they inform you they were rich business men and engineers back in Tehran, not to mention cousins of the Shah. To this I add the experience of my friend Russell Levine, who invested in a computer parts business owned by an Iranian named Ahmed and soon learned that the chips they were able to wholesale cheaply had been stolen from the warehouses of the manufacturers by distant relatives of his partner. When Russell moved to dissolve the partnership, Ahmed pulled a revolver from his desk drawer, waved it around, then fired three shots into the ceiling.
Nobody dissolves a partnership with Ahmed Sherazi, he yelled. If there is any dissolving to do, Ahmed Sherazi will do it. I spit on your partnership. I spit on your family. I spit on your ancestors. I spit on you.
As the young man’s voice edges from friendly towards harsh, Russell is on my mind. But who knows? Maybe that’s the way Farsi is normally spoken between natives. Aisha sounds less sexy than in English when she attempts to interrupt a couple of times, but the guy doesn’t bother to listen or even slow down. I attempt to change the dynamic by introducing myself, My name is Benjamin, I’m . . . but neither of them takes notice. Okay. Maybe he’s a long lost friend. A distant relative. They haven’t seen each other in years. They’re too excited at this reunion to pay attention to a stranger. Then again, maybe not. His voice grows increasingly unpleasant and Aisha’s responses seem a bit sharper. I touch her arm: Can I help?
She pulls away, stands up, and says something in a tone which has to be Farsi equivalent of Get lost! The guy gestures with his right arm, turns and marches away from the table. Aisha sits down.
I wait a while before saying: Apparently this is your day for encounters with strangers.
She doesn’t answer
He came up as if he knew you.
She shakes her head.
Men from that part of the world! They want to protect their women, that’s the excuse. Their women! My face reminded him of his sisters. That’s one you hear all the time. Oh yes, he wanted to talk about our heritage. I mean he’s British now but he was born in Tehran. When I said I’m not from Iran, he didn’t bother to listen. Islam unites us, that’s what he said. A thousand years ago this was our country, a great Muslim civilization at a time when Europeans huddled in mud huts and lived on roots and berries. It’s time to take it back.
If such words were spoken today, in the first decade of the Twenty First Century, if I heard them, if you heard them, if anybody heard them, what could we think other than terrorist? Sleeper cell. Bombs ready to explode. Clear the subways. Empty the busses. Batten down the hatches. But in 1996 the idea of Muslims attempting to conquer a European country seemed funny enough to make me laugh aloud. Aisha did not look amused.
He said a good Muslim girl shouldn’t be sitting in a café alone with a kafir. He said I’m disgracing Islam. He said I should go off with him.
A kafir? Is that what I am? What’s a kafir?
Someone without a proper religion, you know, like a Hindu or a Buddhist. But you’re Jewish, aren’t you? Yahudi. That’s different from kafir. He got really angry when I said I make my own decisions, and my decision was to sit wherever I want to sit and with anyone I want to sit with and it was none of his business.
You’re not Persian, then? But you guys were speaking Farsi?
Dari, she says sharply. Don’t confuse the two. Ours is the pure language. Nobody’s been a Persian for a thousand years. They’re Iranians no matter how they try to cover it up. No, thank God I’m not Persian. I’m from Afghanistan. She pronounces the word with a guttural gh and long a’s as in ah. Never call us Persians and never ever call us Arabs.
Afghanistan. A pleasant surprise. Afghanistan. The word calls forth images of barren mountains and splendid deserts, ferocious warriors, mujahaddin, groups of dark, handsome men with beards and soft hats, rifles aloft as they ride on the back of open trucks into a blazing sunrise or sunset. Afghanistan means freedom fighters. Holy warriors. Guerrillas who kicked the shit out of the Russian military for a decade and helped to bring down the Soviet Union.
You’re the first Afghan I’ve ever met. Or should I say Afghani?
Wars have been fought over that question. It’s safer to use our ethnic labels. I’m a Pashtun. She pronounces the word as if it contains several o’s.
Pashtun?
Kipling and other British writers call us Pathans. Maybe that sounds more familiar?
No. Not really.
Sorry but I don’t have time to explain about Pashtuns right now. It’s too long a story for one cup of coffee.
I can order another.
I don’t have time.
How about tomorrow?
I’ve working for the next few days.
You’re not a tourist, then? You’re here on business?
I’m here with a film. I’m the producer and director and just about everything else. It’s about my countrymen, the ones who are in America. The title is Far From Afghanistan
Aisha does not have a face I imagine behind a camera but in front of it, her image projected onto the big screen in one of those Bollywood musical extravaganzas. She has the coal dark eyes, the wavy hair, the high bridged nose, the jewelry on the neck, ears, and fingers of those singing and dancing beauties always on the verge of being kissed by a fiancé, but every time his handsome face comes close to hers, she and fifty other girls whirl away into yet another interminable dance number. The lips of the engaged couple never do touch until the final shot, and then with their mouths closed as in Hollywood films of the forties.
Shall I tell her my own reasons for being here? No. Not yet. Always let women do the talking. Makes them think you’re sensitive and understanding. One of those rare males they claim to be seeking. So of course I ask about her film and the festival.
It opened last night, she tells me. At the Filmoteca. The whole festival is devoted to works by women directors, American women, sponsored by the State Department. We’re going to tour Spain for a month with our films and be promoted as wonderful examples of multi cultural America. Eight of us, each from a different background. Only one Anglo in the crowd. It’s a great opportunity, no doubt about it, but honestly this multi cultural stuff gets me down. I’d just as soon be an American without the hyphen, but then I wouldn’t have been invited. My film’s about three Afghan families in the United States, refugees from the Russian invasion. How they struggle in this new and alien world, how they cope with the move from a primitive to a modern country. You can’t imagine the pain of transition, of living a new life, the problems with language, and shopping and getting a job and passing a driving test. Back home anybody can jump in a car and start driving. Nobody cares. Back home when you send the servant to the market for cheese, you know exactly what he’ll come back with. There’s only one kind. Send him for bread and he has two choices. Imagine the first time you walk into a supermarket in America and are confronted with thirty kinds of cheese and who knows how many kinds of bread. You can go crazy trying to make a decision, and that’s only one of many ways the US can drive you out of your mind. Sure, eventually things become familiar but familiarity can mean better or it can mean worse. It depends. But I can’t explain all this in words. That’s why I make films. Come to see mine tomorrow. I’d be interested in your response.
I accept the invitation, then insist on walking Aisha
