Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora

Tales Left Untold

Tales Left Untold H APHRODITE DÉSIRÉE NAVAB To my beautiful parents, Dr.Ali Navab and Katerina Armenakis Navab. Both their hands and their feet, I kiss. PRO L O G U E To tell a tale is all that’s left To those forbidden passage home It’s in the telling Not the tale That the untold pieces get re-sewn To pick them up One By One And then throw them in the air Is this storyteller’s mad hope That one piece will make it there TA L E # These are the bags I bring with me Suitcases burdened with memory I’ll put them down and open them To let them breathe before they speak To tell a tale that needs to be To travel with these bags and me Back in time Watching signs Marking TALES LEFT UNTOLD 281 Mapping Who I am I am Iranian, Greek, American Not just one But all of them How I’ve tried for consistency To be one of them Complete Just one of them Please Just to make things neat How I’ve tried all my life to be No messy ambiguity No ambivalent loyalty To be One Whole One Identity The flag of each nation In me, stirs little sensation No nationalism shouts loud in me Even after living in all three To see one flag burned In the other country There’s no going back for me My people held my other people hostage The weight of this I carry in my luggage A criminal in reverse 282 APHRODITE DÉSIRÉE NAVAB Hypocritical Perverse Even a blaming finger Becomes a hollow gesture Pointing at them Yet right back at me Because them Is me I am all three Both the beauty and the blood they’ve shed All three TA L E # It is not fear of planes I feel A different crash takes place in me I thought that time would pass And so would too The suspicious eyes That sort me through How did you become American? The interrogation begins The airport official’s eyes Questioning me up and down First at me and then at it In my passport In black ink Disclosing where it is I’m from Born in Esfahan, Iran Passport, all-American outside But a potential terrorist inside TALES LEFT UNTOLD 283 Permitting them to terrorize me Picking points to punish me I was fifteen with a group of girls On a trip from the U.S. to Canada Please don’t give me trouble In front of them all Don’t single me out Away from them all Don’t hold me long Remember that age? You want to belong Don’t stop me Search me Steal me Why do the others all prance through? When my passport is just as blue? Official eagle, stamped and sealed So much prejudice revealed How did you become American? I sweat, I sweat Again that dread I’ve done nothing But what’s in his head My mother is American My father, sister, brothers, me We were all born in Iran, see That is it That is why 284 APHRODITE DÉSIRÉE NAVAB No that’s not right, he said Not at all That’s not right Try again Here he makes me go again My mother is American By birth she is But I am not By birth I am Iranian That’s not right, he said Not at all You’ve got it wrong Try again I sweat, I sweat Again that dread I’ve done nothing But what’s in his head I’ve told you all I know That’s all I’m hiding nothing Let me go Check my body Check my bags Check my soul Just end this show Don’t sneak around me here and there Don’t twist and turn me while they stare TALES LEFT UNTOLD 285 I know where it is I’m from And I can see where it is I’ve come The correct answer Anger rising in his voice Impatient at my persistence You are American by your own birth Not your mother’s or anyone else’s This is the only answer that’s correct He stamped my passport He let me go Humiliated like this I was never before...