Nayeri - Everything Sad Is Untrue

When I was a kid in Isfahan, I would tell my mother that someday, I would build her a castle at the top of Mount Sofeh. I could see it from my window. A castle in the sky. I didnt know that life would make a liar out of me. Im sorry, Mom. I didnt forget. I just never managed it. I wrote you a book instead. I know it isnt even close.

It seems like only yesterday that I believed

there was nothing under my skin but light.

If you cut me I would shine.

Billy Collins (approximately), On Turning Ten

The people of the world say that Khosrou is an idol worshipper

Maybe so, maybe so

But he does not need the world

And he does not need the people

Amir Khosrou

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the worlds finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood theyve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

A LL P ERSIANS ARE LIARS and lying is a sin.

Thats what the kids in Mrs. Millers class think, but Im the only Persian theyve ever met, so I dont know where they got that idea.

My mom says its true, but only because everyone has sinned and needs God to save them. My dad says it isnt. Persians arent liars. Theyre poets, which is worse.

Poets dont even know when theyre lying. Theyre just trying to remember their dreams. Theyre trying to remember six thousand years of history and all the versions of all the stories ever told.

In one version, maybe Im not the refugee kid in the back of Mrs. Millers class. Im a prince in disguise.

If you catch me, I will say what they say in the 1,001 Nights. Let me go, and I will tell you a tale passing strange.

Thats how they all begin.

With a promise. If you listen, Ill tell you a story. We can know and be known to each other, and then were not enemies anymore.

Im not making this up. This is a rule that even genies follow.

In the 1,001 Nights, Scheherazadethe rememberer of all the worlds dreamstold stories every night to the king, so he would spare her life.

But in here, its just me, counting my own memories.

And you, reader, whoever you are. Youre the king.

Im not sucking up, by the way. The king was evil and made a bloody massacre of a thousand lives before he got to Scheherazade.

Its a responsibility to be the king.

Youve got my whole life in your hands.

And Im just warning you that if Im going to be honest, I have to begin the story with my Baba Haji, even if the blood might shock you.

But dont worry, dear reader and Mrs. Miller.

Of all the tales of marvel that I could tell you, none surpass in wonder and coolness the one I am about to tell.

C OUNTING THE MEMORIES.

Baba Haji kills the bull.

My very first memory is blood, slopping from the throat of a terrified bull, and my grandfatherred-handedreaching for my face. I would have been three at this time.

Maybe I have memories before that. I dont know.

If I did, theyd be flashes of tile patterns, or something.

I can make it up, if you want.

But really, it was the blood. And the bull braying. And the gurgling sound.

People ask, Really? Really was it blood?

They ask because they dont believe me.

They dont believe because Im some poor refugee kid who smells like pickles and garlic, and has lice, and Im probably making up stories to feel important.

I dont know what the American grown-ups have for memories, but they cant be as beautiful as mine.

So they laugh. They dont touch me. But they roll their eyes. Okay, they say.

It is, I say. Its one of two memories I have of my Baba Haji. I promise. I havent been careless with it. My heart clenches it like a fist.

Like gripping a ball bearing as hard as you can. The fingers dig into the palm and you dont even know if its still in there. The knuckles are white and youre afraid it fell out and you didnt even notice. Youre just clenching nothing until your nails cut into your palm and you bleed.

The memory is small. Barely a few pictures. His face is one still image.

I T BEG INS IN A big gold car. It isnt real gold, just painted the color. It was so big the seats were two couches on wheels.

The car drives on a dirt road through a desert in the middle of Iran. Specifically, on the road to Ardestan.

That doesnt mean anything to you, probably, if you even bothered to pronounce it. I could have said, on the road to skip-this-word-youre-a-dumdum-stan, and itd be the same. It was a desert in a faraway land.

You want a map?

Heres a map.

When I say the words, people think it may as well be Mars. Or Middle Earth. I could say we drove a chariot pulled by camels and theyd believe me.

But it was a Chevrolet. And we were normal back then.

I wore sneakers with Velcro and had a dad.

He had a bushy red mustache and could make weird faces to be funny. He would blow out his cheeks and furrow his eyebrows like a super serious chipmunk.

He drove. My mom sat beside him and handed us pieces of pistachio cardamom cake. The road went up and down like an ocean.

On either side was sand that could suck down half the car before we could even get out. Some places, the sand blew over so you couldnt see any road at all.