THE FARSI TEACHER
That fall every one of his students was an American who was married to an Iranian. Lord, but they butchered the language in that class. They came into the classroom like Americans, big and excited, and he knew from their general manner that their mouths were not going to conform to the gentleness and thoughtfulness that Farsi required. They were awfully well-intentioned; they tried like hell to get it right. But he simply could not convince them of the need for their tongues to move with subtlety, to not reach for the easy and obvious answer, to keep in mind that a great many people had lived and struggled with life before them, and as a result there was a humility in moving through the world with an awareness that one’s discoveries were not altogether new, and a deep quietude that was the outward expression of that humility.
Three weeks into the program, he asked the students to put away their textbooks when they sat down in class.
“Today we are going to take a different approach,” he said. “Tell me a delicate memory you have.”
The students looked at each other.
“What is a delicate memory?” one said.
“Something that is sad but which still brings a smile to your face. A memory that life is too sweet and tragic to be believed. Perhaps poignant is the word.”
After a few anxious seconds, a woman in the front raised her hand.
“I remember when I was a little girl and my father would take me to dance class. All the other little girls were there with their mothers. But the class was near my father’s office, so he would take me. I always felt very proud to be there with my father.”
“That is very good. Is your father dead?”
“No.”
“Okay, that is all right, it is still good. I want you to think about that time. Think about yourself as a little girl and think about your father. Now try to say the word for rain: Baran.”
“Baran,” she said, her r a thick, proud American r.
“Try again. Think of how young everyone was. What is time? Who understands it? Baran.”
“Baran,” she said, her r a little softer, a little more coy, not so much possessing an innocence as much as a worldly playfulness.
“Better. Where are all those children now? Where are all the mothers? Baran.”
“Baran.”
The third time, everyone heard it. It was unmistakable. It was sad in a way that made one smile, just like the teacher had said.
Several hands went up in the air.
That day a variety of delicate and poignant memories were plumbed, three of which included crying, and both the cryers and the non-cryers allowed their hearts to shape their mouths in a direction that was closer to the sound of the Farsi language.
It’s true, the teacher thought. All this time that I’ve wondered if Farsi is something internal. Here is proof.
“Is the whole language like this?” the woman who had gone to dance class with her father said.
“Yes,” the teacher said.
“How do you stand it?”
“We write poems.”
“Does that make it better?”
“Yes. It makes it better and it makes it worse.”
“All I knew when I listened to my husband talk with his family was that the language sounded beautiful.”
“It is beautiful.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know the beauty was so sad.”
“Don’t think of it as sad. Think of it as life.”
“Life?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if I will be able to learn Farsi.”
The teacher laughed. When she said that, he saw his whole life in America. He saw all the parts of his life from Iran that were looking for a home in America.
“We will go slowly,” he said. “I heard something different today. I am sure many of you heard it as well.”
The students quietly admitted that they heard it today.
“Are we supposed to just go back out into the world now?” a man who had spoken of taking care of his grandmother said.
The teacher smiled.
“You all speak the language that is used out there,” he said.
“I don’t know if I can learn Farsi either,” the man said. “I don’t know if I can go back and forth.”
The teacher felt good to hear him say it.
“If you are not sure if you can go back and forth, then you are really learning Farsi.”
“How do you do it?” the woman said.
“Me? I came to this country when I was twenty. I can’t remember when I didn’t do it.”
“Well, nobody told me it was going to be like this. My husband certainly didn’t tell me.”
“He probably can’t remember when he didn’t do it either.”
“It is too much,” the man said. “I thought I knew myself in English. I thought I knew who I was. This is too much.”
“It is still you,” the teacher said. “It is still you in Farsi.”
“No. I am forty-seven years old. I am not twenty. I have been myself in English a long time.”
“I am in my forties too. I won’t say exactly,” the woman said. “Let us go back to the textbook. Let us go back to how it was before. It is too much to learn a language like this.”
“But you all heard it,” the Farsi teacher said. “You all heard it today when it came from something inside you.”
“This is not what I want from learning a language,” the man said. “I want to say the words and have somebody understand me.”
“But you are saying the words. You said the words beautifully today.”
“Not like this.”
Quietly and shamefully, the other students nodded in agreement.
The Farsi teacher looked at them. He thought of all the parts of his life in Iran that were looking for a home in America and he understood why he was still looking for them. He smiled at the students. It was a loss. But the language he knew and loved had room for loss. It almost seemed to him that it had been created from loss. It seemed to him that the original creators of Farsi had said, let us start from the understanding that we can never really show our true hearts to one another. Let us try to make our language the next best thing. It is as close as we can come. Let something in the language remember that it is as close as we can come.
“Okay,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said.
“It is all right.”
“Maybe if we were younger. Maybe we could do it then.”
“Yes, maybe then.”
“I understand,” the teacher said.
“I did hear it today,” the woman said. “I heard the thing under the language. But I cannot live there. I cannot stay there long enough to learn the whole language like that.”
“It is okay. I understand. Please open your textbooks to page 21.”
With lingering shame, the students opened their textbooks. They spent the rest of the class practicing words from the book. Their mouths struggled with the same well-meaning clumsiness they’d had before.
At the end of the class, the woman said, “Do you really forgive us?”
“There is nothing to forgive,” the teacher said. He smiled in a way that showed them that there was a great deal to forgive.
“Is this what the language gives you?”
The teacher looked at them. It was true. If the language was something internal, then it was true for him too.
“Yes.”
“Maybe we can try,” the woman said. She looked around at the other students, to see if they all felt as forgiven as her. “Maybe we can try with the memories and all that.”
The other students nodded and finally the man who had said it was too much agreed too.
“Thank you,” the Farsi teacher said. “Ba tashakor. Try it. Ba tashakor.”
“Ba tashakor.”
“Keep the b soft. Think of how grateful I am. Ba tashakor.”
“Ba tashakor.”
“Better. Think of how much this means to me. Think of me coming to this country at twenty. Think of me searching for the parts of my life I remember from Iran here. I am still searching for them. Think of how sad and funny is that search. Ba tashakor.”
“Ba tashakor.”
***
Siamak Vossoughi has had stories published in various journals. His first collection, Better Than War, won a 2014 Flannery O’Connor Award. His second collection, A Sense of the Whole, came out in 2020. http://www.siamakvossoughi.com
