Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [18]
Shireen loved learning to swim at school. She passed her lifeguard training and joined the synchronized swim team. She taught her sisters how to swim, and they joined a club so that they could swim regularly. Otherwise, they worked long hours in a factory. In Iraq they had a sister with breast cancer to support and they had to repay their passage from Pakistan.
I wanted to make sure they learned about the good things in our city. Advertisers would direct them to the bars, the malls, and anything that cost money. I told them about what I loved: the parks and prairies, the lakes and sunsets, the sculpture garden, and the free concerts. I lent them books with Georgia O'Keeffe paintings and pictures of our national parks.
For a while I was so involved with the lives of the sisters that Zeenat told me that her daughters were now my daughters. I was touched that she was willing to give her daughters away so that they could advance. I tactfully suggested we could share her daughters, but that she would always be the real mother.
The sisters talked about the differences between the United States and Pakistan. They said even the light was brighter here. I taught them the names of trees and, when spring came, I taught them to identify jonquil, tulip, redbud, cardinal, and finch. One day we passed a goldenrain tree and I said its name. Meena said it could be called the tree of golden tears.
Sometimes I inadvertently frightened them. During the Bush/Gore presidential race, I explained the differences between the two candidates to the sisters. To my puzzlement, they looked increasingly alarmed as I talked. I finally asked, "Are you okay?" Shireen explained that they had been in Iraq and seen the rise of Hussein. Then they were in Pakistan after Benazir Bhutto lost her election. They'd seen women storied in the streets. Meena asked, "If Bush is elected, will you be killed?"
They thought ordinary neighborhoods were for rich people. I never showed them the starter castles south of town because I was too embarrassed by our distribution of wealth. What would I say? "This is the home of the factory owner who pays you minimum wage?"
Very soon we all grew to depend on our weekly lessons. They needed my advice and support and I needed their joy at seeing me and their curiosity about the world. Often we talked of their nightmares about being chased or locked up. I was struck by how little they complained and by how eager they were to share everything they had, including stories.
When someone asked the sisters where they were from, they didn't know what to say. Meena laughed as she told me that one time in frustration Tanya said, "We are from Italy."
Whenever I showed up, I was offered food—fresh naan made by Tanya or spinach soup or curried fish. And always there was black tea or juice. Before we drove, the sisters would show me their schoolwork. The older sisters had enrolled in GED classes. Often, they worked overtime and were too tired to study. I felt sad that after losing so much of their lives to refugee camps they were now losing their lives to boring factory work.
I tried to act as a full-time encourager and helper. All the sisters tried out ideas on me—one week Meena asked me if she should join the army. Leila wondered if they could find factory work that didn't involve periodic layoffs.
One day Shireen said that in her human behavior class, they had just watched the movie, Alive, the grisly story of survivors of a plane crash. After the film the teacher showed interviews with the survivors. Shireen found it very upsetting and cried in class. The American students weren't so moved. Another day the sisters watched