Surprise
It was the day of the talk.
I was about 15 or 16 riding on a train in Europe, far away from the middle east. On a vacation. Since we were going to be in this train for few hours with nothing to do. My father decided that it would be a good time to have the talk. He decided that I was old enough to know the secret.
No, I am not adopted. And no my dad didn’t have another wife back in Iraq with older brothers and sisters that I never met. It was nothing like that. But, what he did tell me, had equivalent amount of identity confusion associated with it. I might as well had been adopted, I might as well had discovered siblings I never met before.
It was the day of stunned silences. Gasps. One heck of a story.
“I am a communist”, said my dad.
I am the daughter of a communist. Surprise!
“Communism is a sinister ideology invented by Jews in order to corrupt Islam”, I was taught at school in Kuwait. Just one tidbit of nonsense out of many I was taught and believed while young.
“Communists are infidels”
“Communists are dangerous”
“Communists are evil”
“Communists will go to hell”
Given the valued education that I have received in Kuwait, it should be no surprise that I had a tough time adjusting to the idea of being the daughter of a communist. I was a good Muslim right wing girl, brought up with proper Arab nationalistic values. That is what I thought I wanted to be at the time.
I guess the signs were on the wall. I should have figured it out on my own. Why else would my dad be studying in the Czech republic? Why else did my dad leave Iraq in sixties never to return again? There were also other sighs. Like the fact that servants in our house always ate with us on the same table despite the strong objections of all family friends, who thought this to be odd. There was all the lecturing about how all people were equal. The way my dad would be deeply disturbed if my brother or I treated somebody from a minority group in a derogatory way as was common in Kuwait.
At that point I had a choice, either continue to believe that all communists are evil and will go to hell and by default my dad would be with them. Or adjust my believes and learn a little bit more about it. It was very hard for me to continue believing that the man who raised me and taught me that I was equal to any man despite the society around me indicating otherwise, could possibly be evil.
I found out many things about my dad during that train trip that I never knew before. He couldn’t talk about it earlier because it was dangerous to tell a child information that could get you killed. You thought my life story is amazing? Wait till you hear my dad’s life story. But that will be in another post.
Ten years later, I am living in Vancouver and I get a phone call from my dad. He asks me to go shopping with him on Saturday. I agreed to meet him at the time and date he specified. When I hang up the phone I had the following discussion with my husband.
ihath: I just had the strangest conversation with my dad.
Za’atarah: what?
ihath: My dad asked me to go shopping with him.
Za’atarah: What is wrong with that?
ihath: My dad hates shopping, plus my mom always buys all his clothes for him. The man hates the shopping mall and he is asking me to spend the whole afternoon with him in the shopping mall. You don’t think that is strange?
Za’atarah: Maybe he just wants to talk with you about something.
ihath: So why wouldn’t he just come over and talk to me?
Za’atarah: Maybe he wants to talk to you in private.
ihath: Must be something serious then, do you think that maybe one of my parents is ill? do you think that maybe my parents are getting a divorce? It must be something big. He sounded really odd on the phone.
Za’atarah: Don’t think about it like that. Just wait till the weekend and you will find out. No point is speculating.
The dark thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone. I kept thinking about all the dark things that my dad might want to tell me. Perhaps I was adopted? Perhaps, I do have siblings I never knew about?
Saturday finally came and I met my dad in the shopping mall. “Ok dad, so what do you need to buy?” I asked him eagerly, pretending that I bought the bit about me helping him do shopping . We walked around looking at trousers, jackets, sweaters, and shirts. My dad would look at different things and never show much interest. He didn’t try on anything and didn’t buy anything either. When we finished looking at all the men’s clothing my dad said. Lets go find a coffee shop, I will buy you a cup of coffee.
“Ok, this is it, he will tell me now, It must be something that is really tough to say”, I thought to myself.
In the coffee shop we had a generic discussion about world affairs.
“Come on dad, spite it out, you are driving me crazy, just tell me already, I am dieing here”. I kept thinking but I thought that I should just let him tell me when he is comfortable. I thought I should not push him.
Then my dad got up and said: “lets go to the makeup counter”.
“Oh my God! my dad is losing it, I never heard my dad say he wants to go to the makeup counter” I thought to myself.
So we go to the makeup counter and my dad keeps asking me which lip stick I like, which perfume I like. “Do you like this one? Would you like me to buy you this one?”, my dad kept picking different articles of makeup and showed them to me.
“Ok, something is definitely wrong, I have never seen my dad even notice makeup in my whole life and now he is recommending the Christian Dior Sumptuous Fuschia lipstick, something is definitely up.”
Suddenly my dad looked at his watch and said: “ok it is time to go home, I will give you a ride”.
“Maybe my dad didn’t feel comfortable telling in the mall, maybe he wants to tell me at home where there is more privacy”.
So he drives me home and he parks the car telling me that he wants to come in with to say hello to my husband.
“Ok, maybe he want to tell me and my husband at the same time”, I thought to myself.
So we walk together to my place and I walk into my apartment.
Hey! what are all these people doing here.
My friends, my mom, what is going on?
“Surprise!” they all shouted
It was my 25th birthday and my husband and my dad devised this whole plan together in order to give me a surprise party. I started to laugh hysterically, I was so relieved that my dad’s odd behavior was nothing more that a stalling tactic to keep me out of the house while my husband prepared food for the party. On one hand I wanted to hug them both for making such a huge effort, on the other hand they nearly gave me a heart attack in the process.
Hey! Families, full of surprises. You think you know somebody because you have known them all your life and then you realize that there is a surprise in store.
Yeah he is a commie, but he is still the best dad in the world.
I was about 15 or 16 riding on a train in Europe, far away from the middle east. On a vacation. Since we were going to be in this train for few hours with nothing to do. My father decided that it would be a good time to have the talk. He decided that I was old enough to know the secret.
No, I am not adopted. And no my dad didn’t have another wife back in Iraq with older brothers and sisters that I never met. It was nothing like that. But, what he did tell me, had equivalent amount of identity confusion associated with it. I might as well had been adopted, I might as well had discovered siblings I never met before.
It was the day of stunned silences. Gasps. One heck of a story.
“I am a communist”, said my dad.
I am the daughter of a communist. Surprise!
“Communism is a sinister ideology invented by Jews in order to corrupt Islam”, I was taught at school in Kuwait. Just one tidbit of nonsense out of many I was taught and believed while young.
“Communists are infidels”
“Communists are dangerous”
“Communists are evil”
“Communists will go to hell”
Given the valued education that I have received in Kuwait, it should be no surprise that I had a tough time adjusting to the idea of being the daughter of a communist. I was a good Muslim right wing girl, brought up with proper Arab nationalistic values. That is what I thought I wanted to be at the time.
I guess the signs were on the wall. I should have figured it out on my own. Why else would my dad be studying in the Czech republic? Why else did my dad leave Iraq in sixties never to return again? There were also other sighs. Like the fact that servants in our house always ate with us on the same table despite the strong objections of all family friends, who thought this to be odd. There was all the lecturing about how all people were equal. The way my dad would be deeply disturbed if my brother or I treated somebody from a minority group in a derogatory way as was common in Kuwait.
At that point I had a choice, either continue to believe that all communists are evil and will go to hell and by default my dad would be with them. Or adjust my believes and learn a little bit more about it. It was very hard for me to continue believing that the man who raised me and taught me that I was equal to any man despite the society around me indicating otherwise, could possibly be evil.
I found out many things about my dad during that train trip that I never knew before. He couldn’t talk about it earlier because it was dangerous to tell a child information that could get you killed. You thought my life story is amazing? Wait till you hear my dad’s life story. But that will be in another post.
Ten years later, I am living in Vancouver and I get a phone call from my dad. He asks me to go shopping with him on Saturday. I agreed to meet him at the time and date he specified. When I hang up the phone I had the following discussion with my husband.
ihath: I just had the strangest conversation with my dad.
Za’atarah: what?
ihath: My dad asked me to go shopping with him.
Za’atarah: What is wrong with that?
ihath: My dad hates shopping, plus my mom always buys all his clothes for him. The man hates the shopping mall and he is asking me to spend the whole afternoon with him in the shopping mall. You don’t think that is strange?
Za’atarah: Maybe he just wants to talk with you about something.
ihath: So why wouldn’t he just come over and talk to me?
Za’atarah: Maybe he wants to talk to you in private.
ihath: Must be something serious then, do you think that maybe one of my parents is ill? do you think that maybe my parents are getting a divorce? It must be something big. He sounded really odd on the phone.
Za’atarah: Don’t think about it like that. Just wait till the weekend and you will find out. No point is speculating.
The dark thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone. I kept thinking about all the dark things that my dad might want to tell me. Perhaps I was adopted? Perhaps, I do have siblings I never knew about?
Saturday finally came and I met my dad in the shopping mall. “Ok dad, so what do you need to buy?” I asked him eagerly, pretending that I bought the bit about me helping him do shopping . We walked around looking at trousers, jackets, sweaters, and shirts. My dad would look at different things and never show much interest. He didn’t try on anything and didn’t buy anything either. When we finished looking at all the men’s clothing my dad said. Lets go find a coffee shop, I will buy you a cup of coffee.
“Ok, this is it, he will tell me now, It must be something that is really tough to say”, I thought to myself.
In the coffee shop we had a generic discussion about world affairs.
“Come on dad, spite it out, you are driving me crazy, just tell me already, I am dieing here”. I kept thinking but I thought that I should just let him tell me when he is comfortable. I thought I should not push him.
Then my dad got up and said: “lets go to the makeup counter”.
“Oh my God! my dad is losing it, I never heard my dad say he wants to go to the makeup counter” I thought to myself.
So we go to the makeup counter and my dad keeps asking me which lip stick I like, which perfume I like. “Do you like this one? Would you like me to buy you this one?”, my dad kept picking different articles of makeup and showed them to me.
“Ok, something is definitely wrong, I have never seen my dad even notice makeup in my whole life and now he is recommending the Christian Dior Sumptuous Fuschia lipstick, something is definitely up.”
Suddenly my dad looked at his watch and said: “ok it is time to go home, I will give you a ride”.
“Maybe my dad didn’t feel comfortable telling in the mall, maybe he wants to tell me at home where there is more privacy”.
So he drives me home and he parks the car telling me that he wants to come in with to say hello to my husband.
“Ok, maybe he want to tell me and my husband at the same time”, I thought to myself.
So we walk together to my place and I walk into my apartment.
Hey! what are all these people doing here.
My friends, my mom, what is going on?
“Surprise!” they all shouted
It was my 25th birthday and my husband and my dad devised this whole plan together in order to give me a surprise party. I started to laugh hysterically, I was so relieved that my dad’s odd behavior was nothing more that a stalling tactic to keep me out of the house while my husband prepared food for the party. On one hand I wanted to hug them both for making such a huge effort, on the other hand they nearly gave me a heart attack in the process.
Hey! Families, full of surprises. You think you know somebody because you have known them all your life and then you realize that there is a surprise in store.
Yeah he is a commie, but he is still the best dad in the world.
There is a way between voice and presence where information flows.
In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes. .... Rumi
12:32 PMBrilliant, thats my only reaction. Though two things I can absolutely relate to in that post, the fear of being adopted, well not fear exactly its just one of the first things that spring to my mind whenever there is a serious 'talk' even though I have photos of myself since I was about 10 mins old (neatly put next to a photo of my moms exhausted face after giving birth to me), and second train confessions, no idea what is it about these train stations but they do open up the heart apparently , in my case it was me my brother and dad who missed a train so we had to wait a few hours till the next one arived and that's when all these amazing stories came out. That generation has so many untold stories.
12:55 PM
Wonderful!!! Are you sure we don't have the same dad :)
Thanks ihath
3:04 PM
Dilnareen,
I think that silly fear of being adopted is the result of watching too many Egyptian movies. You know what I mean. The scene where the dad says "Son, I have to tell you, I am not your dad, I am your uncle" or grandfather or something else. It seems that every third egyptian movie has that scene in it. Eventually you think that everybody must be adopted.
4:15 AM
haha yeah thats probably it, damn those shows. Though they also tend to open another door: that u have a lost twin somewhere in the world, who ,of course, looks and talks exactly the same except either has different hairstyle or wears a mustache.
7:36 AM
Awww, don't worry about the communist thing, as with all political groups, there is good and bad about all of them. Communism, is actually a very nice ideology, however, once you introduce humans into the equation (lazy vs hard working, thieves vs honest, greedy vs selfless, etc.), the theory falls apart. I'm sure your dad is a wonderful man (as evidenced by his wonderful daughter), and his political beliefs while not in line with my own, do not change my opinion of him.
Wonderful story. That's the stuff that makes life worth living :)
My wife just turned 40 in July. Trying to surprise her, is like trying to sneak up on a cat while wearing jingle bells all over your clothes.. unless you are some kung fu master guy, it just isn't possible.
Anyways, her sister and I went to great pains to surprise her. Her sister and sister's husband own a bar a few miles from our house. We have mutual friends that moved a few years ago, down to New York. So, her sister tells her that they are coming up to visit for the weekend, and that we should all get together at the bar. OK, my wife buys this as plausible. It is set for the Friday before her birthday. My wife knows I absolutely hate going on on Friday nights, after having worked all day. So, I play the usual part. Awww honey, do we have to go? I'd really like to see them, but why does it have to be Friday, blah blah blah. Finally, I give in, and say oh, alright, I'll go.
Friday arrives. I immediately begin to whine that I'm tired, I've had a hard day, etc. She begins with the usual, I don't want to go either, but I'm going and you bloody well will go to! She gets in the shower and begins the customary female 5 hr process of getting ready to go out. She comes down, all made up and ready to go, and I'm "sleeping" on the couch, complete with very convincing snores.
She wakes me up, extremely PO'd.. wake up, damn you. I'm all ready and look at you, asleep on the couch. I again begin to whine pathetically about how tired I am, etc. By now she is really quite angry with me.. I sit up, feigning bleary-eyed exhaustion, and begin muttering bad things about my old best friend having to come up and visit at the most inconvenient of times..
We drive to my sister-in-law's house, pick her up (her husband is already working at the bar, as he does every day). We get to the bar, and it is filled with 40 of our friends, complete with party hats and noise makers.. *SURPRISE* they scream. She stands there, with jaw hanging open, turns to me and says you idiot! And you didn't want to come, look at the party you would have missed! God, I love my wife, but she sure can be dense at times! After her shock wore off, I had to explain that she needs to nominate me to the Academy Awards for best actor, because she completely fell for my act. She then slaps me on the shoulder, says "you're a jerk" and then promptly hugs me tight and lays a enormous kiss on me.
In our 20 years of marriage, that is the only time I have ever succeeded in surprising her... well, that is if you don't count the time I snuck into the bathroom when she was taking a shower and yelled "boo!" Suffice it to say, I didn't get kissed for THAT surprise!
9:48 AM
=D>
I probably won't be able to get this stupid grin off my face after reading this story...
nicely done btw
on a related note: never figured out what people have against communists. Prefer socialists myself but neither of them exists in my part of the world :/
Your comment reminded me of a "tradition" we have down here. Whenever you have someone working in your house (maid, plumber, carpenter, etc) it's usually customary for you to buy them breakfast and/or lunch. First time my mother did that in the US, the workers couldn't believe she was asking 'em what they wanted to eat and offering them ice cold beers; except a guy that was maried to a nicaraguan woman... lol
Javier
12:29 PM
Very intersting story, it was funny, I guess I found out as I was growing up that my late grandfather was one of the leading members of the Iraqi Communist Party in the 50's and 60's and his life was spent moving from place to place afraid of those who came looking for him. Its sad because from studying their history they were mostly good people and the left wing liberals I believe are the people I trust most to move Iraq ahead. Visting Highgate cemtery London where the grave of the great Karl Marx lies, you will see a few feet away from it a whole section for the great old communist heroes of Iraq. I recomend it for anyone who visits London, a very touching place for those with a genuine interst in Iraqi politics and history. Thanks for your great blog. :)
8:46 PM
You never know with surprises, do you?
We've got a very cute video which starts with my brother's boyfriend cursing him out for giving him a Surprise! 40th! birthday party. Of course, by the end of the party Clark was dancing and singing and having a great time.
Poor Clarkie died a few years later. It was a great party.
Thanks for the story, sweetie!
Love, Tilli
11:30 AM
Delightful story. What a joy you are.
12:04 PM
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
12:48 PM
Dear Anonymous, I had to delete your comment because it might offend those with a delicate constitution. I am sorry about your frustration with women practicing the oldest profession in the world. It must be hard. However I wish to remind you that it takes two to tango even when it is paid for.
7:02 PM
Ihath: What a wonderful story, more than a pleasant surprise for you, all way around. Even the others who've shared made me smile, still grinning in fact. I love your writing style and look forward to reading your father's story. He sounds like a facinating man, you are blessed.
Your tack and diplomacy are well appreciated by this reader, don't need to see despairing remarks on every site! There's enough of it already.
Thanks for sharing,
9:22 AM
Ihath, loved the story. I love suprises! I also can't wait to hear your father's story. I'll bet it's extremely interesting!
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