Of this old field.

I look up at the ceiling: the fan plods along slowly. it is lazily hanging from the ceiling with a thick electrical wire that, seemingly, supports its weight too. didn’t even bother hiding it. I like the soft bristles of the Persian rug I’m sleeping on. it’s an old machine-made one. nobody cares about it anymore. it’s been here for years. and it’s got the job done. I remember childhood in this room…

My small body is still under the bed covers, while the sun drops in through the window behind me on my left. the orchard is quiet. no cars around for a great distance. green trees. citrus hanging. dad’s not here yet.

Dogs start barking and run away from the shed, along the cement path that runs through the trees, towards the rusty gate. Dad’s car, the dark brown jeep, is behind it. the dogs are barking at first. but then, they start wagging their tails. I can hear faint sounds of metal against metal. gates being opened and pushed to the side. Agha Mehdi has opened the gates for dad. and now, dad’s driving up with the Jeep, while Agha Mehdi closes the gates behind him.

Now I’m on my knees looking through the window. I’m just waking up, and dad’s already finished work. Fresh hot tea. That’s what he needs. Agha Mehdi brings it. Dad doesn’t like to wait for it to cool down. pours it straight into the saucepan that was holding the small tea glass. blows over it. a small white cube of sugar tucked in he corner of the cheek, and he slurps it. Lights up a smoke, and you have the beginning of a good morning.

I’m sticking a big sandwiched piece of white cheese into my mouth. I like following the sweetness of the tea with the savouriness of the cheese, and vice versa. dad watches me eat. then he remembers something, some task or an advice, and yells out for Agha Mehdi -his voice, loud and clear as always. Agha Mehdi shows up with “Baleh Agha (Yes sir!)” at the door of our modestly furnished room. His voice raspy. His hair white. He’s wearing thick glasses. and he’s got an un-ashed cigarette between his lips, as always. just as hyper as my dad, but with a small thin stature and a slightly hunched back. he ashes the cigarette, lets out a couple deep coughs, and he is ready to go: “Will do… yes… yes sir… shall I get more tea Agha (sir)?”

And that was easily 35 years ago. Now Hossein comes to the door. The trees are older now. Hossein says we should revamp the whole orchard, plant new trees -which requires time, effort, and care, as well as for all this to actually matter. Now they say the land is worth more than to be used for growing citrus trees. No one wants to buy it though. too big they say.

Hossein’s height, compared to mine, is the same as his dad’s height, compared to my dad’s. Both are gone now. But stays the orchard, and therefore, me and Hossein too, here, in this moment. Is there anything meaningful left here -in this land that is no longer valuable for what it produces, but rather, its mere square footage? Maybe I came here looking. Hossein’s in touch with it still; I can tell. He puts on his big rubber boots and goes out in the smouldering heat to tend the ground -the chafed newly plowed ground that you can hardly walk on. He’s got a hat made of straw, and, this time, a weed whacker in his hand. He sometimes hires a helping hand or two, but not often, wanting to keep costs down. Always complains about his bad back.

We used to play here together on that chaffed ground. My dad was in charge back then. Now I am -but not really. The intention is gone. My dad had it. And he didn’t leave me any. Plus, we left this country a long time ago. Now we only care about the square footage -that, and the currency exchange rate. Now, only Hossein lives the reality of what is left. He takes after his dad, who took care of this land like it was his baby, dealing with the locals, with their strange ways, and learning the ways of the land. Hossein’s learned it too. Hossein continued at my dad’s side after Agha Mehdi died, and my dad trusted him like no other. I’m sure they trusted and counted on us too.

Hossein comes here to get away from the city. Never liked his accounting job, or people in general. Comes here for the heart; I know. It’s his lair now. I’m the guest. His room -his old dad’s room- is the better room now. It’s got a big LCD screen and a satellite connection too. We sit on the ground in his room and share a meal. He knows how to get fed here. He cooked up something yesterday, and today, he came back from a city-run with falafel sandwiches. He skips lunch. But for dinner, he eats twice as much. Says he’s watching his weight!

Outside, somewhere mostly in the shade, the dogs are tied, lest they tear me, or someone else, apart. They’d tear anything apart, those violent crazy bastards! Hossein likes it that way. He needs them to cozy up to him, and only to him. You are rather secluded on this land, and there are bad people around. I try to make friends with the dogs, but it’s gonna take more than a few days. and these are not your average city dogs. these are loony-bin trauma survivors, by design. They feed them water and dried bread. once a day. tied up the whole day. set to roam free at night and fuck shit up, if need be. that’s how you’d want your security forces too. bite first, check for friend or foe later.

We have our next conversation about revamping the irrigation system and what kind of trees you’d plant, for the tenth time, under an even bigger fan, suspended from the high ceiling of the industrial shed we’re in. The shed houses our two rooms, a kitchen, and a small shower and washroom in the corner (the washroom is so small, I’d much rather go outside to pee at night, but the dogs would kill me.)

Covered in sweat, we sit around a makeshift wooden table pushed up against the outside wall of the kitchen. the fan merely moves the heat around. it’s deadly humid too -part and parcel with the special climate of this special part of Iran, in between The Caspian sea and The Alborz Mountains, which has turned this stretch of land into this green paradise. The walls of the shed are lined with shelves holding various old rusty metal machine parts, gears, cables, oil, tires, barrels of unknown liquids, and spare parts to unknown machines. smells of rust and grease and rubber collide. remnants of a past when my dad used this place as the headquarters of his construction business. an HQ inside a beautiful green garden, as it were, with him and Agha Mehdi at the helm.

So again I ask, like an idiot, “what was the square footage of the whole thing?” it doesn’t matter. we just plod along with this reality. of an old piece of land that, one day, was the epicenter of the life-giving force of our family, and Agha Mehdi’s too. the spare parts around us were used for civil construction machinery. roads were built, bridges, water structures -gigantic yellow bulldozers were involved!

I wish I were my dad. but that reality I aspired to wasn’t mine to live. I appreciate that now. This reality, with the two middle-aged sons of those two old men, together again, wants to be a new version of that same old story, but doesn’t succeed. it’s not another version: it is, rather, the continuation of it -the ebb after the flow, or maybe the other way around. and in its quiet and literally grounded existence, the land supports that continuation. it literally IS the only real continuity that exists -and the only wisdom. the dogs roam it every night out of love. following the maddening scents of its great expanse, and accessing with greatest fidelity, that intensity that escapes us, while I struggle to remember -and this time, maybe write down- the damn square footage of this old field.