STORY

The movie was wonderful, beautiful, heartbreaking.

"The hell with this," my uncle said. "I'm tired of being moved to tears by American movies. When are they going to be moved to tears by Iranian movies? It's no good."

He wiped his eyes. "I've had it. I've had it with their joys and sorrows and their music in the background. It is too beautiful. I do not have the room inside myself any more. I have seen too much."

"It was a good movie," my aunt said.

"Of course it was a good movie. That's the whole problem. William," my uncle said to my cousin Niloufar's husband William. "When are your parents coming to visit?"

"Three weeks."

"Okay. When your parents come to visit, we are going to watch a sad and beautiful Iranian movie. I am sorry. It has come to this. Look at me. I am crying. I am crying over an American movie. I am not going to feel good until I see an American man crying over an Iranian movie."

"What about an American woman crying?" my cousin said.

"That will help. But a man understands another man's tears."

"That is a man for you," my aunt said. "Even when there is something that you do not do as freely, you think that there is something special when you do it."

"I did not say that it is special. I said that I understand it."

"But the underlying point is that women cry too easily."

"I am not smart enough to have any underlying points. If I knew about underlying points, I would've noticed what all these American movies are doing to me."

"What?" I said.

"They are making me nostalgic for memories I don't even have. They are making me remember things I don't even know. 'Ah yes, good old America in the 1950's.' It is ridiculous. What the hell do I know about America in the 1950's?"

"Isn't that the point of a good movie?" my cousin said. "To make you feel like you are inside it?"

"Yes, of course," my uncle said. "That is why I am crying. But it is not a two-way street. It is not a free and open exchange. I am through. For my part I am through. Until I see an American man or woman cry over an Iranian movie, I am done with them."

Over the next three weeks my uncle read seventeen books. He told me about them when I came to visit.

"Did you know that there are more sheep than people in New Zealand?" he said.

"Yes," I said.

"I have been sticking to it. No movies. I have been remembering myself."

"That's good," I said.

"Yes," he said. "Come one. Let's go to the video store. William's parents are coming tomorrow. We need to find a movie that is sad but not too sad. It shouldn't take our saddest movie to make them cry."

"I don't think there are any Iranian movies that are sad but not too sad."

We went to the Iranian video store in Bellevue. My uncle explained what he was looking for to Mr. Houshang, the owner.

"All movies are sad," Mr Houshang said. "American or Iranian. Do you know why?"

No, we said.

"Because when we watch them, we see how hard we have been trying. Look at them. Look at how hard they have to work to make a movie. Look at how many people it takes. What is all that work for? It is to try to be us. Good God, we have been working hard."

He gave us a movie that he said was sad but not because of anybody young or beautiful dying.

"I think he is a wise man," I said when we left.

"Yes," my uncle said. "I was not prepared for that much wisdom. Maybe I have been thinking about this all wrong. I have been thinking of how much I have been giving of myself to American movies. I have not been thinking of what American movies have been giving me."

My uncle was quiet for a while.

"All right, all right," he said. "But is it a lot to ask for a two-way street? Is it a lot to say that I would like to see an American man cry as I have cried?"

"No," I said. "Or a woman."

"Or a woman," my uncle said.

The night that we watched the movie, I was trying very hard to not look at William's father and mother to see if an American man or woman would cry watching an Iranian movie. William's father did not seem like the kind of man who cried very often. He seemed like the kind of man who cried over a movie hardly ever. I thought my uncle was up against it. He was going to be reading books for a while.

The movie was wonderful and beautiful and heartbreaking. My uncle cried and I did too. It was our country and we missed it and we didn't care what anybody else thought.

"The hell with it," my uncle said. "I am not watching any more Iranian movies. It is too sad."

It was too sad. I didn't like to think that there was a people just like us in every way except for everything about us that was from living in America and everything about them that was from living in Iran. It didn't make any sense. I understood why my uncle had decided to quit watching American movies. It was a lot just to be from one place and watch the movies from there.

"I wish I knew how you felt," William's father said.

"What do you mean?" my uncle said.

"I would like to know how it feels to feel a movie is too sad," William's father said. "I have watched movies that are sad, but the movie ends and I am back in the world."

"What is it like when you are there?" my uncle said.

"Where?"

"Back in the world."

"I don't know. It is the world. I have always been there."

"It is not the movie, it is the world," my uncle said to me that night after everybody had left. "It is like coming back from a trip and seeing where we live for the first time."

"Where do we live?"

"We live in America. But we also live everywhere we've ever been. We might also live in places we've never been. I don't know. Sometimes I suspect that that is the case. But the movie touches those parts, those parts that have lived everywhere. It is a very lucky thing to have lived in more than one place, Hamid. It is sad too, but in this world, it is a very lucky thing."

I couldn't explain it, but I knew that he was right. I thought that maybe I should give up movies too, if it meant understanding things like that.