Naz City Tales: The Incredibles (Apt. D314, aka the Pie Room)

I visited a family today in Erbil, at one of the Naz City highrise apartments. When the father opened the door, the first thing I saw was a tiny little girl in a tiny little yellow sleeveless dress with colorful rhinestones on the front. This was D's little sister, the image of a little South Asian pixie with short, glossy black curls and dark eyes alight with merriment. She was a mere 2-and-a-half years old, but she was feisty and fearless. The dress was from India. They were originally from Kerala in South India, also known as “God's own country” because of it's stunning natural beauty. I googled it later and saw that it looks a lot like Oman but greener and even more paradise-like, and with elephants. Looks like I'm adding another country to my list of travel destinations.

D came out of the bathroom. “Hey D, how's it going?” I gave him a hug. We sat on the couch and he told me about how he had visited two friends today, and they had played hide-and-seek and Gameboy. He's such a sweet kid. I never noticed this before, but I discovered that he has a nervous laugh. I don't think he's even aware that he does it, but it's very endearing. His sister is a riot. She stood at the doorway to the living room and wouldn't stop laughing hysterically for no apparent reason. I couldn't help laughing back. I love it when kids do that. Too bad when adults do it, they just sound crazy.

His father was opening up a Majidi Mall from Kuwait here in Kurdistan. They'd lived in Kuwait before coming to Erbil, and every holiday, they returned to Kerala to visit their homeland and family. As I asked them questions, I was shocked to discover that all of D's academic brilliance and hard work, particularly in math and science, was self-driven. His parents had both studied humanities and seemed to have no particular interest in math or science, and neither seemed terribly curious about D's academics. On the contrary, his father had been wondering if D picked a lot of fights with the other kids because that's what he had done at D's age. Wow, this kid was even more amazing than I'd figured.

His sister never stopped roaming around the spacious living room, and we watched amused and amazed as she climbed to the top of the couch and jumped fearlessly down into a sitting position, over and over again. She was a born thrill-seeker, a born mountain climber with not a scared bone in her tiny little doll-like body. What an incredible family. Most of all, I loved how the parents were so nonchalant and relaxed about their amazing children. Later, over dinner at Bakery & More, I noticed that his father seemed to know quite a few Kurdish words. It turns out he could speak Kurdish* after just one year here, as well as 9 other languages. Christ, they weren't human, this family; they were the Incredibles in disguise! Who knew there was a family of superheroes living in the middle of Erbil?

Before leaving for Bakery & More, I'd mentioned that I might buy a bag of bread while I was there. As we were getting up from the table after the big dinner, D asked “Did you say you wanted to buy bread downstairs?” I was surprised that he even remembered I'd said that. It's a nice feeling when you don't think anyone's really listening, but it turns out someone was, even if it was a really inconsequential comment. It's an amazing feeling when the one who was listening was an 8-year-old kid. Before leaving the table, D went around pushing all the chairs in while even his parents and sister were already going down the stairs. I stayed and helped him carry out this ritual of manners which he'd probably learned at school. During the car ride home, he held a CD in his hand, which his father had just given to me because I'd said I liked a song on it.

“Look,” D said suddenly, pointing to the back of the passenger seat. A milky reflection in the shape of a CD was cast on it. I told him if he held it under other lights, it would make an entire rainbow of colors. We held it under other lights and watched as thin, web-like neon lines spun in circles as the car moved quickly from one light source to another. Years later, I thought as I watched him, he was going to remember how mesmerized he'd been by lights on CD surfaces when he was little, just as I'd remembered years later how I would squint at various degrees from the darkness of my bedroom to change the shape of the light in the hallway, and then squeeze my eyes shut and pretend to sleep as I heard my father coming home from work. By the time he remembers, though, maybe CD's will be extinct.

*Kurdish is similar to Malayalam, their native tongue, which I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by, since they are both from the same Indo-Iranian language family. They both originated in the Caucasus, brought down by the Aryans, so it makes sense that a lot of their words sound similar.