Title: Red and Green Author: Maureen S. O'Brien Rating: G Category: S Summary: Two holidays fall on the same day. Disclaimer: Donald P. Bellisario. Belisarius Productions. These are the makers. Paramount. CBS. These give the bucks. Sorkheeyeh toe az man; zardeeyeh man az toe. Heh heh heh. Author's Note: This is part of a series I'm writing, tieing together the recent sequence of eps ("Chains of Command", "The Stalker", "Tiger,Tiger", and the wondrous "Death Watch") to the Persian holiday season of Nouruz. I don't know if I'll ever get it done...boy, it's going slow...but here's part of it that is done. My proposed JAGWorld timeline for the eps: "Chains of Command" -- 1st week of February 1998 "The Stalker" -- 1st week of March (at least 3 weeks after CoC) "Tiger, Tiger" -- Saturday, March 14 (the full moon) THIS STORY: Tuesday, March 17 NOURUZ: Saturday, March 21 Depressed!Harm finally reads Diane's letters, looks up old casefile, sees that Lamm was left-handed in his personnel jacket, and finds out that Holbarth's ship is coming to port -- penultimate week of March "Death Watch" -- Saturday, March 28 (if it wasn't the weekend, he would have remembered Mac was coming over to go over the case). Anyhoo, I'm not Persian or Iranian nor do I play someone with a Persian grandmother on TV. So I am indebted to the following webpages for information on Chahar Shambe Suri/Charshanbe Souri and the rest of the Nouruz season: http://tehran.stanford.edu/ (The Persian Cultural Center) http://www.iranian.com/ (The Iranian webzine) http://www.iranian.com/May96/Nowrouz/Wonder.html ('96, Sydney, Australia) http://www.iranian.com/Feb97/Editor/Cover/CoverSouri.shtml ('97 & links) http://www.iranian.com/cover.html ('98 holidays) But my idea of what a DC celebration would be like is pretty much my own fault. Any mistakes are mine, and if you send me some e-mail I'll be glad to fix them. Btw, Rumi's a real poet. Read him. ====================================================================== MARCH 17, 1998 1435 ZULU JAG HEADQUARTERS FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA Harm looked at the coffeepot doubtfully. "Harriet, it's green." "So it is, sir." Her voice was just a shade too expressionless. He gave her a piercing glance, but she stayed composed. "Who made this coffee?" She made a show of checking the roster. "It was Bud's turn today, sir. But when the first pot ran out, of course...." "It could have been anyone. I know." He sighed. "Do I really need coffee that bad?" "I don't know about you, but I do." Mac plucked the coffeepot off the burner, poured herself a big cup, judged the temperature to be cool enough, and took a swallow, all without turning a hair. Harm just looked at her. "How can you drink _green_ coffee?" "How can you eat all that healthy green food?" "Coffee isn't supposed to be green." "Then think of it as olive drab," she recommended. "It's closer to that shade anyway." "That isn't helping," Harm said after a moment. "Now I have visions of boiled Marine uniforms." Mac shrugged. "I tried. And speaking of which," she added in the tone of voice he associated with her courtroom prowl, "it seems to me that olive drab is close enough to green. And what you're wearing...is not." "Oh, no, you don't," he said, backing up hastily. "There's green on my ribbons. That counts." "Darn." "What, didn't you ever notice?" "I'm a Marine, Harm. I notice these things. But I was hoping you had forgotten." Another predatory grin. He backed up a little further. "If this is what green coffee does to you, I guess I don't need it after all." But he poured himself a cup anyway, and steeled himself to drink it. Mac walked back to his office with him. "I guess this means you're not a big fan of green eggs and ham?" "'I do not like them, Sam I Am. I do not like green eggs and ham.'" Not even on St. Patrick's Day. Speaking of which...." "I know, everybody's going. But I'm not really up for McMurphy's this year," she said, trying not to grimace. "Not even with his good corned beef and cabbage thrown in." "I didn't think you would be," he said quietly. And even if you were, you don't need to be around that much alcohol this soon after you fell off the wagon. "But I can make corned beef and cabbage. I can even play some Irish songs, if "Fenario" counts. Or we can forget all about the holiday and just hang out." "What, like real people? With lives and everything?" "Hey, I know it's a stretch...." She looked thoughtful. "Actually, if you don't mind missing St. Paddy's, I've got another idea. Have you ever heard of Chahar Shanbe Suri? Well, it's tonight...." MARCH 17, 1998 0030 ZULU SOMEWHERE IN WASHINGTON DC Harm pulled into the parking lot with extreme care. Even so, he narrowly avoided hitting a pack of kids who came out of nowhere. At least, he assumed they were kids. He had never seen any grown Muslim women as short as the veiled pack currently beating spoons on pots and tripping over their own skirts. As soon as the car stopped, they surrounded it expectantly. When Harm got out of the red Mustang, they dropped back a little, but when Mac got out, she was swarmed. She said something sharp in Farsi. They mumbled something repentantly. She said something else and then drew out an envelope full of crisp new one dollar bills. The kids waited their turns patiently until they each had one. Then the money disappeared under the veils, the kids all yelled out something else in Farsi, and they were off again. "What was that?" Harm joked. "Valet parking?" "Trick-or-treaters, more or less. The kids get to dress in chador, act like ghosts, and make lots of noise to scare off evil spirits. And new bills are a good Nouruz present. My grandmother always use to give me one, among other things...it's not like I have any kids to give presents to." "If this is bringing back bad memories...." "It's not. Chahar Shanbe Suri was always fun. I haven't celebrated it, or any of the New Year's stuff, since my grandmother died. I couldn't believe it when I saw this listed in the _Post_." They walked around the corner of the building to the back parking lot. The faint sounds they had heard in front were loud now. There was some kind of Iranian R&B singer playing over incredibly noisy speakers. There was a bonfire burning off to the edge of the parking lot. There were food booths with people lined up in front of them. There were several booths soliciting donations for various causes, each cause described in calligraphy in a language he couldn't read and in block capitals in English. There were people dancing and other people looking on disapprovingly. There were decorations. And there were people absolutely everywhere, in every kind of clothing, many of whom looked enough like Sarah Mackenzie to be cousins. For all either of them knew, maybe they were. Harm looked down at Mac to see her reaction. "This is great!" she half-yelled over the noise. "Thank you for coming with me!" "You're welcome!" he yelled back. "You want to look around first, or hit the food?" "Food, of course!" They hit the food. It was good, which didn't surprise him. A church fair was a church fair was a church fair, even if the churches involved were a couple of mosques, a Baha'i temple, whatever you call multiple Parsis, a nondenominational association of Kurds, and a passel of guys from Afghanistan. Not to mention booths set up by several tourist bureaus encouraging folks to bring the kids and visit the Old Country. "Does this mean we have to write contact reports?" Mac said, visions of paperwork dancing through her head. "Probably. But these kabob things are worth it. Not to mention the noodle soup...." "And the lamb." "And whatever this pastry stuff is...it's delicious!" "Have you tried the sekanjabin yet?" "What's that?" "The drink." "No...are you sure I want this, Mac? It smells kind of like vinegar." "Just try it." "Mint, lemon, ginger...mmm! I wonder what they make this from?" "Water, sugar...vinegar. Plus whatever flavor you want." "No way." "I can prove it. I can even tell you the recipe." A live band came on. Harm listened with interest, watching to see what chords the guitarist was using. Mac stood beside him, moving to the music almost imperceptibly but obviously paying close attention to the words. She laughed a couple times during the upbeat songs, but more often she sighed. But the rest of the crowd was, too. Obviously, Persian songs also included some kind of blues. "Now we are going to sing our music for a very old poem by Rumi," the lead singer promised. Mac drew in a breath. "This will be good." "Can you translate it for me?" "Maybe...Rumi wrote back in the 1200's. I'm not really familiar with that old of...sh. They're starting." The music moved around, but the lyrics seemed repetitive. Mac seemed just as glad. After they'd sung it a few times, she seemed to have it. "I can't translate it the way I should," she apologized. "It's a quatrain, and Rumi always wrote those so naturally, just like he happened to talk in 4 lines and rhymes." "Doesn't matter. What have you got?" "Minute I heard my first love story, You're the one I started looking to find. Didn't know yet just how blind that was. Lovers don't meet somewhere at last; They're inside each other all that time." "I like that." "He was talking about God, though," she said, sounding disappointed. "Everything those Sufis wrote was about God. I'm not sure if that adds a layer or takes one away." Harm shrugged. "It's a good song. Does it matter?" "Maybe not. Probably not to Rumi." She moved to the music again without moving her feet from their place, her lips tracing medieval words in the air. The band finished, and someone made an announcement. And suddenly Mac was dragging him over to the small bonfire on the edge of the parking lot. It had burned down considerably, but it still seemed to be putting out a lot of heat. "What's going on?" "This is the part I told you about, when everybody jumps over the fire!" "You didn't tell me about this part." "I didn't?" "No, you didn't." "Sorry. Well, it's no big deal, Harm. You just jump over the fire for good luck. Even the kids do it." And they did, with less trepidation than the adults. Sometimes whole families jumped all at once. Others went one by one. Even little old ladies and gnarled old men were doing it, sometimes with assistance. The Kurds seemed to be explaining to their kids that it was really in honor of the blacksmith Kawa, and that the fire really should be on Nowruz Eve, but nobody really seemed bothered by it. They were having fun. He followed Mac into the line to jump. "Will the glare of the firelight bother you?" Mac said suddenly, worried about his nightblindness. "Maybe," he admitted. "But I think I can judge when to jump." "You think?" She frowned. "Look, why don't we just jump together? If you hang on to my hand and you jump when I jump, neither of us will end up in the emergency room again." He thought about it. It wasn't as if anybody here knew them. "Just as long as you don't race me," he conceded. "Hey, you're the one who started it last time." The glare grew brighter, and he could smell the smoke. "I hate rabbits," he murmured. "What?" "Keeps away the smoke." The wind shifted. "See?" She laughed. "So does sitting away from the smoke." "What are they saying when they jump?" "'Sorkheeyeh toe az man; zardeeyeh man az toe.'" At least, the ones who aren't just screaming like maniacs." She grinned. "Well, I can hear that. What does it mean?" "Roughly? 'Your redness to me, my yellowness to you.' Red is a healthy color, and yellow...." "Isn't." And then they were the next in line. Mac's hand was lean and strong in his. They backed up and ran toward the fire at an even pace. Mac chanted quietly, "One, two, three!" and they were up, the heat of the coals reaching up towards their feet. "Sorkheeyeh toe az man, zardeeyeh man az toe!" Mac yelled out. Harm was still mumbling along as they landed. "Wasn't that fun?" Mac said excitedly as they walked away. It was the closest he'd ever seen her to acting like a kid. "I told you Chahar Shanbe Suri was great! I just wish I had some firecrackers to set off," she said wistfully. "Illegal in DC," he reminded her. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guess I was committing civil disobedience on the Fourth, then." "I think we should go for a constitutional amendment that protects the right to bear bottle rockets," Harm proposed half-seriously as they walked back toward the food booths. Neither one noticed that they were still holding hands.