Darius the Great Is Not Okay(34)

She was a replacement. An upgrade. I knew that without anyone saying it out loud.

And I knew Stephen Kellner was relieved to have another chance, a new child who wouldn’t be such a disappointment. It was written across his face every time he smiled at her. Every time he sighed at me.

I didn’t blame Laleh for that.

I really didn’t.

But sometimes I wondered if I was the one who was an accident.

That’s normal.

Right?



* * *





You can learn things without them being said out loud too.

That night at dinner, I learned Ardeshir Bahrami did not like Stephen Kellner very much. At all.

Maybe it was because Mom stayed in America for Dad. She left her family, her country, her father, for Stephen Kellner.

Maybe it was because Ardeshir Bahrami—a True Persian in every sense of the word—was culturally predisposed to reject any and all Teutonic influences intruding on his Iranian family.

Maybe it was because Dad was a secular humanist, and Babou was religiously predisposed to dislike him. Zoroastrianism is patrilineal, which meant that even though Mom had inherited Babou’s religion, she couldn’t pass it on to me and Laleh.

Maybe it was all three.



* * *





We sat around Mamou’s dining room table—Sohrab stayed to eat with us, once the sun had set—and somehow Dad had ended up seated next to Babou, who had decided to keep up a running commentary on the meal.

“You probably don’t like this stew, Stephen.” he said. “Most Americans don’t like fesenjoon.”

“I love it,” Dad said. “It’s my favorite. Shirin taught me how to make it.”

It was true: Dad really did love it.

And fesenjoon is a hard food to love at first.

It kind of looks like mud.

Worse than mud, even: It looks like the sort of primordial goo that could generate new amino acids, which would inevitably combine to initiate protein synthesis and create brand new life forms.

Babou was right that non-Persians (and even some Fractional Persians) tended to regard fesenjoon with suspicion, which is a shame, because it’s just chicken, ground walnuts, and robe. It’s salty and sweet and sour and perfect.

“You eat it the American way,” Babou said. He nodded at Dad’s hands, where he held his knife and fork. Babou—and Mamou and Sohrab and Mom, for that matter—used forks and spoons, which is how a lot of Persians ate.

Dad smiled with his lips closed. “I never got used to eating with my fork and spoon.”

“It’s fine, Stephen,” Babou said. He scooped up a spoonful of rice and said something to Mom in Farsi, who shook her head and answered in Farsi too.

Dad glanced at Mom and then back at his plate.

This was a thing that happened sometimes, when we were around Persians. They would switch from Farsi to English between sentences, or sometimes even within them, and me and Dad would be left out.

Dad’s ears looked a little pink. It was like looking into a distorted mirror at one of our family dinners, with Stephen Kellner playing me and Babou playing Stephen Kellner.

There was something deeply wrong about seeing Stephen Kellner embarrassed.

My own ears burned. Harmonic resonance.

“Darioush,” Sohrab said. He sat next to me, his plate piled twice as high as my own with rice and stew.

He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, after all.

“Tell me about your school. In America.”

“Um,” I said.

“What are your classes like?”

“They’re okay. I take economics, which is kind of cool. Physical education. English. Um. Geometry, but I’m not very good at that.”

“You’re not good at maths?”

I thought it was very interesting, how Sohrab used the British version of math.

“Not really.”

I glanced at Dad, but he was too busy shoveling rice into his mouth to comment on my math grades. Not that he was ever that bad about it. School was maybe the one thing he was mostly okay about. He knew how hard I studied.

But I knew without him saying it out loud that he was disappointed I didn’t have the knack for it. I would never be an architect like him. He’d never be able to update his messenger bag to say “Kellner & Son” or “Kellner & Kellner.”

It wasn’t the biggest disappointment I had ever dealt him, but I could tell it still stung.

“What about friends? You have lots of them?”

The fire in my ears spread to my neck and cheeks.

“Um. Not really. I guess I don’t fit in much.”

As soon as I said it, I glanced at Dad, because Stephen Kellner was categorically opposed to self-pity. But thankfully, he was still occupied with his fesenjoon.

Sohrab’s smile faded as he studied me.

“It’s because you are Iranian?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

He used his spoon to pick the meat off a chicken leg and scoop it up with some rice. “You’re the only Iranian at your school?”

“No. There’s a girl too. She’s full Iranian, though.”

“Your girlfriend?”

I choked on a bit of rice.

“No!” I coughed. “We’re just friends. Her name is Javaneh. Javaneh Esfahani. Her grandparents are from Isfahan.”