Darius the Great Is Not Okay(45)

I hated that she was crying.

I hated that Babou had treated her like that.

“Thank you, maman. I will be fine.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. It’s okay.”

Mamou kissed me on the cheek and then pulled away, disappearing into the bathroom with Mom right behind her.

Without our binary stars holding us together, our orbits decayed until the Bahrami family solar system succumbed to entropy and broke apart.

“He does this sometimes,” Sohrab said. “Gets angry. For no reason. Because of the tumor.”

“Oh.”

“That’s not how he really is.”

Ardeshir Bahrami had always seemed severe to me, for as long as I had known him. Even when I was a child and he was a scary figure on Mom’s computer monitor with a gruff voice and a bushy mustache.

So I wasn’t sure I believed Sohrab. Not entirely.

But it was nice to imagine a version of my grandfather that didn’t make my grandmother cry.

“Maybe we should make some tea,” I said.

That’s all I ever knew how to do. Make tea.

“Sure.”



* * *





The kitchen was empty. Everyone had abandoned ship after the photo fiasco. But the steam-filled air was bursting with the scents of turmeric and dill and rice and salmon and dried Persian limes. Mamou had a huge piece of fish in the oven, and sabzi polow cooking on the stove, and plates of every kind of torshi known to mankind—even the lemon one, which was my favorite.

Sohrab’s stomach grumbled.

“Your fast is over today. Right?”

“At sunset.”

The kettle was already steaming, but the teapot was empty except for the dregs of the last batch. I shook it out over the sink and started a new pot.

While we waited, Zandayi Simin came in with an empty teacup. “Oh. Thank you, Darioush-jan.”

She said something in Farsi to Sohrab, who nodded back at her. He looked at me and then back to her.

His cheeks were turning red.

I didn’t know anything could make Sohrab blush.

It made me like him even more.

“Um,” I said.

“Darioush-jan,” Zandayi Simin said, “I am so happy to meet you.”

“Me too,” I said.

I started blushing a little bit myself.

“I love you very much.”

“Um.”

She said something to Sohrab again, and then said, “My English is not very good.”

“No,” I said. “It’s terrific.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Sohrab will help to . . .” She looked at him.

“Translate,” he said.

She nodded. “Any questions you have.”

“Oh.” I swallowed. I had only spoken to Zandayi Simin a few times over the Internet. Usually she just talked to Mom in Farsi.

I had so many questions inside me.

All I knew about our family was the little bits I heard from Mom.

I wanted to know what our family’s stories were.

I wanted to know the things Mom wouldn’t think to tell me. Things she knew but never said out loud, because they were a part of her.

I wanted to know what made the Bahrami family special.

“Uh.”

My neck started to prickle.

I wanted to know about growing up in Iran.

I wanted to know what my cousins were like when they were kids.

I wanted to know what Zandayi Simin had done with her life.

My aunt was offering me a treasure—a hoard of jewels, worthy of Smaug the Terrible (the dragon, not the water boiler). And I was too paralyzed to reach out and select a gem.

“Um.”

Zandayi Simin smiled patiently at me.

“Simin-khanum,” he said. “Tell him about Babou and the aftabeh.”

Zandayi Simin laughed. “Sohrab!” She said something in Farsi, something that made him blush harder, but he laughed too.

“Darioush-jan. You know what aftabeh is?”





MY COUSIN, THE RINGWRAITH



In some ways, Nowruz is the Persian version of Christmas: You spend it with your whole family, and you eat mountains and mountains of food, and nearly everyone takes the day off.

Mom always pulled me and Laleh out of school. I never told anyone why. I’m pretty sure Laleh did, but like I said, Laleh was a lot more popular than me.

Another way Nowruz is like Christmas: presents.

Mamou and Babou—who had finally reemerged, acting as if nothing unusual had transpired—gave me a crisp white button-up shirt. It was a little like the one Sohrab wore, except it had blue pinstripes.

Dayi Jamsheed and Dayi Soheil gave me five million rials each.

I did not know the exact exchange rate for Iranian rial (IRR) and United States dollar (USD), only that there was a considerable difference.

My uncles gave the same to Laleh, who screamed and ran around shouting, “I’m a millionaire! I’m a millionaire!”

Laleh had been sneaking the Nowruz desserts—baqlava and bahmieh—all afternoon. She’d also had three cups of tea, and thus nine cubes of sugar, which meant she had enough fuel to power an electro-plasma system.

There was a mountain of qottab waiting for after dinner too.