Darius the Great Is Not Okay(53)

Her sink was overflowing with whole romaine lettuce leaves, bathing under the running water. I wondered if it was for the bread. I didn’t know of any Iranian recipes that involved baking romaine lettuce into bread, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.

“Um.”

“It’s Sohrab’s favorite,” Khanum Rezaei said, nodding toward the sink. “He and his dad love it.”

Sohrab’s dad.

I felt so bad for him.

Also, I felt confused, because I didn’t know anyone whose favorite food was romaine lettuce.

Sohrab Rezaei contained multitudes.

“Can you take it outside for me?” Mrs. Rezaei scooped the leaves into a colander, banged it on the sink a few times, and handed it to me. “Put it on the table. I’ll go get Sohrab.”

The Rezaeis’ garden was very different from Babou’s. There were no fruit trees, no planters of jasmine, only long rows of hyacinths and a collection of huge pots filled with different herbs. The largest was right next to the kitchen—it was nearly two feet across and three feet high—and it was being assimilated by fresh mint.

Mint is the Borg of herbs. If you let it, it will take over each and every patch of ground it encounters, adding the soil’s biological and technological distinctiveness to its own.

There was a charcoal grill in the middle of the garden, the big round kind that looked like a miniature red Starbase. The only table was a Ping-Pong table, close to the door where I stood holding the dripping romaine leaves.

“Khanum Rezaei?”

There was no answer.

Was the Ping-Pong table the one I was supposed to put the romaine on?

Did Iranians say Ping-Pong, or did they say table tennis?

We didn’t cover the history of Ping-Pong/table tennis in Iran during our Net Sports Unit in physical education, which now seemed like a ridiculous oversight.

Khanum Rezaei popped up behind me. I almost dropped the lettuce in fright.

“I forgot this,” she said, squeezing behind me and flapping a giant white-and-blue tablecloth over the Ping-Pong table. It tented up over the little posts for the net. “You can spread the leaves out to dry some.”

“Okay.” I did what she asked, spreading the leaves out so they overlapped as little as possible. The water seeped into the tablecloth, turning it translucent.

“Darioush!”

Sohrab grabbed me around the shoulders from behind and swayed me back and forth.

My neck tingled.

“Oh. Hi.”

He was wearing plaid pajama pants so huge, he could have fit his entire body down one leg. They were cinched around his waist with a drawstring. I could tell because he had tucked his green polo shirt into his pants.

As soon as Sohrab saw the lettuce, he let me go and ran back inside, talking to his mom in Farsi at warp 9.

I had become invisible.

As I watched Sohrab through the doorway, he seemed younger somehow, swimming in his pajama pants with his shirt tucked in.

I knew without him saying it that he was missing his dad.

I felt terrible for him.

And I felt terrible feeling sorry for myself. Another Nowruz had come and gone for Sohrab without his father, and I was worried about feeling invisible.

But then Sohrab looked back at me as I watched him from the doorway, and his eyes squinted up again. His smile was a supernova.

“Darioush, you like sekanjabin?”

“What?”

“Sekanjabin. You’ve had it?”

“No,” I said. “What is it?

He pulled a short, wide-mouthed jar out of the fridge, said something quick to his mom, and came back outside. “It’s mint syrup. Here.” He unscrewed the jar, shook the water off a piece of lettuce, and dipped it in the sauce.

If his face was a supernova before, it became an accretion disc—one of the brightest objects in the universe—as soon as he tasted his lettuce.

I loved that Sohrab could be transported like that.

I took a tiny leaf and tried the sauce. It was sweet and minty, but there was something sour too.

“Vinegar?”

“Yes. Babou always adds a little.”

“Babou made this?”

“Yes. You never had it?”

“No. I never heard of it before.”

How did I not know my grandfather made sekanjabin?

How did I not know how delicious sekanjabin was?

“He is famous for it. My dad . . . He always grew extra mint, for Babou to use when he made it.” He gestured out to the garden. “You saw our mint?”

“Yeah.”

“Now it grows too much. Babou hasn’t made it for a while.”

“Oh.”

Sohrab dipped another leaf and then passed me the jar.

It was perfect.

“Thank you for coming over, Darioush.”

“It’s tradition to visit your friends the day after Nowruz.” I took another leaf to dip. “Right?”

Sohrab squeezed my shoulder as he inhaled another piece of lettuce. He nodded and chewed and swallowed and then squinted right at me.

“Right.”



* * *





After I helped Sohrab polish off every piece of lettuce on the table—two whole heads—he ran to get dressed, while I watched Khanum Rezaei make her bread. She pounded out the dough with her floured palms, then sprinkled a mixture of dried herbs and spices on top.