Darius the Great Is Not Okay(61)

I sneezed.

“Afiat basheh,” Sohrab said.

“Thanks.” I sneezed again. “Sorry. How far is it?”

“Not far. Closer than Masjid-e-Jameh.”

“Okay.”

“Darioush. When are we going to play football again?”

I bit my lip and stared down at my Vans. They were getting dusty.

I wasn’t sure I could endure another episode of penile humiliation in the showers.

But Sohrab said, “We don’t have to play with Ali-Reza and Hossein, if you don’t want to. We can go to a different field.”

That’s another thing I liked about Sohrab: He knew what I was thinking without me having to say it out loud.

And a third thing I liked about him: He gave me time to think things over.

Penile humiliation notwithstanding, I actually did have fun playing soccer/non-American football with Sohrab. And we couldn’t really play with only the two of us. Not if we were going to be on the same team.

I always wanted to be on the same team as Sohrab.

“I don’t mind,” I said at last. “We can play with the others.”

“You sure? I won’t let them tease you again. I promise.”

“I’m sure,” I said. “We can play whenever.”

Sohrab squinted at me. “Let’s go this afternoon. When we get back. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“You are so good at it, Darioush. You should play for your school. When you go home.”

I imagined running onto a field in the Chapel Hill High School team kit. Go Chargers!

“Maybe I will.”



* * *





Fir and cypress trees lined the walkways of Dowlatabad Garden. We walked in the dappled shade, enjoying the mist blown off the burbling fountains. The path was paved with broken stones on one side and gleaming white diamond-shaped tiles on the other.

It was so peaceful.

“My dad loved to come here,” Sohrab said.

I liked that he felt safe talking about his dad to me.

“Do you get to visit him?”

Sohrab chewed his cheek and didn’t answer.

“Sorry.”

“No. Don’t be. It’s okay, Darioush.”

He sat on the edge of a fountain, and I sat beside him, bumping shoulders.

I don’t know why people say “joined at the hip.” Sohrab and I were joined at the shoulder.

I let him take his time.

“We got to see him at first. For the first few years. Once a month.”

The fountain gurgled.

The wind rustled the trees.

“Was it bad?”

“Not too bad. He was here, in Yazd. The prison was not good, but at least he was close.”

Sohrab’s jaw twitched.

I bumped his shoulder again, more to cheer him up than anything.

But then he said, “Four years ago they transferred him.”

“Oh?”

“To Evin prison. You know Evin?”

I shook my head.

“It is very bad. It’s in Tehran. And they put him . . .”

Sohrab stared up at the branches shading us.

“No one can see him. Not even the other prisoners.”

“Solitary confinement?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” I said.

Sohrab sighed.

I wanted to make it better, but I didn’t know how.

Sohrab had Father Issues.

I suppose I had Father Issues too, though they paled in comparison.

Maybe all Persian boys have Father Issues.

Maybe that is what it means to be a Persian boy.

“I’m sorry, Sohrab.”

I rested my hand on his shoulder, and he let out a long, low breath.

“What if I never see him again?” he whispered.

I squeezed Sohrab’s shoulder and then stretched my arm all the way across it, so I was kind of holding him.

Sohrab bit his lip and blinked and squeezed out a few stress hormones of his own.

Just a few.

“You will,” I said.

Sohrab wiped his face with the back of his hand.

I felt so helpless.

Sohrab was hurting and there was nothing I could do. Nothing except sit there and be his friend.

But maybe that was enough. Because Sohrab knew it was okay to cry in front of me. He knew I wouldn’t tell him not to have feelings.

He felt safe with me.

Maybe that’s the thing I liked about Sohrab best of all.

After a minute, he cleared his throat, shook his head, and stood up.

“Come on, Darioush,” he said. “There is more I want you to see.”





MAKE IT SO



“Darioush. Look up. We’re here.”

“Wow.”

The roof of leaves ended abruptly. We stood at the end of a long fountain, and that fountain led to a huge eight-sided mansion, and out of that mansion rose a baad gir. A wind tower.

It was a true tower—not like the Towers of Silence, which were more mounds than anything.

The baad gir of Dowlatabad Garden was even taller than the spindly columns of Takhte Jamsheed. It soared a hundred feet above us, smooth along its bottom half, slotted along the upper half to catch the wind, with little spade-shaped ornaments at the top. Spines dotted the surface of the spire.