Darius the Great Is Not Okay(67)

“Good night, Mamou. I love you.”

“I love you, Darioush-jan.” She held my face. “Sleep well.”



* * *





Laleh’s door was cracked open as I passed by. She was curled up in her bed, completely incapacitated by the amount of chelo kabob she had eaten.

I kind of wished Dad wasn’t playing Rook. Maybe I could have convinced him to watch an episode of Star Trek. Just the two of us.

But Dad had found his place, and I had found mine. Even if they were further apart.

Like I said, our intermix ratio had to be carefully calibrated.

I went to my room and started up the Dancing Fan. Dayi Soheil had brought Sohrab’s new cleats for me, concealed in a grocery bag, and Mamou had left the box on my bed. I opened it up: bright green Adidas, with the three gleaming white stripes on each shoe so crisp and new, they would blind Ali-Reza and Hossein next time Sohrab played against them.

They were perfect.

I wanted to run after Sohrab and give them to him right away.

I wanted to go to the field and play a game.

But then I thought about what he had said—that it was nice to share with me. And I thought maybe I should wait and give them to him later. Like a going away gift or something.

“What’s that?” Mom asked from the door.

“Dayi Soheil picked up some cleats for me to give Sohrab. As a gift. He needs new ones.”

“They’re perfect.”

“Yeah.”

Mom sat down next to me and ran her fingers through my hair. “You’re a good friend. You know that?”

“Thanks.”

“I love seeing you two together. Just like me and Mahvash when we were younger.”

“Yeah.”

I loved being Sohrab’s friend.

I loved who being Sohrab’s friend made me.

“You’re going to miss it here, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” I played with my tassel. “I think I am.”

Mom wrapped her arm around me and pulled my head down to kiss me on the temple.

“Did you have a good time tonight?”

“It was perfect,” I said.

And it was perfect. But it was bittersweet too. Because I was running out of time.

I wished I could stay in Iran.

I wished I could go to school with Sohrab, and play soccer/non-American football every day, though I supposed I would have to start calling it regular football.

I wished I could have been born in Yazd. That I could have grown up with Sohrab and Asghar and even Ali-Reza and Hossein.

The thing is, I never had a friend like Sohrab before. One who understood me without even trying. Who knew what it was like to be stuck on the outside because of one little thing that set you apart.

Maybe Sohrab’s place was empty before too.

Maybe it was.

I didn’t want to go home.

I didn’t know what I was going to do when I had to say good-bye.





THE AGE OF BAHRAMIS



“You have too much hair, Darioush.”

“Um.”

Babou had been hanging around Stephen Kellner too much.

He was trying to fit a white cap over my dark Persian curls, but it kept slipping off.

“Fariba-khanum!” He called down the hall for Mamou to bring him something, but I didn’t recognize the word.

Mamou appeared in my bedroom doorway, smiling at the cap sitting crooked on my head.

“Here, maman.” She stuck three hairpins in her mouth, bunched up my hair to stuff it under the cap, and pinned everything in place.

“Perfect.”

“Merci,” I said.

Mamou squeezed my cheeks—“You are so handsome!”—and left.

Babou took me by the shoulders and looked me up and down. I was wearing the white shirt he and Mamou had gotten me for Nowruz, and my one pair of khaki dress pants.

They were the same color as all the walls in Yazd. I wondered if I would blend into the buildings, and appear as nothing but a floating face.

Babou tugged on my collar to straighten it.

“You look very nice, Darioush-jan.”

“Uh. Thank you.”

I didn’t feel nice.

I felt like I was on an away mission, disguised to infiltrate and observe another culture without violating the Prime Directive.

I felt like an actor, playing the role of the good Zoroastrian grandson.

I felt like a tourist.

But Babou fussed with my cap a little more, even though Mamou had already gotten it settled. He looked me in the eyes from time to time, like he was looking for something, and thought maybe—just maybe—I had it in me after all.

Babou hummed to himself as he smoothed out my shoulder seams and rested his hands on them.

“I am glad you are here to see this, Darioush-jan.”

Maybe I wasn’t such a tourist.

Maybe this was something Babou and I could share. Our very own Star Trek.

Maybe it was.

“Me too.”



* * *





The Atashkadeh is Yazd’s Zoroastrian Fire Temple.

It wasn’t like a mosque or church, with services every week. It was only used for special celebrations.

But it had a fire burning inside all the time.