Darius the Great Is Not Okay Page 14

  “Where was he when Laleh was two?”

  Mom leaned down to kiss Dad on the temple, which I had noticed was her favorite place to kiss him when other people were around.

  “The shower is all yours, honey,” she said.

  Dad pulled Mom down for another kiss, this one at the corner of her mouth, which was how Dad liked to kiss Mom when they had an audience. “Thanks.”

  As soon as Mom went into the living room, I turned to Dad.

  “Persian Casual?”

  Dad flipped his sketchpad closed.

  “Persian Casual,” he agreed.

  * * *

  Persian Casual covers a wide gamut, from slightly more-formal-than-business-casual to just-shy-of-black-tie-or-full-military-dress. Button-up shirt and dress pants are the bare minimum; maybe a suit jacket, depending on the crowd. Back home, it meant a tie too, but no one wore ties in Iran. It was considered a “Western” fashion.

  Dad ran out of room in his luggage for any of his suit jackets, and I didn’t fit in mine anymore, so that left us at a disadvantage as far as looking more impressive than everyone else.

  That was the whole point and purpose of Persian Casual, as far as I could tell: to make sure you and your family looked more impressive than everyone else, usually by tricking people into thinking the occasion was more casual than it really was.

  Dad had lots of practice with Persian Casual. He knew how to anticipate it. He made sure we were dressed up, though sometimes it backfired. The only thing worse than being perpetually underdressed was being garishly overdressed. Then everyone would whisper behind our backs (in Farsi, of course) about how ostentatious we were.

  Mom insists the entire concept of Persian Casual is all in our heads.

  She always says we look fine, even if we’re in shorts and T-shirts while everyone else is in button-ups and jackets.

  She says we’re just being self-conscious.

  Maybe it’s a Social Cue.

  * * *

  I waited for Dad to finish before I went to my own bathroom (with the squatting toilet, which honestly wasn’t that bad once I got used to it) to shower and get dressed. With a house full of people all trying to achieve Persian Casual, there wasn’t much hot water left. I wore my dark gray dress pants and a turquoise button-up with these subtle leaf patterns on it, the kind you could only see in a certain light.

  It was kind of slimming. I liked the way it looked on me.

  I almost felt handsome.

  Almost.

  Dayi Soheil arrived a little after noon, with his wife and two sons. Dayi Jamsheed wasn’t supposed to arrive until later.

  Dayi Soheil looked exactly like Babou, a younger version from some parallel quantum reality where Babou was capable of smiling. Dayi Soheil and his wife, Zandayi Simin, took turns kissing me on both cheeks, hugging me, kissing me again, until Dayi Soheil stepped back and patted my stomach.

  “Where did this come from, dayi? All those medicines?”

  “Um.”

  Even Stephen Kellner had never pointed my stomach out to me.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Darioush-jan,” Zandayi Simin said, “welcome to Iran!”

  Zandayi means “mother’s brother’s wife.”

  My zandayi’s voice was deep and smooth, like an Elven queen’s. Her accent was thicker than Dayi Soheil’s too: All her consonants were sharpened, and she said “welcome” as “velcome.”

  “Thank you, Zandayi. Um. Eid-e shomaa mobarak.”

  That is the traditional Nowruz greeting for someone older than you.

  My aunt and uncle smiled at me. It was the kind of smile you give a toddler who has finally managed, after months of intensive training, to use the potty on his own for the first time.

  Dayi Soheil took my face in his hands. “Eid-e toh mobarak, Darioush-jan!”

  That is how you wish a happy Nowruz to someone younger than you.

  Dayi Soheil kissed me on each cheek again, patted my belly once last time, and went inside.

  I was so ashamed.

  * * *

  “Happy Nowruz, Darioush!” Sohrab announced when I answered the door.

  He was dressed Persian Casual too, though his shirt was white with a sort of striped texture to it that caught the light down his sides. He’d done something to his hair, so it stood up in soft spikes that shone in the hallway light.

  I had put gel in my hair too, but all that did was make the black curls shinier and stiffer.

  Sohrab smelled nice, like rosemary and leather, but he hadn’t overdone it. He had avoided the genetic predisposition many True Persians had toward using too much cologne.

  “Eid-e toh mobarak,” I said.

  You could also use toh for someone you were very close to.

  Sohrab squinted at me, then held the door open for the woman behind him to enter. She was short—almost squat—but her hair was so huge, once it was freed from her headscarf, that it took up the whole room.

  Sohrab said, “Maman, this is Darioush. Agha Bahrami’s grandson.”

  Sohrab’s mom leaned her head back to look me up and down.

  “Eid-e shomaa mobarak, Khanum Rezaei,” I said.

  “Happy Nowruz!” she said. Her voice was throaty and sandy. And loud.

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  She smiled, and her eyes crinkled up just like Sohrab’s. “Thank you.” She pulled me down by my shoulders and kissed me on both cheeks, then let go of me to find Mamou.

  “Is your dad coming? Or your amou?”

  Sohrab chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment.

  “No. Just me and my mom. We always come for Nowruz. Amou Ashkan goes to Feast.”

  “Feast?”

  “The Bahá’í celebration. Most of the Bahá’í families go.”

  “Oh.”

  I was going to ask more, but then I heard Sohrab’s mom let out a cry and charge across the sea of Bahramis separating her from her target.

  “My mom loves Mamou,” he said, and his squint was back. “She is special. You know?”

  I did know. Sohrab didn’t have to say it out loud.

  * * *

  We all had to take pictures behind the haft-seen.

  Laleh and I sat on chairs from the dining room, while Mom and Dad stood behind us.

  Persians have mastered the ancient and noble art of the awkward family photo—in fact, we probably invented it. True, Non-Fractional Persians refuse to smile in photos, unless they are tricked into it, or have been talked into it with a combination of pleading, guilt-tripping, and high-level taarofing.

  Dad smiled behind me. He had very straight, very white teeth—exactly what you’d expect from his Teutonic heritage and years of aggressive dentistry—and Laleh smiled, because she was Laleh, and Laleh was always smiling.

  But Mom just pursed her lips, which is as close as she came to smiling unless you surprised her.

  I tried to smile too, but my face felt weird and rubbery, and it came out as a half smile, half-constipated look.

  Dayi Jamsheed snapped a few pictures of us, and I thought we were done.

  I was wrong.

  Everyone needed pictures: with their own family units, with Mamou and Babou, with me, Laleh, Mom, and Dad. I kept getting pulled into different photos, with different arms over my shoulders or around my waist every few minutes. My family was everywhere.

  And even though I hated getting shuffled around and grabbed by my love handles, my rubbery constipated face did relax into a smile.

  I had never been surrounded by my family before. Not really.

  When Dayi Jamsheed started herding us together into a big group photo, my eyes started burning. I couldn’t help it.

  I loved them.

  I loved how their eyelashes were long and dark and distinct, ju
st like mine. And how their noses curved around a little bump in the middle, just like mine. And how their hair cow-licked in three separate places, just like mine.

  “Darius? You okay?” Dad said. He’d gotten squeezed into the very back, with me, since we were taller than everyone else.

  “Um. Yeah,” I clucked.

  Dad put his hand on my back and gave me a little wiggle.

  “You’re so lucky to have this big family.”

  I was lucky.

  That well inside me was ready to burst.

  Mamou turned around—she and Babou were seated in the very front, the binary suns of the Bahrami family solar system—and she smiled at me.

  For the first time in Bahrami family history, she had all her grandchildren in one place.

  I loved my grandmother’s smile more than anything.

  Dayi Jamsheed handed his camera—a big SLR—off to Sohrab, while Sohrab’s mom pointed someone’s iPhone at us. She had another two tucked under her arms, and one held between her chin and her chest.

  It was deeply redundant.

  “Yek. Doh. Seh,” Sohrab said. He studied the picture for a second. “Good!”

  Babou stood and said something to Mamou. Whatever it was must have been bad: The room went silent, like the house had experienced an explosive decompression.

  Maybe we had.

  And then Babou started shouting.

  It was incoherent and garbled and venomous.

  Sohrab’s mom’s eyebrows formed perfect arches above her eyes, threatening to disappear into her hair, as my grandfather screamed at my grandmother for no reason I could understand.

  Sohrab studied the floor and fiddled with the camera in his hands.

  Mom’s face had turned chalky.

  But Mamou was the worst.

  She was still smiling, but it didn’t reach her eyes anymore.

  At last, Babou stormed off toward his room.

  No one said anything. We were all waiting for the atmospheric pressure to return to normal. As Mamou stood, I leaned in and tried to hug her, but it ended up as an awkward half hug. Mamou shifted and wrapped her arms around me. Her face was wet against my shoulder.

  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.

  I didn’t tell Laleh that.

  Sohrab followed me back to my room as I put away my shirt and money. “I got you something, Darioush,” he said.

  “You did?”

  I felt terrible. I hadn’t gotten Sohrab anything.

 
How could I have predicted I would make a friend in Iran?

  Sohrab produced a small package, wrapped in advertisements from an Iranian newspaper. He tried to hand it to me, but I remembered the appropriate Social Cue.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  I wasn’t just taarofing.

  I couldn’t stand how selfish I felt.

  “Please.”

  “Really.”

  “Go on, Darioush. Taarof nakon.”

  He shoved the present toward my chest.

  Resistance was futile.

  “Okay, Sohrab. Thank you.”

  I peeled the paper off and a silky white shirt slithered onto my hands. It was a soccer/non-American football jersey, with a green stripe across the shoulder, a red one across the chest, and the lightly drawn outline of a cheetah’s head on the stomach.

  “Wow,” I said. The smooth jersey slid through my fingers as I inspected the logo on the chest.

  “It’s Team Melli. Iran’s national team. From the World Cup.”

  I pulled the jersey over my head—the collar of my Persian Casual shirt stuck up underneath—but still, I felt like a real Iranian. Even though the cheetah’s head stretched over my stomach.

  “I love it,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I blinked a couple times, because I didn’t want Sohrab to notice my mood was performing a severe Slingshot Maneuver. I knew soccer/non-American football jerseys weren’t cheap. Sohrab could have used that money on some new cleats for himself, but he had gotten me the jersey instead.

  “Are you okay, Darioush?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” I blinked some more. “It’s just really, really nice.”

  It made me feel like I belonged.

  “I didn’t get you anything. I’m sorry, Sohrab.”

  Sohrab squinted at me. “Don’t be. I wanted to surprise you.”

  Sohrab’s mom appeared in the doorway behind her son, camera in hand.

  I used the distraction to wipe at my eyes and sniff a bit.

  “Sohrab! You gave him the shirt.”

  “Baleh, Maman.”

  “I love it. Thank you, Khanum Rezaei.”