by Adib Khorram
Sohrab shook his head and tossed another tile to clatter on the ground below.
“Who do you turn to?” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “When you need succor?”
I knew he was thinking about his dad.
I put my hand on his shoulder. It was awkward—I didn’t know how Sohrab could just do stuff like that without thinking about it—but after a second it felt okay.
“I guess . . . that’s what friends are for.”
Sohrab looked up and almost squinted.
Almost.
He put his arm over my shoulder, and I reached across him so we were linked.
“I’m glad we are friends, Darioush,” he said. He reached up and mussed my hair. I liked how he did that. “I’m glad you are here.”
“Me too.”
“I wish you could stay. But we will always be friends. Even when you go back home.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
I squeezed Sohrab’s shoulder. He squeezed mine back.
“Okay.”
A TACTICAL WITHDRAWAL
We hadn’t watched any Star Trek on Nowruz, of course—that would have been impossible—but the day Sohrab showed me the rooftop, Dad brought out his iPad after dinner.
“I’m making tea . . . mind waiting for me?”
“You’ve seen it before,” Dad said. “You know your sister gets impatient.”
By the time I finished, Laleh sat pressed up against Dad with his arm around her, well into the first act of “Allegiance.”
They looked happy and content without me.
Like I said, I knew Laleh was a replacement for me. I had known that since she was born. But I had never minded it before. Not that much.
Star Trek was all Dad and I had. And now Laleh had replaced me at that too.
The quantum singularity in my chest churned, drawing more interstellar dust into its event horizon, sucking up all the light that drew too close.
I took a sip of my tea and then went back through the kitchen and out into the garden.
The jasmine was in blossom again. Everything was silent, except for the occasional rattle of a car cruising down the street.
I loved the quiet. Even if it sometimes made me think of sad things. Like whether anyone would miss me if I was dead.
I sipped my tea and breathed in the jasmine and wondered if anyone would be sad if I was killed in a car accident or something.
That’s normal.
Right?
* * *
“Darius?”
“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you come watch?”
“Like you said. I’ve seen it before.”
Dad sighed at me.
I hated when he sighed at me.
“Don’t be like that.”
“Like what?”
“You’re being selfish.”
“Selfish?”
“Your sister wanted to spend time with you. You spend all day off with Sohrab, wandering around doing who knows what, and Laleh’s here all alone.”
I was pretty sure Babou had been home all day too, so Laleh had hardly been “all alone.”
“You really hurt Laleh’s feelings, storming off like that.”
I didn’t storm off.
I made a tactical withdrawal.
“You guys started without me. Again.”
“I didn’t want your sister to wander off.”
“Well, would that be so bad? For us to watch it without her?”
“She’s your sister, Darius.”
“This was supposed to be our thing. You and me. This was our time together. And she’s ruining it.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I might actually enjoy watching it with her?”
Stephen Kellner had never hit me. Not ever.
But this felt like it.
What was it about me that made it so easy for him to cast me aside?
Was it because I was such a target?
I swallowed and took a deep breath. I didn’t want my voice to squeak.
“Fine. Then watch it with her.”
“Don’t be upset, Darius.”
“I’m not upset, okay?”
Stephen Kellner didn’t like it when I got upset.
He didn’t like it when I had feelings.
“Darius . . .”
I shoved myself off the ground.
“I’m going to bed.”
* * *
Even when Dad stopped telling me stories, he made a point of saying “I love you” every night before I went to bed.
It was a thing.
And I always said “I love you” back to him.
It was our tradition.
That night, Dad didn’t tell me he loved me.
I didn’t tell him either.
THE TOWERS OF SILENCE
Mom knocked on my door the next morning, long before the azan. We were going to see the Towers of Silence.
I had to wait in bed a few minutes for my own Tower of Silence to go away.
So far I had stuck to my plan not to go number three in my grandmother’s house, but it was making my mornings increasingly awkward.
“Darioush!”
“I’m awake.”
Mom was back to calling me by my Iranian name.
I wished she would make up her mind.
* * *
I stood in the cool morning, my hands stuffed in my pockets.
Déjà vu.
But this time, it was Stephen Kellner who pulled the Smokemobile around.
Laleh and I crammed ourselves into the back. Babou climbed into the middle next to Mamou. His mouth was set in a perfect line. Dad kept trying to meet my eyes in the rearview mirror, but I avoided him.
Laleh was wide-awake. Wide-awake and angry. Her eyes were puffy, her voice scratchy. “I don’t want to go.”
“You’re going,” Mom said from the passenger seat. “We all are.”
It was clearly a running argument.
Laleh groaned and buried her face in my side.
It reminded me of when she was little—really little—and I would get to hold her whenever Mom and Dad needed a break. Even if she was wound up, she’d eventually fall asleep on my lap, her face mashed into my shoulder, arms limp, mouth drooling.
That was my favorite version of Laleh. When all I had to do was hold her, and she loved me more than anything. And Star Trek was something only Dad and I did.
I didn’t want to share. Not Star Trek.
I hated how selfish I was.
But then Laleh wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. She let out this soft sigh.
She was mad at Mom and Dad, but she was content with me.
It was so hard to stay mad at my sister, even if I wanted to.
And it was Dad who had decided to replace me, anyway.
Not Laleh.
The drive to the Towers of Silence wound around the base of the mountains outside Yazd. I sat in the back and tried not to throw up as Stephen Kellner navigated the undulating roads at unsafe velocities.
“Here!” Mom shouted.
My neck nearly snapped when Dad slammed the brakes. He pulled into an unmarked gravel parking lot.
The Smokemobile sputtered and fell silent when Dad pulled out the key. The Black Breath enveloped us again, heavy with the scent of burnt hair and scorched popcorn and a hint of The End of All Things.
* * *
The rising sun painted the khaki hills red and pink as we hiked the dusty trail. Mom and Dad led the way, Dad offering an arm to Mamou here and there. Babou took the slope on his own, more slowly. For a moment I wondered if he needed help, but then I remembered how he had clambered over the roof to water his fig trees. And how Sohrab said we were supposed to watch hi
m until he was done. So I hung back to keep an eye out and hoped he wouldn’t fall.
Laleh walked with me. When her energy ebbed, and she started to whine, Babou turned around and took her hand.
“Laleh-khanum,” he said. “Don’t you want to see the top? It is very beautiful.”
“I don’t care!” Laleh pouted, stretching her complaint out until it snapped.
I had learned to recognize the early warning signs of an impending Laleh-tastrophe.
I jogged forward and took Laleh’s other hand. “Come on, Laleh. We’re almost to the top.”
But my sister slowed her pace even more, pulling Babou and me to a stop.
I turned and knelt down in front of her. “This is important, Laleh. It’s part of our family history.”
But I knew such appeals did not usually work with Laleh, not when she was this far gone. She was immune to logic.
There was only one way to get her to calm down.
“And when we get back to Mamou’s, I can take you into town. Sohrab’s uncle owns a store. We can go and get faludeh.”
Laleh drew in her lower lip as she mulled it over.
My sister could never resist a good bribe.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay.” Laleh let go of Babou’s hand and sprang forward to catch up with Mamou.
When I stood up, Babou looked at me for a second.
“You are a very good brother, Darioush-jan.”
I blinked.
It was the nicest thing Ardeshir Bahrami had ever said to me.
* * *
Yazd stretched below us, stray pockets of fog tucked into the shadows where the morning sun had yet to burn them away. Line after line of baad girs marched into the distance, and the azure minarets of the Jameh Mosque sparkled when they caught the light.
The Towers of Silence, where Zoroastrians buried their dead—it was called sky burial—had stood sentinel over Yazd for thousands of years.
“My grandfather was buried here,” Babou said. “He was named Darioush also. And my grandmother too.”
I sucked on the tassels of my hoodie as he led me around the tower, following the crumbling wall that enclosed us. We stood within a stone ring, a hundred feet across, with a gentle slope from the outer walls down toward the center, where bodies were once laid to rest in concentric circles: men on the outside, women in the middle, children in the center.
It was empty now. There hadn’t been a sky burial in decades, not since it was outlawed. And there was no one else around, because tourists don’t like getting up so early in the morning.
I wondered if I was a tourist.
It felt like a tourist thing, coming to see the Towers of Silence.
And it had felt like a tourist thing, going to visit the ruins of Persepolis. Even if they were part of our family history. Even if they were our heritage.
How could I be a tourist in my own past?
The wind was strong and cool. It stirred the dust we kicked up with our shoes, and blew my hood up around my hair.
I pulled it back down and let my tassels fall out of my mouth.
Babou sighed. “Now we have to put them in cement. It’s not the same.”
“Oh.”
He stopped and pointed across a valley to another mountain. “There is another one. See?”
“Yes.”
“Many of Mamou’s ancestors there.”
“Wow.”
“Our family has been in Yazd for many years. Many generations, born and raised here. And then put here when they died.”
Our family was woven into the fabric of Yazd. Into the stones and the sky.
“Now your dayi Soheil lives in Shiraz. And your mom lives in America. Even Dayi Jamsheed talks about moving to Tehran. Soon maybe there will be no more Bahramis in Yazd.”
My grandfather seemed so small and defeated then, bowed under the weight of history and the burdens of the future.
I didn’t know what to say.
The singularity in my stomach was back, pulsing and writhing in sympathetic harmony with the one I knew lived deep inside Babou.
In that moment I understood my grandfather perfectly.
Ardeshir Bahrami was as sad as I was.
He rested his hand on my neck and gave me a soft squeeze.
That was as close to a hug as he had ever given me.
I relaxed against him as we studied the landscape below us.
That was as close to a hug as I had ever given him.
YESTERDAY’S ENTERPRISE
Like I promised, when we got back from the Towers of Silence, I took Laleh to Ashkan Rezaei’s store. We swung by Sohrab’s house along the way. He squinted when he opened the door.
“Hi, Darioush! Hello, Laleh-khanum.”
“Hi,” Laleh whispered. She twisted her hand in mine and looked down, hiding the roses blossoming on her cheeks.
It looked like my sister had a crush.
It made sense. If my sister had to have a crush on someone, Sohrab was a good choice, even if he was way too old for her.
“Hey. We’re going to your amou’s store. For faludeh. You want to come?”
“Of course!”
Laleh grabbed Sohrab’s hand, so she was swinging between us. Despite her complaining, she had enjoyed herself at the Towers of Silence: She peppered Sohrab with every conceivable detail about the morning as we walked.
I gave Sohrab a sympathetic shrug.
I loved that Laleh could talk to him so easily.
When we got to the store, I let go of Laleh’s hand to get the door, and she ran straight for the counter. Sohrab squinted at me and followed her.
“Sohrab-jan! Agha Darioush! Who is this?”
“This is my little sister. Laleh.”
“Alláh-u-Abhá, Laleh-khanum. What a beautiful name. Nice to meet you.”
Laleh blushed again. “Hi,” she said to the gray-tiled floor.
I took Laleh’s hand and gave it a wiggle. “Do you want faludeh, Laleh?”
She shook her head and stared downward, studying the toes of her white sneakers.
Even the lure of dessert wasn’t enough to overcome Laleh’s sudden and inexplicable shyness.
Mr. Rezaei said, “We have ice cream too, Laleh-khanum, if you like.”
Persian ice cream is mixed with saffron and pistachios.
I didn’t like it as much as faludeh, but it was still terrific.
“Bastani mekhai, Laleh-jan?” Sohrab asked.
“Baleh,” she said.
“Darioush?”
“Faludeh. Please.”
I sent Laleh to wash her hands, while Sohrab and his amou talked in Farsi. Sohrab kept smiling. Not his usual squinty smile, but a softer one.
I liked watching Sohrab talk to his uncle. He was different than he was with his mom. More relaxed.
Maybe he felt like a kid again when he was with his amou, in a way he couldn’t with his mom, because he had to be the man of the house.
I wished Sohrab could be a kid again all the time.
* * *
I don’t know if Ashkan Rezaei always gave out such large servings of faludeh, but I was grateful Stephen Kellner wasn’t around to witness my dietary indiscretion.
Sohrab was fairly restrained—he only put a little splash of lime juice on his faludeh—but I doused mine in enough sour cherry syrup to turn it into Klingon Blood Wine.
I grabbed napkins for us, and Ashkan Rezaei handed Laleh a perfect sphere of sunny yellow bastani.
“Noosh-e joon,” he said.
Laleh finally looked up. “Merci,” she whispered.
She bypassed her spoon and started licking her bastani straight out of its little paper bowl.
I reached out to shake Mr. Rezaei’s hand. “Khay
lee mamnoon, Agha Rezaei.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, swallowing my hand with both of his. I noticed the backs of his hands were very hairy, like his chest. “Come back soon, Agha Darioush.”
* * *
Laleh’s tongue was turning yellow, and it had clearly gone numb from the cold, but that didn’t stop her from carrying on a full conversation with Sohrab in Farsi as we walked home.
I didn’t know why she had decided to make the switch, but it made me angry.
I didn’t have to bring her along for ice cream.
I didn’t have to include her. I didn’t have to spend time with her.
The singularity swirled inside me, a black hole threatening to pull me in.
First Laleh had taken Star Trek, and now she was threatening to take Sohrab too.
“How’s your ice cream?” I asked, to try and gain a foothold in the conversation.
“Good,” Laleh said. And then she turned back to Sohrab and started up in Farsi again.
Sohrab glanced at me and turned back to Laleh. “Laleh,” he said. “It’s not polite to do that. Darioush can’t understand you.”
I blinked.
No one had ever made people speak in English around me before.
Not even Mom.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“No,” Sohrab said. “It’s not polite.”
“Sorry, Darius,” Laleh said.
“It’s fine.”
I looked at Sohrab. He squinted at me with his spoon in his mouth.
“Thanks.”
* * *
“Darioush,” Sohrab said. “Can you stay out?”
“Oh. I think so.”
I deposited Laleh in the kitchen with Mamou, who tried to feed Sohrab more Nowruz leftovers—it seemed they were self-replicating, and we might never run out—before we left again.
I could tell, from the turns we took, that Sohrab was leading us back to the park near the Jameh Mosque.
It was becoming our spot.