“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.
