I once again wished for more supportive undergarments.
I hadn’t been keeping count, but Sohrab announced we won, by three goals.
He collided with me and gave me a sweaty hug and a slap on the back, then threw his arm over my shoulder as we headed back to the locker room.
“You were great, Darioush.”
“Not that good,” I said. “Not as good as you.”
“Yes,” Sohrab said. “You were.”
I almost believed him.
Almost.
“Thanks.”
I decided to put my arm over Sohrab’s shoulder too, even if I felt kind of weird doing it, and not just because of the sweat running down the back of Sohrab’s neck.
Sohrab was so comfortable touching me.
I liked how confident he was about that.
Hossein and Ali-Reza walked ahead of us, fingers intertwined behind their heads in what Coach Fortes liked to call Surrender Cobra. Huge ovals of sweat seeped through the backs of their shirts. They hadn’t said a thing since we called it quits.
“Uh.”
Sohrab squinted at me.
“You play with them a lot?”
“Yes.”
“They seem... um...”
“They do not like to lose.”
“Are you guys friends?”
Sohrab shrugged. “Ali-Reza is very prejudiced. Against Bahá’ís.”
I thought about that: How back home, all Persians—even Fractional Persians like me and Laleh—were united in our Persian-ness. We celebrated Nowruz and Chaharshanbeh Suri together in big parties, Bahá’ís and Muslims and Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians and even secular humanists like Stephen Kellner, and it didn’t matter. Not really.
Not when we were so few in number.
But here, surrounded by Persians, Sohrab was singled out for being Bahá’í.
He was a target.
“What doespedar sagmean?”
Sohrab’s jaw twitched. “It means ‘your father is a dog.’ It’s very rude.”
“Oh.”
I thought about that too: How in America, it was much worse to call someone’s mother a dog, rather than their father.
“Ali-Reza said that to you?”
