Hossein and Ali-Reza were already under the sprays, talking in Farsi and laughing about something. They were both tanned and lean, their stomach muscles highlighted by the reflection on their wet skin.
I felt like a space-borne leviathan, just standing in the same room with them.
Sohrab hung his towel on the wall. I bit my lip, sucked in my stomach, and did the same. I got under the closest spray, turned away from the other guys, and tried to breathe.
I thought I was having an anxiety attack.
I had never been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, but Dr. Howell said that anxiety and depression often went hand in hand. Comorbidity, he called it.
It was an ominous-sounding word.
It made me anxious.
Sometimes my heart would pound so fast I thought I was going to die. And then I would start sobbing for no reason.
I couldn’t let the guys see me do that.
That wasn’t something True Persians did.
The guys had gone quiet. I could barely make out their voices over the spray.
I scrubbed my armpits, and scratched at the grass stains on my elbows until my skin was pink and angry. Hossein and Ali-Reza were arguing with Sohrab in whispered Farsi.
Sohrab cleared his throat behind me.
“Darioush?”
“Um. Yes?”
“What is wrong with your... penis?”
My throat clamped up. “Nothing,” I squeaked.
Sohrab said something to the other boys, in Farsi again, and they answered, more insistent.
Sohrab cleared his throat again. “It looks different?”
“Uh. I’m not circumcised?”
It was not a question. I just wasn’t sure ifcircumcisedwas a word Sohrab knew how to translate to Farsi.
“Oh!” He started talking to Ali-Reza and Hossein again, no doubt explaining my penis to them.
I didn’t think my skin could get any redder than it was, but I was pretty sure I had started glowing like a protostar about to undergo its first burst of fusion.
Ali-Reza laughed, and then he said, in English so I could understand, “It looks like the Ayatollah’s turban.”
Ayatollah Khamenei was Iran’s Supreme Cleric: the absolute religious and governmental authority. His photograph was all over, on signs and walls and newspapers, with his fluffy white beard and a dark turban wrapped around his head.
It was the most humiliating comparison of my life.
Hossein said something in Farsi, and Ali-Reza laughed again.
And then Sohrab said, “Ayatollah Darioush,” and all three of them laughed.
At me.
I thought I understood Sohrab.
