“Sketching the pillars.”
“Go get him, would you?” She tucked a strand of hair back under her turquoise headscarf, and then did the same for her mother. “We should stay together.”
“What about Laleh and Babou?”
Mamou said, “They’ll be fine.”
I ran back to grab Dad.
“Mom says we should stick together.”
“All right.”
But Dad had to get sketches of the Gate of All Nations too, until Mom finally lost her patience and came to get him herself.
She waved her arm at the crowds around us. “Everyone is going to think you’re planning a drone strike,” she whispered, her voice sharp as vinegar.
Shirin Kellner could be formidable when she needed to be.
“Sorry,” Dad said. He slipped the sketchbook back into his Kellner & Newton Messenger Bag.
Dad knew better than to argue with Mom when she used her vinegar voice.
He bumped elbows with me as we followed Mom.
I didn’t understand why he did that.
“Huge, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m grateful you’re getting to see this.”
“Me too.”
Dad almost smiled.
Almost.
Maybe he was doing his best.
“Darioush!” Sohrab called. He waved me forward.
“Coming!”
It wasn’t like the Ruins of Persepolis were an entire city.
At its height, Persepolis had covered a huge area. Not as big as Greater Portland, maybe, but still. The part we were in, the part with the actual ruins—Takhte Jamsheed—was small enough to fit in our neighborhood back home.
Sohrab led me through the Apadana, the complex’s main palace. There was not much of it left: several enormous pillars, even taller than the Gate of All Nations; and some ornate staircases, though their wide, shallow steps had a bizarre rise-to-run ratio; and a bunch of stone arches whose structural integrity fields had held up impressively well over thousands of years.
The whole thing smelled like sun-baked dust—it made me think of Mom running the vacuum, which was weird—but it wasn’t old or musty. The wind from the mountains around Shiraz kept a light breeze spinning through the Apadana, quieter and more subtle than the Dancing Fan could ever hope to be.
In pictures, old buildings are always white and smooth. But in real life, Persepolis was brown and rough and imperfect. There was something magical about it: the low walls, all that remained of some ancient hall, and the pillars looming over me like giants in an ancient playground.
According to Sohrab, many of the buildings were never finished before Alexander the Great sacked Persepolis.
Alexander the Great was the Trent Bolger of Ancient Persia.
