I did not understand the Iranian obsession with French loan words.
The minarets of the Jameh Mosque sparkled in the sunlight as I used my tongue to dig a piece of lettuce out from between my teeth.
I could still taste the sweet and minty sekanjabin.
My grandfather made it.
“Hey Sohrab?”
“Yes?”
“What did you mean yesterday? After Babou... when you said that wasn’t how he really is?”
“He was not himself. Because of the tumor.”
“But you’ve known him a long time. Right?”
Sohrab nodded. “He and Mamou helped. So much. When my dad went to prison.”
“What was he like? Before?”
Sohrab let his arm fall from my shoulder and folded his hands in his lap. He chewed on his lip for a moment.
“I remember one time. Three, four years ago. Mamou and Babou came to our house for ghormeh sabzi. My mom loves to make it.”
Ghormeh sabzi is a stew made with tons of herbs and greens. I always found it suspicious, because it had red kidney beans in it that looked like tiny eyes, corpse lights lit in the swamp of the green stew to draw weary Hobbitses to their graves.
“Babou had just got his new phone. He needed me to help him with it. Babou is not very good with technology.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I help with their computer too. So they can Skype with your mom.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Of course. I love your grandparents.”
Sohrab bopped me on my shoulder. “Anyway. He was trying to put his background photo to a picture of you. From school.”
“Me?”
“Yes. He was so proud. He always talks about his grandchildren in America. Always.”
It didn’t make sense.
Ardeshir Bahrami, proud of me?
He didn’t even know me.
Sohrab was more of a grandson to him than I would ever be.
“He talked so much about you. When you came here, I thought I already knew you. I knew we would be friends.”
My throat squeezed shut.
I loved how Sohrab could say things like that without feeling weird. How there were no walls inside him.
“I wish I could have known him back then,” I said. “I wish...”
