I was so ashamed of myself.
“What’s wrong, Darioush?”
I shook my head and bit my lip to keep from crying.
What kind of person thinks that?
“Darioush?”
“Sorry.” I cleared my throat. “I had an ugly thought, that’s all.”
Sohrab studied me for a second. “I have those too, sometimes.”
“Yeah.” I sniffed. “How’s school?”
Sohrab sighed. “Maman doesn’t want me to go anymore.”
“Really? Why?”
“The police have been bothering Amou Ashkan a lot lately. She’s worried they will start to bother me too.”
Sohrab’s Amou Ashkan ran a store in Yazd.
“But why now?”
“I don’t know, Darioush. Sometimes they just do. To remind people they can. Or because people are unhappy, and they say it’s the fault of the Bahá’ís.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
And then I said, “I wish you could be here instead.”
Sohrab got this sad smile.
“Sometimes I wish that too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You know, it’s hard for Bahá’ís to go to university here. To make a future. And we have to do military service.” He chewed on his lip.
We had talked about Iranian compulsory service before. I hated that it haunted his future.
I hated that he had to worry about his future.
It made my own worries seem small and inadequate.
“My mom has a sister who left Iran. Khaleh Safa. She and her family went to Pakistan and became refugees. Now they live in Toronto.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“My dad always said, he didn’t understand why anyone would want to leave Iran. And I used to agree with him. But now I think about Khaleh Safa a lot.”
“You want to move, then?”
“I don’t know. I wish I could go to United States for university.”
“I wish you could too.”
Sohrab chewed on his lip.
