2

The restaurant where we went for lunch the next day was a small, dim place with frescoes of Rostam and Sohrab, legendary heroes, on the wall. The air was filled with the aroma of kebab, marinated in onion and tumeric. A faucet dripped somewhere and dishes clattered. There were only a few other customers.

Darius popped his knuckles. He seemed agitated and there was a blue mark under his eyes. Suddenly he leaned towards me. “Touch my head. There’s a lump here. Go ahead, touch it.” He took my hand and brought it to his head.

I could feel the lump under my fingers. “What happened?”

“I had a fight with my partner. He’s always looking for trouble. He eggs me on.”

“You need to get married,” Ziba said. “You have too much energy to go without a wife.”

The waiter, a thin young man with a well-trimmed mustache and black eyes, came over, rubbing his greasy hands on his apron. Darius gave him the order, adding boisterously, “I want you to bring the best of what you have. My sister has just returned from America.”

“O.K., O.K.,” the waiter said in English. He laughed and walked away.

My eyes had adjusted to the gloom and I could see that what had seemed like a bundle of laundry in a corner was an old man propped up against the wall, a sheet covering him up to the neck. A young boy sat in front of him, spooning food into his mouth and cleaning up, with a handkerchief, what dripped down his chin. Then the boy kneeled down, lifted the old man on his back and carried him through a curtain to a back room.

The waiter brought the food and we began to eat.

My father was quiet and looked moody with his eyelids drooping and the flesh under his chin sagging.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He shook his head and said nothing.

“Don’t you feel well?” I persisted.

He put one hand under his chin and the other on the buckle of his belt. Then as though something had been resolved in him, he leaned over and smiled at me. “Poor child,” he said.

I looked at him, puzzled.

“To have lived in a foreign country for so long.”

“But I chose that.”

“Chose!” my father said.

“I don’t know what’s so sad about it. Most young people like to go to America,” Ziba said, avoiding my eyes. “Not many people get that chance.”

I was relieved when the conversation was interrupted as the waiter came over to clear the table. “O.K., O.K.,” he repeated.

“Why don’t you sing a song for us?” Darius said to the waiter. “You have such a nice voice.”

“I can’t do that now.”

“Please, for my sake. I’m one of your old customers.”

“Come on, come on,” said three men who were sitting at a table close to ours.

The waiter looked around for a moment as if trying to decide. Then he stood between the two tables and, tilting his head upward, half closing his eyes, began to sing an old-fashioned song.