House of Yesterday by Deeba Zargarpur

Author:Deeba Zargarpur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ki asti?

My grandmother rattles this question a dozen times a day. Who are you when I wash my face in the morning. Who are you when I pour her a cup of tea for breakfast. Who are you when I watch her carefully draw her eyebrows in the mirror. Her eyes never leave me. They watch as I struggle to answer her.

Who am I?

I am Sara Rahmat and not.

I am American and not.

I am Afghan-Uzbek and not.

I am the product of a grand love story and not.

I am and I am not.

My baba jan used to remind me, history is what makes us, and without it we are doomed to lose our way again and again. But as moonlight from my bedroom window scatters my thoughts, I realize it is this history that has set all of us spinning so far off course.

Not for long, though.

I will get us back on course. I will undo Padar’s for the best. I will uncover what my grandmother hid, and maybe it will be enough to erase this cursed broken feeling that lingers in this house and turn it back into a home.

I blink, and then I am standing in front of a glass cabinet in my living room, staring down the rows and rows of precious antiques encased inside. A fog settles in my head, sprinkles along my shoulders and down my fingertips, coaxing me to slowly open the glass door.

There are bowls, cups, and platters filled with greens, golds, and designs written in a sprawling Persian script I can barely make out. My hands shake as I trace a gold-and-white teacup. The night presses in on me, making the walls feel like they’re peering closer, waiting for me to choose. I hold the cup in my hands and hug it. When I was younger, I would stare at these family relics in awe. I wondered what stories were encased in them.

Now, I no longer trust the speakers. Because they lie.

A small knife gleams in the moonlight. Embedded in its handle are gems along with script I can’t read. It looks etched, as if by hand. Irina put it here when my bibi jan nearly cut her cheek during a fit. She cried for an entire day when she found it gone from her room.

The fog guides my hands, helps me carefully wrap it in a towel.

I blink once more, and I am back at Sumner.

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