A Handbook to Luck Read Online Free PDF Page B

the birds that had lived there before. Was one perch the same as another to the blue rollers and the gray hooded crows? Why hadn’t the swallows built their usual nests in the eaves? And where were the nightingales? It was difficult for her to study the birds now, to watch their takeoffs and landings amid all this strange foliage.
    â€œWhat can I do with a lazy girl like this?” Maman asked, as if Leila’s shortcomings were a fit subject for conversation. “In the sun all day, turning her skin brown as a farmer’s. And that nose! She certainly didn’t get it from my side of the family.”
    Leila was tired of hearing about her mother’s family—White Russians and Christians who’d immigrated to Iran after 1917 and thought themselves superior to Persians. Yes, their noses were smaller but so was everything else about them. According to Aunt Parvin, the Petrovnas had grown impoverished in less than a generation and Maman had had to support them with her nursing career. Naturally, Maman denied this. But nobody denied that Fatemeh Petrovna had been a great beauty in her day. It had taken Nader Rezvani, a young heart surgeon, the better part of a year to outmaneuver her other suitors.
    Leila didn’t understand what her parents had in common. At dinnertime, Maman complained about the servants’ minor infractions, or reported the latest horticultural news—the camellias were taking root, the blighted hibiscus was finally rid of pests. Or she criticized whatever they happened to be eating: the underseasoned meatballs, the overcooked kebabs, the soggy eggplant stew. She never mentioned her son dying thirty meters away.
    Whenever Baba asked Leila a question, Maman would dismiss it. “Don’t waste your time with this sparrow-brain, my dear. She does nothing all day but daydream in the sun.”
    When Leila wanted to join the swim team at school, Maman refused on the grounds that swimming built up too much unfeminine muscle. Leila appealed to her father but it didn’t do any good. He left all domestic decisions to Maman. After dinner Baba would retire to his vast library of poetry, history, and the sciences, or go to Hosein’s room and read him philosophy books until bedtime.
    At family gatherings, Baba openly disputed the Shah’s policies. He ridiculed the royal edict banning the plays of Molière because they exposed the vices of the monarchy. After his outbursts, the family whispered behind his back:
Nader is losing his mind. Imagine his firstborn, his only son, with an incurable disease of the blood.
A few maliciously speculated that perhaps the good doctor was a collaborator, waiting for his chance to turn in members of his own family to the secret police. No matter; his complaints made everyone, even his friends, feel unsafe.
    Leila held the silver tray as Mr. Fifield nibbled on his cookies. Maman coyly nodded at everything the Englishman said, her pearl earrings swaying in assent. She liked to say that pearls brought good luck or bad, depending on the wearer. Her voice seemed distant to Leila, farther than the bee-eater lingering in the fig tree. The sun beat down on her arms, warming her skin. Leila studied the pomp of colors around her. If the sun helped things flourish—ripened the figs, coaxed the violets from their dank hiding places—then surely it could help her grow faster, reduce the time it took for her to grow up.
    Mostly, Leila wished she could return to the Caspian Sea. Three summers ago her family had rented a villa there and spent a happy month swimming, hiking, and collecting rocks. In the evenings, Baba would sit in the garden and tell stories about the constellations. The sky seemed a mysterious expanse of velvet, pinpricked with promises. After their parents went to bed, Hosein would frighten Leila with tales of monsters like the Bakhtak (the chest crusher) or the Pa-lees (the foot licker) who murdered children in their sleep. Even