Darius the Great Is Not Okay: The Dancing Fan Summary & Analysis

To Darius’s surprise, Tehran smells like a normal city, not like rice (even “Fractional Persian” households like his usually smell like rice). He almost drops Laleh when he hears Mamou scream and sees her running toward them. Darius has never seen Mom so happy as when she hugs her mom for the first time in 17 years. Dayi Jamsheed drives everyone back to Yazd. Dad and Laleh sit in the back row of the SUV, while Darius and Mamou sit in the middle row. She holds Darius to her the whole time, seemingly trying to make up for missing a lifetime of hugs.

Mamou asks Darius about school and if he has a girlfriend. He doesn’t want to explain truck nuts to her, so he gives noncommittal answers. She insists he’s so handsome, so she doesn’t understand why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Darius shrugs and yawns, so Mamou suggests he nap. She pulls his head to her shoulder and kisses his forehead, her tears running into Darius’s hair. They both say, “I love you,” and Darius marvels that this kind of affection is “an opportunity, not a burden” for his grandmother. Still, it’s not the most comfortable position to sleep in, so Darius only dozes a bit.

Darius thinks about when he was little and Mom would chant to him in Farsi at bedtime. Dad, on the other hand, would help Darius come up with fantastical, exciting stories. This is one of the few things Darius remembers perfectly from life before antidepressants—mostly because he clearly remembers the night Story Time with Dad stopped about six months before Laleh’s birth. Dad gave no explanation, he just said Darius wasn’t getting a story that night. Mom insisted Darius hadn’t done anything wrong, but Darius knows deep inside that Dad didn’t want to tell him stories anymore.

Darius wakes up to Mamou saying that they’re here. Yazd doesn’t look like a scene from Aladdin; the asphalt is dull and gray, and the houses are white but otherwise look like those in Portland. (Fatty Bolger has been teasing Darius about camels and cacti, and it turns out he’s wrong on both counts.) Dayi Jamsheed pulls up in front of a white house with scrubby grass in front and tells Dad to wake up. Darius gets out and offers to help Dayi Jamsheed with the luggage, but Jamsheed refuses. This is Darius’s first taarof in Iran. To taarof technically means to put others first, but in practice, for example, it means guests refuse food, hosts insist, and one side eventually gives in. It’s not an American thing, and Darius has never gotten the hang of it.

Mom tells Dayi Jamsheed to let Darius help. The two argue in Farsi while Dad gets out of the SUV and meets Darius’s eyes. They shrug at each other, and when Jamsheed finally gives in, Darius takes a few pieces of luggage from him. As Darius follows Mamou up the driveway, he asks where Babou is. Mamou says he’s in bed; he’s been sleeping a lot lately. It feels weird to meet Mamou and not Babou, and Darius is scared. Entering the house, Darius kicks off his shoes and follows Mamou down a hallway lined with family photos. She shows him his room and asks if he’s hungry. Mom isn’t here to help Darius taarof, but Mamou listens when Darius says he wants to shower and nap.

The room is small and features more family photos, including one of teenage Mamou that Mom also has framed at home. Darius starts to undress and studies the ensuite bathroom, which has a Mamou toilet: a porcelain bowl set in the floor that you squat over to use. He braves the toilet, showers, and finds a box fan in the corner to move some air around the stuffy room. The fan, though, won’t stay still; it dances across the floor toward Darius. No matter how he turns it, it dances around to face him. Clearly, the Dancing Fan is evil. Darius holds it in place with his suitcase and gets in bed, facing the wall.