* Author : Rebecca Zahabi * Narrator : Mahtab Chenevix-Trench * Host : Peter Adrian Behravesh * Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh * Discuss on Forums PodCastle 727: [NOWRUZ SPECIAL] “Two Siblings, Seven Fish” is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 Two Siblings, Seven Fish by Rebecca Zahabi   Maybe this story started when Dad inherited the calabash; or maybe when my great-grandfather ran his thumb along its rugged surface, listening to the coins rattling within; or maybe even before then, when it was still green and growing, waiting to be plucked, carved and dried. But for me, it started with an argument with my sister, Shadi. For a long time, Shadi and I were the only half-French, half-Iranian children we knew. Except for our shared heritage, we were very different. We always bickered, about anything and everything: the fact that she stole my books and wrote in them, the way she ate rice straight from the pot with her fingers when Mum wasn’t looking, the music we listened to in the car, the shows we watched on TV. Our big, ongoing fight was about school. I would tell her off because I felt she wasn’t working hard enough, whilst she would laugh with glee if I didn’t get top grades in my class, jeering, “So, you’re human after all!” It was Nowruz. I can’t even remember what the specific fight was about, only that after our outburst, we were both sulking viciously. Busy juggling jobs and raising two children, my parents hadn’t prepared the sofreh haft-sin in advance. We had guests coming, so the house was a flurry of preparations. Shadi was sent to vacuum the living room, while I was tasked with cutting tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions as small as I could manage, for a salad. Mum was busy with the main course, and the smells of saffron rice, pomegranate juice, and crushed walnut filled the kitchen. Dad was preparing the haft-sin. We celebrated Nowruz every year, and the combination of Iranian hospitality and French attachment to proper protocol around food made for long, stressful meals. Still, it would take me years to understand that the celebration was more than a lavish Sunday lunch. I gathered the clues slowly, over time — the friends coming around, always Iranian, Dad’s acquaintances; the fact that Mum cooked traditional Iranian dishes; the haft-sin, of course, photographed and shared with the extended family on social media; the longing glint in Dad’s eyes. We celebrated Nowruz in much the same way we celebrated Easter. I never thought to question why we hunted for chocolate and painted boiled eggs in vivid colors, either. The only difference was that no one else in the village celebrated Nowruz. I understood this difference well before I was old enough to give it a name. It could be found in the way the neighbors two houses down from us never said hello. Or the way the grumpy old man near the top of the mountain had once shouted at Dad that it was bad enough terrorists were invading his country without them moving in next door. Even as a child, I didn’t quite fit in. Maybe that’s why I worked so hard to belong, to be dutiful. And maybe that’s why Shadi strived so hard to stand out, so that she would be picked on by the teachers for something she had done, at least. The haft-sin was on a little side table, covered with the sofreh. Dad was kneeling beside it, arranging the items: the mirror with its wooden mosaic fram...