A family stood in front of a centuries-old illustration of Rustam and Rakhsh.
The grandmother with a scarf on her head peered at the picture with a magnifying glass. The father was reading the Persian script in a hushed voice. The grandfather embellished and explained the story, speaking in Farsi. The granddaughter listened from her father’s arms.
“What did he say?” he asked her father after her grandfather stopped speaking.
He translated what the grandfather was saying. He told her about Rustam, son of Zal. He told her about his strength and bravery. And he told her about his devoted horse, Rakhsh and how he was defending Rustam from the lion, grabbing it by the next and dragging it thru the underbrush while the hero slept.
The lights in the room were dim, and the colors on the framed images leapt off the wall.
Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh at the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery. This was the only thing that I really, really wanted to do when we came to DC. This was the last day of the exhibit. We made it.