‘All of you, shut up!’ she ordered.
Shocked, the other juniors went quiet for a moment, then one of the little rodents piped up, ‘It’s just Farrin. No one cares about her.’ To Farrin, the junior added, ‘You’re not a monitor. We don’t have to obey you.’
‘You’ve been alive for just five minutes,’ Farrin shot back. ‘You know nothing, so shut up.’
In the bit of quiet they gave her, she heard the notes again.
‘It’s called music,’ the rodent said. Farrin stalked out of the cloakroom with the laughter of the juniors nipping at her heels.
Farrin followed the sound of the music a short way down the hall and around the corner. The supply closet door was slightly open. The music was coming from inside.
She was about to push open the door to see who was doing this forbidden thing when she stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to interrupt just yet; she wanted the music to keep going.
The tune was being played on a santour, an Iranian instrument with many strings. It was a classical piece. She recognized it from the records her parents occasionally played in secret – one of the many forbidden things they did.
The tune was played so beautifully, so perfectly, that Farrin wondered if it was a recording. She had to know. She opened the door wide enough to peer in.
A student was playing, a girl from the senior school, judging by the color of her head covering. Farrin couldn’t see who it was. Light from the bare bulb that hung from the ceiling cast a shadow across the student’s face. If the girl noticed that someone was watching her, she gave no sign. The music went on seamlessly.
Farrin watched and listened, transfixed by the sounds. The school disappeared, Pargol disappeared, everything disappeared but the notes that entered her like rays of pure moonlight.
She closed her eyes and let the music draw her in.
Then it ended and she was back in the doorway.
‘Looking for something?’
Farrin opened her eyes. The student musician raised her head.
Farrin felt something like a jolt of electricity through her body as the most intense green eyes looked right into hers.
For a moment, Farrin forgot how to breathe. ‘Yes, I need … no, I mean … you can’t play that.’
‘I’m not very good yet,’ the musician said.
‘No, no, you’re great, but you can’t … I mean, it’s forbidden. You’ll get into trouble.’
‘If it’s really forbidden, the school wouldn’t have a santour,’ the girl said. ‘I think the rule against music is more of a suggestion than a rule. That’s what I choose to think, anyway.’ She played a final little tune then packed away the little mallets used to strike the strings. She covered the santour with a cloth and put it away on a shelf. ‘I wandered in here by accident – I thought it was the door to a classroom – and when I saw the santour I couldn’t resist.’
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ Farrin promised.
‘Thank you,’ the girl said, with a radiant smile. ‘But don’t carry the burden of a secret because of me. Do you play?’
‘The santour?’ Farrin asked. There was no good answer to that sort of question. If she admitted that she played piano – although not nearly so well as this girl played the santour – then she’d be admitting to doing something forbidden herself. She didn’t know if this girl was a rat or not. Farrin decided not to answer. Instead, she said, ‘You thought the closet was a classroom.’
‘Today is my first day,’ the girl replied. ‘My name is Sadira.’
Sadira. Farrin silently repeated the name to herself. It was a beautiful name.
The girl looked at her with amusement, as if she was waiting for something. Farrin couldn’t figure out what she was waiting for.
The sound of yelling intruded on them.
‘What’s that?’ Sadira asked, pushing the door open farther and standing next to Farrin in the doorway. Farrin caught a scent of jasmine.
‘That’s just Pargol, one of the monitors, screaming at the juniors,’ Farrin said. Pargol must have found the chalk drawing on her chador.
‘That’s not right,’ Sadira said. She left Farrin behind at the closet door and headed toward the classroom. Farrin scurried after her, anxious to keep the other girl out of trouble.
‘Pargol yells. That’s what she does,’ Farrin said.
Sadira didn’t respond. In quick strides she was at the cloakroom, Farrin right behind her.
Pargol was holding up the chalk-marked chador and bawling out some crying juniors.
‘I’ll run the whole lot of you up to the principal’s office if you don’t fess up,’ Pargol spat out. ‘You think you can make a fool out of me? Who did this?’
‘Oh, is that your chador?’ Sadira asked, calmly stepping forward. ‘It seems I made a mistake. I thought I was drawing on my own chador.’
‘Who are you?’ growled Pargol.
‘Forgive me,’ Sadira said, taking the marked-up chador out of Pargol’s hands. ‘I’ll just sponge this off for you. Won’t take a moment.’
She took it over to the sink and used a damp cloth to wipe the chalk away.
‘You think that will be the end of it?’ Pargol challenged. ‘You can’t just do whatever you want here. I’m a monitor!’
‘My name is Sadira,’ the girl said, handing the clean chador back to Pargol.
Pargol scowled. ‘You’re coming with me to the principal’s office.’
‘Principal Kobra? I met her this morning. She seems very nice.’
‘She won’t be after she finds out what you did.’
‘What did I do?’
‘You drew horrible pictures all over my chador.’
‘Did I?’ Sadira asked, giving Farrin a quick wink.
‘I didn’t see any drawings,’ Farrin said.
‘You shut up!’ said Pargol.
‘I didn’t see any drawings!’ the juniors all said too.
Pargol realized she’d been had.
‘Are you her friend?’ she asked Sadira, jerking her head toward Farrin.
Sadira smiled. ‘Can’t have too many friends,’ she said mildly.
‘You have made your choice, then,’ Pargol said. ‘Welcome to my territory.’
‘I’m happy to be here.’
‘You won’t be for long,’ Pargol said. She yelled at some juniors to get out of her way and stomped out of the cloakroom.
Farrin put on her manteau while Sadira put on her chador. They walked out of the school building together.
‘I guess that friendship isn’t going to work out,’ Sadira said. ‘I’ve been worried about making friends here. Principal Kobra suggested I get to know Pargol.’
‘Pargol is one of the favorites,’ Farrin said. ‘She’s one of what Principal Kobra calls the Future Leaders of the World.’
‘That’s a scary thought,’ Sadira said. ‘I’d like to believe that future leaders will be better than the ones we have now. Sometimes it seems as if the whole world is run by demons.’
Farrin stopped in her tracks. ‘What did you say?’
Sadira laughed, took Farrin’s arm, and led her to the side of the pathway – they were blocking other students who were heading home.
‘I didn’t mean that I really think the world is ruled by actual demons,’ Sadira said, ‘although some of the photos of President Reagan make him look like the Great Satan he’s supposed to be! I just think we could do better. Pargol seems like the same old thing, yelling at smaller people to make herself look bigger.’
Sadira sat down on a bench in the school yard. Farrin wondered if she should wait to be invited to sit down too – she had no experience of easily hanging out with anyone. Then she felt awkward standing and she sat down beside Sadira on the bench.
Sadira seemed to take that as normal behavior.
So that’s how it’s done, Farrin thought.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Sadira asked. ‘I feel funny asking it, because I’m sure I’m wrong, but it’s going to both
er me until I know for sure.’
She’s found out about me, Farrin thought, feeling suddenly cold. She’s found out that my mother likes the Shah and no one likes me.
‘Go ahead,’ Farrin said, defeated.
‘Does the principal always carry a gun?’
Farrin laughed out loud. ‘She showed you her pistol? She usually only shows it to students who misbehave. You should hear the juniors cry when they get sent to her office! But she’s never shot anybody. No students, anyway.’
‘She didn’t wave it in my face. I just thought I saw it strapped around her waist in a holster. But I wasn’t sure.’
‘She’s tough,’ Farrin said. ‘Really tough, not just yelling-tough like Pargol. Kobra’s got an advanced degree from the women’s university in Qom, and she was with the students who took over the American Embassy just after the revolution. I try to stay out of her way.’
Sadira took two caramels out of her pocket and handed one to Farrin. ‘I think I’m going to like it here.’
‘What was your last school like?’
‘I’ve been out of school for a while,’ Sadira said, ‘looking after my father. The rest of my family was killed in a bombing a few years ago – my mom, my brothers, my father’s parents who were living with us. They all died.’
She said it almost casually. Farrin looked at her in disbelief.
‘I have to think about it almost with two brains,’ Sadira said. ‘Most of the time, I think of it as a story that happened to someone else. Then I don’t really feel it. Do you think that’s bad?’
Farrin knew that she was being asked an important question. No one had ever asked her an important question before.
‘I think that the people you lost would want you to live,’ she said.
Sadira nodded. ‘That’s what I think too. Anyway, my father was sick for a long time. He was too sad to look after himself. I stayed home and took care of things and studied on my own. He’s feeling better now, so I took the entrance exam for this school and they let me in.’
They enjoyed their caramels and watched the stream of students heading across the yard.
I should tell her something about myself, Farrin thought. It should be something big. She’s told me big things about herself. What should I say? That my mother likes the Shah? That I write about demons?’
Farrin’s brain rolled around and around in her cranium, refusing to stop and let a coherent thought come out of her mouth.
This is crazy, Farrin thought. Just talk to her!
She was about to blurt out something – anything – when Sadira said, ‘Oh, here comes my bus!’
Sadira jumped off the bench and hurried to the bus stop.
‘I go south,’ Sadira said, turning around to look at Farrin. ‘How about you?
‘North,’ said Farrin.
‘So, are you going to tell me, or is it a big secret?’
‘Tell you what?’
Sadira laughed and took a few steps before turning back and calling, ‘Your name, silly!’
‘Farrin,’ Farrin told her.
‘Farrin,’ Sadira repeated. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Farrin.’
Farrin watched Sadira walk away and melt into the crowd of black-chadored schoolgirls rushing to catch the bus.
‘She’d make a good demon hunter,’ Farrin whispered.
THREE
FARRIN DIDN’T TAKE a bus home. Her father always sent his car.
‘I’m paying the driver anyway,’ he would say. ‘He might as well earn his pay.’
‘If I am driven everywhere, how will I learn my way around the city?’ Farrin would say. ‘You’re treating me like a child.’
‘We’re concerned for your safety,’ her mother would declare.
Three lies, Farrin thought as she crossed the yard to the street where the driver always parked.
Lie number one was that her father paid the driver, a thin, hollow-eyed, middle-aged man named Ahmad. He was an Afghan, one of the millions of refugees in Iran and one of the many employed by Farrin’s father. Ahmad worked for food and a mat on the floor of the little stone room by the gate. Her father built his construction empire with nearly free Afghan labor. His workers slept right out at the work sites, which saved her father the cost of hiring security guards. With no other place to sleep, the workers lay in heaps of rags spread out on dirt or on the hard cement. If they asked for a raise, Farrin’s father had them deported.
Farrin had even seen him do it once. They’d had a gardener who asked for a salary so he could send the money back to his family in Afghanistan, to help them escape the war. Her father smiled, told the gardener to take a seat, then called one of the buddies he’d bribed in the police force. He was still smiling when the police took the gardener away. He made sure that as many of his workers as possible saw their coworker taken.
Lie number two was that Farrin wanted to take the bus home so she could get to know the city. Her real reason was that she wanted – and some days desperately needed – a break from the adults who had control over her life. Going directly from school to her house made her feel like she was in a cage. If she took a bus, she could get off at a different corner, look in some shops, eat some pizza, or just sit and think her own thoughts.
Lie number three was that her mother was concerned for her safety. ‘Mom is more concerned about how I look than she is about my safety,’ Farrin often muttered when she saw Ahmad sitting in the car after school, particularly when it was a fine day with air that had a taste of freedom to it. Her mother only cared about what the ladies in the neighborhood would say if they saw Farrin riding the bus with ‘the rabble.’
After watching Sadira climb into a bus, Farrin felt even more resentful than usual. If Ahmed wasn’t waiting, she could have gotten on the bus too. So what if it was going in the wrong direction? She and Sadira could have talked more. She had a feeling this new girl had things to say. And maybe she could have left the bus with Sadira, and maybe walked with her to her house, just to see where she lived. That’s what friends did, according to the smuggled American television shows she watched.
Farrin spied her father’s car, right where it was supposed to be. The sides and roof had been polished so they glowed, and the chrome sparkled in the sun. Ahmad must have had a slow day. If he wasn’t busy, he washed and polished the car so that he would look efficient. He worked hard for his plate of rice and his hard bed.
Ahmad spotted her and hopped out of the car. He opened the door to the backseat and held it open for her.
‘Rich girl,’ one of the students sneered at her as she passed by with a group of giggling friends.
In America, if they called you rich, it would be considered a compliment, Farrin’s mother would say if she told her about it. Only in Iran would it be an insult to be called rich! Not just Iran, Farrin knew. In Cuba and in other countries too. She’d learned a few things in her revolution class. But she never argued with her mother about that. Doing so would be like slipping down a black hole of shrill, shrieking tirades.
Farrin leaned against a lamppost, next to the torn remnants of an illegal women’s rights poster. She looked across the street at Ahmad. He stood ramrod straight beside the car in his bright white shirt and dark trousers, the closest thing her mother could find to a chauffeur’s uniform. He looked puzzled that she was standing and staring instead of crossing the road and getting into the car. But he did not wave or call to her or make any gesture that showed he was impatient.
He’s afraid of losing his job, Farrin thought. But that wasn’t her problem. Her problem was how to find a few moments of peace and freedom, away from her mother’s control.
She crossed the road, taking her time.
‘Miss Farrin, please speed up. I must get you home.’
‘What’s the big hurry? Nothing is happening at home.’
‘After I take you home I must go to your father’s building site.’
‘Take me to the site with you,’ Farrin suggested. ‘I don’t need to go h
ome right away.’
She got in the backseat and closed the door.
Ahmad hesitated then climbed behind the wheel. ‘Your mother told me to bring you right home.’
‘I’d like to see my father,’ Farrin said. ‘Come on, let’s go. He won’t mind, and it will be an adventure.’
‘Your mother will not want you to have an adventure.’
‘My father will,’ Farrin said. When Ahmad didn’t start the car, she added, ‘And he’s the one who hires and fires. Didn’t you say you were in a hurry?’
Ahmad started the car.
They drove north, past the shops and the pizza place that Farrin longed to explore on her own. They passed the turnoff to Farrin’s house and kept on going. The houses and apartment buildings soon gave way to scrubland, where Afghan refugees camped and the Alborz Mountains looked like they could fall right over and crush everything whenever they wanted to.
Looming ahead, still dwarfed by the mountains but bigger than everything else, was Evin Prison. High walls surrounded it. Farrin caught brief glimpses of the buildings that made up the prison compound as they traveled up hills, but lost sight of them again when they dipped into the valleys.
‘My principal is an interrogator at the prison,’ Farrin said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The principal at my school,’ Farrin said. ‘In her spare time, she goes to the prison and interrogates people. Probably tortures them too.’
She could see Ahmad’s face in the rearview mirror. His eyes were wide.
‘What are you saying? She tortures people and she is allowed to be principal? Around children? How is this possible? Do your parents know?’
‘It’s a joke,’ Farrin said quickly. ‘She doesn’t really do it. People say she does it because she’s so mean to everybody. It’s a joke. Don’t you have jokes in Afghanistan?’ she added meanly.
Ahmad’s eyes went back to their normal size. ‘Prison is nothing to joke about,’ he said.
‘Have you been to prison, Ahmad?’
‘It’s nothing to joke about,’ was all he would say.
He turned off the highway that led through the mountains to the Caspian Sea and onto a track road that was all dust and potholes.
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