Moon at Nine

by Deborah Ellis

  Saddam got back at them during Farrin’s algebra class. The air-raid sirens sounded through the area.

  ‘Move, girls, quickly now. You know the drill.’ Pargol and the other monitors bossed everyone with calm efficiency. Soon the whole student body had gathered in the gym, the innermost room of the school. The teachers kept everyone in their class groups, and lessons resumed while planes flew overhead and explosions blew up parts of the nearby neighborhood.

  It was a short raid. The all clear signal went off, but Principal Kobra announced that school was over for the day.

  ‘Older ones, escort the younger ones home. If your families are not yet waiting for you outside, ask an older girl to walk you home. Those of you juniors from the south of the city, wait here and we will arrange taxis for you.’

  Farrin saw Sadira stand in line with the older girls who were volunteering to escort the younger ones home. She joined the line beside her.

  ‘Let’s walk together,’ she suggested. ‘It will be safer than if we walk alone after dropping off the juniors.’

  They escorted two sisters from the third and fourth classes, walked them to the front door of their home, and told the mother why they were early.

  ‘I should not let them go to school,’ the woman said, sweeping the girls into her arms. ‘They should be here with me if Saddam hits us.’

  ‘Forgive me, ma’am, but you are wrong,’ Sadira said. ‘It is because of Saddam that your girls need to go to school. Men have run this world long enough, and they have made a mess of it.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Fighting is all they know. If they had ever been taught another way, they have forgotten it.’

  ‘So, we need educated women to take over,’ Sadira said. ‘I will personally look after your daughters if the sirens go off while we are at school. I will look out for them anyway, if that will make you feel better. If I can keep them from harm, you know I will do it. We must keep thinking of the future.’

  The little girls were thrilled. It was the practice of the senior girls to ignore the juniors at every opportunity, and to make sure the unworthy juniors knew they were being ignored. To have a senior girl watch out for them would give the young ones high status among their classmates. The girls begged their mother, and the woman relented.

  ‘You just got yourself a job,’ Farrin said as they walked away. ‘I hope they won’t be too much trouble.’

  Sadira laughed. ‘They’re too much in awe of us to be any trouble.’

  Farrin liked the way she said ‘us,’ as if she took for for granted that she and Farrin would work together.

  They were heading back to school, where Sadira could catch her bus and Farrin would wait for the car to arrive, when the sound of a pack of motorcycles made them stop.

  ‘It’s the Death Gang,’ Farrin said. ‘Let’s see where they’re going.’

  She turned and headed in the direction of the sound.

  ‘The what?’ Sadira asked.

  ‘I call them the Death Gang, like American motorcycle gangs,’ Farrin explained. ‘Did you ever see the movie The Wild Bunch?’ Sadira shook her head. Farrin was suddenly afraid she had said too much – The Wild Bunch wasn’t exactly on the Ayatollah’s permitted list. ‘Come on – it sounds like they are just around this corner.’

  She hurried ahead, hoping Sadira would follow her. Sadira did, and they rounded a corner, coming to a stop in front of a house where a missile had landed. Surrounding the home was a ring of motorcycles and Revolutionary Guards dressed in black.

  The guards pushed people away from the rubble. ‘We have Saddam on the run!’ they shouted. ‘We are raining death down upon him now. Today we destroy Saddam and Iraq. Tomorrow we destroy Israel and America and all the antirevolutionary forces that would bring back the Shah and imprison the Iranian people. Death to Saddam! Death to America! Death to Saddam! Death to America!’

  The Revolutionary Guards kept shouting slogans as they encouraged the crowd to join in with them.

  The crowd was silent.

  Farrin had seen too many of these events. The Revolutionary Guard in black clothes and red headbands riding their motorcycles to bombed-out homes and whipping people up into a pro-war fervor. ‘Anger is more powerful than sorrow!’ the guards would chant. ‘Shouting is more powerful than weeping! Fighting the enemy is more powerful than wishing on stars like little children do. Death to Saddam! Death to America!’ The crowd would always join in the chants. They would always take up the shouts and the slogans – ‘Death to Saddam,’ who had bombed them and ‘Death to America,’ because America had supplied Saddam with the bombs.

  This time, though, no one joined in.

  The crowd of people around the bombed-out home just stood quietly, hands at their sides, shoulders slumped. Not one voice was raised. Not one sound came from anyone.

  Farrin held her breath.

  The Revolutionary Guards, armed and revved-up, pointed their rifles around at the crowd, and tried again.

  ‘Death to Saddam! Death to America!’

  No one made a sound.

  A look of fear written on her face, Sadira gripped Farrin’s arm and whispered, ‘Don’t shoot them.’

  For a moment it looked like the guards would do just that before they finally lowered their guns.

  The guards pumped their fists in the air a few more times and shouted for death before climbing back on their motorbikes and riding away.

  The crowd did not cheer at their departure. Instead, they got back to work removing the rubble.

  Sadira stepped forward to help. Farrin joined her.

  ‘Everybody is out,’ an old woman said to them. ‘Three dead.’ She nodded at the bodies covered by blankets and placed off to the side. ‘Now we must try to get the house cleared enough that what’s left of this family will have a place to sleep tonight.’

  Farrin and Sadira lifted rocks and stones and rubble, and stacked it in a tidy pile. Someone came with a truck and loaded the bodies onto the back.

  Everyone worked without speaking. There did not seem to be anything to say.

  Farrin worked alongside her new friend. She was exactly where she needed to be.

  SIX

  IT WAS A tinkling afternoon.

  Teaspoons tinkled against china teacups.

  Reflection off the silver tea service tinkled as the cups were refilled.

  And the tinkling touch of Farrin’s fingers on the ivory keys of the piano played a harmless, light classical tune.

  It was all light, irrelevant, and forgettable.

  On the first Monday of the month, her mother hosted the Bring Back the Shah Tea for Ladies of Culture. Held every single first Monday since Farrin could remember, it was a way for the lady fans of the Shah to learn about what her mother called ‘developments.’

  ‘There have been some developments,’ her mother would usually start, before going on to list the hopeful things that had happened in the preceding weeks.

  Farrin was always pressed into service. Just after the revolution, when she was small, her job was to wear a party dress and pass around a plate of almond cookies. The women would coo over her and pet her, then ignore her while they traded news about the Iranian royal family.

  The Shah – Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – died in exile in l980. When Farrin learned of his death years later, she was surprised. With his photo in such a prominent place in her family’s inner room, he seemed as sure and solid as the walls and the mountains.

  ‘He died soon after the revolution,’ her mother said. ‘I’m sure I told you. You just weren’t paying attention.’

  ‘So how can we bring him back if he’s dead?’

  Farrin had visions of a zombie-Shah, arms outstretched, walking heavily around the palace grounds and screaming for human flesh to eat.

  ‘We’ll make his son the new Shah,’ her mother said. ‘The crown prince will be our salvation from the rabble that now rules over our land.’

  Farrin tinkled her way through the vacuous piece of music while
the ladies drank their tea. She thought about that conversation with her mother, and wondered about using the zombie-Shah in her demon story. Or maybe the Shah could have been bitten by a wolf at his summer villa in the hills and comes back as a werewolf every full moon. Or – even better – the Shah could be a vampire, hiding in the darkness during the day then coming out at night to feast on the blood of his own people.

  Farrin began to get excited. Vampires, werewolves and zombies weren’t traditional Iranian demons, but who was to say such things could not exist here? Iran had ghouls and djinn of different sorts. Why not other monsters too?

  In her excitement, she began pounding the piano keys instead of tinkling them, turning the piece of musical fluff she was playing into something like a military march.

  All the ladies looked at her. Her mother frowned.

  Farrin didn’t apologize, but she did ease off on the pounding.

  ‘I think it’s time we begin,’ her mother said. Her mother was president of the club. It was a rotating honor, but even if someone else held the title, Farrin’s mother held the power.

  That was Farrin’s signal to wind down the music.

  Before the meeting could begin, there was a knock on the inner room door. Ada stepped into the room.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am. There is a telephone call.’

  ‘Take a message, Ada. I’m about to start the meeting.’

  ‘The call is for Miss Farrin,’ Ada said.

  Farrin had never received a phone call before. Sometimes she was put on the phone to say hello to some relative or other, but no one had ever called just to talk to her.

  ‘Who’s calling you?’ her mother asked in a tone that made it clear the caller was likely a criminal or an idiot.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Farrin admitted.

  ‘It’s someone from school,’ Ada said. ‘A Miss Sadira. She’s calling about a homework assignment.’

  ‘Go,’ said her mother. ‘But don’t be long. Our secretary has seen fit to come down with a headache. I’ll need you to take minutes.’

  Not even the thought of playing secretary to her mother’s silly friends could dampen Farrin’s excitement. But she didn’t rush to the hallway; she played it cool, as if a phone call from a friend was an everyday event. She didn’t want her mother bothering her with a bunch of questions afterward.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Farrin? It’s Sadira.’

  Farrin felt her stomach flip.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she said, continuing the cool act.

  ‘Is this a bad time?’ Sadira asked.

  Maybe she’d played it too cool. ‘No, this is good. This is really good, actually. It got me out of one of my mother’s meetings.’

  Farrin wanted to snatch her words back. These sorts of questions were the ones her mother was so afraid of.

  ‘Well, she calls them meetings, but they’re just these gatherings of all her women friends,’ Farrin continued. ‘Once a month they meet for tea and gossip. Mom likes me to be here to hand around refreshments.’

  ‘A gathering of women,’ Sadira said. ‘That sounds like fun. Maybe I could come over sometime and help serve.’

  Farrin would love to see her mother’s reaction to Farrin bringing a stranger into their foolish little gatherings. She wondered if she would ever have the nerve to make it happen. With Sadira, even the worst situation would be all right.

  ‘That would be great,’ Farrin said. ‘But my mother is – well, she’s kind of peculiar.’

  ‘Parents are a challenge,’ Sadira agreed, ‘although I know my mother would have liked you. I think you would have liked her, too.’

  ‘Farrin – you’re needed!’ Farrin’s mother stuck her head into the hallway. ‘How long does it take to ask about a homework assignment?’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ Farrin told her, then, in a formal voice she said into the phone, ‘We need to read the section on botany and then draw and label a plant native to Iran.’

  Her mother backed out the door and Farrin relaxed.

  ‘You have to go?’ asked Sadira.

  ‘I probably should, or she’ll keep interrupting us.’

  ‘Must be nice, having someone watch over you so closely.’

  ‘I guess,’ Farrin said. ‘Not always. Doesn’t your father watch you?’

  ‘My father is too sad,’ Sadira told her. ‘He’s better now than he was, but he still isn’t the way he used to be. He expects me to do the right thing. I like being trusted, but it would be nice, too, to have him ask who I was talking to at school or whether I’ve done my homework.’

  Farrin didn’t know how to reply to that.

  ‘So, I guess I’ll see you in class tomorrow,’ said Sadira.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Farrin said. Then she remembered. ‘Did you have a question about a homework assignment?’

  Sadira’s laugh made Farrin feel as if they were in the same room.

  ‘I just felt like calling you,’ Sadira said. Then she hung up.

  Farrin floated back to the inner room and her mother’s meeting.

  She sat down and took up the writing pad and pen.

  ‘We received this lovely letter from a woman in Toronto who says we should keep striving for a return to the monarchy,’ her mother was saying. ‘I think, judging from her many references to Queen Elizabeth, that she is under the impression that we want the British monarchy to rule Iran, but I dare say that Queen Elizabeth would certainly be a more civilized ruler for us than that bearded Ayatollah. Let me read to you what she says – ’

  The meeting droned on and on.

  Farrin dutifully made notes. She was trying harder these days to be more cooperative with her mother. Less defiance meant smoother days, as it allowed her to fade into the background of her mother’s world.

  When the meeting finally broke up, her mother asked for Farrin’s notes to add to the binder of minutes. Farrin took a quick look at the paper and crumpled it up.

  ‘My pen broke,’ she said, balling the paper up as tight as it would go. ‘There is ink blotched all over it. I was paying attention, though,’ she said, as she quickly backed away and headed toward her room. ‘I’ll write you out a nice, clean copy!’

  A lecture about carelessness followed her all the way upstairs. Farrin closed the door to shut out the sound of her mother’s voice before sitting on the middle of her bed.

  With trembling hands she flattened out the paper.

  There, in letters big and small, in Persian letters and in English, in pictographs dripping from the point of a moon, Farrin had written, over and over –

  Sadira.

  SEVEN

  ‘THE MORNING STARS sing together, and all the sons of God sing for joy.’

  Farrin looked from Sadira to her father Haj Nadir, to Ahmad, and to Rabbi Sayyed, the other guest in the front room of Sadira’s house.

  Sadira’s father spoke in a calm, quiet, almost soothing voice. An older man with smiling eyes and a long beard, he was dressed in traditional robes and a cleric’s turban. He gazed up at a point beyond the wall while he quoted, almost as if he were talking to the spirits. When he was finished, he lowered his head and smiled slightly as he looked around the room. His eyes landed on Farrin.

  Farrin could tell that some kind of response was required, but she had no idea what to say.

  She was visiting Sadira with her mother’s permission, after much persuasion by her father.

  ‘A friend is a great thing to have,’ Farrin’s father said. ‘If our daughter has the gift of a friend, who are we to stand in her way?’

  ‘We don’t know anything about this strange girl or her family,’ her mother said. ‘This is an outsider who could be part of the Revolutionary Guard’s spy network. She could bring down our whole operation here.’

  As far as Farrin could tell, the ‘whole operation’ consisted of ladies raising their tea cups to old photos of the Shah, but she kept quiet and let her father do the arguing.

  ‘Sadira doesn’t have to come h
ere,’ her father said. ‘Farrin may visit her at her house.’

  Farrin didn’t know how she would explain it to Sadira when the time came to return the visit, but she left that problem for another day.

  Ahmad was instructed to drive both girls to Sadira’s house after Friday’s half-day classes, and to bring Farrin home when the evening meal was done. ‘And I want a full report of everything,’ her mother had told him.

  By this time, Farrin had helped Ahmad smuggle several trunk-loads of food to the Afghan workers. She was pretty sure he would give her mother nothing to disapprove of about the visit.

  Sadira’s father had welcomed them warmly, ushering them inside to sit in the most comfortable seats.

  ‘I will wait for you in the car,’ Ahmad told Farrin, but Haj Nadir wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘Come, Brother, we are all the same in the eyes of God. You will enter my home and be my guest for however long we are honored to have you with us.’

  Farrin had helped Sadira prepare tea and dishes of candied almonds, and now they were all sitting together in the small front room on narrow mats that lined the walls. It was a very plain room. The only decorations were two photographs: one of Ayatollah Khomeini and the other of Mecca. Farrin found the room surprisingly easy on the eyes, with no clutter or shock of contrasting colors.

  She struggled to figure out what she was feeling. Free, she decided. She was feeling free. Her mind could rest in a room like this.

  Maybe I should redo my bedroom, she thought. All cushions. Simple and comfortable.

  Well into the afternoon, they drank tea while Haj Nadir asked the girls about their studies. The men shared some light incidents from their school days and Farrin found that she was enjoying herself.

  Then Haj Nadir said this strange thing about the morning stars singing. Clearly he wanted Farrin to respond, but she had no idea what was expected. And she did not want to look foolish in front of Sadira.

  ‘It’s from the book of Job,’ Rabbi Sayyed said. ‘Chapter thirty-eight, verse seven. ‘Tears may come at nightfall, but joy comes in the morning.’’