Moon at Nine

by Deborah Ellis

‘Looks like you finally found someone to be your friend,’ Pargol said as Sadira headed out. ‘I hope she’s prepared to pay the price.’

  ‘The price for friendship?’ Sadira asked. ‘A good friend is beyond price.’

  Pargol made a mocking face. Sadira flashed Farrin a smile, and with a wave, she started to leave the room.

  Pargol blocked the door to Farrin. ‘That was some little stunt you pulled in the gymnasium,’ Pargol said.

  ‘That was no stunt,’ Farrin said, trying not to be intimidated. ‘I just fainted. It was the heat.’

  She should have stopped there, but Farrin couldn’t resist adding, ‘You’ve heard of fainting? It’s something humans do.’

  Pargol stepped closer, so that she was breathing right on Farrin.

  ‘You forget that you are no one,’ she said. ‘You think you are someone, with your new friend and your dumb little story about demons. You think your illusions will protect you? Nothing will protect you. I can crush you any time I feel like it.’

  ‘You seem shorter,’ Farrin said. ‘Did I grow a little, or did you shrink?’

  Pargol just smiled at Farrin’s insolence. ‘A bug can still make a loud noise up until the moment it is stepped on,’ she said. ‘Don’t even try to save yourself. Your days are numbered.’

  ‘Que sera, sera,’ Farrin said, quoting one of her mother’s Doris Day records. She pushed past Pargol and went off to find Sadira.

  Sadira was in the school yard. ‘What was that all about?’ she asked.

  ‘Pargol always thinks she has some big secret,’ Farrin said. ‘It gives her a feeling of power.’

  ‘I mean, in the gym. What happened?’

  Farrin wanted to tell her, but was not sure how it would be received. ‘Can we walk for a bit?’ she asked. ‘I’d like to get away from the school.’

  They had not expected early dismissal. Ahmad was not waiting for Farrin, and Sadira’s father was not expecting her home. They had time to walk.

  The streets were beginning to fill up with people who had heard the Ayatollah’s announcement. His prediction was right – there was no jubilation, no rejoicing. Farrin had the impression that the whole mood of the country was confusion. What had it all been for?

  She asked Sadira about it.

  ‘If we hadn’t fought back, Saddam would have taken over Iran,’ Sadira said. ‘We had to fight.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Farrin said. ‘We didn’t gain anything, though.’

  ‘My father says that if anything is gained by war, it should be given back, because something gained through violence is a form of theft.’

  The girls walked up the street to a little park at the top of a hill. They sat down on a bench; from there, they could look down in all directions. Farrin reached for a balled-up scrap of paper that was rolling about in the breeze. It was a piece of one of the illegal women’s rights flyers that popped up every now and then. Farrin smoothed it out, then folded it up and put it in her pocket as she tried to gather her courage.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ Farrin said, ‘and I’m afraid to, because I think it will make you not want to be my friend anymore.’

  ‘I can’t imagine anything that would make me want that,’ Sadira said.

  ‘It’s about my parents,’ Farrin said. ‘Mostly, it’s about my mother.’

  She paused.

  ‘Go on,’ Sadira said. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Remember,’ said Farrin. ‘It’s my mother, not me. The Shah put your father in prison. My mother loves the Shah. Even though he’s dead, she still loves him, and she loves the monarchy.’

  ‘That’s it? That’s your big secret?’

  ‘She has a group of ladies who also love the Shah. They’re trying to bring back the royal family.’

  ‘That sounds dangerous,’ Sadira said. ‘How are they doing this?’

  ‘I’ll tell you everything, if you want to know.’

  Sadira was silent a while. Farrin could see that she understood that by agreeing to hear, she was also agreeing to keep Farrin’s secret.

  ‘Before you tell me anything,’ Sadira began, ‘could you tell me first if they are doing anything against the law?’

  Farrin wasn’t sure if it was against the law to hang the Shah’s picture in their house. She knew it wasn’t a good idea, but was it actually illegal? She didn’t know. Her parents had alcohol in the house, though, and that was illegal. So were the videos brought by the Briefcase Man.

  ‘They are breaking the law,’ Farrin said,‘but not in big ways. They drink wine and whiskey, and watch illegal videos. I have illegal videos in my room, but I don’t drink alcohol. Those are the only illegal things they do, I’m sure. They’re not doing anything to bring down the revolution. They’re too silly for that.’

  ‘All right, then tell me,’ Sadira said.

  ‘My mother invites ladies to tea,’ Farrin said,‘and they talk about bringing back the royal family. But I don’t think they actually do anything else. Just talk.’

  ‘And what do you do when they are drinking tea?’

  Farrin was embarrassed, but she could not stop confessing now. ‘I play piano and pass around the cookies.’

  ‘That’s what you were doing when I phoned you?’

  Farrin nodded.

  ‘What do you think of the Shah?’ Sadira asked.

  Farrin shrugged. ‘Why do I have to think anything? All my life, at home it’s been ‘the Shah is wonderful,’ and at school it’s been ‘the revolution is wonderful.’ I would just like to be left alone to grow up and figure things out on my own.’

  ‘Well, let’s do that, then,’ Sadira said. ‘Our parents have minds of their own. We’re not responsible for them. My father loves lima beans. Just because I am his daughter, does that mean that I must also love lima beans?’

  The question seemed so wonderfully silly in the middle of such a serious conversation that Farrin just had to laugh. Sadira laughed with her.

  They were still laughing when the first of a group of young boys came marching past.

  They were basiji boys, back from the war. For days now, others had been seen marching back from the front. Many of the boys were in bandages. Some limped. Others stared, their eyes looking wild and crazed.

  They came first in a trickle, heading down the street, stopping traffic, and making drivers honk their horns. They seemed to be attempting to march in formation, but their rhythm was off and they could not hold it. Too many of them were wounded, and they moved awkwardly, with weary gaits.

  One boy, who looked younger than Farrin, had a bloody patch over one eye. He stopped before a wall where a large portrait of the Ayatollah had been painted.

  Farrin nudged Sadira to watch.

  For a long moment, the boy stood before the portrait, just looking up at it with his one remaining eye.

  He’s going to salute, Farrin thought.

  Instead, the boy bent down to a mud puddle and scooped up a fistful of mud. His arm went back – and then he threw. The muck landed right on the Ayatollah’s face.

  He bent down again to get another fistful.

  Farrin saw the black uniforms of the Revolutionary Guard heading up the hill. ‘They’ll arrest him,’ she said. She and Sadira ran to the boy and pulled him away from the mud. They kept his face down and hidden between them until the soldiers had passed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Sadira asked the boy. ‘You are tired. Let us help you.’

  The boy just gave an anguished cry and wrenched himself away. He joined the line of basiji boys and shuffled away.

  For a moment, Farrin and Sadira stared at the backs of the boys as they headed down the hill.

  ‘The world is run by demons,’ Sadira said.

  ‘We can’t waste time,’ said Farrin. ‘My mother and her friends – they put off living until an event that may never happen. I can’t do that. I can’t put off my life.’

  Sadira agreed. ‘We can’t postpone living. We never know when we are going to die. There could be an
other war at any time. We have to just live while we can. For me, that means doing everything the best that I can – cooking the best meals for my father, doing my best on all the exams, having the most possible fun I can have with you, my best friend.’

  ‘So, we will live, then,’ said Farrin. ‘We will live and work as though we could die tomorrow. And then we will have no regrets.’

  At that point, they turned to look in the direction the basiji boys had come from. Sadira let out a gasp.

  As far as they could see, a line of boys in red martyr’s headbands walked, limped, staggered, and crawled up the crest of the hill toward them. Many of them were weeping openly.

  Sadira slipped her hand into Farrin’s. They stood together like that for a long time, watching the boys.

  ‘No regrets,’ said Sadira.

  ‘No regrets,’ Farrin echoed, and she squeezed her friend’s hand, their fingers so entwined that it was hard to tell where one hand ended and the other one began.

  NINE

  THE SCHOOL BUZZED.

  Farrin felt it as soon as she walked through the door. The air seemed alive with energy. Girls stood in their groups, gossiping as usual, but their posture was different. As Farrin walked past them, instead of closing ranks to exclude her, they turned to her.

  She couldn’t read their faces.

  At first she thought they were laughing at her. That was the reason she usually drew students’ attention, when they were looking for someone to ridicule.

  Then she wondered if there had been another tragedy – something unexpected, since the war had been over for a while. She wondered who had died, and how.

  But then one of the older girls left the group she was with and came over to shake Farrin’s hand.

  ‘Congratulations,’ the girl said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ The girl turned to her friends. ‘She doesn’t know. Let’s show her.’

  The group swept her up. They put their hands around her waist and arms, and headed down the hall toward the main entrance.

  Farrin usually entered the building through the side entrance – the one closest to the spot where Ahmad dropped her off. The main entrance was in the center of the building, where Principal Kobra’s office and the main bulletin board were situated.

  The bulletin board held announcements about after-school groups, detentions, monitor meetings, uniform sales, and other school business.

  It was also the place where the half-term academic standings were posted.

  As soon as the group started heading in that direction, Farrin knew – she knew – that she was about to have one of the most victorious moments of her life.

  But was Sadira going to be up there with her?

  She needn’t have worried.

  ‘You have done what nobody else has managed to do,’ one of the girls said. ‘You have beaten Pargol.’

  There it was, right up on the bulletin board, for everyone to see. Farrin’s name was in second place, with a ninety-one percent average. Sadira’s name was first, with ninety-three. Pargol’s name appeared next, a distant third place, with eighty-eight percent.

  ‘Here comes our first-placer! Three cheers for Sadira!’

  The cheers rang out as Sadira stepped into the building and walked over to the bulletin board. Admiring girls immediately surrounded her.

  Farrin grinned at Sadira, then stared again at the standings sheet. She could not take her eyes off that ninety-one percent by her name.

  She had never been awarded a grade that high before. And it was her average grade for the term! That meant she had even higher grades in some of her individual classes. She was used to mediocrity, to doing just enough work to avoid attracting the teachers’ attention. She had never made an effort.

  Ever since she had begun to study with Sadira, Farrin’s brain had worked more than ever before. The biggest thing she’d learned that term was self-discipline. It hadn’t even been that hard, not once she learned how to clear her mind of distractions and focus in on the work. She and Sadira had studied during lunch hour away from the other girls, sitting on the floor of the gym with their books in front of them. Farrin had really paid attention in class, and in the evening, studying had given her the perfect excuse to use the phone to call Sadira with questions. She’d even studied in bed with her books propped up on her knees. Her videos of The Night Stalker had sat forgotten, gathering dust.

  Farrin felt a slight twinge of worry. What would her mother say about her being in the second position? But she couldn’t see how her good grades in organic chemistry could thwart her mother’s efforts to bring back the Shah, so she decided not to tell.

  ‘Our work paid off,’ Sadira said.

  ‘I didn’t know I had it in me,’ said Farrin.

  Sadira grinned. ‘Oh, I knew you did. Just don’t get any fancy ideas about pulling ahead of me!’

  ‘Is that right?’ Farrin laughed. ‘Next month my name will be on top!’

  It was all part of their plan to feel alive as long as they could. Since work was part of life, if they had to work, they would really work. When they were in gym class, playing sports, they played hard. Whatever they did, they tried to do it full out.

  The chattering suddenly died away as Pargol entered the hall and walked over to the bulletin board. But before the monitor could take a look, Sadira held out her hand.

  ‘Congratulations, Pargol,’ she said. ‘Top three.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Then Pargol saw the sheet. Her face turned to stone.

  ‘I didn’t know you were a scholar,’ she said to Sadira.

  ‘My father spends a lot of time with books,’ Sadira told her. ‘He taught me how to study.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pargol. ‘That explains it. You come by it naturally.’

  ‘Plus I work hard,’ Sadira said.

  Pargol waved her off.

  ‘You,’ she said to Farrin,‘must have cheated.’

  The students all gasped at once. To accuse someone of cheating was serious. Cheating could mean getting kicked out of the academy. A cheater would disgrace herself and her family to such an extent that it was unlikely she would ever attend another school. Her family would marry her off as quickly and as quietly as possible.

  Farrin found herself clenching her fists.

  Sadira stepped between them. ‘I know you don’t really believe she cheated,’ she said, ‘because that would mean you were also accusing our teachers of being fools for letting it happen. You are disappointed at coming in third because you are usually at the top, but this is better. Now everyone will be excited to see who will be on top next! Farrin has moved so far up in a single term that other girls will believe they can advance too. It will be better for our class to be excited. Better for the school, too, because other classes will want to see if they can beat us. And it will be better for the revolution, because the people will be served by well educated women.’

  Pargol squared her shoulders. ‘I can accept this talk about the revolution from you because you have paid for your words. You’ve lost family to the war and you live humbly. But this one,’ she jerked her thumb at Farrin, ‘is not about serving the people. She is about serving herself. Her whole family is selfish. They live in a mansion, thinking they can hide their guilt behind high walls. She even has a grandfather who was best buddies with the Shah!’

  Another gasp from the students.

  ‘We can’t choose our relatives,’ Sadira said, keeping her voice quiet and steady. ‘Any family tree is bound to have a few rotten pomegranates.’

  ‘The whole point of the revolution was to bring an end to the rot,’ Pargol said, ‘not to make friends with it.’

  The group went tomb-silent. There was such meanness in the insult. It had gone beyond ordinary nastiness into something more sinister.

  Farrin’s heart began to thump in her chest.

  Then she felt Sadira’s hand slide gently into the bend of her elbow. Sadira guided her away.

>   ‘It’s a beautiful day,’ Sadira said, softly, ‘and we are on top of the world.’

  Farrin put her hand on top of Sadira’s.

  She felt the ridge of Sadira’s fingertips along her arm, and slowly she began to calm down.

  TEN

  THE DAY WAS wine-glorious.

  Farrin did not know where the phrase had come from or how it popped into her head. She did not drink wine. She had seen the way alcohol affected the adults around her and she never wanted to be that dull.

  But still, the phrase fitted.

  The day was wine-glorious, and Farrin’s heart was singing with joy.

  She was heading down the highway on a bright sunny day, leaving her mother behind.

  Life just kept getting better and better.

  Her father sat beside Ahmad in the front seat. Farrin was in the backseat.

  They were driving south out of Tehran, sometimes crawling in traffic, sometimes zipping along the highway and breezing through the checkpoints. A strong wind had blown much of the pollution away the night before. The air felt clean, the sky was blue, and Farrin’s mother was back at home, nursing a bad headache.

  Everyone knew her mother had no headache. Or, if she did, it was a medical marvel of a headache that only showed up once a year, when it was time to visit the in-laws.

  ‘I won’t be good company,’ her mother always said. ‘You go ahead and enjoy yourselves. Give my regards to your parents. I’ll just take my pills and spend the day in a dark room.’

  Farrin knew her mother would do nothing of the sort. Her father knew it too. He knew what his wife thought of his family. She was probably going to spend the day with one of her boyfriends. His wife didn’t know that he knew, and neither of them suspected that Farrin knew.

  Secrets. Secrets everywhere.

  Farrin didn’t care.

  Years ago, the last time her mother came on the annual trip, she had spent the whole time looking pained. She’d made a great show of swatting away flies, refusing to eat, and putting a perfumed cloth to her nose to block out the smell of the livestock.

  Farrin loved that her mother wasn’t with them.