Moon at Nine

by Deborah Ellis

  ‘I left,’ Sadira said. ‘I mean, I really left. I know the plan was for Ahmad to drive me back to school first thing in the morning, then come back and drive you, like nothing had ever happened. But I had to leave. My father has arranged a marriage for me. The wedding is set for next month. He isn’t even going to let me graduate!’

  Farrin sat beside Sadira and put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her close.

  ‘My father hasn’t spoken to me since that day in the principal’s office,’ Sadira said. ‘Not a word. He’s gone back to that sad place, but it’s worse now. He doesn’t even acknowledge me. It’s like I’m a ghost in the house.’ Farrin gently rocked her friend in her arms.

  ‘I only found out about the wedding when I overheard him argue with Rabbi Sayyed. The rabbi tried to talk him out of it, but my father refused to listen. They argued – it was terrible! I’ve destroyed their friendship – another sin to add to my list.’

  Farrin was too busy thinking to respond to this.

  ‘When will he notice that you have left?’

  ‘Not until supper, when no food tray appears,’ Sadira said. ‘Maybe even later than that. Sometimes he eats all his meals out of the house, just to avoid me. Can you help me get out of Tehran? I hate to ask. I know you have your own troubles with your parents.’

  ‘If you’re leaving, I’m leaving with you,’ Farrin said. She didn’t even have to think about it. Of course they were going together!

  Sadira threw her arms around Farrin and sobbed with relief. Farrin rubbed her shoulders to comfort her, but only for a moment. There was too much to do.

  ‘We need a plan,’ Farrin said. ‘And money.’ She wondered how much money she had in her room. She knew where her mother kept a small stash of cash, to hand out to the poor or to pay for last-minute groceries, and she could probably get her hands on it after everyone left or went to bed. There wouldn’t be much, though.

  I’ll have to take it directly from my parents, Farrin decided. She didn’t like the thought of doing that.

  They’d have to pay for her if she stayed, she reasoned. School supplies, clothes, food. And if they wanted to marry her off, they would have had to pay for that, too. Whatever she managed to take from them tonight would be less than it would cost them if she stayed.

  She recognized that it was flimsy morality, but it would have to do. If they were going to get away, and have any kind of a life, they would need money – as much money as possible.

  ‘I brought my gold,’ Sadira said, pointing to the thin gold chain around her neck.

  Girls were often given pieces of gold jewelry for their birthdays and special occasions like New Year or Eid. This gold was to form part of their dowry when they married.

  ‘Cash would be better,’ Farrin said, ‘but gold is good, too.’

  She got out the food and drinks she had prepared. They sat on the bed and ate and planned.

  ‘I don’t want to trust Ahmad with this,’ Farrin said. ‘He has been trustworthy so far, because he knows that I could report him to my father for taking food to the workers. But this is too big. We need to be able to get away without his help.’

  There were so many problems. Girls out alone did not draw too much attention if they were wearing school uniforms during the hours when they should be heading to or from school, but girls alone in regular clothes outside school hours would just be asking for the Revolutionary Guard to arrest them.

  It would be hard to find a taxi driver willing to give them a ride. Even if they said they were sisters, the driver would want to know why they were traveling without their father or brother. There were checkpoints along the highway and at bus stations. Everywhere they went, too many people would ask too many questions.

  They talked and talked. They went through Sadira’s bag and Farrin’s belongings, deciding what to take with them.

  ‘Only what we can carry easily,’ Farrin said. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t take anything except food, water, and money. We’ll draw less attention if we’re not carrying travel bags.’

  ‘Where should we go?’ Sadira asked.

  They went through the list of neighboring countries. Iraq? They were not likely to be made welcome there, and their knowledge of Arabic was limited to the Quran. Pakistan? They wouldn’t blend in there at all. Afghanistan? There were a lot of Farsi speakers there, but there was also a civil war going on. Turkey? A lot of escaping Iranians went through there. If they could get into Turkey, they could cross over into Europe.

  ‘Turkey,’ Sadira said. ‘That sounds best. Once we’re in Turkey, we’ll consider the next place.’

  They decided to wait until just before daylight to leave. In the coldest hours of the morning, the city would be in its deepest sleep, and they would have the best chance to walk without being seen. They could cover a lot of miles on the empty streets; and by the time the sun came up and the city awoke, they would be far away. On the bus, they might even blend in with the female university students, gaining even more distance.

  Farrin unlocked her bedroom door and checked the hallway. Below, they were singing. Her parents’ room was just down the hall. Moving quickly, she listened at the door before opening it. Some guests had been known to slip up there during parties. Tonight, Farrin did not hear anything.

  Inside the room, she went to her mother’s jewelry box and took a few small things that she didn’t think her mother would miss. Some cash sat in the tray on the bureau. Farrin found more in the closet where her mother kept her purses. Farrin grabbed all she could find. She was tempted to do a more thorough search of the room, but she didn’t want to leave Sadira alone too long.

  She made it back to her room without being seen.

  They put on two layers of clothing to avoid carrying them.

  ‘This is good,’ Farrin said. ‘We might have to sleep outside sometimes. Now we will be warm enough.’

  Soon they had done all they could to get ready. Farrin set her alarm clock and they stretched on the bed to rest.

  ‘I’ll put the clock under my pillow,’ she said. ‘That way, we’ll be able to hear it, but it won’t be loud enough to wake up my parents.’

  She turned out the lamp. They lay side by side in the darkness with only the light from the moon to illuminate the room.

  ‘There’s our moon,’ Sadira said. ‘Should we take it with us when we leave?’

  ‘It belongs to us,’ Farrin said. ‘We can’t leave it behind.’

  They were quiet for a moment, then Farrin asked, ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘I’m sad,’ Sadira said. ‘I’m happy to be with you, but I am sad to leave my father. He won’t understand why I had to go. I don’t want him to think I left because I thought he was a bad father. He’s a good father. The man he arranged for me to marry is probably a kind man, because my father would want that for me. But I don’t want to be married. I want to be with you.’

  ‘Everything will be all right,’ Farrin said. ‘Whatever happens, it will be all right.’

  They lay close together on the bed. Farrin pulled a blanket over them. ‘We should take a blanket with us,’ she said. ‘One each. We could wear them around our shoulders like shawls.’

  Sadira giggled. ‘Won’t Pargol be mad to learn that we’ve gone?’ she said. ‘Her spies will have nothing to do.’

  They talked quietly and laughed and held hands and stayed warm and close under the blanket. The moon moved across Farrin’s window, taking its rays from the room as the girls slid together into a calm, happy, dreamless sleep.

  They were still asleep when the Revolutionary Guard burst through the bedroom door.

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘WE DIDN’T DO anything wrong.’

  Farrin’s upper arms ached. The Revolutionary Guard women had such a strong grip on her that her lower arms were beginning to go numb.

  ‘Stop talking,’ one of the guardswomen said. ‘We don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘But you are making a mistake,’ insisted Farrin. ‘We are top students. We
go to an academy for gifted girls and we are at the top of our class. Ask anyone at our school. How can anyone who is at the top of their class do anything wrong?’

  In her head Farrin knew she wasn’t making any sense. Of course people who were at the top of their class could also be people who had done wrong. But she was talking just to keep talking, as if talking alone could save her.

  ‘We even have good grades in trigonometry,’ she said. ‘That’s a really hard subject, so you know we have to do a lot of studying in order to get good grades. We have no time to get into trouble, so you clearly have the wrong people.

  ‘I want to see my parents,’ she added. ‘Where are my parents?’

  No one would answer her. While some of the guards held onto Sadira and Farrin, the others searched Farrin’s bedroom.

  Farrin tried to squirm away, but it was impossible. She twisted her head as far back as she could, but she could not see into the hall.

  Sadira didn’t squirm. She stood with her head hung low – as if she were still in the principal’s office.

  From below came the sounds of her mother giving the Revolutionary Guard a hard time.

  ‘Why is a photograph illegal? How can a photo be against the law? By any standards of decency – ’

  Then Farrin heard her father’s voice, lower and indecipherable, trying to calm her mother down.

  The guardswomen must have received some sort of signal, because in the next instant Farrin and Sadira were hustled down the stairs and out of the house. Farrin looked around for her parents but she couldn’t see them.

  ‘I demand to see my father!’ Farrin shouted. Perhaps if she acted like a big shot, the guardswomen would listen to her.

  They didn’t. Instead, Farrin and Sadira were surrounded by male soldiers, put into the back of a truck, and taken away into the night. Ordered to be silent, they were forced to sit facing away from each other as the truck sped down the streets – the same streets the girls had planned to take for their escape.

  ‘I’m sorry we fell asleep,’ Farrin said, and got a swat on the head for disobeying.

  ‘I’m not sorry for that,’ Sadira said. Farrin hated the sound of Sadira getting hit.

  ‘I love you!’ Farrin called out, not caring about the pain from a fresh series of blows. ‘I might not get to say it later, so I’m saying it now. I love you!’

  ‘You are only making it worse for yourself,’ a guard said after hitting her again on the head. ‘You were told to be quiet. You will have plenty of chances to talk once we get to Evin. You’ve heard of Evin? You know who works there?’

  Farrin answered, despite being told to keep silent, but her answer came out as a whisper.

  ‘Principal Kobra?’

  The guards heard her and laughed. ‘That’s right. We’re going to the principal’s office. You’re going to be kept after school!’

  While the guards laughed, Farrin felt Sadira lean back to find her. She shifted around on the floor of the truck until their backs were pressed against each other. It was a little like hugging. Their hands, tied behind their backs, found each other, and they entwined their fingers.

  They’ll have to cut off my hands to get us apart, Farrin thought, even though she knew it wasn’t true.

  When she saw barbed wire strung along the top of a high wall, Farrin knew they were at the prison. From her vantage point on the floor of the truck, she could see no details – just wire, the wall, and the moon.

  ‘Cover your eyes with these,’ one of the soldiers said, dangling pieces of cloth in front of their faces to use as blindfolds.

  ‘You want us to tie them with our feet?’ Sadira asked. ‘Or do you think we’re magicians and can tie them with our minds?’

  ‘I don’t care what you are,’ the guard said, roughly binding the smelly cloths over their eyes. ‘You’re some kind of deviant, but I don’t care which kind. You won’t be anything soon.’

  ‘If you’re going to kill us, why cover our eyes?’ Sadira asked.

  Farrin squeezed her friend’s fingers. Please be quiet, she urged silently.

  Sadira didn’t get the message. ‘If you are proud of what you are doing, if you think that what is going to happen to us is right, if you are so sure we are going to be killed, why bind our eyes?’

  ‘I don’t answer to you.’ Sadira cried out as she was hit again. Farrin held onto her friend’s fingers as tightly as she could.

  ‘I think it is because they are afraid of us, Farrin,’ Sadira said. ‘These men are used to getting whatever they want, and they are afraid of girls like us because we don’t need them for anything!’

  Farrin hated the sound that came next, of Sadira being kicked in the head. She felt Sadira’s fingers slip from hers. She wiggled them, searching in the air for her friend.

  The truck came to a stop.

  ‘Get out!’

  It was not easy getting out of the back of the truck blind, with their hands tied behind them. They were yanked this way, then that. Farrin had no idea which direction she was facing or where Sadira was.

  ‘Sadira, are you here?’

  ‘Silence!’

  They were led inside and down a series of halls before reaching a small room. Their blindfolds were removed and their hands were unbound.

  The first thing they did was hug each other.

  The second thing they did was land hard on the floor after being struck.

  ‘On your feet.’ The guards pulled them up.

  They stood for a while. The room was gray and dingy, with a dim lightbulb that made the dinginess appear worse. There was a small table and a chair, and a portrait of the Ayatollah Khomeini hung on the wall.

  It really is Principal Kobra’s office, Farrin thought.

  The door opened and a man in a green uniform came in, followed by a woman also in uniform.

  ‘You have been arrested for deviancy,’ the man said, looking down at the paper the guard handed him. ‘This is considered a crime against society. You will be put on trial. Normally, deviants like you are given a warning, and that warning is backed up by lashes so that the message gets into your brain through your blood. I understand from our informant that you have already been given a warning, and you were ordered to desist from your deviant behavior. Mercy has been shown to you and you have thrown it back in our faces.’

  ‘Will we be allowed to speak in our defense?’ Sadira asked.

  ‘You have a defense?’ the man asked. ‘Give us the names of your witnesses, and we will bring them here to speak for you.’

  The girls were silent.

  The man nodded to the woman to take them away.

  The woman’s grip on Farrin’s arm was as hard as the male soldiers’. ‘Cover your eyes,’ she said. ‘And do it properly. You don’t want me to catch you trying to look.’

  Farrin bound her eyes with the cloth. And then she panicked – she wanted one last look at Sadira in case they were separated! She tore the cloth from her eyes and saw that Sadira had done the same.

  ‘I love you,’ Farrin said.

  ‘I love you, too,’ said Sadira.

  ‘I could order you both executed right now,’ said the man in charge. ‘Do you want to die? It makes no difference to me.’

  ‘I want to live,’ Farrin said. She smiled at Sadira and they raised their blindfolds to their eyes at the same time. They were taken from the room.

  Up and down more hallways, up and down more stairs. Outside one building and into another. Some hallways smelled of bleach. Some smelled of urine. Some hallways were silent except for the sound of their own feet on the concrete. Others were full of the sounds of shouting and screaming, of begging and weeping.

  Farrin couldn’t tell if Sadira was still with her or not. She coughed three times. Sadira coughed back. So far, they were together.

  Then Farrin’s guard stopped her before a door, opened it, and shoved her inside.

  ‘Keep your blindfold on,’ the guard ordered. ‘You don’t want to be caught with it off.’
>
  The door slammed shut and was locked.

  Farrin coughed three times.

  No one coughed back.

  EIGHTEEN

  FARRIN WAS DISOBEDIENT.

  She had to know what it looked like in her cell. With her back against the door, she raised her blindfold just a bit.

  The cell was a small, bare room – no beds, no toilet. The ceiling was low and the only illumination came from the hall through the narrow slot in the door, creating more shadows than light.

  Still, it was enough for Farrin to see that she was not alone. Several women were sleeping on the floor at the back of the cell. Farrin was relieved. She felt safer having some company. They would be able to tell her things about the prison, and maybe they could tell her where Sadira might have been taken.

  ‘I’m Farrin,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry to wake you. I just got here.’

  No one stirred.

  It must be a comfort to sleep here, Farrin thought. I will probably find comfort too, if I’m ever able to sleep again.

  She leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor. She shook from nerves and from the cold. She tried to warm up a little by wrapping her arms around herself.

  Her cell was quiet, but there were other sounds all around. Not good ones. The stone walls had a strange effect on the sounds, making them seem otherworldly and nonhuman.

  ‘Sadira is fine,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I would know if she was not fine. She’s scared, of course, but she is in a cell with women who will take care of her and keep her warm. We will get through this and see each other again. My parents are mad at me, but they won’t leave me in here. They have lots of money. They will bribe someone. We’ll get out.’

  What if her parents refused to help Sadira too? ‘Then I will stay in here until I know Sadira is out. They know how stubborn I am. They’ll have to give in.’

  Fresh screams rang out. Farrin clasped her hands over her ears and bit her lips so that she would not scream too.

  ‘My parents have lots of money,’ she whispered again. ‘They won’t leave me in here. How would my mother face her friends? She’d be too ashamed to have a daughter in prison. They’ll get me out and I’ll make them get Sadira out too. And then, even if I can’t ever see Sadira again, I will be happy. Well, not happy, but I will be all right if I know Sadira is all right. And who knows? Things change. We will be adults soon. Maybe we can find a way to be together then.