“Playing and watching TV with my cousins. We’ve been living at my aunt’s house, and I am always hanging out with them.”
“Okay,” Anahita said. After a slight pause, she asked, “Do you have a Barbie?”
“I have two. Why?”
“I thought we could bring them to school and play during recess together. There’s a clearing in the woods behind our building where we can play without anyone noticing. What do you think?”
“I think I’m bringing my Barbies to school tomorrow!” I said.
“Great! I’m going to go now, but I’ll see you later.”
“Okay, see you.”
She ran back in the direction we’d come from. I turned around and stared at the yard ahead of me. It had a shallow pool decorated with turquoise tiles, and water flowed down to the next pool below, and the next and the next. It looked like a waterfall.
I caught up with Baba where he was waiting for me by a large limestone building. When we reached the principal’s office, I remembered why we’d come, and my stomach squeezed. Baba asked the assistant for an immediate meeting. She nodded and, after a brief phone call, led Baba to a door and told me I had to wait outside. She gently put her hand behind my back and pointed to one of the chairs in the reception area.
A minute later, the principal burst out of his office and said to his assistant, “Ask Mrs. Darvish to come here straightaway. I need to speak with her.” Then he turned to me and said, “Nioucha, come with me.”
I followed him into his office. He was short and portly, with snow-white hair and a matching mustache. His office smelled of a pipe, the exact scent of the one Baba occasionally smoked.
We didn’t have to wait long before Mrs. Darvish walked in. She adjusted her glasses and after nodding hello to Baba, took a seat next to him, across the desk from the principal. I sat behind Baba at a children’s table strewn with books, coloring pages, and crayons. I absentmindedly picked up a green crayon to color in a frog sitting on a lotus leaf.
The principal relayed what he’d heard from Baba. He sounded angry and slammed his hand once on his desk.
“Mrs. Darvish, you know that this is not how we handle matters at Razi,” he said. “I will not tolerate threats of violence toward a child. What came over you?”
“How dare you threaten to break my daughter’s hand?” Baba said.
“I lost my temper,” Mrs. Darvish said, “and I’m sorry.” She looked down and fumbled with the pleats of her skirt. “But,” she paused, “Nioucha refuses to do anything in class. It confuses the rest of the children.”
“This child just moved here from America,” the principal continued. “She is already juggling with speaking both English and French, and now she has a third language to deal with. Everything is new to her—the language, the culture, the people, everything. You need to be more patient with her.”
“I will,” Mrs. Darvish said.
“Nioucha needs some time to adjust, that’s all,” Baba said. “I’m sure that as soon as she begins to understand and speak Persian, she’ll be a very good student.”
Mrs. Darvish turned around halfway in her seat and gave me a quizzical look. I felt heat rising in my face, realizing that now Baba would know my secret.
“But she already speaks Persian,” Mrs. Darvish said.
“No, she doesn’t!” Baba exclaimed.
“Mrs. Darvish, what are you talking about?” the principal asked.
“Well, every day Nioucha asks me what time it is and how much longer we have until recess.”
The room fell silent. I continued coloring the leg of the frog, pretending not to notice the three of them staring at me.
In that moment I admitted to myself that I was not just visiting Iran. We lived here now. I wished the frog could pull me into his pond and magically whisk me back to Pittsburgh. Reluctantly, I glanced at Baba. He winked at me and smiled. So he wasn’t angry with me after all. My head spun with relief and I ran into his arms. I whispered in his ear, “I promise I’ll practice writing alef in my notebook tonight.” Baba chuckled and squeezed me harder.
—
I giggled now, remembering what I had done three years ago when I pretended not to know Persian. Once I got used to it, I loved my school. But now no one knew what would happen next, and that made me worry. That night Baba walked into the living room and dropped a pile of newspapers on the coffee table. All of them read, “The Shah Left!” in large, bold letters. One had a picture of the shah and his wife, Farah, boarding an airplane. He’d been forced into exile.
Baba said, “I never thought I’d see the day.”
I couldn’t tell if he was glad or sad to see the shah go.
That night, I went to bed confused and stayed awake for hours. I heard Baba’s animated voice rise and fall as he spoke to his friends on the phone or to Maman. I tossed and turned, and shook under my blanket until sleep finally released me.
CHAPTER 3
ACTING
1980
Az khejalat ab shodam.
— Persian proverb
I melted from shame.
The bell rang, signaling the end of recess. Anahita and I were running to the theater when we saw Keyvan squeezing his head through a thin slit in the metal gate. This gate used to separate the elementary and middle school from the high school, but now it separated the girls from the boys. Thin metal sheets had been hammered onto the gate so that kids on either side could not see each other. Now that the shah was gone, this new government was hard at work going against the progress the shah had wanted for his country. The new regime said it was against Islam for genders to mingle unless they were related by blood.
“Psssst, psssst,” he said.
“What is it?” I said.
“Come closer,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”
“We can get in trouble, Keyvan,” Anahita said. “You’re not supposed to be talking to us.”
“Yeah, go away!” I said.
At least with our school no longer being coed, I didn’t have to deal with Keyvan’s annoying habits, like looking up my skirt or blowing me kisses during class. At nine years old, I knew what I didn’t like—boys with annoying habits.
“But I want to tell you something,” he continued.
“What is it?” I said.
“Have you heard about Bianca?” he said. “They’ve executed her father.”
I gasped.
“Oh no!” Anahita said. She looked as if she might cry. I held on to her because my knees felt too weak to hold me.
“So that’s why she hasn’t been in school,” I said. “Keyvan, how do you know this?”
“My uncle lives across the street from them. He said these men showed up late at night at Bianca’s house, dragged her father out, and forced him in a car. Apparently, he was a general.”
“This is so awful,” I said. “It’s so awful. Poor Bianca.”
“What is she going to do?” Anahita asked.
“Don’t know,” Keyvan said. “Their house is completely dark. No lights on.”
We