TWO

FARRIN PLOTTED HER revenge all the way to the cloakroom.

She was so tired of that sneak monitor sticking her nose into everybody’s business. School would be fine without Pargol and her spies. Farrin could parrot back the right answers in her revolution classes. Most of her teachers were enthusiastic about their subjects and really cared that their students learned. And even though Farrin had no friends at the school, she had to admit that most of the students were all right, despite what her mother said about them belonging to the wrong social class. She might even enjoy herself if she were able to have one or two friends there.

‘If you want friends, I will find you friends,’ was one of her mother’s standard phrases. ‘We can’t allow you to become involved with some low-class rabble. When I was a girl, that school was really a special place – ’

And Mom would be off on one of her good-old-days tirades. She had attended Farrin’s school back when it was a place where moneyed families sent their daughters to be ‘finished’ rather than educated. After the revolution, it was turned into a school for intelligent girls from all over Tehran. Admission was by test score only, and tuition was free. Girls from all sorts of families attended now.

‘It’s not the same,’ Farrin’s mother would whine. She refused to go to prize-giving ceremonies, even when her daughter received a prize. ‘There’s no value in distinguishing yourself among a pack of dirt-dwellers,’ was another of her mother’s sayings. ‘Do your work to avoid trouble, but there is nothing to be gained by flaunting it and drawing attention to yourself. There’s too much at stake.’

It was like a crazy balancing act. Farrin had to do her work well enough to avoid getting kicked out – since whatever other school she’d have to go to would be worse – but she could never become engaged enough to attract notice. As a result, she was often sent home with could-do-betters on her report card.

Farrin didn’t care about that. Her whole life was about living with lies.

She was five when the Shah of Iran was overthrown by what her mother called the dirt-dwelling rabble. Everything changed. Women had to cover their heads – not one single strand of hair could show or the Revolutionary Guards would harass them, right on the street. There were women in the Guards whose job it was to drive around the city and look for women who were not dressed according to the new rules.

‘There’s a career for you,’ her mother would sneer whenever they’d been stopped and yelled at for a clothing violation. ‘All the things that need fixing in this country and they worry about hair.’ Her mother would mutter almost under her breath. On the streets the spies could be anywhere, just as it was at Farrin’s school. Farrin grew up wearing two faces – one face she wore when she was out in the world and another face she wore when she was in private.

The story she was writing in her notebook was an attempt to escape all that. It had nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with the Shah, nothing to do with the revolution, nothing to do with religion. Just an exciting story about a girl battling demons and winning.

Farrin stomped through the halls, past the giant revolutionary slogans on the walls, barely noticing the white-chadored younger girls scurrying to get out of her way. She clutched her notebook so tightly that the wire coils were imprinted on the palm of her hand.

The story might have been really good, good enough to be made into a book. And maybe the book would have been so good and so popular that it would have been made into a TV show, a TV show that might have been shown around the world, and then everyone would know that Iran had strong, clever, creative girls … and maybe she’d have been invited to make other TV shows in England or even in America.

Now it was all ruined. All because of that horrible Pargol.

Pargol would have to pay.

Farrin turned into the cloakroom. Rows of black chadors hung from pegs.

The school uniform was a black tunic with a gray headscarf for the older girls and a white scarf for the juniors. Most of the girls wore long, dark gray manteaus outside. The ones from the most conservative families, which included all the monitors, wore voluminous black chadors over their school clothes.

Farrin wore the manteau. Her mother considered the chador a symbol of the revolution, and therefore something that was against the Shah.

Farrin plopped down on the bench beneath her peg. Each student had a peg on the wall, a spot on a bench, and a crate underneath for things like outdoor shoes and sports equipment. Farrin threw her notebook to the floor by her crate.

All that work! All those dreams! She felt silly now, like some little kid who still believed in fairy tales.

She stared at her notebook; it had landed in a pod of dust. The girls in charge of cleaning the cloakroom that week hadn’t done their job very well. There was rubbish all around.

Rubbish, Farrin thought. That’s all my demon story is.

Her eyes landed on a nib of white chalk, lying in the gray dust like a tiny mushroom in the forest. It was an unusual bit of rubbish. The teachers jealously guarded school supplies, since there were never enough of them to go around. A piece of chalk, adrift and ownerless, was unheard of.

Farrin looked around. All the other students were at one of the mandatory after-school enrichment activities. She was alone in the cloakroom. In a flash, she bent down and picked up the chalk. The black chadors looked an awful lot like chalkboards.

Trembling all over – since what she was doing was definitely breaking the rules – Farrin found Pargol’s chador, spread it out so that she had a flat surface to work on, and made her first chalk mark. The white chalk stood out starkly against the black cloth.

Then she hesitated. What to write? She didn’t want Pargol to get arrested, just yelled at by woman from the Revolutionary Guard.

Her imagination failed her. Worried that someone would come into the cloakroom and catch her, she quickly drew a large white circle, put two dots inside it for eyes, and added a big, grinning semicircle for a mouth. Then she pocketed the chalk and sat back down by her own peg. She opened up her crate just as a flood of chattering juniors opened the cloakroom door and streamed inside.

Farrin leaned against the wall. The younger girls always looked so happy, so unconcerned. Did they have any worries? Had she been like that when she was younger? Were any of them covering up their parents’ secrets, like she was? She admired their easy way with each other – the chatting, the joking, the giggling, the jostling. They were like mice.

No burdens, Farrin thought. They can’t possibly be carrying any burdens.

The door opened again for more juniors. Through the cacophony of conversation, Farrin heard a different sound. It was a sound she had never heard before at that school, and it was so unexpected that for a moment she had trouble identifying it.

But then she knew.

It was music.

Music itself was not against the law in Iran. Songs about the revolution were encouraged. But any other music had not been allowed officially as far back as Farrin could remember.

The sound disappeared with the closing of the door then could be heard again as a few juniors grabbed their backpacks and left the cloakroom to start their journeys home. Straining to hear, Farrin grew frustrated.

‘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 bother 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.