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.
But the very best part of the day was that Sadira was sitting right next to Farrin in the backseat.
Farrin had arranged it all the week before, getting permission from Sadira’s father and presenting the idea to her own father in a way that she knew he would not refuse.
‘Sadira wants to learn more about the traditional way of life,’ Farrin told him.
‘She is an interesting girl, this friend of yours,’ her father said. Although he built modern houses and his style of living was modern, he thought of himself as a traditional man. Watching her father meet Sadira’s father, when they stopped to pick her up on the way out of Tehran, Farrin was reminded of this again. Her own dad had seemed almost jealous as he looked around the spartan yet restful front room of Sadira’s house.
‘Have you been to Shiraz?’ she asked her friend, who had been silently watching the world go by through the car window.
‘When I was small, I think,’ Sadira said. ‘Not that I remember.’
‘You’ll like it,’ Farrin said. ‘It’s beautiful.’ Like you, she almost added.
Sadira was beautiful, and they were going to have two whole days together without school getting in the way. They would visit Farrin’s family the first day, and the second would be spent in the gardens, shrines, and coffee shops of one of Iran’s oldest cities.
‘Are you girls all right back there?’
Her father turned around in the passenger seat. ‘You’re so quiet, I thought you might have both jumped out the window!’
Farrin was mortified by her father’s attempt at humor, but Sadira handled it with grace.
‘I’ve been marveling at how big Tehran has become,’ she said. ‘We learned in history class that it started as a village that grew pomegranates. Now it covers all this land!’
‘You like to study history?’ Farrin’s father asked Sadira. ‘Well, let me tell you a thing or two about Iranian history.’
Her father launched into a monologue about how Tehran’s population grew in the thirteenth century, when prisoners escaped execution by the Mongols and ran away to settle in the area. Her father had not gone far in school, but he read a lot and he remembered what he read.
‘Before that, they lived in underground houses – very clever, our ancestors! Being under the ground protected them from the heat in summer and the cold in winter.’
That got her father started on his ideas of new kinds of buildings that could be developed for Iran, a blend of traditional wisdom and new technology. ‘Iran could be a world leader in housing design,’ he said.
Sadira sat through it all and even asked polite and appropriate questions.
‘And then there is the whole developing area of solar power,’ her father said.
‘We’re here,’ said Ahmad.
They had turned from the highway onto a dirt track that became less of a road the farther they drove. The road ended at the bottom of a gently rounded hill. Ahmad parked the car beside an assortment of pickup trucks, motorbikes, and horse carts. Everyone got out.
Loaded down with boxes and baskets of food and gifts, they were just a few steps up the hill when a child’s voice called out, ‘They’re here!’
From that moment on, and for the rest of the afternoon, Farrin felt like she was whirling in happy chaos.
Her father’s whole extended family was there – aunts, uncles, sisters of aunts, grandparents, spouses, and so many cousins that Farrin could not keep up with all the names.
Everyone was happy to see her. Everyone welcomed Sadira as if she were part of the family.
Sadira made herself right at home, sitting with the women, playing with the new babies, helping to prepare the food, and learning how to clean wool and spin it with a hand spindle.
‘Your friend has a glow about her,’ Farrin’s grandmother said. She and Farrin were sitting together in the shade of a tent flap. Her grandmother was showing her a new embroidery stitch. ‘She’ll make a good mother.’
Farrin laughed. ‘We have to get through school first. Sadira came in first in the midterm scores.’
‘She’s a smart girl, then,’ her grandmother said.
‘Can I tell you a secret?’ Farrin asked. ‘I came in second.’
‘You did? That’s my girl!’ Her grandmother gave her a hug. ‘Why is that a secret?’
‘Mum doesn’t want me to draw attention to myself,’ Farrin said, ‘because of who her family is.’
‘Go ahead and be proud. If your mother was thinking clearly, she would be proud of you too.’
They all sat together for the evening meal on rugs spread out on the ground. The women sat on one side, and the men sat on the other.
Farrin sat beside Sadira on a rug made by her great-great-grandmother. The night sky was right above them. The good Iranian ground was below them. They ate bread baked on hot stones and stew with goat meat and chickpeas. The air was full of laughter, storytelling, and music. Sadira played a tune on a santour the family provided. Everyone seemed to like her.
When there was a break in the music, Farrin’s father turned to her grandfather and asked, ‘Is it getting easier for you? Are you being left alone?’
‘It was bad under the Shah, and it is bad under the new government,’ her grandfather said. ‘I try to ignore all that. I have enough trouble with my goats and my sheep.’
‘I ask you this every year,’ her father said, ‘and I’m asking you again. Come and live with us. We have plenty of room. Or let me build you a house.’
Farrin heard this exchange every year. She knew her grandfather would decline her father’s offer. ‘There are more important things than comfort,’ he would say. ‘There are more important things than safety.’
She didn’t need to hear it again. She motioned to Sadira to follow her away from the crowd.
‘Don’t go too far, girls,’ her grandmother said. ‘There are sometimes wolves in these hills.’
They stayed within sight of the family but went far enough away to have some privacy.
‘I like your family,’ Sadira said.
‘They like you too,’ said Farrin.
The moon rose over the trees. It was full and round. Its rays stroked Sadira’s face, making it glow. The sight took Farrin’s breath away.
Behind them, the family started up another song. The drums beat out something soft and ancient. The flute caught the breeze and the notes drifted close, then the wind shifted and the melody floated away again.
On top of the little hill, Farrin could see across into the valleys, where tiny villages and nomad camps sparkled with lanterns and cook fires.
She and Sadira were at the top of the world. They were floating above the smallness and fear and hatred and ugliness. There was no one around to put them down or hurt them or hold them back. There was just the world, the moon, and each other.
Farrin did not know what made her do it. There was no thought in her head of it before it happened. Her body moved without letting her mind know what it was doing.
She turned slightly toward Sadira. Sadira had already turned slightly toward her. Their heads moved close together, and, for the softest, slightest, most heavenly of moments, their lips touched in a kiss.
Then they just sat and watched the moon move across the sky. They did not speak. The moon spoke for them.