A Beginner's Guide to Acting English Page 15

  Everyone was crying about Dayee Masood even though they didn't know him.

  After the first day, Maman spent a lot of time in bed, asleep or on the phone to Iran, as one by one all the family took turns to cry down the phone to her. The people in the house didn't seem as if they were ever going to go away. They whispered and Baba poured whisky and made Maman tea with lots of sugar.

  On the third day after the phone call from Dayee Taghi, I crept into Maman's room. It was daytime but her room was dark. She had the curtains drawn and the room smelled of her warm still body and her tears. I could tell she wasn't asleep. She was lying on her side under the bedclothes. She knew it was me in the room. She could tell Peyvand and I apart by our footsteps. She turned around. He eyes were red and her voice croaky. 'Azizam.' She stretched her arm out to me. At this invitation, I clambered on to the bed and cuddled up to her warm body. Maman was always warm. Even on the coldest of days, heat rose from her skin and she was soft. She stroked my hair and we lay quietly for a while.

  'Has Dayee Masood gone for ever?'

  'Yes, azizam.'

  Where had he gone? An uncle can't just disappear. He must be somewhere. When Rebecca Thompson's gerbil died, Rebecca said it had gone to heaven.

  'Has Dayee Masood gone to heaven?'

  'Yes, azizam.'

  Maman and Baba never talked to us about God, but we learned about heaven and God at school. You had to be dead to go to heaven and God looked after you there. We said a prayer every day before we had our dinner in the big hall, 'Our heavenly father, Hallowe'en be thy name'. God was called Heavenly Father because he lived in heaven and we were his children. The angels lived in heaven. too. 'The angel Gabriel from heaven came, his wings as drifted snow his eyes as flame.' We sang loads of songs in assembly and they were all about Jesus and angels and heaven so I knew quite a lot already about God. He made all things bright and beautiful and he had the whole world in his hand. Though why he took Dayee Masood away before I could see him again, I didn't know.

  Before Dayee Masood died, when I thought about Iran, I thought mostly about him and Dayee Mehdi because they were my first- and second-favourite uncles. When you have an uncle in Iran who loves you, you still feel it, even if you are all the way in London. Dayee Masood was very young, only nineteen. I tried to imagine Iran without him, I pictured Maman Shamsi's yard without him in it, but every time I did I still saw him twirling me around in the air or lifting me up on his bike. I still saw him sitting around the sofra making jokes and letting me put as much sugar as I wanted in my tea. I remembered how good it felt to know that even though he loved all of his nephews and nieces, I was his very favourite.

  I tried to imagine him not there. I would never be able to show him how well I skipped with my skipping rope now or how carefully I could colour in or sing him new songs I had learned. I would never ever run up to him again with my arms outstretched ready to be lifted into the air and covered with kisses.

  I lay with Maman for a long while, I nuzzled against her with my arm around her belly as she held me. I played my game of trying to breathe in and out at the same time as her. I never managed it for more than a few breaths; hers were deeper than mine.

  'At school they say that God is all around us. Is he, Maman?' I asked after a while.

  'Some people believe he is.'

  'So, if Dayee is in heaven, will he be allowed to go around everywhere with God? Or will he have to stay where he is and just look down on us from up above?'

  Maman rolled over to face me. 'Don't think about God, azizam. Thinking about these things will only make you crazy.'

  Then she kissed my head and I knew I was to ask no more questions.

  I thought about the day Dayee put me on his bicycle and we went to meet Jaleh in the park. I wondered if I still had to keep that day a secret. I decided I would.

  That day Mehdi had worn Masood's best shoes without asking. He'd worn them to hang out with his friends in the park and ended up playing football with them. Now they were all scuffed and dirty. When Maman Shamsi saw the shoes she braced herself for the almighty fight that was sure to follow. She didn't think she had the energy. She was used to the never-ending refereeing of her six boys, but she was weary. Why did men fight so much?

  She was in the kitchen gutting fish when she heard Masood come out into the yard as the sun was thinking about setting for the night. He had his shoes in his hand with some shoeshine and a cloth. He sat down on the ground and began to polish them. Maman Shamsi was puzzled. Although Mehdi was in the house too, she heard no shouting, no fighting.

  'Masood!' she called. 'Why are you so quiet? I thought you'd have killed your brother by now.'

  Masood looked up at his mother and smiled the smile that made the neighbourhood girls melt and said, 'Mehdi is a child, Madar, he doesn't know what he is doing. There's no point in fighting each other.'

  Maman Shamsi could not explain why her chest felt tight. It was not what he said, of course it wasn't that. It was the sound of his voice. Fighting with his brother at home was safer than wherever it was his mind had gone. Masood demonstrated against the Shah. They all demonstrated in their way. When the call spread across the neighbourhood, every family would get up on the roofs and chant, 'Marg Bar Shah!', everyone – mothers, fathers, grandparents and children – all chanted together from the rooftops.

  But Masood took his protests to the streets. His popularity made him stand out and he was a leader among the young revolutionaries in their district. He rallied them around and roused them with his speeches from his megaphone. Maman Shamsi didn't want this. Already there had been whispers of 'Masood is playing with fire', 'Masood should watch his back'.

  Her beautiful, strong boy was nineteen years old. She watched him put on his shoes, pick up his megaphone. He strode across the yard to the kitchen doorway and kissed her on each cheek. He gave her that smile once more. 'Don't worry, Maman. Don't ever worry about me.'

  All her instincts told her to grab his shirt, scream and beg him not to go out that night. She fought her instincts to throw herself at his feet and beg him not to go. Masood opened the orange gates and left his parents' yard.

  Maman Shamsi stayed in her kitchen. She gutted the fresh fish Mokhtar had bought from the market. For a second she wondered if she should make ghaliyeh mahi with the fish, they hadn't had the tangy fish sauce for a while, but she decided against it, it took too long and Masood didn't like it very much. He wasn't keen on tamarind. She lay the fish out, and washed her hands of the guts and scales. She got her flour and eggs and began to make the batter.

  She had her parsley and fish ready for tomorrow's meal. She had left the rice to soak overnight in her big pot, the only one big enough to make rice for the whole family.

  There was already a crowd gathered when Masood arrived at the park and there were more coming all the time. Masood hugged and kissed his friends. They were all out this evening to change their country, whatever the price. Masood put his megaphone to his lips. 'Brothers and sisters gather round! Gather round and let's stand as one!'

  The excitement in the growing mass of people was palpable. They were all young. Students mostly, many young women who had defied their parents' wishes to stay indoors at this dangerous time. Masood began his calls and the crowd responded. The chanting grew louder until you could hear the cry of 'MARG BAR SHAH' several blocks away. Masood was in his element. He felt strong, he felt invincible.

  A car roared into the park and headed for the crowd, forcing it to disperse. In the passenger seat was an off-duty policeman. Another man drove the car and there was a woman in the back seat. The car stopped on the grass. The off-duty policeman lit a cigarette as Masood and his friends marched up to it. He wound the window down.

  'Agha, what are you doing?' Masood demanded. The off-duty policeman spat on the ground. 'Demonstrating is against the law.'

  Masood smelled alcohol on the man's breath. 'What law, agha?'

  'You are a traitor to your king.'

&nb
sp; Masood stood up straight and smiled down at the man. 'He's not my king, brother.'

  Masood and his friends turned to go. They began to walk away from the car. Masood heard the woman in the car cry out, 'No! Don't do it!'

  At the sound of the shots, some of the crowd ran and some charged towards the car. It sped away as quickly as it arrived.

  Masood opened his eyes. Someone was holding him on their lap on the ground. He couldn't tell who it was. He heard the siren of the ambulance. He was wet, the ground was wet. Blood. All that blood. Was it his? How could he have so much blood? He was going in and out of consciousness now. He heard crying. Men crying and shouting. His mouth curled into a faint smile. 'There's no pain, brother. Tell my mother there's no pain.'

  He dipped his finger in the red puddle. He put his bloodied finger to the ground and slowly wrote 'marg bar shah'. A few more minutes was all it took. Mokhtar and Shamsi's most handsome son lay dead on the streets where he grew up.

  Maman Shamsi took off her apron and hung it up on the hook on the wall. A sparrow flew low by the kitchen door and rested on the window ledge. It stared at her, unafraid and calm, for just one moment then jumped out of sight. Maman Shamsi went cold. She felt the unreal stillness of death. Her boy was gone.

  Masood's friends had already set off to find her; she met them halfway, still in her plastic house slippers.

  'Shamsi Khanoom, they've taken him to the hospital. We have a car, we'll take you there.'

  Maman Shamsi was taken straight to where Masood's body lay. Not a scratch on his beautiful face. His thick, long lashes cast a slight shadow on his skin. Maman Shamsi turned to the doctor and wept. 'Wake him up! Wake him up!'

  She reached for the white sheet covering her son's body. The young doctor grabbed her hands and stopped her. 'No, madar, it's best you do not see.'

  Maman Shamsi spoke to the doctor calmly now. 'I want to see what they did to my boy.'

  She was his mother; his body belonged to her now. The doctor pulled back the sheet. Maman Shamsi stroked Masood's face and spoke softly to him. 'What did they do to you, pesaram? You tell your maman what they did to my precious child.'

  All her sons had beautiful broad chests. Masood's was covered in drying blood. Masood always left the top two buttons of his shirt undone so his thick black hair peeped through the top. Now the hair was covered in congealed black blood. Maman Shamsi gently ran her fingers over her son's wound, very gently so just the tips of her fingers touched the ends of his hairs. 'My child is still warm.' She leant over him and kissed him. She kissed his smooth forehead, then she lifted his head up in her arms. Cradling him like that, she kissed his eyelids, she kissed his nose, she kissed his cheeks and his chin, she kissed him again and again and again and then finally she buried her face in his neck and sobbed great heaving sobs.

  The doctor was a young man not much older than Masood. His eyes filled with tears and he turned away from Masood and Maman Shamsi and wiped them with the sleeves of his crisp white shirt.

  There was a commotion outside. Masood's friends did not wish to interrupt a grieving mother but they had no choice. 'We have to get him out of here.' Masood's childhood friend, Fereydoon, had come into the room. The doctor and Fereydoon looked at each other, an understanding between them. The doctor silently agreed to turn a blind eye and do what he could to stall the police. Masood was a martyr now and martyrs' bodies were being disposed of secretly. The government didn't want the body count to be known.

  Masood's friends smuggled his body on a trolley out of the hospital and put it into their Peykan. They covered it with cardboard to keep it out of sight.

  They kept the body overnight in his home, in Maman Shamsi and Baba Mokhtar's living room. The living room they kept immaculate for formal guests. The next day, Masood was buried in Behesht Zahrah. Hundreds of people came to his funeral.

  Though Maman told me not to think about it, I couldn't stop thinking about where Dayee Masood was now. Did he just turn into vapour and disappear? Can it be possible that a favourite uncle could be riding around with his niece on the handlebars of his bicycle one day then, on another day, be gone for ever? He must have gone somewhere. Where was Uncle Masood?

  Maman had once told Peyvand and I that we shouldn't think about God. Now she was saying Masood was 'with God'. At school they had told us that God was everywhere. I supposed that meant that Uncle Masood was everywhere, too. Was he watching as I sang to myself in the mirror? Did he watch when I pulled Peyvand's hair? Did he see me sticking snails all the way up my arm and chasing Peyvand around the garden waving my snail-arms around? Did he live in the wall by my bed with all the other ghosts?

  'Did he die straight away?'

  'I think so, azizam.'

  'Did Maman Shamsi and Nadia see?'

  'No, azizam.'

  'Did the Shah kill him, Maman?'

  'That's enough, azizam.'

  I knew from what the grown-ups said when they thought we were not listening that a lot of people in Iran were being killed. I imagined Nadia had to tread on dead bodies on her way to school. I imagined this was as normal to her as kicking the leaves up was for me and Peyvand. What did Dayee Masood look like when he lay dead in the park? As if he was dead? Did it hurt him? Did he, when he was shot, think of me and feel sad that we would never go and buy ice cream together again? Suddenly I understood what dead meant. No more ice cream, no more riding around on his bike. No more swinging me high up into the air. No more Dayee Masood.

  Maman cut a picture of the Shah out of a newspaper and burned it in the kitchen sink.

  16 JANUARY 1979

  'Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran has today flown out of Iran to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia,' Angela Rippon told us on the news.

  The pictures of the Shah were all over the TV.

  'They're saying he's left for a vacation, but he's gone! He's gone! He's out! Kids! The Shah is gone! Iran is going to be a republic!' Baba and Maman were glued to the radio and television, Baba with one ear permanently on the phone.

  The Shah's wife was very pretty. I worried for her. I wondered where they had gone. They'd probably end up in London and come to one of Baba's parties.

  The BBC news was all about Iran. 'The Ayatollah Khomeini has returned to Iran after fourteen years of exile.'

  The news pictures showed the Ayatollah Khomeini standing high up in a car park waving to hundreds of thousands of people, the men with beards and the women wearing black chadors. The people were beating their breasts and chanting, 'Doorood bar Khomeini' – Long live Khomeini!

  'Why are they hitting themselves like that?' Peyvand and I giggled at the people on the TV. Peyvand mimicked them. He hit himself hard in the chest until I nearly wet myself laughing and Maman shouted at him to stop because he'd hurt himself.

  I knew Maman and Baba were happy the Shah was gone, but they didn't beat their breasts or seem really happy or anything like that. Too many people had died, Maman said. Maman couldn't be happy because she was thinking of Dayee Masood all the time.

  'They're saying all women should cover their hair,' Maman told Mitra. They had been out to dinner with some friends who had just come back from Iran. 'There are so many rumours.'

  'There are bound to be rumours,' Baba reassured them. Maman and Mitra both spent a lot of time making their hair look nice. 'It's a new regime, we have to wait and see. The mullahs won't last long.'

  That was all everyone talked about. When people heard Maman talking to us in Farsi in Safeways they said, 'Oh! what language are you speaking?' When Maman told them they forgot all about their shopping and wanted to know what Maman thought of the revolution. Maman was very nice when she answered. She just shrugged her shoulders and said, 'We will see what happens.'

  All the talk about Iran scared me.

  What was going to happen in Iran now? Were we going to go back? Was I going to have to wear a roosari? A headscarf like Maman Shamsi said they were making Nadia wear at school? Maman said that we weren't going back just yet and that we had t
o wait and see what fate brings. Maman was not religious but like all Iranian people she always said things like 'see what fate brings' and Enshallah.

  Maman and Baba and Mitra and all our other friends in London had wanted change but the way they were looking at the men chanting on the television and the way they whispered over their glasses of chai so we kids wouldn't hear told me they weren't really sure if this was better.

  Maman was packing Baba's bag. Baba was going back to Iran. He was going back to the offices of the Etela'at newspaper who printed the column which had made him quite famous.

  'Aren't we all going?' I asked.

  'No,' Maman said. 'You've got school and it's not a place for children right now.'

  I thought about Nadia and my cousins. They were children. 'Can they come here, Maman?' I asked

  'No, azizam, it's not as easy as that.'

  We had never been separated before, Baba, Maman, Peyvand and me. I started to cry. I didn't want Baba to go, not without us.

  'But I want to go to Iran!' I pleaded. Peyvand and I had been practising marching and chanting around the living room for ages until the lady downstairs started banging on her ceiling. We had wanted to see the black-clad people chanting for ourselves.

  'No, Bacheha, I'm going for work and won't be gone for long. You two stay here and look after your mother.'

  We went to the airport to see Baba off to the new Iran, which was going to be without the Shah and, Baba thought, a much better place. A few passengers around the Iran Air desk recognised Baba and soon he was surrounded by men and women all laughing and talking with him about what was going on in Iran. 'We love your father!' a lady in a long fur coat told me, clutching my hand and squeezing it. 'What an honour! What luck!' I wished she would let go of my hand, she was squeezing it too hard.

  With promises of keeping in touch and dinners and drinks, Baba finally detached himself from the group and came to say his goodbyes. I cried and hung on to his coat, already missing his cigarette-mixed-with-cologne smell.