A Beginner's Guide to Acting English Read online

  'May he eat you, child,' Tahereh teased and turned back into the kitchen.

  Everything was just as we'd left it at Maman Shamsi's house. Masood and Mehdi still fought over socks and sometimes shirts. Maman Shamsi still hosed down the yard to settle the dust in the stifling Tehran heat. Wet earth was my favourite smell, the way it rose up from the ground and into my nose. When I smelled it in England it brought me back here, to Maman Shamsi's yard.

  The neighbourhood women still sat out in the streets destalking herbs and gossiping. Everything was the same except for Tara. Nadia had looked after her beautifully. Her golden hair was freshly brushed, her clothes were neat and straight and she didn't have a single extra scuff on her. But she was different. The look in her eye had changed. She looked as if she knew more than all the new dolls that sat on my bed at home in London. My pretty new dolls from Harrods and Hamleys never looked at me the way Tara was looking at me now. She was telling me she wasn't my doll any more. Perhaps she was angry that I'd left, or perhaps she loved Nadia more now. Then I realised what it was: Tara had remained Irooni and I was already forgetting the Farsi songs I sang to her. I didn't ask for her back. She was Nadia's doll now.

  We were outside in the street, behind Maman Shamsi's big orange gates. We had been banished from the yard because I kept jumping in front of the hose and Maman Shamsi had no more time for pneumonia than Maman.

  I had a splinter in my finger and Peyvand was concentrating, trying to get it out with his fingernails. We really needed tweezers but they looked too sharp and I was too scared. We sat on the step and I kept very quiet as I watched the delicate operation. It didn't hurt, although I kept thinking it would and flinched and Peyvand would start all over again. Peyvand and Nadia were much braver than me. They sometimes poked pins under the skin of each of their fingers and chased me around the yard wiggling the disgusting fingers around to make me scream.

  'Look at you two, think you're it now with your posh clothes.'

  Amin came bounding up to us in his plastic house slippers. He was big. Proper Big. He was older than us too, at least six. A year older than Peyvand and a whole two years older than me. And he was jeering at us. All the mothers were indoors now, preparing for lunch. The heavy sent of sabzi cooking and tender meat broiling in herby sauces wafted from each house in the street.

  Peyvand and I were wearing clothes Maman had bought us in Harrods. Peyvand was actually wearing pyjamas, but they were so smart they could easily pass for outdoor clothes. The little motif of a cup with a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste sewn on to the breast was the only thing that gave it away.

  I had on a pretty pink dress and smart white sandals. Amin came up close to me and kicked dirt on my shoes. My white shoes, my brand-new white shoes! I started to cry. Peyvand bent down and wiped the dirt off. 'It's okay, look, it comes off, they're still new.'

  Amin laughed. 'You're a sissy! Wiping your sister's shoes! What a stupid sissy!' He kicked the dirt again and started to wiggle his backside in his home-made hand-me-downs, singing, 'You two look stupid! Your clothes are stupid.'

  As he sang, he put his face really close to mine, so close that I felt his spittle on my skin. Peyvand didn't look scared or angry; his big brown eyes and his smooth caramel face looked calm. He just looked at the boy, then suddenly: BAM. Amin was on the ground. Blood was spurting from his nose. Peyvand held my hand and we both just stood there looking at the boy. If Peyvand's fist hadn't still been clenched, you'd have thought Amin had been hit by a much bigger boy.

  Amin was writhing on the ground howling, 'Maman! Maaamaaan!' He scrambled up and, pulling his trousers up, he ran towards his own house. Peyvand and I went back into the yard. Maman Shamsi had already finished what she was doing and put the hose away. This was not a time to stop and drink in the smell. Peyvand held my hand and together we fled into the house. Maman Shamsi shouted, 'Take your shoes off before you go in the house!' We kicked them off and Maman Shamsi asked, 'What's the hurry?'

  Amin's mother would be round any moment with the police, that's what Maman said would happen if we ever got into serious trouble, we would be taken away by the police, and making a boy's nose bleed, even if he was much bigger than us, was definitely Big Trouble. We crawled under the telephone table in the hallway; the tasselled tablecloth with intricate Persian paisley pattern just about hid us from view.

  Maman Shamsi put her hose away and went out on to the street. Raising nine children had taught her that they do not rush in from the street and go into the house in such a hurry unless there'd been trouble.

  'Shamsi Khanoom!' Giti Khanoom hadn't even given herself time to put her chador on properly, it was wrapped around her waist as she stood outside the gate. 'Shamsi Khanoom! Look what those kids have done to my boy!'

  Amin's nose was still bleeding, his stocky great body was still heaving with sobs.

  'Is this what they learned in kharej?' In a flash Maman Shamsi was back in the house and dragged Peyvand out from under the table. She marched him to the gate. 'Did you hit Giti Khanoom's boy?'

  'Yes,' Peyvand told her, 'I hit him once. On the nose.'

  I stayed under the table and waited for an update from Uncle Mehdi. He knelt down and whispered the news. 'He's for it now! Giti Khanoom has called the police, they'll take Peyvand to prison for sure!'

  My blood froze. They were going to take Peyvand away! I rolled myself up into a ball and tried to disappear.

  Peyvand was in trouble because he threw the first punch. You should never throw the first punch. When it came out that Amin was teasing me and had kicked dirt on my shoes, then Peyvand was told he was right to stick up for his sister, but a punch had been too much. He should have kicked dirt back at Amin. In the end, Amin was told off for picking on me because I was not only small, but I was also a girl and Peyvand had to shake his hand and say sorry for punching him. I wasn't sorry Peyvand had punched him. Peyvand was very brave.

  Peyvand came and got me out once Giti Khanoom had gone away and the orange gate was firmly shut. He sat back down next to me under the table. He took my hand and got the splinter between his nails. He got it out first time.

  The local children stayed away from us after that. We preferred playing with our uncles and Nadia within the orange gates. Baba was always at work and Maman had a lot of shopping to do before we went back. She insisted that the ingredients for Persian cooking did not taste the same in London so she was taking a whole suitcase of dried limes, dried barberries, dried mulberries, whey, dried coriander, dried dill, ajeel, fresh pistachio, saffron and a pumice stone back with her. This was for scrubbing our feet, not cooking, but they didn't have those in London either.

  In Baba's family, everyone was dark and had a big nose. Maman's family all had fair skin and small noses and everyone, the boys and the girls, was beautiful. No one in Maman's family ever got tired of discussing one another's looks. 'You've got fat, Fatemeh, are you eating too much in London?'

  'Oh Fatemeh! You must let me sort out your eyebrows just this minute, I'll get my thread. Have you been walking around in the street like that!'

  Iranian women can magic threading string out of thin air. In a second Maman was having her eyebrows expertly threaded into neat lines. The chatter went on around her. Women waved their arms up in the air for dramatic emphasis as they spoke. 'Have you seen Mrs Hamidi's daughter? Her husband died. Thirty-one years old! Tragic! She has lost so much weight from the sorrow, she looks fantastic.'

  On and on the women chattered about weight and looks and eye colour. I was not fair like Nadia, or dark like Peyvand, I was in-between. My nose was of great concern to everybody though. 'We won't know until you are older if you will take after your Madar Jaan. Such a great nose she has. Wonderful woman.' Then up rose a chorus of 'wonderful woman! Salt of the earth! What a big nose!'

  I examined my nose regularly to see if it was growing as big as Madar Jaan's. It was the same shape, but a much smaller size, but then I was only four, nearly five. Baba told me not to worry bec
ause Iran had the best plastic surgeons in the world and everyone was getting their noses done these days. Maman hit him on the arm and told me Baba was only joking.

  Madar Jaan pressed on her big nose and honked loudly to make us laugh. Madar Jaan was as funny as Baba and Peyvand. Whenever we asked her to, Madar Jaan took out her false teeth and talked really fast through her gums and pulled faces, which made me and Peyvand roll around on the floor laughing. Maman Shamsi didn't even have false teeth. Madar Jaan did funny impersonations of the people we knew. When I asked Maman Shamsi to do the same she replied, 'Me? Why, am I a clown?'

  Maman Shamsi had been very beautiful when she was young. On the mantelpiece there were photographs of her from when she was a girl and, apart from the mole in between her eyebrows that made her look Hendi, she looked like Maman. It was very important to be good-looking in Maman's family. It was tradition and you'd let everyone down if you weren't, so, generally, everyone was. There was some concern that I was not as fair as Maman, but my huge black eyes seemed to make up for it, and although I would never be as pretty as my cousins or Auntie Nadia, Maman Shamsi said I would always be lovable because everyone loved a girl with big eyes, especially if she was as talkative as me.

  Baba Mokhtar was very handsome. Baba Mokhtar didn't go to school but he spoke Russian and Kurdish and Turkish and other languages that ended in 'ish' but not English. 'You'll have to teach me that when you get home from Landan.' I had lots to do on my return.

  All Baba Mokhtar's six boys were handsome but everyone agreed – the family, the neighbours and the women in the hammam – that Dayee Masood was by far the most handsome. Mehdi was very nearly just as handsome, but Masood's strong jaw line put him ahead of even Mehdi. Masood had Maman Shamsi's olive skin, her full lips which spread into a wide warm smile showing his perfectly white, straight teeth. He had Baba Mokhtar's strong jaw, high cheekbones and light almond eyes that twinkled with humour and mischief. His eyebrows framed his eyes perfectly and met slightly in the middle, at the bridge of his typically Persian nose. Dayee Masood had been blessed with height too. Maman Shamsi was small and Baba Mokhtar, though stockily built and powerful, was not the person you'd call when you needed to reach a jar on the very high shelf in the kitchen. Most of his sons towered over him. 'After all,' he announced when anyone mentioned it, 'two minuses make a plus.'

  Masood spoke with a very tiny lisp. It made him even more attractive to the neighbourhood girls. Soraya, who lived two streets down from Maman Shamsi and, according to all the neighbours, had no shame, hung around with the other young people in the park and when she was near Masood she would swoon: 'Oh, I feel so faint! I'm going to faint! Catch me!'

  'Then God's honest truth, she threw herself on him!' Batool Khanoom's daughter Mana had also been in the park and had seen everything. She came over with her mother and was excitedly reporting the afternoon's events.

  'He should have let her fall on to the ground, that would teach her not to make a show of herself.' Maman was very strict about how girls should behave around boys and didn't have time for girls who swooned.

  Maman Shamsi was a little more sympathetic. 'Well, she really should watch herself. She not a child any more and the way she is going she'll get a reputation and no decent man will ever want to marry her.'

  Essi was an expert at swooning and was very scornful of Soraya. 'She makes it so obvious she is faking so she just looks stupid.' Essi had not wanted to study beyond high school. She was a very pretty girl who could attract the most handsome men without the fuss of studying. Maman Shamsi was quite relieved when she married early, at sixteen, before she could cause serious talk in the neighbourhood.

  Masood and Mehdi waged an ongoing war against each other. Masood enlisted me to help him plot against Mehdi. We stole and hid his socks and shoes and our most elaborate plan was to fill Mehdi's mouth up with pepper as he slept. 'You hold his nose, Shaparak Jaan, and that'll force his mouth open.'

  'Then what, Dayee?'

  'Then I'll pour the pepper into his mouth.'

  'What will we do if he wakes up?'

  'Then we run, we run away, we run downstairs, we run out into the yard and out the gate and up the street so he won't catch us.'

  I didn't know if I could run that far, but Masood said, 'If you get tired I'll pick you up, you can sit on my shoulders and we'll run like that.'

  'He'll catch us! He'll catch us!' I was squealing with excitement.

  'No, he will not! He'll be sneezing too hard.'

  Then Dayee Masood pretended to be Dayee Mehdi spitting out pepper and trying to run but instead bumping into things because he kept sneezing. I laughed and laughed until I wet myself a little and Masood took me downstairs to my mother.

  We never actually filled Mehdi's mouth with pepper. I loved Dayee Mehdi and knew deep down that talking about it was the fun part and that Mehdi's mouth would remain pepper-free.

  All my uncles bought me sweets and milk chocolate and picked me up high in the air and swung me around, but Masood was my very favourite uncle. Being a favourite uncle isn't all buying treats. What made Dayee Masood my favourite was that he never made me feel I was the littlest. Not one bit. The others all mentioned it sooner or later, or they would give the biggest things to Nadia and Peyvand and the smallest to me. If he had three cream puffs for example, Dayee Mahmood or Mehrdad would pick out the smallest one and give it to me even though I could manage a big cream puff just as easily as Peyvand or Nadia. Dayee Mehdi had lots of recording equipment in this room. He wanted to be a film director and had cameras that really worked. He gave a camera each to Peyvand and Nadia and was showing them how to record things on it. He gave me a camera too. Only mine was a hollow shell and didn't work at all. He thought I was too small to realise, but I did and I was so insulted I cried and ran off to find Dayee Masood. He said that Mehdi must be a donkey to have thought I wouldn't realise the camera was broken and put me on his bike and rode to the shop to buy me a chocolate lolly double-stick ice cream.

  If it wasn't for Uncle Masood, I would have spent a great deal more time crying. Because I was small Peyvand and Nadia didn't always consider not playing games that I wasn't good at and just expected me to keep up, which I couldn't always do. 'Come on, Shaparak Jaan, you come with me.' Dayee Masood always came to get me when he heard my crying and Peyvand's attempts to console me and lead me away. 'You come and help me mend my puncture.' Now that was a very involved, important job to be asked to do and he didn't ask Peyvand or Nadia to help, he asked me.

  It was on one of these afternoons when he was fixing his bike in the yard and I was helping but really only watching when he told me all about a man called Gandhi who was Hendi – Indian – and Dayee Masood said he was just about the greatest man that ever lived.

  'Was he as strong as Dayee Taghi?' I asked. Dayee Taghi was a champion wrestler and was as strong as Baba Mokhtar had been before he got old.

  'Not in his body, but in his mind he was stronger than all of us put together. You have to be very strong to do the right thing all of the time. He fought the most powerful people in the world without actually fighting.'

  'How can you fight without fighting?' I was thinking about Peyvand hitting Amin. If he hadn't hit him, Amin would have carried on teasing and teasing me.

  'If you don't use your fists, you will always be stronger than your opponent. You will always be the winner. Even if he destroys you.'

  'What about Clay?'

  Masood had a picture of Cassius Clay on his bedroom wall. Cassius Clay was a boxer and all my dayees loved him.

  'Ah! Clay is different. He is an athlete. Fighting one on one, fair and square is fine. If you fight someone who is weaker than you, or if you gang up, two or three against one, then it's not fair and you are namard – not a man.'

  In the ring, Masood explained, the opponents are the same size, they both want to be there, they both fought to be there. There is a referee to make sure they play by the rules. It's sport, like football. But Clay fights with h
is mind too. That's what he did when said he wouldn't go to war in Vietnam. Clay said, 'Why should I fight for you? I will not kill for you.'

  Gandhi was killed by his enemies in India, Dayee Masood told me. It didn't surprise me. 'He should have learned to box like Clay,' I told him.

  Peyvand and I usually woke up at the same time. The best thing about having a brother was that he got up early with you, not like the grown-ups who groaned and moaned and pretended to still be asleep when you pulled their arm and tried to get them up.

  One morning, Peyvand and Maman were sleeping right next to me. Dayee Masood came into the room and whispered, 'Be very quiet, don't wake them up.'

  I rubbed my eyes, got up and let him lead me out of the room by my hand. We went to the yard where he kept his bicycle. 'Let's go on an adventure, just me and you.'

  Just me and you! Just me, not even Peyvand! I couldn't wait to go just so I could come back and tell Peyvand all about it. Dayee Masood didn't make me put on shoes or anything, he just put his jumper over my body so I'd be warmer and lifted me on to the handlebars of his bike and told me to hold tight. He walked the bike out of the big orange gates then jumped on and off we went. There were hardly any cars in the streets, hardly any people and only the bakery was open. We rode fast, with me in the front, the wind in my face and my uncle pedalling behind with one hand on the handlebar and the other on my leg, holding me steady.

  The sun was coming up. We were coming up to the park. Dayee was slowing down. Is this where we were going to stop? It looked as if there was no one around at all, but suddenly I saw a woman step out from behind a tree. Dayee Masood raised his hand off my leg for a second to wave at her, but she didn't return his wave. She kept looking about her.

  We stopped on the path nearest the tree and she walked up to us. 'What are you doing! Why have you brought her?' She looked at me for a second, then back at Dayee. She wasn't angry; she was worried.