Chia, with his big bright eyes and his little speech impediment, turned out to be incredible for business. He boldly accosted people, saying, “Only three tomans for a bowl of malisaw.” Unable to resist him, our customers patted him on the head and dropped their coins into my bag.
Even with Chia’s salesmanship, our location was quiet, and business was slow. The town center was full of peddlers, shoeshine boys, young and old men spreading blankets in crowded streets and selling clothing, accessories, fruit, and cigarettes openly—and playing cards, alcohol, and pop song audiocassettes secretly—but the side streets were mostly quiet.
A mother of three who purchased some malisaw and tipped us too advised that we walk down the street to the mosque that was fronted by rosebushes and stocky mulberry trees. We collected our things and headed down the block, leaving the door unlocked behind us.
As we walked, we passed a group of women sitting on the front steps of a rather big house. They were laughing as they cleaned a large bin of parsley, dill, and some other herbs, bantering and gossiping. Some reclined in the shade; others allowed the mellow sun of early fall on their backs. I tried to picture Mama as a member of their group, but couldn’t.
We set up shop across from the mosque, and I admired its architecture: the magnificent blue dome, splendid minaret, brick walls, and stained glass windows. The men in folk dress who were leaving the mosque after their evening prayer purchased our product and told Chia just how cute he was. I washed the mugs after each use at the fountain in the mosque’s courtyard. The mosque was a man’s world, and it was my first time stepping inside one. The high-ceilinged interior was covered with rows and rows of spotless, beautiful rugs, mostly burgundy. A niche inside indicated the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca, before which dozens of men prostrated in humility. Books were arranged neatly on shelves, and there was a box for donations, which I believed had lost its daily share to Chia’s magnetism. By the time we had only six apricots left in our big bowl, the change in my pocket was weighing me down.
“Why does the sky turn so red and beautiful at sunset?” Chia asked as we walked home.
“Hmmm . . . I think the sky blushes when the sun kisses her good night.”
Chia tossed his head back and showed the little space between his two front bottom teeth.
“Catch me if you can. You are the police, and I am a thief,” I said, and ran back toward home.
The out-of-breath policeman whose face was covered in beads of sweat came close to arresting me, but I was an uncatchable criminal.
At home I found some old sour yogurt in the fridge and mixed it with sugar. We ate it with bread to stop our tummies from nagging as we counted our money, coins rolling off the table like marbles. I did the math. If we set aside a portion of our profit to invest in more apricots, and if we were as lucky every day as we’d been today, it would take five years to earn enough money to buy a camera. That felt like an eternity.
“We should work harder.” I decided, and we headed back outside to sell the remaining apricots. But the bright vibrant alleyway of the daytime had become a dark tunnel. There was not a customer to be found. Chia and I sank down in silent defeat against the gate, feeling too tired to talk or move. My head rested on his, eyes closed. We must have drifted off to sleep, because we awoke to Mama’s furious face, silhouetted by the light of the moon high in the sky.
Mama was hysterical. “Out this time of night again? Are you out of your minds? Where’s your useless father? What are these bowls and mugs about? Where did you get apricots from? Oh, God, oh God, oh God!” I sprang up at her shouts. Beads of sweat dripped down her brow. Before I could answer, she swatted me on my bottom.
She went inside, leaving the door open for us to follow. I didn’t know how to get out of trouble, and took a deep, ragged breath before entering the house. I rubbed my behind absently; her smack hadn’t hurt, not really, but I was worried it was merely a taste of what was to come. Mama had gone straight into the shower. Chia pretended to play quietly with his toy bear, then leaned his forehead near the coal heater when he heard the squeak of the shower tap.
“You have some explaining to do, miss!” Mama was wrapped in a robe, her hair spreading a wide, wet stain over her shoulders, and she sank onto the divan and massaged her swollen legs that always hurt. Chia crawled onto her lap. “Chawkal gian.” She kissed his red cheeks. “You have a fever again.”
“He’s faking it,” I declared. “He had his head near the heater to—”
“And you only know how to make a mess for me?” She winced as her eyes traced the trail of yogurt along the kitchen floor. “What kind of daughter are you?”
“He doesn’t have a fever.”
She touched Chia’s forehead again. “Tell me what crazy thing have you been up to?” She sighed.
How could I explain to Mama? She’d never understand my desire for a camera; she’d just call me selfish, tell me there were so many other things we needed.
But before I could answer, the phone rang. She snatched it from the receiver immediately and spoke in a soft voice so unlike her usual tone.
“Just go to bed.” She then unplugged the brown rotary phone, clutched it to her bosom, and rushed to her room, shutting the door behind her.
Chapter Three
CHIN IN HAND, I admired the first snow of the year covering the city of Mariwan like a bridal veil, wondering if one could marry herself. I drew a wedding without a groom, a gown made from flowers of all shapes and colors. But I only had a black pen.
“Daydreaming again, for God’s sake?” Mama startled me. “We should leave in five minutes.”
I had my coverall on. “My school headscarf has vanished.”
“Belsima.” Stalving. Chia lumbered to the kitchen, rubbing an eye. Now in grade one, he could pronounce his r’s, but he also knew how cute everyone found his little speech impediment. His mismatched socks under the open door of the fridge were brightened by the pale winter light.
“Mama! Stalving!” Chia called out on his way to her room.
“Be grateful to God, Chia,” she said. “Many people don’t have roofs over their heads or heaters in the winter. And no more trouble at school, eh? I have enough on my plate. My mother no longer even recognizes me.”
Yesterday Chia had made a scene at school when he stood up for his classmate who had been beaten by the teacher for not being able to speak Persian.
“I only asked a question. What’s the point of school if our teachers won’t answer our questions?” Chia rubbed his eyes again with the back of his hand and turned to me. He’d asked why students couldn’t read and write in their mother language. “What’s wrong with learning Kurdish?” The standard response—“One country, one language”—hadn’t satisfied him and only led to more questions.
I’d faced this same horror when I began school, and now it was Chia’s turn, the inheritance of all the students of Kurdistan and other non-Persian regions in Iran: Beginning in grade one, we were forced to learn to read and write in a new language entirely different from the one we’d grown up speaking, and when we struggled, it was literally beaten into us. Overnight, we were robbed of our language, our heritage. Little by little, we began to understand that our mother tongue wasn’t the language of power and prosperity. At a young age, our alienation from Kurdish history and literature—from our roots, identity, and inevitably our parents—began, escalating with each year that passed.