to stifle the people’s movement. They want us at home so they can do their arresting and killing without a concern. I tell you that is what they want. I say this is a ploy. This is a plot. Heed not to the plot. Take to the streets. The regime has no legitimacy. The people have the legitimacy.
* * *
—
AND THEY DID. IT STARTED from the square that later was called the Square of the Eight. Within two hours a police station was attacked. The noncommissioned officers escaped. Rocks shattered the windows, a car was set on fire, and the three guns and some ammunition were snatched from the cabinets and drawers before army reinforcement arrived. Someone from among the protesters fired a shot and the commander ordered the soldiers to fire back. Everyone scattered; everyone except eight young bodies left with holes in them.
At a safe distance Ahmad jumped up into the back of a pickup truck by the street and witnessed the commotion. For the first time in thirteen years, he found himself at a rally. Fear of losing his legislative seat and dread of the intelligence system even after his resignation had kept him away from the streets. Now he was a runaway with no job and a shovel in his hand. He would not be able to read his poetry in front of people again. His name would not be published at the bottom of a magazine page, but on blacklists.
Ahmad looked around for cats. If they were helping the movement, or if they, and not people, were the cause of the movement, as Khan thought, they would be near. At first, Ahmad saw them here and there, apparently not doing anything helpful: sitting in trees, walking on top of walls, lying under parked cars, and running in less crowded patches of the streets. Busy barricading the streets, filling sacks with dirt, and breaking into government buildings, people did not seem to heed those everyday appearances and Ahmad, too, did not intend to be a bystander and only watch anymore. He jumped down from the truck and joined the crowd. Although he did not walk too far ahead, he chanted the slogans with the people in his head and felt he understood the occasional need to pick up a rock from the flower bed and hurl it at those khaki uniforms in the distance.
At some point, as he was walking ahead among the crowd, Ahmad heard noises from behind and saw that heads turned back and people hurried aside, as if to clear the way for something coming from behind. “Move over, move over,” a voice shouted. Ahmad turned and saw a wheel of fire rolling toward him in the middle of the street, shooting red flames that raged so high the snow could not put them out. He ran to the sidewalk. There were shouts and cries from all over. It was a tire, not a small one, but that of an eighteen-wheeler or a lorry. As it rolled past him, Ahmad saw for an instant an orange cat inside, running as if for its life and rolling the tire forward toward the rows of soldiers. Together with the crowd, Ahmad returned to the street in the wake of the tire and watched how the cat split open the uniform-wearers, too, with that hellish fire. It was then that he opened his mouth to shout the slogans with everyone, even though no sound came out.
* * *
—
“HELLO?” POORAN SAID HALTINGLY INTO the phone. “Hello?”
Knock.
“Ahmad, is that you?”
Knock.
“How are you, my son?”
Knock.
“Are you taking care of yourself?”
Knock.
“Do you have enough money?”
Knock.
“We are good, too. Majeed was here this morning. He brought bread and some fruit. He’s a good boy. I haven’t been to Leyla’s in a week. I’m going this Friday. I don’t know what to bring for Behrooz. The other day he called and said, ‘Grandma, come play with me.’ I said, ‘I’ll come this Friday.’ He said, ‘Bring Aunt Zeeba, too.’ He’s such a sweet boy. I’m taking Khan, too. Otherwise Zeeba has to stay home to take care of him. Poor girl. She never complains. I said, ‘Khan, you need to come, you need to get out, it’s good for you and Zeeba.’ He grunted and growled, but it wasn’t like he meant it. He nags a little, you know, but I’ll take him…Ahmad…Are you there?”
Knock.
“Are you going to be at this number for a little while?”