Do you have another? Ahmad wrote on the cover of the torn notebook. Salman shook his head and wiped tears from his cheeks. Ahmad motioned for Salman to wait. He ran to the Orchard and came back with a new notebook. Sara was bandaging Salman’s feet with white cloth. Ahmad did Salman’s homework until it was almost dark. Sara fixed dinner and the four of them, Mash Akbar, Sara, Salman, and Ahmad, ate in silence before Norooz the Gardener knocked on the door to take Ahmad home. Ahmad took the notebook with him.
The next day Salman could hardly sit still. The pupils went over to Mulla Ali’s table one by one to have their assignments checked. Ahmad could see Salman shaking as he got to his sore feet on his turn. Mulla opened the new notebook and flipped through the pages. One look at Ahmad, who was sitting with his head bowed down, was enough for Mulla to realize what was happening. He had to tie them both to the stick, one after the other, as he had warned the day before, or lose face. He was silent for a few seconds. Leafing back and forth, he made as if he was inspecting Salman’s assignment. “Next,” he ordered and gave Salman back his notebook. Ahmad felt something inflate in his chest, making him lighter. From that day on, whenever Salman had to help his father at the butchery, Ahmad would do his homework and Mulla Ali would leaf through the beautifully written pages and call out, “Next.”
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WHAT AHMAD’S FATHER PREDICTED CAME true soon after his death: the Russians marched in from the north and the British attacked from the south, smashing and dismantling the Iranian army in a matter of hours. Soon after, the footsteps of the terrifying giant of famine could be heard across the country. Prices started to go up. Twelve miles away from the capital and in the shelter of generous fruit orchards, the village of Tajrish received the ripples of the crises with a delay. But they heard the news of how things were in Tehran, and with the winter came a shortage of wheat. The bakery opened four or five hours a day and the whole time, lines formed out front of men in thick coats and wool hats and women with sweaters under chadors. After the evening prayer one day the villagers in the mosque decided that the baker should not sell more than one disc to anyone, no exceptions. From the next day, every member of every family went to the bakery so as not to forfeit their share of the daily bread. Two serpentine lines rose and fell along Tajrish’s alleys, the men’s line in one direction, the women’s in another. Women took their babies in their arms and asked for two discs. The baker counted the babies in at first, but when, in the middle of the winter, they threw back the tarpaulin and saw that the truck had brought half the number of bags of flour the village needed, they excluded children under four and reduced the quota to three discs a family.
The famine had come with the invasion of Iran, and few doubted that the foreigners had caused the plight. Ahmad was busy with school. He read voraciously and did his classmates’ homework in exchange for an occasional book they might find in their homes and succeed in pilfering without their parents noticing. Little did he have to worry about the bread shortage as Khan received twice the quota, delivered to the Orchard every day by the baker himself because he did not trust the boy who worked for him not to spill the beans.
The winter came to an end, but the shortage did not, as people of Tajrish had hoped. They spent more time doing nothing because there was not much to do. Bread, oil, and sugar disappeared from the three village grocery stores. Salman’s father, who killed and skinned six sheep and two lambs every morning, could hardly sell three small sheep a day. Meat was the first thing people cut from their meals, reserving it for special occasions only. Salman quit school before the others. He had not been able to afford gifts for Mulla and that did not make the teacher happy. He managed to find excuses to tie the boy’s feet to the stick and leave welts on his soles. Salman was relieved when his father sent him to work at the