Read Online The Moving Prison by William Mirza, Thom Lemmons - Free Book Online Page A

students passed. She was afraid to come back to school, but her father told her she would be all right. She wasn’t so sure, but he seemed to feel it was important that she maintain a normal routine—avoid unusual appearances, he said. So here she stood, feeling very conspicuous.
    The surge of Islamic fervor became more apparent each day. Some of the boys were allowing their scant whiskers to grow, and several girls wore chadors to school now. One of them passed her, the loose black cloth of the shapeless garment swishing about her ankles. From within the folds of the garment, the guarded eyes of the girl stared at her as she walked past. Sepi shivered. Right now she would almost welcome the chador ; at least it offered a veil of anonymity. Better than being exposed and vulnerable, as she was now.
    “Good morning, Sepi.”
    She whirled about. Khosrow smiled back at her.
    “Why must you always sneak up behind me like that?” she demanded.
    He chuckled. “I like seeing your eyes when you’re surprised.”
    She squinted at his face. “Are you letting your beard grow?” she asked suspiciously.
    Khosrow shrugged, looking away. “Everyone’s doing it. Why not?”
    “Next I suppose you’ll be asking me to wear a chador .”
    He glanced back at her, then away, saying nothing. A long, awkward silence limped past.
    “Well … we’d better get to class,” he managed, at last.
    Sepi held out her hand. Glancing up and down the hall, Khosrow hesitantly took her hand as they walked toward their classrooms. Sepi looked at him questioningly, but he stolidly kept his eyes ahead.

EIGHT
    The first day of February sparkled with the crystalline clarity of midwinter. Sunlight glinted from the wings of the Air France jetliner as it banked to make its final approach to the runway at Mehrabad Airport.
    Thousands of people, crammed into the terminal building or peering from cars parked willy-nilly along the expressways around the airport, anxiously followed the plane’s graceful, slow-motion descent as its wheels reached from the underbelly of the aircraft, then touched the tarmac. All across Iran, millions of eyes were riveted to television screens, millions of ears anxiously turned toward short-wave radio broadcasts from the BBC, as every nuance of this moment was recorded for posterity. The airliner, now taxing toward its berth, carried the triumphant rebel. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The victor returned to Tehran to claim his prize.
    Devout Muslims rushed toward the aircraft, even before it had fully stopped, hoping to catch their first glimpse of this man whose voice they had heard for so long, yet whose face they scarcely knew. A cheering, jostling crowd greeted the stooped, white-bearded old man who made his way carefully down the steps from the plane, lifting him gleefully onto its shoulders, parading in triumph toward the van waiting to carry him to the first of many speaking engagements. Along the route of Khomeini’s entourage, hordes of the Shiite faithful packed the roadsides. For the poor, the devout, and the revolutionaries, this was a day of delirious joy.
    Others, watching from greater distances, witnessed Khomeini’s triumphal entry with fear and trepidation.
    “I have dreaded to see this day,” intoned Abraham Moosovi, from the armchair where he sat. A group of friends gathered before the television in Ezra Solaiman’s study, witnessing the arrival of the Imam , as Khomeini was now being styled. “And yet,” continued the rug exporter after a thoughtful pause, “I find that I am also strangely relieved. At least the waiting is over. Now we know for certain who will run the country.”
    Ezra looked gravely at the other man, then at the somber faces of the rest of the group. “What you say is true, Abraham,” he said. “And yet I cannot help thinking that things may get worse before they get better. We may look back on the days before this and remember them fondly.”
    Some of the women wept softly. All