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

they wore the drab chador . His father had begun allowing his beard to grow out, and had removed the portrait of the Shah that had hung in the living room for as long as Khosrow could remember. Mother had bought a portrait of Khomeini, but his parents, despite their anxiousness to avoid trouble, had not yet been able to bring themselves to hang it.
    A part of Khosrow was ashamed of such compromises. To knuckle under, to abandon loyalties when they became untimely—wasn’t this the mark of cowardice? Was that what the Islamic uprising was teaching him—that he had no true convictions?
    He thought of Sepi Solaiman, and he turned away from the mirror. Sepi was by far the most difficult question he had to answer for himself. He was quite smitten with her, but … could his father be right, after all? Could he afford the luxury of indulging his feelings in these difficult times?
    Again he felt the angular fists of his boyhood friends as they cuffed and slapped him, heard the cruelty in their voices as they taunted him for defending an infidel. These were not the faces he had known, not the voices of boys he had played soccer with on bright afternoons. These were young, vicious strangers who attacked him—their faces masks of mob fervor, their voices darkened and curdled by the simplistic hatred of the pack. That had hurt worse than the blows—that the friendship of years and innocence should be so casually swept away by the torrents of hatred flooding his country. He had thought friends were friends. It was a hard thing to learn that this wasn’t always so.
    His conclusions were very troubling to Khosrow. It was so unfair. Why should anyone else care that he had feelings for a girl of another faith? Why did the world have to intrude on his emotional territory? Why couldn’t they all just mind their own business? He felt the old resentment boiling up within him.
    And yet … why couldn’t he make up his own mind about what to do? He looked at himself a final time and turned away in disgust. Grabbing up his schoolbooks, he slouched out the front door.

    Moosa snorted as he tossed the newspaper onto the kitchen table. “Whom does the Shah imagine he is fooling?” he demanded loudly. “Vacation, indeed! In the streets the barefooted ones chant, ‘Death to the Shah!’ What does he do? Climbs aboard his Learjet and flies away to a carefree holiday in the Alps!” Moosa shook his head in disgust as he sipped his coffee.
    “What would you have him do,” asked Esther bitterly, “publish the news that the rightful king of Iran is afraid for his life and is fleeing the country with his family while there is still time?” Angrily she punched and slapped the bread dough between her hands, her back to her son. “He cannot depend on his army or on his own secret service. Would it be better that he stay here to die at the hands of the mullahs? Or escape and perhaps return when the country comes to its senses?”
    Moosa heard the resentment in his mother’s voice, but her obstinacy galled him. “Mother, this country won’t come to its senses. Why can’t you accept the fact? Better that you get out and come to America. There, at least, you don’t have to be so careful about being Jewish. Iran will soon belong to the mullahs and the Islamic fanatics. Why not leave while you can—like the Shah?”
    Esther whirled about, her jaw clenched. “Moosa,” she grated, “you may have learned to think like an American, but I have not. This country has existed for over thousands of years, and for all of that time has been governed by a king. Your promised land across the ocean has been there barely 200 years.” She glared at him until his eyes dropped guiltily. “So watch your mouth,” she continued. “Others remember and cherish what you have apparently forgotten.” She stalked past him, wiping her hands on her apron.

    Sepideh stood by the stairway in the main hallway, feeling hostile stares slide across her as the other