A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

about alleged jars of fluid and dried monkey toes strung up on roofs. At first Reza ignores them; then he picks up his backpack and makes a show of preparing to leave.
“No, stay!” Ponneh puts on an affected croon. “I’ll let you kiss me . . . on the lips.”
Reza, still brooding on behalf of his mother, hoists his backpack on both shoulders and says, “You better think of something better than that.”
Saba tries not to laugh, even though Ponneh deserves it for being so arrogant. “I’ll teach you some English words,” she offers. “ Abalone means . . . um . . . money for widows.”
He glances down at Saba’s backpack. “What’ve you got in there?”
Saba tugs on the zipper because she does have something there that will keep him. Reza too devours American music, though Saba is his only source. He borrows her old tapes and tries to strum the notes on his father’s setar , which has collected dust since his father left to be with his new family. “You probably never heard of Pink Floyd,” she says.
“Yes, I have!” Reza says, his voice and fingers all anticipation. “Can I see?”
It is an obvious lie, but Saba doesn’t correct him. She takes out an unmarked tape and holds it out to her friend. “You can keep it,” she says. “I’m done with it anyway.”
“Really?” Reza’s eyes remain fixed on the tape as he drops to the ground and out of his backpack. Saba moves closer and starts to tell him all the words to her favorite Pink Floyd song, which is about bricks and teachers and rebellious kids—a song so illegal that one verse of it would be enough to make a hundred mullahs wet themselves.
“You can’t accept that,” says Ponneh. Reza takes his gaze off the tape for an instant; he stares at Ponneh as if pleading with her to forget their rural pride. Then his shoulders drop and Saba is forced to endure his disappointment, Ponneh’s wounded glare, and the fact that she has united the two of them in their shared poverty. Maybe her friends act this way because they know that Saba would be discouraged from playing with them if any English-speaking city children lived nearby. The sole reason she isn’t sent away to school in Tehran or Rasht is that her father can’t bear to lose another daughter. And no matter how many ragged old jeans or unfashionable flowery headscarves she wears, or how well she fakes their accent or tries to speak Gilaki, she will always be the outsider.
“What if I pay for it?” Reza suggests, digging in his pockets for coins and counting them in his palm. He has a few tomans, not even enough for a blank tape.
“You don’t have to,” says Saba, wishing she knew how an adult would give a gift to someone so beloved without being accused of showing off. Then she reaches into his extended hand and chooses the smallest coin. “Just enough,” she says.
They sit in the alley for two more hours. Saba and Ponneh braid each other’s hair while Reza sneaks out to buy them snacks. He returns with yogurt sodas, and they talk about Saba’s classes, because, even though she attends the same two-room schoolhouse as all the Cheshmeh children whose parents can spare them, she is further educated by city tutors in English, Old Persian, and all kinds of maths and sciences. Reza rifles through Saba’s backpack looking for other morsels of wealthy living that seem to excite him. He pulls out a tattered, yellowing magazine and stares at the beautiful blond woman on the cover. “What’s this?” he asks, and Ponneh shuffles over to have a look. Saba can see that he doesn’t dare ask the question on both their faces, Is it from England or Germany or France? Or maybe . . . America?
“An old magazine my maman’s friend gave me for practicing English,” she says. “It’s almost as old as I am.” Then she adds, her excitement rising with theirs, “It’s American.” The magazine came from her mother’s college friend, an elegant lady doctor named Zohreh Sadeghi, who lived far away