The Moving Prison Read Online Free PDF Page B

hands.
    The newspaper rustled as Esther folded it and carefully regarded her daughter. Sepi looked out the window; then hesitantly she began again. “There was a girl at school today, the daughter of a government minister. She was wearing a chador . It was the first time I have ever seen one on anybody besides an old woman.”
    Esther remembered hearing her mother speak with disgust about the heavy black chador , a loose, sleeveless draped garment that covers a woman from head to toe. Only a small space for her face was allowed, lest any man other than her husband or father see her hair or body and be incited to lust. Like many women, Esther’s mother had celebrated the more liberal policies of the Pahlavi rulers by burning her chador . That had happened even before Esther’s birth. Esther owned a chador , kept for the rare occasions when they visited the home of a devout Muslim. She had worn it perhaps five times in her life. But now schoolgirls were wearing the hated symbol of repression? “The moving prison returns,” said Esther softly to herself.
    “What?”
    “Oh, nothing. I just remember my mother talking about how much she despised wearing the chador . She called it a moving prison.”
    Sepi looked at her mother, concern etching deep lines in her forehead. “Mother, are we going back to the past? Will I be forbidden to learn foreign languages or mathematics? Will I have to wear one of those … things … when I go to school?” Distaste curled a corner of Sepi’s mouth as she pondered it.
    Esther signed. “I don’t know, my darling. I hope not.”
    “Me, too.” Sepi stared at her tea, thinking about how Khosrow would react if she approached him wearing the huge black tent. She gave a slight shudder. “I’d better get started on my work,” she said, rising from the table.
    Esther watched her daughter walk toward the staircase to gather her books. She thought about the possible consequences of an Islamic hierarchy. With no counterbalancing forces, what edicts might they impose on the country? Things worse than the chador could lie in Sepi’s future.
    Again she picked up the paper, turning to where she had left off. In a lower corner, a small headline caught her attention. She felt her face freezing in apprehension.

    Again Ezra scanned the small article. Then he looked at his wife. “I don’t like the idea of this at all.”
    She waited, her eyes flickering from his face to the paper he held in his hand.
    The headline, tucked innocuously into the society section, read, “Minister Announces Vacation for Royal Family.” The article contained a blithely worded announcement by the Minister of the Court of an impending foreign junket by the Shah and his wife, Queen Farah.
    “It is impossible for me to believe the Shah would go on vacation with all the turmoil in the country,” said Ezra gravely. “Whom does he imagine this will deceive?”
    Esther looked back at him, her eyes pleading for reassurance, yet expecting none.
    “With matters this far advanced, I had better do something about selling the business, and soon,” Ezra mused, worriedly. “When the news of the Shah’s leaving becomes widely known, the breakdown in the country will go like wildfire. If that happens, our chances of getting a decent price for the store will be almost nil.”
    “If things are as bad as that, why not just get out of the country and leave the store for the mullahs to run?” Esther asked bitterly.
    Ezra’s eyes flashed as he looked up at her. “I will not leave Iran a pauper,” he said in a voice that cracked like a quiet whip. “I have worked too long and too hard to walk away from everything without at least trying to keep some of the fruit of my life’s toil.”
    Esther held his eyes for a moment, then looked away. Her shoulders sagged, and she covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I just find it so hard to believe that an entire nation can go instantaneously