and movies of men and women in love.
Now at fourteen, Ponneh and Saba spend their free days watching workers in the rice fields or videotapes at Saba’s house. Today, in the Hafezis’ enormous hilltop home, they busy themselves with Madonna and Metallica, Time and Life magazines, Little House on the Prairie, Three’s Company , and the Three Khanom Witches. The girls tiptoe through a sort of recovery, because two days ago, they had their biggest fight.
It started when Saba sat in her pantry with Reza—a secret place where only she and Ponneh used to meet—with her Walkman, listening to a bizarrely named band called The Police. She was whispering the lyrics into his free ear when Ponneh appeared, surprised and angry. She was in the pantry for only five minutes, doing a poor job of feigning interest, when she cut her hand on the sharp edge of a tomato can lid.
“Reza, help!” she cried. And this was the biggest injustice, because the last thing Ponneh needed was rescuing. But nowadays, when Reza is around—and especially when he is listening to Saba’s music, or humming American tunes, or asking what this or that lyric means—Ponneh is always getting hurt toes and scratched fingers and holes in her shirts. Then she uses every Band-Aid that Reza fetches and every pencil lead he squeezes out of her forearm as proof of his devotion. But Saba knows that none of these are signs of love. Her mother has said that real love is based on shared interests—like Western music.
But after Ponneh cut her hand that day, Reza sat beside her and sang bits of a French song that Saba had shown him a few days before. “Le Mendiant de l’Amour” became popular in Iran because of its easy-to-mimic chorus and manic Persian-sounding melody. “See,” he said to Ponneh, “it’s about a girl named Donneh, which is almost like Ponneh.” He started to tap his hands on his knees and tried to sing the lyrics with his thick, uneducated accent: Donneh, Donneh, Do-donneh . . .
“That’s not what it means,” shot Saba, feeling personally injured by Reza’s blatant mistranslation, by his awful accent, and his lovely voice. “ Donnez means ‘Give me . ’ It’s French. I told you already.” She wanted to repeat her point, but didn’t want to be accused of showing off again. Reza didn’t respond. He studied Saba’s face. Then he hummed the verses he didn’t know and kicked Ponneh’s legs to get her to cheer up.
Before he left, he whispered to Saba, “Are you missing Mahtab?” For three years Reza has asked this—a placeholder for all the emotions he cannot yet diagnose. Whether Saba is sad or angry or jealous, he asks her the same question, putting on a concerned tone. Saba replies with shy smiles and nods. It is their private routine.
Later, Ponneh accused Saba of excluding her again, revealing their secret pantry, and showing off in English. Saba accused Ponneh of cutting her hand on purpose, not truly caring about the music, and stealing her song. But in a world without Mahtab, Saba can’t last long without a best friend. Soon more important things distracted them. Ponneh discovered that with the right color chalk, she could draw entire scenes on the inside of an old white chador. They spent the next two days cocooned in hijab , decorating the secret parts of the tattered cloth with images from storybooks and American magazines. They sat cross-legged with the fabric pulled low over their eyes, trying to see the drawings from inside. When it didn’t work—only made the cloth itchier—they moved on to standing bare-legged over a portable fan laid on its side so the chador would blow up around them like bat wings, baring their newly rounded legs like Marilyn Monroe’s.
Today they run around Saba’s house, belting out a song from a 1960s Iranian movie called Sultan of Hearts . “One heart tells me to go, to go. Another tells me to stay, to stay.” Saba has the better singing voice, so she serenades a giggling Ponneh
Now at fourteen, Ponneh and Saba spend their free days watching workers in the rice fields or videotapes at Saba’s house. Today, in the Hafezis’ enormous hilltop home, they busy themselves with Madonna and Metallica, Time and Life magazines, Little House on the Prairie, Three’s Company , and the Three Khanom Witches. The girls tiptoe through a sort of recovery, because two days ago, they had their biggest fight.
It started when Saba sat in her pantry with Reza—a secret place where only she and Ponneh used to meet—with her Walkman, listening to a bizarrely named band called The Police. She was whispering the lyrics into his free ear when Ponneh appeared, surprised and angry. She was in the pantry for only five minutes, doing a poor job of feigning interest, when she cut her hand on the sharp edge of a tomato can lid.
“Reza, help!” she cried. And this was the biggest injustice, because the last thing Ponneh needed was rescuing. But nowadays, when Reza is around—and especially when he is listening to Saba’s music, or humming American tunes, or asking what this or that lyric means—Ponneh is always getting hurt toes and scratched fingers and holes in her shirts. Then she uses every Band-Aid that Reza fetches and every pencil lead he squeezes out of her forearm as proof of his devotion. But Saba knows that none of these are signs of love. Her mother has said that real love is based on shared interests—like Western music.
But after Ponneh cut her hand that day, Reza sat beside her and sang bits of a French song that Saba had shown him a few days before. “Le Mendiant de l’Amour” became popular in Iran because of its easy-to-mimic chorus and manic Persian-sounding melody. “See,” he said to Ponneh, “it’s about a girl named Donneh, which is almost like Ponneh.” He started to tap his hands on his knees and tried to sing the lyrics with his thick, uneducated accent: Donneh, Donneh, Do-donneh . . .
“That’s not what it means,” shot Saba, feeling personally injured by Reza’s blatant mistranslation, by his awful accent, and his lovely voice. “ Donnez means ‘Give me . ’ It’s French. I told you already.” She wanted to repeat her point, but didn’t want to be accused of showing off again. Reza didn’t respond. He studied Saba’s face. Then he hummed the verses he didn’t know and kicked Ponneh’s legs to get her to cheer up.
Before he left, he whispered to Saba, “Are you missing Mahtab?” For three years Reza has asked this—a placeholder for all the emotions he cannot yet diagnose. Whether Saba is sad or angry or jealous, he asks her the same question, putting on a concerned tone. Saba replies with shy smiles and nods. It is their private routine.
Later, Ponneh accused Saba of excluding her again, revealing their secret pantry, and showing off in English. Saba accused Ponneh of cutting her hand on purpose, not truly caring about the music, and stealing her song. But in a world without Mahtab, Saba can’t last long without a best friend. Soon more important things distracted them. Ponneh discovered that with the right color chalk, she could draw entire scenes on the inside of an old white chador. They spent the next two days cocooned in hijab , decorating the secret parts of the tattered cloth with images from storybooks and American magazines. They sat cross-legged with the fabric pulled low over their eyes, trying to see the drawings from inside. When it didn’t work—only made the cloth itchier—they moved on to standing bare-legged over a portable fan laid on its side so the chador would blow up around them like bat wings, baring their newly rounded legs like Marilyn Monroe’s.
Today they run around Saba’s house, belting out a song from a 1960s Iranian movie called Sultan of Hearts . “One heart tells me to go, to go. Another tells me to stay, to stay.” Saba has the better singing voice, so she serenades a giggling Ponneh
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