Yves Navarre
TOFIGH
I am thirteen years old. My name is Tofigh . I was born in
the forests of the North, at Ghaemshahr. My father was arrested in
the Shah's time . Imprisoned. My mother took us away. There were
seven of us with her , I was the fourth. We lived behind a wall, under
the branches , not far from the prison, at the north exit of Teheran.
After the revolution , the prison became a barracks, a barracks where
prisoners were again shut in, other faces at first, then the same as
before , I'm not sure anymore . We didn't see my father again. I'll find
him again someday. I have a story to tell him. I'm a grownup.
Because I have a ' story to tell him .
At Ghaemshahr there was a school. I had just time to learn how
to read and write. In Teheran I learned only how to hide and speak.
We went into the center of the city
only
on the days of big demon–
strations , when crowds were ordered . Shouting would come then ,
would call us, we were allowed to go. I saw hangings. I saw. I saw
the bazaar windows . Every morning, for years, I have seen a dust
rise in a cloud over the city. The sky begins to stagnate for the day.
The sun is wiped out. My mother spends hours , with my three
sisters, at the watering place waiting a turn. We lived on anything
that wasn't dust. My two older brothers vanished in the garbage
dump in the Ghadika district. My sisters never leave my mother.
My mother no longer leaves her chador. Reza, my little brother, was
my soldier. They didn't want him at the barracks, when I signed up,
because he was only seven and you had to be at least the size of a
gun . There were a hundred, two hundred, or more of us. The first
two days we could wash and eat. At fourteen, I was the oldest. Col–
onel Nasr came to talk to us . We had become soldiers and we should
consider the "guardians of the revolution" as our fathers , "fathers"
who would one day become our brothers. I was named section
leader because I was the tallest . On the third day some trucks took
us away toward the south . Qom, Khorramabad, Dezfoul. I saw the
country. Immense flocks grazed on places where tanks and artillery
guns covered with camouflage nettings were parked . I saw antiair-
Editor's Note: Excerpted from
Premieres Pages
by Yves Navarre. Copyright
<Cl
1983
Editions Flammarion. Translation copyright
<Cl
1985 by Howard Girven.
