4
The House In The Village
Zahra stared ahead, dry eyed. She wanted to ask Firzun why he’d assumed Mahmoud’s identity. It could only mean one thing: he was a wanted man in Iran as well as in their own country. He needed her and Ahmad to legitimise whatever he planned to do here. She leaned her head back against the cold metal of the van wall, trying to get her thoughts in order. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Mahmoud’s bloodless face and still body. When the van slowed, she opened her eyes and moved Ahmad, who lay asleep on her lap. The boxes had shifted, and in the early dawn light she could see out of the rear window.
They were passing the mud brick walls of village houses, some with small windows cut into the adobe. The dawn prayer call began, echoing eerily round the deserte
