6
Tehran
Zahra slept deeply. When she woke, her eyes stung and her neck ached. The mountain landscape had given way to desert, then fields of crops. They were now in the outer suburbs of Tehran. Her memories of coming here with her mother were hazy. But the huge posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini on most of the sand-coloured apartment blocks weren’t there ten years ago. Zahra shuddered; he looked like Mahmoud, stern and uncompromising.
When the coach stopped, she pushed her way off with the other women. Ahmad clutched her hand, making her fingers ache. Firzun was waiting for them on the footpath, smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t carrying Mahmoud’s bag, she noticed, only his own. He must have dumped it somewhere, she thought, but she was too tired to care.
‘Rashid should be here. I told hi
