The Shipwrecked by Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone Page B

house,” she mumbled. “You can’t knock on the door every time you have a headache or a pain in the butt.” There was the sound of a metal drawer being shut forcefully. “Do you understand?” she went on. “Don’t make a nuisance of yourself. If you have a serious problem, there is a piece of cardboard in your cell. Slide it under the door. Somebody will come and get you.”
    There was the clanging of heavy keys passed from hand to hand. We were ushered into our cells. The musty smell of paint was overpowering. I pulled the blindfold off my face. A shaft of sunlight from the barred window of the cell illuminated the graffition the wall. It occurred to me that regardless of the passage of time, I would never stop thinking about those who were here before me—imagining who they were, how they endured their time here, deciphering the words and images they left behind on these walls. I would visualize faces pale with fears, anguish, and hopes of “this too will pass,” allowing my imagination to fancy secrets woven into the designs on the wall. Once I discovered a small ball of black hair stuffed into a tiny hole drilled into a cinderblock near the door, perhaps reminiscence of a belonging, a memory long past.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —This is Radio Tehran. It is 9 a.m., dear listeners . . . Her image in my mind . . . Scent of flowers. . .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Hey, boy. Leave that dial alone. They are all lies . . . How long . . .
    I slumped on the sack of clothes, exhausted. Something or someone, was being dragged on the floor in the corridor, and there was a hubbub of conversation. Suddenly I felt a tremor under foot. I heard the sound of a corrugated metal gate, like that of a store, being raised.
    Gradually, the noise level behind the wall increased, and it included sounds like metal sheets or car fenders, being hammered, water being flushed from a garden hose, and the whine of an electric drill. There were many other noises I could not identify. They all filled my head in ceaseless vibration.
    I spread a blanket on the cell floor and placed the water jug and plastic cup next to it. I wondered if I would go insane, but I was relieved to feel that the ambient noise was becoming increasingly routine and easier to get usedto as a natural component of the atmosphere of my existence, a lifeline letting me share in the lives of the people beyond the walls of my cell.
    Somewhere a door slammed hard, rattling the glass in the window panes. A gruff male voice interrupted the hiss of the paint sprayer.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Wait and See. I have plans for him, the SOB and . . .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Don’t take it too hard. He just made a mistake. . .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Hey, boy, bring the paint. And a rag . . .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Don’t go overboard. Give me a call . . .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Sure enough. Fifty tomans now. The whole invoice is seventy tomans; that’s fair.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —How generous!
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Tell Zaghi this: Farmoon said not to get tangled with him . . .
    The sound of men laughing. Clicking of some keys, perhaps being swung around on a keychain. A car door slammed shut. The sound of tires on an unpaved road.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Ouch! Ouch! My hand. . .
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —That’ll teach you. Right?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —[silence]
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Don’t let me catch you again talking to any jackass. Understood?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  —Yes, yes. But he started talking to me . . .
    At sundown, before the guard, who I had nicknamed “Orange Slippers,” locked the cell door on me, she said, “You look no more than fourteen to me.”
    â€œFifteen,” I responded.
    â€œWhat a waste!” she said as she shook her