Lost Boys

by Darcey Rosenblatt

  Everyone glanced sheepishly at one another until Jaafer said, “Nice guy.” He put another spoonful of rice on his plate. “Tell you what, if God gets me out of this hole, I’ll fast every day, all month long. Until then I’m having another helping.”

  The rest of us laughed quietly. I took a bite and cleared my throat. “Do you guys know everyone in these camps?”

  “Well, there are at least four hundred of us in these fine accommodations, and people come and go,” said Salar.

  “Oh, come on, Salar, you’re the ambassador of this dust heap. You know everybody,” teased Omid.

  “I’m looking for a friend who was with me at the front.” My voice shook. “His name is Ebi Saberi. He’d have come in sometime in the last month.” I listed Ebi’s features, realizing I was describing half the boys in the room.

  “Don’t know him. Sorry, man.”

  “You see guys from other camps?” I asked hopefully.

  “Transfers come and go,” said Omid.

  “Maybe Miles would know,” whispered Farhad.

  “Who’s Miles?” I asked.

  “A teacher,” said Salar, chewing. “Comes from a foreign aid organization. Our ‘kind’ captors think it looks better to the outside world if they bring in someone to educate us. Miles is the third one we’ve had and the best of the lot. You’ll meet him tomorrow.”

  “Why would he know?”

  “He is the main teacher here at Camp Six, but he teaches at the other camps, too.”

  A loud bell rang. “Time for lockup,” said Salar, motioning to the door where a huge guard stood. “Come on. Mr. Abass here will show us to our deluxe suite.”

  The guard was dressed in faded green canvas. He stood well over six feet, his arms crossed over his chest. Under an old cap I saw one dark, bushy eyebrow stretching across his forehead. Long lines on either side of his wide nose anchored the edges of a deep frown.

  The huge man led a big group of us along narrow, dark corridors that stank of boys and no soap. Our jovial lunch chatter shifted to silence as we all filed behind Farhad’s crutches. Just when it seemed to me that we were traveling in circles, Abass brought out a key and opened the door to a large room.

  “Move it, vermin, we don’t have all day.” Abass shoved Farhad into the room. The small boy fell, and his crutches spun across the floor. Jaafer and I both moved to help him up, but before we got to him Abass had a hand on our collars, pulling us upright. His breath was so rank I had to breathe through my mouth. His accent was so thick he was on to the second sentence before I understood the first.

  “Time to learn, boys. Everyone here does for himself. Farhad can get up. If he ever goes home, he’ll need to get along without you two.”

  Salar stepped in to break the tension. “Leave your shoes inside the door, gentlemen. It’s not the Tehran Hilton, but it’s better than a trench in the sand or that stinking hospital. Isn’t that so, Mr. Abass?” Salar looked up at the guard, who gave a low grunt and walked out the door. The dead bolt echoed behind him.

  “Salar,” said Omid, “one of these days you’ll wake that beast.”

  “He’s a jerk,” hissed Salar.

  “True, but he beat those guys in Building Two for less crap than you give him, and they’re still in the hospital.”

  “Whatever.” Salar waved his fingers at the door in a rude gesture. “He smells exactly like the butt of a four-day-old fish.”

  Laughter filled the concrete room. Omid guffawed. “Fish Butt. That’s good, Salar.”

  I hadn’t had a belly laugh like this in so long, my muscles actually hurt, but my breath came a little easier when I was done.

  The windows along the tops of the walls were dirtier than the ones in the cafeteria and too high to reach. Brown light filtered through, highlighting the dust in the air. Twenty mats lay on the floor in two long lines.

  “Reza, Jaafer, those two mats at the end are yours,” said Omid. “Get comfortable; we spend most of the afternoon locked up here. And despite how Salar is with old Fish Butt, you boys watch yourselves. This is one of the best camps to be in because they show it off to the newspapers and such, but if the guards think they can get away with it, they’ll hurt you.” He walked toward his mat and added over his shoulder, “Especially Fish Butt.”

  I followed Jaafer to the back of the room, but the sound of gunfire made me jump, pressing my back against the wall. Jaafer and Farhad cringed, too, but the other boys acted like they hadn’t heard anything.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Salar when he noticed. “It’s the change of shift up on the wall. They have to play with their arsenal.” He cupped his crotch and laughed.

  “Shut up,” said Pasha, kicking Salar’s mat. “At least they’re still doing a job, unlike us, rotting away in this dungeon.”

  “Some job,” said Salar. “They’re guarding teenagers, while their friends are off fighting in the real war. No wonder they need to shoot their guns every day.”

  “We were just stupid enough to get caught.” Pasha moved closer to Salar, who was at least six inches shorter.

  “Back off, Pasha,” said Omid, stepping in front of him. The boys stood eye to eye for twenty seconds; neither of them flinched.

  Pasha was the first to back down. I heard the call to prayer from somewhere far away. Reaching under his rubber mat, Pasha spread out a large piece of fabric in the center of the room. He knelt and began to pray. A few others joined him, and Farhad knelt by himself on his sleeping mat, but most boys gathered at the other end of the room, poring over a crumpled section of the newspaper.

  I sat on my mat, a thin piece of rubber between me and the concrete floor. My new home. No music, no clothes or anything else to call my own, no one who knew me. I should have left with Uncle that night. Dying with him in Tehran would’ve been better than this.

  On the mat next to me, Jaafer motioned toward the group of boys. “They’re talking football. The Cup games are almost over. I’ve been so out of it, I had no idea.”

  “I thought I was the only one who didn’t know,” I said, remembering how we’d talked of nothing but the games at the training camp. “We can’t ask now; they’ll think we’re idiots.”

  “If we listen long enough, we’ll figure it out. I had money on Italy, but even if I won, I can’t collect.” Jaafer leaned against the wall with his arms behind his head. “The guys I bet with were in front of me in the minefield.”

  I closed my eyes, hoping to clear the image of the fireball, but it brought back the screaming and the air-sucking whoosh of the explosions.

  Jaafer sighed. “Definitely not the Hilton, but I was expecting worse, and like the man said, it’s better than being in a trench.” He yawned and stretched. “And it’s better than being dead.”

  “I guess.”

  Jaafer looked over. “Oh, you’re like that jerk at lunch? What was his name? Pasha? Totally pissed because he didn’t croak? He’s probably envious that his dead buddies are up in heaven, making out with the seventy promised virgins.”

  I smiled. My cheek muscles strained with the effort. “That’s what my mother told me, but she skipped the part about the virgins.”

  “That’s like my father. Wanted me to sign up the first week of the war,” said Jaafer. “I was only eleven.” He swatted at a fly that flew lazily around his head. “Mom made me wait until I was twelve. When my father left for the front, he slapped me on the back and told me he’d see me soon in heaven. I say bull.”

  “Be nice if we knew for sure,” I said.

  “Yeah, but there’s only one way to know and I’d rather not be dead.” Jaafer inclined his head in Pasha’s direction. “I know his type. When we go home, he’ll still be thinking he should’ve died.”

  “If they gave you a choice—home or back to the front—what would you do?” I asked.

  Jaafer looked at me like I’d asked if he wanted to drink boiling oil.

  “Home. No question. My mom needs me, especially if my father gets himself killed. I�
�m hoping I still have friends left when I get back. You?”

  “My mother thinks I should be dead. If I go home, I’ll be hearing about that daily. My father died at the beginning of the war and my uncle was killed in the resistance back in March. I don’t know about my friend Ebi.” I breathed in. I hadn’t strung that many words together since Kamran left for the front.

  “If not home, where would you go?”

  I heard soft crying. For a second I thought it was me. But the sound came from the other end of the room, where Farhad was curled in a ball. I shifted, trying to get comfortable.

  “I have no idea where I’d go,” I said. In a rush, Uncle’s words came to me: Sometime, somewhere, there’ll be a place where you can grow your gift. I squeezed my eyes tight. If such a place existed, there was no road from here to there.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I wonder if the classroom has bars,” I said to Jaafer as we walked to class after breakfast the next morning. “In all those great prison movies that used to be on TV, I don’t remember any classrooms.”

  “I barely remember school that wasn’t religious mumbo jumbo,” Jaafer said. “If that’s what these classes are, that’s worse than being locked up all day.”

  The room was drab. Old desks and chairs were scattered in uneven rows. Walls that had once been white were gray with grime. When I stepped through the door, I blinked several times. Standing at the front of the small room was the oddest-looking man I’d ever seen.

  His thick, unruly hair was red like a hot electric coil on a stove. And his skin! I’d never understood why they called white people white, but this man was just that. His skin was pale with spots of pink high on his cheekbones. He was large, not fat, but a foot taller than any boy in the room. He looked as if his shoulders would take up the whole doorway.

  In three strides he stood in front of Jaafer and me, looking at a sheet of paper in his hands. “Hello, gentlemen. One of you is Reza and the other, Jaafer. Which is which?” We introduced ourselves.

  “Welcome. I’m Miles O’Leary. Come in; find a seat anywhere and we’ll get started.” He spoke Farsi well, but with an accent I couldn’t place.

  “This morning we’re having a class in French. Either of you take French in school?” We both shook our heads. “Well, everyone’s at a different level here. You might be able to pick something up. We have other classes, too, lots of classes. After we’re done this morning, we can talk. We can see what interests you.”

  I stole a glance at Jaafer as we sat down. We had a choice? Jaafer shrugged.

  Even though I didn’t understand a word, I liked the sound of French, especially the way this Miles O’Leary spoke. Like a song searching for a melody. I was surprised when the bell rang. An hour and a half had passed.

  As the others left, Miles folded his arms and legs into a seat next to us. “Did you get any of that, gentlemen?”

  “A little,” said Jaafer. I nodded.

  “How about other languages? Either of you speak any English or Arabic?”

  “My aunt speaks English,” said Jaafer. “She’s tried to teach me.”

  “I had some of both in school, before the revolution,” I answered.

  “Good, good, we try to do English or Arabic at least once a week. Hopefully you can learn without picking up my odd accent.” He smiled. “I’m from Belfast originally, in Northern Ireland, but I’ve lived in a dozen places. Well, at least a dozen places since I left school. Came from America—Boston—most recently. I butcher Farsi just like the four other languages I speak.”

  He smiled and pointed to a small stack of books and paints in the corner. “They actually let us try to have a decent school here. Sometimes we do pretty well. Right now we have four teachers roving between camps.”

  I wanted to stop him and ask about Ebi, but he was on a roll. “We teach literature and art here. In the room down the hall we teach…” He paused, scratching his forehead. “Oh, how do you say it? Wait … vocational, that’s it … vocational skills—appliance repair, that kind of thing.” He rubbed his hands together, clearly proud he’d found the right word. “At least once a week, I try to get in a music class.”

  I’d been looking down at the desktop, but my glance flew up like a strong magnet to lock with Miles’s sky-blue eyes.

  “Aha—what do we have here?” He chuckled. “A musician? What do you play, Reza?”

  “No … nothing. Well, I used to play piano. But it got pretty hard after the revolution, so I don’t really play now.”

  “Okay. All right. Do you sing, maybe?”

  “A little.” I could feel my cheeks getting hot. “Mostly I just like music.”

  Miles’s face got brighter. “Great. I fancy myself a bit of a musician, too, and there aren’t many of us here.” He smiled at me. “What kind of music do you like?”

  “My uncle was teaching me about jazz, but he died earlier this year.”

  “That’s a shame. Really sorry.” Miles shook his head and touched my hand. “At least you have family that’ll let you listen. I have a friend from Tehran. He’d never heard anything, nothing, but religious music before he came to university.”

  “Actually, my mother doesn’t allow music.” I remembered the sound of shattered plastic and saw my ruined tape player under a mess of tea leaves. “My uncle would sneak me stuff.”

  Miles’s bright face darkened. “It’s bloody ridiculous.” He blew air out in a fast whoosh. “I try to respect cultural differences and all that, but think of it—the next Duke Ellington could be an eleven-year-old girl in Tehran and she’ll never know. She’s not even allowed to have that dream.”

  I moved back in my seat. Miles ran both hands through his hair and said, “Sorry, boys, you must think old Miles is a little mad, a bit unhinged, eh?”

  Actually, I didn’t think he was that old—probably about the same age as Uncle Habib. He didn’t seem mad, either. Odd, but not mad.

  “You just hit a sore point, that’s all.” He stood, putting his hands in his pockets. “Promise I’ll be better behaved tomorrow. Go on now, it’ll be lunch soon.”

  Leaving the room, I looked back over my shoulder at Miles packing up his books. As I walked into the bright sunlight I hummed an old folk song I hadn’t heard for years. It had been one of Uncle’s favorites.

  * * *

  We walked into the cafeteria and it smelled like we’d opened an oven door. Salar raised his voice to be heard over a hundred boys using metal spoons to fill metal bowls. “What do you think of Miles?”

  “Bit of a lunatic,” said Jaafer, frowning. “But he seems okay.”

  “Some guys don’t like him ’cause he’s white.” Salar laughed. “White as rice pudding. But he’s all right. Before he got here, we were half-dead from boredom. Plus, the guards don’t mess with us when he’s around.”

  “He’s a jazz fan,” I said. “Any Duke Ellington fan is good with me.”

  “Who’s Duke Ellington?” asked Omid.

  “American piano player from the fifties,” I said. “Genius.”

  Pasha’s head jerked up. His eyes shot an arrow of hate in my direction. “American? Piano?” His voice rose. “Is there no end to your blasphemy, ingrate?”

  “Calm down, man,” I said, holding my palms out in front of me as if I could stop his words. “I’m not asking you to listen. Just saying I’m a fan.”

  “Your music is cursed.” Pasha stood above me in an instant. I rose to face him. All talking around us stopped. “Your God declared that music is cursed, tools of music are cursed, theaters and halls where music is played, they’re cursed, too.”

  “I know what I’m supposed to think, Pasha.” I took a step back. “All I’m saying is I know what I like.” I locked eyes with him, weighing my next words. I probably shouldn’t have said them, but in that moment the truth felt sweet in my mouth. “To me, it feels like the God I love made this music, too.”

  “What you feel,” said Pasha in a mocking tone. “You’ll be judged for what y
ou feel.”

  Before I knew what happened, Pasha hooked a foot behind my ankle and yanked. I hit the cement floor. Hard. Instinctively, I reached and pulled Pasha down next to me. He grabbed my head in a choke hold. I flailed, trying to wrestle free, but before I could move away, four guards pulled us apart.

  I smelled Abass before I heard him. “This new one hasn’t been here two days and he’s on the floor.”

  Before I could defend myself, Jaafer said, “He was only trying to—”

  “Shut up, moron. I should lock all of you up—is that what you want?”

  Abass gripped my arm. Another guard had Pasha. They dragged us to the far side of the cafeteria. We reached an empty table, and Abass shoved me roughly onto the metal bench. My spine rattled top to bottom when Pasha landed next to me.

  “Do you think this is a playground? Pasha, you’ve been here long enough to know fighting isn’t tolerated.” Abass squeezed my arm tighter and tighter as he said this. I knew there’d be finger-shaped bruises by morning. “No wonder we’re winning this war. We should just leave you to it and maybe you’d all kill each other.”

  In one swift motion, he let go of me and grabbed the club he carried on his belt and swung it quickly in front of our faces. “If I catch you out of line again, you’ll wish you’d never met me.”

  I almost said That’s been true since I first smelled you, but caught myself.

  * * *

  The next morning I hurried to class to ask Miles about Ebi, but six boys were already clustered around him, talking excitedly.

  When they saw me their conversation stopped. Miles glanced at them, then at me. “Here less than a week and already roughing it up? You gotta be careful, lad. Really gotta be careful.”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” said Salar. “Pasha attacked him, but old Fish Butt didn’t see that.”

  “And besides,” chimed in Omid, “Pasha’s the guard’s favorite.”

  As a stream of boys walked in the classroom, Miles said, “Sit down, gentlemen, sit down. I’d like to talk about this with all of you.”