The Corporal's Wife (2013) by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online Page B

sacked and had found no other work. The rent had to be paid, his family had to eat, and Farideh’s husband kept them.
    There were flowers on the table. Mehrak had left them. She didn’t know where he was and hadn’t asked where he was travelling to. She didn’t know what business he was on. She was indifferent to where he was and what he did. He brought flowers home and would put them on the table. She didn’t thank him – and certainly didn’t kiss him, not even on his cheek. She would leave them on the table until they wilted, then put them into the bin.
    She let herself out and locked the door behind her. There was more thieving in the capital this year. Her husband, a loyal supporter of the regime, would not have admitted that the government’s tax hikes and lower subsidies led to increased crime. She heard footsteps on the staircase above. They stopped. Whoever – the hospital orderly, the post-office official, the carpenter – had heard her door opening, closing, then being locked didn’t want to pass the time of day with her.
    It was a cold morning, and on the street, hurrying to the bus stop, the chill wind hit her. The cold crawled through her chador to penetrate her jeans and sweater. She shivered. She had never shivered in the room over the garage. Farideh took a bus to work. At that time, it was always crowded and women were relegated to the back, clinging to straps or the backs of seats. Every morning, she stood on the left side of the bus and could see out through the grimy windows. It was a better view in the afternoon when she returned home with her shopping and stood on the right.
    The route took her along the Vali Asr Avenue, then right onto Enghelab Avenue, when she would be on the left. At the time she went to work, traffic clogged the wide thoroughfare and the bus crawled. She could guarantee she’d see the place.
    She waited at the bus stop.
    There was, Farideh knew, a problem of heroin addiction in the Islamic Republic. The men at the garage said it was caused by the strict laws against alcohol, that people should be able to escape from the dreariness of life with weak beer but instead they resorted to the needle. She was addicted to looking from the bus window at the north side of Enghelab.
    The addiction had taken hold four years ago. The previous evening, there had been nothing on the television or radio. Mehrak had said there were small disturbances in the city centre, a few terrorists paid by the Americans, and that the president had been re-elected, which was good for the future. Without a second thought, she had voted for him. That afternoon she had walked with her shopping to the bus stop on Enghelab. She had been deep in thought, considering the price of the bread she had bought, and worrying about whether the yoghurt was too old because it had been marked down. There was to be a film on TV that night, with Norman Wisdom, her favourite, and . . . She had come round a corner to find the street filled with the black uniforms of the basij . They were masked, carrying clubs and wearing motorcycle helmets. Her first reaction: there would be no trouble because the basij were there.
    The gas was fired. Stones pelted around her, skidding away from her towards the paramilitaries. She had turned and seen the young people, whom she would have called ‘terrorist enemies’. More gas was fired and some of the canisters were hurled back. The basij had charged and laid about them now with clubs. She had frozen – she couldn’t move from the middle of the pavement. She was on their side, a loyal and unquestioning supporter of their leader. She had voted for their president. She had been felled by a swipe from a basij who rode pillion and hit her with a pickaxe handle. She had been sprawled on the pavement and two on foot had come, running, and beaten her with their weapons, a truncheon and a length of metal piping. She was choking on the gas and sobbing.
    The basij had gone forward another