Has not — Heart wrenching story of a poor boy in Iran

By Ali Ashraf Darvishian

“Niaazali Nadaarad”

“Present”

First time I saw him, he was sitting beside the school gutter. He seemed to be ill and would cough sometimes. Most of the times he coughed, blood would be visible in the palm of his hands, and he would use the sleeve of his threaded and worn-out coat to wipe the blood off his palms and his lips. He was the kind of pupil who would jump at the opportunity to sit at the first row of the benches in class. He was a second year in grade school. He was frail and sickly with hints of fever in his forehead. As he would sit in the class, he would write with a small pencil which was connected to the button of his coat with a short thread. He had done this so that he does not lose his precious pencil. Every time he wrote, he had to lean so forward that he was practically laying on the desk. Every time he wrote, it was as if he was losing parts of himself on the paper. He had no paper of his own and would find the scrap papers from the trash can of the class. At lunch time he and actually most of the pupils would gnaw at the multiple days long stale bread they had on. Home cooked warm food was not an option for them.

The weather was getting cold as the semester progressed and we had covered the window glasses with old newspapers to keep the heat inside. While glancing at these newspapers, I had an idea. I brought out a sheet of newspaper from my bag and handed it to Niaazali and told him:

“Niaazali can you read a newspaper? Do you know what it’s written here?”

After a while of hesitation and stammering, he started while blushing:

“Sir, it’s written… coat… here.”

“Bravo, now read the whole sentence, please.”

“Sir, two h…h…hundred…th…th…thousand Tomans.”

“That’s good, good, continue please.“

“Sir, …is on s…s…sale in Tehran.”

He filled his lungs with fresh cool air and exclaimed at me excitedly:

“Sir, it’s written so well and big here. It’s Easy to read.”

“That’s right, things are written well and big on newspapers”, I agreed.

“Niaazali Nadaarad”

“Present”

His last name was “Nadaarad” (this means Has not or doesn’t have in Persian) in his Identification Document. He wasn’t the only pupil in the class with this last name. The naming of their last name has been quite descriptive of their life circumstances. Every time I called out his name in class, he would fidget and with a low screachy voice similar to that of a baby crow, he would say “Present”.

whenever the pupils played in the yard of the school, he would lean on the wall and gaze up at the sky as if in search of something. On the rare occasions when he did play with others, he would cough uncontrollably and blood would come out of his mouth.

I really wanted to get to know Niaazali more. So one time after the class was over, I went to him and we started a conversation.

“Where is your home Niaazali?”

“It’s behind the castle, sir”

“What’s your father’s name?”

“Rishcharmi, sir.”

“What does he do?”

“Nothing, sir. He is old and stays at home, sir.”

“And how about your mom?”

“She has become jobless, sir. Yesterday her front teeth fell and she became jobless.”

After asking around, I found out that his mother used to work for Mash Ghorban and would crack the pestacios open for him with her teeth. (In Persian, when we say to crack open a pestacio, we can also call it making a pestacio smile (خندان کردن پسته)) However, after many years of labor she finally lost her teeth, because her teeth were under too much pressure constantly. She was jobless once she lost her teeth, it seems. But this was not the end of the misfortunes for this family. Niaazali’s older brother had left them alone in this world. It happened a while after he was back from the military service when he got stuck under the rubble of a house he was working at.

Winter arrived at last. My room was next to the classroom and it had a window beside the entrance of the school. I would see the pupils as they were coming to school looking much like snowmen. They would pass from alleys and roads filled with snow and ice to get here. As a result, their eyelashes, eyebrows, and nostrils were covered with ice and snow. The pupils at higher grades who had started to have traces of a mustache above their lips had developed icy mustaches too. Niaazali was like a bird that had tangled its feet to a thread and would come towards the school while dragging his feet. Right when the pupils got to the classroom, they would rush in to sit beside the oil heater and warm up to thaw the ice on themselves. The smell of sweat and burned plastic was ever present in the classroom and water dripped from boots and shoes making a mess on the floor near the heater. Most of the times when the lessons for the day had ended, I would ask the pupils to tell to the class a short story they knew or an interesting dream that they had.

One day it was Niaazali’s turn. He would refuse at first but then accepted his fate. He started towards the blackboard and stood there with a red sickly frail figure. He started telling his dream:

“I dreamed that I had become a sparrow. I jumped to our backyard and chirped. My father noticed me and was surprised and terrified at the same time. He yelled out: “God, help us! our son has become a sparrow.” But before he knew it, he himself turned into a sparrow and landed at the corner of our house. Then my mother saw me and smiled, but then short after, she cried. She had suddenly seen the dragon named Mash Ghorban and brought out a handful of pestacios from her skirt. She then started cracking them up. Unfortunately however, soon her front teeth fell off and blood flowed out of her mouth.

I wanted to go and scoop out the eye of the dragon. But one of the pestacios laughed and said that it would have no effect. “We’ll do something else to make the dragon burst with sadness”, the pestacio said and then all the pestacios shut their mouths tight.

The dragon went and saw that the pestacios are all mouth-shut, so he said: “I will torture you until you crack open”. He went to fetch a wooden club. But as he was returning club in hand, he rolled over the teeth that lay on the ground and fell. With this, the pestacios laughed and the dragon was now satisfied. But then the pestacios said that we should not laugh again.

The dragon did so many things to make them laugh once more. He would stretch out his neck and reach out to the sky and gobble up the stars. He would make funny faces and then shoot out the stars through his ears. I laughed hard at what he did.

He heard my laughter and turned towards me. As he noticed that I had laughed, he erupted, “I see, this is all your fault!” He quickly ran towards me club in hand. I was terrified and I wanted to escape through the window, but the window was so narrow and I couldn’t pass through.

One pestacio that was near me told me to get on him so that he can take me away. I hopped on and he turned into a balloon and we flew to the sky passing through the chimney of our house.

We were going up and up towards the sky until we were near the stars. I stretched my hand to grab one pretty star. I wanted it for my kind mother. But as I was reaching my hand to the star, my foot suddenly slipped and I fell off the pestacio. As I was falling, I saw my dad was fixing the roof of our house with clay and hay. I crashed right through the newly repaired roof onto the floor of our house. Then I woke up abruptly. I noticed that my face was wet from the droplets that were falling from the breached ceiling.”

Niaazali had finished telling his dream and all the pupils laughed, cheered and clapped at once. He returned to his seat like a drenched ill duckling.

The winter of this year has been the coldest. To insulate the heat of the classroom, we had covered the glass of the windows with even more newspapers. I let go of the rustling newspapers and continued taking the attendance in the class.

“Niaazali Nadaarad”

There was an uncomforable silence for a few moments. Then some of the pupils muttered weakly, “Absent”.

An unfamiliar gloom was visible on the faces of the pupils. I asked Akbar, the class representative what happened.

“He died yesterday evening, Niaazali.” he managed. “He coughed too much and blood came out of his mouth. His last words were: I want bea..beautiful stars f… for my kind mother.”

The class was silent once more. The wind outside got stronger and it made a peculiar sound as it blew through the newspapers stuck to the glass of the window making them rustle evne harder. It was as if Niaazali was telling a solemn story from faraway. There was a black blotch of grey dull clouds up in the sky and the world seemed utterly hopeless. I noticed one of the rustling newspapers stuck to the glass that read:

“Health for all”