I battle your death with love. I mend your broken heart with love. I heal your wounds with love. I sing your songs with love. I carry you everywhere with love.
The fighters came in the middle of the night. By the time we woke to the smell of burned rubber and flaming cars, the revolution was already won.
Baba stood in argument on the neighbor’s terrace while the merchant’s wife pointed feverishly to the moon: How can you not see it? It’s clear as day. The Ayatollah’s face. An omen. A miracle. A call to the faithful. A warning to the Kafars. The sword of faith had arrived and would cut through the heart of the sinful, the blind. She must make the trip of Haj this year, she said.
Shudders ran down our spines as baba’s voice of reason yielded to her fervent call for deliverance.
This faith that had burned our libraries, raped our women and sent us running to India fourteen hundred years ago. This very faith that took down an empire and called us Najest; filthy. This faith that we had lived on the outside of, but never escaped its persecution. You remember the other kids calling you Dirty Gabar at school.
It was again, them and us. We returned to our beds that night, knowing the end had come. Baba’s silence grew deep and grave. Your voice grew in strength, first pleading, then demanding he let us leave. So his daughters could live free.
Later you’d say it wasn’t just for us. That it was for you too. So you could be free.