The Stoning of Soraya M. by Freidoune Sahebjam Richard Seaver

Author:Freidoune Sahebjam, Richard Seaver
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing (Perseus)
Published: 2011-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

Zahra had never accepted the fact of male domination in the village. She never hesitated to speak her mind, and the men of the village were in awe of her and dreaded her tongue lashings.

But since the revolution, men had become all-powerful, and Zahra had had to admit defeat and let the new order have its way. Any effort on her part to obstruct, to take a definite stand or offer a strong opinion on a given subject, would have been misunderstood and automatically used against her, with all the consequences.

The day she saw Sheik Hassan arrive at Kupayeh, Zahra immediately knew that the Devil had entered the village and that no one would dislodge him from it. In the space of a very short time, the mullah, who had a certain amount of education and culture, had intrigued and made friends with all the men. In the evening, after their work, he talked to the villagers, enlightening them on their rights, their prerogatives, their privileges, and the limits beyond which women were no longer allowed to go. A number of hitherto anonymous and colorless villagers were metamorphosed virtually overnight and began to spread terror throughout the area with their knives and their slingshots.

Young women like Soraya or Firouzeh or Kokab became frightened and sought refuge in their houses until such time as Machdi Ebrahim had regained control of the situation. But the threat, far from disappearing, continued to grow, aided and abetted by a number of men in the village, most of whom were known to be both lazy and filled with anger, men who had found in a new Islam the purifying element that gave a sense to their wretched lives.

Sheik Hassan plowed through the only street in the village like a messiah come to bring the true and only Word to the people, but he quickly understood that in Zahra he would have a formidable opponent. The old woman never once invited him into her house, and their rare conversations were limited to such amenities as “with the help of God,” “God willing,” or “thanks be to God.”

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