FICTION
The Wig
by Sepideh Zamani
Banned from entering soccer stadiums since Iran’s 1979 revolution, the young
women in this story hatch a risky plan to get inside the stadium on game day.PHOTO: PHILIPP BOCK/FLICKRS
he had woken up at dawn feeling woozy and
hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. All through
the night she had been having confusing
dreams. As she began to describe her dreams
at breakfast, her mother cut her short and said, “You
must have had too much to eat!” Mother whispered
under her breath: “God willing it may be all right. It is
all because of these horrible disgusting films you watch.”
Father stared at her face for a few moments. He raised
his shaggy eyebrows and didn’t say anything.
Mother said, “We are always worried to death won-
dering what you are up to.”
Nastaran knew that, since last night, Mother’s feel-
ings had been hurt. Last night was their weekly gath-
ering. Nastaran would get together with Shahla andMitra and a few others and watch a film. This was the
moment when the Kenyan mothers, after nine months
of hunger strike, had torn their clothes and displayed
their bare breasts to the camera. Mother, shocked and
astounded, looked at the women’s hanging breasts with
her eyes almost coming out of their sockets. As she
started to say something, the girls, all together, started
to cry. Mother’s grumbling and the girls’ sobbing min-
gled, and nobody understood what mother had been
muttering under her breath.
Nastaran cleared the table and sat close to the televi-
sion. She was looking at the two sides of the stadium
that were completely occupied. The sound of horns, the
shouts of the spectators, the shouting of slogans, and the
singing of chants echoed all over the stadium.38 W LT SUMMER 2019