Each person on a chair, each chair a country. Maja doesn’t have braces any more and since she had them removed you might almost take her for an adult. She looks at me and says, I did not have sexual relations with that woman and her large white teeth flash – she is the United States of America and everyone laughs. The teacher laughs too, says, Alright everyone, settle down. She is thin and smells of university. Maja needs to talk about Bill Clinton’s policies, she says, not his personal life. I don’t laugh. I look at Maja and think, of course she chose the USA, I would have too, only no one asked me, because everyone said Laleh should be Iran; everyone thinks that’s logical. We are sitting spaced around this gym hall, ordered not geographically but by interests, which is the same thing, the teacher says. Israel is sitting opposite me. Israel’s name is Patrick, but everyone calls him Paddy, though no one listens to the Kelly Family any more. And the presenter’s yellow card says 7, and it’s 7’s turn to speak and I look at Paddy and say, We don’t accept the existence of Israel, because that is what’s on my card, but I say it quietly, because it doesn’t sound good. And when Maja puffs herself up and shows her red veto card, I say, But now we’ve got a new president, we’re more reformist. That isn’t on my card, but it’s how Papa explained it to the neighbours recently and I think, if I say something clever-sounding right at the start, then people might not notice if I don’t speak again after that. Paddy looks at me like he’s wondering if he should care that I’m denying his right to exist and I think Paddy must be rummaging around in his brain for what reformist means. Paddy says, Hmm, but they’re not dangerous, are they? Right? I mean, the countries down there aren’t rich enough to have really dangerous weapons? And there’s a moment’s silence, before France speaks up. France is called David and he says state and religion need to be separated and beside me Syria puts a hand up and says, But that doesn’t apply to Israel?!, and then I stop listening. I think I really don’t care. I still don’t get what the thing is about Israel. A soup of information, of suicide bombings, of old men, of attacks, of news items, for about the last hundred years, at least. A soup of the same words over and over on the eight o’clock news, before we can turn over to watch films on the other channels. Maja keeps her eye on me, as if I understand very well what Syria has just said.

David turns to me. When David speaks, it’s slow and gentle and so clever that it almost tips back into being boring. I don’t trust myself to look at him, because when I do all I can think about is what he looks like when he’s kissing and I’m watching him. And hoping he doesn’t notice. Marie, who has lucked out and is an international group of observers rather than a country, is wrapping a strand of blonde hair around her finger and giving me a conspiratorial smile as David talks. David is delivering a monologue, and I don’t understand any of it, but I nod, nod eagerly in his direction, because I know that what he’s saying has something to do with me. David is saying, Even a fanatical state in the Middle East is a product of imperialist power struggles in foreign territories. I nod. The teacher gives me the speaking card. I’m supposed to respond to France. And she points out that David has just been speaking as David and should actually be speaking as France and David says that makes him sick and it’s democratic idiocy and the teacher says, Alright Laleh, do respond to what David’s said, but speak as Iran. And I think, crap. What David said sounded so good. But what is there to add? Victim. I’m a victim. Iran is a victim. We’re the victim of America, I say quickly. Can you be more specific? the teacher asks, pen in hand, writing it all down on the thing she refers to in English as a flip chart. In my whole school career, the whole of the last decade, I’ve never had a lesson that involves coloured cards and marker pens and flip charts, and the only reason we’re doing it now is because this is a little show we’re putting on for the men from the ministry, who are sitting in the back row. I say, The people are the victims in this country. The teacher is holding the pen on the spot where she wants to write next but she isn’t writing, she’s just looking at me. It’s like David said, I explain, all the other countries have their fingers in the pie. I think that’s always true. If you’re not talking about, like, a world power. The teacher lowers her pen, turns to the class, looks at me for a while and then says, Are you talking as Laleh now, or as the Islamic Republic of Iran? I don’t say anything, because the Western states sitting opposite me are holding their cards up. And then I take the card from my lap and read out, For a long time, under the monarchy of the shah, the country was an important exporter of oil to the USA and Great Britain and enjoyed great wealth. Since the revolution of 1979, the country that used to be known as Persia has been a religious state with restrictive laws. And as I’m reading, I hear the teacher’s pen eagerly writing this down and I wonder whether anyone has noticed that really, I’m completely clueless. That really, I just learn what I’ve copied off the board in history lessons. That I don’t actually follow the news, although it’s constantly on at home. All I know is that when I was little, we were supposed to be going on holiday, but then suddenly we were here and it was just the four of us, and my brother got proper milk instead of powdered, and scented Nivea cream, and my mother made cakes for us in a pan and the children in the hostel called themselves and me and everyone else Kanaken. I know Iran consists of chicks and blue doors, of people and smells and a backyard with a barefoot grandfather in it. And lately of three plane tickets, pinned to the kitchen board, ordinary bits of paper with ordinary words on them. –