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Your name is Ester. You are a 15 year-old girl living in Tehran, the capital of Iran. The year is 1978. You are at your friend's house, sipping tea and eating a delicious dinner of kabab koobideh and rice, listening to the hit song Dou Panjereh by the singer Googoosh. chatting about your favorite soccer team and that history teacher who just gives you too much work.
A news report flashes across the television screen, praising a speech of the Iranian monarch, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. "The Shah," she says quietly and possibly sarcastically. "The king of kings." Your friend Mehri looks sad. Really sad.
"What's wrong?" you ask.
"My uncle Hossein is gone," she says, looking down. "We don't know where he is."
"What do you mean?" you reply.
"It was never like this when he was in charge," Mehri mutters. "It is too bad that he didn't last."
"Who are you talking about?"
"Didn't your parents tell you about him? My parents told me that your parents were his advisors in the 50's, Ester. They never told you about him?"
You shake your head and rush home. When you get there, your family is downstairs, eating. You head up to the attic and rip open a box that you know has family remembrances. You find a photo of your mom and some friends when they were in college, a photo of Vali Ahd Square that your parents took on a helicopter trip, your parents strolling on Queen Elizabeth Boulevard, and your parents and other college friends sitting outside.
They were so young! You shuffle through it and encounter a newspaper clipping. It is from 1952. Twenty years ago.
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