Khorsandi - A Beginners Guide to Acting English

CONTENTS

About the Book

Its 1977 and life in Iran is becoming unpredictable. The Shah will be overthrown and events are about to take place on the world stage. But for five-year-old Shappi Khorsandi all this means is that she must flee, leaving behind a mad extended Iran clan and everything she has ever known.

Shappi and her beloved brother Peyvand arrive with their parents in London all cold weather and strange food without a word of English. If adapting to a new culture isnt troubling enough, it soon becomes clear that the Ayatollahs henchmen are in pursuit. With the help of MI5, Shappis family go into hiding. So apart from checking under the family car for bombs every morning, Shappis childhood is like any other kids swings in the park, school plays, kiss-chase and terrorists.

About the Author

Shappi Khorsandi was born in 1973 in Tehran and moved to London with her family in 1976. They were exiled after the revolution of 1979. She studied Drama, Theatre and Television at King Alfreds College (now Winchester University). After graduating, she had several jobs in London, she worked in community theatre, she was a telephone fundraiser and had a job at a well-known sandwich shop chain where she was promoted to chief BLT-maker. Her most enduring job before stand-up comedy was life-modelling. She posed all over London and supported herself as a fledgling stand-up comedian. She has now been a stand-up for over ten years and has performed all over the world, including sell-out runs of her solo show at the Edinburgh Festival and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. She has appeared on countless radio and television programmes, including Just a Minute, The News Quiz, The Now Show, Mock the Week, Live at the Apollo, Question Time and Newsnight Review and The Secret Policemans Ball.

She lives in West London with her son.

For my beloved C. Charlie Valentine

and
in memory of Madar Jaan

PROLOGUE: NEW ARRIVALS

I held tightly on to Peyvands hand as the blonde-haired girl stood in front of us and stared. Her finger was firmly up her nose. She had a good rummage, then she took it out and put it into her mouth, picking whatever she had found off with her teeth. Then, she lifted up her skirt, showed us her knickers and ran off to play in the sandpit. Peyvand and I didnt speak a word to anyone. What could we say? Nobody understood us here. They all spoke Englisee. I looked away when they spoke to me, or else buried my head in Peyvands shoulder.

The smell of the place was sharp and unfriendly, like some kind of stew that was made days ago but wouldnt go away. One of the teachers came over to Peyvand and me and spoke more gobbledegook. Peyvand mustve understood a little. He was a whole year and a bit older than me so he understood more things. Cmon, he said, weve got to go and sit at the table.

I didnt want to. I wanted to stay huddled on the bench in the corner of the big room and smell my brothers jumper. I tried to get his smell up my nose to drive the other smells out. The teacher was pulling at my arm that was holding Peyvands. If I didnt get up, shed detach me. I clung on to my brother, who found us two seats next to each other at the table. A bowl of tomato soup was put in front of me with a plastic spoon next to it. I was expected to eat the source of this terrible smell. The blonde girl sat opposite us, bent her head down to the bowl and slurped the soup. I began to cry. Peyvand gently patted my hand.

He began to eat the soup. I couldnt eat the soup; Peyvand could. I knew he didnt like it, but he could eat anything. When we went for chelo kebab, I melted butter in my rice to moisten it but Peyvand always had a raw egg yolk like Baba, and would mix it in his rice, just like our dad. Baba would slap him on the back. Afareen, pesaram! Well done, my boy!

Baba did not believe children should be fussy about food, but he would understand about the soup. English food is amazing, he often said. I once had steak and kidney pudding. It takes great effort to make something taste that bad.

I stared down into my bowl. A skin had formed on top of it.

I thought of the time Baba made me try raw egg yolk in my rice and I ran to the bathroom and threw up in the hallway. Id rather eat raw egg and rice than this. A teacher leant over me. She smelled of coffee and dust. I didnt know what she was saying but it was obvious she wasnt happy Id not touched my soup. Everyone else had finished and was playing again. The blonde girl was charging round the room and shouting.

I tried to get down from the table. The teacher grabbed me by the underarms and plonked me back in my seat. She sounded stern and she wasnt smiling. She was pointing at my bowl then wagging her finger at me. She wasnt going to let me leave the table without eating it. I pursed my lips in case she tried to force it in my mouth. Peyvand pulled my bowl towards him. He was going to help me eat it, but the teacher wouldnt allow it. She pulled the bowl back in front of me. She raised her voice a little and kept pointing. My throat ached with a sob that I was trying to keep down inside me. I couldnt look at the teacher. I stared down at the table, fat tears blurring my vision before one plopped down into my soup with a tiny splash.

Suddenly the teachers hand was under my chin; she gripped hard and yanked my head up. I looked up in terror. She had the spoon in her hand. The spoon was full of the putrid cold liquid. Could she force me to eat it? She brought it down towards my mouth. I felt the plastic against my lips. There was nothing for it; I lashed out, knocking it out of her hand. The spoon flew up, its contents spraying over the table and crashing to the floor. The teacher really shouted now. She grabbed my hand, held it out and smacked it hard. I howled properly. My cries were so loud that even the blonde girl stopped her shouting to turn around and look. Another teacher came to the table and the two women stood tutting and shaking their heads. I couldnt understand their words, but I knew they were saying what a terrible little girl I was.

They left Peyvand to help me down from the table. He put his arm around my shoulders and led me back to our bench. He found me some Lego and although my hand stung and I hiccupped for the rest of the afternoon, I eventually stopped crying and helped Peyvand build a tower.

I dont know what they do to them in that place, but they hate it.

We were sitting at the dinner table in our Kensington flat. Peyvand and I had left the nursery hours ago but the stink of boiled tomato soup lingered in my nostrils.

The knot in my stomach had eased once we had gone out of the gates. It was dark outside now and after just one sleep Id have to go there again, and the knot would come back.

The soup incident was the last straw for Maman. She had picked us up in a black cab as usual and, as usual, was met by two children so relieved to see her that she shuffled back into the waiting cab with each clinging to a leg. The face of her little girl was streaked with dried tears and snot and both her children attacked the apples she had brought them for the journey home like starving chimps.

Every time I pick them up one of them is crying.

Maman heaped a ladleful of mint and cucumber yoghurt on my fluffy saffron rice. We did not have tinned soup at our house.

I have to practically drag them out of the taxi in the mornings to get them to go into nursery.