Tehran, November 1943. A voiced scene, about eight minutes. Written to be heard, not read. Headphones if you can.
THE CHESTNUT GIRL Tehran, November 1943 FADE IN: EXT. BAZAAR DISTRICT — SIDE STREET — DUSK The shutters come down one by one, and the city goes dark on schedule. Coal smoke. Wet wool. Under both, chestnuts, roasting. PARVANEH, fourteen, works a tin brazier on the corner. She wears a man's coat, sleeves rolled twice to the elbow. Her hands turn the chestnuts bare, quick, so they don't burn. A WOMAN passes and doesn't look. PARVANEH (in Farsi) Hot. Peeled. Two rials. The woman keeps walking. Parvaneh turns another chestnut. The callus on the side of her thumb is older than she is. EXT. THE SAME CORNER — DUSK — ONE WEEK EARLIER HOSSEIN, her father, sits on an upturned crate beside the same brazier. A blanket over his knees. A cigarette he isn't smoking burns down between two fingers. He coughs. It goes on a while. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looks at it, folds the hand away. HOSSEIN Don't hold the tray so high. You look like you're begging. Hold it at your chest. Like it's something they want. She lifts the tray. Lowers it. He nods. HOSSEIN (CONT'D) There. Now you're a merchant. She almost smiles. He doesn't, because smiling costs him breath. PRESENT — EXT. THE CORNER — CONTINUOUS Parvaneh stands exactly the way he taught her. Tray at her chest. A merchant. EXT. BREAD LINE — A CROSSING — MORNING A queue outside a bakery bolted shut. Women in chadors, a clerk, a soldier at the far end doing nothing. At the head of the line, a MAN argues with the bolt, not with anyone. The line absorbs it. Nobody leaves. Parvaneh passes with the cold tray on her head, balanced on a rag. A small BOY tugs her sleeve. BOY Any left? PARVANEH Tonight. BOY Promise? She doesn't answer that. She walks on. EXT. THE CORNER — AFTERNOON Same corner, flat grey light. Across the wall, DAVOOD, old, blind, sells shoelaces from a board on his knees. He has sold on this wall since before Parvaneh was born. He hears her tray and turns his face to it. DAVOOD The English came in through the south. You know what they brought? PARVANEH Money. DAVOOD Money, yes. And no bread. A man can eat money now. You try it. See how far you get. He laughs at his own joke and it turns into a cough, and he waves the cough off with one hand, like shooing a fly. DAVOOD (CONT'D) Your father stood there too long. Tell me you don't stand there too long. PARVANEH Tonight only. DAVOOD They all say that. The wall keeps the ones who say that. He goes back to his laces. She goes back to her tray. INT. PARVANEH'S HOME — A ROOM OFF A COURTYARD — EVENING Bare walls. A samovar. A pallet. On the wall, a photograph of a man, and next to it a woman, MOTHER, alive and thin, folding nothing over and over, a piece of cloth worn to air. MOTHER (O.S.) Did you eat. PARVANEH Later. MOTHER You say later since you were nine. Parvaneh sets down two chestnuts on the table, side by side, like an offering. Her mother looks at them. Looks away. Keeps folding. MOTHER (CONT'D) How much, tonight. PARVANEH Some. MOTHER Some. She folds the cloth again. It is already folded. MOTHER (CONT'D) Your father used to say the same word. Some. Then he was gone in the winter and the some was not enough for the coal and I do not blame him, I am only saying the word. Parvaneh doesn't answer. The samovar ticks as it cools. INT. THE SAME ROOM — NIGHT — THE PHOTOGRAPH Parvaneh lies awake. Above her, the man in the photograph. She does not remember his voice, only the shape of his coat, which is now on her back. EXT. BAZAAR MOUTH — DAWN The bazaar opens like a mouth. Cages, stacked. ALI, fifteen, carries two birdcages at a time on a pole across his shoulders, canaries hopping, dust turning in the light. He sets the pole down at her corner to breathe. She pulls two chestnuts from the tray and puts them in his palm without asking. ALI I didn't pay. PARVANEH You're going to die carrying those. ALI Then somebody else carries them. He eats one. Burns his tongue. Doesn't admit it. She watches him not admit it. He should go. He doesn't. ALI (CONT'D) There's a wire. On the roof of the hotel by the square. They string little flags on it. Red and blue. PARVANEH So. ALI So I saw it. I thought you'd want to know a thing that I saw. He picks up the pole. Goes. She watches him longer than she means to. EXT. THE SQUARE — THE HOTEL — DAY A long wire across the roof, paper flags strung like laundry, red and blue, flicking. Parvaneh stands under it a moment. She came because he told her. She doesn't know why she came. EXT. THE CORNER — NIGHT Blackout. The city buttoned up dark. The chestnuts still smell. A JEEP idles at the mouth of the street. Headlights off. Two soldiers in it, foreign, big, laughing low. One climbs out. He comes toward her. He is not frightening, which is somehow worse. SOLDIER Hey. Hey, small one. She lifts the tray to her chest, the way she was taught. PARVANEH Peel. Hot. Good. Three English words. She owns them. He doesn't move. The soldier crouches to her height. Points at the chestnuts. Says a word that isn't a word, a shape of a word from a country she will never see. She shakes her head. Tries again, slower, as if he is the child. PARVANEH (CONT'D) Chess. Nut. SOLDIER Chess-nut. Then he laughs. Not at her. Near her. The way her father laughed when the samovar hissed too loud and nobody got up to fix it. For one second her face forgets itself. She laughs back, a short breath of it, before she remembers to put it away. He buys the whole tray. Coins. Too many. He does not count them. The other one calls him. He goes. The jeep pulls away, swallowed by the black street. Parvaneh stands alone with an empty tray and a pocket heavy with a stranger's money. EXT. THE CORNER — MOMENTS LATER She sits on the curb and counts the coins, moving each one with her thumb. She already knows what it buys. Flour. Coal. A week, maybe ten days. She knows it will be gone, and she will be back on this corner the night after, and the night after that. A window a floor up is lit for a breath. ALI. He raises a hand to her. Just a hand, the way you'd signal across a river. Then the window goes dark. She does not raise hers back. She looks up the street at the dark windows, as if to check that no one saw. She closes one hand around the coins. Then, foolishly, quietly, she closes the other one around nothing. EXT. A CHECKPOINT — NIGHT — LATER Sandbags. A lamp with its shade turned so the light falls only inward, and the street stays dark. A SOLDIER stands at the barrier, asleep on his feet. Not the laughing one. A different boy, in a coat a size too big, his cap slid down, his rifle pointed at the ground. His lips move in his sleep. A word in his own language, small. Then nothing. Parvaneh passes with the empty tray on her head. She stops. One pace back. The lamp hums. The boy's head dips, catches, dips. She does not wake him. She does not do anything at all. Then she is past, and it is only her street, and the long walk to a cold room, and the coins warm in her fist like something alive she is carrying home to feed.