Excerpt from Moon Brow by Sara Khalili, Shahriar Mandanipour, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"How could it be that I never had a photo album? There is nothing in my room. You have left nothing of me in there."

"I had nothing to do with it. Maybe you knew you were not coming back for many years and you hid your photos somewhere before you left."

"Back then, was there a girl I was with?"

Reyhaneh snickers.

«I don't like her when she laughs like this.»

"Tell me! I remember bits and pieces. Damn it! A lousy mortar shell explodes and plenty of people and memories that were really important fly away, as if they never existed. I lose my arm and it's as if I never had it. …"

"Hey! I am going to say this just so you don't take me for a fool. Half the time, I doubt you've really lost your memory. It's just a hoax."

"The minute I start trying to remember, the memories disappear. One way or another, I have to find this girl."

"She is a girl in a dream. You have to sleep to find her."

"Was there a girl who was special to me?"

"There were a few."

"Not just anyone, I mean someone I was with for a long time. Like some sort of love."

"No. You mucked up whatever love there was."

"How? What did I do?"

"Nothing! You just fell in love."

"All you do is tease me."

"No, I swear. You were having a blast. Handsome, with plenty of money in your pocket and an Alfa Romeo under your feet. Any girl you picked leaped into your arms."

"Did I tell you I was having a great time? Did you ever hear me say that?"

"I don't know. Even if you didn't say it, it was obvious. If you weren't having fun, you wouldn't have been so into it."

"Into what?"

"Playing the field, partying, hanging out, going to the seaside, to the beachfront villas of rich kids like yourself. You have no idea how much I wanted to go with you. You jerk! Do you know I have never even seen the sea? While I was a headscarf-shrouded prisoner in this house, you were all over the place. God knows how many girls you tossed away like used tissues."

«I don't want her to talk to me like this—angry, spiteful, or sad. … The gurgling in the gutters sounds just like it did at the nuthouse, just as it does in a water pipe.»

"Something bothers you whenever I talk about the past. At least tell me, what the hell did I do that upsets you so much?"

"Nothing. You didn't do a damn thing."

"Don't be sarcastic. Granted, the waves from the explosions emptied my head and the nuthouse muddled it up even more, but I'm not an idiot. I was listening at your door. You were crying."

"What makes you so sure I was crying for myself? Perhaps I was crying for my brother."

Reyhaneh tries not to glance at the empty sleeve of the clumsily buttoned shirt. But Amir notices.

"There was a guy in the nuthouse who was missing his right arm. He said that after his arm was severed, he was forced to eat it out of hunger. For days, they were trapped under fire by the Germans."

"The Iraqis!"

"Whoever! He used to say that it tasted better than chicken wings. I've forgotten the guy's name. … Every morning, we would tie the ends of our sleeves together and walk around shoulder to shoulder. The other shell-shock victims walked around, too. Out in the yard or in the corridors. And whenever this guy and I came across one of the burly two-armed nurses, we would separate and our sleeves would catch him on the chest or neck. Then we would circle around and snare the loony-hunting nurse."

He chuckles. Reyhaneh does not.

"We were forced to pray, so we would do our ablutions together. He would wash my hand; I would wash his. He knew the rituals of praying. If the nurses untied our sleeves, we would tie them together again. This way, he would be saying the prayers for me, too. If I was daydreaming when he genuflected, my sleeve would get yanked and I would know I had to kneel and touch my forehead to the floor. …"

Excerpted from Moon Brow by Shahriar Mandanipour. Copyright © 2018 by Shahriar Mandanipour. Excerpted by permission of Restless Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.