The Teacher of Nomad Land

Set in Iran during World War II, the story follows thirteen-year-old Babak Noori and his eight-year-old sister Sana after they become orphans in a country under Allied occupation.

In 1941, British and Soviet forces occupy Iran, seizing oil fields and the Persian Corridor rail network. British soldiers mistake goatherds for resistance fighters and fire on a mountainside, killing the children's father, Mohammad Noori, a schoolteacher who taught the Bakhtiari nomadic tribes to read. A tribesman called Traveler brings the news and a headstone. Babak carves the Farsi word for "Father" onto the stone, and the siblings place it against their mother's grave. Their mother died giving birth to Sana. Walking home, Babak promises his sister they will never be separated.

The next day, Auntie Joon, a brisk relative, splits them up, sending Babak to work unpaid for Mr. Turani, a grocer on their mother's side, and taking Sana to live with Granny, another relative. Babak straps Baba's portable blackboard to his back and fills a satchel with schoolbooks, chalk, and pencils, also pocketing Baba's watch and their mother's ring. For a year he runs errands through Isfahan, detouring past Sana's school to make her laugh through the window, while secretly saving tips in a hidden canister. Each time he visits Sana, she asks when they can leave. During this period, thousands of Polish and Jewish refugees arrive in Iran, with Polish children settled in Isfahan and Jewish children sent to Tehran. After a year, Babak discovers Mrs. Turani has found his canister and spent every coin.

That night he leaves with his blackboard and bedroll. Sana appears at Granny's window instantly, revealing she never unpacked. At dawn they reach the Bakhtiari summer settlement outside Isfahan, and Sana insists they can offer the blackboard and teach.

They find Traveler packing for a two-week migration southwest over the Zagros Mountains to warmer pastures near the city of Ahvaz. Sana asks to join in Bakhtiari, the tribal language she and Babak also speak. Mr. Hussein, the tribe's stern patriarch, orders them expelled, but his wife, known as The Lady, overrides him, saying the children will need literacy and English. Mr. Hussein agrees on one condition: Babak must teach all the children the alphabet and their names before the journey ends. When Babak sets up the blackboard, the nomad children ignore him. He draws a comically bad sheep, which draws them over, and uses their laughter to introduce the first Farsi letters and the sentence Baba ab dad, meaning "Father gave water." Only one small girl stays afterward to practice, giving Babak a sliver of triumph.

It is not enough. Mr. Hussein decides wartime pressures make two extra mouths unjustifiable. Traveler gives Babak food, a map, and directions back to Isfahan, promising Sana he will return. Sana comforts Babak: He kept his one true promise. They are together.

Lost in the mountains, they rest under a zalzalak tree, a type of hawthorn, where a tall, knife-wielding stranger surprises them. The man, Vulf, speaks broken Farsi and is hunting a short, bald, limping boy. Sana takes control by feeding him an elaborate meal until he is gorged. Using the blackboard, Babak draws national symbols; Vulf taps the swastika, then carves a Star of David above a sketch of the boy, revealing he is a Nazi agent hunting a Jewish child. Vulf falls asleep, and the siblings slip away in the dark.

After walking all night, they wake near a British-controlled oil refinery. Babak approaches a soldier named Callum Hargis at the gate. Babak draws a water canteen on the blackboard and says ab; Callum responds with "water," establishing their wordless method of exchange. Callum gives them oat cakes and a bouillon cube. Returning the next morning, they spend hours trading words and writing their alphabets side by side. Callum provides a full ration pack before being called away.

Hiking toward Ahvaz, Babak hears footsteps and prepares to ambush Vulf, but he and Sana instead find a scrawny, terrified boy. Sana hurls a stone that knocks him into a stream. The boy, Ben Poznanski, speaks broken Farsi, is around thirteen but looks ten, and has a shaved head and a limp. When he spots the Star of David on the blackboard, Sana deduces he is Jewish, and Babak realizes Ben matches the description of the boy Vulf is hunting.

Ben recounts his history. His family owned a print shop in Poland. In 1939, the Nazis seized everything and forced the family onto trains, first to Soviet territory, then to a freezing work camp where his baby sister and both parents died. Ben and his older brother Joseph buried their parents together. Separated from Joseph when the Soviets sent only children to a refugee camp, Ben concealed his Jewish identity under the Polish name Benoni and was settled with the Christian Polish children in Isfahan. He grabbed a gold coin left at a cafe by a stranger, hoping to buy a train ticket to find Joseph. The stranger turned out to be Vulf. Learning that Jewish children from Tehran were being sent to Ahvaz to board a ship for Eretz Yisrael, the Hebrew name for the Land of Israel, Ben fled on foot, believing Joseph would head there too.

Ben is a difficult companion who demands more than his share and refuses to help, but bonds form. One evening he teaches Babak the Hebrew alphabet, writing the word abba and explaining his father said it means one who gives of himself. That night, Sana secretly saves pistachios for Ben.

On the road to Ahvaz, they find the nomad caravan trapped at a military checkpoint where no one shares a common language. Babak organizes a translation chain: He converts Mr. Hussein's Bakhtiari into Farsi for Ben, who speaks Polish to a soldier, who speaks English to Callum, who speaks French to a bilingual Russian guard, who relays the message to the Soviet commissar. Using the blackboard as a negotiation grid, Babak brokers a livestock payment for passage. Agreement is reached, and Traveler invites Babak and Sana to join the tribe.

But Babak sees Ben standing alone and tells him they will go with him, understanding this as a teacher's duty: to give of himself. Sana is upset but refuses to be separated from Babak again. Babak leaves Baba's books and blackboard with Traveler, who says they will be lucky to have a teacher. A British convoy passes and Callum offers a ride, but they wave him on, knowing Ben would never board a military vehicle.

In Ahvaz, Vulf ambushes Babak, cutting his shoulder, then chases Ben to the train station. Sana runs to find Callum. Vulf catches Ben at the ticket counter, slams his face into the glass, and takes his gold coin, but Callum arrives with soldiers and arrests Vulf at gunpoint. When the ticket agent refuses the foreign coin, Sana drops their mother's ring onto the tray. Callum bites the coin open, revealing a microfilm canister, the intelligence Vulf was actually pursuing. Callum returns the ring, buys Ben a ticket with his own money, and gives him extra. Ben boards the train despite his terror, holding onto a reframing Babak offers: This train is taking him to family, while the other trains took him away.

Babak and Sana watch the train depart. Sana reveals Callum gave her money for lemon ice and skips toward the vendor. After that, they will head home to the nomad winter grounds. The story closes with the declaration that Babak is a teacher, one who gives, Sana is a kid sister, and everybody has good work to do.