“I think I’ll go and get a nose job!”
There was a change in tone from Khezr now, from his previous sickly-sweet, drunken and sleepy utterings. Thinking he ought to show that he was listening, Amir propped himself up and turned towards Khezr to face him. There, standing in the doorway, was his brother Mohammad-Taqi holding a mattress and quilt under his arm:
“I thought the floor might be damp, bro. I’ll take the tray up as well.”
Amir sprang awkwardly to his feet. He did not know which to do first, take the quilt and mattress, or pass his brother the tray. To his utter bafflement Khezr who, through his half-open eye must have seen Mohammad-Taqi standing there in the doorway, began to speak, in a perfectly flat, even voice:
“My father said… my father wished to be buried… in the highest part out in the country… on the highest hill outside the town… he had seen a little place and bought it.”
“Er… yes… er… God rest his s…”
“Brother!” Mohammad-Taqi’s shout drew Amir up sharp and made up his mind to take the mattress first and then pass over the tray. His brother had already spread out the bedding on the mat and was waiting with arms outstretched to take the tray. This helped him. Like a sleep-walker, he picked up the tray of dirty plates and handed it to his brother. “I’ll get you some water.”
“My father wanted to be buried in the open air, he wanted a cool breeze coming down the mountain to blow over him. You know, he believed that fresh air was good for the soul… I don’t know why I’m thinking about your father’s death, the colonel’s death… damn it!”
“Mr Javid, would you like me to make you up some lemonade?”
“I’m going for a nose job… And, when I get back, you will see that this lumpy monstrosity on my face will have gone… My father was always saying that a man needs fresh air for the good of his soul… Damn you… Damn all of you!
Damn you all, you useless bunch! Couldn’t you have blown him sky high? Didn’t you have even a Kalashnikov or an RPG-7?39 Did none of you have any balls between your legs? Oh no, you stupid airheads went out waving silk handkerchiefs to welcome him, waiting for him to come and stick a hot poker up your arses, and forced me to submit my honourable nose to the indignity of the surgeon’s knife… and to glue a fuzz of beard onto my immaculate face, which I have been shaving religiously every morning for the last thirty years… and made me drink this revolting hooch out of an old petrol can, instead of the sublime Johnnie Walker, and wake up half-blind from it in the morning… couldn’t you, couldn’t you have just blown him out of the bloody sky?40 No, you couldn’t… Damn the lot of you! And now you want to go and start a revolution in Turkmen country, do you! I’ll kill the lot you, you whoresons!”41
“Would you like me to light you a cigarette?”
The only response was Khezr’s snoring. Amir calmed down a little and, hoping that his guest would fall into a deep sleep, he rested his head on his arm once more and stared up at the damp, bulging ceiling of the basement. But he was far from certain that Khezr would fall into a deep sleep, or even a drunken slumber. In prison, they had called Khezr ‘The Dog,’ because dogs are both awake and asleep at the same time.
From near and far came the sound of occasional shots, as if to remind Amir what a risk he was taking by sheltering Khezr Javid. It was precisely the likes of Khezr they were shooting. The odd thing was that Khezr remained completely oblivious to all the goings-on outside, or at least pretended to be. To all outward appearances, he seemed to regard everything that was taking place as completely normal and natural. Amir, however, knew that Khezr was no slouch and that this detached and carefree attitude of his, even if he had nerves of steel, could not be real. He must have been driven by some inner sense of security and self-confidence that underlay all this show of coolness. After all, he was not some unknown, nameless policeman. It was a sign of his thrusting ambition but also of his raging inferiority complex that he had once declared, ‘Did you know that I was the only one in the office not to have a cover name?’ Amir saw no reason not to believe his story about the three ex-prisoners of his, presumably revolutionaries, whom he had come across in the street. Amir knew Khezr well enough to suspect that, aside from his sheer bravado, he must have some other trump card up his sleeve. Had he not once said himself that he had been one of the organisers of the demonstration of jobless security policemen protesting outside the prime minister’s office in the Revolutionary Government? During his time in prison, Amir had come to the conclusion that SAVAK was the most solid and tightly structured of all the secret services. But did its members really believe in what they were doing? It was fair to assume that the people’s revolutionary uprising must have had some effect even on people like Khezr, and made them reflect, if only briefly, on the lives that they had led. For sure, with all the courage of his profession, Khezr was not going to admit to his own fear of the revolution. Otherwise, why was it that his incoherent mutterings when he was in his cups, whether uttered consciously or sub-consciously, all had to do with the revolution?
“Couldn’t you — or weren’t you allowed — to do anything without permission? It could have been done, I know it could have been done, because even we had had a plan to shoot Khomeini, but we weren’t allowed to do it. What about you? You had orders from on high not to do anything! Oh yes… you lot assassinate people when you are supposed not to be terrorists, and when you are supposed not to be democratic, you become democrats all of a sudden. You’re nothing but hired mercenaries, traitors to your country!”42
I was looking up at the bulging basement ceiling, with half a smile on my face and thinking how interesting this all was. Because there was no doubt that, no matter what we did, we were traitors and were to blame. The men who ran State Security held the whip hand over the country’s oil, the police, the SAM-7 anti-aircraft missiles and the army. All we needed was a nod and a wink to blast the Leader of the Revolution out of the sky and into eternity! No, it’s our fault, whatever we did or didn’t do. The worst of it is that, whatever we might or might not have done, the end result is that we are to blame, and we are traitors to our country as well.
“It’s you who claim to be carrying history forward, not me, not us!”
“But, even if we could have done it, we couldn’t have blown up someone who was supposed to be the saviour of the nation.”
“Was supposed to be, or you supposed him to be?”
Khezr was sitting up now, confused, looking at Amir. Out of respect for him, Amir was obliged to reciprocate and prop himself up on his elbow so that he could look back at him. He was expecting Khezr to lay into him with renewed vigour, but instead, he pulled the can of arack towards him, poured himself half a glass, downed it in one and settled back on two pillows without a word. This silence may have prompted Amir to ask him, out of sheer curiosity:
“What difference, just what difference would it have made to you if the revolution had turned out differently?”