He left the bathroom and paced around the hotel room. He pulled the drapes back a bit and stared out at the quiet streets of Tehran. He wondered what Marseille was doing at that moment, what she was thinking. Was she upset that he had never responded? Was she angry with him? He hoped not. He wished he could call her right then. She’d had enough heartache in her life. He didn’t want to be the cause of any more.
He thought back to the note she’d sent him and reread a particular line in his mind’s eye.
I wondered if you might like to get a cup of coffee together, or something… It’s been a long time… and there are things to say.
He wondered what she meant by “there are things to say.” It was an interesting turn of phrase-old-fashioned, almost. She was right, of course, but it didn’t sound like a person casually suggesting coffee simply to catch up on old times. She had specific things to tell him or ask him. But what? As he thought about it further, he realized she hadn’t just used the phrase once. She had actually used it twice-or at least a variation of it.
If you can’t get together, or if you don’t want to, I’ll certainly understand. And I’m sorry for rambling on like this. I didn’t mean to. I just meant to say… it would be good to catch up and tell you things I should have said earlier, if you’re okay with that.
So she didn’t have questions for him. At least, that’s not what she was signaling. She had things on her heart she wanted-needed-to say directly to him, in person, not on paper. Why would he not be “okay with that”?
Was she talking about why she’d never written back to him? Maybe there was more to why she and her father had moved to Portland. Or was it something to do with religion? She had told him that her friend’s wedding was going to be held at an “awesome” church. She had even invited him to go with her to the church while she was in town, even though she must know he was an avowed agnostic. Maybe she thought he had changed. It sounded like she had. Was that what this was all about?
Trying to clear his head, David turned on the television and started flipping through the channels. State-run news. Football (soccer). More state-run news. More football. Some cleric teaching from the Qur’an. Some lame black-and-white movie from the 1950s. It was all mind-numbingly boring. He turned off the set and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling fan whirring above him.
He let his mind drift back to the little A-frame in Canada. All these years later, he could still feel her lips on his, the warmth of her body against his own. She’d been so nervous and yet so trusting, and she had held him so tightly. And what had she asked him? Whether he believed in God. Whether he believed in Jesus. Whether he thought God was real and loving and answered prayer. He hadn’t known what to say back then. And it depressed him to think he still didn’t. He had no answers, and given the risks he was taking-and the very real and growing possibility that he could be captured and killed for being an American spy in Tehran-the thought of not knowing the truth about God and the afterlife terrified him.
If there was one thing he knew from studying the Qur’an, it was that Islam was a works-based religion. If his good works didn’t outweigh his bad works when he died, then he was damned for eternity.
He recalled reading Sura 23:102-104 in college. The text was crystal clear in his memory: “Those whose scales of good deeds are heavy, they are prosperous, while those whose scales are light, they will be those who have ruined their own selves, in hell abiding. The fire will scorch their faces, their lips being displaced and their jaws protruding.”
The problem, as David saw it, was that Islam provided no way for a Muslim to assess how he or she was doing throughout his or her life. There was no Web site to log on to and check daily scores. There were no quarterly report cards. There were no annual performance reviews. How, then, could anyone know for certain whether he would spend eternity in paradise or in punishment? How could anyone find the assurance of salvation that every thoughtful soul seeks before death?
The brutal truth was, no one could. That was what terrified David most. He had lied to almost everyone he had ever known. He had been unkind to people he loved. He had been ungrateful to people who had treated him well. He didn’t stay in touch with his parents. He didn’t stay in touch with his brothers. His professional life required that he be a liar and, more recently, a hypocrite-playing the part of a religious man but denying Islam’s truth and power. And then there were his secret sins, the ones he dared not confess. The more he cataloged his bad deeds, the worse he felt, and he had no idea where to turn.
No wonder devout Muslims took the verses in the Qur’an about waging jihad so seriously. Why shouldn’t they? To disregard the command to jihad would be to disobey, and such disobedience could tip the scales of justice against them in the final reckoning.
Which brought him to martyrdom.
The mullahs and ayatollahs taught that the only true assurance or secure promise of eternal salvation for a Muslim was to die as a martyr, often as a suicide bomber, in the cause of jihad. Osama bin Laden himself had once said, “The call to jihad in God’s name… leads to eternal life in the end and is relief from your earthly chains.”
There was no way that was true, David was certain. But what was?
50
Shahrak-e Gharb, Iran
Little Roya was turning ten years old.
And she knew exactly what she wanted. For weeks, she had been writing her parents little notes to remind them, strategically placing them in her father’s briefcase, by her mother’s sewing basket, on their napkins at dinner, or in other places where they would invariably find them, read them, and consider her request one more time. She pleaded with them not to give her candy or a doll or a book or a pretty new scarf. All she wanted was one thing, and she’d been begging for it for each of the past three years. She wanted them to take her to the Jamkaran Mosque so she could write down her prayer, drop it into the well with all the others, and make her request of the Twelfth Imam.
Growing up in a well-to-do suburb of Tehran, Roya had almost everything she wanted. Her father was a senior translator for the Foreign Ministry and occasionally traveled abroad with high-ranking Iranian officials. Her mother was a renowned botanist in the biology department at Tehran University, who, with Roya’s eager help, was cultivating the most gorgeous rose garden in their backyard. Her grandparents were successful in business. She was even distantly related to Ayatollah Hosseini and had met him twice. But while Roya was sweet and devout and brilliant in every respect, she had also been mute from birth. She longed to be able to talk with her parents and sing with her friends. She hated to be thought of as “special.” She wanted to be normal. Was that too much to ask?
Maybe it was.
The Jamkaran Mosque, located about six kilometers outside the holy city of Qom, was at least a three-hour car ride each way, not counting however much time they might spend there in prayer. Taking a day off from work would be an enormous imposition on her parents. But Roya simply couldn’t help it. She’d seen on TV a news story about the well, and it had completely captured her imagination. One man interviewed said, “If you ask in the right way, your prayers will be answered.” Another said, “I don’t come here just to pray for myself. I also ask the Mahdi to take care of my family and their needs.”
Roya was particularly struck by an interview with a little boy who had brought his flashlight, convinced that the Twelfth Imam was hiding at the bottom of the well reading all the prayer requests people were dropping down there. “I was looking into the well with my flashlight, hoping to see the Mahdi,” the boy had said. “But not tonight.”