“Don’t think about them, my dear one.” Sharazad stifled a yawn. “Leftists are all mad, claiming to be Muslim and at the same time Marxist. They’re anti-God and therefore cursed. The villagers? Villagers are uneducated as you know too well, and most of them simple. Don’t worry - that’s past, now everything is going to be better, you’ll see.”
“I hope, oh, how I hope you’re right. I don’t want it better but just as it was, normal, like it’s always been, normal again.”
“Oh, it will be.” Sharazad felt so contented, the water so silky and so warm and womblike. Ah, she thought, only three more days to be sure and then Tommy tells Father that oh, yes, of course he wants sons and daughters, and then, the next day, the great day, I should know for certain though I’m certain now. Haven’t I always been so regular? Then I can give Tommy my gift of God and he’ll be so proud. “The Imam does the Work of God. How can it be otherwise than good?”
“I don’t know, Sharazad, but never in our history have mullahs been worthy of trust - just parasites on the back of the villagers.”
“Ah, but now it’s different,” Sharazad told her, not really wanting to discuss such serious matters. “Now we have a real leader. Now he’s in control of Iran for the first time ever. Isn’t he the most pious of men, the most learned of Islam and the law? Doesn’t he do God’s work? Hasn’t he achieved the impossible, throwing out the Shah and his nasty corruption, stopping the generals from making a coup with the Americans? Father says we’re safer now than we’ve ever been.”
“Are we?” Azadeh remembered Rakoczy in the chopper and what he had said about Khomeini and stepping backward in history, and she knew he had spoken the truth, a lot of truth, and she had clawed at him, hating him, wanting him dead, for of course he was one of those who would use the simpleminded mullahs to enslave everyone else. “You want to be ruled by Islamic laws of the Prophet’s time, almost fifteen hundred years ago - enforced chador, the loss of our hard-won rights of voting, working, and being equal?”
“I don’t want to vote, or work, or be equal - how can a woman equal a man? I just want to be a good wife to Tommy, and in Iran I prefer the chador on the streets.” Delicately Sharazad covered another yawn, drowsed by the warmth. “Insha”Allah, Azadeh, darling. Of course everything will be as before but Father says more wonderful because now we possess ourselves, our land, our oil, and everything in our land. There’ll be no nasty foreign generals or politicians to disgrace us and with the evil Shah gone, we’ll all live happily ever after, you with your Erikki, me with my Tommy, and lots and lots of children. How else could it be? God is with the Imam and the Imam is with us! We’re so lucky.” She smiled at her and put her arm around her friend’s legs affectionately. “I’m so glad you’re staying with me, Azadeh. It seems such a long time since you were in Tehran.”
“Yes.” They had been friends for many years. First in Switzerland where they had met at school, up in the High Country, though Sharazad had only stayed one term, unhappy to be away from her family and Iran, then later at the university in Tehran. And now, for a little over a year, because both had married foreigners in the same company, they had become even closer, closer than sisters, helping each other adapt to foreign idiosyncrasies: “Sometimes I just don’t understand my Tommy at all, Azadeh,” Sharazad had said tearfully in the beginning. “He enjoys being alone, I mean quite alone, just him and me, the house empty, not even one servant - he even told me he likes to be alone by himself, just reading, no family around or children, no conversation or friends. Oh, sometimes it’s just awful.”
“Erikki’s just the same,” Azadeh had said. “Foreigners aren’t like us - they’re very strange. I want to spend days with friends and children and family, but Erikki doesn’t. It’s good that Erikki and Tommy work during the days - you’re luckier, Tommy’s off for two weeks at a time when you can be normal. Another thing, you know, Sharazad, it took me months to get used to sleeping in a bed an - ”
“I never could! Oh, so high off the floor, so easy to fall off, always a huge dip on his side, so you’re always uncomfortable and you wake up with an ache in your back. A bed’s so awful compared with soft quilts on beautiful carpets on the floor, so comfortable and civilized.”
“Yes. But Erikki won’t use quilts and carpets? he insists on a bed. He just won’t try it anymore - sometimes it’s such a relief when he’s away.” “Oh, we sleep correctly now, Azadeh. I stopped the nonsense of a Western bed after the first month.”
“How did you do it?”
“Oh, I’d sigh all night long and keep my poor darling awake - then I’d sleep during the day to be fresh again to sigh all night long.” Sharazad had laughed delightedly. “Seven nights and my darling collapsed, slept like a baby for the next three nights correctly, and now he always sleeps like a civilized person should - he even does so when he’s at Zagros! Why don’t you try it? I guarantee you’ll be successful, darling, particularly if you also complain just a tiny bit that the bed has caused a backache and of course you would still adore to make love but please be a little careful.”
Azadeh had laughed. “My Erikki’s cleverer than your Tommy - when Erikki tried the quilts on our carpet he sighed all night and turned and turned and kept me awake - I was so exhausted after three nights I quite liked the bed. When I visit my family I sleep civilized, though when Erikki’s at the palace we use a bed. You know, darling, another problem: I love my Erikki but sometimes he’s so rude I almost die. He keeps saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ when I ask him something - how can you have a conversation after yes or no?”
She smiled to herself now. Yes, it’s very difficult living with him, but living without him now is unthinkable - all his love and good humor and size and strength and always doing what I want but only just a little too easily, so I have little chance to sharpen my wiles. “We’re both very lucky, Sharazad, aren’t we?”
“Oh, yes, darling. Can you stay for a week or two - even if Erikki has to go back, you stay, please?”
“I’d like to. When Erikki gets back… perhaps I’ll ask him.” Sharazad shifted in the bath, moving the bubbles over her breasts, blowing them off her hands. “Mac said they’d come here from the airport if they were delayed. Genny’s coming straight from the apartment but not before nine - I also asked Paula to join us, the Italian girl, but not for Nogger, for Charlie.” She chuckled. “Charlie almost swoons when she just looks at him!” “Charlie Pettikin? Oh, but that’s wonderful. Oh, that’s very good. Then we should help him - we owe him so much! Let’s help him snare the sexy Italian!”
“Wonderful! Let’s plan how to give Paula to him.”
“As a mistress or wife?”
“Mistress. Well… let me think! How old is she? She must be at least twenty-seven. Do you think she’d make him a good wife? He should have a wife. All the girls Tommy and I have shown him discreetly, he just smiles and shrugs - I even brought my third cousin who was fifteen, thinking that would tempt him, but nothing. Oh, good, now we have something to plan. We’ve plenty of time to plan and dress and get ready - and I’ve some lovely dresses for you to choose from.”
“It feels so strange, Sharazad, not to have anything - anything. Money, papers…” For an instant Azadeh was back in the Range Rover near the roadblock, and there before her was the fat-faced mujhadin who had stolen their papers, his machine gun blazing as Erikki rammed him against the other car, crushing him like a cockroach, blood and filth squeezed from his mouth. “Having nothing,” she said, forcing the bad away, “not even a lipstick.” “Never mind, I’ve lots of everything. And Tommy‘11 be so pleased to have you and Erikki here. He doesn’t like me to be alone either. Poor darling, don’t worry. You’re safe now.”