“Nothing, nothing,” he said appalled, and told her how he had found her.
She stared at him blankly. “But… you say that I… I don’t remember any of that only … only being… only being beaten.” “I’m so sorry but it was the only way I could… I’m so sorry.” “Oh, I’m not, not now, my darling.” Trying to recollect she came back and carefully lay on the bed on her stomach. “But for you… As God wants but if I was as you say… strange, and I remember nothing, nothing from the time I…” Her voice broke a little, then she continued, trying to be firm, “But for you, perhaps I would have been mad forever.” She squirmed closer and kissed him. “I love you, Beloved,” she said in Farsi. “I love you, Beloved,” he told her, possessed. After a moment she said in a strange voice, ‘Tommy, I think what sent me mad… I saw Father… saw him yesterday, the day before… I can’t remember… was that he looked so small dead, so tiny, dead, with all those holes in him, in his face and head - I never remembered him so small but they had made him small, they’d taken away his…”
“Don’t,” he said, gently, seeing the tears brimming. “It’s Insha’ Allah. Don’t think about it.”
“Certainly, husband, if you say so,” she said at once, formally, in Farsi. “Of course it’s as God wants, yes, but it’s important for
me to tell you, to remove the shame from me, you finding me like this … I would like to tell you one day.”
“Then tell me now, Sharazad, and we can put it behind us forever,” he told her, equally formally. “Please tell me now.”
“It was that they had made the biggest man in the world - after you - had made him insignificant. For no reason. He was always against the Shah when he could be and a great supporter of this mullah Khomeini.” She said it calmly and he heard the word “mullah” and not Ayatollah or Imam or farmandeh and a warning rushed through him. “They murdered my father for no reason without trial and outside the law and made him small, they took away everything that he had as a man, a father, as a beloved father. As God wants, I should say and I will try. But I cannot believe it is what God wants. It may be what Khomeini wants. I don’t know. We women will soon find out.” “What? What do you mean?”
“In three days we women march in protest - all the women of Tehran.” “Against what?”
“Against Khomeini and mullahs who are against women’s rights-when he sees us marching without chador he will not do what is wrong.”
Lochart was half listening, remembering her a few days ago - was it only a few days ago that all this nightmare began? - Sharazad so content with herself and wearing chador, so happy to be just wife and not a modern like Azadeh. He saw her eyes and read her resolve and knew that she had committed herself. “I don’t want you to take part in this protest.” “Yes, of course, husband, but every woman in Tehran will march and I am sure you would not wish me shamed before the memory of my father - against the representatives of his murderers, would you?”
“It’s a waste of time,” Lochart said, knowing he was going to lose but impelled onward. “I’m afraid, my love, a protest march of every woman in Iran or all Islam will not touch Khomeini a little bit. Women in his Islamic state will have nothing not granted in the Koran, nothing. Nor will anyone else. He’s inflexible - isn’t that his strength?”
“Of course you are right - but we will march in protest and then God will open his eyes and make all clear to him. It’s as God wants, not as Khomeini wants - in Iran we have historic ways of dealing with such men.” His arms were around her. Marching is not the answer, he thought. Oh, Sharazad, there’s so much to decide, to say, to tell, now not the time. But there’s Zagros and a 212 to ferry out. But that leaves Mac alone to carry the ball, if there’s a ball to carry. What if I took him too? I couldn’t, unless by force. “Sharazad, I might have a ferry to do. To take a 212 to Nigeria. Would you come too?”
“Of course, Tommy. How long would we be gone?” He hesitated. “A few weeks - perhaps longer.” He felt her change in his arms, imperceptibly. “When would you want to leave?” “Very soon. Perhaps tomorrow.”
She moved out of his embrace without moving. “I wouldn’t be able to leave Mother, not for a while. She’s… she’s torn apart with grief, Tommy, and… and if I went I’d be afraid for her. And then there’s poor Meshang - he has to run the business, he has to be helped - there’s so much to do and to look after.” “Do you know about the confiscation order?” “What order?” He told her. Tears filled her eyes again and she sat up, her pain for the moment forgotten. She stared at the oil flame and at the shadows it cast. “Then we’ve no home, nothing. As God wants,” she said dully. Then almost at once in a different voice, “No, not as God wants! As Green Bands want. Now we have to join together to save the family, otherwise they will have beaten Father - we cannot allow them to murder him and then beat him as well, that would be terrible.”
“Yes, I agree, but this ferry’d solve our problems for a few weeks…”
“You’re right, Tommy, as always, yes, yes, it would if we needed to leave but this is our home just as much if not more, oh, how happy we’ll be here! In the morning I will get servants and bring everything of ours from the apartment - pah! what are a few carpets and trinkets when we have this house and ourselves. I will arrange everything - oh, we will be happy here.” “But if y - ”
“This theft makes it even more important for us to be here, to resist, to protest - it makes the inarch, oh, so much more important.” She put a finger on his lips as she saw him start to speak. “If you must do this ferry - and of course you must do your work - then go, my darling, but hurry back quickly. In a few weeks Tehran will be normal and kind again and I know that is what God wants.”
Oh, yes, she thought confidently, her happiness overcoming the pain, by then it will be my second month and Tommy will be so proud of me and meanwhile it will be wonderful to live here, surrounded by family, Father avenged, the house filled with laughter again. “Everyone will help us,” she said, lying back in his arms, so tired but so happy. “Oh, Tommy, I’m so glad you’re home, we’re home, it will be so wonderful, Tommy.” Her words became slower as waves of sleep washed over her. “We’ll all help Meshang… and those abroad will come back, Aunt Annoush and the children… they’ll help… and Uncle Valik will guide Meshang…”
Lochart did not have the heart to tell her.
Sunday - February18
Chapter 34
AT THE KHAN’S PALACE, TABRIZ: 3:13 A.M. In the darkness of the small room Captain Ross opened the leather cover of his watch and peered at the luminous figures. “All set, Gueng?” he whispered in Gurkhali. “Yes, sahib,” Gueng whispered, glad that the waiting was over. Carefully and quietly both men got off their pallets that lay on old, smelly carpets on the hard-packed, earthen floor. They were fully dressed, and Ross picked his way across to the window and peered out. Their guard was slumped down beside the door, fast asleep, his rifle in his lap. Two hundred yards away beyond the snow-covered orchards and outbuildings was the four-story palace of the Gorgon Khan. The night was dark and cold with some clouds, a nimbus around the moon that came through brightly from time to time. More snow, he thought, then eased the door open. Both men stood there, searching the darkness with all their senses. No lights anywhere. Noiselessly Ross moved over to the guard and shook him but the man did not wake from the drugged sleep that was good for at least two hours. It had been easy to give him the drug in a piece of chocolate, kept for just that purpose in their survival kit - some of the chocolate drugged, some poisoned. Once more he concentrated on the night, waiting patiently for the moon to go behind a cloud. Absently he scratched at the bite of a bedbug. He was armed with his kookri, and one grenade. “If we’re stopped, Gueng, we’re only going for a stroll,” he had told him earlier. “Better to leave our weapons here. Why have kookris and one grenade? It’s an old Gurkha custom - an offense against our regiment to be unarmed.”