“Yes.” Ross had heard disquiet in his voice but did not comment. He knew the reason. “You all right, Azadeh?” he asked softly.
“Yes. Yes I am now. It’s better in the dark - sorry I looked such a mess. Yes, I’m better now.”
“What’s this all about - and where’s your husband?” He used the word deliberately and heard her move in the darkness.
“Just after you left last night, Cimtarga and a guard came and told Erikki he had to dress at once and leave - this man Cimtarga said he was sorry but there’d been a change of plan and he wanted to leave at once. And I, I was summoned to see my father. At once. Before I went into his room I overheard him giving orders for you both to be captured and disarmed, just after dawn.” There was a catch to her voice. “He was planning to send for you both to discuss your departure tomorrow, but you would be led into ambush near the farmhouses and bound up and put into a truck and sent north at once.”
“Where north?”
“Tbilisi.” Nervously she hurried onward: “I didn’t know what to do, there was no way to warn you - I’m watched as closely as you and kept away from the others. When I saw my father, he said Erikki wouldn’t be back for a few days, that today he, my father, he was going on a business trip to Tbilisi and that… that I would be going with him. He… he said we would be away two or three days and by that time Erikki would be finished and then we would go back to Tehran.” She was almost in tears. “I’m so frightened. I’m so frightened something’s happened to Erikki.”
“Erikki will be all right,” he said, not understanding about Tbilisi, trying to decide about the Khan. Always back to Vien: “Trust Abdollah with your life and don’t believe the lies about him.” And yet here was Azadeh saying the opposite. He looked across at her, unable to see her, hating the darkness, wanting to see her face, her eyes, thinking that perhaps he could read something from them. Wish to Christ she’d told me all this the other side of the bloody wall or at the hut, he thought, his nervousness increasing. Christ, the guard! “Azadeh, the guard, do you know what happened to him?”
“Oh, yes, I… I bribed him, Johnny, I bribed him to be away for half an hour. It was the only way I could get… it was the only way.” “God Almighty,” he muttered. “Can you trust him?”
“Oh, yes. Ali is… he’s been with Father for years. I’ve known him since I was seven and I gave him a pishkesh of some jewelry, enough for him and his family for years. But, Johnny, about Erikki… I’m so worried.” “No need to worry, Azadeh. Didn’t Erikki say they might send him near to Turkey?” he said encouraging her, anxious to get her back safely. “I can’t thank you enough for warning us. Come on, first we’d better get you back an - ”
“Oh, no, I can’t,” she burst out. “Don’t you understand? Father‘11 take me north and I’ll never get away, never - my father hates me and he’ll leave me with Mzytryk, I know he will, I know he will.”
“But what about Erikki?” he said shocked. “You can’t just run away!” “Oh, yes, I have to, Johnny, I have to. I daren’t wait, I daren’t go to Tbilisi, it’s much safer for Erikki that I run away now. Much safer.” “What’re you talking about? You can’t run away just like that! That’s madness! Say Erikki comes back tonight and finds you gone? Wh - ” “I left him a note - we made an arrangement that in an emergency I’d leave a note in a secret place in our room. We had no way of telling what Father would do while he was away. Erikki‘11 know. There’s something else. Father’s going to the airport today, around noon. He has to meet a plane, someone from Tehran, I don’t know who or what about but I thought perhaps you could … you could persuade them to take us back to Tehran or we could sneak aboard or you… you could force them to take us.”
“You’re crazy,” he said angrily. “This’s all crazy, Azadeh. It’s madness to run off and leave Erikki - how do you know it’s not just as your father says, for God’s sake? You say the Khan hates you - my God, if you run off like this, whether he does or doesn’t he’ll blow a gasket. Either way you put Erikki into more danger.”
“How can you be so blind? Don’t you see? So long as I’m here Erikki has no chance, none. If I’m not here he has to think only of himself. If he knows I’m in Tbilisi he’ll go there and be lost forever. Don’t you see? I’m the bait. In the Name of God, Johnny, open your eyes! Please help me!” He heard Her crying now, softly but still crying, and this only increased his fury. Christ Almighty, we can’t take her along. There’s no way I could do that. That’d be murder - if what she says about the Khan’s true the dragnet’ll be out for us in a couple of hours and we’ll be lucky if we see sunset - the dragnet’s already out for God’s sake, think clearly! Bloody nonsense about running away! “You have to go back. It’s better,” he said. The crying stopped. “Insha’Allah,” she said in a different voice. “Whatever you say, Johnny. It’s better you leave quickly. You’ve not much time. Which way will you go?”
“I - I don’t know.” He was glad for the darkness that hid his face from her. My God, why must it be Azadeh? “Come on, I’ll see you safely back.” “There’s no need. I’ll… I’ll stay here for a while.”
He heard the falsehood and his nerves jangled even more. “You’re going to go back. You’ve got to.”
“No,” she said defiantly. “I can never go back. I’m staying here. He won’t find me, I’ve hidden here before. Once I was here two days. I’m safe here. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right. You go on. That’s what you’ve got to do.”
Exasperated, he managed to control his urge to drag her to her feet, and instead sat back against the wall of the cave. I can’t leave her, can’t carry her back against her will, can’t take her. Can’t leave her, can’t take her. Oh you can take her with you but for how long and then, when she’s captured, she’s mixed up with saboteurs and Christ only knows what else they’d accuse her of and they stone women for that. “When we’re found missing - if you are too - the Khan‘11 know you tipped us off. If you stay here, eventually you’ll be found and anyway the Khan‘11 know you gave us the tip and that’ll make it worse than ever for you, and worse for your husband. You must go back.”
“No, Johnny. I’m in the Hands of God and not afraid.”
“For God’s sake, Azadeh, use your head!”
“I am. I’m in God’s hands, you know that. Didn’t we talk about that in our High Country a dozen times? I’m not afraid. Just leave me a grenade like the one you gave to Erikki. I’m safe in God’s hands. Please go now.” In the other time they had talked about God often. On a Swiss mountaintop it was easy and ordinary and nothing to be shy about - not with your beloved who knew the Koran and could read Arabic and felt very close to the Infinite and believed in Islam absolutely. Here in the darkness of the small cave it was not the same. Nothing was the same.
“Insha’Allah it is,” he said and decided. “We’ll go back, you and I, and I’ll send Gueng on.” He got up.
“Wait.” He heard her get up too and felt her breath and nearness. Her hand touched his arm. “No, my darling,” she said, her voice as it used to be. “No, my darling, that would destroy my Erikki - and you and your soldier. Don’t you see, I’m the lodestone to destroy Erikki. Remove the lodestone and he has a chance. Outside my father’s walls, you too have a chance. When you see Erikki, tell him… tell him.”
What should I tell him? he was asking himself. In the darkness he took her hand in his and, feeling its warmth, was back in time again in the darkness together in the great bed, a vast summer storm lashing the windows, the two of them counting the seconds between the lightning flashes and the thunder that bounced off the sides of the high valley - sometimes only one or two seconds, oh, Johnny it must be almost overhead, Insha’Allah if it hits us, never mind we’re together - holding hands together just like this. But not like this, he thought sadly. He put her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You can tell him yourself,” he said. “We’ll give it a go - together. Ready?” “You mean go on - together?”