“What?”
“Live happily ever after.”
For a moment her joy obliterated his misery about Karim Peshadi and about what to do and how to do it. He caught her up in his arms and sat in the deep chair, cradling her. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes, we will. There’s so much to talk ab - ” Jari’s knock on the door interrupted him.
“Come in, Jari.”
“Please excuse me, Excellency, but His Excellency Meshang and Her Highness have arrived and are waiting to have the pleasure of seeing you both when convenient.”
“Tell His Excellency we’ll be there as soon as we’ve changed.” Lochart did not notice Jari’s relief as Sharazad nodded and beamed at her. “I’ll run your bath, Highness,” Jari said and went into the bathroom. “Isn’t it wonderful about Her Highness, Excellency? Oh, many congratulations, Excellency, many congratulations…”
“Thank you, Jari,” Lochart said, not listening to her, thinking about the child to be, and Sharazad, lost in worry and happiness. So complicated now, so difficult.
“Not difficult,” Meshang said after dinner.
Conversation had been boring with Meshang dominating it as he always did now that he was head of the household, Sharazad and Zarah hardly talking, Lochart saying little - no point in mentioning Zagros as Meshang had always been totally disinterested in his opinions or what he did. Twice he had almost blurted out about Karim - no reason to tell them yet, he had thought, hiding his despair. Why be the bearer of bad tidings?
“You don’t find life in Tehran difficult now?” he said. Meshang had been moaning about all the new regulations implanted on the bazaar. “Life is always difficult,” Meshang said, “but if you’re Iranian, a trained bazaari, with care and understanding, with hard work and logic, even the Revolutionary Komiteh can be curbed - we’ve always curbed tax collectors and overloads, shahs, commissars, or Yankee and British pashas.” “I’m glad to hear it, very glad.”
“And I’m very glad you’re back, I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Meshang said. “My sister has told you about the child to be?”
“Yes, yes, she has. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Yes, yes, it is. God be praised. What are your plans?”
“How do you mean?”
“Where are you going to live? How are you going to pay for everything now?” The silence was vast. “We’ll manage,” Lochart began. “I int - ” “I don’t see how you can, logically. I’ve been going through last year’s bills an - ” Meshang stopped as Zarah got up.
“I don’t think this is a good time to talk about bills,” she said, her face suddenly white, Sharazad’s equally so.
“Well, I do,” Meshang said harshly. “How’s my sister going to survive? Sit down, Zarah, and listen! Sit down! And when I say you will not go on a protest march or anything else in future you will obey or I’ll whip you! Sit down!” Zarah obeyed, shocked at his bad manners and violence. Sharazad was stunned, her world collapsing. She saw her brother turn on Lochart. “Now, Captain, your bills for the last year, the bills paid by my father, not counting the ones still owing and due, are substantially more than your salary. Is that true?”
Sharazad’s face was burning with shame and anger and before Lochart could answer she said quickly in her most honeyed voice, “Darling Meshang, you’re quite right to be concerned about us but the apar - ”
“Kindly keep quiet! I have to ask your husband, not you, it’s his problem, not yours. Well, Cap - ”
“But darling Mesh - ”
“Keep quiet! Well, Captain, is it true or isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Lochart replied, desperately seeking a way out of the abyss. “But you’ll remember His Excellency gave me the apartment, in fact the building, and the other rents paid the bills and the rest was for an allowance to give to Sharazad for which I was eternally grateful. As to the future, I’ll take care of Sharazad, of course I will.”
“With what? I’ve read your divorce settlement and it’s clear that with the payments you make to your previous wife and child there’s little chance you can keep my sister out of penury.”
Lochart was choked with rage. Sharazad shifted in her chair and Lochart saw her fear and dominated his urge to smash Meshang into the table. “It’s all right, Sharazad. Your brother has the right to ask. That’s fair, he has the right.” He read the smugness under the etched handsome face and knew that the fight was joined. “We’ll manage, Meshang, I’ll manage. Our apartment, it won’t be commandeered forever, or we can take another. We’ll m - ” “There is no apartment, or building. It burned down on Saturday. It’s all gone, everything.”
They gaped at him, Sharazad the most shocked. “Oh, Meshang, you’re sure? Why didn’t you tell me? Wh - ”
“Is your property so abundant you don’t check it from time to time? It’s gone, all of it!”
“Oh, Christ!” Lochart muttered.
“Better you don’t blaspheme,” Meshang said, finding it hard not to gloat openly. “So there’s no apartment, no building, nothing left. Insha’Allah. Now, now how do you intend to pay your bills?”
“Insurance!” Lochart burst out. “There’s got to be in - ” A bellow of laughter drowned him, Sharazad knocked over a glass of water that no one noticed. “You think insurance will be paid?” Meshang jeered. “Now? Even if there was any? You’ve taken leave of all your senses, there is no insurance, there never was. So, Captain: many debts, no money, no capital, no building - not that it was even legally yours, merely a face-saving way my father arranged to provide you with the means to look after Sharazad.” He picked up a piece of halvah and popped it into his mouth. “So what do you propose?”
“I’ll manage.”
“How, please tell me - and Sharazad, of course, she has the right, the legal right to know. How?”
Sharazad muttered, “I’ve jewelry, Tommy, I can sell that.” Cruelly Meshang left the words hanging in the air over the table, delighted that Lochart was at bay, humiliated, stripped naked. Filthy Infidel! If it wasn’t for the Locharts in our world, the rapacious foreigners, exploiters of Iran, we’d be free of Khomeini and his mullahs, my father would still be alive, Sharazad married properly. “Well?”
“What do you suggest?” Lochart said, no way out of the trap. “What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know.”
“Meanwhile you’ve no house, very substantial bills, and soon you’ll be jobless - I doubt if your company will be allowed to operate here very much longer; quite correctly foreign companies are persona non grata.” Meshang was delighted that he had remembered the Latin phrase, “no longer needed, wanted, or necessary.”
“If that happens I’ll resign and apply to fly choppers for Iranian companies. They’ll need pilots immediately. I can speak Farsi, I’m an expert pilot and trainer. Khomeini… the Imam wants oil production brought back to normal immediately, so of course they’ll need trained pilots.” Meshang laughed to himself. Yesterday Minister Ali Kia had come to the bazaar, correctly humble and anxious to please, bringing an exquisite pishkesh - wasn’t his annual “consulting fee” due for renewal soon? - and had told him of his plans to acquire all partnership airplanes and freeze all bank accounts. “We’ll have no problem to get all the mercenaries we need to fly our helicopters, Excellency Meshang,” Kia had said. “They’ll flock to us at half their normal salaries.”
Yes, they will, but not you, temporary husband of my sister, not even for a tenth salary. “I suggest you be more practical.” Meshang examined his beautifully manicured nails that this afternoon had fondled the fourteen-year-old Ali Kia had given him: “the first of many, Excellency!” Lovely white Circassian skin, the temporary marriage for this afternoon that he had gladly extended for the week so easily arranged. “The present rulers of Iran are xenophobic, particularly about Americans.”