“Like a bag full of fart!” someone called out. Everyone had started laughing, their private relief that they were no longer in any immediate danger of guilt by association, together with Meshang’s totally unexpected rocket back to wealth and power, making them light-headed. Someone had shouted, “You really can’t have Daranoush the Daring as a brother-in-law, Meshang!”
“No, no, by God,” he remembered saying, quaffing a glass of champagne. “How could you trust such a man?”
“Not even with a bucket of piss! By the Prophet, I’ve always thought Dirty Daranoush overcharged for his services. The bazaar should rescind his contract!”
Another cheer and general agreement and Meshang had drunk a second glass of champagne, gloating over the glorious new possibilities opened up before him: the new contract for the bazaar’s waste which he as the injured party would of course have, a new syndicate to finance the government under his guidance and greater profit, new associations with more important ministers than Ali Kia - where is that son of a dog? - new deals in the oil fields, monopolies to maneuver, a new match for Sharazad, so easy now for who would not want to be part of his family, the bazaari family? No need now to pay out a usurious dowry I agreed to only under duress. All my property back, the estates on the Caspian shores, streets of houses in Jaleh, apartments in the northern suburbs, lands and orchards and fields and villages, all of it back.
Then the servant destroying his elation, whispering that Lochart had returned, was already in his house, already upstairs. Rushing upstairs, and now helplessly watching the man he hated so much questioning Jari, Zarah listening as intently.
With an effort he concentrated. Jari was saying between sobs, “… I’m not sure, Excellency, she… she only… she only told me the young man that saved her life at the first Women’s Protest was a university student.” “Did she ever meet him alone?”
“Oh, no, Excellency, no, as I said we met him at the march and he asked us to take coffee to recover,” Jari said. She was petrified of being caught in the lie but more petrified of telling what had really happened. God protect us, she prayed. Where has she gone, where?
“What was his name, Jari?”
“I don’t know, Excellencies, it might have been Ibrahim or … or Ishmael, I don’t know. I already told you, he had no importance.”
Lochart’s head was pounding. No clue, nothing. Where would she have gone? To a friend’s? To the university? Another protest march? Don’t forget the rumors in the market about university students rioting again, more explosions expected tonight, more marches and countermarches, Green Bands versus the leftists, but all non-imam-sponsored marches forbidden by the Komiteh and the Komiteh’s patience ended. “Jari, you must have some idea, some way of helping us!”
Meshang said gutturally, “Whip her, she knows!”
“I don’t I don’t…” Jari wailed.
“Shut up, Jari!” Lochart turned on Meshang, his face pale and violence absolute. “I don’t know where she’s gone but I know the why: you forced the divorce, and I swear by the Lord God if she comes to harm, any harm, you will pay!”
Meshang blustered, “You left her, you left her penniless, you abandoned her and you’re divorced, yo - ”
“Remember, you will pay! And if you bar me from this house whenever I come back or she comes back, by God, be that on your head too!” On the edge of madness, Lochart stalked toward the French doors.
Zarah said quickly, “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know … I… To the university. Perhaps she’s gone to join another march though why she’d run off to do that…” Lochart could not bring himself to articulate his real terror: that her revolt was so extreme that her mind was unhinged and she would kill herself - oh, not suicide, but how many times in the past had she said, “Never worry about me, Tommy. I am a Believer, I always try to do God’s work and so long as I die doing God’s work with God’s name on my lips I will go to Paradise.”
But what about our child-to-be? A mother wouldn’t, couldn’t, could she, someone like Sharazad?
The room was very still. For an eternity he stood there. Then, all at once, his being swept him into new waters. In a strange clear voice he said, “Bear witness for me: I attest that there is no other God but God and Mohammed is the Prophet of God… I attest that there is no other God but God and Mohammed is the Prophet of God…” and the third and last time. Now it was done. He was at peace with himself. He saw them staring at him. Stunned. Meshang broke the silence, no longer in anger. “Allah-u Akbar! Welcome. But saying the Shahada is not enough, not by itself.”
“I know. But it is the beginning.”
They watched him vanish into the night, all of them spellbound that they had witnessed a soul being saved, an unbeliever transmuted into a Believer, so unexpectedly. All of them were filled with joy, degrees of joy. “God is Great!”
Zarah murmured, “Meshang, doesn’t this change everything?” “Yes, yes and no. But now he will go to Paradise. As God wants.” Suddenly he was very tired. His eyes went to Jari, and she began to tremble again. “Jari,” he said with the same calm, “you are going to be whipped until you tell me all the truth or you are in hell. Come along, Zarah, we mustn’t forget our guests.”
“And Sharazad?”
“As God wills.”
* NEAR THE UNIVERSITY: 9:48 P.M. Sharazad turned into the main road where Green Bands and their supporters were collecting. Thousands of them. The vast majority were men. All armed. Mullahs marshaled them, exorting them to maintain discipline, not to fire on the leftists until they were fired upon, to try to persuade them from their evil. “Don’t forget they’re Iranians, not satanic foreigners. God is Great… God is Great…”
“Welcome, child,” an old mullah said gently, “peace be upon you.” “And upon you,” she said. “We’re marching against the anti-God?” “Oh, yes, in a little while, there’s plenty of time.”
“I have a gun,” she said proudly, showing it to him. “God is Great.” “God is Great. But better that the killing should cease and the misguided should recognize the Truth, renounce their heresies, obey the Imam, and come back to Islam.” The old man saw her youth and resolution and was uplifted, and saddened. “Better the killing should cease but if those of the Left Hand do not cease to oppose the Imam, God’s peace on him, then with the Help of God we will hurry them into hell….”
Chapter 68
TABRIZ - AT THE PALACE: 10:05 P.M. The three of them were sitting in front of the wood fire drinking after-dinner coffee and watching the flames, the room small and richly brocaded, warm and intimate - one of Hakim’s guards beside the door. But there was no peace between them, though all had pretended otherwise, now and during the evening. The flames held their attention, each seeing different pictures therein. Erikki was watching the fork in the road, always the fork, one way the flames leading to loneliness, the other to fulfillment - perhaps and perhaps not. Azadeh watched the future, trying not to watch it.
Hakim Khan took his eyes off the fire and threw down the gauntlet. “You’ve been distracted all evening, Azadeh,” he said.
“Yes. I think we all are.” Her smile was not real. “Do you think we could talk in private, the three of us?”
“Of course.” Hakim motioned to the guard. “I’ll call if I need you.” The man obeyed and closed the door after him. Instantly the mood of the room changed. Now all three were adversaries, all aware of it, all on guard and all ready. “Yes, Azadeh?”
“Is it true that Erikki must leave at once?”
“Yes.”