The Moving Prison Part 11

Ezra shuddered, as the too-present recollection of Evin Prison strangled him with memories of fear and death.

"Who knows how far the net of hatred may widen?" the man asked. "Like ripples on a pool, the circle grows and grows. Today they shoot anyone who had close relations with the Shah; tomorrow, perhaps all who knew yesterday's victims. What is to stop them? I will leave this country and never come back, as long as its only law is the mullahs' greed and ambition."

A silent moment of fearful reflection pa.s.sed before Ezra said, "Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights, Alef Laillah, we could tell a thousand and one tales-of sadness, death, and injustice."

Ezra glanced over the application form he had just completed. Again he stared hard at the question, "How many people will be in your party?"

He had written a numeral 3 in the blank, after a soul-searching pause. Moosa presumably still had his American visa; Ezra did not want to further alert the Islamic authorities that his son was back in Iran.

Almost daily, the newspapers carried notices about hapless Americans taken hostage when their emba.s.sy was overrun by a student faction of the Islamic fundamentalists. Either the press quoted Khomeini, temporizing his inability to countermand an order given the students by Allah, or they printed stories of the American government fretting and fuming and doing nothing, to the delight of the anti-Western mullahs. And frequently they ran photographs of crowds in the streets displaying violent slogans against the erstwhile benefactors of the Shah. The tide of anti-American opinion had never been so strong or so virulent.

Ezra had decided to apply only on behalf of Esther, Sepideh, and himself. Moosa might travel with them, but he would do so with as little advance notice as possible.

Rising from the small desk, Ezra walked to the emba.s.sy aide. Glancing up, the young man inclined his head toward the consul's chamber.

Ezra laid the completed application on the Swiss consul's desk. The consul, a dapper, middle-aged man with a carefully trimmed goatee, smiled perfunctorily at Ezra and perused his application-the 400th he had reviewed that week.

"Hmm," he murmured, placing his finger alongside one of the questions, "this says you have traveled to Switzerland before, on business." Peering up at Ezra, the consul asked in French-accented Farsi, "Can you prove this, Aga Solaiman? As you must know, many people are applying for Swiss visas, and we must carefully screen all applicants."

"Yes, sir," Ezra responded, placing his pa.s.sport on the desk while saying a silent prayer of thanks that he had done frequent business with Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz Corporation, two large Swiss firms.

The consul nodded slightly, studying the dated Swiss stamps on the pa.s.sport. "To what city do you and your wife and ... daughter intend to go?"

"To Geneva."

"You intend to stay for how long?"

"Two days at most."

"And your destination upon leaving Geneva?"

Ezra paused before answering. Glancing quickly about in habitual caution, he replied, "The United States of America."

The consul glanced significantly at Ezra. After his own thoughtful pause, he said quietly, "As you know, Aga Solaiman, we represent the American interests during these ... these difficult times."

Ezra nodded.

The consul leafed idly through the stack of applications on the side of his desk before again meeting Ezra's eyes. "I'm sure you have your own reasons for not applying for American entry visas at this time."

Again Ezra nodded, silently.

"Do you have a green card?" the consul asked quietly.

"No," replied Ezra, averting his eyes.

Carefully spreading his fingertips atop Ezra's application, the consul asked, "Why do you think you will be granted entry into the United States?"

"I ... I have a son who lives there."

"There is no a.s.surance this will be accepted as a valid reason," the official warned quietly.

After another silent debate, Ezra asked, "What about money?"

The consul leaned forward on his elbows, making an arch of his fingertips. "You must have a minimum of $400,000 in American banks."

"We have that amount," Ezra replied carefully.

The consul's eyes widened slightly. "In American banks?" he repeated.

Ezra looked away, then back. "It is en route there now," he said. If this works, he told himself, the money will be enroute to the U.S., so I'm not lying. Not really. He hoped that in convincing himself he would be able to convince the consul.

The official gave a Gallic shrug, arching an eyebrow. "If it is as you say, Aga Solaiman, you will have no problem." He reached into the lap drawer of his desk and brought out a large stamp, which he inked from a pad on his desk. With the stamp hovering just above Ezra's pa.s.sport, he glanced up a final time. "Good luck," he said, and stamped the pa.s.sport, affixing his signature. As Ezra watched, his heart hammering with exhilaration, the consul repeated the process on the other two pa.s.sports.

Moosa waited in the green Volvo, its engine idling. Nervously, he drummed his fingers on the wheel, his eyes flickering back and forth, now in the rearview mirror, now through the windshield. The car was completely dark; not even the dashboard was illuminated. They wanted nothing to attract a random glance at a car parked in the darkness of an abandoned alleyway.

Nathan had organized this action. They were parked behind the home of a certain Mullah Hojat who headed one of the revolutionary committees. This particular committee had played a prominent role in the campaign to arrest and confiscate the estates of wealthy Jews and Christians. Nathan and the two with him had been gone perhaps fifteen minutes, stealing quietly away from the car, after checking their weapons and the clips of slugs they each carried.

Sitting in the dark alley, Moosa reflected on the change-unlooked-for and, in his more reflective moments, unwelcomed-which had stolen over him since his return from America. He had come here only to help his parents and sister leave Iran; now he found himself involved in a deadly and probably futile effort to alter the course of the Islamic revolution. When he had flown into Mehrabad Airport, his only concern had been how soon he and his family could be on the next plane West. But now, despite his better judgment, he felt himself drawn slowly but surely into a tangled, dark maze of awful purpose. He could feel the heady wine of conspiracy working deep into his bowels, changing his mind and his will. Since his return to Iran, Moosa had begun a metamorphosis, and what he was becoming, he was not certain. That from which he had originally sought to deliver his family had arisen to claim him as its true son. His father, Moosa knew, moved eagerly toward the gentle, commodious beacon of the civilized West, while he, the westernized, UCLAaeducated son, became an unbridled throwback to some barbaric past, a tame horse loosed into the wilderness.

Why? He couldn't put his finger on the precise moment when the change had begun. His father's arrest had something to do with it, the grinding, impotent rage he had felt at hearing those ignorant, unwashed pasdars haughtily accusing his father of wrongdoing. That and the double injustice done to the Moosovi family had kindled within him a desire to strike out-partly in anger and partly in fear-at the source of the wrong. Nathan Moosovi had been less recruiter than midwife to the birthing of something that was already fighting to emerge from within Moosa. Once the b.l.o.o.d.y, steaming child of his rage was born, he felt helpless to deny it life. Now it fed eagerly and grew apace, suckling eagerly at the thrill of fear, which was becoming addictive, a loved and hated rush of sensation that he dreaded but couldn't deny himself.

Hearing the sudden scamper of feet behind him, Moosa jerked around to see several figures approaching the Volvo at a dead run. A surge of adrenaline tensed his sinews to a taut readiness.

Nathan and the other two yanked open the doors of the Volvo. "Go! Go!" shouted Nathan before they were inside. Moosa's hands flew to the transmission lever, the headlight switch. As the Volvo squealed away, rifle slugs spattered on the masonry walls beside them, followed instantaneously by the crack! of the pursuers' firearms.

Moosa's foot pinned the accelerator to the floorboard as they raced toward the end of the alley and onto Abbasabbad Street. They were within perhaps fifty feet of the thoroughfare when three pasdars appeared in the opening. As if in slow motion, Moosa saw their arms rising, saw the quick blue-and-white spitting of their pistols.

The windshield shattered. Moosa heard someone screaming. He fell over in the seat, trying to dodge the hail of death. The Volvo swerved in the narrow alley, slamming against the wall on the right, caroming back toward the center. Raising his head as much as he dared, he aimed the Volvo toward the alley entrance, roaring toward the still-firing pasdars. One of them didn't dodge quite in time; Moosa heard him scream as the front fender of the Volvo clipped him at the knees, rolling him over the hood and roof of the car.

He careened onto Abbasabbad, amid blaring horns and swerving headlights. Air was rushing through the smashed windshield; Moosa was covered with green pellets of safety gla.s.s. Only when he had driven perhaps half a mile, madly swerving through the traffic, did he realize that Nathan was slumped against him, blood pouring from a hole in his neck onto Moosa's shoulder.

"Aaron! Manuchehr!" he shouted, panic burning through him like an electric charge. One of the men in the rear roused, looked over the back of the seat, and gasped. "Nathan-we must get him to a doctor!"

"It's too late," said the other, who had risen from the rubble on the floor and pressed a hand into Nathan's neck. Shaking his head, he p.r.o.nounced, "Nathan is dead. Our only course now is to take his body to his family and then get rid of this car, before we are caught."

Forcing down the gorge in his throat, Moosa drove on into the night, seeking a place where they could stop long enough to a.s.sess the damage. A place where they might have the luxury to grieve. And to plot revenge.

EIGHTEEN.

Esther clasped the folds of the chador about her face as she threaded her way along the crowded sidewalk. Like the other pedestrians, she had to step around and past the rabble of street vendors clogging the teeming walkway. Since the revolution, the Islamic government did not have time to tend to such niceties as business permits or regulation of vendors. In this vacuum of official attention, the hawkers had proliferated to the point where they now ganged constantly along Tehran's busiest thoroughfares, noisily offering their wares to pa.s.sersby-when they were not fighting each other over the prime locations.

As Esther sidled through the mob, she felt the sweat running in rivulets down her back. The perspiration from her cheeks had drenched the folds of the garment, and her nostrils were filled with the smell of damp wool. For the thousandth time, she cursed the hateful black chador and the narrow-minded regime that forced her to wear it.

To her eye, Tehran was now a dirty, vulgar place. Where men once strode proudly in their well-pressed business suits, their silk neckties, and freshly shaved faces, all one now saw were bedraggled fellows in wrinkled, open-collared shirts, shuffling along with downcast faces, as if they sensed the embarra.s.sment of the country. Shoeshine stands, once so prevalent along the sidewalks of Tehran, were a thing of the past. Where once majestic statues of the Shah had stood, gazing serenely down at the people as they went on their way, now one saw ugly, jagged stumps, piled about with the rubble of Shiite vandalism. Instead of the patrician visage of the Shah painted on the sides of buildings, one now encountered the bearded, turbaned likeness of the usurper, Khomeini. It seemed to Esther that Tehran's pride of appearance had been replaced by statutory uncleanness, as if to be clean and proud was now a sin, another casualty of the Islamic revolution.

Reaching the lee of the building, she paused to make advantage of an eddy in the ma.s.ses of people. The weight of her market basket was beginning to cut painfully into her palm. As she shifted it to her other hand, she felt a touch on her shoulder. Turning, she found herself gazing into the face of a handsome young man.

"Solaiman khanom?" he inquired. Not knowing what else to do, Esther nodded hesitantly.

"I am Khosrow Parvin, khanom," he said. "Your daughter, Sepideh, and I are ... or were ... friends." A downcast look came over his face as he said it. "We went to school together," the lad finished, again looking into her eyes. "I am sorry to speak to you this way, on the street, but-" Again the boy's eyes dropped as he searched within himself for words that seemed to elude him. "I wanted to ask ... Sepi ... is she ... is she well?" he stammered at last.

Wordlessly, Esther looked at the abashed young man. Was this one of the "friends" who had cursed her daughter, called her names? Was this one of the boys who had laughed and played with Sepi in childhood, only to drive pins of spite and hate beneath her fingernails at the urging of the mullah? "Why should I tell you?" demanded Esther finally, in a tone as cold and distant as ice in the dark side of the moon. "How do I know that you are Sepi's friend? What proof can you give?"

Khosrow's cheeks reddened as he continued to stare at his toes. Finally, he looked up at her. "It was I who called to warn Aga Solaiman of the mullah who came to arrest him-and to tell of what happened to Abraham Moosovi."

Esther stared at him, mouth agape.

"Our house is not distant from yours," Khosrow explained in a low, cautious voice. "I heard the pasdars making inquiries at our front gate." Looking about him, he continued, "My father is very afraid of the mullahs. Being university-educated, he is afraid they will think him loyal to the Shah."

As Esther watched, a look of consternation, mingled with traces of disgust, trudged slowly across young Khosrow's face. More to himself than to her, he murmured, "'Stay away from the Solaiman girl!' that's what he always says to me. As if Sepideh were herself to blame, and not the viciousness of the fanatics! I tried to do what he said, tried to keep away, telling myself it was for her benefit as well as mine." Once again the dark smoldering eyes of the boy burned into her own. "But if we all give in to our fear, who wins except the greedy mullahs, and the stinking pasdar henchmen who do their dirty work?"

Esther allowed herself to be mesmerized by the defiant simplicity of this boy she had only just met-this angry innocent who, unknown to her, had been intimately involved in the affairs of her family. Then, realizing that pa.s.sersby were looking at them oddly, she stirred, breaking the grip of the moment. Under Islamic law, it could cost her life to be seen conversing openly with a man not her husband. Pulling the folds of her chador close about her face she said, with eyes downcast, "Sepi ... Sepi is well enough, under the circ.u.mstances." She dared a final glance at him. "But perhaps your father is correct in one thing: it is better for both of you that you stay apart." Then she turned away from him and was soon lost in the crowd.

The bell rattled above the door of the Na.s.ser Pharmacy as Nader Hafizi stepped through the entrance. Glancing up, he was momentarily startled to see the studious-looking young man behind the counter. Where is Aga Solaiman? he wondered, even as he stepped tentatively toward the attendant.

"Yes, baradar," said the young man is a respectful tone, "how may I a.s.sist you?"

"Excuse me," began Hafizi hesitantly, "but where is Aga Solaiman, the gentleman who formerly ran this pharmacy?"

The young man smiled. "My father and I have purchased the pharmacy from Aga Solaiman ..." he squinted upward in calculation, "... some six months ago." He inclined his head toward the cleric. "I am your humble servant, Yusef Nijat."

A moment more Hafizi stared at him, then hesitantly proffered a crumpled piece of paper. Yusef took it, smoothing the creases. Presently he brightened. "Ah! A prescription! This is what you wanted?" he asked. Slowly, the mullah nodded. "Very well," said the druggist heartily, turning to seek the powders the doctor had noted on the paper.

Watching the young man work, Hafizi asked in what he hoped was a neutral tone, "So ... do you hear from Aga Solaiman since ... since he sold this store to you?"

Yusef glanced up quickly. "No, baradar, we have not heard from him. I, in fact, have never met the gentleman. My father handled the details concerning the purchase of the business and was the one who actually dealt with Aga Solaiman." The youth's fingers moved nimbly, raking the proper number of capsules into a small medicine bottle. When he had worked silently for a few moments, he continued, "However, I have had many patrons of the pharmacy tell me what a good and kind man was Aga Solaiman. He had quite a loyal following, it seems." He drifted into a thoughtful silence.

"Yes," agreed Hafizi, after a period of reflection. "I would venture to say he had quite a number of loyal patrons. In fact, I was very surprised to come in here and find him gone. I had no idea he was selling his business. I ... I certainly hope no ill has befallen him," the cleric finished quietly.

"Why should anything bad have happened to him?"

Hafizi looked up quickly. These last words were spoken by an older man who had been seated at a desk in the storage room toward the rear of the premises. He came out now, fingering a string of orange worry beads.

"Aga, please allow me to introduce my father, Ameer Nijat," the young man interjected.

"Why should anything have happened to Solaiman?" repeated the older Nijat, now standing directly in front of Mullah Hafizi.

Hafizi shrugged. "These are difficult days, Aga. So many changes, so much anger...." He pulled back his coat, to show the holster he carried. "When an old man such as myself must carry a weapon on the street, the days are surely evil." Now he looked directly into the eyes of Ameer Nijat. "And there are some who would take advantage of such circ.u.mstances. Ezra Solaiman was a good man who took note of the needy. I hope the evil of these days does not overwhelm such a one. It would be a pity."

Ameer Nijat's eyes focused on a point just above Hafizi's left shoulder; his fingers furiously jiggled the worry beads. "Surely you concern yourself needlessly, Aga. I know that Aga Solaiman had a wonderful business here-why else would I wish to buy it for my son?" He inclined his head toward the reflective Yusef. "No doubt Aga Solaiman is busily and happily occupied in enjoying the fruit of his labor." Shifting uneasily under the cleric's gaze, Nijat added, "I paid him a fair price for the store and its inventory. He should be well situated for the rest of his days."

Yusef Nijat gave a little cough. "Will that be all, Aga?" As the mullah's gaze shifted back to the son, he noticed the prescriptions, filled, labeled, and ready to be taken away. Looking from the pills to the young man, Hafizi nodded wordlessly.

"That will be ..." Yusef scribbled a moment on a notepad. "135 rials," the druggist announced with a businesslike smile.

Pulling the notes out of his wallet, Hafizi remembered another time when a poverty-plagued mullah had offered payment for this same prescription and had been refused. Apparently, Ameer Nijat and his son did not trouble themselves as much as Ezra Solaiman about the circ.u.mstances of their patrons. Sighing, Hafizi laid the money on the counter and picked up his package.

"Thank you, baradar," said Yusef. "Please come again, whenever we may be of service."

Peering intently from the son to his father, the mullah nodded. Then he turned and walked to the door. The bell jangled at his departure.

A bar of brilliant moonlight fell across Ezra's face as he slept fitfully. His chest heaved, his fists clenched and unclenched as he struggled in mute terror against the demons inside his skull.

In his dream, he was driving through the streets in the north of the city, approaching the house of a friend. He was in the last car he had owned, a 1968 light-blue Chevrolet Impala. He had been especially proud of the pristine condition in which he had maintained the American car-rarely seen in Iran. Likewise he was especially loath to sell it and commit himself wholly to public transportation.

In the odd manner of dreams, however, he knew this was not the past, but the terrible present. The streets were dark, and frequent staccato bursts of gunfire were frighteningly close at hand.

He had managed to get within one block of his friend's house, but could go no farther because of huge piles of rubble that littered the streets on all sides-as if a huge explosion had crushed the entire area. In some confusion, he parked his car and proceeded on foot.

Seeing a man standing near one of the houses, he walked over to ask if there was any way to get to the next street. "You can't drive to it," the fellow replied, "but you can walk. Leave your car parked where it is-no one is likely to disturb it."

Pocketing his keys, he climbed the heaps of rubble and came to the street where his friend lived. To his horror, he saw that every house on the entire block had collapsed. Not one wall was left standing. How could anyone have survived such a tremendous calamity? Inexplicably, the yards of the destroyed houses were now pools filled with muddy water, like so many moats surrounding abandoned castles.

In the clairvoyance of dreams, he knew at once that his own house had been likewise destroyed. Esther! Sepi and Moosa! I must get back immediately! I must find them!

Sobbing with despair, he clambered back to the place he had just left, and discovered with shock that his car had vanished, along with the fellow who had sanguinely a.s.sured him of its probable safety. Compounding his consternation, he suddenly found himself bereft of clothing. He was at once bereaved, isolated, and exposed-his greatest terrors come to haunting realization.

Two men were unloading a truck nearby. Seeing no recourse, he approached them and begged for some sort of covering. "An old shirt, a sc.r.a.p of cloth, a towel-anything, please!" he appealed. One of the fellows grudgingly went into a house, only to reappear scant moments later, shaking his head. "Nothing in there. Just get lost, why don't you?"

Again he begged, only to be met by jeers and insults. "Get lost, old man," they laughed. Immolated in his shame, he fancied one of the voices scalding him with curses was that of Firouz Marandi. As he walked away, covered in disgrace, one name fell from his lips, again and again. "Yeshua!" he was crying. "Yeshua, have mercy on me!"

The face of Reuben Ibrahim rose up before him. "Yeshua," he had breathed, "Yeshua will protect them."

Shaken awake by the sudden, vivid memory, Ezra felt his eyes snap open. That name! In the terror of his sleep, he had called upon the name of the Accursed One! In the moment of his utmost humiliation and extremity, this name had been on his tongue! What could that mean?

He was now wide awake, but it was several minutes before the flaring panic in his brain would allow his vision to focus, to realize that it was, after all, only a dream. Only a dream, he reflected, struggling to bring his breathing under control, and yet sp.a.w.ned by a dire and unrelenting reality which will not evaporate with the coming of the daylight. A dream it may be, but the ordeal which made it so vivid is all too genuine.

Carefully he rolled onto one shoulder, to see if Esther was awake. No, apparently his nightmare had disturbed no one else. He knew it would be some time before his agitated imagination would allow him to again fall asleep. Quietly he got out of bed and padded barefoot toward the stairs, while putting on his robe.

Sitting downstairs in the moon-washed parlor, he looked about him, as if for the first time, at the room, the furnishings. The moonlight lent these familiar surroundings a freshness that struck him with an odd force. It had been his intention, all along, to make an orderly disposition of his property: the business, this house and its contents, some odds and ends of real estate he owned in another part of the city. He intended to liquidate everything, convert it to cash and thence to American currency.

But his arrest and imprisonment had jarringly interrupted his orderly plan. He had managed to sell the business, true enough, albeit for a price that he would scarcely have considered in normal times. And, he had managed finally to convert the entire sales proceeds to American dollars; well over a million dollars in United States currency lay concealed in the bas.e.m.e.nt cache. He was uncertain how he would get all this money past customs. Sternly, he shoved that problem beneath the surface of his mind-best not to consider too many difficulties at once.

But the house! How could he now take the time and care needed to dispose of it? To find a buyer who could afford it, to arrange the terms of the sale, to manage all the attendant details while simultaneously trying to arrange their departure from the country-the prospect daunted him, tangled him helplessly in complications.

He got up, pacing slowly across the floor toward his study. Leaning against the door frame, he peered down at the inexpensive rug they had gotten to replace the fine Kirmani stolen by the mullahs who had "searched" the house during his arrest. Perhaps things would not go as badly as he feared; with all that had already happened, might he not expect that many of the difficulties were behind them? Perhaps he still suffered from the anxiety of his dream; perhaps the night-phantoms seeded his mind with doubts and fears that were really less formidable than they seemed in the hours of darkness and solitude.

Reluctantly, he felt the pull on his mind, an insistent tug turning him back toward the frightful recollection that had finally forced him awake. "Reuben, Reuben," he whispered, sinking weakly into the nearest chair. "Why did you have to be so good, so kind, and so deluded?"

"Protected by the same grace which shielded Reuben," his widow had said. Ezra remembered Jahan Ibrahim's quiet faith, the velvet-covered steel of her conviction, unshakable even in the face of the greatest tragedy that could befall a family. For a scant moment he allowed his mind to tease the corner of the possibility: Is there anything to this Jesus business? If faith in Yeshua could sustain Jahan Ibrahim, might it not ...