The Moving Prison Part 7

Esther wandered through the house like a lost soul. Her throat was raw and sore from weeping, and her eyes felt bruised with fatigue. She had been unable to sleep the night before. Each time her eyes closed, her imagination tortured her with grotesque scenes of Ezra's fate. So she tossed upon her bed, crying until she could cry no more; then she lay exhausted, too overwrought to sleep.

Idly she paced into the study, flipping on the television. As she expected, there was nothing to watch except some wizened old mullah reading the Koran in Arabic-a language neither she nor the majority of the Farsi-speaking population understood. Since Khomeini had come to power, many of the TV producers and directors had been arrested, and the remainder were afraid to schedule any programming that could be deemed remotely offensive to the fundamentalist regime. So all one could watch now was the reading of the Koran or brief news programs, which were hardly more than Shiite propaganda.

She snapped off the set and went into the kitchen, drawn by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Glancing at the clock, she surmised that Sepi had already gone to school. She thought Moosa had left for the bazaar or to look for Mullah Hafizi.

As she poured a cup of coffee, she wondered about the wisdom of relying upon a mullah for deliverance from Ezra's peril. Weren't the mullahs responsible for much of the mayhem now tearing the country apart? Why should Hafizi be any different? Yet Ezra seemed to place some trust in the man.

She took a sip of coffee and glanced out the window toward the side yard. The branches of the cherry trees were beginning to swell with the nodules that would become blossoms in a few weeks. In this season of returning to life, she felt nothing but despair and desolation. At this moment, Ezra's trust in his precious receipt and Hafizi's help seemed absurdly remote. She placed her head on her forearms, as the tears again trickled down her cheeks.

The buzzer rudely interrupted her melancholy. Someone was at the gate. Pushing herself away from the table, she went to the front foyer, pulling aside the curtains to look outside. Fear brought her heart throbbing into her throat. Standing at the gate were two armed pasdars, accompanied by a mullah. What could they want? Why were they here again? Her hands trembling, she unlocked the front door, opening it only a few centimeters. "What do you want?" she called. "Your people were already here just yesterday."

"In the name of Allah and the Imam Khomeini, I order you to open this gate," commanded the mullah imperiously. "We are here on official business."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, trying desperately to control the hysterical beast inside her breast. Marjan, hearing the tones in her voice, began stalking toward the gate, hackles raised, showing his teeth in a low, rumbling growl.

"You will chain that dog or we will shoot him now!" said the mullah, his voice rising nervously as he measured the height of the gate with his eyes. One of the pasdars unholstered his pistol, training it with a two-fisted grip on the threatening Marjan.

Esther looked from Marjan to the mullah and his henchmen. What could she do? Either she would let them in now, or they would come back with more men and force their way in later. Feeling more helpless than ever before, she called out, "Marjan! Heel!"

The dog halted his advance, but kept his rigid, stalking pose. "Marjan! Kennel!" No change. "Kennel, Marjan!" Esther wondered at Marjan's disobedience; perhaps he knew better than she how to respond to these intruders. She walked out to him, gripped his collar in one hand, and tugged him toward the kennel. The sinews along the dog's back and hindquarters tensed, as he momentarily resisted her. Then, with a pathetic, puzzled whimper, he allowed her to lead him back to his shelter. Only when the chain was clipped to his collar did she turn to face the men at the gate.

"Why have you come here?" she asked again. Taking a deep breath, she continued, "Your people have already taken away my husband, for no just cause. What else do you need here?"

"Khanom," the mullah said, his lips curled in contempt, "I'm well aware of your husband's arrest. We're here to collect evidence related to his trial."

Esther felt a faint tendril of hope. If Ezra was to be tried, he could not be dead, could he? Perhaps his receipt would indeed be of some value, if he were allowed to present it as evidence. From the way the rumors ran, she was not at all sure that fairness was a criterion by which the mullahs conducted their tribunals. She went to the gate and unlocked it. The pasdars pushed past her, followed by the mullah, who gave her a withering stare as he went by. The three men marched up the walk, glancing edgily at the kennel, where Marjan strained against his collar, still showing his teeth. Slowly Esther followed them into the house.

One of the guards went into the study, immediately going to the desk and yanking out the drawers, spilling the contents carelessly on the floor. With the toe of his boot, he sorted through the piles. Another of the men began tossing armfuls of books onto the floor. Alarmed, Esther said, "Stop it! Tell me what you are looking for, and I will tell you where to find it! Why should you wreck my house?"

The mullah appeared from behind her, carrying an old chador she kept in a cedar chest in the bedroom. "Shouldn't you be wearing this, khanom?" he asked, smirking.

Esther felt her face flush with anger. "You've been in my bedroom, you animal!"

The mullah chuckled.

"In a civilized country, even a mullah's wife wouldn't wear a chador in her own home," Esther raged. "She wouldn't have to fear strangers invading her privacy!" The mullah only smiled in amus.e.m.e.nt. Another armload of books clattered to the floor behind them.

He turned to his lackeys. "Stop," he ordered. "If they have anything of value, they're not going to hide it anywhere obvious." Turning again to Esther, he asked, "Tell me, khanom, do you have any outbuildings-or a cellar, perhaps?"

Esther tried with all her might not to allow her face to show any sign of alarm. "The dog is chained," she said, in a tone she hoped sounded haughty. "Go anywhere on the premises you like." With a final, icy glance, she turned her back on the mullah and walked into the drawing room.

She sat in one of the chairs, wringing her hands as she listened to the search party go out the kitchen door. What if, by some freak chance, they stumbled onto the cache in the cellar? If they did, they would find not only the money Ezra had realized from the sale of the store, but also the American dollars Moosa had obtained yesterday. The dollars would surely tip their hand to the authorities. Had she and Moosa been careful enough to hide the traces of their comings and goings to the cellar? Had they replaced the bricks properly and made the dirt between them look undisturbed: Had they been wise in leaving the cellar door unlocked? Again she heard Ezra's words of warning: "If a door is locked, they will want to know why. Everything should look innocuous, as though we have nothing to hide."

Nothing to hide. She felt a manic laugh bubbling upward in her throat. It was almost hilarious-they were tossing a huge chador over the whole house, to conceal, to blend in, to cloak. Khomeini had decreed the chador, and he was getting it, in ways he would never have imagined.

The search party came back inside after about a quarter hour. Esther breathed a silent sigh when she saw their hands were empty. Sourly, the mullah in charge pointed toward the floor of the study, and the pasdars went into the room and began rolling up the expensive Kirman carpet that covered the floor.

"What are you doing?" demanded Esther.

The mullah scowled at her. "Collecting evidence," he grunted, looking away.

"Evidence of what?" she grated. "Admit it-you are stealing. Is this in accordance with the laws of the Prophet?"

"Shut up, Jew!" he snarled. "I don't answer to you! Watch your impudent tongue, woman, or you'll find yourself in want of more than a rug."

The violence in his voice strangled the rage in her breast, replacing it with fear. She turned away from him, gripping her elbows tightly against her sides. She stared in blinded misery into the side yard until she heard the front door close behind the intruders. Hearing a sound like a freight train roaring in her ears, she collapsed onto the floor in a dead faint.

Ezra stirred restlessly and opened his eyes. So. It was not a nightmare, but real; he was still in the cell. He raised his head and began pulling his shoes on. Remembering Reuben's advice of the evening before, he pulled out the laces and scuffed the toes against the concrete floor, to make the shoes look older and more worn than they were. Reuben had told him that the guards sometimes took a fancy to some of the good clothing worn by certain prisoners. They would come into the cell without warning, stripping the unfortunate one and leaving him shivering in the chill air of the unheated prison. Resistance to such raids usually resulted in summary execution, Reuben said.

As a further precaution, Ezra had turned his overcoat inside out, ripping the lining to make it look less conspicuous. He pulled it about him now, looking next to him to see if Reuben was still asleep.

His bladder was painfully full, but he loathed the thought of using the stinking toilet, and having to creep past all the disheveled bodies between him and it. When he could bear the discomfort no longer, he got to his feet and began making his way toward the grimy commode.

He raised his foot to step over a man and realized, to his horror, that the poor fellow was dead. His chest was still, and his eyes were fixed in a death stare that seemed to be locked on Ezra, as if to say, "Soon, friend. Soon." Quickly Ezra moved on.

When he got back to his corner. Reuben was stirring. In shocked tones, Ezra related his discovery of the corpse. Reuben seemed unsurprised. "In this place," he said, "everyone dies. Either sickness, torture, or the firing squad. No one gets out of here alive, Solaiman. No one."

THIRTEEN.

Moosa walked along Naderi Avenue, his head hanging in dejection. Again he had pounded on Hafizi's door and gotten no answer. He was beginning to suspect the clergyman had wind of his father's arrest and had left town to avoid a potentially embarra.s.sing entanglement.

A truck rumbled past him along the busy avenue, a troop of pasdars seated on benches in the cargo area. With smoldering eyes, Moosa watched them go by, his hand brushing the Beretta concealed by his jacket. With all that was within him, he hated these illiterate, swaggering p.a.w.ns of Khomeini. They, along with their mullah masters, would be responsible for the death of this nation. Moosa already held them responsible for the persecution and humiliation of his father. And if he died in that prison ... Moosa's teeth ground together and his nostrils flared in concealed rage.

On this way home, he went into the covered bazaar. He felt more confident today than yesterday, bolstered by his success with the moneychanger. Today he had brought 600,000 tomans.

Walking past the gun booths, he saw a familiar figure. Nathan Moosovi stood at a display case, attended by an unctuous merchant who watched eagerly as Nathan peeled off rial notes from a wad of currency. Satisfied, the merchant grabbed six double handfuls of ammunition cartridge containers and placed them in a cardboard box, sliding it toward Nathan. "Thank you, baradar," the merchant grinned. "may all your enemies perish."

Nathan gave the overly solicitous vendor a withering glance, then grasped the box with both hands, grunting as he lifted it.

Moosa eased up beside him. "Nathan, what in heaven's name are you doing with all that ammunition? Starting a war, or what?"

Nathan's eyes went wide as his face jerked around toward Moosa's. For an instant, the stare was the same one he had given the merchant. Recognizing Moosa, he relaxed slightly. Nathan glanced about him, then back at Moosa. "Come," he said in a low voice. "Help me carry this to my car."

When they were outside, Nathan said, "You scared the life out of me in there. I thought you were a pasdar or something."

"Sorry," said Moosa. "I dealt with that same merchant a few days ago."

Nathan and Moosa eased the heavy box into the trunk of a battered green Volvo. Nathan closed the lid, then looked thoughtfully at Moosa. "You bought a gun?"

Moosa nodded. Looking surrept.i.tiously about, he briefly pulled his jacket back to expose the handle of the Beretta, protruding from his belt.

Nathan took a pack of Turkish cigarettes from his pocket. He offered it to Moosa, who declined. With a practiced gesture he shook the pack to expose the end of one of the unfiltered smokes and pulled it from the wrapper with his lips. He cupped his hands around a match as he lit it, then drew the smoke deeply into his lungs, feeling the hot-cool vapor sending its soothing tendrils through his chest. He glanced up at Moosa. "What brings you to the bazaar?"

Moosa looked away. "I have come on an errand-for my father."

Nathan's eyes narrowed. "I heard the news about your father last night."

"And I the news of yours," Moosa replied. After an uncomfortable pause, he continued, "I am sorry, Nathan. He was a good man."

Nathan's jaw clenched as twin streams of tobacco smoke issued from his nostrils. "Yes," he said finally. "He was far too good to die as he did."

Wordlessly Moosa nodded, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the pavement beside the car.

Nathan took a long last drag at the cigarette, thumping it into the middle of the street. Decisively he peered at Moosa. "Go and do your errand," he said. "I'll wait for you here. When you're finished, come with me to my place. I want to talk with you about something."

Moosa studied Nathan's intense eyes. After seconds, he nodded. "All right. I won't be too long." He turned and went into the bazaar. Nathan watched his back until he disappeared into the crowds at the bazaar entrance, then opened the driver's side door of the Volvo and got inside to wait.

The back of Ezra's throat swelled in nausea as he looked into the bowl of filth the guards had given him to eat. Moldy rice swam in rancid pools of grease, and the hunk of cheese in the bowl was old and as hard as shoe leather. Despite the pangs gnawing at his entrails, he could not force himself to eat this slop. As he laid the bowl aside, another prisoner, glancing furtively from the bowl to Ezra, began scooping the rice into his mouth with his fingers.

The sound of booted feet slapped down the corridor outside the cell, and a party of guards halted, looking inside.

"Reuben Ibrahim," called one of the guards, "and Ezra Solaiman. Prepare for trial. You have fifteen minutes to make your peace with Allah." The guard detail marched away.

Ezra sat wide-eyed, fear and hope chasing each other in a tangled frenzy through his breast. He was relieved to be leaving this dung heap, and perhaps the receipt would carry the day. But inevitable doom lay like a thick shroud over this place, and it was hard to believe in tomorrow. Suppose the mullahs did not believe his receipt was genuine-suppose it was confiscated in the courtroom?

He heard a soft sob beside him. Reuben was half-weeping, half-praying. Over and over, Ezra heard him mutter a word that sounded like the Hebrew name Yeshua.

Ezra reached over and gripped the shoulder of his cell mate. He tried to smile, failing miserably.

Reuben looked at him, tears streaming down his face. "G.o.d help us, Ezra," he sobbed. "We are next to die."

Ezra gripped his cell mate by the arms. "You must have hope, Reuben!" he said sternly. "With your last breath, you must cling to hope. Perhaps-"

"It is no use," said Reuben, shaking his head. "The mullahs don't listen to anyone except Khomeini. They do entirely as they please, and justice means nothing to them. They will find me guilty, and they will shoot me, and nothing on earth can change that."

Reuben drew a long shuddering breath before fixing Ezra with an intent stare. "But death doesn't frighten me, Solaiman, as much as knowing that my wife and daughter will be left alone." He bowed his head, and again Ezra heard the whispered word, "Yeshua."

Drawing a tremulous breath, Reuben looked up at Ezra. "I wonder, Solaiman, if by some miracle you should survive, would you do me a last favor?"

"My friend, you only need to ask," said Ezra with quiet fervor.

"Would you go to my wife, Jahan-she has moved, with my daughter Maheen, to the house of her father-and give them this? He drew a folded, grimy envelope from his pocket and pa.s.sed it to Ezra. He muttered the address, which Ezra carefully repeated. "There is a note inside," Reuben continued, "giving instructions about where I hid some money. They will be needing it." He struggled to control his voice. "And ... one more thing."

Ezra waited, tears seeping from the corners of his eyes.

"Tell Jahan ..." Reuben's chest heaved with emotion. "... tell her that I love her as I have never loved anyone on this earth-to my dying breath this was so. And tell her I have prayed that Yeshua might protect her."

The two men gripped each other's arms. Ezra had time to puzzle only briefly over Reuben's enigmatic last words. And then the guards were outside the door. The lock clicked, and the door swung open. Ezra and Reuben shook hands, then turned to go.

As they walked down the dark corridor, Ezra for the first time since his boyhood, began silently reciting a psalm of David, half-forgotten until this moment: "In You I trust, Oh my G.o.d; do not let me be put to shame. Do not let my enemies triumph over me."

One of the offices in the prison complex was used as a courtroom. Six benches for the accused were lined up on one side of the door. Ezra and Reuben were seated on the front left corner, closest to the trial committee. Thirty-odd wretches crammed the benches already, but they were seated farther back; plainly their cases were to be decided after Ezra's and Reuben's.

The trial committee was comprised of a mullah, who presided, and four civilians. As Ezra looked at his judges, he recognized one of them, Barbar, a porter in the covered bazaar! How in the name of G.o.d could an uneducated fellow, such as Ezra knew this one to be, make life-and-death decisions? Yet there he sat, his chin tilted at an angle, which showed he was conscious of his lofty responsibility and not at all intimidated by it.

On the wall behind the committee hung the ubiquitous oversized portrait of the Imam Khomeini. A table separated the committee from the prisoners, who were guarded by six armed pasdars, ranged along the walls near the accused. The room stank of fear and stale cigarette smoke.

Unseen by Ezra, Firouz Marandi sat at the rear of the room, impatiently awaiting the beginning of the proceedings. It was he who had arranged for Solaiman's case to be called early-the sooner to gain what was coming to him. He fidgeted in his chair, trying to catch the presiding mullah's eye to urge him to get started.

Mullah Ha.s.san sorted through the stacks of paper on the table in front of him. As presiding officer of the tribunal, he had reviewed these brief summaries of the accusations against each of the men to be tried today. They were the usual lot: former police officers who had taken bribes, merchants denounced for lack of charity to the poor, political operatives of the Pahlavi regime.

He could not find the abstract for the Solaiman fellow, and this was what he sought among the other papers before him. The Tudeh fellow-Marandi, was it?-had promised him a rich reward for calling this case early. Ha.s.san was not averse to a reward, but how could he prosecute the case if he did not have the particulars before him? Annoyed, he continued to sift through the doc.u.ments. Ah, there it was at last.

The mullah looked up, glanced quickly about the crowded room, and intoned in a bored voice, "Let the proceedings begin. In the Name of Allah the Merciful and Compa.s.sionate, on this twentieth day of Rabi, second of the 1,357th year of the Hegira of the Prophet Muhammad-blessings and peace be upon him-this tribunal of the Holy Revolution is called to order. Summon the first prisoner."

A bailiff consulted the list in his hand. "Reuben Ibrahim, rise, bow to your judges, and take the witness chair."

Reuben stood on unsteady legs and managed a bow toward the table. He walked stiffly toward the chair to the right of the committee's table and sat down.

The mullah turned toward Reuben. "State your name."

"Your humble servant, Reuben Ibrahim," replied the accused in a unsteady voice.

"Your profession?"

"A small rug dealer, your honor."

Ezra watched the mockery of a trial, horrified. No witnesses were called, no attorneys were present. Only the accused, the mullah, and the four other "judges." No cross-examination took place, nor was the accused allowed to speak in his own defense. The mullah, alone and unchallenged, asked the questions and interpreted the answers.

"Ibrahim, I will ask you a very important question," said Ha.s.san. "Were you a supporter of the satanic Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi?"

The other four members of the committee leaned toward Reuben, awaiting his answer.

The wretched fellow squirmed in his chair. "Your honor, my business was small, and I had to work hard to make a living for my family. I have no time for politics."

"You didn't answer my question," insisted the mullah, his voice rising. "Did you or did you not support the Shah?"

"I have said I did not partic.i.p.ate in politics."

"Answer the question!" shouted Ha.s.san, pounding his fist on the table. "Don't waste the time of this court! There are many more criminals to be tried today, and I have no intention of allowing you to make an exhibition of these proceedings! Now answer!

Ezra groaned inwardly as Reuben seemed to shrink before his every eyes. "No, your honor," came the half-whispered reply, "I did not support the Shah."

The mullah leaned back, a self-satisfied smile flickering across his lips. "Very well," he said. "You have said you did not support the Shah." The cleric sifted through some papers at his elbow, glancing downward, then back at Reuben. "Please tell me how you got to your place of business each day."

Dejectedly, Reuben said, "By bus." He did not look up from the floor.

"And on the bus," continued Ha.s.san, "did you ever hear the patriotic chanting of slogans against the satanic Shah?"

Reuben nodded weakly.