Hot Spot

by Jim Carroll

  I established a regular Thursday presence at a coffee shop on Felestin Street, where I soon made friends with several young men. Multiple (but ancient) TV sets blasted out national soccer games, often Persepolis versus Esteghial (meaning independence) at the shop. These were our initial excuse for sitting together. The 100,000 attendees at the local games made their cheers heard for miles around the stadium. No women were allowed at the games – too many men in shorts, thus providing intolerable stimulation for the ladies.

  The coffee shop’s iron tables on the concrete sidewalks rattled with the passing autos, and the car exhaust choked us. The traffic never ceased. My friends pointed out the Gasht-e Ershad (Guidance Patrol) vans that roamed the larger squares. Through the vigilance of the occupants of these vehicles, the morals and propriety of our apparel was assured.

  Weeks passed before the conversations deepened. The four I was close to described themselves as Muslim, but seemed secular in their worldview. They did not stop for prayer time, sported Nike tennis shoes, wore knockoff American-style blue jeans, and read magazines that extolled American movies, most of which were not legally shown in Iran. As in most of the Gulf States, they bought whatever movies they wanted from video pirates.

  Two, Abbas and Shaheen, often kept me up late into the evening with their discussions. They couched their thoughts as philosophical but really they were religious in nature. “Can we really believe in anything?” they often asked. It seemed they were in a contest, each to outlast the other so that one would tire and depart, leaving the other with me alone.

  Shaheen won first. After Abbas left at 10:30 one night, Shaheen pulled his chair nearer to mine and ordered us both another Turkish coffee. The drink was thick, strong, and definitely eye-opening. He lowered his voice, pulled even closer, indicating that he did not want our conversation overheard. The fact that he was the son of a local cleric indicated to me his thoughts were in the realm of the religious and that he deemed secrecy necessary.

  “Yusef, we’re friends now, and I want us to keep confidences as friends do. I’m really troubled. I know I’m responsible to my father, but I have thoughts I can’t discuss with him. I sense from what you’ve said during our evenings together that you’re more broad-minded. Perhaps you can tell me what’s happening to me. I’m having disturbing, recurrent dreams. I don’t know what to do about them.”

  Dreams again. I dreaded what might be waiting for me behind the dream door. “Everyone has dreams,” I replied nonchalantly. “They probably are not of any importance.”

  “I know that, but my dreams have become strange to me.” He fidgeted with his prayer beads. Had the ninety-nine names of God failed him? “I don’t know what the dreams mean. All I know is that they are stressful. I wake sweated and afraid. I’m frightened, really frightened about what they mean.” He held his hands near his mouth, perhaps to conceal his words from lip readers. How risky was this? People in Iran were frightened of those who watched.

  I avoided where this might be leading. “Most of the time, I think, dreams don’t really mean anything at all. They just take a common form, like fleeing from danger with no available refuge. Sometimes they’re a sexual fantasy, perhaps for release. Or they may stem from things we are worried about or jobs we must do that are not done, like a school assignment. When we wake, we find there was no such task. Don’t be troubled by these patterns.” I tried to minimize the importance of the dream before he told me about it. I moved my chair back from his, instinctively trying to avoid the coming trouble.

  “No, I know the dreams you’re talking about, and that kind does not bother me. As you say, everyone has those. These are different and there are two of them: two different, but related, dreams. In the first I find myself riding on a black horse in the middle of a road surrounded by poor women and children on each side. They’re hungry and crying. I have two bags filled with food. I’m not even hungry, but I don’t give them any of my food. The road is long and seems to have no end, but still I ride on and fail to act.”

  I replied, “What do you think the dream means?”

  “I don’t know, but it makes me feel really guilty. I have never ridden a black horse down such a road, but my family is rich and we don’t share what we have.”

  “That is true of so many of us. And the second dream?”

  “That dream frightens me even more. In the second dream I’m riding the same black horse down the same road and the starving people are still there. But coming toward me, riding on a white horse, is a man in a bright, white robe with terrible scars on his hands. The man puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me he forgives me. I ask how anyone can forgive me. He doesn’t answer but I feel the power of his forgiveness, and for a time I feel free of what I’ve done. I turn my horse around and distribute my bags of food to the people. And then I awaken, and soon the guilt I felt returns. Both dreams keep repeating, one after the other.”

  “Who is the man in white?” I questioned. I kept a straight face, avoiding any hints.

  “I’m afraid to say what I think. I’m afraid what my father would say,” he blinked rapidly.

  “Then you know who it is. What are you going to do?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  “I’ve seen this before. Your course is already mapped out for you, but I can’t tell what to do. This is your decision.”

  Shaheen continued, “The trouble is that I don’t know anything about Jesus. There, I’ve said it. I’ve said His name. I haven’t told anyone else.”

  “Well, I can get a Bible for you. Then you can read for yourself about who Jesus is. Don’t tell your father though.” I left him alone, sitting with his unfinished coffee. The rust from the iron tables stained the sidewalk.

  So, it began. A week later Abbas went through the same exercise, not the same dream, but one with the same theme. It occurred to me that he and Shaheen had communicated because of the similar course of the conversation, but Abbas denied telling anyone else. Still, the comparisons were striking. I knew the cost of these discussions could be high, and truth be known, I was more concerned with that price than their value. What would the cost be to me? Why had I engaged in this religious intrigue in the first place? I was not some sort of strong Christian by any means. I should not be taking these risks, but I could not resist showing off my skills, and somewhere deep within me, I knew I should help these men find the real God.

  In January 2014 following talks in Geneva, Iran, the U.S. and Great Britain began implementing a program to deal with Iran’s nuclear facilities. In April the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had neutralized half its enriched nuclear stockpile.

  The tension between America and Iran remained high, and there were large, periodic demonstrations reported in the streets of Tehran and Isfahan featuring the chant, “Death to America.” I asked Abbas why they were saying that. “We like Americans,” he explained, “It’s just the American government. If you look closely, you will see men in suits passing out flyers to the crowd. The crowd is instructed what to do.” As I looked, I saw that there were more than a few of these unsmiling men in dark suits mingled in with the people.

  Such was the context into which the dream conversions entered. I knew it was not proper to call them conversions, as they were not yet corroborated. From all I’d heard about similar occurrences in Iran, I suspected these were not the last. These could lead me to dangerous ground in the political and social morass in Iran.

  Even so, I gloried in Iran’s complex and beautiful society. After all, God had foreordained what was happening with these men, and all that would happen thereafter. My mother’s psalms invaded my consciousness, and her memory forced me to see His hand: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork … In them he has set a tent for the sun” (Psalm 19:1,4b). Whatever the strength of my own faith, I couldn’t deny what I saw.

  Even with the distractions of the dreams, I continued to be the star employee of the Persia Trading Com
pany. I continued in a position of praise, one to which I had grown accustomed as my father’s favorite growing up. All this attention confirmed my youthful dreams and plans.

  Abbas and Shaheen had dispatched my other Thursday evening coffee partners and monopolized me. I supplied both with Bibles, and our café discussions became quite open. One evening we focused on the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Their prior ideas of religion placed the Pharisee at the higher position of the two. After all, he knew the most about religion.

  “The Pharisee is a good citizen. He’s the one to be praised,” argued Abbas. The correct actions and superior knowledge of the Pharisee were, to Abbas, deserving of tribute. They were troubled that God turned away from the Pharisee.

  When I explained the underhanded role of tax collectors in the society of that day, they were even more upset. “Why would God turn to the one who had done wrong, the one who stole from others?”

  I let them figure this out based on their own experiences. “Why did God seek you out? Did you deserve it?” The tax collector at least acknowledged his wrongdoing on his own. Only now did Abbas and Shaheen do so. “So in your situations, Abbas and Shaheen, God sought you out first. Are you the Pharisee or the tax collector of the story?”

  Not long after this, Ferouz joined us. He had contacted Abbas after a brief meeting at a mosque, and accompanied Abbas and Shaheen to our evening sessions. Why had Ferouz made the connection? It didn’t compute. Ferouz was longhaired, disheveled, and perhaps a seeker of sorts, but had not had any dreams. He was more in the category of a disaffected youth who had parental conflicts and a record of minor misbehaviors, including drug offenses. He had been arrested for participating in illegal demonstrations against the Ayatollah, from which his father had extracted him. His parents had gone to great lengths to disengage him from his drug-dealing comrades and other brushes with the authorities. They had the means to do so. I wasn’t certain if he was sincere or simply rebellious. Had I known his father’s position in the beginning, I would have cut off all dealings with Ferouz right away. His father was a member of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. All their ministers must have a degree in ijtihad, or the certified ability to interpret the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet. His father would not be an easy dodge.

  Our meetings continued regularly until Abbas called me one morning while I was at work. “Yusef, we could be in trouble.” His voice quavered. He wouldn’t reveal what was wrong over the phone, but urgently asked that we meet at noon. We met on Masjad-Sayyed Street where we each bought a lamb shawarma with the meat shaved off the circular slab rotating in front of the gas burner. The meat was placed on flatbread along with sliced lettuce, tomatoes, and yogurt. We sat together on a bench. Abbas didn’t eat; the shawarma remained untouched.

  Abbas said, “I’m afraid we’ve made a big mistake bringing Ferouz into our discussions.”

  “How’s that? I know he’s immature, but perhaps it’ll come to something.”

  “Yusef, I think it’s all an act. I think his father put him up to it. We both know the status of his father.”

  I put my lunch aside. “Then we’re finished, and I’m Kuwaiti. Who knows what they’ll do to me?” I thought of the hiking Americans who had been arrested. But after a moment, I recovered. “But maybe there’s a way out. I have an idea.” My first thought was for my own safety. Why was that always my fallback position?

  “I think we should escape. We’ll make a run for it, maybe to the north to Baku.” said Abbas.

  “To where? We can’t just leave. We’ve nowhere to go. What would we do in Baku? And we have no visas for Azerbaijan. No, let’s go with my idea.” My talent for treachery surfaced. “The three of us, you, Shaheen, and I will go to Ferouz’s father and report his activities. After all, he told us he wanted to leave Islam. His father will thank us, say he is going to discipline Ferouz, and that will be the end of it. We’ll be done with him.”

  As the eldest of our group, I phoned Hamad Amirzadeh, Ferouz’s father, and asked permission for the three of us to visit him. I asked him not to include his son, and we met in his office the next day. The office was all wood panel and imitation gold trim. The thick-bearded Amirzadeh was stiff and unsmiling, no tie, collar open, as was the custom for higher government officials. He sat behind his massive desk, ramrod straight with a computer to his left, and a large Quran between himself and us. The Quran was so large that he couldn’t possibly ever hold it and read from it.

  As I glanced to my right on his computer screen, I got a glimpse of an e-mail – from Esau Allison! Surely, I was wrong. Why would Esau with ISIL contacts be in communication with Amirzadeh, a strict Shia of the cleric class? It made no sense. When he saw the direction of my gaze, he clicked off the page.

  I addressed him first. “Peace be unto you, Hamad Amirzadeh. We bring news to you that we would rather not have to share, but given your honored position, and the still existent possibility of setting your son on the right path, we’ve come. Your son has been meeting with us for several weeks. We’re afraid he wants to leave Islam.”

  Amirzadeh showed no emotion and didn’t respond, never altering his posture.

  Abbas filled the silence. “He’s a good boy, but he’s immature. Perhaps we led him on by listening. We didn’t intend to do this, and we won’t meet with him again.”

  “We trust you’ll be patient with him. He’s just a young man searching for his way. He knows nothing else but Islam.’’

  Amirzadeh still showed no expression. He rose, thanked us for coming, and nodded at the door, indicating we should leave. He never said good-bye in the traditional way. We uttered the standard phrase of departure, “khoda hefez” (or “May God be your guardian”), and left quickly. I closed with my right hand briefly on the left side of my chest, a traditional indication of respect and affection.

  The three of us gathered outside the building for a moment and wondered if we had achieved our goal. Amirzadeh was highly intelligent, and probably understood our motives. If Ferouz had worn a recorder and taped our conversations, we were lost. We had no way of knowing. We agreed to wait two weeks before resuming our meetings, and then make a better plan for our own protection. We saw no more of Ferouz; we had done our best.

  When we reconvened at the coffee shop in two weeks, we were all relieved that no other threat had surfaced. We knew the Iranian secret service were patient though, and might be waiting to collect additional evidence. “We mustn’t give them any opportunity to trap us,” I said. I proposed simple, clear-cut guidelines. The three of us leaned forward, necks taut. “First, there can be no discussion of Christianity with anyone at all. Second, we must avoid leaving out Bibles and other materials that might be found when we’re not at home. Any of our haunts might be searched. Third, for a month, we’ll not discuss our beliefs with anyone outside our group of three. After that, we’ll reassess the risks.” The best we could hope for was no news.

  I remained confident in the strength of my own position – from a rich Kuwaiti family, an honored guest of the Iranian government, with a job in which I was a remarkable success. They needed me to circumvent the Western sanctions, after all. But most of all, I trusted in my ability to analyze my way through any situation and come out on top. In short, I attributed my fortunes in life to my unusual qualities and skills. All this was accurate, I was certain of it.

  I had just concluded another profitable arrangement, this time with an Indonesian investment group, and my confidence was high; my head erect; and my white shirt, well-starched. Thus, it was with little concern that I accepted the approach of Shabaz Tehrani, a coworker at the trading company. He was a quiet man with horn-rimmed glasses and thick lenses from whom I had heard only pleasantries. I should have wondered why he sought me out at this particular time. The words of a psalm came to me but I ignored them: “Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor” (Psalm 12:1-2). My mothe
r had prepared me for this time, but I dismissed her counsel, even as the Word of God she had planted within me spoke.

  Shabaz opened the conversation in an odd way. “Yusef, you’re so successful in everything here. I understand your family is Christian.”

  What was the connection between success and being a Christian? How did he know I was a Christian? I had not spoken of my family to anyone in the office. I gave no response.

  “It’s important we’re private in our conversations. But I have many questions I want to ask you. I hope you can share your experiences with me.”

  “Shabaz, why are we having this conversation? What is this about?” I tried to lead him to a private area of the office.

  “I understand you’re a Christian. I want help with certain questions.”

  “Then, let me talk to you to see what your understanding is about being a Christian. You can decide for yourself if I am a Christian. I am not saying one way or the other.” I was careful not to admit my status; but if he was truly a seeker, I didn’t want to reject him. My lack of denial of being a Christian was undoubtedly equal to a full admission. For a moment I felt vulnerable, particularly in view of our recent encounter with the Amirzadeh family, but I allowed the exchange to continue anyway.

  I should have opted out of the conversation, but I ignored my own recurring dream. Again the Joseph effect haunted me. In the dream I saw a man shackled and imprisoned with no trial. Confident of my position, I did not allow myself to see the dream’s interpretation. Surely my family situation and native skill would shelter me from harm.

  “Yusef, I was, of course, reared a Muslim. I avoid wrongdoing according to the Quran. I think surely that must be enough, but I hear certain radio stations who say they are Christian. They say being good is not enough. How can this be?”

  “What do you mean by ‘good’?” I asked.

  “I mean doing the right things, not hurting anyone.”