“No thank you, dear sister.”
Then there was lots of laughter and one of the young ones said, “Poor Azadeh doesn’t need jacaranda and muck—she needs the opposite!”
“Jacaranda and musk, child, with rhino horn,” Fazulia said.
Azadeh laughed with them. They had all asked her, overtly or covertly, if her husband was equally proportioned and how did she, so skinny and so fragile, deal with it and bear his weight? “By magic,” she had told the young ones, “easily,” the serious ones, and “with unbelievable ecstasy as it must be in the Garden of Paradise,” the jealous ones and those she hated and secretly wanted to taunt.
Not everyone had approved of her marriage to this foreign giant. Many had tried to influence her father against him and against her. But she had won and she knew who her enemies were: her sex-mad half sister, Zadi, lying Cousin Fazulia with her nonsense exaggerations, and, most of all, the honeyed viper of the pack, eldest sister Najoud and her vile husband Mahmud, may God punish them for their evil ways. “Dearest Najoud, I’m so happy to be home, but now it’s time for sleep.”
And so to bed. All of them. Some happily, some sadly, some angrily, some hating, some loving, some to their husbands and some alone. Husbands could have four wives, according to the Koran, at the same time, provided they treated each with equality in every way—Mohammed the Prophet, alone of all men, had been allowed as many wives as he wished. According to legend, the Prophet had had eleven wives in his lifetime though not all at the same time. Some died, some he divorced, and some outlived him. But all of them honored him forever.
Erikki awoke as Azadeh slipped into bed beside him. “We should leave as early as possible, Azadeh, my darling.”
“Yes,” she said, almost asleep now, the bed so comfortable, him so comfortable. “Yes, whenever you like, but please not until after lunch because dearest Stepmother will weep buckets…”
“Azadeh!”
But she was asleep now. He sighed, also content, and went back to sleep.
They did not leave Sunday as planned—her father had said it was inconvenient as he wished to talk to Erikki first. At dawn today, Monday, after prayers that her father had led, and after breakfast—coffee and bread and honey and yogurt and eggs—they had been allowed to leave and now swung off the mountainside road on to the main Tehran road and there ahead was the roadblock.
“That’s weird,” Erikki said. Colonel Mazardi had said he would meet them here but he was nowhere to be seen, nor was the roadblock manned.
“Police!” Azadeh said, with a yawn. “They’re never where you want them.”
The road climbed up to the pass. The sky was blue and clear and the tops of the mountains already washed with sunlight. Down here in the valley, it was still dark and chill and damp, the road slippery, snow-banked, but this did not worry him as the Range Rover had four-wheel drive and he carried chains. Later, when he came to the base turnoff he passed it by. He knew the base was empty, the 212 safe and waiting for repairs. Before leaving the palace he had tried unsuccessfully to contact his manager, Dayati. But that did not matter. He settled back in his seat, he had full tanks, and six spare five-gallon cans that he had got from Abdollah’s private pump.
I can get to Tehran easily today, he thought. And back by Wednesday—if I come back. That bastard Rakoczy’s very bad news indeed.
“Would you like some coffee, darling?” Azadeh asked.
“Thanks. See if you can find the BBC or the VOA on the shortwave.” Gratefully he accepted the hot coffee from the thermos, listening to the crackle of static and heterodyning and loud Soviet stations and little else. Iranian stations were still strikebound and closed down, except the ones worked by the military.
Over the weekend friends, relations, tradesmen, servants had brought rumors and counterrumors of everything from imminent Soviet invasion to imminent U.S. invasion, from successful military coups in the capital to abject submission of all the generals to Khomeini and Bakhtiar’s resignation.
“Asinine!” Abdollah Khan had said. He was a corpulent man in his sixties, bearded, with dark eyes and full mouth, bejeweled and richly dressed. “Why should Bakhtiar resign? He gains nothing so there’s no reason, yet.”
“And if Khomeini wins?” Erikki had asked.
“It is the Will of God.” The Khan was lounging on carpets in the Great Room, Erikki and Azadeh seated in front of him, his armed bodyguard standing behind him. “But Khomeini’s victory will be only temporary, if he achieves it. The armed forces will curb him and his mullahs, sooner or later. He’s an old man. Soon he will die, the sooner the better, for though he has done God’s will and been the instrument to remove the Shah whose time had come, he’s vindictive, narrow-sighted, as megalomaniacal as the Shah, if not more so. He will surely murder more Iranians than the Shah ever did.”
“But isn’t he a man of God, pious and everything an ayatollah should be?” Erikki asked warily, not knowing what to expect. “Why should Khomeini do that?”
“It’s the habit of tyrants.” The Khan laughed and took another of the halvah, the Turkish sweets he gorged on.
“And the Shah? What will happen now?” As much as Erikki disliked the Khan, he was glad for the opportunity to get his opinion. On him depended much of his and Azadeh’s life in Iran and he had no wish to leave.
“As God wants. Mohammed Shah did incredibly well for Iran, like his father before him. But in the last few years he was totally curled up in himself and would listen to no one—not even the Shahbanu, Empress Farah, who was dedicated to him, and wise. If he had any sense he would abdicate at once in favor of his son Reza. The generals need a rallying point, they could train him until he’s ready to take power—don’t forget Iran’s been a monarchy for almost three thousand years, always an absolute ruler, some might say tyrant, with absolute power and removed only by death.” He had smiled, his lips full and sensuous, “Of the Qajar Shahs, our legitimate dynasty who ruled for a hundred and fifty years, only one, the last of the line, my cousin, died of natural causes. We are an Oriental people, not Western, who understand violence and torture. Life and death are not judged by your standards.” His dark eyes had seemed to grow darker. “Perhaps it is the Will of God that the Qajars will return—under their rule Iran prospered.”
That’s not what I heard, Erikki had thought. But he held his peace. It’s not up to me to judge what has been or what would be here.
All Sunday the BBC and the VOA had been jammed which was not unusual. Radio Moscow was loud and clear, as usual, and Radio Free Iran that broadcast from Tbilisi north of the border also loud and clear as usual. Their reports in Farsi and English told of total insurrection against “Bakhtiar’s illegal government of the ousted Shah and his American masters, headed by the warmonger and liar President Carter. Today Bakhtiar tried to curry favor with the masses by canceling a total of $13 billion of usurious military contracts forced on the country by the deposed Shah: $8 billion in the U.S.A., British Centurion tank contracts worth $2.3 billion, plus two French nuclear reactors, and one from Germany worth another $2.7 billion. This news has sent Western leaders into panic and will undoubtedly send capitalist stock markets into a well-deserved crash…”
“Excuse me for asking, Father, but will the West crash?” Azadeh had asked.
“Not this time,” the Khan had said and Erikki saw his face grow colder. “Not unless the Soviets decide this is the time to renege on the $80 billion they owe Western banks—and even some Oriental banks.” He had laughed sardonically, playing with the string of pearls he wore around his neck. “Of course Oriental moneylenders are much cleverer; at least they’re not so greedy. They lend judiciously and require collaterals and believe no one and certainly not in the myth of ‘Christian charity.’” It was common knowledge that the Gorgons owned enormous tracts of land in Azerbaijan, good oil land, a large part of Iran-Timber, seafront property on the Caspian, much of the bazaar in Tabriz, and most of the merchant banks there.
Erikki remember
ed the whispers he had heard about Abdollah Khan when he was trying to get permission to marry Azadeh, about his parsimony and ruthlessness in business: “A quick way to Paradise or hell is to owe Abdollah the Cruel one rial, to not pay pleading poverty, and to stay in Azerbaijan.”
“Father, please may I ask, cancellation of so many contracts will cause havoc, won’t it?”
“No, you may not ask. You’ve asked enough questions for one day. A woman is supposed to hold her tongue and listen—now you can leave.”
At once she apologized for her error and left obediently. “Please excuse me.”
Erikki got up to leave too, but the Khan stopped him: “I have not dismissed you yet. Sit down. Now, why should you fear one Soviet?”
“I don’t—just the system. That man has to be KGB.”
“Why didn’t you just kill him then?”
“It would not have helped, it would have hurt. Us, the base, Iran-Timber, Azadeh, perhaps even you. He was sent to me by others. He knows us—knows you.” Erikki had watched the old man carefully.
“I know lots of them. Russians, Soviet or tsarist, have always coveted Azerbaijan, but have always been good customers of Azerbaijan—and helped us against the stinking British. I prefer them to British, I understand them.” His smile thinned even more. “It would be easy to remove this Rakoczy.”
“Good, then do it, please.” Erikki had laughed full-throated. “And all of them as well. That would really be doing God’s work.”
“I don’t agree,” the Khan said ill-temperedly. “That would be doing Satan’s work. Without the Soviets against them, the Americans and their dogs the British would dominate us and all the world. They’d certainly eat up Iran—under Mohammed Shah they nearly did. Without Soviet Russia, whatever her failings, there’d be no check on America’s foul policies, foul arrogance, foul manners, foul jeans, foul music, foul food, and foul democracy, their disgusting attitudes to women, to law and order, their disgusting pornography, naive attitude to diplomacy, and their evil, yes, that’s the correct word, their evil antagonism to Islam.”
The last thing Erikki wanted was another confrontation. In spite of his resolve, he felt his own rage gathering. “We had an agreem—”
“It’s true, by God!” Khan shouted at him. “It’s true!”
“It’s not, and we had an agreement before your God and my spirits that we’d not discuss politics—either of your world or mine.”
“It’s true, admit it!” Abdollah Khan snarled, his face twisted with rage. One hand went to the ornamental knife at his belt, and at once the guard unslung his machine pistol and covered Erikki. “By Allah, you call me a liar in my own house?” he bellowed.
Erikki said through his teeth, “I only remind you, Highness, by your Allah, what we agreed!” The dark bloodshot eyes stared at him. He stared back, ready to go for his own knife and kill or be killed, the danger between them very great.
“Yes, yes, that’s also true,” the Khan muttered, and the fit of rage passed as quickly as it had erupted. He looked at the guard, angrily waved him away. “Get out!”
Now the room was very still. Erikki knew there were other guards nearby and spyholes in the walls. He felt the sweat on his forehead and the touch of his pukoh knife in the center of his back.
Abdollah Khan knew the knife was there and that Erikki would use it without hesitation. But the Khan had given him perpetual permission to be armed with it in his presence. Two years ago Erikki had saved his life.
That was the day Erikki was petitioning him for permission to marry Azadeh and was imperiously turned down: “No, by Allah, I want no infidels in my family. Leave my house! For the last time!” Erikki had got up from the carpet, sick at heart. At that moment there had been a scuffle outside the door, then shots, the door had burst open and two men, assassins armed with machine guns, had rushed in, others fighting a gun battle in the corridor. The Khan’s bodyguard had killed one, but the other sprayed him with bullets then turned his gun on Abdollah Khan who sat on the carpet in shock. Before the assassin could pull the trigger a second time, he died, Erikki’s knife in his throat. At the same moment Erikki lunged for him, ripped the gun out of his hands and the knife out of his throat as another assassin rushed into the room firing. Erikki had smashed the machine gun into the man’s face, killing him, almost tearing off his head with the strength of his blow, then charged into the corridor berserk. Three attackers and two of the bodyguards were dead or dying. The last of the attackers took to their heels, but Erikki cut them both down and raced onward. And only when he had found Azadeh and saw that she was safe did the bloodlust go out of his head and he become calm again.
Erikki remembered how he had left her and had gone back to the same Great Room. Abdollah Khan still sat on the carpets. “Who were those men?”
“Assassins—enemies, like the guards who let them in,” Abdollah Khan had said malevolently. “It was the Will of God you were here to save my life, the Will of God that I am alive. You may marry Azadeh, yes, but because I do not like you, we will both swear before God and your—whatever you worship—not to discuss religion or politics, either of your world or mine, then perhaps I will not have to have you killed.”
And now the same cold black eyes were staring at him. Abdollah Khan clapped his hands. Instantly the door opened and a servant appeared. “Bring coffee!” The man hurried away. “I will drop the subject of your world and go to another we can discuss: my daughter, Azadeh.”
Erikki became even more on guard, not sure of the extent of her father’s control over her, or his own rights as her husband while he was in Azerbaijan—very much the old man’s fief. If Abdollah Khan really ordered Azadeh back to this house and to divorce him, would she? I think yes, I’m afraid yes—she certainly will never hear a word against him. She even defended his paranoiac hatred of America by explaining what had caused it:
“He was ordered there, to university, by his father,” she had told him. “He had a terrible time in America, Erikki, learning the language and trying to get a degree in economics which his father demanded before he was allowed home. My father hated the other students who sneered at him because he couldn’t play their games, because he was heavier than they which in Iran is a sign of wealth but not in America, and was slow at learning. But most of all because of the hazing that he was forced to endure, forced, Erikki—to eat unclean things like pork that are against our religion, to drink beer and wine and spirits that are against our religion, to do unmentionable things and be called unmentionable names. I would be angry too if it had been me. Please be patient with him. Don’t Soviets make a blood film come over your eyes and heart for what they did to your father and mother and country? Be patient with him, I beg you. Hasn’t he agreed to our marriage? Be patient with him.”
I’ve been very patient, Erikki thought, more patient than with any man, wishing the interview was over. “What about my wife, Highness?” It was custom to call him that and Erikki did so from time to time out of politeness.
Abdollah Khan smiled a thin smile at him. “Naturally my daughter’s future interests me. What is your plan when you go to Tehran?”
“I have no plan. I just think it is wise to get her out of Tabriz for a few days. Rakoczy said they ‘require’ my services. When the KGB say that in Iran or Finland or even America, you’d better clear the decks and prepare for trouble. If they kidnapped her, I would be putty in their hands.”
“They could kidnap her in Tehran much more easily than here, if that is their scheme—you forget this is Azerbaijan”—his lips twisted with contempt—“not Bakhtiar country.”
Erikki felt helpless under the scrutiny. “I only know that’s what I think is best for her. I said I would guard her with my life, and I will. Until the political future of Iran is settled—by you and other Iranians—I think it’s the wise thing to do.”
“In that case, go,” her father had said with a suddenness that had almost frightened him. “Should you need help send me the code words…�
� He thought a moment. Then his smile became sardonic: “Send me the sentence: ‘All men are created equal.’ That’s another truth, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Highness,” he said carefully. “If it is or if it isn’t, it’s surely the Will of God.”
Abdollah had laughed abruptly and got up and left him alone in the Great Room and Erikki had felt a chill on his soul, deeply unsettled by the man whose thoughts he could never read.
“Are you cold, Erikki?” Azadeh asked.
“Oh. No, no, not at all,” he said, coming out of his reverie, the sound of the engine good as they climbed up the mountain road toward the pass. Now they were just below the crest. There had been little traffic either way. Around the corner they came into sunshine and topped the rise; at once Erikki shifted gears smoothly and picked up speed as they began the long descent, the road—built at the order of Reza Shah, like the railway—a wonder of engineering with cuts and embankments and bridges and steep parts with no railings on the precipice side, the surface slippery, snow-banked. He shifted gears again, driving fast but prudently, very glad they had not driven by night. “May I have some more coffee?”
Happily she gave it to him. “I’ll be glad to see Tehran. There’s lots of shopping to be done, Sharazad’s there, and I have a list of things for my sisters and some face cream for Stepmother…”
He hardly listened to her, his mind on Rakoczy, Tehran, McIver, and the next step.
The road twisted and curled in its descent. He slowed and drove more cautiously, some traffic behind him. In the lead was a passenger car, typically overloaded, and the driver drove too close, too fast, and with his finger permanently on the horn even when it was clearly impossible to move out of the way. Erikki closed his ears to the impatience that he had never become used to, or to the reckless way Iranians drove, even Azadeh. He rounded the next blind corner, the gradient steepening, and there on the straight, not far ahead, was a heavily laden truck grinding upward with a car overtaking on the wrong side. He braked, hugging the mountainside. At that moment the car behind him accelerated, swerved around him, horn blaring, overtaking blindly, and hurtled down the wrong side of the curving road. The two cars smashed into each other and both careened over the precipice to fall five hundred feet and burst into flames. Erikki swung closer into the side and stopped. The oncoming truck did not stop, just lumbered past and continued up the hill as though nothing had happened—so did the other traffic.
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