Tehran at Twilight

by Salar Abdoh

  Malek gazed at her. “You never use more words than are necessary. How come?”

  It was true. There was some kind of maximum efficiency about Soaad’s way of talking. Its sparseness negated the maddening baroqueness of the Persian language. She had reduced her world to as little as possible—to him, to her yoga practice, to remembering her friend Anna.

  “Words kill,” she said. “I should know.”

  * * *

  He was back in the Rey District. It was another halabi-abad, a shantytown of improvised buildings mostly made of stolen brick and discarded metal. In a makeshift shack with salvaged chairs and desks, Sina Vafa was holding a class of sorts. There was a small blackboard resting against a precarious wall. Sina wrote out the letters of the Latin alphabet and made the six boys pronounce them loudly. It was curious how intently the kids were studying those letters. Sina’s beard had grown a good two inches. His eyes were subdued, content. Malek had never seen him like this. The man he had known half a year ago was suddenly transformed. One door away, closer to the railroad tracks, a one-eyed teenage boy ran a small stand for Sina where they sold cigarettes, juice, ice cream, and a few other basic goods. On the other side of the schoolhouse Malek had gotten a glimpse of Sina’s own room, not much bigger than a jail cell, with just some blankets and pillows neatly folded to the side. No sign of Sina’s guitar or his books.

  A half hour later the lesson was finished and four of the kids ran out by themselves. A couple of them waited for their parents to come get them. One of the parents, a war vet with a missing leg, arrived last bearing a fold of bread wrapped in a white cloth under one arm. He smiled at Sina, addressed him as Doctor Jalali, and gave him the bread, inviting him to drop by their “humble abode” tomorrow.

  “So you’ve retired from Iraq, Doctor Jalali?” was the first thing Malek asked when they were alone.

  “All this is very new.” Sina made a wide gesture at the classroom and outside. “Even Babur doesn’t believe me. Says I’m just playing make-believe and that I’ll go back to my bad old ways soon enough.”

  “Are you playing make-believe?”

  “No.” The moment got washed in the noise of a passing train screeching a long whistle. Sina motioned for Malek to follow him out.

  They stood there as the train slowly rumbled south. When it was gone they could see the one-legged father and his boy receding on the other side of the tracks, the father working his crutch like a champ, every once in a while bending down to say something to his kid who would then run in circles around him and throw shadow punches.

  This was the very end of Tehran—a place of love, like that father and child, and of relaxed misfortunes.

  Malek’s eyes fell on a junkie leaning against a lamppost. Kids with sticks would gather around, poke him, and run off.

  “I’ve never been happier,” Sina said. “If they just let me keep what I have here, I lack for nothing else.”

  “Who is they?” Malek asked when they were in the back area of the shack where Sina slept.

  There was a knock on the door. A large woman, accompanied by a young girl, tumbled inside, loudly calling Sina “Mr. Doctor.” Malek stood to the side, nonplussed. She was complaining of bad vision and dizzy spells. Sina went at it right away. He got a bag from under the sink, opened it, and began shining a light into the old woman’s eyes and asking questions. Five minutes later, when the examination was done, woman and girl stood up and pretended to be about to drop some paper money into an empty glass jar near the door. Sina wouldn’t let them, so they thanked the doctor again and walked out.

  “She shows up every few days,” Sina explained. “She needs glasses. I’ve told her so. But she likes to come anyway and have me shine that light in her eyes. It’s our little ritual.”

  “Doctor?”

  “She also has an older daughter. Husband disappeared six years ago. She’s as beautiful as the moon, Rez. Our visitor wants me to ask for her daughter’s hand. And you know what? I just might.”

  “Tell me about being a doctor.”

  “I had to learn basic field medicine. Goes a long way around here.”

  Malek gave the place another once-over. It really did seem like a jail cell. “I don’t suppose you have a drink here?”

  “For you, I have better. Sit!”

  He hadn’t smoked opium in a long time. The smoke was instantaneous in its effect. Every cell in Malek’s body absorbed it and six months of anxiety seemed to lift and disappear after the first hit. Opium could be a friend that way. The room grew and Malek just lay there on the carpeted floor with one hand under his chin, listening to trains coming and going, children screaming, mothers calling their kids, life happening.

  Sina served him from a charcoal burner. And it was as if Malek had really come on this trip to just lie here and smoke. He wanted to never leave and could understand perfectly why Sina had “retired.” Malek could see himself living here. Teach English for free and maybe dispense a few aspirins now and then. Get himself a local woman whose husband had disappeared or overdosed. He had found Sina again, Sina who had first taken him to Kabul and to Baghdad. Sina who had sat bored stiff in those literature courses they took in college, complaining about the foolishness of going to school. Sina who had wanted to do something real with his life. Sina who had hated America, the very America that had taken him in and saved him. Sina who could sing country-and-western ballads with an unbelievable twang, but who now, with his sun-worn face and beard and loose-fitting white shirt, resembled the guy who might lead the Friday prayer at the local mosque.

  Malek got more sappy with each hit of the opium. He had love for Sina, and for Soaad and Captain James McGreivy. Loving was good.

  At some point his host left him alone to get some aab-goosht for them to eat. When he returned, Malek had been drifting in and out of sleep, the state of nodding that was nothing but sweet and made the world utterly tolerable. Sina laid the food next to the charcoal and urged him to dig in.

  Malek was lying flat on his back engrossed in a paint bubble on the ceiling. He didn’t move. “I imagine it must get hot here during the summer.”

  “Say what’s on your mind,” Sina prodded.

  “I told someone about you. And not just anyone.”

  “Good.”

  Sina hadn’t missed a beat with his response. Soon they were both lying flat on their backs and probably staring at the same paint bubble.

  “Good?” Being on opium time, it took Malek what seemed like hours, but was really only minutes, to figure out the maze that had brought them here. “You whore’s son,” he said lovingly, switching to Persian for a moment, “you actually set me up to snitch on you. Why would you do that?”

  “I have to kill myself off, Rez. I mean, I need to die on paper, the Iraqi rumor mill has to believe I’m really and truly dead. It would help me if the news comes from an American source. In fact, it can only come from an American source.” There was a long pause before Sina added, “Look, you wrote a book about the war. I figured you know people in the business over there.”

  “I don’t know anyone.”

  “How about Clara Vikingstad?”

  Malek smiled. Clara wouldn’t have been the best medium for this kind of deception and Sina knew it. You could use journalists for all kinds of disinformation, but there was always a price to pay. The biggest price was this: with Clara’s crowd, things often just got too loud.

  Had it simply been coincidence that he had told James and not Clara about Sina? Or could Sina and his people play this deep a hand? The thought didn’t quite unsettle Malek. He felt too good to be unsettled right now. But he did wonder if they had known all along there would be a new guy called Captain James McGreivy teaching in Malek’s department.

  “I told a colleague of mine at college. A former Marine captain. A decorated guy.”

  “Why did you tell him about me?”

  “I got drunk my last night before I got on the plane. What you’d been doing weighed heavy on me, Sina
. I had to tell someone. So I told the one person I thought might have an inkling of what I was talking about.”

  “You did good.”

  Good? This, Malek thought, must be one of those beautiful moments. Two people who for two decades had been as close as blood suddenly realizing they have betrayed each other. And yet there is still love.

  “If you wanted out of this business,” Malek asked, “why not just stay away from it? Will QAF not let you?”

  “They’ll let me. As long as I keep quiet here in my little hovel. They always know where to find me.”

  “Fani knows where you are too?”

  “If he tries hard enough he’ll know. Nothing and no one stays hidden here too long.”

  “Then why give me power of attorney at all? Why not do what you have to do yourself?”

  “Two reasons. One, I discovered your mother existed. And I wanted you to know about her.”

  “So it was just a favor to me?” Malek laughed lightly, his eyes half open. He felt like eating but couldn’t muster the effort to sit up.

  “Two, I don’t know how long I’ll be alive.”

  “Because of that dumb contract on your life in Kandahar? The Afghan told me about it. I wouldn’t worry about that. Even Babur says there are bigger fish than you who need to be hunted. Don’t take yourself so seriously.”

  “It’s not death I’m afraid of. I got myself in trouble in Iraq, not Kandahar. An Arab girl. Beautiful. Sunni. Up there in Kirkuk. You know how the rest goes.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “No. Her brother had her killed because of me.”

  “You say it as if it means nothing to you.”

  “It means everything to me,” Sina said, his voice breaking slightly.

  Malek watched him jump to his feet to light a cigarette. The room wasn’t warm and when Sina opened the door cold air rushed inside. It was dark out, except for the two crooked streetlamps that gave off weak light. You could still hear the sound of children playing soccer somewhere beyond the shadows. Farther away there was also the wail of more than one police car.

  Light-headed, Malek forced himself up and joined Sina at the door. “I’m sorry.”

  “I had to work with all kinds of unpleasantness in Iraq. I mean, some real brutes. Then, in the middle of all this ugliness, something happened. Don’t ask me how. Her brother—we’d been working with him and his people, though they hated Iranians way more than they hated Americans. They found out about us, me and her. I’m a fool for thinking they wouldn’t. The rest . . . I don’t know.” Sina gave a light kick to the door and the two men stood listening to the distant whistle of a train moving farther away.

  “This is why you need to be dead? They’re still after you? It’s a matter of honor for them?”

  “The hell with their honor.”

  “That’s why you went to Kurdistan in the summer. You wanted to try to take the brother out and finish this business.”

  Sina turned to him. “What was I supposed to do? I wanted to try everything before pulling you into my mess. Except my people didn’t like that. They ordered me to go home and disappear for a while. So here I am, a sitting duck, and you have my power of attorney.”

  “Come on! It’s not so hard for your people to spread a rumor in Iraq that you got killed.”

  “No one will believe it. Only if the Americans kill somebody they think is me will the rumor hold. People don’t doubt the Americans that way. They know if the Americans count a kill, it’s probably true.”

  Malek could tell Sina was waiting for some kind of answer. They couldn’t just walk away from this and leave the decision for another day.

  Sina continued, “I don’t have to tell you what it’s like over there. We had to work with everyone—Shia, Sunni, Kurd, doesn’t matter. It’s blood for blood with all of them. The bastard kills his own sister and is convinced it’s my fault. So now it’s my turn or they won’t rest. And they won’t work with us. Rez, if you help me . . .”

  “I’ll be saving your life.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  Malek felt his head spinning again and he had to squat down. “Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

  “I’m asking you to make sure your captain friend tells somebody about me. One of his former colleagues, for example.” Sina rested his hand on Malek’s shoulder. “Explain to him that I’m one of the people targeting their private contractors in Iraq. You think you can do this for me?”

  It was an operation. It had been thought through. It wasn’t some off-the-cuff thing that they had devised to get this honor-bound Sunni guy and his clan in Iraq to lay off of Sina Vafa. It was important for someone that Sina not die. Not yet, anyway. Maybe that was why Fani had shown all those videos of private American security men in Iraq, saying they were from Sina’s computer. Malek’s high was lifting, as was his love. He felt sickness come over him—not necessarily for Sina and the needless web of lies he had laced around himself. It was more of a general revulsion; it was for this Middle East that always disappointed you, always made you grow extra eyes and stay suspicious.

  “You want me to use James. That’s what you want.”

  “That’s his name? James?”

  “He’s my friend.” Malek took Sina’s hand off his shoulder.

  “I’m your friend.”

  “And you’re planning to set up some guy to take the fall for you in Iraq. The Americans will kill someone thinking they killed you. What if they don’t kill him? What if they just arrest the guy and find out he’s not you? Then your airtight plan won’t work, will it?”

  “Don’t you worry about that. We will . . .” Sina hesitated, “make sure our man goes down. There are procedures for that.”

  “An innocent man dies in Iraq for you and everybody lives happily ever after?”

  Sina squatted next to Malek. He grabbed both of Malek’s wrists and forced him to meet his gaze. “There won’t be any innocence to the guy who takes the fall for me, I promise you that. You have to believe me. Look at me. I’m Sina. Your friend. I found your mother. After thirty years I found her. I did this for you. For us. I’m not a stranger. All right?”

  “What if James McGreivy doesn’t pass on the information?”

  “Then you have to convince him he should.”

  * * *

  Maman was asking, “So you found the Afghan?”

  “I did.” Malek handed Maman five hundred-dollar bills.

  She considered the American money and stuffed it in the folds of her chador where she kept little packets of heroin for customers. “God always protect you, son. What in return?”

  He gave her Sina’s address. “It’s down the road from here. You hear and see everything. If you think something bad will happen to him . . .”

  “The Afghan cannot help him?”

  “The Afghan is a guest in our country. There are risks he cannot take.”

  “Upon my eyes then. I pray to see you on satellite television.”

  “Maman, pray that you don’t.” He kissed her hand and walked off.

  Babur sat waiting for him in a car two streets away from the park.

  “Aqa Reza, your mother is a fine lady.”

  “Thanks for the grave. You got Anna’s last name wrong, but it doesn’t matter. My mother is happy about it.”

  “My apologies. God is great. One name is as good as another.”

  “If you say so. Can you get her out of the country on short notice?”

  “I already said it: consider it done.”

  They were silent for several minutes. Babur drove until they fell into the expressway heading north. It was an unusually clear day and you could see the Elburz Mountains in all their majesty to the north of Tehran. On a day like this everything seemed possible. But it was a dream and Malek knew it. His body was switched off because of last night’s opium. He was sure Maman could do little for Sina if and when it came down to it. He had really only given her the money because he wanted to.

/>   He said to Babur, “Stay away from our mutual friend. He’s trouble for you.”

  “Thank you for understanding that, Aqa Reza. I would help him slip away if you insisted. I am glad you do not insist.”

  “There is nowhere for him to slip to. He’s like a fish in a barrel.”

  “What happened to him?” When Malek didn’t respond, Babur answered himself: “I know what happened to him. He lost his way just a little more than the rest of us. I’ve known men like him. I saw plenty of them when I cooked in the camps back in those days.”

  * * *

  Sina had given him the key to his motorbike and told him to take it out from the back of the teahouse by his old apartment. “I’ve been ordered not to go anywhere on my bike anymore. I guess they’re afraid I might get lost or something. So my wheels are yours.” When Malek came to fetch the thing, the teahouse owner wasn’t there and his young assistant had to help him push the dormant bike until it coughed into a start. Malek rode for a long time after that. When it suddenly began to rain hard, he saw that all the bike messengers were huddled beneath the underpasses in the freeway waiting for the downpour to pass. He kept riding, willing the wet and cold to knock the dregs of opium out of his system. Then, at a less crowded underpass, he finally stopped and took out his phone.

  James McGreivy answered.

  “That thing I told you about . . . about my friend, it’s more serious than I thought.”

  It was morning over there, East Coast time, domestic life in all its glory and tedium. He thought of another kid in one of the classes he’d taught the year before. Another vet farmboy from eastern Iowa who had ended up in Army counterintel, working out of Kuwait. In one of his class writing assignments for Malek he’d written that at nineteen he’d been saddled with assessing Lebanese men searching for work in Iraq. The kid’s task was to see whether or not any of the Arab job seekers were Hezbollah moles sent there by the Iranians. He had written about it all with humor and a level of self-deprecation and humility. No post-traumatic stress disorder on this guy. He was more like Babur, able to adjust and move on. How was it some people could do that and others couldn’t? Was it always just a toss of the dice?