A Bitter Veil

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  And he did, she thought. “So I was right.”

  “But not about me. Nouri and I argued because…” He swallowed. “…Nouri was embezzling what he collected.”

  Anna felt like someone had suddenly slammed her head against the wall. Her voice cracked. “What?”

  “The Foundation does not pay much. Certainly not enough to support you and the family. Most of the Samedis’ assets were gone. So Nouri kept some of the bounty he collected. The Foundation does not care. If a bracelet disappears, or a diamond necklace doesn’t end up in inventory, they look the other way.”

  “Are you saying Nouri was a thief?”

  “We fought bitterly about it. I told him he had to stop. He told me he had no other means to live. I told him it was exactly the thing we had been struggling against, exactly what the revolution was designed to purge.” A painful look came across Hassan’s face. “We were like brothers when we were young, you know. Nouri and his family always helped me out. Whether it was books for school, clothing, meals, even the occasional movie. I probably spent more time at his house than my own. I thought that helping him get the Foundation job was a way to pay him back.” Hassan fidgeted. “It isn’t a bad idea, what the Foundation does. But I did not know that Nouri would end up stealing from the people he was supposed to be helping.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “Anna, think clearly. Why would I kill him? I could have had him imprisoned. And I would have if—” He suddenly stopped.

  “If what? If someone else hadn’t stabbed him? Do you really expect me to believe that, especially after what you’ve just admitted?”

  “Anna, I was appalled at what Nouri was doing. But being appalled doesn’t mean I killed him. I didn’t. I swear it upon Allah.”

  “Well then, who did?”

  “I don’t know. But I know it wasn’t you.”

  Anna jerked back. Her mouth fell open.

  “You loved Nouri. You hated him too, the same as I. But you are too gentle to have harmed him. You were framed, and though I doubt you will believe it, I am trying to free you. So is Bijan. I understand that he has contacted your father in America. He has decided it is time for the family to leave Iran. Laleh will be leaving within the month, Nouri’s parents soon after.”

  Despite everything, Anna felt the faint stirring of hope.

  “I do not know when it will happen, or how. I do not have strong contacts in the new judicial system. Neither does Bijan. All I can say is that you must not despair. You have friends.”

  Anna just looked at him.

  “I know you are not Muslim, but a few prayers would help.”

  Forty-three

  The next day Anna and Nousha watched as the Guards dispensed packages brought by family members during their visits, mostly clothes that the women paraded for the others to see. A bitter edge crept into Nousha’s voice. “Of course, the Guards confiscated the best items for themselves.”

  “Curious you mention that,” Anna said.

  Nousha’s eyebrows arched into a question mark.

  Since Hassan’s visit, Anna had been confused. She wasn’t sure whether to believe him. She told Nousha what he said.

  “Why would Hassan come all this way to lie to you? He’s a busy man. What possible gain could there be?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna admitted. “But if Hassan—or his surrogates—didn’t kill Nouri, who did?”

  “I told you. It was someone whose wealth—whose assets—Nouri confiscated.”

  “But how would they have known the precise times we weren’t at home so they could break in and steal the knife? And why frame me? It still doesn’t make any sense.”

  Nousha frowned and hugged her knees, rocking back and forth. “You said his father is out of jail now?”

  “Yes, but the family is ready to leave the country. Laleh is leaving this week.”

  “The sister who just turned eighteen?”

  Anna nodded. They watched as one of the women showed off her new underwear.

  “How did she get enough money to leave?”

  “I assume Bijan gave it to her.”

  “But you said they didn’t have anything left.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So how are they paying for their emigration?”

  Anna looked blank. “How much do they need?”

  “Enough for airline tickets, plus the bribes to make sure they get the tickets, plus enough money once they get where they’re going. You can’t live on air.”

  “In Laleh’s case, maybe her boyfriend Shaheen is helping. But as far as the others, I really don’t know.”

  Nousha’s eyebrows went up again. “Well then, don’t you think you should find out?”

  *****

  A Guard took Anna to Sister Azar’s office the next morning. She knocked tentatively on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Sister Azar was behind her desk. Dressed in her black chador and headgear she reminded Anna of a nun. But, in most of the world, becoming a nun was a choice. And nuns were rarely jailers. Sister Azar was wearing glasses and, ironically, they softened her face.

  “Please, Sister, I would like a word.”

  She watched as Sister looked up from her papers, removed her glasses, and looked Anna up and down. “Yes?”

  Anna swallowed. “There is something I need to tell you.”

  Sister Azar tilted her head.

  “I am pregnant.”

  Sister Azar didn’t seem surprised. “How many months?”

  “Over three months, I think. My husband and I…”

  Relief flooded Sister Azar’s face. At first Anna thought it was an odd reaction. Then she got it. The women often whispered about being raped by the Guards. But Anna had only been in Evin for about a month. Not enough time. It was clear Sister Azar had made the same calculation.

  “Well, congratulations. Inshallah, you will have a beautiful Iranian son.”

  Anna gave her a brief nod.

  Afterwards, Anna noticed a subtle shift in the Guards’ attitudes, especially the females. They were never nice, but they seemed slightly less abusive. They even brought her tea separately from the others. Without camphor. But Anna remained edgy. What if she was still in Evin when the baby was born? Would they take it away? She rubbed her palm in little circles over her bump. This was the baby that was conceived in rage. The baby she didn’t want. Yet the irony was that this baby was the one sure thing keeping her alive. In a way Nouri was saving her life.

  Perhaps as a result of that irony, the rage Anna had been harboring towards him when he was alive largely evaporated. She wanted to remember the Nouri she’d met in America, not the Nouri he’d become after the revolution. Her rage now was directed toward finding Nouri’s killer. She wondered if that was the case with most people who’d survived a loved one’s murder. Even if they loathed the individual when they were alive, in death that person assumed a decency, perhaps even a sanctity, they never had in life. It was all becoming very complicated, she thought. There were no absolutes. Except the three she herself had mandated—she wanted to live, she wanted the baby, and she wanted justice.

  *****

  A few days later after breakfast, two female guards came into the room and tapped Nousha on the shoulder. “Gather your things and put on your chador.”

  Silence descended. The women prisoners stared at the floor, the wall, each other, anywhere but at Nousha. But Anna watched as Nousha gathered her clothes, chador, and personal items. She squared her shoulders, and pasted on a brave smile. Anna put her arms around her friend. At the last minute, Nousha rummaged through her things, pulled out a book and placed it in Anna’s hands. “Remember me,” she mouthed. The female guards took her by the arms, and they exited the room.

  Anna thumbed through the book. It was a Qur’an, written in Arabic. As Anna flipped through the pages, she blinked back tears. She passed the rest of the day in a haze of misery, unable to focus. That night she slipped the Qur’an under her makeshi
ft pillow as a talisman, but sleep did not come. She was waiting for the sharp spits of the rifles. When they came, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

  When she woke the next morning pain slashed through her stomach. At first Anna thought she was having menstrual cramps, then realized that couldn’t be. She tried to ignore it, but the pain sharpened, digging so deep into her belly she had to struggle for breath. She attempted to stand, but her head started to spin, and her muscles felt rubbery. A fog descended, and the floor rushed up to meet her.

  Forty-four

  The next twelve hours were studded with moments of clarity, but most of it was like a fugue state from a Fellini film. Bright lights. Bare walls. Doctors in white coats. Nuns at her side. The smell of alcohol and iodine. Flashes of excruciating pain. Blessed blackness. Guttural cries she learned later were her own. Orders barked at her in Farsi, then English. Gentle voices pleading with her. Sweating until the sheets were soaked, then numbing chills on the same sheets.

  At one point someone lifted her up, and there was stabbing pain. Then a rumble, the smart slam of doors, and her entire body began to vibrate. The sense that she was in a vehicle of some kind. More lights, voices, doctors, nuns. Sharp pokes and sticks. Masks over her nose and mouth. Plunging back into darkness.

  There were dreams, too. Nouri angry. Nouri kind. Nouri and she making love. Swimming in the Caspian Sea. Someone was with them. The baby. But how did it know how to swim? She had an image of a whale with its offspring, but when she twisted her head around to check, the image vanished, and she was driving through the desert back from Esfahan with Nouri. The sun blasted down, and the sand whipped them with such force it stung, like thousands of fire ants. She had an enormous thirst. Her father appeared with a glass of cold water. She thanked him. It didn’t seem strange that he was in Iran. Had he been here all along? Before she could ask, she sank back into darkness.

  *****

  A voice urged her to wake up. Anna reluctantly climbed up to consciousness. It had been so pleasant, the darkness. She had been warm and comfortable. She didn’t want to leave.

  “You have been very sick,” a voice said in thickly accented English.

  Anna cracked her eyes. A blurred image swam before her. She blinked slowly and turned her head toward the voice. A nurse was holding her wrist. Taking her pulse. Anna blinked again, and her vision began to clear. The nurse looked like a nun in a habit, with black head gear that reached to her waist. Under the cloak was a white manteau that looked like a raincoat.

  “Who—” Anna croaked, but stopped after just one word. A profound sense of weariness washed over her.

  “Don’t talk,” the woman said. “You are weak. You are in hospital in Tehran.” She pressed her lips together. “You…collapsed…in Evin Prison. I am Sister Zarifeh. Your nurse.”

  Anna frowned. Hazy memories flashed through her mind: her feet being lashed; Sister Azar examining her over her glasses; a Kurdish girl named Nousha. Was she really there? Was it real, or just another dream? Then it came—Nousha had been executed. Anna couldn’t sleep. Then the stabbing pain in her belly.

  “The baby? Is it all right? What happened?”

  The nurse blinked, then turned her head away. “I am so sorry. You miscarried. There was much bleeding…we didn’t…they didn’t know if you would live. That’s why they brought you here.”

  Anna sank back onto the pillow. She let her eyes close. There was no reason to stay awake. Not anymore.

  *****

  The next few weeks were a blur of sleep and wakefulness, during which doctors and nurses prodded and poked. Gradually Anna’s intervals of awareness lengthened, and she took stock of her surroundings. She was alone in a small hospital room. White walls, black bars on the window. The view through the window was of a brick wall. The door to her room was closed, probably locked. There was a small glass panel at the top. The antiseptic smell of the hospital was strong, but at least there was no scent of disease. No oily hair smell either. Or saffron.

  Sister Zarifeh attended her during the day, but another nurse, a surly woman who rarely spoke, had the night shift. Still, they seemed to be taking good care of her. The tea was good and strong and camphor free. The food, although soft, was surprisingly tasty.

  One morning she asked Sister Zarifeh why she wasn’t back in Evin Prison.

  “It is as I told you. You needed emergency treatment that wasn’t possible at Evin. You were transported here.”

  Anna motioned toward the bars. “Am I in another prison hospital?”

  Sister shook her head. “You’re in a special ward of the government-run hospital in north Tehran.”

  “What ward is that?”

  “The ward for criminals and prisoners.”

  Anna was crestfallen. Once she had recovered, they would send her back to Evin. She had been dreaming that, by some fiat or dictum or magic, she might have been freed, her ordeal over. She slumped back against the pillow, a fresh fog of misery threatening to swallow her.

  The nurse seemed to know what she was thinking. “Be grateful we did not strap you down. Most prisoners are shackled to the bed, even in hospital.”

  Anna didn’t reply. She might as well be chained. She couldn’t go anywhere; there was nowhere to go. She rolled into a fetal position and stared at the wall. She was doomed to die in Iran. Like Nousha, she would spend the rest of her life in prison, waiting for the day the guards appeared and told her to gather her things. How ironic to make her healthy just so they could kill her later.

  She turned onto her back and gazed out the window. She could just spot a tiny bit of sky above the brick wall. She stared at the patch of blue, wondering if it might hold the key to her freedom. Out there, in the free world, the hot Iranian summer was coming to an end. People were still wiping sweat off their brows, anticipating the cool rainy season.

  The Tehranians who had spent thick summer nights on their rooftops would soon go back to their beds. The markets would stock a profusion of fruits and vegetables. Anna recalled the mornings she’d spent ferreting out the freshest, most tender produce. Her eye had become so sharp that even the shopkeepers couldn’t trick her into buying inferior goods. But the simple pleasure of buying fruit was something she would never do again.

  She drifted into sleep. For some reason her dreams were particularly vivid. It was as if her subconscious was mourning the loss of the baby by reliving her childhood. She was with her mother and father on the playground of her grade school. They pushed her on a swing, laughing as she rose higher and faster. Anna was ashamed to admit she was afraid. If she went too high, it would break up the family, and her mother would move to Paris. So she smiled bravely and pumped the swing, all the while terrified that she would swing too far. It occurred to her, in that eerie way dreams evolve into something else, that God was punishing her because she hadn’t wanted the baby at first.

  A few hours later she woke. A doctor had come in to examine her. After he finished, she asked, “Doctor, will I still be able to have children?”

  Frown lines popped out on his forehead, and he took his time answering. Did he know something she didn’t?

  “I don’t know,” he finally said.

  She searched his face and decided he was telling the truth. She concluded his response was better than an unqualified “no.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “You developed a staph infection after the miscarriage. Probably from the Evin infirmary. That’s why you were brought here.”

  “Yes. So how long has it been?”

  “About a month.”

  Anna was surprised it had been that long. Then again, she had been delirious for much of the time. “Is there any chance I could get some books in English? I would love to read.”

  The doctor said he would ask, but something in his tone made her think he wouldn’t follow through. She was just a prisoner, after all. Inconsequential. After he left she fell back against her pillow.

  She recalled Hassan’s visit to Evin
—it seemed like just last week, but must have been almost a month ago. He said they were trying to get her out. That Bijan had contacted her father. That the family was planning to leave Iran. Laleh was leaving in a month. A burst of anger flashed through her. Laleh was free to leave, but she was not.

  She was dozing later that afternoon when an argument erupted outside her door. The row was in Farsi, the bitter raised voices those of a male and female. It was probably a squabble between a Guard and a nurse. Nurses wanted to nurture. Guards wanted to punish. The argument subsided, but it roused Anna. She drowsily recalled another argument not so long ago. What was it about? Who was fighting? Where? She couldn’t quite place it, but something told her she should. She tried to concentrate, but it wouldn’t come. She let it go.

  It wasn’t until after her evening meal of soup and toast—they had started to give her solid food—that the memory came unbidden. A contentious argument between Laleh and Nouri. An argument that, like the one this afternoon, woke her. She couldn’t understand much of what they said, but they were both furious, spitting out what she knew were nasty insults.

  She recalled how Nouri, hostile and red-faced, had turned on her when she came out of the bedroom. How Laleh quickly scurried out of the house, hoisting her bag on her shoulder. How Nouri shouted that all the women in the family were disobedient whores. She frowned. Then another memory surfaced: Laleh prowling the third floor of their house while Anna was cleaning. The third floor that had nothing but a closet and a door to the roof.

  The closet.

  The closet that Nouri opened and closed. Anna had looked inside it the day she was hunting for her passport, but it had been empty. At least it appeared to be. She continued to ponder it. When she suddenly put it together, the air left her lungs in a gasp. She looked around her hospital room. She needed to get well. She needed to get out. She knew who’d murdered Nouri. And why.