A Bitter Veil

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  He returned just as darkness was falling. “It is almost time,” he said. “Put on your chador.”

  She picked it up. “What about my passport?”

  “I will give it to you.”

  Once again they set out in Amir’s car. The dark night was sliced with bars of moonlight; still, Anna had no idea where they were headed. Traffic had eased and soon they were climbing into the mountains. The higher they rose, the chillier it grew. Anna was glad for the chador. As he swung around a narrow road pitted with rocks, Anna gripped the edge of her seat. The farther they went, the more the road deteriorated, and eventually, it narrowed to nothing more than a wavy mountain path that looked like it was made for goats.

  “Do not be alarmed.”

  But Anna was tense, and soon the path tapered to a trail so narrow Amir was forced to stop the car. Amir gestured for Anna to get out. “Be careful.”

  As she climbed out of the car, she saw why. The mountain crowded in on one side, but what passed for the road was barely six feet across, and if she stepped too far, she would fall over the edge of a steep cliff. Even worse, the path was so narrow there didn’t appear to be enough room for the car to get through. He fingered his beard. Fear twisted Anna’s gut. Despite his protestations, was Amir lost? Would they be forced to backtrack? She didn’t see how. The path was too narrow to turn the car around, and she couldn’t imagine driving down an entire mountain in reverse. The old familiar desperation picked at her.

  Meanwhile, he spread his arms, as if measuring the width of the path. Then he did the same to the car. He turned around.

  “I must drive through alone. Once the path widens, I will come back for you.”

  “No!” she cried out. “You can’t leave me! What if…I mean, what if…”

  “Do not worry. I will return.”

  She tightened the chador around her. What if this was a trick? What if Amir was using this opportunity to abandon her? It was cold. And dark. She had no idea where she was. How was she going to survive? All she had was a little money and a chador. No passport, no identification. She no longer even had the letter—the customs official had kept it. She shivered, feeling the tension in her neck. “How do I know you’ll come back?”

  He laid his hands on her shoulders. “You have my word.”

  But Anna was not convinced. She had heard too many words. Empty words. Cruel words. Words with no pearls of truth between the shell of lies.

  “What if you don’t make it?”

  “I will.”

  She watched Amir get back in the car and flick on the headlamps. He started the engine, and slowly inched forward. She heard the quiet crunch of wheels on rocks. The grumble of the engine. She was afraid for him, for her, for everyone. The car rolled forward. So far, so good. Then he started to round a curve. He couldn’t be more than an inch from the edge of the cliff. She held her breath. Slowly the car disappeared from sight.

  She didn’t know what to do. Pace? Stand still? She hugged her arms. She was still standing in the middle of the path when she heard a whine far off in the distance. She craned her neck. The air was clear, but she couldn’t see anything. The whine became a drone, and she realized it was coming from overhead. She looked up and staggered back just as several jets, their lights winking in the night sky, roared past in formation. For a brief moment, she panicked, thinking the planes were coming for her. Then she realized that she was being paranoid. But they were going somewhere.

  She was so absorbed by the planes that she didn’t hear Amir return, and when he tapped her on the shoulder, she jumped. The roar still reverberated in the air. She pointed to the jets, no more than tiny lights in the sky. “What are they? Where are they going?”

  He looked up and squinted. “It is difficult to tell in the dark, but I would guess they are bombers. Warplanes.”

  “Bombers?”

  “From Iraq. They look like they’re headed toward Urmia. It is near the border. Maybe Tabriz.”

  “War?”

  “Between Iran and Iraq. It has been coming for months.”

  Anna watched the jets streak across the sky and eventually disappear. Another war. What would become of Bijan and Parvin? Would they survive? What about Hassan and Roya? And Charlie? Would war free Charlie and the other hostages? She hoped so.

  “But this is no business of ours,” he said briskly. “Come. The car is safely through the pass.”

  Anna brought her focus back, and they walked around the bend. The car was waiting. They got in and slowly descended the other side of the mountain. After an hour of more hairpin turns and narrow passes, the ground gradually leveled. The clear moonlit night revealed the dusty desert terrain with which Anna was so familiar. She rolled down the window. She tasted grit in her throat.

  Five minutes later, Amir said, “We are in Turkey.”

  Anna gazed through the windshield, then the side windows. Relief flooded through her, and her grin was so broad the muscles around her mouth felt stiff. “How long until we get to Dogubeyazit?”

  “Not long.”

  The road flattened out. It was well-paved and straight, with white lane markers down the center. If Anna didn’t know better, it might be any two-lane highway in America. She wanted to sing and dance and laugh. To celebrate.

  He kept driving for another ten miles or so, then slowed just before a dirt road intersected the highway. He turned onto the dirt road and stopped the car.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “You will see. It is a surprise.”

  Anna’s high spirits abruptly flagged, and her dread returned. Amir never had any intention of letting her go. She got out of the car, her face set in a grimace. Should she run? How far could she get? Or should she just stay and make a stand? She might be able to scratch his face, maybe even seriously, before…before what?

  She was still debating what to do when another car glided toward them from the opposite direction. Cool silver gleamed in the moonlight. She took a sharp breath, fearing the worst. The car made the turn onto the dirt road and came to a stop. A uniformed chauffeur got out and opened the rear door. An elderly man climbed out. He was wearing a dark suit, tie, and his shirt was so white the moonlight bounced off the collar. He was carrying a briefcase. Anna blinked. The man looked familiar. She blinked again.

  “Papa?”

  “Anna.”

  Her father was here. In Turkey. He had come halfway around the world to get her.

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. He went to Amir and shook his hand. Amir handed him something. Her father dug into the briefcase and gave him something in return.

  Amir looked at Anna’s father. “I have repaid my debt.” He faced Anna. “Farewell, my dear niece.”

  Anna grabbed his arms, hugged him, and kissed him on both cheeks.

  Amir slipped into his car. He started the engine, gave them a wave, and drove away. She turned to her father.

  He cleared his throat. “I am to tell you that Hassan will recover. The girl, Roya—I believe that is her name—is tending to him.”

  Anna grinned. Roya was a real nurse now.

  Her father’s expression darkened. “The Samedis’ daughter has been taken to Evin Prison. Your mother-in-law has collapsed. She has been taken to an institution.”

  “And Bijan?”

  “He will stay in Iran.”

  Tears poured down Anna’s cheeks. Tears she hadn’t been able to shed for months. Tears for Bijan, for Parvin, for Laleh, and most of all, for Nouri. Her father stayed quiet, as if he understood. Anna wasn’t sure how long she cried, but eventually, the tears stopped. Once she was able to talk, she said softly, “I think I know now why you wanted me to get married in Virginia. You wanted to protect me. You knew that—if everything fell apart—it would easier for me to get divorced in the States.”

  Her father gave her a curt nod, as if he was embarrassed that she felt compelled to raise the subject at all.

  “But Nouri…you have to know…” Anna swallowed. “Nouri wasn’t�
�evil…when we met. None of them were. It’s as if an entire country—an entire culture—slipped off its axis. Black became white. White became black. Kind people were unkind. Good people were bad. Do you understand, Papa?”

  Her father cleared his throat again. “I…I have an idea.”

  Of course he did. Anna suddenly had the sense that her father had endured much more than he’d ever revealed. And that it had cost him more than she knew. She tightened her lips. She wanted to know it all: his life in Germany, his relationship with her mother, and, especially his dealings with a Kurdish Jew from northwestern Iran. But they would have time to talk. Days and weeks and months and years. She slipped her arm around his waist.

  “I’m ready to go home, Papa.”

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Several years ago when I was casting around for a new novel to write, I was chatting with another author about the themes I wanted to explore—I am drawn to stories about women whose choices have been taken away from them. How do they react? Do they simply surrender? Become victims? Or can some survive, even triumph over their travails?

  As we talked, I remember becoming captivated by a personal story told to me some years before. It contained elements of what I thought would be a great tale: young lovers who become ensnared by history, family complications, and the inherent conflict of a political and cultural revolution that turned some people into heroes, others into cowards. I imagined writing about the journey of a brave young woman confronted with almost insurmountable obstacles. The only problem was that there was no crime involved, and I write crime fiction. When I said that to my author friend, he looked at me as if I was a little strange, and said, “It’s fiction. Find one.”

  I took his advice.

  A caveat: Although A Bitter Veil is fiction, it is grounded in extensive research. For better or worse, the Iranian Revolution is one of the most well documented periods of world history, and I pored through many books, both fiction and nonfiction. I also read many articles and memoirs and viewed timelines, films and videos. Some of the texts are listed below. I also interviewed and talked to at least five Iranian-Americans who lived in Iran during the revolution. They shared their experiences, their journeys, and their fears. One of them vetted the manuscript, specifically searching for factual and cultural errors. Any mistakes that remain are mine alone, for which I apologize in advance.

  Not surprisingly, perhaps, none of the Iranian-Americans I talked to wanted their names made public. They should know I will be forever in their debt. Because of their generosity, I was able to tell Anna’s story.

  There may be some who think I have unfairly created or perpetuated stereotypes in this book. It was never my intention to demonize the Iranian people or the revolutionaries who toppled the shah. However, history teaches us that the chaos and destruction of a political and cultural upheaval can cause human beings to act in extreme ways. It has happened before—the French, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions come to mind. It also happened in Iran. To that end, my object was to show the dissolution of a marriage, a family, and a culture, all of which could not stand up to the stress that revolution imposes. I hope the critics will take that into account.

  Finally, I hope that I have faithfully illustrated the great love the Iranian-Americans I talked to have for their country and the culture. It is a love that will endure.

  Reading List

  Christiane Bird

  Neither East Nor West: One Woman’s Journey Through the Islamic Republic of Iran

  (Pocket Books, 2001)

  Ariel Sabar

  My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

  (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008)

  Marina Nemat

  Prisoner of Tehran

  (Free Press, 2007)

  Abbas Milani

  The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda

  (Mage, 2000)

  Marjane Satrapi

  Persepolis

  (Pantheon, 2003)

  Azar Nafisi

  Reading Lolita in Tehran

  (Random House, 2003)

  Mahbod Seraji

  Rooftops of Tehran

  (New American Library, 2009)

  Betty Mahmoody with William Hoffer

  Not Without My Daughter

  (St. Martin’s, 1987)

  Dalia Sofer

  The Septembers of Shiraz

  (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2007)

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Shah of Shahs

  (Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich, 1985)

  Debra Johanyak

  Behind the Veil

  (University of Akron Press, 2007)

  Words of Paradise: Selected Poems of Rumi

  (Viking Studio, 2000)

  Stephen Kinzer

  All the Shah’s Men

  (J. Wiley & Sons, 2003)

  About the Author

  Libby Fischer Hellmann is the award-winning author of the Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis mystery series; Nice Girl Does Noir, a two volume short story collection; and the stand-alone novel, Set the Night on Fire. She also edited the highly praised crime fiction anthology, Chicago Blues. She has lived in the Chicago area over thirty years.

  Visit http://libbyhellmann.com/ for more information.

  Also Published by Allium Press of Chicago

  Visit our website for more information

  www.alliumpress.com

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