Messenger from Mystery

by Deno Trakas

  “He say close curtain.” I thought maybe someone was watching from outside, but he thought it too, and Azi translated, “No make sign or he kill me.” I closed the curtain slowly, stole a glance at the street below, saw nothing to encourage me, then turned around, and there was still just enough light from the street so that I could make out the black shapes of Azi and the terrorist—that was the word that came to me, terrorist, because what I felt was terror, not because of danger to me, but because of what he’d do to Azi.

  The next order didn’t make sense. “He say take my clothes.”

  “Your clothes?” I mumbled, my voice a pitiful sound.

  “Yes.”

  I shook my head and said, “No.”

  He did something to her that made her wince again and cry out.

  “Okay.” I came to her, seeing her better as my eyes adjusted to the dark. I said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”—he seemed to understand and just laughed. I kept my eyes on hers to avoid his hateful glare, saw in them fear but also defiance, and I tried to show her more of the latter, less of the former, as I unbuttoned her blouse. He yanked it off her shoulders, and with the barrel of the gun, yanked the elastic back of her bra. It snapped hard against her but didn’t break. He growled something at her, let go of her arm, and she unhooked it. He flicked the shoulder straps off, it fell to the floor, then he reached around her, grabbed one of her breasts and pulled her back up against him. He waved his gun, signaling me to take off her skirt. I unzipped it on the side and it slid to the floor. Still squeezing her breast with one hand, he reached around her with the gun, stuck the barrel down the front of her panties and said something to her that she didn’t translate. Then he signaled for me to pull them off too.

  At least Azi had her eyes closed now, so I didn’t have to look into them.

  She translated, “Now take your clothes.” I undressed. “Now take sheet.” I pulled back the covers and he shoved Azi into the bed, then positioned her on her hands and knees. He motioned me to get in behind her as if I were entering her and said something. He repeated it more sharply and she translated, “Like dog.”

  I kneeled behind her, shaking and shrunken. “I’m sorry,” I said again. Then he turned on a lamp, and we got a good look at him for the first time. He didn’t look as I’d expected: he had dark hair with a reddish tint, caramel colored skin, no beard, and alert, malicious eyes—he was about the age of my students and would’ve fit right into my class. Without putting down his gun, he took out of his coat pocket a small camera. He said something else and laughed.

  Azi was trembling against me, fighting back terror and tears. She stuttered, “He say . . . he say he learn from American movie.” Her skin was cold and damp. The terrorist kneeled before her with his camera and gun, and I kneeled behind her, helpless, useless, and just as frightened.

  He pushed us roughly into a couple of different positions and took a whole roll of shots, including close-ups of our faces. He never put down his gun, never forgot to remind us that he wanted to kill us and would if we didn’t obey. I said to Azi again, “I’m sorry.” Finally he put the camera back in his pocket and stepped up to the bed where Azi was lying on top of me, her face, eyes still closed, just above mine. He covered her mouth with his hand, pulled her head to the side. I saw him raise the pistol to strike me . . . .

  CHAPTER 2

  FALL 1979

  She was the only female in my class of seventeen at the University of South Carolina, mostly Iranians, Kuwaitis, and Saudis. Azadeh Ghotbzadeh, a lyrical first name, guttural last name, but she asked me to call her Azi, as in Ozzie and Harriet. She wore American clothes, tight jeans and sweaters; she had wavy, past-the-shoulder dark brown hair and a face not chiseled like a model’s but soft and open with curiosity. She tended to put on too much makeup—her skin was the color of honey and didn’t need it—but I loved her red lipstick, especially when it was applied carelessly, and her embarrassed smile, the way she touched the back of her teeth with her tongue. And I loved her amber eyes, deep-set but not suspicious, with a lively shadow, like a thin curtain swirling over an open window in late afternoon, eyes that would dazzle you for a moment and then look down. That combination of bold and demure fascinated and attracted me. I even loved her imperfections: her large hands and feet, her crooked tooth, the mole on her cheek.

  She liked the way I ran my English conversation course by bringing in magazines and holding up pictures of TV stars and other newsmakers, generating discussions without worrying about the rules for auxiliary verbs. She liked for me to talk about my family, my graduate school work in American literature, my other job teaching English 101 to American freshmen, and about Americans in general, their habits, beliefs, dreams. I’d discuss a book I was reading or a New Yorker story I’d read about a newlywed and her problems with her grad school husband, including the affair with the teenage driving instructor. I didn’t know at first what Azi thought about sex, but I figured that the guys, coming from a land of black veils to a campus where girls wore short shorts and halter tops, might be confused, even more than we were, about our sexual values. They probably thought that finding a partner for sex in America was like finding a partner for tennis—almost anyone would play with you until he or she found out you weren’t very good.

  I wanted to set the record straight, to teach them everything about America from the inside, but they thought I was different from other Americans, which flattered me. When we were discussing heritage, I told them that my father, who had died in February, was a second generation Greek American, which, along with my curly black hair, dark eyes, and big nose, was enough for them. I also explained that my grandfather’s name had been Nicolaides, which he shortened to Nichols when he arrived in New York in 1906. I added that I’d been named Jason after the Argonaut, and I’d gotten the nickname Jay from a girlfriend in high school who was reading The Great Gatsby, neither of which was true. They called me Mr. Nickel. Or Sir. I was their teacher. Especially Azi’s—almost every day she stayed after class to ask a question or chat.

  One day she came up to explain why she’d been stifling yawns. “I sorry, Sir. I no sleeping last night. I afraid for torpedo to come.”

  “Torpedo?”

  “You know, the big wind.” She clutched her books against her as if they would keep her from blowing away, and I remembered the ominous storm that had blown through the previous day.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, wanting to add “honey” or some other Southern term of endearment. “I’ve lived in South Carolina all my life, and I’ve never seen a tornado, or a torpedo.” She nodded, realized her mistake, blushed, smiled.

  I’d shared with my students some of my own fears. I’d told them that my grandfather had lost the family home and all our money in the depression. I’d told them that my dad never went to college but ran a successful diner by working from 6:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M., six days a week, but he worried endlessly about bills and taxes and died at age fifty-seven from a “heart attack” that I knew was stress, and I was like him in so many ways. I’d told them that I had a B.A. in Political Science—I loved literature and had always made good grades in it, but really, what the hell was I doing in a PhD program in English, especially since I had to take out a loan to pay for it? They liked my confessions and sympathized, but in the end they knew I was an American, and Americans always had money, and money could always solve problems. So here, with Azi, I just touched her arm, as if we were in this together, and said, “We’ll be okay.”

  She repeated, “O-kay,” a word that all foreign students picked up quickly and used frequently. “I see you tomorrow.”

  Day after day we talked our way along the twisted trail of American idioms. The students freely admitted their blunders, like going to McDonalds and asking for a Pig Mac. One Friday night when I took them to Pizza Hut, Abbas ordered pizza with jelly on it. That was a fun evening until a random guy at a booth nearby muttered something about the “sand niggers.” I didn’t think my students understood the
insult, but I blurted my opinion that I’d take a sand nigger over a dumb redneck any day.

  He eased out of his booth, stood up, all six feet two or three and about two hundred fifty pounds of asshole. He stood right behind Azi, who sat across the long table from me. “You have sump’n to say to me, Buddy?”

  I’d never been in a fight in my adult life, didn’t know how to fight, didn’t think this was the time to learn, and didn’t want my students to try it either, especially since Azi would literally be in the middle of it, so I said, “I’m sorry, I thought I heard you insult my friends, but maybe I was mistaken.” All fifteen of us looked at him. He glared back, up and down the table. My apology and hint of deference allowed him to be satisfied—he expressed a contemptuous snort and returned to his booth.

  That was a portent. A few weeks later the Shah was admitted into a U.S. hospital, which enraged the Iranian people; the U.S. embassy in Tehran was overrun by student militants; hostages were taken (although a few personnel escaped to the private residences of Canadian officials), and without my knowing it, my life began to change.

  Politics fascinated me, but it was one of the few topics I avoided in class; however, the day after the takeover, my students wanted so desperately to discuss the event that I let them. I argued that taking embassy personnel hostage was terrorism, plain and simple, and the new government’s refusal to release them would bring widespread international condemnation rather than the acceptance that their proud nation wanted. The boys shouted and pointed, as if there were buttons in the air that had to be pushed to win the argument. They tried to convince me that the act was purely political and that the hostages would be released unharmed soon since the student militants had made their point to the world, the point being to expose the crimes of the Shah, the oppressive dictator the United States put into power in 1941 and supported until his overthrow earlier in the year. They launched into a diatribe about the Shah’s brutal secret police, SAVAK, and its connections to the CIA, FBI, NSA—they spewed acronyms like machine-gun fire. They also blasted Israel, our puppet, our baby, and said something about the Jews controlling the U.S. I thought I had completely lost control, their arguments flying so chaotically that it was impossible to hear them all much less reason with and respond to them, but then it got worse. Saad jumped up, shouting half in English, half in his native hatred, about his brother who had been tortured—I think he said he was boiled, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I held up my hands and closed my eyes, and within half a minute their angry voices sputtered to silence, and I opened my eyes again. I looked at Saad and said, “I’m sorry.” He was about to say more, but I stopped him. “No more. We can’t talk about this anymore, it’s too emotional. Let’s quit for the day and try again tomorrow, a safer topic.” And as they gathered their books and began to mutter out of the room, we knew, we had ample evidence—they were foreigners, and I was American. Our argument was an unambiguous indication of the broad differences between us. We would not be able to discuss this subject, the subject so constantly in the news and on our minds.

  But Azi. As the last three boys, hot and disappointed, steamed out, she came up. “I sorry Sir. The boys they not hate for United State. But Shah—”

  “I know, Azi, it’s okay. What do you think—will it be over soon?”

  “I no know. I talk to cousin in Tehran and he say no one control student—is all confusion.”

  “Will you all stay, or will you go back to Iran?”

  “Oh, we stay for education, yes. Also we like United State. The boys buy the car and drive to Murdel Beach.” She smiled, her lips the color of burgundy wine.

  And what do you do, I wanted to ask, but said, “Well, I hope it passes quickly.”

  “I think so, yes, thank you.” She pronounced her “th” like “t,” tink and tank. She nodded, almost a bow, and hesitated a second to see if I had anything to add.

  I wanted to hug her, she was bright and pretty and kind, but I was her teacher, and we’d been told many times to keep our distance from students, Iranian or American, and I needed this job. All I could say was, “Tell the boys I’m sorry we can’t talk about it.”

  “Yes, o-kay.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “And don’t worry—we’ll get through it.”

  In December, three weeks after the storming of the embassy, a few days after thirteen of the hostages were released (women and blacks who, according to the militants, couldn’t be spies), the Director of English as a Second Language at the university called me in to say that he had to let me go at the end of the semester, one week away. Because of the crisis, no new students would be coming from Iran, and since I was the most recent addition to the staff, I had to be the first subtraction. I told my students about it, thinking that maybe I’d found a good way to illustrate a typical American concern.

  “I won’t be your teacher in January. I was fired.”

  “What fire, Sir?”

  “No fire, Hussein. I was fired, meaning I won’t have a job here anymore.”

  “But why, Sir? You need job, you need monies, you have problem.”

  I smiled. “You got that right. Dr. Flick fired me because there won’t be many new students next semester, so he doesn’t need me.”

  “But Sir, we can like you.”

  “Thank you, Abid. I can like you too.”

  From there we drifted into a discussion about unemployment in the U.S., which was around 6% and rising. They asked me how I would get by and I reminded them that I still had my teaching assistantship, which paid $400 a month plus tuition, and I had a loan, so altogether I had enough for rent and Hardees hamburgers—maybe that sounded like a lot to them.

  After class I asked Azi to wait, and when the others had left, I asked her for a date. Rules, discretion, uncertainty about our cultural differences . . . I didn’t give a damn about any of that. I was pissed, worried, rebellious. And I wanted to go out with Azi, just Azi. I thought I might be in love with her. I wanted to be. I hadn’t been in love in such a long time, three years, not since my senior year in college. Her name was Wynn, but I was planning to go to grad school in South Carolina and she was going to take a teaching job in Florida, and we didn’t think the relationship could span the distance, and when, finally, I said I’d follow her wherever she went, she said no, she didn’t want that either.

  But Azi accepted. I didn’t think she was seeing anyone regularly, Iranian or American, but I thought she might be intimidated by the teacher in me. She wasn’t, at least not so much that she’d refuse a pizza date. We arranged to go out the following week, after the semester officially ended.

  I was nervous myself, not having dated much recently, and certainly not with students, or Iranians, or Iranian students. When I knocked on her door, she asked who it was. I didn’t know what to call myself, but I said “Jay.” She opened the door timidly, with a smile that lacked conviction, so I worried I was making a mistake. She picked up her purse and coat and led the way out without saying anything. I didn’t know what was wrong but followed her. When she got in as I held the car door open, I saw her face clearly—she’d been crying. I stood there until she looked at me.

  “Excuse please, I sorry,” she said, then stared at the glove compartment.

  “It’s okay, Azi. Look, we don’t have to go anywhere.”

  “I want for to go.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded, so I closed her door, went around and got in, and we headed to the restaurant in Five Points. She wasn’t ready to risk her emotions to the perils of English, and I didn’t know what to say anyway, so we rode the short distance to Capris in silence. She handed her menu to me, indicating that I should order for both of us. When the waitress left us alone in our “romantic” booth—framed by iron trellises woven with plastic vines, the table lit by a candle stuck in a Mateus bottle—I had to break the silence.

  “Azi, tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Thank you Sir, o-kay, I tell you. The man attack me today.” I t
hought of the redneck at Pizza Hut, but she paused, seeing the shock on my face, and then continued. “I no know he, he is sitting on car in front of apartment, and when I am walking beside he take arm.” She made a snatching motion and gripped her left arm with her right hand. “He say, ‘Come here you Mus-lim bitch.’ He try for to hold I, but I am hitting he and pulling away. Then he pull dress”—she reached the back of her collar and tugged on it—“and he”—she made a ripping motion with her hands.

  “Ripped.”

  “Yes, he ripped my dress, but I am running to apartment and locking door.” She took a breath and tried to continue, but tears came instead. She leaned forward on her elbows and covered her face with her hands as if she were ashamed, as if she’d heard that crying was unacceptable in America.

  Usually I’m not a consoler, I’m not good at finding reassuring words and gestures, but for Azi it was different. Without thinking I got up, sat beside her, and put my arm around her. She leaned into me, trembling, her face against my chest, and closed her eyes. I looked down at the table, into the flickering candle in front of us, then I closed my eyes too, trying to black out the anger in my head, which was white, hot, and sharp. I wanted to find the sonofabitch and beat him, strangle him, whatever. But I was holding Azi for the first time, stroking her arm and neck, feeling her relax as she cried more freely, smelling her hair and tears, and we stayed as we were, with the same shadows on our closed eyes.

  Then she sat up, squeezed my hand—I withdrew my arm from her shoulder—and she leaned back in her seat. She dabbed at her face with her cloth napkin but didn’t excuse herself to go to the bathroom to fix her streaked mascara. Without crying again, she finished her story. The man had followed her to her apartment and had banged on the door a couple of times, shouting obscenities. He didn’t stay long, but Azi spent the next hour locked in her bedroom, hoping her roommate would come home. Finally she recovered enough to change her clothes for our date.