(Wrath-03)-Son Of The Morning (2012)

by Chris Stewart

  “Probably not,” Luke answered. This one was kind of tough to explain. One of the students threw an errant Frisbee that landed at his feet. He stood and threw it back; tossing a perfect spiral that hit the other guy in the chest.

  Returning to the bench, he sat down.

  “So . . . you were saying . . . ? Why might you not be here next year?”

  “I might take a little time off,” he said.

  She stared at him, tossing the hair out of her eyes again. “You’re rebelling. You little devil.” She was grinning wickedly.

  Luke watched the Frisbee floating back and forth. “Sometimes I wonder about things, you know. My parents. What my dad does. The things they ask of him. The price we pay. I don’t want my life to be like that. Way too much of some things. Way too little of some things else. I wonder sometimes if . . . .” He hesitated.

  Alicia smiled as if something were clicking inside her head. She thought a moment, and then made some kind of decision. Glancing at her watch, she said, “It’s almost lunch. You want to go get something to eat?”

  SEVEN

  Khorramshahr Refugee Camp, Iraq/Iran Border

  The Khorramshahr refugee camp was named after the Iranian city half a day’s walk to the south. One of Persia’s major ports, with a huge, smoking oil refinery sitting on a small island in the middle of the Kārūn River, Khorramshahr had been an early target when the Iraqi army advanced during the opening weeks of the Iran/Iraq War. The entire Iranian population had fled the city, leaving an empty shell behind for the Iraqi army to loot. Devastated during the fighting, the city remained a ghost town after the Iraqis withdrew until, in 1983, relatively confident they would not be overrun by the Iraqi army again, Iranians slowly began to return.

  Khorramshahr was a small camp set up along the Iraqi/Iranian border. Administered by the U.N., but overseen by the Iraqi government and protected by the U.S. military, the camp sat on a small plateau overlooking the Wawr al Hammār marshes that fed on the brackish waters of the southern tip of the Tigris River. One hundred ten kilometers southeast, the Tigris River flowed into the Persian Gulf. Behind the camp, the Zagros Mountains rose out of the rolling plains; west and north were the salt flats and marshes that defined the border between Iran and Iraq. Built on a barren prairie, the camp was suitable—except when it rained (at which time it became a sucking mud hole), or when the wind blew from the mountains (at which time all of the tents would blow down), or during the annual locust infestations (there was no way to keep them out of the food), or during the freezing temperatures of winter or under the burning summer sun. All in all, Khorramshahr was a great location for a refugee camp—for about three weeks a year.

  A “temporary” camp that now housed a second generation of refugees, Khorramshahr had been established originally to protect the Iranian Balgus expatriates who had taken the opportunity during the chaos created by the First Gulf War to flee religious persecution in their homeland. Ignorant and wildly optimistic, they had hoped to enjoy a better life in a freer Iraq once Iran got rid of Saddam Hussein.

  Things didn’t go as the refugees had hoped. Saddam didn’t fall. The Iraqi government didn’t welcome them after the war. And they couldn’t go back to Iran, not without fear of death. So they were left in the temporary camp until the geopolitical environment changed. Even after the U.S. liberation of Iraq, a fight in which, even after all these years, the outcome was still unsure, they were left hanging in limbo—not welcome in Iraq until the national government was on much more firm ground and yet unable to return to Persia, even if they had wanted to.

  International law guarantees refugees the fundamental right to safe asylum as well as the right of non-refoulement, meaning that they will not be forced to return to the country from which they had fled. But international law can’t force a host nation to absorb the huddled hordes in their refugee camps. So the Iranian expatriates were caught in no-man’s land, left to live for years in the “temporary” camp.

  During the early months of Khorramshahr’s existence, Iranian insurgents infiltrated the camp with members of the Absolute Committee of the Islamic Revolution, a clandestine group controlled by militants in Iran bent on punishing those who rejected the true laws of Allah. As a result, the expatriates lived in constant fear that they would be killed or abducted by ACIR members. The expatriates were forced to guard the children and to carefully taste their food, terrified that it might have been poisoned. Many expatriates were beaten randomly in the middle of the night. With ACIR’s help, Khorramshahr was also infiltrated by murderers, rapists, deserters, and thieves, as the Iranian government quickly learned it was cheaper to send their worst offenders across the border to Khorramshahr than to take the time to try them and then keep them in jail or execute them. Worse, Iraqi soldiers regularly launched military attacks in the area, injuring and killing refugees to stir up the ethnic hostilities that already existed between Iran and Iraq.

  In the early days, the Khorramshahr refugees also suffered from insufficient food, water, heat, sanitation, medicine, and doctors. The summer before Saddam Hussein was driven from power, a group of human rights activists from various European countries made an inspection of the camp. Their report described Khorramshahr as hardly more than a prison camp where children died regularly because of infectious diseases. The report stated that malaria, typhus, and dysentery were spreading among the refugees, while many were prohibited from attending the hospitals in the neighboring Iraqi city of Al Basrah. Three-quarters of the inhabitants of the camp were undernourished because of the insufficient rations, and the drinking water was contaminated. The ACIR had stolen what little the refugees had been given, and anyone who left the camp and was stopped at an Iraqi checkpoint risked prison and torture. Many disappeared without a trace.

  Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, after which the U.N. had taken responsibility for the camp, things had gotten immeasurably better. Khorramshahr had become tolerable because it can provide safety and the basic necessities. But it was a very long way from paradise. And it would never be home.

  *******

  The young woman lay on her cot. Her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep and, as the darkness gave way to the early morning light, she opened her eyes and stared up.

  Lying quietly on her cot, when everything was silent and the shadows were full, when her mind was not yet occupied with all that she had to do that day, she was just beginning the battle over her emotions. The young woman realized it was a dangerous and unpredictable time of day.

  If she let her mind wander, who knew where it would go, especially after she had spent another anxious night fighting through the dark dream. She felt the thin blanket around her legs, tightly wrapped and damp, and remembered the dreadful feeling of waking in sweat.

  The dream didn’t change much. Sometimes it was raining, sometimes it was dry, sometimes it took place in the mountains, sometimes down by the stream, but other than the setting, the basics were the same: the same tree, the same flames, her father, the smell.

  So Azadeh guarded her thoughts carefully to keep the darkness at bay.

  She had learned it was just around the corner, always lurking. The darkness. The anger. A depression so deep that if she ever fell in, she knew she would sink down forever and never come up for air. It was always there, always simmering just below her smile. It was the first thing she thought of in the morning and the last thing at night. It was in the air she breathed, a secret part of her now.

  But she knew how to fight it. She had learned from her father how to keep the demons at bay. She had to keep the window closed and not let anything in. She couldn’t consider her situation or the sense of injustice would suck the life from her soul.

  So she forced herself to be happy. It was all she could do.

  She would keep on believing, keep on smiling, keep on trusting in something she couldn’t see.

  But sometimes she wondered what she would do if she saw him again. What would she do if she met the soldier who had
assassinated her father? She could picture his face, his flat nose, greasy mustache, and dull, deadly eyes.

  Some mornings she prayed to forget him.

  Some mornings she prayed she never would.

  *******

  Soon after arriving in Khorramshahr, Azadeh had fallen into a routine. The camp provided food and shelter but very little else, and her days had become very much the same: wake on her small cot with a thin, cotton blanket over her shoulders, stand in line to wash, stand in line for breakfast, stand in line for drinking water, stand in line to speak with a U.N. refugee worker, stand in line to glimpse a newspaper, stand in line for lunch, stand in line for another drink of water, stand in line, stand in line, stand in line . . . . Looking at the back of some stranger’s head defined her life now.

  Azadeh decided to write a letter to Omar, hoping against hope that he might be able to help her. As she stared at the single sheet of paper, she struggled to think of what she could say. Her mind drifted back to that horrible afternoon when the soldiers appeared at her house. She thought of Omar at their back door, coming to warn them, his hair wet with rain, the deep curls hanging in front of his eyes. He was sweating and panting heavily, his hot breath creating puffs of mist in the cold.

  “Take them!” her father had commanded Omar, pointing to the young Saudi prince and his terrified mother.

  Azadeh remembered Omar’s huge shoulders and thick legs propelling his weight up the rocky trail, holding the Saudi prince like a piece of limp baggage, the young boy appearing weightless under his powerful arm. The princess clung to Omar’s shoulder while holding one hand to her mouth. The mist gathered around quickly around them, and for a moment they looked like gray spirits moving through the orchard and across the wet grass. Omar had stopped and looked back, then turned and pushed them along, herding the princess and her son toward the rocky trail that led up the mountain. They were soon swallowed up in the mist, the sound of their footsteps quickly fading away.

  Sitting on her small cot, Azadeh wondered for the thousandth time if Omar had been able to keep his charge safe. If not, her letter didn’t matter, for Omar was certainly dead.

  But if he was all right, then where was he? Would he get her letter? Would it be safe to reply? She was just a young woman; she had no right to contact him in the first place. Such a great man as Omar, would he stoop so low as to answer her anyway?

  Then a dark thought occurred to her, leaving a cold pit in her stomach. Might the soldiers trace her letter to Khorramshahr and come looking for her?

  She thought a long moment, a cold shudder inside, then slid the pencil and blank sheet of paper into her small burlap sack and placed it under her cot.

  She considered for three days, then finally made her decision. That evening, when the sun was about to set and mourning doves were calling each other from the birch trees behind the last row of tents, she summoned her courage, feeling compelled to try. She took out the pencil and started writing, choosing her words carefully, the Persian script poetic and articulate from two thousand years of heritage.

  Master Omar Pasni Zehedan:

  It is difficult to consider the possibility that my words might not find you in good health or even find you at all, but I remember with such deep emotion that night that you came to our home and I felt a need to thank you for your sacrifice and what you were willing to do.

  My father, as you must know, has been called home to Our God. I think I knew my father as well as anyone on this earth and I can tell you without hesitation that he looked forward to your conversations on the old tower as much as anything in this life. It is my belief that he loved you, Master Zehedan, as he would have loved a brother had that gift been given to him, and I pray you will remember his soul in your prayers.

  I find myself in a situation which, though not home, is safe and tolerable. I am here in Khorramshahr. There is no school, and few young people my age, but it is safe and we eat, and are generally provided for, so I will not complain. What am I to do, I have not yet formulated, but I maintain my faith that, over time, Allah will light the way. I take one step into the darkness, and then wait for Allah light. Insha’allah. I trust in Allah’s will.

  Were you to have opportunity, and were you to feel it appropriate for one such as yourself to show kindness to one such as I, I would look forward to hearing of your good health and well being.

  I pray, as always, that Allah will place warmth in your soul and peace in your mind.

  Respectfully. Humbly.

  Azadeh Ishbel Pahlavi

  Azadeh stared at the letter, reading it carefully, then folded it twice and placed it in the brown envelope. And though she had fantasies of Omar receiving her letter and sending some of his men to whisk her away, her main reason for writing was to establish some type of contact with the outside world. She was desperate to believe there was someone out there who cared.

  Still, she almost smiled as she reviewed the brief note. She felt like a little girl writing to an imaginary friend.

  After sealing the envelope, she realized she didn’t know Master Zehedan’s address. She struggled as she thought, then did the best that she could, using his full name and a guess of his home’s location on the north side of the Agha Jari Deh Valley, five kilometers north of the village.

  *******

  Although Azadeh had no idea what the outcome would be or where she would end up, she knew she was far better off in Khorramshahr than any alternative and she was grateful to be there, regardless of how bleak or hopeless it might seem.

  She missed her father. She missed her village. She missed everything. Sometimes the homesickness washed upon her like a wall of cold water, leaving her shivering, lonely and cold. But she did not lose hope. There was reason still to live.

  And just as she had done since she was old enough to remember, she started each day with fajr, the first morning prayer in the sala’h. Turning toward Mecca, she joined with the true believers from all over the world who demonstrated their faith in Allah by falling to their knees.

  *******

  Azadeh believed, because she had been taught by her father, that Allah was closer to humanity than a father was to a child, and that nothing in this world deserved an equal surrender of self.

  As a united people, Muslims begin each day by falling to their knees in worship of Allah, whom they consider the creator of the universe and every being therein. Bowing to pray is a demonstration of their surrender to the Allah, for Islam means submission to Allah’s will.

  Azadeh had also been taught that she must always face Mecca when she prayed, for that was where the great Ka’bah was.

  The Ka’bah, a stone building shaped like a huge black cube, was far and away the most sacred structure on earth. Forbidden to most non-Muslims, originally built by the Prophet Abraham and his son Ismai’l, the beautiful but simple structure was built for the purpose of worshipping Allah, and the ceremonies that were observed there had been performed by the Prophets for thousands of years.

  Inside the Ka’bah, the Black Stone had been placed. Older than the creation of the earth, round and small enough to hold in two hands, the Black Stone was composed of several fragments of rock bound together by a silver band. According to Islamic tradition, God had given the Black Stone to Adam after plucking it from Paradise.

  Because the Black Stone came directly from Allah, it was revered by all Muslims as the most holy object on earth. It was Allah’s gift to man, evidence of Allah’s being, and every prophet from Adam to Mohammed had at one time touched the Black Stone.

  As the centuries passed, the Ka’bah was frequently damaged by calamities and war. In the early seventh century, a fire had ravaged the Ka’bah, and when it was rebuilt, the Arab tribes could not agree who should have the right to install the Black Stone in its place back inside the Ka’bah. After many arguments, which nearly escalated into war, the tribes finally agreed to let the next person who entered the courtyard decide who would be privileged to place the ancient stone in its
place. As Allah had intended, the next person to come into the courtyard was Mohammed. A young man, not yet a prophet, Mohammed placed a piece of cloth on the ground and set the Black Stone at the center. Then he asked each of the tribes to select a delegate to gather around the cloth. Together they lifted the cloth with the Black Stone off the ground and carried it to the Ka’bah, where Mohammed set it in place.

  Azadeh had been taught that if one kissed the stone, which was smooth and soothing and emitted a pleasant fragrance from Abraham’s hands, it would bear witness to that person’s worthiness on the Judgment Day.

  Several feet in front of the Black Stone was the Zamzam well, another reason why the Ka’bah was considered so sacred. Tradition told that while Abraham was away from his wife Hagar and Ismai’l to visit Sarah at Mecca, the Angel Gabriel had hit the ground with his wings on this spot to bring forth a flow of clear water from under Ismai’l’s feet.

  For these reasons it was essential for all Muslims to face the Most Holy Mosque of Ka’bah as they began their morning prayers, and Azadeh had never even considered breaking this command.

  Once she had prostrated herself on her prayer rug and faced the city that contained the Black Stone, she closed her eyes and repeated the words her father had taught:

  “Oh Allah,

  I am the daughter of my father, Your Servant

  And the daughter of my mother,

  Your gift to me.

  My soul is in Your palm

  I receive light by Your finger.

  Your judgment is perfect,

  Now I ask you by every name given to you by the Prophet

  That you keep my life in Your palm

  That you touch me with Your finger

  to remove my sadness