Assassins of the Turquoise Palace

by Hakakian, Roya

  Arise, ye wretched of the earth, arise, ye prisoners of starvation . . .

  When the song ended, six large men in dark suits lowered the mahogany box into the pit. Stepping to the edge, Shohreh looked down. The freshly dug hole was the raw, unsightly truth the eulogies had left out. In it, she saw the shape of her days ahead. Her stoicism vanished. The gypsy within overcame her. She squatted at the edge. In her black skirt suit, her arms wrapped around her shins, she looked like a lone, helpless crow. She began to rock to and fro.

  “Oh, Khomeini. Oh, Khomeini . . .” she mumbled, as if the leader were still alive, as if she had known him well enough to dispense with titles.

  “Oh, Khomeini . . . Oh, Khomeini . . .” she repeated, in a tone of concession to a longtime enemy. “Oh, Khomeini . . . Oh, Khomeini . . .” She rocked to and fro, to and fro. She unwrapped her arms and covered her face with her hands, then lifted them to the sky, then clawed the loose earth. The crowd gasped. Their tears burst forth. Several relatives rushed and whisked Sara away. Shohreh repeated her movements and lamented. Face, sky, earth. Face, sky, earth, over and over, in her own mad choreography.

  Reporters squeezed to the front. A recent journalism graduate on his very first assignment—Norbert Siegmund—was mesmerized by the widow. All he had ever seen at a funeral were mourners who never lost control or surrendered decorum. But this dazed, slender woman, at war with the earth and sky, moved him immensely. Overcome, he stopped the tape and packed his microphone away to honor the moment.

  Hands and knees in the dirt, Shohreh began again. After all, she was the hostess and had to serve her guests, even if all she had to serve was grief. Through a curtain of tears came her monologue. It was a medley of fragments, some mumbled to herself in Persian, others shouted in tortured German for the spectators’ sake.

  “I know who did this . . . Oh, Khomeini. I know you did this. Oh, Khomeini . . . We’ll not always be your prey. We’ll avenge ourselves. Oh, Khomeini. I swear on your grave, Noori, we’ll take your revenge.”

  Pointing to the pictures of the four dead, she howled, “Their blood will be a beginning. I know it will.”

  Then, turning on the crowd, she growled, “Why are you all silent? We can’t be silent. You know we can’t.”

  Mehdi’s eyes were shut, his face tilted skyward. Parviz had placed the picture frame at his foot and turned his back, his shoulders heaving.

  She carried on. “In exile . . . In exile, I’m burying him. In exile, where he never wanted to be. I know who killed them. And they can never pay the price of his blood. His life wasn’t for sale. They can never appease their way out of what’s coming to them, out of what I, we, will do to get them justice. There won’t be a deal. I’ll be here to remember and to shout the truth until kingdom come: I know who killed them. Khomeini, that’s who! Khomeini killed them.”

  Parviz could not bear to watch her any longer. He feared that strangers hearing her imperfect speech might think less of her or their tragedy. They were grief-stricken not mad, transplanted not rootless. He stepped behind her, slipped his hands under her arms, and lifted her. In his grip, she hung like a marionette, at last hushed.

  The mourners walked up to the pit and each dusted the coffin with a fistful of soil. Parviz could not watch them. He turned to Mehdi, grabbed him, and began a loud, unabashed cry. Mehdi, wrapping his arms around Parviz, wept in return. While they embraced, each man wondered if the other was the insider who had betrayed them.

  • • •

  After the burial, the young journalist lingered. He could not leave. Norbert Siegmund did not know anyone in the crowd, nor did he understand any Persian. But what he had witnessed hardly needed translation. He approached Parviz, whom he recognized from his television interviews, and asked if they could talk. Shohreh’s lamentations echoing in his ears, Norbert wanted Parviz to guess at the possible suspects behind the crime.

  “Suspects? You want to call them suspects? You can, if you like. But there’s nothing plural or mysterious about it. This is the work of Iran’s regime. No suspects there. They’re the culprits, beyond the shadow of doubt. I’m more sure of that than I am of myself standing here now.”

  His certainty impressed Norbert. Wishing to prolong the conversation, he played devil’s advocate.

  “But the federal prosecutor is leaning toward the Kurdish group, the PKK.”

  “The federal prosecutor can lean whichever way he wants, but it doesn’t change the facts. These men who died weren’t mafia members or drug dealers. They were visionaries of the highest order, real patriots, after whom other governments name national holidays. What does the federal prosecutor know about what we’ve paid for in blood and tears for thirteen years?”

  Like all exiles, he assumed that everyone’s calendars began with 1979.

  “You sound adamant,” Norbert replied. “Aren’t you afraid you might be wrong?”

  “I sound adamant because I know my history. This isn’t the first time an exile has been killed. There have been many, many deaths like this. Am I afraid? Of course, I am. I’m afraid that those who don’t know the history may be fooled. I’m afraid of the truth never seeing the light of day, this charade going on until we’re all done away with.”

  Norbert did not know what Parviz meant by history. But he was not about to detain him in that cemetery for an explanation. He offered his business card to Parviz and suggested that they meet again soon. Parviz tucked the card in his pocket and promised to call him.

  After the funeral, the mourners stopped at the cargo section of Berlin’s Tegel Airport to send the coffins of the three Kurds off to Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery where they would have the worthy farewell they could not get at home. When the plane was airborne, the crowd converged, most of them Kurds, on Iran’s consulate, an indistinct three-story building on Stavanger Street. The staff inside had been warned of the oncoming protesters. The front gates had been chained and the shutters had been lowered over the windows. Now and then, the lens of a camera was wedged in the blinds. The unruliness outside was clearly on record.

  Riot police had already garrisoned the building. Uniformed men brandishing batons, helmets, and shields locked their gaze with empty-handed protesters. As mourners, they had shed what tears they had. Now the fog of grief lifted to reveal their wrath. For them, there was nowhere else to go. This fortress was their destination. Faced with the chain of armed policemen, they stood side by side in a chain of their own and linked arms. Watching their line, the chief of police signaled his men. Visors were lowered, shields were centered at chest level. A tunnel formed—the police on one side, protestors on the other. They stared one another down, waiting for the other to falter.

  Then came a shout in Kurdish. The crowd stirred. Each protester placed one foot forward. The police gripped their batons. But what followed was not a charge of angry men. Arms around each other’s neck, they simply threw their shoulders up, then thrust them forward. There was a momentary hush. Then another shout came, and they undid the movement, stepping back on the other foot, shoulders releasing, lowering. Heeding the rhythm of an inner beat, they had begun the steps of an old familiar dance. One foot back, another forward, undulating the shoulders over and over, till at last they burst into song, their ancient anthem.

  Kass naleh Kurd merduah / Kass naleh Kurd merduah / Kurd zinduah / zinduah ghat na ne vey nala keman.

  Let no one say Kurds are dead. Kurds are living. Kurds are living. Their flag will never fall.

  They chanted though they had no hope of finding justice for their dead. They had no reason to expect from Germany what the rest of Europe had not given them, no reason to place any faith in German prosecutors, judges, or the justice system. They were certain they would be overruled by the opportunism of politicians. Countries with far less at stake in Iran than Germany had been lenient toward Tehran. Bonn had reason to be even more lenient.

  By 1992 trade figures between the two nations had reached 5 billion dollars, making Germany Iran’s domina
nt Western economic partner. Iran’s shares in German stocks exceeded 200 million dollars. The two countries had exchanged more than three hundred political, economic, cultural, and legal delegations, half of which included parliamentary members from both sides. In every international summit, Germany rejected, or at least tempered, the tone of American proposals against Iran. Since the end of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States in 1979, Europe had vied to fill the gap America had left behind. At last, Germany was about to step into the coveted space.

  Its close ties with Iran had raised Germany’s standing as a global broker between Iran, Israel, and the United States. German officials championing the cause of Iran had initiated a continental effort to recast the image of Iran as an authentic, albeit imperfect, regional democracy. The campaign had been launched that July, only a few weeks before the murders. It was widely trumpeted as the “Critical Dialogue,” a diplomatic roundtable with senior Iranian and European officials, with future meetings scheduled for the following December.

  With resolute expressions upon their faces, the protesters chanted their slogans. But resoluteness was only a mask. They believed Germany’s stakes in Tehran were too high to afford justice for their dead. They were chanting to affirm to each other that they were alive, knew the truth, and were not afraid to be seen or sing their song of perseverance. They knew who was behind the murders but it was immaterial—they were adrift and powerless. They made their demands though they were consumed by a despondence that would prey on their peace, even as they made promising gains.

  Two of the leading stars of the Social Democratic Party had agreed to represent the victims’ families. The law firms of Otto Schily, who would become interior minister, and Wolfgang Wieland, who would become a member of the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, took on the case pro bono. These names raised the profile of the dead, but that was not all. The second firm also added its most seasoned criminal attorney, Hans Joachim Ehrig, to the team.

  Ehrig was the lesser known of the attorneys but an equal in wisdom and passion. He was one of those rare members of the 1960s generation who had adapted admirably to the 1990s. His gaze was still fierce behind the perfectly round lenses of his rimless glasses, his old unruly beard trimmed down to a neat mustache. In him, all the formative bohemian ideals of his youth remained intact without dulling his taste for luxuries like silk ties or sailing. (His sail boat was docked in a lake near his villa in north Germany.) But between ideals or luxuries, the choice came effortlessly to him. He was on his way to spend a long weekend in the countryside at an arts festival when his assistant dropped the Mykonos file on his desk. After scanning it, Ehrig rolled his suitcase into the office closet and was off to a meeting with the victims.

  7

  A few days after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa for my death, a delivery man brought a package to my door. Not recognizing the sender’s address, I didn’t dare open it. Finally I thought, “Hadi, you can’t keep being afraid. You’ve got to live your life.” So I opened it. And do you know what I found inside? Not a bomb, oh no! A pack of opium, and what superb opium it was.

  —Hadi Khorsandi, exiled Iranian satirist

  Yousef Amin was grieving for a loss of his own. By the end of September, his friend Rhayel had come to visit him in Rhine, asking him to leave his family in Germany. The Sportino bag they hoped had been expertly hidden was found under a white Audi at a dealership on Cicero Street. The office of the federal prosecutor had issued a statement announcing the discovery of the murder weapons, the first major breakthrough in the case. It was only a matter of time till they came for Rhayel. In the frantic moments inside the restaurant that night he had forgotten to put on his gloves, leaving his handprint on the gun.

  Everyone else on the team had already left the country. The chief shooter had reached Tehran within forty-eight hours after the operation. Their patron, a Berlin grocer named Kazem Darabi who ostensibly employed them but had in fact coordinated and financed the operation, had also flown to Tehran. The driver, on his way to the airport the day before, had delivered some cash to Rhayel and advised him to leave immediately.

  Lebanon was beckoning. But for Rhayel, the road back to Beirut passed through Rhine. There was no escape for him without Yousef. Self-restraint was not among Yousef’s virtues. The very qualities that made him endearing—his boyish banter and innocent enthusiasm—also made him dangerous in the hands of interrogators. It was for Rhayel to shepherd Yousef out of Germany, as he had shepherded him into it. Convincing Yousef to leave was not easy but Rhayel invoked the fate of his namesake. The biblical Joseph had left the comforts of Egypt to return home, and so must Yousef. Downcast and dejected, Yousef posed at a photographer’s studio for the black and white portrait that would be used in a forged passport he was expecting to receive shortly, as was Rhayel. Then they would flee Germany.

  Shortly, it turned out, meant several days. By October 4, only one passport had arrived and the second was to be delivered the next day. The two friends spent a melancholy last day together. In the evening, at 17 Heriburg Street, the Amins and their guest turned in early. It was a moonless night in Rhine.

  Long before the shades had been drawn on the windows and the lights were turned off in the apartment, the forces of BKA, Germany’s federal police, had surrounded the building. Two tips had led them there. The first was a document from the intelligence division at the BfV, the federal office for the protection of the constitution, which had been sent to Bruno Jost. Though only partially disclosed, it detailed the events at the restaurant according to an anonymous but highly reliable source.

  The second tip, from British intelligence, revealed the identities and whereabouts of the two suspects who still remained in Germany and their patron, Darabi. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the British and Americans had yet to fully surrender the city to their German counterparts and their watch posts were still operating. The British had monitored Darabi for years and knew of his ties to Hezbollah, his frequent visits to Lebanon, and the dubious nature of his various businesses.

  Just after midnight, the BKA raided Yousef’s residence. Though the federal police were on location hours earlier, they waited for the stroke of midnight to make their arrest, giving themselves the longest possible stretch of the “one day” granted under the law before they had to file formal charges against their detainees.

  Rhayel ran to the balcony to escape, but found himself surrounded from every direction. Everyone in the apartment was taken into custody: Rhayel, Yousef, Yousef’s brother, and Yousef’s pregnant wife. In Tehran Darabi, confident that all his underlings had escaped, celebrated by buying a women’s Rolex watch at a jewelry store on his way to the airport. It would be his last stop before returning to his wife and their handicapped daughter, who depended on the generosity of German health care. By the time his plane landed in Hamburg, his men were already in prison. Hours later Darabi, too, was arrested.

  Ordinary Berliners took comfort in the news of the arrests but the exiles felt no safer. There were guilty others still on the loose, some of whom had begun to torment Shohreh. Her telephone rang often, and a strange voice would pour into the receiver, “Can I speak to Noori?”

  She usually hung up, but if she did not the caller would say mockingly, “Oops! He isn’t there, is he? In that case, can I speak to his pal, the Doctor?”

  “Who are you?”

  Instead of answering, the voice would break into fiendish laughter just before hanging up. Sometimes she answered the phone and heard a tape recorder playing a passage from the Koran.

  Sometimes her daughter would cause a scare. During one episode, Sara ran into her mother’s bedroom, screaming, “It’s a bomb!”

  The bomb was their own egg timer, which had been slipped into a boot on the shoe rack at the entrance to the apartment.

  “Talk to her! Ask why she did it. You can’t be afraid to talk to your own child,” Shohreh’s brother had counseled.

  But all she had the heart to do
was seat Sara at the dining table and ask what she could fix her to eat, reminding her, “We must eat. We must eat so we can be strong. We have to be strong.”

  Shohreh worried that she was failing Sara. No matter what her daughter did, Shohreh wallowed in guilt. If Sara sulked, Shohreh worried that her child was grieving. If Sara smiled, Shohreh thought it was fake, a smile only for her sake. Her sadness rarely dimmed, and when it did, anxiety flared. The menaces who kept calling had her believe that they were capable of coming after her and Sara too.

  Solace was a rarity, but she found it in bed. She refused to wash the sheets because Noori’s scent still lingered in the fabric. She pulled them over her head, breathed the stuffy air, and ran her fingers lightly over his side searching the pillow and mattress for his imprint. She shut her eyes and tried to picture him at his liveliest, trying to wipe away the memory of the corpse that the police had asked her to identify. As her fingertips slid upon the sheets, her mind slipped into reverie. Noori came to life.

  “Let your hair fall on my face, little lady. It’s better than silk.”

  He dared to say what most men would not. “Why wear a bra? You mustn’t deny others the view of your glorious breasts.”

  Once he had taken his fill of her glories, he lit a cigarette and dreamed about their future. “Let’s get out of here, little naked lady. Let’s go to a sunny place, somewhere in Latin America, bask on the beach and never look back.”

  • • •

  Unlike Shohreh, Parviz avoided his bed. He dreaded sleep. If he dozed off, nightmares ravaged his rest and he would awaken drenched in sweat. Every dream ended with him on the brink of death: trapped in a speeding car with failing brakes, standing blindfolded and handcuffed on a chair as a noose was tightened around his neck.