Mr. Bashirian didn’t want to talk, he was so nervous. I had nothing to say. He’d taken off his raincoat and carefully draped it over a chair. He wore gray trousers and a white shirt with a striped green tie under a navy blue sweater. And he had his eternal hand-kerchief, which he kept taking out to wipe his eyes and forehead. Nerves: he couldn’t bear waiting. I couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over.
We ground out our cigarettes nervously into the glass ashtray on the steel table by the wall. For once the walls were blank. There was nothing identifiable, no official portraits. No one wanted to own up to this room. He stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket. The door opened and a man in a black suit in the doorway motioned to the family with children. The mother started to cry. Mr. Bashirian turned his face away; he’d gone pale.
“What did you bring him?” I whispered.
“His favorite sweets. One book.”
“Which one?”
“Les Misérables,” he said.
I nodded, recrossed my arms next to him, twitching my foot.
He turned to me. “That day at the Intercontinental, I reproached you for mentioning the book. Forgive me.”
“No, you were right.”
“No, but I want to tell you I’m ashamed. Ashamed of what I had to say to the reporter. Instead of telling him all about our great progress and fine universities and wonderful medical centers and modern institutions, I had to —”
“I know. I know what you mean.”
It was miserable. He saw the world not for its flaws, nor for what it owed him, but for what he gave in service. He’d made the pact long ago. It would be tested.
The door opened again. Mr. Bashirian looked up, panic in his eyes.
“Bashirian,” the man said impassively.
We were going through the door, Mr. Bashirian walking ahead with the duffel bag. I followed, the impostor. A guard had checked our identities at the main office as I’d held my breath. I’d deferred to Mr. Bashirian, standing demurely behind him while he’d handed over identification cards and the duffel bag for inspection. He’d shown his sister’s identity card with an airbrushed picture of her, which strangely enough resembled me — the high forehead, the slightly beaked nose, the heart-shaped face, even the squint in the eyes. We were roughly the same age. I’d memorized her date of birth and particulars, just in case, but they had not asked.
What would his son think of seeing a stranger, an intruder? Too late now.
We were led halfway down a narrow corridor into a small room to the right. No one there. No windows, but two feeble strips of neon lights above, casting an anemic hue. A rectangular table was in the middle with chairs around it. The man left, slamming the door behind him, the glass pane in the door rattling. Mr. Bashirian paced, intent on sounds from the corridor. I stood away from the door.
Within minutes we heard the distant clanking of a metal door, the reverberating echo. Then footsteps, not one set, but a cluster. I tensed up, casting quick glances from the door to Mr. Bashirian. He stood frozen in the middle of the room. I kept to the side.
When they brought in Peyman Bashirian, time stopped. Even for me. He hung for a moment in the doorway, a guard behind him. The dark hair, ashen face, dark eyes. He looked as if they’d forced him to come. I could only see the back of his father’s head and how his arms hung loosely, then twitched up, to fall back, resigned. Such yearning. I was mortified. I looked down.
“Fifteen minutes,” the guard said.
It sounded like a lifetime.
The door slammed shut, the guard remaining outside. Behind the pane of glass a jowly man appeared, about to open the door. The man who’d conducted us to the room interrupted him, and they conferred behind the glass pane.
Freedom, the most indefinite possession.
Inside, neither spoke, Father nor son. Peyman had no hand-cuffs, no visible signs of being a prisoner. He wore dark blue jeans and a brown sweater and sneakers. Tall, thin, clean-shaven, he seemed haggard for his age. He’d already been in Komiteh too long. Still, the handsome son of an ugly man. Why wasn’t he embracing his father? There was no vestige of anticipation in his eyes, no relinquishment in his posture. I panicked for Mr. Bashirian.
He spoke up. “How are you, my son?”
Peyman nodded several times, then looked through me with stony eyes. I stood rigid like a stake in the ground. He hadn’t asked who I was. He knew I was no lawyer; they didn’t get lawyers in there.
“Sit, sit here, my son,” said Mr. Bashirian.
Backing into chairs, they sat down. Peyman sat at the head of the table at a right angle to his father. I took a chair at the other end. Both of them had their hands on the table. Mr. Bashirian’s were clenched together; Peyman’s at the edge as if he were about to rise, knuckles white, hunched over.
“Tell me, how are you, are you all right?” he asked his son again.
“How are you?”
He’d used the formal “you.” Hadn’t said “Father.”
“I’m — I’m so grateful to see you,” said Mr. Bashirian. “I haven’t had day or night without you. From the moment you were arrested.”
Peyman looked down, the buzz from the neon lights above permeating the room. Mr. Bashirian wrung his hands.
Then he said softly, “This is Ms. Mosharraf. Remember? I always talked to you about her. She’s been so — so helpful, trying to help. Doing all she can. She’s —”
“Don’t mind me,” I said quickly. “Your father has done everything possible for you. Maybe it’s best I leave you alone together.”
They stared back, Peyman impassive, Mr. Bashirian alarmed, verging on panic, taking out his handkerchief to wipe his forehead. I didn’t budge.
“What happened, my son? What are they telling you? What’s the accusation?”
Peyman began to speak, strained, inaudible. Mr. Bashirian leaned in to him. I couldn’t hear from the other end. Mr. Bashirian was wiping his forehead again, but this time when his hand went down I saw it tremble.
“How can it be?” he said. “What do they mean?”
Peyman shook his head. He looked up, our eyes meeting for the second time. His were more pliant, as if he’d relinquished some terrible bit of deception, just a trace, indisposed to telling everything.
“Look,” Mr. Bashirian said, pointing. “I’ve brought you a few things.” He bent down to the duffel bag.
“I’ll look later,” said Peyman.
The father sat up lamely. “You’re . . . thin, my son. Do you eat?”
Peyman nodded.
“You appear tired. Don’t you sleep?”
His son shrugged.
“Give your father your hand. Let me hold your hand for a moment.”
Peyman remained rigid, eyes averted, his hand resting on the table. Mr. Bashirian looked to me, bewildered, strangely humbled. I was about to intercede when the door opened and the jowly man in the business suit walked in. He was smiling, a green folder under his left arm. Peyman instantly tensed up. Mr. Bashirian, his back to the door, turned and, when he saw the man’s outstretched arm, rose and shook hands with him.
“This is my sister, who’s come from Sari,” he said, introducing me.
“Please be seated,” the man said ceremoniously. “Carry on, carry on. I got detained outside with an urgent problem. Do carry on.”
He hadn’t introduced himself. But Peyman knew him: a chilling look had overtaken Peyman’s face. The man came around and sat at my end, his balding pate and flaccid cheeks lending him an agreeable patina despite the intrusive eyes.
“Why are you seated at this end?” he asked me.
His smile was glassy. He stared at Mr. Bashirian and Peyman.
“You do well not to live in Tehran!” he said to me with congeniality. “Your air up north is so much cleaner, the coast lush and green. I wouldn’t mind moving there myself.”
He turned to Mr. Bashirian. “You said your sister-in-law or your —”
“My sister,” Mr. Bashirian cut
in.
“Your wife is deceased, yes?” the man inquired.
“Long ago,” said Mr. Bashirian.
No one spoke, as if we had forgotten how in front of the newcomer wielding authority. Mr. Bashirian was defenseless, unlike his son, who was seated with the anger of a thousand years. Like a memorial. Eyes sunk above cheekbones into dark circles below heavy brows. The most beautiful mouth, full, elevated with pride.
“If I may inquire, with respect —” Mr. Bashirian said, addressing the official, “what now? I mean, how long will you be . . . holding my son?”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” the official said.
“How much longer?” I asked.
Mr. Bashirian was on the edge of his seat. The official stared at me.
“Please, tell us,” I implored. He would pity an imploring woman.
“I most certainly will not!”
“But what’s he being kept for?” I asked.
“I repeat! A family visit is a rare privilege few prisoners are granted here. I think you’re aware of that.”
“I — I’ve traveled all this way to see my nephew,” I went on, agitated. “My brother’s sick with worry. Can’t you tell us something?”
He looked at his watch. “Time’s up,” he said to no one in particular.
He rose, folder up against his chest. He’d never opened it once.
Mr. Bashirian was overwrought, eyes flitting left and right as if he couldn’t focus. He looked ill. Peyman kept his eyes on the table, jaw tensed. I was conscience-stricken our time had been cut short because of me.
A man poked his head in the door and motioned to the official.
The official exited, assuring us he’d be right back. Who was he? We hadn’t asked. He had every right in that room, including the right to question. Not us.
“Peyman,” said Mr. Bashirian hurriedly, “what shall I do? Tell me! What do you need, my son? Say something!”
“What’s in the bag?”
“Sweets and a book, but next time —”
“You saw the man who just left?” his son interrupted.
“The gentleman who was just here?”
“He’s no gentleman!” said Peyman. “He’s one of my interrogators.”
“Interrogator?” said Mr. Bashirian. “Him?”
The door opened. The official stood poised in the doorway, smile solicitous, the guards at attention behind him.
Mr. Bashirian had fear in his eyes. He picked up the duffel bag, handed it to his son. He hugged Peyman, kissed him, pressing him in with both arms. He clung to him, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“My beloved son. May God keep you, my son,” he murmured.
Peyman removed himself from his father’s arms.
The official was watching from the corridor. As was expected of an aunt, I went over to Peyman and embraced him. I whispered to him, “He loves you more than life itself. You’ll be out soon . . .”
A few steps away, Mr. Bashirian was shaking, wiping tears off his face.
“Father —” Peyman said, and Mr. Bashirian looked up. “Don’t grieve. Don’t think about me. Stop thinking about me.”
They were gone. Only the quiet sobbing of Mr. Bashirian. The convoy of receding footsteps. The distant thunder of a metal door, echoing. Final.
NIGHT CAME, OBSIDIAN, PREMATURELY. Autumn was deepening.
The children had eaten and I tucked them in early. I sat with them reading for half an hour, proclaiming legends and pointing at pictures. They stuck their faces under mine. They squirmed, they yawned, they stretched. I hugged and kissed them, immeasurably thankful at that moment.
Goli brought our dinner trays into the upstairs study.
Houshang and I ate together so seldom that we were out of practice. We liked to be invited out as often as possible, to know, be assured, that we were mainstays of the society we upheld.
I had the television on. Houshang came in with a Scotch on ice and occupied the sofa, jiggling his glass, his gold ring with the seal tapping cut crystal. It annoyed me when he tapped. He turned up the volume on the news, a deliberate snub, since he never watched local television.
We ate without a word, knives and forks clinking against our plates, water glasses going up and down like elevators. Both of us entrenched, intractable, in the same house with the same life.
Goli came back with tea and a bowl of dates and took away the trays. Houshang said he had something for me. I thought he had bad news. From the top drawer of the cabinet, he took out a small black velvet box and left it on the table. I pried it open; it was a sapphire ring encircled by hideous prongs set with diamonds from a jeweler I neither trusted nor liked.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
“I give you a present, and you ask why! Put it on.”
A pudgy hillock of stones, several sizes too large. True to himself, Houshang always gave the expendable.
“Don’t you like it?” he said, for a moment distressed, nearly attentive.
“No, I — Thierry was here yesterday afternoon,” I said suddenly.
To my surprise, he grinned equably. “The fox! Did he grovel?”
I balked. Thierry had been forced to come. Houshang had required it to force his hand, as penance, a measure of his control and manipulation. It was his sort of revenge, transmuted into an apology. He had Thierry exactly where he wanted him.
“You have to pull all the strings all the time?” I said.
He blew up. “Don’t you like the ring? You want to throw it back in my face? You and your family are all the same. I’m sick and tired of your remoteness. Who the hell understands you anymore?”
He stood up, about to storm out, but changed his mind. “You know —” he said, pointing his finger, “let me tell you. It’s sad. Really sad.”
“I know,” I said.
“No, you don’t! The truth is you’re cold with me. You have no devotion left for me anymore. There’s no sweetness or gentleness in you. You’re not the woman I fell in love with. The one I married.”
HE LEFT RIGHT AFTER dinner. The phone rang. Eleven-twenty: I knew it wasn’t him.
Mother called late, often on a whim, to chat before going to bed. “In case I die in my sleep,” she’d say. Late at night she was at her most creative. And awake. She would wander through the large house, baking cakes, making quince and sour cherry and carrot jam, checking her pickles, reading Hafez, playing solitaire and listening to old records, painting, complaining how all her friends were getting old and tiresome.
I’d been rummaging through photo albums in the downstairs study. I went into the kitchen to make tea, carried the glass back to the study. The ringing telephone startled me. I picked up on the second ring, immediately recognizing Mr. Bashirian’s voice. I’d given him my home number, advising him not to hesitate to call. This was the first time.
“It’s me . . .” he said tentatively.
I asked how he was. Desperate, he insisted, and unwell.
“What kind of unwell?” I said.
“I have chest pains.”
“A cough? You must have a cold.”
“No, it’s a sharp pain — all over.”
I asked what kind of pain, where, what he’d eaten, which pills. His voice tremulous, he apologized for disturbing me, for calling so late.
“You should see a doctor.”
“What doctor? It was terrible to see him today. Terrible.”
I heard a click on the phone. Someone was listening in. The door of the study was ajar; beyond, the dark hallway, the curving silhouette of the staircase. On the table next to me in the study, a single light, a wheel of light in a darkened room.
“Hold on,” I said.
I went through dark rooms to the kitchen. The lights were out, but there was a nip in the air — the back door to the kitchen had been open. Goli and her husband each had a key and locked up when they left at night. Whoever had been eavesdropping on my phone call had left in a hurry and hadn’t had time to lock the doo
r. The key was still in the outside lock. Down the garden path I thought I heard footsteps. I locked the door and returned to the study.
“Are you still there?” I said when I picked up the receiver.
Mr. Bashirian was coughing. When he recovered, he said, “I must give you the extra key to my house.”
“You’re going on a trip?”
“If — if I die, I want you to give him this letter. I’m leaving it on —”
“Why talk about death? When we can talk about living.”
“I’ll die alone in this house, and I will never see him again.”
This filled me with a terrible foreboding. “You mustn’t say that!”
“I’ve been pacing for hours, thinking awful thoughts. I — I can’t breathe. I’m being swallowed up by darkness. I’m drowning, you know. Drowning with every hour, the darker it gets. I’m thrashing for air.”
I cradled the receiver by my neck, whispering. “Think of him. How you finally saw him. How you love him. Nothing else matters. Didn’t you hear what they said? Any day now —”
“I don’t believe anything anymore.”
“Please, listen. So far things are improving. Right?”
heard the labored breathing broken off by his agitation for keeping me up so late.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “Sleep. Take a sedative and go to sleep.”
“When I sleep I have nightmares. I lie down waiting for them.”
“I know, I know. But they will not come tonight. If you take the sedative now, you’ll sleep, and by morning you’ll feel better. Believe me.”
He disavowed equilibrium, endurance, and I repeated, whispering into the phone until he acceded to notions of trust and sleep.
In the bedroom I drew the curtains, their skirts rustling, like the wind outside hunting fallen leaves. “Believe,” I had told him. We lie to others with the same words we use to lie to ourselves.
TWENTY-ONE
FRIDAY AFTER MY MORNING HIKE, I decided to stop by to see Mother.
The hike up in Tochal — a meeting of one of the university cells under my supervision — had been disrupted by a third-year physics student. Once a hothead in high school in Qom, he still argued like the mule-headed son of a minor cleric. “Kill or get killed!” he threatened, lecturing us on the immediate need for an armed struggle. He bickered with the others about the ideal revolutionary condition, quoting Jazani and Puyan and the independent Marxist, Sho‘ayian. Then suddenly they lunged at one another, thrashing around on the mountain ledge, threatening to bash one another’s brains out. I wanted to bash their brains out myself. Despite the training, they still had no discipline. For a political front to have breadth and depth it had to exist separately from an armed struggle.
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