In the Walled Gardens

by Anahita Firouz

  Suddenly overcome, he stopped, covered his face in his hands, and wept.

  “What sort of life is this?” he said.

  It was shocking to see him break down.

  He excused himself and walked out, Shahrnoush following him into the bedroom across the hallway and shutting the door. Peyman’s room.

  “What?” said Ali. “They got nothing?”

  Mr. Bashirian stared at the wall. “What’s left?” he said.

  “Nothing, we have nothing!” Ali said, raising his voice, pumping his leg, eyes jittery. “There’s got to be something to help us!”

  “I think we better leave,” Kazem said to him.

  They said they would call the next day or maybe the day after that. Mr. Bashirian nodded. When I left, the typewritten petition from the lawyer was lying on the table. With all our signatures.

  I HAD BEEN CALLED a few days earlier at the office. It was a polite and brief conversation asking me to come in on a routine official and bureaucratic matter. An address on Iranshahr, with no mention of the name of the organization, which was peculiar. Just a street number. After I put the phone down, I sat staring out the window. What administrative matter was it? What did they want from me? The official had asked — very courteously — for me to come in. At my convenience, ten-thirty.

  I didn’t mention the call to anyone.

  The night before, Thierry had sent over his chauffeur with a large sealed envelope before dinner. I tore it open in the upstairs study. There it was — the article by the French reporter and our interview at the Intercontinental. I skimmed through and recognized Peyman Bashirian’s story, his father’s statements. The names had been changed, but the facts were all there, with a footnote about how the young student was now dead. There they were, father and son, in one of the most famous newspapers in the world. I sat back, slowly reading the long article, which described other cases of political arrest. Though it was perhaps accurate in detail, its overall effect was somehow warped. I felt overwhelmed by a sense of disorientation, even dread. Mr. Bashirian and I had in time regretted the interview. Here all our vitality and progress and national purpose appeared somehow distorted. In the article I could not recognize my own country.

  At midmorning I drove up Iranshahr past the building and parked on a side street two blocks away. The building was nondescript yellow brick with small black metal windows. More like an apartment building, with no name above the entrance, which didn’t make sense for a government office. Stranger yet, the door was locked. I rang the doorbell. A man in plain clothes opened the door and asked my name and conducted me along a narrow and dimly lit corridor. The place looked deserted as I trudged behind him to room 106, at the end. I was in a SAVAK building for an interview. What did they know? That I’d attended the lecture? I’d gotten on a list. Maybe they knew I’d lied about being the relative that day in Komiteh, when I’d gone with Mr. Bashirian to visit Peyman. I would be told any moment.

  He left me at the entrance to 106. I knocked, although the door was slightly open. There were two men in the room, in dark suits and white shirts and dark ties. One sat behind a steel desk with nothing on it except a blue folder and a black telephone; the other was in an armchair in the corner. They rose when I entered. The one in the corner shut the door. The one behind the desk extended his hand to me, very cordial. The walls were gray-white, blinds drawn across the one window behind the man at the desk. The room was poorly lit on purpose. I sat in an upright chair with metal arms, facing the man behind the desk. He coughed ceremoniously, then got done with his cursory and bureaucratic introduction efficiently.

  “We just have a few questions,” he said.

  I nodded, the pounding in my heart quickening. He went through some general personal information about me. I verified what he already knew. He confirmed that my husband was Houshang Behroudi, co-owner and managing director of Kaviyan General Contractors.

  “Contractors for the Bandar Kangan Gulf project?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “The port for the navy,” he confirmed.

  “Yes,” I said, my heart sinking.

  He cleared his throat politely, paused. Long enough to leave me uneasy once he’d made his point, and to impress upon me where this could lead, which made me even uneasier.

  Then very tactfully he said, “Do you have a special interest in university students?”

  “No,” I said, taken by surprise. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Students from Aryamehr. You know them?”

  “No. I mean, well, I know a few.”

  “So you know them well?”

  “No. I’ve met them briefly.”

  “Their names?”

  I wasn’t about to name names. “Who exactly do you mean?”

  The specter of a smile hovered on his lips, as if to tell me he didn’t blame me. “Be careful,” he said. “You never know who you’re dealing with.”

  I nodded. The man in the corner had been only listening. Suddenly he said, “Do any of these names mean anything to you? Peyman Bashirian, Hamid Haratabadi, Kazem Abbasi, Soheila Badri, Akhtar Nemati?”

  “I only know — knew Peyman Bashirian. I don’t know the others.”

  “But you were at the Bashirian house when some of the others were there. Try to remember.”

  “Maybe. A lot of people were there for the memorial service.”

  The man behind the desk again took over the questioning. “You have a special interest in the Bashirian family?”

  “He’s a colleague and friend of mine. I know the family.”

  “Of course you do. You’ve signed a petition for an investigation into their son’s death.”

  I nodded, startled at the extent of his information. Perhaps we’d finally got around to the reason I’d been called in. He set his hands neatly across the blue folder.

  “You’ve asked several people to intervene in this case,” he said respectfully, “before and now on behalf of the petition.”

  “Well, of course I wanted to — to help the family.”

  “Didn’t you know they were told their son died of a heart attack?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “Then did someone suggest to you that something else had happened?”

  “No, no one did.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why would anyone want an investigation?”

  It was impossible to give him an answer to his question. His colleague in the corner stared past me, very formal, serious.

  I cleared my throat. “Komiteh was about to release Peyman Bashirian, so it was shocking how he died so suddenly. His family wants to know if he was ill while . . . in prison, before his heart attack.”

  He nodded. Then he waited for me to say more, and when I didn’t, again he repeated, “I would advise you to be careful.”

  The man in the corner said, “These students have subversive political agendas. We know all about them. You don’t want to be associated with such things.”

  The man behind the desk straightened the blue folder before him. “Did any of the students — anyone — ever tell you anything?”

  “No. What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said.”

  I shook my head.

  “Who suggested this investigation into the boy’s death?”

  “Well, actually I — I did.”

  He nodded. “No one encouraged you?”

  “No.”

  “What did the other students think?”

  “We never discussed it.”

  “You’ve criticized the way this case has been handled. We know this. Don’t you believe what the authorities said happened?”

  “I never said I didn’t.”

  “There are those who’re prepared to use you for their own benefit. You realize this?”

  He nudged the folder, brought his hands together.

  He leaned forward. “Your, uh, interest in this case is of course understandable. Yo
u’re close to the family. But please, refrain from any involvement in the politics surrounding it. We thank you for taking the time to come in. We hope it wasn’t inconvenient.”

  Out in the street I pulled on my sunglasses, looked up at the building, sunlight glinting off the small windows. I walked up Iranshahr, faced for the first time with another miserable fact. There was an informer among the students.

  TWO DAYS LATER in the evening paper the headline blazed: “Embezzlement Racket — Two Rear Admirals, Four Officers, Three Civilians, Indicted in Naval Scandal.” There in print — the investigation, the millions taken, one of the rear admirals from the Bandar Kangan project.

  Houshang had called me all day the day before. Four times, and two messages. Quite a record, considering he hadn’t wanted to talk to me — and hadn’t — for days. Even before that, we hadn’t had any success talking to each other for weeks, if not months.

  He wanted to see me immediately. Ten o’clock that morning I met him at his office in midtown, where he shut the door and sat me down and told me about an extensive investigation and the imminent arrest of several officers in the navy. “The rear admiral!” he said. “Don’t worry, they’re not going to touch us. It won’t affect us.” He talked as though his real business was suddenly protecting me. He said he hadn’t wanted to tell me, though he’d known for days. He didn’t want me to worry.

  He ushered me out, whispering, “I trust you,” as if I were the only one in the world. He was dashing off to a meeting at the Ports and Shipping Organization. He called again two hours later, curt, nervous. “What was the meeting?” I asked, anxious something unforeseen was again coming down the pipeline. “I told you not to worry!” he snapped. But this time he hung up with a small endearment. My stock was going up in the world. Early that afternoon he called and apologized for having been so terse and rushed. He said everything was completely under control. He was locked up with the accountant in his office. This went on throughout the next day. He called; he was in and out of meetings. He was waiting for two important calls. They came late in the afternoon. He called me right after. He sounded exhausted, defeated.

  “It’s been a strain,” he said. “I’m tired. I’ll be home early.”

  He called again just before heading home.

  I had the newspaper on my lap in the downstairs study when Houshang came home, early for the first time that year. He left his briefcase in the front hall. I’d left the door wide open, and he saw me and walked in. He saw the paper. He rang for Ramazan, asked for a Scotch with ice. I waited. He dropped into the armchair, loosened his tie. He looked drained, but also sincere. Nearly fresh faced without the overindulged markings of success and high stakes and oodles of gratification. Nearly like the days when we’d first met and he’d first got started. I didn’t say a word.

  Ramazan brought the Scotch and left. Houshang took a gulp.

  “For a while there, I thought they’d make me their whipping boy. Take me down to exonerate themselves. I saw it in their eyes. How they’d abandon me. Me! One of their most loyal attendants. I’d done everything they’ve asked for twenty years. You know, it shook my faith.”

  “Your ace in the hole just got indicted,” I said.

  “I have others.”

  “He’s such a — patriot. Isn’t he?”

  “You’re always sarcastic.”

  “I’m like Mother.”

  He stared at me seated across from him, jiggling his glass with ice. I set the paper on the coffee table. He was still staring at me.

  “Can I take you to dinner? Just you and me for a change?”

  “So after all these years we can discuss kickbacks and rigged bids and payoffs?”

  “You’re exciting when you’re outraged,” he said.

  “That’s not what you thought the other night. Level with me.”

  “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “Did you pay off the rear admiral?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You mean he got paid off for Kangan, but some other way.”

  He shrugged. I sat back. There was no climax, no lesson, no punishment here. Just business.

  “They’re investigating your company?”

  “They’re investigating our joint venture for the port. And they will find nothing. My British partners aren’t worried. I’ve been on the phone all day with London.”

  “So you’re in the clear?”

  “I don’t make the rules around here, I play by them. I’ve earned my way.” He smiled. “The port at Kangan will get built. I have no doubt. If not this year, then maybe next year. And we’ll be here — here forever — willing and able!”

  He smiled again, still working his way back.

  “Let’s forget the other night,” he said. “The dead boy and rear admiral and his wife. The whole damn thing.”

  “You mean I don’t need to apologize to those two anymore?”

  He laughed, his spirits nearly restored, and then drained his glass of Scotch.

  “Tell me something,” he said. “You knew, you knew he was going to be indicted, didn’t you?”

  “No. No, I didn’t,” I said.

  “I like the way you lie. Even when you lie, you’re virtuous.”

  He looked at me with emotion. Leaned over, grabbed the paper, turned it around so he could read it.

  “See!” He slapped the paper. “Nothing in the whole damn article. No, they’re never going to say exactly. Now, if they did, that would be news!”

  The phone rang at his elbow. He picked up but was short. When he put it down, he said it was Iraj. I said it was time for him to run over.

  “The hell with Iraj — forget everyone.”

  “The rear admiral is going to prison?”

  “With his clout I don’t know about going to prison for kickbacks. But he’ll get tried by a military tribunal.”

  “Imagine! His wife going to visit him in jail.”

  “You’re getting vindictive,” Houshang said.

  I thought of Peyman Bashirian, how nothing would bring him back. In the end it was impossible to determine what exactly had happened, the circumstances surrounding his death, whether in fact he had even taken photographs of military installations. No one — no matter on which side — could actually prove anything anymore.

  That evening Houshang and I didn’t go out. We ended up at home all night for once, quiet, withdrawn, edging toward each other. Washed up as if after a thunderstorm. It had been months, longer, a year. Late that night we took a drive; he wanted to get out and just drive. It was a wintery night. We drove through the streets, both of us shaken. The indictments were a big jolt for him, a turning point, now that he’d seen how they could betray and forsake him. Now even he couldn’t be indifferent anymore. He’d gone to the edge, but not over; I had too. My meeting with SAVAK had been a time-honored ritual. In that anonymous building and half-lit room, I’d seen precariousness awarded and withdrawn. That’s how it was, living on borrowed time. I knew the edge was blurred now. Where you stepped, what you did and said, whom you met. How everything got perverted. The undefinable betrayals — and without exception we are all betrayers — connected and accruing like capillaries.

  We drove around, then up toward the mountains. The lights of the city shimmered below us. There, the seat of our desires. The place where we’d been born and grown up and loved. That night Houshang made love to me. I had been refusing him for months. I’d floated out. He was seducing me, and I let him. We were biding our time, but it was already too late. On the bed he slipped off my clothes and whispered, whispering into the ear of night and fate. The moon a luminous dome behind the windows, drifting in a huge sky. Braced by minarets of stars. Rising toward winter. I thought of Reza, reached out as if to touch him. Imagined him, flesh and soul, pressing against me in the garden. Houshang was kissing my lips and flesh, murmuring about the sanctity of marriage and the honor of things. All at once afraid of his downfall. Afraid of losing me, of other things, at least f
or a while.

  “Let’s forget,” he whispered in my hair. “Forget everything.”

  But I’m not the type who can forget.

  THIRTY-THREE

  FREEDOM BEGINS WITH remorse. For a man like me at least, not a man like Jalal. Though Jalal was right about one thing: first you must leave everything behind.

  Freedom begins when the truth you pick — knowing a singular one doesn’t exist anyway — is the one you can live with. And every other choice you make is wrong. It begins when the charms of the past are revealed and known to you, and the charms of the future don’t exist anymore. For me it was that night Jalal came to me for help and I left him at dawn, though if things had gone differently I should have been leaving Mahastee at that hour after spending the night with her.

  A man’s will — the very essence of his life — makes him conscious of being free. But the choice I made that night wasn’t about a night with Mahastee or the possibility of other nights. It was drawing everything I had through the eye of a needle. Father and Mother and family and my entire career and reason for existence. And Mahastee, for she was a separate world and would forever remain so. You know nothing in life until you have to make a choice, and even then it’s each choice and each time that remakes you. You know nothing until the metal blade of your own undoing slides and cuts between your teeth.

  When Father had lived, I’d measured my life against his. His, the measure of history and heritage; the past was alive as long as he was alive. With Mother I have a gentle proximity, the guilt of her life and mine in our eyes. The remorse. She prays and I’m forced to remain as she sees me because I want her prayers answered for her. Father said Ferdausi’s epic was like a Qur’an in his heart. The men who judge me from the outside — who judge my life, my convictions, my politics — have no right to the measure of my heart. I know, already know I’ll remember this one day facing my interrogators. Whatever I do and they do one day against me, there is this interior life, and no one can take it away. I will know this looking into their eyes.

  I had prepared to go to her in Morshedabad, rushing through yet another turbulent meeting arguing about politics in a down-town basement, then running through the streets to get to her. How long I had prepared. Since the first time I’d gone back to see her at sixteen. Since the first day I’d seen her in the hailstorm. I’d come to test my strength against her will, her world. I’d left her waiting in the garden of Morshedabad, where we’d grown up together like two limbs on a tree. She waited there, where I had first loved her and first learned the endless lessons of leaving. I imagined her then — how often I had imagined that moment — imagined her sitting there on the veranda at dusk by the towering trees with the dovecote to her east, the water channels and orchards to the west. I imagined her sitting facing the darkening outline of garden and beyond it the long road to the village twisting through the open fields, her face up against the fading light growing dimmer to the traveler coming down the driveway, and then the generator kicking in, the faint cooing of doves, a distant truck leaving the distant village, and then dark, the hush of night coming, the pinpoints of lights in the house like stars in a distant firmament. I would never leave in time to get there.