It wasn’t easy to talk with Taara; she couldn’t focus. She dreamed aloud, drifted in and out of reality, and finally sought advice from the old deck of cards. I realized I had to decide alone and the moment was now. It was as simple as this: we didn’t have a home in Tehran. We couldn’t seek refuge with Khanum and the aunties. Our grandmother had become senile; she would hand us over to Assad. The aunties were crazy from the beginning. Living alone in the chaotic capital, jobless, with a new-born baby was impossible. We had to leave. I had to convince Memaar that he could put his name on the document and claim the house. I had to tell him that the house was an abandoned historic sight, ready to be occupied.
I sat in the dark, shivering. Where was I? What was I about to do? Cheat the cheaters? Mislead the dealers? Outsmart the crooks? Give them a house that was a barracks now and contained dozens of the devotees of the Holy Revolution?
Taara set out four rows of cards.
“This is the most accurate,” she said. “This is what Napoleon did the night before Waterloo.”
“And you know what happened to him.”
“Look! All came out except one.”
“The mean man!”
“This is not Memaar,” Taara said. “He is not mean. This is Safdar. I’m scared of him. I think he hates me.”
“Why should he hate you?”
“Because his brother loves me.”
“Samandar loves you?”
“I think so. He is the one who can do something for us. I’ll talk to him.”
“Who is he in the middle of all this?”
“He is Safdar’s brother and it’s Safdar, not Memaar, who is the main guy.”
“What else do you know?”
“Just this. Without Safdar, Memaar cannot do anything. They work together. Memaar recruits the customers and Safdar knows the local smugglers. Safdar’s men take the people across. Let me talk to Samandar.”
Everybody was up all night, except Mehri who washed and dried the last tray of glasses and slept in the women’s room, next to the hissing kerosene heater. Taara and I sat in the backyard waiting for the long meeting to end, wondering where all those shadowy men who were whispering last night had gone.
Around two-thirty Samandar came out. I gave him my space on the carpet.
“Going to bed?” He patted my shoulder.
I ignored him and went into the corridor. I lingered behind the door of the meeting room, waiting. I didn’t want to go into the room where Mehri slept, and I couldn’t stay in the yard where Taara wanted to be alone with Samandar. Muffled sounds came out of the meeting room. They were either drawing a map or studying one. They were talking about directions, routes. “The horses can’t cross the ditch,” I heard. “Take the left path,” Memaar said. “That’s the worst one. Minefield,” one of the messengers said. They were debating by which route they should take Mr. Amaani.
Tired of standing in the hallway, I went out and sat on the steps facing the dark alley. I heard Taara’s laughter in the backyard and the men murmuring in the meeting room. A cool, dry breeze, a breeze full of clean sand, swept my face. I closed my eyes and let my body lighten, drifting somewhere on the border of sleep.
When I woke up, my back was stiff and my legs hurt. I limped inside and found the door to the meeting room open. The men had already left; three ashtrays full of cigarette butts lay on the floor. I went out to the backyard. Taara was not there. Her four rows of cards sat in the same way, a jack of spades facing the sky. Back in the corridor, I opened the other door and found Taara asleep under her quilt. Mehri snored loudly, her naked leg sticking out from under the blanket. The men had disappeared. I entered the backyard again and looked up at the second floor. Only one light was on. I sat down on the carpet and waited. I had to keep myself awake; I had to speak with Memaar tonight.
A while later, I heard the men—the bearded tenants—descending the stairs. They all had rifles on their shoulders. Some wore black, puffy pants and turbans, and some city clothes. Behind them, Memaar, Safdar, Samandar, and Mr. Amaani came down the steps. I pulled myself into a dark corner, watching. Safdar and Samandar were armed too, but Memaar and Amaani were not. They all passed without seeing me. I almost called to Mr. Amaani to say goodbye, but I didn’t. I let him go. Memaar stayed behind, squatted beside the dark pool and splashed water on his face. This was my last chance.
“Sir—”
“Is it you? Why are you still up?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“I’m in a rush now. Tomorrow.”
“Did you find our uncle?”
“What uncle?”
“You said you knew everybody here, remember?”
“Did I say I knew your uncle?”
He was either confused or he was playing with me.
“Why did you bring us here?”
“Are you having a bad time?”
“Thanks for your hospitality, but—”
“If I hadn’t picked you guys up that evening, you wouldn’t be alive now.”
“But how long can we stay here?”
“It’s up to you. People stay for months sometimes.”
“But why?”
I wanted him to mention crossing, but he wouldn’t. The conversation was absurd.
“Listen, son, I have to go. People are waiting for me.”
“Are you taking Mr. Amaani?”
“Where?”
“To the border.”
“Who told you this?”
“No one. I’m guessing.”
“Don’t make any more guesses, okay? Mind your own business. Go to bed now.” He said this and went toward the corridor.
“Master Memaar!”
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow—” He waved his arms and left.
You stupid bastard! You dumb, blockheaded idiot! You fool! Why didn’t you put it in plain and simple language? “Let’s talk about crossing the border, Master Memaar—” What kind of foolish nonsense was this? Didn’t you stay up all night to talk to him?
Now I heard Memaar’s Dodge and the messenger’s jeep groaning. How did all these bearded men fit in two cars? A horse neighed, then more horses. I heard them galloping on the sand. My question was answered.
I should have said goodbye to Mr. Amaani.
The Headlines
The next morning passed in stupor. Dry heat, pure as fire, crept in through the walls and cracks of the windows. We splashed water on the bamboo shades, but there was no breeze today. Taara slept in a corner all day, feverish. I sat above her, fanning her with the advertisement page of last night’s newspaper. Mehri sat next to a transistor radio listening to a scratchy song travelling through space from a remote land. She mended a pair of nylon stockings, as if in this temperature she could wear nylon or there was any place she could dress up and go. The fan rotated, but didn’t cool the room.
Around noon the bald man, the one who didn’t say a word at dinner last night and then disappeared, came in and asked if he could sit with us. The heat was intolerable upstairs, he said, it penetrated the ceiling. He sat by the door and opened his newspaper.
Mehri brought some bread, cheese, and watermelon for lunch. She had dropped the melon in the pool last night and now it was cool. I woke Taara to eat. Why did she sleep so much? We all ate in silence and listened to the hum of the fan. Mehri gave up on the transistor radio. She wanted Western songs, she said. She hated the local stations. They all slept. The bald man lay on his back, his arms crossed over his forehead, snoring. I took his newspaper and looked at the headlines.
A special-mission group named the Black Flaggers, formed by a former Revolutionary Guard, was arresting the corrupt elements of the revolution and purging them. Ten revolutionary guards had been executed for corruption. The Black Flaggers had found imported liquor and video tapes of foreign movies in their headquarters.
At the northwestern border a family was fished out of the Aras River. They had been trying to enter t
he Soviet Union. The man was identified as one of the leaders of the infidels.
The central prison, containing monarchists, former secret service agents, infidels, Maoists and Trotskyites, was full now. An old prison, outside Tehran, was being renovated.
The pro-Soviet Communists supported the Great Leader. There was a picture of “Uncle” lecturing at the university about the necessity of freedom in the new republic. The lecture was attacked by two separate groups: the Devotees of Islam, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards, and the Black Flaggers. The second group shot at the Communists and the Devotees of Islam.
Another movie theater was burned.
A woman burned herself to death to protest the veil. The picture showed a flaming bush in the middle of a public square, arms extended, the bush dancing. The woman was a physician.
There was a possibility of war in the Persian Gulf.
I read all this and listened to the uneven breathing and muffled snores of the sleepers. It was a long time till evening, when Master Memaar’s house would come to life again.
Negotiations
Soon after sunset, Memaar, Safdar, Samandar, and the two messengers arrived, covered with white dust. While they washed at the pool, Mehri spread the dinner cloth and ran in and out of the kitchen. Taara brushed her long hair in haste and wore her starry, scarlet dress.
Evenings were happy times at Master Memaar’s. The men had brought rice and turkey from the restaurant or the inn, as they called the place. Mehri added her usual appetizers—salads, fruits, yogurt and, of course, bottles of chilled beer and vodka. We all ate and the dusty men chatted about this and that without mentioning the border.
Taara played. Samandar sat next to her and sang. Mehri, who was in a good mood and had painted her face carefully, clapped and snapped her fingers. The bald, frowning man smiled for the first time and, after a couple of glasses of vodka, opened a conversation with me. What grade was I and what was my favorite sport? I told him I was a chess champion at my school district and my favorite sport was baseball, which we didn’t have in our country, but I’d learned in America where I’d spent a year visiting my mother. Your mother? he asked. Yes, I said. She had moved to the U.S. many years ago and was a scientist researching dolphins. She had an American husband and my sister and I had two American half-brothers. We visited them last year in Miami.
I’m not sure why I enjoyed lying to the bald man. He listened carefully and I fed him images of the dolphin movie, half of which I’d seen a few days ago, before the theatre burned. Now he expected to hear more about America where he was planning to go, but I denied him the pleasure and joined Mehri who had begun cleaning up.
When the men rose to leave the room, Memaar looked at the bald man and said, “Mr. Sadiq, it’s your turn, come on.” Then he said to Taara, “Samandar said you wanted to talk to me. Why didn’t you tell me the first night? Come now. Let’s see what we can do for you.”
With much effort, Taara rose to her feet and her native coin necklace jingled as she moved. She looked heavier and paler than ever. I stood by her side.
“You stay here, son,” Memaar ordered me.
“I have to be in this,” I said.
“No way, my boy. We can’t talk about dangerous operations in front of a kid. These are confidential matters.”
“I’m not a kid,” I said.
Taara looked desperate. She didn’t know what to say. I pinched her arm, meaning, Say something!
“Master Memaar, I really can’t decide about anything without my brother.”
“I don’t understand—”
“He has to be with me.”
“Do you want to leave the country or not?” he asked.
“As soon as possible. I don’t have much time left. I have to be on the other side when the baby comes.”
“Then what are you waiting for? We can’t talk in front of kids.”
“He looks younger than he is,” Taara said.
“I’m seventeen!” I said.
Samandar laughed. I gave him a dirty look.
“Let him, Master Memaar,” Taara pleaded. “He has something in his possession that we need for the deal. I don’t have it. He has it. It’s a long story, a family thing. I can’t explain it here. My brother has to be at our meeting.”
Memaar looked at Safdar. He shrugged and left the room. Memaar said, “Okay, what can I say? Huh? If one word, one single word goes out of this house, we’ll all end up against the wall of the prison, understood?” This ultimatum was addressed to me.
So we followed Memaar and Safdar to the meeting room. Samandar stayed behind. I heard him playing Taara’s setar. I almost returned to snatch the instrument out of his hands. But I controlled myself.
“He’s touching your setar,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Taara said with a sweet smile that was meant for the young Baluch.
Safdar sat down, leaned against a cushion and lit a pipe. The extension of his black turban hung loose on his chest. He had a long nose, broken at the bridge, thick eyebrows, and a thin mustache above his lips. He looked like the picture of Aladdin’s mean uncle in the storybook I’d read as a child. As he smoked, he stared at Taara with his penetrating eyes, then turned his head toward the window and looked out.
Memaar gave an introductory lecture about the dangers of this operation, the desert, the distance between the two countries, the minefield, and how brother Safdar was risking his life for desperate people like us. But then he added that the right time was now, when there was chaos in the country and the soldiers at the border were confused. He looked at Safdar and asked him to be honest, as he’d always been, and make his offer.
“Half a million,” Safdar said. I looked at Taara, but she was somewhere else again, in a daze.
Mehri came in with a tray of tea. Memaar waved his hands nervously, commanding her to leave.
Mehri bit her lower lip and winked at me before leaving.
Safdar and the bald man bargained.
“Three hundred thousand is all I have,” Mr. Sadiq said. “I’m neither a general nor a minister. I’m an ordinary civilian. A clerk.”
“Impossible,” Safdar said.
“My house is occupied. They’ve bombed my car. This is all I had in my bank account.”
“Can you arrange four hundred?” Memaar interjected. “It’s not just Safdar and me— the men do the real work. Without them we can’t do anything. Safdar has to pay their salary. How about three hundred-fifty?”
“Don’t I need to have a little left in my pocket when I arrive in a foreign land?”
“Four hundred thousand!” Safdar said, and stood up. He went to the window and blew smoke out through the cracks in the bamboo shade.
“Take it, sir,” Memaar told Mr. Sadiq. “You don’t have a choice, do you? If you go back to Tehran, they’ll kill you. I don’t know what your position in the Secret Service was, but believe me, sir, even the lowest rank of SAVAK, even a typist, will go to the wall. Think about your life.”
“I should’ve left six months ago when my family left,” the man said, more to himself. “I didn’t know it was this serious. My wife and children flew to Europe, then went to America. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It was so easy then. Why did I stay?”
“Maybe you had patriotic feelings,” Memaar said sarcastically.
“Bullshit!” The bald man said. “I just didn’t quite believe it. I didn’t believe there was such a thing as a damn revolution. How could things that had been stable for thousands of years crumble?”
“We learn more every day, sir.” Memaar said. “But one needs to survive. Sometimes I think about those fat ministers and officials who partied all their lives, built castles, shopped in Paris and London, vacationed on the Riviera, and now sit in burlap sacks against the wall, having had or not having had a quick trial. Boom, boom, boom!” He pointed his finger at Mr. Sadiq’s heart.
“I offer all I have and all I have is three hundred fifty.”
“Safdar
!” the house builder called. “Come, brother, and finish this deal. This man is desperate. We’re all human beings. Come now!”
Safdar, who was sulking at the window, came back hesitantly. He sat and knocked his pipe against the ashtray. “I take your three hundred fifty only for Master Memaar’s sake. God is my witness that I make one trip to the other side and back, without carrying dangerous people, and I make a million. You get it? I’m doing this just because Memaar says we’re all human beings.”
“Okay, the deal is done,” Memaar said. “Go, sir, and enjoy your drink. Have a smoke in the backyard if you want. Everything is on me. I’m a generous man. We’ll talk about the date and other details later. Now let’s see what we can do for this young lady and her brave brother.”
Mr. Sadig left and there was silence for a minute. Then I said, “We don’t have money with us. We offer you our house.”
“Your house?” Memaar said, frowning.
“It’s the biggest and oldest house in Tehran. It’s a historic site. You may have heard about it. Its picture is in schoolbooks.”
“It’s almost a castle,” Taara said timidly.
“Its garden used to be a national park,” I said.
There were a few seconds of silence, then Safdar burst into laughter. This was the first time I’d seen the smuggler laugh. Some of his teeth were gold, some tar black.
“You’ve come all the way here to offer us your house?” Memaar asked.
“This house costs several millions, Master Memaar,” Taara said calmly. “It’s fully furnished. Historic furniture. Antique.”
Taara didn’t know that Drum Tower was empty now. She didn’t know the garden had been flattened either.
“How do you want to give us this house?” Memaar asked.
“Like this!” I pulled the deed out of my pocket, unfolded it and laid it flat on the floor. “Now is the best time to occupy it—before other people do.”
“The owner’s name is erased,” Memaar said, squinting his near-sighted eyes.
The Drum Tower Page 29