The Drum Tower

by Farnoosh Moshiri

  “So that you can write yours,” I said. “Believe me, it’s chaos out there. There is no law.”

  “I can’t put my name here. This is not in the line of my work,” Safdar said, and stood up. He was sulking again. He went toward the door. “I’m through with this, brother,” he told Memaar. “You said you had two juicy deals for me. Now it turns out that you had only one half-ass deal. These kids are joking with me. Send them back to Tehran—to their castle.”

  “You’re losing a fortune,” Taara said, but the smuggler gave her such a dark look that her voice broke and she dropped her eyes.

  “We’re not secret service agents or government officials,” I said. “If you don’t take us, we’ll go back home tomorrow. Then you’ll regret it. Just the silk carpets, paintings, and gold and silver are worth ten times more than what Mr. Sadiq just offered you!”

  “Where are your parents?” Memaar asked.

  “Our parents are dead. Our grandmother lives with her sisters,” I said. “The house is empty.”

  “Hey, Safdar!” Memaar called the Baluch. “Do you want to give it a thought? It’s worth thinking about, brother.”

  “How do I know this house really exists? I’ve never been to Tehran and I haven’t been to school to read schoolbooks.”

  “It’s easy!” Memaar said. “First thing tomorrow I’ll send Ebrahim to Tehran to check out the house. If it’s really there and it’s not already occupied, we’ll accept the deal.”

  My breath caught in my chest. We were finished.

  “I can’t forge names,” Safdar said.

  “Leave that to me,” Memaar said.

  “Send someone, then we’ll talk,” Safdar said. He glanced at Taara again, and left the room.

  “I’ll send my man first thing in the morning.”

  “How long will it take?” Taara asked.

  “One day going, one day coming back—two to three days,” he said.

  “I can’t wait much longer,” Taara said.

  “Can you afford a plane ticket for my man? Then it’ll take him one day.”

  “I’ll pay for his plane ticket,” Taara said.

  “So we leave it at this, young lady. Food, refreshments, lodging, and smoke—all are on me. I do this because I care for my fellow human beings. I can’t see people suffering. Look at you now! A young, pregnant woman. I don’t want to stick my nose into your affairs, but I tell myself, She must be in deep trouble; she has to go somewhere else and start a new life. I’m not stupid, my girl—my wife is, but I’m not. I know you’re not married. I know no husband got blown up in no movie theatre. You have to go, dear, and God willing, you will. Let’s hope your Drum Tower is still there.” He said all this and left the room, but then he popped his head in and said, “But this boy is worth a million. This brother of yours.” He grinned, showing his rotten teeth.

  Taara and I sat for a long moment, breathing in the stinking odor of the overflowing ashtrays. Safdar’s tobacco smoke curled above our heads like clouds of vapor. In the other room Samandar tried to play Taara’s setar, awkwardly.

  “Didn’t you say Assad and his men have occupied Drum Tower?” Taara asked.

  “Yes. And there is no furniture. All gone. No garden, either.”

  “So we’re wasting our time and this plane ticket money. I need money for the baby.”

  “I didn’t know he’d send someone to check.”

  “Were you trying to outsmart a bunch of smugglers?”

  “Let’s not argue now. What can we do? Can we go back?”

  “My bridges are burned,” Taara said.

  “I read in the newspaper that a new group called Black Flaggers are arresting the Revolutionary Guards.”

  “Now you’re hoping they’ve arrested Assad and his men.”

  “Who knows?”

  “But then the new group will be in Drum Tower.”

  “Anyway, we won’t lose much. Only the ticket money. If the guy comes back and says the house exists, but it’s occupied, we’ll say, well, it happened in our absence.”

  “You’re counting on a thin chance,” Taara said, “One percent. Assad and his men may never get arrested by Black Flaggers and the smugglers will never take us to the other side for free.”

  “No, I don’t count on that.”

  We sat in silence for a few seconds, then I said, “Is Samandar really in love with you?”

  “That’s what I feel. Why?”

  “If the house doesn’t work, then—”

  “But the baby will come.”

  “When?”

  “My belly is falling down, Talkhoon. I feel the pressure.”

  “Pain?”

  “Just pressure. Now she’s knocking downwards.”

  “A regular knock, or an angry knock?”

  “A regular knock.”

  We both smiled.

  The New Deal

  The next evening we were eating saffron rice with lima beans, lamb shank and yogurt when we heard a car pulling into the alley. Memaar wiped his mouth and left the room. A minute later he stuck his head in and announced the arrival of new guests. Could they join us for dinner? Mr. Sadiq said he didn’t want to meet any one. Memaar told him it really didn’t matter, because he’d be leaving early in the morning. But the secret service agent left his food half-eaten and went upstairs. We heard Memaar talking to the guests behind the door. He sounded courteous, trying to please.

  “Come in this way. Leave your shoes right here. Forgive us for your discomfort. We eat on the floor—temporary situation—more like camping. Here you won’t need to wear a headscarf, Madame. Feel free. It’s your own house!”

  Now the door opened and Uncle Kia, his wife, and their twin girls came in. Uncle had grown a bushy beard and with his Khaki shirt and pants looked like a hunter on safari. His wife and daughters wore thick scarves and long uniforms. When they saw us, they froze.

  “Hello, Uncle!” Taara said, faking excitement.

  “Is the gentleman your uncle?” Memaar asked, puzzled. “What a coincidence! You were looking for one uncle, another one showed up!” He laughed and said, “Your nephew and niece have been our guests for the past few days. What a small world! Please join us!”

  Our uncle and his family sat awkwardly. They’d never eaten on the floor before. Uncle’s wife glanced at my black cap pulled down over my brow, then stared at Taara’s bloated belly. Reluctantly, they moved toward us to exchange cold and polite kisses.

  After dinner, when we sat in a corner to talk, Uncle Kia asked what on earth were we doing here, and Taara said, we were doing the same thing they were.

  “But where did you get the money?” Uncle put it in the most straightforward way.

  “We’re traveling for free,” I said before Taara could tell the truth.

  “Free?” Uncle’s wife asked.

  I pointed to Samandar, who had lost his special spot next to Taara and was sulking. “Taara’s husband is taking us,” I whispered.

  “Is he your husband, Taara?” Uncle’s wife asked. “You’ve married a . . . a . . . native?”

  Uncle was silent. He had crimsoned, then gone pale.

  “He is not really a native,” I explained before Taara could find an answer. “His brother is, but he is not. He is an engineer,” I said.

  “How much do they charge?” Uncle asked in a whisper.

  “Do they know you were the Minister’s counselor?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure, maybe—”

  “The more important your position, the higher their rate.”

  “Damn!” Uncle said. “He should’ve told us,” he said to his wife. “I shouldn’t have trusted Assad, anyway.”

  “Assad?” Taara asked.

  Sweat burned in my armpits.

  “It was Assad who told us about this place,” Uncle said. “He took my house and car. Everything! Didn’t he send you here?”

  “No, not Assad,” Taara said. “My husband brought us here.”

  “I see,” Uncle said. “
Anyway, you know that Assad’s hands are in everything nowadays. He’s with the Party of God; he has a gang of hooligans. They have occupied the house. They steal people’s cars and property. They’ve started to arrest people and lock them up in Drum Tower. Now his new business is to take money from the monarchists and send them here to the border.”

  “Did he know where we were?” Taara asked, looking at me with concern.

  “I’m not sure. He said you were both missing.” He paused. “Khanum-Jaan is ill.”

  “Where is she?” Taara asked.

  “She’s with the aunties. She’s very ill.”

  “What is it?”

  “Who knows? Everything. Worries. She suffers. She talks to the ghosts.”

  Uncle’s wife knocked her knuckles against her temple, rolled her eyes and said, “All up here!”

  “Where is Baba-Ji?”

  “You may not believe this,” Uncle said. “Assad has kept him in the house. He feeds him and cleans him and won’t let the aunties take him to their place.”

  “The bastard son proved to be kinder than the real sons,” Uncle’s wife said sarcastically.

  “Very kind, indeed!” Uncle said. “He has stolen all the furniture in the house. He is keeping Baba in a closet!” He sighed and rubbed his beard for a long moment.

  We sat in silence. Everyone except Samandar had gone to the porch to drink and smoke.

  “Now, Taara,” Uncle said. “Do you think your husband can do anything for us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Arrange our travel.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “His brother is in charge of everything. He’s just visiting.”

  “But since he’s doing this for you two . . . I thought—”

  “He may be able to get a discount for you,” Taara said. “I’ll talk to him.”

  She moved to the other side of the room and whispered something in Samandar’s ear. The young man beamed and joined us.

  “Nice meeting you, young man. Are you electrical or mechanical?”

  “Mechanical,” Samandar said and smiled.

  “I like your costume,” Uncle’s wife said. “Do we have to wear costumes too?”

  “We’ll get you native clothes,” Samandar said.

  “I won’t wear native clothes,” one of the girls said sleepily.

  “I won’t, either,” the other one echoed.

  “Hush,” their mother said. “You’ll wear whatever the gentlemen tell you to wear. Can’t you see where we are?”

  Memaar called Taara into the other room for a short conference and I followed her. Safdar stood by the window, smoking his pipe. No one sat this time. Memaar announced that Safdar had changed his mind. He didn’t want us to send anyone to Tehran to inquire about the house. He was not willing to accept the deal.

  “The best thing, my dear children, is to go back to Tehran first thing in the morning and forget about the whole thing. More people are about to arrive. This house is getting crowded. You better give your space to people who are really in danger. People like your poor uncle.”

  “How much do you want to charge our uncle?” I asked.

  “One million,” Safdar said without looking at me.

  “But why?” Taara burst out. “You took only three hundred-fifty from Mr. Sadiq.”

  Safdar didn’t say anything, but drilled Taara with his piercing eyes.

  “That gentleman is just a petty clerk in the SAVAK,” Memaar said, “but your uncle is a big shot. We could charge him even more. But we’re all human beings—”

  “Charge him a million and a half,” I said. “For them and for us.”

  There was silence for a second, then Safdar and Memaar burst into wild laughter.

  “What a boy!” Memaar said and slapped my back with his wide palm. “What a shrewd boy!”

  “But don’t tell him that he is paying for us,” I said in the most serious tone. “Tell him the rate for a Minister’s Counselor is two million, and you’re giving him a discount.”

  The deal was accepted. We all went to the porch where Taara played her setar into the night. Her fake husband accompanied her, and Mehri, who was drunk, got up and danced. She wriggled her round butt and shook her shoulders like a cabaret dancer. She had on a long silk skirt and the same tight, red blouse. Her curls were freshly rolled and sprayed, bouncing up and down.

  Uncle watched Mehri’s moving butt with eyes and mouth wide open. She sensed the attention and added more flavor to her dance—winked, shook her shoulders, and bit her lips in a seductive way. Uncle’s wife became upset and took her daughters inside. A native man brought a brazier and arranged the charcoals for opium.

  Some time after midnight, Memaar and Safdar called Uncle Kia inside for negotiations. He looked at me like a sheep on his way to the altar. I whispered in his ear, “We’ve talked to them. Don’t worry. You’ll get a big discount. But if I were you, I’d take my watch and rings off.” He took them off and put them in his shirt pocket.

  Around two o’clock the same two messengers came from the border with the news that everything was clear and the passengers should be at the shepherd’s house before dawn. Memaar suggested that everyone sleep for a few hours. Uncle Kia asked for a telephone. He said he had to make an urgent call to Tehran; he offered some money to Memaar for the long distance call. Memaar didn’t accept the money and led him upstairs where the phone was.

  When the men and women were separated, they put me in the men’s room. I couldn’t say no; after all, they knew me as a smart young man. I lay next to Uncle Kia who fell asleep immediately, murmuring meaningless words in his dreams. Once he even gave out a muffled scream, as if a dull knife were sawing through his neck. I watched the spasms of his fleshy face and tried to find traces of my father’s features.

  Safdar and Samandar performed a duet of snoring. Memaar moaned in his dreams and constantly tossed and turned. I’d never slept in a room with many men. They were noisy and restless and gave out odors of stale nicotine, alcohol, sweat, and gas.

  I was awake all night. I was uncomfortable. Just the mention of Assad’s name had been enough to ruin my day. Could he possibly know where we were, or was this another coincidence? One thing was sure: he was in Tehran. Uncle had seen him yesterday. I turned on my right side and the deed to the house crunched in my pocket. I should’ve put it in Taara’s attaché, where I’d put the handgun. I tried to sleep, but the minute I closed my eyes a tearing wind whirled in my head. So I opened my eyes and looked at a patch of pale light on the wall. I tried not to think about Baba-Ji, but I couldn’t get his image out of my head. The knapsack was on my chest. I wore it every night to keep my body warm.

  I thought about finishing the last chapter of the manuscript. Learning all I needed to learn to be able to end the book. I fantasized living in a shady courtyard in an Indian town, somewhere resembling the Armenian grocer’s courtyard, reading and writing. I closed my eyes and saw the image of the published book, luminous gold print with miniature pictures of the Simorgh in the margins of each page. On the jacket, Baba’s full name appeared in large print and my name, smaller, underneath, as the editor. The book was on a lace-covered table, next to a blue vase and a polished setar. I picked up the book and opened it. Baba-Ji’s preface was on the first page: “As a child living in the mountains of Azerbaijan . . .”

  A few sentences ran out of the whirlwind, my head calmed, and my eyelids felt heavy. But I slept only a minute. Rustles and whispers woke me up. I opened my eyes and saw Safdar getting ready. He was trying to wrap the long turban around his head. I was surprised to see he was bald. Without hair and without his turban, he looked smaller and weaker. Now he shook his brother and Memaar to wake them up. Soon, all the men were up, putting their clothes on, yawning. Uncle shook me and said, “Talkhoon,” but before he could utter my name again I sat up and put my finger on my nose, to keep him quiet.

  When Safdar, Samandar, and Memaar left the room I told my uncle that my name was Farid and he ha
d to be careful about these matters here. He looked pale and had yellow bags under his eyes. Unable to control his anxiety, he asked how far the border was from here. I told him what I’d heard from Memaar. He asked if they’d give him Baluchi clothes to wear, and then he asked if he had to walk or ride on a horse. He wore his thick overcoat over his khaki shirt, and when he buttoned it up his fingers shook. He said he had a cold, coughed, and turned his back to me. He didn’t want me to see his tears.

  I wanted to tell him that the distance we had to walk was through a minefield, but I changed my mind. The poor man would pass out.

  At the Shepherd’s

  It was cold and dark when we reached the shepherd’s hut. Master Memaar said if it weren’t for the darkness we’d see the half-built tower of the barracks on our left. From the barracks to the ditch that marked the border, it was twenty minutes’ walking at a fast pace. He would work on top of the unfinished tower and watch us cross the ditch. There were a dozen demoralized soldiers inside the old barracks, uncertain as to what the new regime expected of them. They slept through the night and sometimes even the day. Memaar gave them free opium.

  Women and children, shivering from the cold, took shelter in the shepherd’s small hut. Men lingered in the dusty front yard around the warm mouth of a stone oven. A few horses tied to the wooden fence exhaled foggy breath, lifted a heavy leg off the ground, waited impatiently. All the dark, whispering men, Safdar’s crew, were in the yard, sitting in the dust, smoking cigarettes or pipes. Mr. Amaani was here.

  “I thought they took you across,” I said.

  “They decided I should wait one more day so that we’d all go together.”

  “I was worried for you.”

  His beard had grown a little. The prickly gray made him look sad and old.

  Taara sat on a thin blanket on the hut’s cold floor. The shepherd’s wife, a native woman with leathery skin and many zinc bracelets that jingled with the movement of her hand, wrapped another threadbare blanket around her. Taara was pale and quiet, in a daze again. She had on her old maternity outfit, now very tight. I could see what she meant by a falling belly.