He stood up and extended his hand. I hesitated, then shook it. He wasn’t lying. And I could understand his culture. It wasn’t much different from ours; it was harsher, but it was basically the same. Their elders cut their throats for disobedience, ours disinherited or abandoned us. The hierarchy was the same.
“I had the strangest dream, Talkhooh. Disturbing.” Taara’s hair curled down in waves around her body. The late afternoon light illuminated her profile. It was true—her hair had a reddish glow. The boy had noticed it within three dark nights.
“Khanum-Jaan was dead, but she was holding my hand. Her hand was dry and stiff like a piece of wood and she had grabbed me tightly and wouldn’t let me go. I said, ‘Are you dead, Khanum?’ She said, ‘Taahereh, my light! The light of my eyes! Everybody left me, even my ghosts, and then I died.”
“It was just a bad dream, Taara.”
“Ghosts exist, Talkhoon. Ghosts exist!”
“Look at your son. He’s sleeping peacefully. Tomorrow we’ll leave the country.”
“Is Samandar back?”
“Not yet. Sleep now.”
“Do you know what Samandar means?”
“What?”
“You don’t? It’s in Baba’s book. It’s a mythical animal that can endure fire. Like the Firebird.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. Look at the coincidence! No, look at my fate—I should marry a man who is a firebird!”
“Rest now. You have to gain your strength back. I’ll sit here and fan you.”
“But why are they so late? We heard the bullet in the morning. So Uncle Kia and the rest have crossed the border. What if on the way back—”
“If they’d stepped on a mine, we’d have heard a huge explosion,” I teased her. “They must have stayed in the barracks with Memaar.”
“Talkhoon—”
“What?”
“Khanum-Jaan had a soft heart. I know that. But she did everything to hide it.”
“Sleep now.”
“Her heart stopped today. Her ghost held my hand.”
Crossing
To celebrate the crossing of the first group and the birth of a male child—a good omen—the shepherd killed a lamb and grilled it on an open fire. His wife cooked rice in the same pot she had boiled water for the old midwife. We all sat on the cold ground around the long tablecloth, chewing the half-cooked lamb and the crunchy rice. Sand had found its way into the food. The bearded crew sat around a separate cloth, eating and whispering. After dinner they left for Zabol. Safdar said they were not needed anymore.
I hadn’t told Taara that Samandar was not going with us, so while eating and feeding her baby (whose name was not decided yet), she constantly glanced at the narrow dirt road that ran into the desert and blended with the dark night. I absorbed myself in the boy whose small, jerking hands hit his mother’s breasts while he noisily sucked.
Mehri pulled a bottle of vodka out of her purse and offered it to everyone. Taara didn’t drink. The men drank and chatted, relaxed. The cool, earth-smelling breeze brushed my face. Invisible sand penetrated my ears and sat on my tongue. The desert gave out the scent of virgin earth. Taara asked Memaar if it was all right to play her setar, if the sound wouldn’t travel to the barracks. Memaar said that no sound would reach there because of the strong wind and the thick barracks walls he had made.
I took the baby and Taara held her setar with the same care and caution she’d embraced her child earlier. She wound the strings of the instrument, then began to play. She tilted her head, closed her eyes, and ran her fingers over the strings. Her music didn’t seem to belong to the here-and-now, but drifted back to the past, somewhere I alone among her listeners was able to recognize. Her red locks hung around her and quivered before her face. We were all staring at her, unable to look away. Her fingers ran madly over the taut strings and I feared that her fingertips would bleed. My sister’s music that night covered the sound of the wind and the howl of the remote storm through which we had to pass.
Before midnight, the house builder suggested that we should sleep for a few hours because we had to get up at three. Now Safdar told us that Taara and her baby would sit with him on the horse and Mr. Amaani and I would follow, single-file, on foot.
“How about Samandar, then?” Taara whispered to me.
“He’ll join us,” I said.
The women went inside the hut and the men lay on the cold sand in the courtyard. I lay beside the hut’s door to watch Taara and the baby. The chill of the soft sand penetrated my bones, and I shivered and gazed at the falling stars. The desert took a deep breath and a breeze brought the scent of fresh earth. The men snored, except for Mr. Amaani who, unable to sleep, smoked one cigarette after another.
I couldn’t sleep, either; this was the third night. My head felt light and fragments of reveries twisted in my brain. Had the baby waited one more night, we’d be on the other side now. They were sending us with one man; no guide would walk in front of us to show the way. But I had the feeling that I was not going to step on a mine, that my end was not meant to happen so fast and easy. I looked at the palm of my right hand in the dim light. The line of my life extended far and long, with a break—an intersection—around age sixty. But even that was not the final cut. I laughed at this tidbit of superstition I’d inherited from my grandmother. Nothing was meant to happen. No one had written my destiny on my palm. These stitches and bruises were my fate, not the lines I was born with. If a mine were hidden where I walked and I stepped on it, I’d die; if I stepped half a centimeter away, I’d survive. Chance was the god and it was blind and it was indifferent.
At three, Safdar, who had slept with his turban, woke up as if a clock were planted inside his head. He sat on top of the cold oven and put his boots on. Now he lit his pipe and gazed into the dark desert. From the corner of his eye he saw that I was awake, but didn’t say a word. He didn’t put a hand on my shoulder, didn’t give me an errand to do, didn’t send me to fetch his horse. Wasn’t I a boy, after all? Why did he treat me with such deliberate coldness? Did his strong male animal instinct, the brute in him, tell him that this skinny city boy was not to be trusted, because he had hidden a female under his shirt? Had Safdar smelled the woman in me?
Shortly, the shepherd brought the red horse with his hoofs in socks. Memaar, who had awakened with a bad headache, pulled me to a corner and told me that this second trip was not what Safdar wanted. He was only doing this for Memaar’s sake and Memaar was doing it only because he was a human being and could feel how distressed my sister was with an illegitimate baby on her hands. After telling me that they were doing us a favor, he took the deed to our house and put it in his pocket.
The shepherd’s wife brought hot tea in tin cups. Taara sat on the cold oven and brushed her long hair in the wind. In the flickering glow of the lantern hanging on top of the hut’s door, she looked ethereal. She separated one part of her long hair, brushed it from top to bottom absently, then took another section. Safdar watched her for a long moment. Then he pulled his bandana off his neck and threw it at her. Without a word, Taara covered her hair with it. The baby cried. I brought him out and rocked him in my arms. Safdar said that if the baby cried while we were moving, Taara would have to feed him to quiet him.
I stood with Taara’s weightless baby in my arms, watching her tie the bandana behind her head. Then I looked up and saw the stars almost touching the earth, giving the illusion of their falling. I registered the image in my head, knowing that I wouldn’t see anything like this again.
Finally Taara was ready. Safdar mounted the horse, bent, and lifted her up the way he’d lifted Uncle’s little girls earlier. He sat my sister sideways on the horse, knowing she couldn’t sit with her legs open. I handed the baby to his mother and she asked me to carry the setar and the black attaché for her. We were not taking her handbag with us. The last thing she said before Safdar slapped the horse, signaling it to move, was, “So when will Samandar join us?” Her qu
estion hung in the air. No one answered. She looked at me as if I was the one who had betrayed her. I registered this, regretting that my sister’s last look at me before we started was not filled with love.
When our small caravan moved, Mehri, who had overslept, ran out of the hut and embraced me tightly. Her face was wet with tears. She muttered absently, “Pray for me! Pray for me!” as if she was the one who would be traveling in the dark. Mr. Amaani ground his last cigarette under his shoe and offered to carry the attache. Memaar jumped in the jeep and rushed to the barracks to make sure the soldiers were inside. The shepherd’s wife stood by the hut’s crooked door, holding a small dish in her hand. Smoke rose from the dish and a bitter scent filled the air. She’d burned wild rue for good luck and a safe trip. Now, at the last minute, she ran toward us, holding the smoking rue above our heads, circling it around the baby and murmuring prayers. The last thing I saw of the native woman was her wiping her tears with the hanging corner of her colorful scarf.
I told myself that as long as I walked next to the warm belly of the red horse, as long as I could see my sister, everything would be fine. And I walked for a long time, glancing from time to time at Taara’s black shoes, the pair she’d bought on that happy day of leisure in Tehran. I remembered that exactly a week ago I’d slept in the teacher’s house, in her daughter’s room. I tried to remember the girl’s name, but I could not. That day I woke up and ate meat broth with the family. A very old woman, a great grandmother, was there. Her white scarf waved in the breeze and when Farid took me on his motor bike to the bus station, the old woman cried. On the bike, my chin rested on the boy’s shoulder and I thought my fate was tied to his, but I was wrong.
I touched my chest pocket. Farid’s wallet was there. I tried to imagine the cell he was imprisoned in. Did they whip him with a leather belt? Now, like an apparition, he disappeared from my mind, and all the people of my past became phantoms too. They became transparent like Grandma Negaar and all vanished with her behind the blurred image of the weeping willows. The only thing that was real was I, myself, walking in a dark desert on the eastern border, stepping on ground I could not trust, heading somewhere I did not know. I held
the setar tightly against my chest, pressed against the knapsack that contained my grandfather’s book. I recalled these images to keep from getting lost in the dark, to keep from forgetting why I was leaving my land. I recalled all of this so as not to go out of my mind.
I’m going where I can live in peace—the corner of a shady yard. Peacocks will sit on the wall and monkeys will play in tamarind trees. I’ll walk in the wet streets and whistle. I’ll complete the bird book and wake Baba-Ji. I’ll bring him and his book to life.
The horse trotted faster and Mr. Amaani walked behind me. I heard him saying something in a whisper, something like Speed up! And I sped.
What neither Memaar, nor Safdar had told me about was the thorn bushes. They didn’t tell me I would need a pair of boots. My thin canvas shoes tore to pieces and thorns cut my feet. The horse broke into a trot now and we had to run. Safdar hadn’t told us about this, either. He had not mentioned that he might speed up and that we would have to run on the thorn bushes. I was trying hard not to lose sight of the horse’s long tail swaying in the wind. I looked back to find Mr. Amaani, but I didn’t see him.
A bullet cracked somewhere. The horse galloped.
I held the setar tightly against my chest, but it kept slipping and slowing me down. The shoes were shredded. I screamed in my head, begging Safdar to slow down. I swallowed my scream because not even a whisper was allowed. It seemed like fifteen minutes now. They’d said twenty minutes, so we were not far from the ditch.
I won’t die with thorns in my feet. I’ll feel pain, but I won’t die. My life extends smoothly to my sixties.
Now I thought I saw Taara’s scarf—Safdar’s black bandana—billowing, then flying like a bird in the wind. I thought I saw her hair rise behind her like a flag, then become the flapping wing of a red bird. Then a strong gust blew sand into my eyes and I didn’t see the horse anymore.
Bullets cracked somewhere. I heard the horse galloping.
When I reached the dry ditch, I saw the horse for a second. It headed down and without effort climbed the other wall. But I tripped on a bush, slipped and rolled like a ball of thorns toward the bottom. Taara’s setar gave a hollow bang, the case opened and the instrument tumbled out and stopped beside a bush. I slid my body toward it, but stopped moving when I heard another gunshot. Only one, but very close. I held the setar’s long neck and froze, knowing that the red horse had carried Taara and the baby farther and farther away from me. They were on the other side now. But this bullet must have hit someone. I saw the black attaché slide down the bank of the ditch, hit a rock, and stop.
I lay motionless, like a desert plant that belonged on the bottom of the dry ditch.
It was dark. I didn’t see their faces when they bent over me. But I tried to look at their uniforms. Two had soldiers’ uniforms, one the khaki uniform of the Revolutionary Guards. The soldiers called this one “Brother.” They lifted me and carried me to a jeep. They tossed the setar and the attaché inside the jeep. Then they pushed a body inside. Dark blood formed a small puddle under Mr. Amaani. They drove us to the barracks.
The ride didn’t take more than two minutes. In the barracks’ courtyard I raised my head and saw Master Memaar on the half-built tower, laying brick on brick. He saw us in the jeep, but kept working.
The man in khaki was not friendly to the soldiers. He accused them of slacking off instead of guarding the border. He threatened them with arrest. Now he raised his head and yelled at Memaar.
“You know these people?”
“Never seen them,” Memaar said.
“A boy and a man,” he yelled again. “We had to shoot the man.”
“Never seen them, Brother.”
The guard searched my pockets and took the wallet out. He yelled at Memaar again, “Farid Royaie. You know him?”
“Never heard of him, Brother,” Memaar said.
He asked the same question of the soldiers and they said they’d never seen us before. Now he took me to a black van and pushed me inside, but didn’t close the door. He left Mr. Amaani in the back of the jeep. I lay down in the van for a long time, listening to the men talking. A minute later they tossed in the setar and the attaché. I held the setar by its neck.
The soldiers claimed us, but the Brother wanted to take us to Tehran. They argued. The Brother said if he and his commandant hadn’t come all the way to the border for an investigation, the soldiers would never have found us. Finally, they decided to wait for the commandant who was at the shepherd’s house, interrogating him and his wife. He would solve the problem. But the quarrel didn’t die. The soldiers kept insisting that legally we were their prisoners, but they didn’t argue forcefully. I sensed fear in their voices.
When the Brother Commandant arrived, everyone became quiet. I heard his voice saying from behind his bandanna that he had the necessary papers to arrest people who attempted to cross the border. There was a long silence while the soldiers looked at the papers. The commandant ordered the soldiers to take Mr. Amaani to the only hospital in Zabol; he was still breathing. Then the commandant climbed into the back of the van where I was lying with Taara’s setar at my side.
I tightened my grip on the wooden neck.
He closed the door. It was pitch dark inside. I wanted to take a last glance at Master Memaar on top of his half-built tower, but I couldn’t. I ran my hand over the neck of the setar but couldn’t find the strings. The instrument was bare. The commandant knocked on the window between himself and the driver and the van took off. A strange, muffled cry, the whimper of a small, wounded animal, twisted in my throat but didn’t rise. I wept, not because I was caught, not because I’d never see Taara and her son again, but because I hadn’t taken good care of her setar.
A setar without strings has no music. It was nothing but useless, holl
ow wood.
The man clicked his tongue, “Tch tch tch,” and struck a match, “Wake up, you lazy bird! Wake up, you old bitch! Talkhoon is here!”
I sat up and in the flickering light of the matchstick saw the one-eyed parrot sitting on Assad’s shoulder, staring at me. A gust of wind flung the desert sand against the dark windows and shrouded the van.
Mirage
I knew we were in a dust storm and I prayed we would die. The driver circled around—he had lost the road. Boor-boor cried and when the sand hit the windows, Assad cursed.
“Look what you’ve done to me! I wish Kia hadn’t called me the night before, telling me that you and your sister were here. I wish I’d lost you forever.” He was quiet for a while, looking out the window at nothing—at the gray curtain of sand. “I left my revolutionary duties, took my best men with me, and came all the way out here to take you back. Now look! We’re stuck in a sandstorm!”
He cursed some more and looked outside, banged on the window and yelled at the driver, “Stop the car! We better wait till it calms down!” Now he looked at me and said, “If I’d been a few minutes late, you’d be gone forever. I’d have lost you just like this!” He snapped his fingers. “But you know? You’re my destiny, Talkhoon. Your name is written on my forehead!” He slapped his forehead and chuckled. Then he said, “That ditch you fell into was the fucking border. Had you gotten up and climbed the damned hill, you’d be out of my hands! Your stupid sister is gone. A young woman with a baby on a smuggler’s horse! People are wild on the other side. God knows what they’ll do to her. What the smuggler will do to her! You’re lucky, girl! You’re always lucky!”
He laughed, the parrot cried, and the sand hit the windshield.
My toes had swelled with infection. Assad poured some vodka on them, found a safety pin in his pocket and tried to take the thorns out. The van sat in the middle of the desert. I prayed we’d get buried. Assad cursed and nagged like an old woman.
The Drum Tower Page 32