Reverb (Story of CI #2)

by Rachel Moschell

  And of course that is something neither Orange Leather nor his superiors would relish now, is it?

  The truth is, it might not even matter if CNN proclaimed his imprisonment to the world; Church of the Valley and the United States government itself had been pretty clear. “We have proof you’ve been in contact with a Muslim terrorist, one Dr. Ahmed Hosseini,” the man from the U.S. embassy had scowled during the prisoner’s only visit. “There’s nothing we can do for you. For all we know, you deserve to be in here.”

  Being in solitary basically stinks, except for the fact that the prisoner can sing and play an imaginary Fender. And from this part of the prison, he can no longer hear the moans of other prisoners having “confessions” beaten out of them from somewhere nearby.

  The prisoner swings his legs painfully to one side and forces himself to sitting, propped against the crumbling plaster wall of his cell. The slapping of leather shoes against thin carpet sounds from the hall, a gait that the prisoner recognizes as his bazju. The metal door swings open, revealing Orange Leather in his jacket and tan dress slacks, lips pursed up into a thin semblance of a smile.

  “Good morning.” He bares his teeth, and the prisoner feels sorry for him. He couldn’t be much older than the prisoner, and maybe he has a wife and little kids at home. Being a bazju at Evin is probably not high on the list of every young man’s dream career.

  “This morning I brought you some coffee with cream. And two eggs!” He brandishes the tray with a stylish twist, sending a tiny sprinkle of brown liquid over the edge of the clean mug and onto the egg’s salty surface.

  The prisoner has to admit, the roar that is hunger in the pit of his stomach surges at the aroma of caffeine and warm protein. He swallows and sends a lazy, pale smile in the direction of Orange Leather, feigning disinterest. “No thank you. Not today,” he says, and allows the vision of that sweet face, the face of his beloved and her smile, to swim into his mind instead of the scowl facing him from the bazju.

  “There will be limits to my patience,” Orange Leather mutters, picking up the coffee himself and taking a disgruntled sip. “You know that, right? This whole hunger strike thing is a joke. No one even knows you’re here. What good is all this suffering, if no one even knows about it? If you would just do what I ask, you could be out of here, sitting at home in your beautiful house, sleeping in your own bed.” The bazju’s scowl shades darker. “But how are we supposed to help you, if you continue to refuse to cooperate? All I’ve asked you to do is write about Mirza Samadi.”

  “And Neelam,” the prisoner reminds him.

  Orange Leather groans. “Yes, and the sister,” he says. “Should we go to the room so you can write?”

  The prisoner suddenly feels extremely tired, and lets his bones sag into the thin comfort of the blankets. “No. Not today. I think I should take a nap.”

  Muttering a disgusted curse, Orange Leather glares and then whirls to leave the cell, taking the tantalizing tray of food with him. “You won’t be able to keep this up,” he promises. “I may be nice, but above me are powerful men who are not as patient. Trust me, it won’t be too much longer until they bring an end to this.”

  The door slams, and the prisoner eases himself back onto the scratchy blankets and begins to sing

  15

  Neelam

  ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF THE HAND UP HOUSE, in her tiny office, Neelam flopped down in a silver tweed chair to wait for Dr. Hosseini. It was a Tuesday morning, and Moneta Z didn’t have any concerts ‘til the weekend, when they would hold the Hand Up fundraiser. This was awesome, because she and Mirza’s world was buzzing, thanks to Rostam’s guests. They wanted to meet Dr. Hosseini, Rostam had said over the phone after lunch. The group posing as tourists was some sort of spies, maybe CIA. Neelam had no idea. But she did know they were gathering information to smuggle from Iran and help get the rest of Ashavan out of jail.

  Neelam glared at her bland desk and wished Dr. Hosseini would hurry. Her office was more than dull, it was deathly boring. Since Dr. Hosseini was taking his good old time, Neelam decided to actually open the drawers of her desk and see if there was anything inside. She might not have opened the things in half a year, possibly more. Who knew? There could be some work in there she was supposed to do and had long ago forgotten. The thought made her grin.

  She slid the top right drawer open and found it empty, except for a single lined sheet of notebook paper, folded in thirds and laying crookedly at the bottom of the drawer. She paused, immediately recognizing that paper, the slanted, block handwriting visible through the thin sheet.

  It was the song from Andrew, the one he had written for her. Against her better judgment, Neelam reached into the drawer and pulled out the sheet of paper, jumping as a firm knock sounded on the frame of her open door.

  “Dr. Hosseini.” She tried to keep her voice even, feeling the paper with Andrew’s handwriting burning her fingertips. The doctor entered her office, tight smile, ready to bolt. Strict religious men such as himself felt extremely uncomfortable sitting alone in a room with a female.

  Especially one with purple hair who refuses to wear a veil in his presence.

  Neelam slowly lay the paper from Andrew on her desk, plagued by the horrible thought that the words on the page were huge and neon, visible through the paper to anyone else in the room.

  Anyone would think she was a fool for cutting Andrew out of her life, wouldn’t they? Right now, Neelam really didn’t want to know. She folded her hands neatly over the paper and faced Dr. Hosseini, who stood a safe distance in front of her desk, punching little buttons on his Blackberry. He wasted no time getting on to the pleasant news. Hosseini cleared his throat, then tucked the Blackberry into the crisply-pressed pocket of his white lab coat.

  “They’re going to try them all for espionage and Satan-worship,” he told her. Neelam felt her toes go numb, and she tried to hide her shock.

  “Tarsa, too?” she squeaked. Hosseini nodded gravely, and pressed his lips together. “But...it’s really for apostasy too, like with Sami?”

  “This case will just build on the precedent of Sami’s With him they had plenty of proof of apostasy and the other charges were just a cover. Now they have a key witness to strengthen the espionage charges, but I can’t get to him. They’re pressuring him to testify that all of Ashavan were spies, in contact with foreign governments.” His lips twisted and he pulled a miniature flash drive from a pocket.

  “Of course we have contact with foreigners. We travel, for concerts,” Neelam glowered.

  “And you are Christian converts,” Hosseini reminded her. “That alone makes you suspect. They see your religion as Western and anti-Islamic.”

  Hosseini placed the flash drive on Neelam’s desk and left it there for her to take. Allah forbid his fingers should touch hers. Neelam would have enjoyed making him uncomfortable if it weren’t for the awful news.

  “Take this to Rostam’s tour group,” he told her.

  Neelam blinked, remembering her earlier conversation with Rostam. “They want to meet you.” She knew what this suggestion meant for the doctor. The guy was really putting his life on the line.

  “I will consider it,” Hosseini nodded, and Neelam watched his Adam’s apple drop. Neelam sighed bleakly and spun the creased notebook paper in circles across the desk.

  “I thought they would let them go. At least Tarsa.”

  Hosseini shook his head. “The international community said nothing during Sami’s trial. They killed him, and there was barely a word of protest. The only way to save them is to raise an outcry from the United States and Europe. Or South America.” He eyed Neelam shrewdly, obviously considering again the tour group’s request to meet with him.

  “But we tried that,” Neelam sighed. “We had a great contact. Jaime was a leader at that huge church, and they have a radio program that millions listen to. Millions of Christians. But when Jaime tried to rally them, they silenced him. We don’t know what else to do.”

 
“It’s the only way,” Hosseini repeated.

  Neelam blew strands of violet hair off her nose and grabbed the flash drive, holding it against her chest. “Thank you, Dr. Hosseini,” she said firmly. “You would think that people in the West would care, when all it costs them is a little signature on a petition or praying for the ones who suffer. But you’re amazing. You’re a Muslim, and you could get a lot of people angry at you for helping us. Thank you.”

  Hosseini nodded slightly, and Neelam could have sworn that, behind his pin-cushion beard, the man actually blushed.

  As the doctor exited, her brother strode in, throwing a solemn salute to Hosseini as they passed.

  “Hey, sis,” he smiled at her, ruffling her purple hair and planting a kiss on her cheek. “Hard day at the office? Good thing it’s about to end. We have to check over the budget modifications Leila has been working on. You do remember how to add, right? All those years since grade school.”

  She ignored him, knowing this extra cheerfulness meant he had been up to something naughty. Or felt guilty. She could just about guess what was going through his mind, too.

  After Rostam and Ava’s wedding she’d cornered Mirza, demanding to know if it was true that he, her baby brother, had made out with her best friend Ava and documented it on camera. He had actually turned a rosy red, leaning back against the hallway, trying to act cool. “Rats. There might actually be some pictures like that on my laptop. I forgot all about that. It’s like it was another life.”

  She’d shooed him off to erase the offending pictures and had pestered him every day since to make sure it got done. Now Mirza was standing there grinning fondly at her, obviously trying to butter her up.

  “And?” she demanded. “Did you erase the pictures yet?”

  Mirza plopped down in one of her swivel chairs and chucked her under the chin, then began to unwrap a Cadbury bar from the pocket of his electric blue shirt. “Yeah, of course big sis. All taken care of. There is a tiny problem, though. Remember last year when my laptop got stolen and was down in the police station ‘til I picked it up? I was thinking…maybe, just maybe the pictures could have gotten copied. But other than that, I took care of them. They’re gone.”

  Neelam groaned, but at the same time realized that the chance the pictures had been taken by someone else were slim. They would have already appeared on the internet or in some tabloid by now, right? There were lots of people who would love to get their hands on a photo of Pourali’s daughter and that rock star, Mirza Samadi.

  Mirza was already dunking the Cadbury wrapper in her empty trash can and springing to his feet. “Got to run, sis. Meet you in my office to confirm budget changes in twenty minutes? We’re meeting to pray tonight, too. Don’t forget.”

  Neelam felt her eyes warm as she watched him go. Left alone again in the spartan office, her fingers twitched, anchoring Andrew’s song to the desk. She heaved a sigh and speared the paper with her pinkie, dragging it across the desk and into the open drawer. It wasn’t that thinking about Andrew was bad; even Neelam had to admit, the guy had been the friend any girl would dream of.

  She raised her thin white wrists to the light and squinted, examining the jagged scars that ran across her veins like threading maggots. The latest ones were two years old, which was actually good. For two whole years the knowledge of Jesus Christ had been saving Neelam from the despair that had six times convinced her to just die.

  It wasn’t that anything especially terrible had happened to her. Unless you counted both her parents being destroyed in a car accident the same day, before Neelam even lost her first tooth. But other than that, she knew she had nothing to complain about. She was talented, famous, made lots of money. Her brother was awesome. But when Neelam was twenty-four, the year after Moneta Z became famous, she had one day just realized that this whole thing called life was madness, just madness. Everyone ran around shooting up drugs and drinking illegal alcohol and making out, yet they were as miserable as the day is long.

  Being somewhat of a rebel, Neelam disdained all the silliness the rest of them ran around in. But life still seemed to stink. If all the fun Neelam’s friends thought they were having left them in agony, and being the adored drummer of Moneta Z didn’t make her happy, what was the point in staying around here any longer?

  She had first cut her wrists one day in the bathroom, not even her own but her aunt Gordia’s. Neelam didn’t really know why. It just seemed like a good way to not have to live through another meaningless day. Mirza had carried her to the hospital, and when she woke up, he had informed her that he would kill her himself if she ever did that again.

  Some threat. Neelam loved her brother, but there were limits.

  The next four times had been somewhere between playing around for attention and really wanting to see what it was like to die. And to finally see the end.

  The last time, two years ago, was in Prague, on an Ashavan/Moneta Z tour. Mirza and Sami had been obsessing for a while already about this prophet Jesus thing, and Neelam’s boyfriend Andrew, the scrawny guitarist from the local band no one had heard of, was also, incredibly, a believer in Jesus. A serious one. The dark pressure on Neelam’s chest grew so tight she could hardly breathe, and she cut her arms to pieces with the wire cutter of Mirza’s acoustic guitar.

  She had barely been conscious on the floor of the music studio when Andrew ripped off his shirt and tied up her wrists, dragging her to the hospital.

  And that had been the end. Andrew brought her some pale lilac roses and the notebook page with a song he’d written just for her. Sami and her brother entered the hospital room, and Mirza gave Andrew one of those looks that sent the Austrian kid scurrying from the room. And then Mirza leaned over her bed with those intense blue eyes and said that when Jesus lived here in this world he had power over the jinn that tormented people.

  “I have the word of God here,” he told her seriously, and Neelam blinked as he pulled a black mp3 player from his jeans. “And Jesus said I’ll be able to do this.” Mirza glanced over at Sami, rather uncertainly. Sami just grinned and plopped down at the foot of Neelam’s bed, making himself comfy on the starched cotton blankets.

  The black mp3 player was laid on Neelam’s forehead, but when she opened her mouth to snort with laughter, instead a crushing panic filled her, sending her into spasms.

  This had been the first time she’d seen her brother drive out demons.

  “You can’t stand the light,” Mirza said softly, and she felt his rough hand over the mp3 player with God’s word on her forehead. The metal rails of the hospital bed rattled, and Neelam now realized what it was to be about to die and scared out of your mind.

  “The light has overcome the darkness,” she heard Mirza say. “You can’t stay here. Leave my sister alone.”

  Memory ended after that for quite awhile, and when Neelam opened her eyes she knew that the One her brother and his friend always talked about was absolutely real. And terribly wonderful.

  She couldn’t get enough of him. And that meant she had to live.

  16

  Mirza

  FOR POSSIBLY THE TENTH TIME THAT EVENING, Mirza stalked into the sleek black kitchen of his bachelor flat, fiddled with the ceramic mugs already arranged in rows with military precision, absently ripped open the fridge and ran his eyes over its contents. He really wasn’t hungry. And neither was she—the really attractive woman sitting on the couch in the living room.

  He knew she wasn’t.

  For sure.

  He had already asked her at least five times.

  Ava, Rostam’s wife, was staring at the metallic painting on the wall, trying not to gawk as Mirza fumbled around in the kitchen. She had long ago given up trying to make pleasant conversation, as Mirza had refused to answer her in anything more than cave-man-like monosyllables.

  There was no reason to be gazing at the near-bare shelves of the fridge. No reason except that he was not about to go back into the living room with Ava when the two of them, unbeliev
ably, were suddenly here alone, in Mirza’s bachelor flat. This place belonged to Mirza and Sami, a luxurious apartment they bought in days gone by to hold wild parties. Now, they usually used it for meeting together as believers.

  Where in the world was everyone? Rostam had dropped Ava off for prayer meeting over forty minutes ago, then rushed off in a bad mood to meet with his government watcher. But where were Heydar and the other guys? Tuesdays were usually slow at the restaurant, and Heydar was usually able to make it. And Leila? She came whenever she could, too.

  And for that matter, what about his sister? After going over the budget this afternoon Neelam had mentioned she might not be able to make it. But no one?

  Mirza glowered at the mugs and settings for tea laid out on the counter, then turned his eyes toward Ava, who was now watching him cautiously, eyebrows arched. Her creamy cheeks were rosy, and Mirza nearly swore under his breath. She knew they shouldn’t be here; this apartment had heaps of dangerous memories that Mirza would rather forget.

  “I guess no one else is coming,” Ava finally said, trying to keep her voice smooth. She gracefully scooted over to the far side of the room’s only couch and hesitantly motioned for Mirza to come take a seat. “But we could pray together. Since no one else came.”

  The cold marble of the counter braced against Mirza’s chest like a welcome barrier as he leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at her. No. No way.

  Apparently Ava took his lack of response as an invitation to continue convincing him. “Rostam isn’t going to come and get me for another hour.” She smiled at him, pearly white teeth and full lips. Did she know what she was saying? Mirza clenched his fists at his sides. Her face told him that, in fact, she had no idea.