Reverb (Story of CI #2)

by Rachel Moschell

  Wara sobered, remembering the surreal scene from last night. The young people who had come forward had seemed miserable. But the way Mirza had gone about it…A crucifix? Latin words from the Catholic church? Bloody crosses? It just wasn’t…right. Was it?

  “I’ve never cast out a demon before, of course,” Sandal crossed her arms in front of her. “But if God were going to do it, he wouldn’t do it like that, would he?”

  The question hung unpleasantly in the room.

  “And besides,” Sandal snorted. “Why in the world would God use someone like him? I mean, yeah, Sami was a new Christian. He smoke and drank sometimes. But he may not have had a chance to grow more in his faith before he was executed. But Sami left all of those new believers under Mirza’s influence. If God were going to use someone to cast out demons, I really don’t think it would be Mirza Samadi. The guy was totally drunk last night before the concert! And God’s just going to forget that and give Mirza power over demons?” She snorted again and flipped a fat braid behind her shoulder. “I mean, maybe first Mirza should get on top of his own demons.”

  Sandal sighed loudly. Yeah, Wara couldn’t deny her thoughts had been eerily similar to Sandal’s. She’d seen Mirza get totally wasted last night. And she was supposed to believe God would just use him like that, a few minutes later?

  Alejo looked at them both darkly and shook his head. “And none of us have ever sinned? The problem here isn’t that Sami smoked or Mirza had a beer too many last night. The problem is we put sins in categories. Sexual sin, drinking, smoking…you can’t be a good Christian, the person God uses. But if it’s just greed or hate, well, then you’re really not that bad. You know what I think? I think we should study our Bibles. Maybe the Bible speaks just as much against greed as it does drunkenness. I don’t remember it condemning smoking.” A wry smile lifted the corners of Alejo’s mouth. “If you even do realize you are greedy and it’s a sin, and most of us don’t…you confess it and move on. There’s forgiveness because of Jesus.”

  He stopped and pressed his lips into a thin line. “This issue, this same way we are all thinking here right now, this is why John Rainer abandoned Sami. They didn’t see that Sami had repented of his sins of greed and apathy for the poor. Church of the Valley just saw the ‘sins’ they felt he was still committing. And they said God couldn’t use someone like that.”

  Wara gulped, realizing he was right. It was true. Greed and hate were very acceptable sins. Smoking and drinking, not so much. How many Christians had she met in her life who hated Democrats or Muslims? Or who were so greedy they stuffed their lives full of possessions and never thought about the poor, like Sami and Mirza and Neelam had done?

  If you hated Democrats and Muslims, you could still be a good Christian that God used.

  But they said Sami couldn’t have been.

  26

  Alejo

  ALEJO WAS SPRAWLED ON HIS BED AT THE HAPPY Paris watching the news when his cell rang. He was killing time until tonight, when their little group of pretend Argentineans would be traveling to a village to meet the mother of Tarsa, the only female member of Ashavan. Tarsa’s mother had visited her in prison, and the idea was to get a recorded testimony about her daughter’s life and how she was suffering in prison for her faith. Alejo punched the button on his phone and muted the sound of the Farsi-speaking news commentator.

  “I’m downstairs,” the familiar voice of Rostam piped over the line. “Are you guys ready?”

  Alejo glanced down at his t-shirt and boxer shorts, both hopelessly wrinkled. “Uh, ready for what?”

  “Oh rats! Did I forget to tell you I was going to come by early?”

  Alejo clunked his head back against the wall and rubbed his eyes. “You said we were going to leave tonight, after midnight. For security.” Rostam’s plan to leave Esfahan late and arrive in the smaller town in the middle of the night had seemed perfect to Alejo. Very well thought–out. It was now barely 8:00.

  “Oh, we are leaving late,” Rostam confirmed. Alejo could hear the sound of electric guitars and tinny drums over the Iranian’s little car stereo. “But I can’t get you from your hotel that late. People would start to talk, since we’re taking the girls.” Alejo groaned, realizing Rostam was right. Why didn’t he think of that?

  “So we’ve got to go hang out somewhere now,” Rostam continued. “And I’ve got just the place. Some of my friends are having a party, and I actually have to go. For work reasons. I’ll take you all along, and then we’ll head out from there at midnight. The hotel’ll just assume we spent the night in some other town. Tourism stuff. I forgot to mention this, huh?”

  Heart sinking, Alejo heard himself agree to Rostam’s plan. The conversation with Mirza last night had set his brain into overdrive, and right now that last thing Alejo felt like doing was going to a party.

  I am so, so tired.

  Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that at any party Rostam and company went to, there were sure to be a lot of gorgeous women, none of whom would want to so much as give Alejo the time of day.

  Or it could be because, while half-heartedly watching the news for the past hour, Alejo had mostly been staring at the sliding glass door to the balcony where he had opened his heart to Wara. And found out in return—big surprise—that she was never going to love him.

  I am almost thirty years old, Alejo thought bitterly as he pulled on the horrible skinny jeans he still hadn’t gotten around to throwing away. Another button-down shirt Rostam had convinced him to buy, pale green with thin pink stripes, was slung over the chair and Alejo shrugged into it. Thirty years old, and I’ve never managed to have even one serious relationship. Way to go, che. What is wrong with you?

  It wasn’t supposed to matter that Wara had said no to him. After all, he was just doing his duty, to her and Rupert, right?

  But it did matter. Alejo had been trying to shrug off her rejection for days and it kept coming back to hover over his brain with the vice grip of a deranged vulture.

  In high school back in Bolivia, the girls had always wanted to go out with Alejo’s friends, who all seemed to be richer, whiter, and more suave than himself. Later, he had been too busy supposedly saving the world. And now, for some infernal reason the only girl who mattered to him was the one he was crazy to even imagine he could have because Alejo had quite nearly ruined her life.

  Get a grip! he pleaded with himself in the bathroom mirror. The water from the sink was frigid and he dunked his whole head greedily under the faucet. What is wrong with you, that you can handle the stress of bullets and bombs but this one rotten little assignment from Rupert is pushing you over the edge?

  Within fifteen minutes, Alejo had rounded up the girls and trudged with them downstairs to Rostam’s waiting red car. Wara hung back until Sandal had entered the car next to Alejo. Ava sat in the passenger seat next to Rostam. The tiny red car spurted into gear and out onto the freeway.

  The party turned out to be quite a bit as Alejo had imagined: pretty girls with raven hair sauntered around flirting with the cute Iranian guys in tight jeans and lip rings. Alcohol, loud music, and really bad dancing. All in all, it was really quite dull.

  The fashion designer, Leila, found Sandal and Wara as soon as they arrived and pulled them away to a table spread with purple silk and triangle sandwiches, leaving Alejo to vegetate off in a corner, counting the minutes until midnight. Rostam worked the crowd, and Alejo tried to stay to the walls, sipping Zam Zam Cola, the proverbial wallflower. When the multiple glasses of liquid began to take their effect, he decided to take an exciting excursion to the restroom. A quick glance across the room told him Wara was still tucked away at the purple table with Sandal and Leila. Alejo skirted the room and turned into a hallway where he imagined he would find the bathroom. After the facilities ended up being just around the corner, he made the choice to kill a little more time wandering down the dimly-lit hallway, exploring.

  Could it get more desperate than me exploring this hallway
to avoid taking my sorry butt back to the party?

  He had nearly reached a dead end when he heard a soft female voice calling from one of the doorways in Farsi.

  “Hey, you there. Can you help me a second? Please?”

  Alejo stopped and peered into the room, seeing only a brief glimpse of a girl in a loose, strapless white dress. Who needed help.

  Fine.

  “Sure,” he answered in Farsi and stepped towards the door. The dart of the girl’s hand towards his surprised him, as did the firmness of her grip, yanking him completely into the room. Alejo saw a black leather couch and a vision of red carpet before the light disappeared and the door slammed and clicked, locking them in. He stood stupidly where the girl had dragged him into the room and left them in darkness. The burning of hot fingers running under his shirt jerked him back to reality and Alejo felt his hands begin to shake.

  “I was watching you all night,” she whispered into his ear, and then locked fingers into his jaw, kissing him.

  Alejo’s heart pounded like a tom tom and he reached towards the light switch with a trembling hand. The glimpse of the girl’s face he’d seen in the door ran through his mind, along with the dress that barely covered her thighs. She couldn’t be more than a teenager.

  His hand connected with the light switch while he was still kissing her. She hung on to him as he pulled back far enough to stammer, “How old are you?”

  She rolled her eyes as if Alejo had just asked her if her father knew she was here at a mixed party making out in a dark room with a total stranger. “Sixteen,” she smiled saucily, then slapped off the light and kissed Alejo hard.

  The part of his heart that wasn’t flying high sank to his knees, and he thought he should go, just go. But he couldn’t. She was taking off his shirt, and her lips tasted like strawberries. She wanted him. No one ever wanted him.

  Alejo wrapped his arm around her waist, hanging on to her like a starving man.

  He didn’t run away, and he hated himself.

  “Alejo?” The tentative voice from outside the door sent him flying away from the girl, stumbling.

  Wara!

  “Wara?” he heard himself croak. The door handle jiggled loudly in the darkness, and Alejo nearly tripped over the girl hanging on his arm. He tried to button his shirt and find how to open the door at the same time, to make it to the hall and sanity.

  A loud crash echoed through the room as something slammed against the door. He nearly found the door handle just before it cracked and a black boot and light from the hall filtered into the room with the leather couch. Wara had karate-kicked the locked door in, and now she grabbed Alejo’s forearm and pulled him from the room. And slammed the door.

  Alejo just stood there a moment, shirt half hanging open, then he felt himself stumble to the dead end at the end of the hall and sink down onto the floor, face in his knees. He was still shaking when Wara slid down to the floor next to him.

  “That freaky girl had her eyes on you all night,” she frowned. “I saw you disappear into the room where she was waiting like a black widow.”

  Alejo felt sick, just sick. Face towards the floor, he wished he could break down and cry, then realized that he already was. He felt his shoulders heave.

  “What am I doing, Wara? It wasn’t just her.” Then he whispered with self-disgust, “She was only sixteen.”

  When he could finally control the shaking in his limbs, Alejo lifted his head to face Wara, devastated. “I couldn’t leave,” he muttered. Alejo’s mouth twisted bitterly and he could barely see Wara through bleary eyes. “I just lost it in there.”

  He and Wara both jumped as the door to the leather couch room banged open and a very young girl in a white dress stalked out and glared at Alejo. “Forgive me,” he said hoarsely. The girl gave him the finger and stormed down the hall.

  Alejo lowered his face to his arms again and hugged his knees to his chest, wishing for the world to end so he wouldn’t have to look at himself in the mirror. Ever again.

  Wara’s cool fingers came to rest on his burning arm and Alejo jerked away from her. “It’s ok,” she said in a voice he had never heard. “We all mess up.”

  And slowly, slowly the world began to trickle full of hope again.

  Forty minutes later, Rostam finally rounded them all up to say they were leaving this party and it was time to hit the road. The tiny red car was at the curb on the private street, which was all but dead at this hour of night, shimmering under the stars. Rostam, Ava, and Sandal were having trouble tearing themselves away from all their friends, and stood clumped next to the apartment building, laughing much too loudly. Alejo had dragged himself into the red car’s backseat and sat there dejectedly, considering finding a large rock outside and bashing it into his head, repeatedly.

  Swishing footsteps sounded from outside the car door, and Wara slipped into the car in her black manteau and veil. Alejo let his gaze slide to her, red-rimmed and tortured, then went back to staring at the floor. And thinking about the large rock.

  She slid over across the car’s backseat, next to Alejo, and stretched out her legs as if settling in to wait for the others. Usually, Wara avoided sitting anywhere near him. Not that Alejo had to wonder why.

  Alejo felt utterly, absolutely ashamed.

  “So,” Wara began, clearing her throat. Her tone was light and she stifled a yawn. “I don’t think I ever told you that I talked with your family right before we came here. When you were staying at my parents’ house, actually.”

  Alejo started and looked over at her. She was going to talk with him? Just like that, like old friends? He set his jaw and tears stung his eyes.

  “Uh, no,” he replied, realizing his voice sounded like a swamp monster. “You didn’t tell me that.” Alejo cleared his throat and swiped salt away from his eyes.

  “Yeah, they really loved the story of how my dad almost shot you. It is a really great story, if you think about it. You know, after the fact. And you’ll never guess what Nareth said to some boy in her class.”

  Alejo listened to her talk and yawn, sitting by his side, until the rest of them finally came back to the car. They talked about Montana and Alejo’s family in Italy and the ridiculous, mammoth purses Ava always carted around. But to Alejo, every word was dripping with amazing, beautiful grace

  27

  Jeweled Stars and Tea

  THE SCENT OF SOUR CHERRIES AND WARM STEW hung in the air, tempered by goat dung. Wara sank down on the little wooden front porch of the village home belonging to Tarsa’s grandmother and adjusted her manteau over the knees of her jeans. After her daughter had been arrested, Tarsa’s mother had left the city and moved out here to the ancestral home in this village, every breath taken in hope of her only daughter’s soon release.

  Tarsa had taken the step of following Jesus alone; the rest of her family was Muslim. Her mother, Jennai, had worked alongside her sisters and female cousins all afternoon to prepare an amazing meal of Iranian stews, fragrant rice, and an array of tea and desserts for Rostam, who they knew as their daughter’s friend, and his guests. Now Wara crossed her arms in front of her on the porch, savoring the crystal stars and the silent night stillness of the village. She had no idea how long it had taken them to eat, but it must be late. Their hosts had prepared a room of pallets on the floor for Sandal, Wara, and Ava. Rostam and Alejo would sleep in the living room, under trailing strands of plastic roses hung from the ceiling and gold-framed pictures of bearded patriarchs, Tarsa’s ancestors.

  A warm glow filled Wara’s belly, more than the delicious stew and steaming tea. It was beautiful here, calm and lovely after the smog and bustle of Esfahan. Tarsa’s mother had told them she had just seen her daughter last week, still alive and in prison in Tehran. And Rostam had given Wara some amazing news: Neelam and Mirza had talked to their agent about her, Petra Sandiego. One night at the bachelor flat, Wara had mentioned that she played the piano and sang. And now, Moneta Z was inviting her to come along and play at a concert in
Tehran with them before she left Iran.

  They wanted her to play with them! Of course, she wasn’t a professional or anything, but due to the whole underground thing, people weren’t used to the highest standards in music. She would be able to practice with Mirza and Neelam a few times before leaving for Tehran. What she had seen at the Moneta Z concert that night had left her speechless, and quite honestly, she wanted to see it again. God had been using Mirza to cast out demons. At a rock concert. Yes. She had seen it with her own eyes.

  It was stinking crazy.

  Wara blinked and shook her head, then glanced behind her as boards creaked on the ancient wooden porch. “Hey,” Alejo greeted her, dressed conservatively in a long-sleeved t-shirt and black corduroy pants. He lowered himself down a couple feet from her and offered a steaming porcelain teacup on a saucer. The cup tinkled against its plate as he held it out towards her, and opaque trails of steam rose from the amber liquid and headed for the stars.

  “Oh. Thanks,” she half-smiled. Honestly, she’d had enough tea for today. But the fact that Alejo had brought it to her was…nice. She was seeing him a little different since the party last night, when she’d found him in the room with that girl. His brokenness afterwards had touched something in her, and part of the hard edge that had defined her feelings towards him had been shaved off.

  Alejo was just a guy. Sure, he usually seemed so put-together, so know-it-all and self-sufficient. But he was a person, too. He made mistakes.

  He was Nazaret’s brother, and he was now her brother in Jesus.

  Wara needed to give him a break.

  She accepted the tea and took a deep sip, acknowledging that the hot liquid tasted really good out here in the late-night chill. “So,” she began, unable to take her mind off the upcoming Moneta Z concert she’d just been imagining. “Do you think it’s ok if I go with them to do that concert in Tehran?”