Rostam wanted to throw up, and wished he could. The heat in his belly was unbearable. His best friend in the world had betrayed him. His wife was in love with another man, and if Rostam didn’t get rid of Mirza, Ava would be prosecuted. And Rostam would never win her away from the clutches of his enemy.
There was only one way to end this.
A door slammed, and Foxy sauntered across the carpet to stand in front of Rostam, holding a black camcorder. “Well?”
Rostam lifted his eyes in anguish, and wished he were already the man tottering on the edge of the bridge. “Tell me what to say.”
Shattered in a million pieces, Rostam barely felt himself stumble through the door to his apartment, a man so crushed he had to remind himself to take every shallow, shuddering breath. A few more minutes, and it would be perfectly fine with him to quit forcing himself to do even that. He didn’t want to breathe anymore, nor to feel his heart squeezing inside his chest like the fist of Frankenstein, robbing him of life. But first, he needed to see her, one last time.
There was no need to ask why. The why Rostam could already imagine, much too clearly. Foxy’s voice echoed through his mind: Mirza Samadi is an extremely beautiful man.
He only wanted to see her.
He staggered into the living room and closed the door, pausing to lean against one of the black leather couches where he and Ava had sat and giggled every morning, reading God’s Word together from their Bible. And there she was, gliding into the living room, eyebrows raised, the hint of a smile on her perfect lips. She stood there, beautiful in her hot pink sweat pants and a white tank top; the startling turquoise of the butterfly tattoo caught Rostam’s eye on one svelte white arm. Metal bars closed in around his throat and he stood in front of Ava, pitiful and desolate.
“Ava,” he heard himself gasp, and her hint of a smile died away to something flat. She knew, didn’t she? She could see it in his face, that she had been discovered.
“I won’t ask you why.” His lip trembled, and he felt great hot tears welling up in his eyes. “That would be foolish. But I have the right to ask you, Ava, why you even bothered to marry me. Why pretend, when he was who you really wanted?”
Ava’s face had drained white, but her expression was quizzical, faltering. “Rostam? What is going on?”
Rostam scoffed bitterly, moving closer to her as if drawn by a magnet. “I loved you, Ava. You knew I loved you. You don’t have to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about; they showed me the pictures. The pictures of you and him.”
All at once, Ava’s jaw dropped open and she gasped, audibly. Covered her mouth with one slender hand. “Foxy showed you…the pictures of me and Mirza?”
The horrible sound of their names together hung in the room like anthrax. The tremble in Rostam’s lip morphed into an uncontrollable sob, and he turned away, eyes burning, furious with himself for crying in front of her like a woman.
But Ava had come towards him, and the shock of her cool hand touching his cheek startled him into meeting her eyes. Was she actually…did she actually seem relieved?
“Oh, Rostam, I’m so sorry they showed you. But it’s not what you think. You know about the parties, about how we lived before Jesus. Those pictures are from some stupid party, years ago. We were just fooling around for the camera.” Through eyes like pools of water, Rostam could see points of red fire staining Ava’s pale cheeks. “Before our wedding, I asked Neelam to talk to Mirza about deleting those stupid pictures, because I knew how you would feel. Mirza said he erased them, but that his laptop had been stolen and in the police station. He said there was always the chance that someone had taken the pictures from his computer.”
Rostam’s head spun, and his vision burned with the image of the blown-up photo in Foxy’s hairy hands: the thick arms of his best friend encircling his wife, Ava’s fine black hair brushing her bare shoulders.
“I don’t believe you,” he whispered hollowly. “Foxy knows everything. They’ve been following you. But Ava, I still believe it was mostly Mirza’s…fault. They are going to help us get away from here, away from him.” The way Rostam spat at the mention of Mirza caused Ava to pull away from him, and her eyes widened, jerking Rostam’s face around to face her.
“Rostam, what did you do? When Foxy showed you those pictures, what did he tell you to do?”
Rostam squeezed his eyes tight, avoiding her gaze, fighting against desire and hate for those cool fingers locked into his flaming cheeks. What was Ava saying? That the picture he had seen of she and Mirza was from a party of the past, and that she had not been unfaithful to him.
“Rostam!” Ava nearly shook him now, fingers gripping his upper arms. “What did they tell you? What did you do?”
Rostam slowly opened his eyes, dazed. “I hated him, Ava. For what he did. They are going to take us away from here, so you and I can start over, have a chance.”
“Mirza hasn’t done anything!” Ava nearly shrieked. “Rostam, for goodness sake! They lied to you! The pictures are old.” Now shaking herself, Ava reached up to wrap her fingers into the loose strands of hair falling over her shoulder, and Rostam’s eyes fell on the turquoise butterfly, brilliant and beautiful. “Rostam,” she trembled, “did you testify against Mirza?”
The image of Ava in Mirza’s arms floated in front of Rostam’s eyes again, faded now, and he blinked, running down it one more time.
“Oh, God save us, Rostam!” Ava was crying now. “If you gave testimony against Mirza, don’t you know they will take Neelam as well?”
In his mind, Rostam saw the bachelor apartment in the background of the photo, walls a different color than they had been a few weeks ago when he had arrived to pick Ava up and found her alone with his best friend. He saw the two of them kissing, Ava’s bare shoulder against his…and then, a buzzing began at the base of Rostam’s skull and quickly soared to the center of his mind. Her shoulder, her bare shoulder. It was white, completely white.
The butterfly tattoo, the one that Ava had gotten more than two years ago, was not in the photo Foxy showed him at the hotel.
Ava was still crying, desolate, her eyes a runny mess of scarlet. “I have not been unfaithful to you with Mirza, Rostam! The picture is from years ago. Oh, what have they done to us?” Her voice fell, and she barely whispered, “You sent our best friends to Evin.”
Remorse like lava rose up in Rostam’s throat. He sank to his knees and threw up all over Ava’s sandaled feet.
29
Crown of Life
SHE WAS DYING.
FROM THE VERY BEGINNING of the concert, Mirza had felt it. You would think that singing and playing the guitar ‘til his fingers bled would distract him, but it didn’t. Performing was like second nature to him, and while Neelam played the drums and Petra from Argentina the keyboard, Mirza’s eyes kept drawing back to that girl in the front row.
They were in the basement of a huge apartment complex, and the crowd was packed and writhing. Moneta Z always played to full rooms in Tehran, and tonight was no different. Security roamed the halls of the underground room, making sure no one who looked like police got inside.
But in the front row, there was this girl dressed in black, leaning on the shoulders of two girl friends, and she was singing along with Mirza and she was crying. Her hair was straight and long down her back, shimmering with gold highlights. She was plump and mascara ran down her cheeks as she cried, eyes closed as she drank in the music.
She didn’t look unhealthy. But Mirza just knew.
I want to bring her back to life, ran through his head. She will be My daughter, and your sister.
Heydar wasn’t here to help him with this, but the magnetism zapping through Mirza’s veins was so strong it didn’t really matter. He finished the song and clunked his guitar into its stand, glancing over his shoulder to signal to Petra to keep playing something.
“Come up here,” he told the girl, and reached a hand towards her over the barrier of security guards. The track of tears fl
owing from her eyes widened and her friends shrieked with giddy joy. Mirza took her sweaty hand and helped her through the security guards in black, drawing her onto the stage. He hugged her against his chest and laid his chin on top of her sleek hair. The fans were cheering. “What’s killing you?” he asked softly. He felt her gasp, and her shoulders began to shake under his arms.
“I have a brain tumor,” she sobbed into his shirt. “They just told me yesterday. I feel just fine, but they said in two weeks I’ll be dead. How…how did you know?”
Mirza sighed. “Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world,” he said into her hair. “He heals you. The tumor won’t take your life. Follow him, and nothing will take your life, ever again.”
He kissed her hair and then motioned to the security guards, who helped her off the stage and back to her squealing friends, where she slumped against their shoulders, sobbing and smiling, then sobbing some more.
It was nearly time for the concert to end, and they still hadn’t sang for Sami. Mirza swallowed hard and motioned to Petra, who began the awesome keyboard piece she’d made up, following the melody of the song he’d written for his friend, “Rise Again.” An uneasy shifting towards the back of the crowd drew Mirza’s eye; through the tightly packed mass of young people, a corridor split from one of the back entrances, then forward, wiggling like a worm as people drew back or stepped to the side. Mirza stopped and dropped the microphone, stilled to his side. Through narrowed eyes, he saw a swarm of military olive spilling into the gap at the back of the crowd. Heavy-set men in starched uniforms, walkie-talkies, and long weapons.
These were not the usual religious vigilantes, dropping in to break up an evil rock concert before heading over to evening prayers. Mirza blinked, noticed that the burly uniforms with guns were not even pretending to try to disperse the crowd.
It’s the state police, he thought. They were ignoring the crowd of concert-goers and heading straight for the stage. For him and the girls. Mirza clunked the microphone into its rusting stand and turned to see Wara gawking next to him on one side, and Neelam at his other.
“Run,” he growled, then grabbed the girls’ arms and half-dragged them across the stage in front of him, towards the back exit.
When the police burst into the concert, all clanking guns and menacing brows, Wara had curiously stepped up next to Mirza, ready to witness the scene Rostam had described to her of giggling concert attendees dodging the police and darting outside to disappear into the darkness. Five seconds after she had left the keyboard, however, the uneasy observation hit her that no one was running away, because the policemen were not even noticing them. Neelam’s drumsticks fell in the silence with a hollow clatter across the stage, and she hugged close to her brother. And then Mirza banged the microphone into its stand and she felt his rough fingers wrap around her arm.
“Run!” he hissed. Wara’s feet nearly left the old stage as Neelam’s brother propelled both of the girls in front of him, knocking over the keyboard as they surged towards the tunnel through which they’d entered.
Darkness engulfed them as they ran down the old concrete passageway. The ground was uneven and powdery with debris, and only Mirza’s grip on her upper arm kept her from taking a facedive into the tunnel’s floor.
“The state police!” Neelam panted from Mirza’s other side. “Mirza?”
“Not good,” Mirza growled. They had been running for a good minute, and just now Wara could hear the sounds of the policemen in pursuit, entering the tunnel behind them. “They’ll be waiting outside. C’mon, I think that ladder was about…here.”
Confused, Wara let herself be dragged to a halt next to a jagged concrete wall. Sure enough, her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to make out the metal rungs of a simple utility ladder, running up the concrete.
“There are tons of these in this tunnel,” Mirza said lowly. “There’s a concrete slab on the top where we can hide. It’ll take them forever to climb up and search all of them. C’mon, Neelam, climb!”
Neelam leaped towards the metal rungs and scrambled up into the darkness. Firm hands grabbed Wara and nearly threw her towards the rungs. She fumbled to connect with the metal, and then climbed after Neelam, heart pounding in her throat. Mirza was ascending the ladder right behind her, and several times she felt her sandals connect with his face as she missed a rung in the darkness.
And then the rungs ended and Neelam was pulling her to the side, onto a cold slab of concrete that was part of the tunnel’s ceiling. Wara crawled on her stomach, scraping her knees and elbows. Mirza dove over her, rolling into position next to his sister, and the three of them waited on their bellies in a row, heads lowered in the blackness, trying to still their heavy breathing.
Echoing down the hall, the sounds of police pursuit were not reaching them as quickly as Wara had imagined. They must be searching the tunnel.
“Mirza, what’s going on?” Neelam whispered, her breath still and shallow.
“We did something that really ticked them off,” Mirza answered. “But I guess they’ll look around a bit and get out of here. It’ll take them forever to search all the hiding spots in this tunnel. Keep your heads down.” Wara felt herself trembling, pressed against the freezing concrete and very afraid. Mirza lay his head down and wrapped one arm around each of the girls’ backs, his breath tickling Wara’s cool cheek.
“God save us,” she heard him pray in the barest of whispers. “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.”
The metallic blip of water dripping on concrete echoed, and then the crunch of boots and static of walkie-talkies loomed under their hiding place. A chill chased down Wara’s spine; the men looking for them had closed in so quickly, so quietly. Down the hall there had been shouts and orders and the mad scuff of soles hitting the floor in pursuit. Now the footsteps stopped. Another drop of water splashed much too loudly to the slab, and all Wara could hear was thick breathing.
Oh, God, I hope that’s not us breathing I hear. They’ll hear us for sure! But she knew the sound was coming from below, and she shuddered, imagining how many police were probably just below them, carting wicked-looking weapons. But it was dark, and there were no flashlights. There was no way they could know their fugitives were just above them. Right?
Wara felt Mirza pull her against his side with a death grip, and her body froze, horrified by the repeated thought. There were no flashlights.
Why?
A loud scrape rustled, and then the tunnel was pierced by a high scream. Mirza jerked away from Wara towards his sister, and Wara’s heart sank as she saw Neelam’s shape disappear over the edge of the concrete.
“Neelam!” Mirza roared, and then the tunnel erupted into shouts, the loudest of which ordered, “We know you’re up there, Mirza Samadi! Unless you want us to break every bone in your sister’s face one by one, surrender yourself now.”
“Mirza!” Neelam wailed. The blood drained from Wara’s face as she heard the pain in her voice. What were they doing to her?
“Don’t you dare hurt my sister,” Mirza was saying, with more calm than Wara would have imagined.
“Lower the other girl down to us first,” a gravelly voice said from below, “unless you want us to come up and get her.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mirza whispered, then reached forward to kiss Wara on the forehead like a little sister. “Give me your wrists.”
Still in shock, Wara held out her hands and scooted to the edge, where Mirza lowered her down into a myriad of waiting hands. Just as she felt her feet impact roughly with the ground, the entire tunnel was flooded with light. Wara’s hands were bound behind her back, and they pushed her face-first against the wall next to Neelam, who glared at their captors with matching bound hands.
A fine cascade of dust preceded Mirza’s drop to the ground. Immediately, five policemen tackled him and confined him in handcuffs. Shivering next to Neelam, Wara saw how Mirza’s biceps strained against the handcuffs, jaw firmly set. He was staring at a silver screen on
e of the policemen held, and then his gaze flitted over to his sister and Wara.
“Body heat sensors,” he told them mildly. “They must have really wanted to find us tonight.”
That can’t be good, Wara thought, panicked. The way Mirza’s eyes ran over them, as if it could easily be the last time on earth he ever saw his sister, didn’t help Wara’s state of mind.
One of the policemen smirked at Mirza, then cocked his head to one side. “If you give us any trouble, just remember, your sister is also going to partake of the hospitality of our country’s justice system. Take the girls first,” he called out the order.
“No. I want to go with my brother,” Neelam said firmly. “Take us all together.”
“Sorry, my small one,” the officer shrugged. “The government has business with each of you. Separately. Blindfold them.”
Wara swallowed convulsively as a young officer smelling strongly of aftershave draped a length of black cloth over her eyes. The smell of old dust filled her nostrils, and she struggled to breathe as the officer cinched the blindfold under her ponytail.
“Petra!” Wara heard Neelam’s squeaky voice from her side. “Move closer, over here.” Wara tiptoed to her left, stopping when she felt the warm pressure of Neelam’s shoulder against hers. “I don’t think this is because of the concerts,” Neelam whispered. “Don’t say anything, Petra. Be strong.”
“Girly gossip hour is over,” a male voice said in Farsi. “C’mon girls. We’re taking you first.”
“Don’t touch me!” Neelam yelped at Wara’s left. “Take this blindfold off and let us walk ourselves!”
It was completely dark, and Wara was being led off somewhere in Iran by men she could no longer even see. Just as she felt herself about to hyperventilate into the musty black blindfold, Mirza’s strong voice surrounded her, splitting the darkness, echoing off the concrete.
“Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power!” he ordered them.
Reverb (Story of CI #2) Page 19