Escape

by James Clavell

  Enraged, Erikki put on his brake, tore his door open, and went over to the car in the ditch and used his great strength to drag it back on the road. No one else helped, just swore and added to the uproar. Then he strode for the blue car. At that moment the bus made the corner and now there was room to move, the driver of the blue car let in his clutch and roared off with an obscene gesture.

  With an effort Erikki unclenched his fists. Traffic on both sides of the road honked at him. He got into the driver’s seat and let in the clutch.

  ‘Here,’ Azadeh said uneasily. She gave him a cup of coffee.

  ‘Thanks.’ He drank it, driving with one hand, the traffic slowing again. The blue car had vanished. When he could talk calmly, he said, ‘If I’d got my hands on him or his car I’d have torn it and him to pieces.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know. Erikki, have you noticed how hostile everyone is to us? So angry?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I have.’

  ‘But why? We’ve driven though Qazvin twenty tim—’ Azadeh ducked involuntarily as refuse suddenly hit her window, then lurched across into his protection, frightened. He cursed and rolled up the windows, then reached across her and locked her door. Dung hit the windshield.

  ‘What the hell’s up with these matyeryebyets?’ he muttered. ‘It’s as though we’ve an American flag flying and we’re waving pictures of the Shah.’ A stone came out of nowhere and ricocheted off the metal sides. Then, ahead, the bus broke out of the narrow side street diversion into the wide square in front of a mosque where there were market stalls and two lanes of traffic either side. To Erikki’s relief they picked up some speed. The traffic was still heavy but it was moving and he got into second, heading for the Tehran exit the far side of the square. Halfway around the square the two lanes began to tighten as more vehicles joined those heading for the Tehran road.

  ‘It’s never been this bad,’ he muttered. ‘What the hell’s the hold-up for?’

  ‘It must be another accident,’ Azadeh said, very unsettled. ‘Or road works. Should we turn back—the traffic’s not so bad that way?’

  ‘We’ve plenty of time,’ he said, encouraging her. ‘We’ll be out of here in a minute. Once through the town we’ll be fine.’ Ahead everything was slowing again, the din picking up. The two lanes were clogging, gradually becoming one again with much hooting, swearing, stopping, starting again and grinding along at about ten miles an hour, street stores and barrows encroaching on the roadway and straddling the joub. They were almost at the exit when some youths ran alongside, began shouting insults, some foul. One of the youths banged on his side window. ‘American dog. . .’

  ‘Pig Amer’can. . .’

  These men were joined by others and some women in chador, fists raised. Erikki was bottled in and could not get out of the traffic or speed up or slow down nor could he turn around and he felt rage growing at his helplessness. Some of the men were banging on the bonnet and sides of the Range Rover and on his window. Now there was a pack of them and those on Azadeh’s side were taunting her, making obscene gestures, trying to open the door. One of the youths jumped on the hood but slipped and fell off and just managed to scramble out of the way before Erikki drove over him.

  The bus ahead stopped. Immediately there was a frantic mêlée as would-be passengers fought to get on and others fought to get off. Then Erikki saw an opening, stamped on the accelerator throwing off another man, got around the bus, just missing pedestrians who carelessly flooded through the traffic, and swung into a side street that miraculously was clear, raced up it and cut into another, narrowly avoided a mass of motorcyclists, and continued on again. Soon he was quite lost, for there was no pattern to the city or town except refuse and stray dogs and traffic, but he took his bearings from the sun’s shadows and at length came out on to a wider road, shoved his way into the traffic and around it and soon came on to a road that he recognised, one that took him into another square in front of another mosque and then back on the Tehran road. ‘We’re all right now, Azadeh, they were just hooligans.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said shakily. ‘They should be whipped.’

  Erikki had been studying the crowds near the mosque and on the streets and in the vehicles, trying to find a clue to the untoward hostility. Something’s different, he thought. What is it? Then his stomach twisted. ‘I haven’t seen a soldier or an army truck ever since we left Tabriz—none. Have you?’

  ‘No—no, not now that you mention it.’

  ‘Something’s happened, something serious.’

  ‘War? The Soviets have come over the border?’ Her face lost even more colour.

  ‘I doubt it—there’d be troops going north, or planes.’ He looked at her. ‘Never mind,’ he said, more to convince himself, ‘we’re going to have a fine time in Tehran, Sharazad’s there and lots of your friends. It’s about time you had a change. Maybe I’ll take the leave I’m owed—we could go to Finland for a week or two. . .’

  They were out of the downtown area and into the suburbs now. The suburbs were ramshackle, with the same walls and houses and the same potholes. Here the Tehran road widened to four lanes, two each side, and though traffic was still heavy and slow, barely fifteen miles an hour, he was not concerned. A little way ahead, the Abadan-Kermanshah road branched off southwest, and he knew that this would bleed off a lot of the congestion. Automatically his eyes scanned the gauges as he would his cockpit instruments and, not for the first time, he wished he was airborne, over and out of all this mess. The petrol gauge registered under a quarter full. Soon he would have to refuel but that would be no problem with plenty of spare fuel aboard.

  They slowed to ease past another truck parked with careless arrogance near some street vendors, the air heavy with the smell of diesel. Then more refuse came out of nowhere to splatter their windshield. ‘Perhaps we should turn around, Erikki, and go back to Tabriz. Perhaps we could skirt Qazvin.’

  ‘No,’ he said, finding it eerie to hear fear in her voice—normally she was fearless. ‘No,’ he repeated even more kindly. ‘We’ll go to Tehran and find out what the problem is, then we’ll decide.’

  She moved closer to him and put a hand on his knee. ‘Those hooligans frightened me, God curse them,’ she muttered, her other fingers toying nervously with the turquoise beads she wore around her neck. Most Iranian women wore turquoise or blue beads, or a single blue stone against the evil eye. ‘Those sons of dogs! Why should they be like that? Devils. May God curse them for ever!’ Just outside the city was a big army training camp and an adjoining air base. ‘Why aren’t soldiers here?’

  ‘I’d like to know too,’ he said.

  The Abadan-Kermanshah turnoff came up on his right. Much of the traffic headed down it. Barbed-wire fences skirted both roads—as on most of the main roads and highways in Iran. The fences were needed to keep sheep and goats and cattle and dogs—and people—from straying across the roads. Accidents were very frequent and mortality high.

  But that’s normal for Iran, Erikki thought. Like those poor fools who went over the side in the mountains—no one to know, no one to report them or even to bury them. Except the buzzards and the wild animals and packs of rotten dogs.

  With the city behind them, they felt better. The country opened up again, orchards once more beyond the joub and the barbed wire, the Elburz Mountains north and undulating country south. But instead of speeding up, his two lanes slowed even more and congested, then reluctantly became one again, with more jostling, hooting and rage. Wearily he cursed the inevitable roadworks that must be causing the bottleneck, shifted down, his hand and feet working smoothly of their own volition, hardly noticing the stopping and starting, stopping and starting, inching along again, engines grinding and overheating, noise and frustration building in every vehicle. Abruptly Azadeh pointed ahead. ‘Look!’

  A hundred yards ahead was a roadblock. Groups of men surrounded it. Some were armed, all were civilians and poorly
dressed. The roadblock was just this side of a nondescript village with street stalls beside the road and in the meadow opposite. Villagers, women and children mingled with the men. All the women wore the black or grey chador. As each vehicle stopped, papers were checked and then it was allowed to pass. Several cars had been pulled off the road into the meadow where knots of men interrogated the occupants. Erikki saw more weapons among them.

  ‘They’re not Green Bands,’ he said.

  ‘There aren’t any mullahs. Can you see any mullahs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then they’re Tudeh or mujhadin—or fedayeen.’

  ‘Better get your identity card ready,’ he said and smiled at her. ‘Put on your parka so you won’t catch cold when I open the windows, and your hat.’ It wasn’t the cold that worried him. It was the curve of her breasts, proud under the sweater, the delicacy of her waist and her free-flowing hair.

  In the glove compartment was a small, sheathed pukoh knife. This he concealed in his right boot. The other one, his big knife, was under his parka, in the centre of his back.

  When at last their turn came, the surly, bearded men surrounded the Range Rover. A few had U.S. rifles, one an AK47. Among them were some women, just faces in the chador. They peered up at her with beady eyes and grim disapproval. ‘Papers,’ one of the men said in Farsi, holding out his hand, his breath reeking, the pervading smell of unwashed clothes and bodies coming into the car. Azadeh stared ahead, trying to dismiss the leers and mutterings and closeness that were totally outside her experience.

  Politely Erikki passed over his ID card and Azadeh’s. The man accepted them, stared at them, and passed them to a youth who could read. All the others waited silently, staring, stamping their feet in the cold. At length the youth said, his Farsi coarse, ‘He’s a foreigner from somewhere called Finland. He comes from Tabriz. He’s not American.’

  ‘He looks American,’ someone else said.

  ‘The woman’s called Gorgon, she’s his wife. . . at least that’s what the papers say.’

  ‘I’m his wife,’ Azadeh said curtly. ‘Ca—’

  ‘Who asked you?’ the first man said rudely. ‘Your family name’s Gorgon which is a landowning name and your accent’s high and mighty like your manner and more than likely you’re an enemy of the people.’

  ‘I’m an enemy of no one. PI—’

  ‘Shut up. Women are supposed to know manners and be chaste and cover themselves and be obedient even in a socialist state.’ The man turned on Erikki. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘What’s he say, Azadeh?’ Erikki asked.

  She translated.

  ‘Tehran,’ he said quietly to the thug. ‘Azadeh, tell him we go to Tehran.’ He had counted six rifles and one automatic. Traffic hemmed him in, no way to break out. Yet.

  She did so, adding, ‘My husband does not speak Farsi.’

  ‘How do we know that? And how do we know you’re married? Where is your marriage certificate?’

  ‘I don’t have it with me. That I’m married is attested on my identity card.’

  ‘But this is a Shah card. An illegal card. Where is your new card?’

  ‘A card from whom? Signed by whom?’ she said fiercely. ‘Give us back our cards and allow us to pass!’

  Her strength had an effect on him and the others. The man hesitated. ‘You will understand, please, that there are many spies and enemies of the people that must be caught. . .’

  Erikki could feel his heart pumping. Sullen faces, people out of the Dark Ages. Ugly. More men joined the group around them. One of them angrily and noisily waved the cars and trucks behind him ahead to be checked. No one was honking. Everyone waited their turn. And over the whole traffic jam was a silent brooding dread.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ A squat man shouldered his way through the crowd. The others gave way to him deferentially. Over his shoulder was a Czechoslovakian machine gun. The other man explained and gave over the papers. The squat man’s face was round and unshaven, his eyes dark, his clothes poor and filthy. A sudden shot rang out and all heads turned to look at the meadow.

  A man was lying on the ground beside a small passenger car that had been pulled over by the hostiles. One of these men stood over him with an automatic. Another passenger was pressed against the side of the car with his hands over his head. Abruptly this man burst through the cordon and dashed away. The man with the gun raised it and fired, missed and fired again. This time the running man screamed and fell, writhing in agony, tried to scramble away, his legs useless now. Leisurely the man with the gun came up to him, emptied the magazine into him, killing him by stages.

  ‘Ahmed!’ the squat man shouted out. ‘Why waste bullets when your boots would do just as well? Who are they?’

  ‘SAVAK!’ A murmur of satisfaction swept the crowd and villagers and someone cheered.

  ‘Fool! Then why kill them so quickly, eh? Bring me their papers.’

  ‘The sons of dogs had papers claiming they were Tehrani businessmen but I know a SAVAK man when I see one. Do you want the false papers?’

  ‘No. Tear them up.’ The squat man turned back to Erikki and Azadeh. ‘So it is that enemies of the people will be smoked out and done with.’

  She did not reply. Their own IDs were in the grubby hand. What if our papers are also considered false? Insha’Allah!

  When the squat man finished scrutinising the IDs he stared at Erikki. Then at her. ‘You claim you’re Azadeh Gorgon Yok. . . Yokkonen—his wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ He stuffed their IDs in his pocket and jerked a thumb at the meadow. ‘Tell him to drive over there. We will search your car.’

  ‘But th—’

  ‘Do it. NOW!’ The squat man climbed on to the bumpers, his boots scratching the paintwork. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to the blue cross on a white background that was painted on the roof.

  ‘It’s the Finnish flag,’ Azadeh said. ‘My husband’s Finnish.’

  ‘Why is it there?’

  ‘It pleases him to have it there.’

  The squat man spat, then pointed again towards the meadow. ‘Hurry up! Over there.’ When they were in an empty spot, the crowd following them, he slid off. ‘Out. I want to search your car for arms and contraband.’

  Azadeh said, ‘We have no guns or contr—’

  ‘Out! And you, woman, you hold your tongue!’ The crones in the crowd hissed approvingly. Angrily he jerked a thumb at the two bodies left crumpled in the trampled slush. ‘The people’s justice is quick and final and don’t forget it.’ He stabbed a finger at Erikki. ‘Tell your monster husband what I said—if he is your husband.’

  ‘Erikki, he says, the people’s. . . the people’s justice is quick and final and don’t forget it. Be careful, my darling. We, we have to get out of the car—they want to search the car.’

  ‘All right. But slide over and come out my side.’ Towering above the crowd, Erikki got out. Protectively, he put his arm around her, men, women and some children crowding them, giving them little space. The stench of unwashed bodies was overpowering. He could feel her trembling, as much as she tried to hide it. Together they watched the squat man and others clambering into their spotless car, muddy boots on the seats. Others unlocked the rear door, carelessly removing and scattering their possessions, grubby hands reaching into pockets, opening everything—his bags and her bags. Then one of the men held up her filmy underclothes and night things to catcalls and jeers. The crones muttered their disapproval. One of them reached out and touched her hair. Azadeh backed away but those behind her would not give her room. At once Erikki moved his bulk to help but the mass of the crowd did not move though those nearby cried out, almost crushed by him, their cries infuriating the others who moved closer, threateningly, shouting at him.

  Suddenly Erikki knew truly, for the first time, he could not prot
ect Azadeh. He knew he could kill a dozen of them before they overpowered and killed him, but that would not protect her.

  The realisation shattered him.

  His legs felt weak and he had an overpowering wish to urinate and the smell of his own fear choked him and he fought the panic that pervaded him. Dully he watched their possessions being defiled. Men were staggering away with their vital cans of petrol without which he could never make Tehran as all petrol stations were on strike and closed. He tried to force his legs into motion but they would not work, nor would his mouth. Then one of the crones shouted at Azadeh who numbly shook her head and men took up the cry, jostling him and jostling her, men closing on him, their fetid smell filling his nostrils, his ears clogged with the Farsi.

  His arm was still around her, and in the noise she looked up and he saw her terror but could not hear what she said. Again he tried to ease more room for the two of them but again he failed. Desperately he tried to contain the soaring, claustrophobic, panic-savagery and need to fight beginning to overwhelm him, knowing that once he began it would start the riot that would destroy her. But he could not stop himself and lashed out blindly with his free elbow as a thickset peasant woman with strange, enraged eyes pushed though the cordon and thrust the chador into Azadeh’s chest, spitting out a paroxysm of Farsi at her, diverting attention from the man who had collapsed behind him, and now lay under their feet, his chest caved in from Erikki’s blow.

  The crowd were shouting at her and at him, clearly telling her to put on the chador, Azadeh crying out, ‘No, no, leave me alone. . .’ completely disoriented. In her whole life she had never been threatened like this, never been in a crowd like this, never experienced such closeness of peasants, or such hostility.

  ‘Put it on, harlot. . .

  ‘In the Name of God, put on the chador. . .

  ‘Not in the Name of God, woman, in the name of the People. . .