Erikki wanted desperately to turn and flee but his legs would not move. Someone coughed, a hacking, frightful cough. Then his mouth said, “Who - who are you?”
“Once I was a teacher of English - now I am unclean, one of the living dead. As God wants. Go away. Bless God for His mercy.”
Numbed, Erikki saw the man motion with the remains of his arms. Obediently, around the cavern the lights began to go out, eyes still watching him. Outside in the night air, he had to make a grim effort to stop himself from running away in terror, feeling filthy, wanting to cast off his clothes at once and bathe and soap and bathe and soap and bathe again. “Stop it,” he muttered, his skin crawling, “there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Wednesday - February 14
Chapter 27
AT EVIN JAIL: 6:29 A.M. The jail was like any other modem jail - in good days or bad - gray, brooding, high- walled, and hideous.
Today the false dawn was strange, the glow below the horizon curiously red. No overcast or even clouds in the sky - the first time for weeks - and though it was still cold it promised to be a rare day. No smog. The air crisp and clean for a change. A kind wind took away the smoke from the still-burning wrecks of cars and barricades from last night’s clashes between the now legal Green Bands and the now illegal loyalists, leftists, combined with suspect police and armed forces, as well as the smoke from countless cooking and heating fires of the Tehrani millions. The few pedestrians who passed the prison walls and the huge door that was wrecked and broken off its hinges, and the Green Band guards who lolled there, averted their eyes and quickened their pace. Traffic was light. Another truck filled with Guards and prisoners ground its gears, stopped briefly at the main gate to be inspected. The temporary barricade opened and closed again. Inside the walls was a sudden volley of rifle fire. Outside the Green Bands yawned and stretched.
With the arrival of the sun the call of the muezzins from the minarets began - their voices mostly carried by loudspeakers, the voices on cassette. And wherever the call was heard, the Faithful stopped what they were doing, faced Mecca, knelt for first prayer.
Jared Bakravan had stopped the car just up the road. Now, with his chauffeur and the others, he knelt and prayed. He had spent much of the night trying to reach his most important friends and allies. The news of Paknouri’s unlawful arrest and his own unlawful summons had swept through the bazaar. Everyone was instantly enraged, but no one came forward to marshal the thousands to stage a protest or strike or to close the bazaar. He had had plenty of advice: to protest to Khomeini personally, to Prime Minister Bazargan personally, not to appear at the court, to appear but to refuse to answer any questions, to appear and to answer some questions, to appear and answer all questions. “As God wants,” but no one had volunteered to go with him, not even his great friend and one of the most important lawyers in Tehran who swore it was more important for him to be seeing the High Court judges on his behalf. No one volunteered, except his wife and son and three daughters who prayed on their own prayer mats behind him. He finished praying and got up shakily. At once the chauffeur began to collect the prayer mats. Jared shivered. This morning he had dressed carefully and wore a heavy coat and suit and Astrakhan hat but no jewelry. “I… I will walk from here,” he said.
“No, Jared,” his tearful wife began, hardly noticing the distant gunfire. “Surely it is better to arrive as a leader should arrive. Aren’t you the most important bazaari in Tehran? It wouldn’t fit your position to walk.” “Yes, yes, you’re right.” He sat in the back of the car. It was a big blue Mercedes, new and well kept. His wife, a plump matron, her expensive coiffure hidden under a chador that also covered her long brown mink, got in beside him and held on to his arm, her makeup streaked by her tears. His son, Meshang, was equally tearful. And his daughters, Sharazad among them, all had chadors. “Yes … yes, you’re right. God curse these revolutionaries!” “Don’t worry, Father,” Sharazad said. “God will protect you - the Revolutionary Guards are only following the Imam’s orders and the Imam only follows God’s orders.” She sounded so confident but looked so dejected that Bakravan forgot to tell her not to refer to Khomeini as “Imam.”
“Yes,” he told her, “of course it’s all a mistake.”
“Ali Kia swore on the Koran Prime Minister Bazargan would stop all this nonsense,” his wife said. “He swore he would see him last night. Orders are probably already at the… already there.”
Last night he had told Ali Kia that without Paknouri there could be no loan, that if he himself was troubled the bazaar would revolt and all funds stopped to the government, to Khomeini, to the mosques, and to Ali Kia personally. “Ali won’t fail,” he said grimly. “He daren’t. I know too much about them all.”
The car stopped outside the main gate. Idly the Green Bands stared at it. Jared Bakravan summoned his courage. “I won’t be long.”
“God protect you. We’ll wait here for you - we’ll wait here.” His wife kissed him and so did the others and there were more tears and then he was standing in front of the Green Bands. “Salaam,” he said. “I’m - I’m a witness at the court of Mullah Ali’allah Uwari.”
The leader of the Guards took the paper, glanced at it upside down, gave it to one of the others who could read. “He’s from the bazaar,” the other youth said. “Jared Bakravan.”
The leader shrugged. “Show him where to go.” The other man led the way through the broken doorway. Bakravan followed, and as the barricade closed behind him, much of his confidence vanished. It was somber and dank in this small open dirt area between the walls and the main building complex. The air stank. Eastward, hundreds of men were crammed together, sitting or lying down, huddled miserably against the cold. Many wore uniforms - officers. Westward, the space was empty. Ahead was a tall iron-barred gate and it swung open to admit him. In the waiting room were dozens of other men, weary frightened men, sitting in rows on benches or standing or just sitting on the floor, some uniformed officers, and he noticed one full colonel. Some of the others he recognized, important businessmen, court favorites, administrators, deputies - but none he knew intimately. A few recognized him. There was a sudden hush.
“Hurry up,” the Guard said irritably. He was a pockmarked youth and he shoved through to the desk, to the harassed clerk who sat there. “Here’s another for Excellency Mullah Uwari.”
The clerk accepted the paper and waved at Bakravan. “Take a seat - you’ll be called when you’re needed.”
“Salaam, Excellency,” Bakravan said, shocked at the man’s rudeness. “When will that be? I was to be here just after fir - ”
“As God wants. You’ll be called when you’re needed,” the man said waving him away.
“But I’m Jared Bakravan of the baz - ” “I can read, Agha!” the man said more rudely. “When you’re wanted you’ll be called! Iran’s an Islamic state now, one law for all, not one for the rich another for the people.” Bakravan was jostled by others being shoved toward the clerk. Weak with rage, he made his way toward a wall. To one side a man was using a latrine bucket mat was already overfull, urine spilling onto the floor. Eyes watched Bakravan. A few muttered, “God’s peace on you.” The room smelled vile. His heart was pounding. Someone made a space for him on a bench and, thankfully, he sat down. “The Blessings of God upon thee, Excellencies.” “And on thee, Agha,” one of them said. “You’re accused?” “No, no, I’m called as a witness,” he said shocked. “The Excellency is a witness in front of Mullah Uwari?” “Yes, yes, I am, Excellency. Who is he?” “A judge, a revolutionary judge,” the man muttered. He was in his fifties, small, his face more lined than Bakravan’s, his hair tufted. He twitched nervously. “No one here seems to know what’s happening, or why they’re called, or who this Uwari is, only that he’s appointed by the Ayatollah and judges in his name.” Bakravan looked into the man’s eyes and saw the terror and felt even more unnerved. “The Excellency is also a witness?”
“Yes, yes, I am, though why they should call me who was just a manager in the post office I don’t know.”
“The post office is very important - they probably need your advice. Do you think we’ll be kept waiting long?”
“Insha”Allah. I was called yesterday after fourth prayer and I’ve been waiting ever since. They kept me here all night. We have to wait until we’re called. That’s the only toilet,” the man said, pointing at the bucket. “The worst night I’ve ever had, terrible. During the night they… there was a great deal of firing; the rumor is three more generals and a dozen SAVAK officials were executed.”
“Fifty or sixty,” the man on the other side of him said, coming out of his stupor. “The number must be nearer sixty. The whole prison’s crammed like bedbugs in a village mattress. All the cells’re packed. Two days ago the Green Bands broke down the gates, overpowered the guards, and stuffed them in the dungeons, let most prisoners out and then started filling up the cells with locals” - he dropped his voice more - “all the cells are crammed, much
