Chapter 28
NEAR BANDAR DELAM: 11:58 A.M. It was the time of noon prayer and the ancient, rickety, overladen bus stopped on the shoulder of the road. Obediently, following the lead of a mullah who was also a passenger, all Muslims disembarked, spread their prayer mats and now were committing their souls to God. Except for the Indian Hindu family who were afraid of losing their seats, most of the other non-Muslim passengers had also disembarked - Tom Lochart among them - glad for the opportunity to stretch their legs or to relieve themselves. Christian Armenians, Oriental Jews, a nomadic Kash’kai couple who, though Muslim, were precluded by ancient custom from the need of the noonday prayer, or their women from the veil or chador, two Japanese, some Christian Arabs - all of them aware of the lone European. The day was warm, hazy, and humid from the nearby waters of the Gulf. Tom Lochart leaned tiredly against the hood that was steaming, the engine overheated, head aching, joints aching, muscles aching from his forced march out from the Dez Dam - now almost two hundred miles to the north - and from the cramped, bone-grinding, noisy discomfort of the bus. All the way from Ahwaz where he had managed to talk himself past Green Bands and onto the bus, he had been squeezed into a seat with barely enough room for two, let alone three men, one of them a young Green Band who cradled his M14 along with his child for his pregnant wife who stood in the narrow corridor crammed against thirty others in space for fifteen. Every seat was equally packed with men, women, and children of all ages. The air fetid, voices babbling in a multitude of tongues. Overhead and underfoot, bags and bundles and cases, crates packed with vegetables or half-dead chickens, a small, undernourished, hobbled goat or two - the luggage racks outside on the roof equally laden. But I’m damned lucky to be here, he thought, his misery returning, half listening to the lilting chant of the Shahada.
Yesterday, near sunset, when he had heard the 212 take off from Dez, he had come out from under the little wharf, blessing God for his escape. The water had been very cold and he was trembling, but he had picked up the automatic, checked the action, and then gone up to the house. It was open. There was food and drink in the refrigerator that still hummed nicely, powered by a generator. It was warm inside the house. He took off his clothes and dried them over a heater, cursing Valik and Seladi and consigning them to hell. “Sonsofbitches! What the hell’d I do to them but save their goddamn necks?” The warmth and the luxury of the house were tempting. His tiredness ached him. Last night at Isfahan had been almost sleepless. I could sleep and leave at dawn, he thought. I’ve a compass and I know the way more or less: skirt the airfield Ali Abbasi mentioned, then head almost due east to pick up the main Kermanshah-Ahwaz-Abadan road. Should be no trouble to get a bus or hitch a ride. Or I could go now - the moon’ll light my way and then I won’t be trapped here if the air base has sent a patrol - Ali was just as nervous about that as Seladi and we could easily have been spotted. Easily. But either way, when you get stopped, what’s your story?
He thought about that while he fixed himself a brandy and soda and some food. Valik and the others had opened two half-kilo cans of the best beluga gray caviar and had left them carelessly on the sitting-room table, still partially full. He ate it with relish, then threw the cans into the garbage pail that was outside the back door. Then he locked the house and left. The forced march over the mountains had been bad but not as bad as he had expected. Just after dawn he had come down to the main Kermanshah-Ahwaz-Abadan road. Almost at once he had been given a ride by some Korean construction workers evacuating the steel mill they were building under contract at Kermanshah - it was almost custom that expats helped expats on the road. They were heading for Abadan Airport where they had been told transport to fly them back to Korea would be waiting for them. “Much fighting at Kermanshah,” they had told him in halting English. “Everyone guns. Iranians killing each others. All mad, barbarians - worse than Japanese.” They had dropped him off at the Ahwaz bus terminal. Miraculously he had managed to talk his way onto the next bus that went past Bandar Delam.
Yes. But now what? Gloomily he remembered how, after throwing the empty caviar cans into the garbage, on reflection he had retrieved them and buried them, then gone back and wiped the glass that he had used and even the door handle. You need your head examined, as if they’d check for fingerprints! Yes, but at the time I thought it best not to leave traces I’d been there. You’re crazy! You’re on the flight clearance at Tehran, there’s your unauthorized pickup of Valik and his family, the breakout from Isfahan, and flying “enemies of the state and helping them escape” to account for - whether it’s from SAVAK or Khomeini! And how does S-G or McIver account for a missing Iranian helicopter that ends up in Kuwait or Baghdad or where the hell ever that’s bound to be reported?
What a goddamn mess!
Yes. Then there’s Sharazad…
“Don’t worry, Agha,” broke into his thoughts, “we’re all in God’s hands.” It was the mullah and he was smiling up at him. He was a youngish man, bearded, and he had joined the bus at Ahwaz with his wife and three children. Over his shoulder was a rifle. “The driver says you speak Farsi and that you’re from Canada and a person of the Book?”
“Yes, yes, I am, Agha,” Lochart replied, collecting his wits. He saw that prayer had finished and now everyone crowded the bus doorway. “Then you too will go to heaven as the Prophet promised if you are found worthy, though not to our part.” The mullah smiled shyly. “Iran will be the first real Islamic state in the world since the time of the Prophet.” Again the shy smile. “You’re - you’re the first person of the Book that I’ve met or spoken to. You learned to speak Farsi at school?”
“I went to a school, Excellency, but mostly I had private teachers.” Lochart picked up his flight bag that he had taken off with him for safety and moved to join the line. His own seat was already taken. Beside the road several passengers were relieving themselves or defecating, men, women, and children.
“And the Excellency works in the oil business?” The mullah moved into line beside him, and at once people stepped aside to let him take preference. Inside the bus passengers were already quarreling, a few shouting to the driver to hurry.
“Yes, for your great IranOil,” Lochart said, very conscious that those nearby were listening also, jostling to get closer to hear better. Not long to go now, he thought, the airport can’t be more than a few miles ahead. Just before noon he had caught a glimpse of a 212 heading in from the Gulf. She was too far away to see if she was civilian or military but she was heading in the general direction of the airport. It’ll be great to see Rudi and the others, to sleep and…
“The driver says you were on holiday near Kermanshah?”
“In Luristan, south of Kermanshah.” Lochart concentrated. He retold the story he had decided upon, the same that he had told the ticket seller at Ahwaz, and the Green Bands who also wanted to know who he was and why he was in Ahwaz. “I was on a hiking holiday north of Luristan, in the mountains, and got trapped there in a village by a snowfall - for a week. You are going to Shiraz?” This was the final destination of the bus.
“Shiraz is where my mosque is and the place of my birth. Come, we will sit together.” The mullah took the nearest seat beside an old man, put one of his children on his knee, cradled his gun, and left Lochart just enough room on the aisle. Reluctantly Lochart obeyed, not wanting to sit beside a talkative and inquisitive mullah, but at the same time thankful for a place. The bus was filling up quickly. People shoved past, trying to get space or to move farther back. “Your country Canada borders the Great Satan, does it not?”
“Canada and America have common borders,” Lochart said, his bile rising. “The vast majority of Americans are People of the Book.”
“Ah, yes, but many are Jews and Zionists, and Jews and Zionists and Christians are against Islam, the enemy of Islam, and therefore against God. Isn’t it true that Jews and Zionists rule the Great Satan?” “If you mean America, no, Agha, no it is not.”
“But if the Imam says it, it is so.” The mullah was quite
confident and gentle and quoted from the Koran, ” ‘For God is angry with them, and in torment shall they abide forever.’” Then he added, “If the Im - ”
There was a flurry in the back of the bus, and they turned to see one of the Iranians angrily rug the turbaned Indian out of his seat to take his place. The Indian forced a smile and stayed standing. By custom it was always the first one seated who had the right to stay seated unharmed. The torrent of voices began again and now another man, jammed in the aisle, began cursing all foreigners loudly. He was roughly dressed, armed, and stood alongside the two Japanese who were crammed into a seat with a ragged old Kurd and glared down at them.
“Why should foreigner Infidels sit while we stand? With the Help of God, we’re no longer lackeys of Infidels!” the man said even more angrily and jerked his thumb at them. “Move!”
Neither Japanese moved. One of them took off his glasses and smiled at the man. The man hesitated, began to bluster but thought better of it, then turned and shouted at the driver to hurry up. Just before the Japanese put
