three-story, flat-roofed house that was palatial, rich, and meandering. He opened the door and kicked it closed. “Sharazad, listen to me… Sharazad, listen! For Christsake listen!” But she just leaned against him, gibbering and moaning. He carried her into the stuffy inner room, windows tight shut and shutters closed, and forced her to sit on the unmade bed, then rushed into the bathroom that was modern - most of the plumbing modern - except the toilet.
No hot water. The cold water ran and it did not seem too brackish. He found some towels and soaked one and went back again, his chest hurting, knowing he was out of his depth. She had not moved. He tried to wash her face but she resisted and began to blubber, making herself even more ugly. Saliva seeped out of the sides of her mouth.
“Sharazad… Sharazad, my darting, for the love of God, my darling…” He lifted her and held her closer but nothing touched her. Only the moans remained constant, pushing him nearer and nearer his limit. “Get hold of yourself,” he said helplessly out loud, and got up, but her hands caught his clothes and tried to drag him back.
“Oh, God give me strength…” He saw his hand smash her across the face. For a moment the moaning stopped, she stared at him incredulously, then her eyes went blank again, the gibberish started once more, and she clawed at his clothes. “God help me,” he said brokenly, then began to smack her face, harder and harder, openhanded, desperately trying to be hard but not too hard and then he shoved her face downward on the bed and belted her hard on the buttocks, hit her till his palm ached and hand ached and all at once he heard screams that were real screams and not gibberish: “Tommyyyy… stop oh please Tommy please stopppppp… Tommy, you’re hurting me what have I done? I swear I’ve not thought about anyone oh God Tommy please stopppp…” He stopped. Sweat was in his eyes, his clothes wringing, and he stumbled panting off the bed. She was writhing in pain, her buttocks scarlet and face scarlet, but her tears were real tears now and her eyes her own now and her brain her own.
“Oh, Tommyyyyy, you hurt me, you hurt me,” she sobbed as a whipped child would sob. “Whyyyyy? Whyyyy? I swear I love you… I’ve never done anything… anything to… to hurt you and make you … make you hurt me…” Racked with pain and shame that she had enraged him, not understanding why but only that she must help him out of his rage, she crawled off the bed and fell at his feet, begging his forgiveness through her tears. Her tears stopped as her mind flooded with reality and she looked up at him. “Oh, Tommy,” she said brokenly, “Father’s dead… murdered… murdered by Green Bands… murdered …”
“Yes… yes, my darling, I know, oh, I know… I’m so sorry…”
He lifted her up and his tears mixed with hers and he held her tight and gave her of his strength and made her whole as she gave him of her strength and made him whole. Then they slept fitfully - waking sometimes, but sleeping again peacefully, gathering life, the flame of the oil lamp casting kind shadows. Just before midnight he awoke. Her eyes were watching him. Tentatively she moved to kiss him but a shaft of pain stopped her. “Oh, you all right?” His arms at once around her. “Oh, be careful… sorry, yes… it’s…” Painfully she tried to look at her back, then found she was in soiled clothes. She grimaced. “Ugh, these clothes, please excuse me, my darling…” She stood awkwardly and tore them off. Painfully she picked up the damp towel and cleaned her face and brushed her hair. Then, when she went closer to the light, he saw that one of her eyes was already slightly black and her buttocks badly bruised. “Please forgive me… what did I… I do to offend you?”
“Nothing, nothing,” he said appalled, and told her how he had found her.
She stared at him blankly. “But… you say that I… I don’t remember any of that only … only being… only being beaten.” “I’m so sorry but it was the only way I could… I’m so sorry.” “Oh, I’m not, not now, my darling.” Trying to recollect she came back and carefully lay on the bed on her stomach. “But for you… As God wants but if I was as you say… strange, and I remember nothing, nothing from the time I…” Her voice broke a little, then she continued, trying to be firm, “But for you, perhaps I would have been mad forever.” She squirmed closer and kissed him. “I love you, Beloved,” she said in Farsi. “I love you, Beloved,” he told her, possessed. After a moment she said in a strange voice, ‘Tommy, I think what sent me mad… I saw Father… saw him yesterday, the day before… I can’t remember… was that he looked so small dead, so tiny, dead, with all those holes in him, in his face and head - I never remembered him so small but they had made him small, they’d taken away his…”
“Don’t,” he said, gently, seeing the tears brimming. “It’s Insha’ Allah. Don’t think about it.”
“Certainly, husband, if you say so,” she said at once, formally, in Farsi. “Of course it’s as God wants, yes, but it’s important for
me to tell you, to remove the shame from me, you finding me like this … I would like to tell you one day.”
“Then tell me now, Sharazad, and we can put it behind us forever,” he told her, equally formally. “Please tell me now.”
“It was that they had made the biggest man in the world - after you - had made him insignificant. For no reason. He was always against the Shah when he could be and a great supporter of this mullah Khomeini.” She said it calmly and he heard the word “mullah” and not Ayatollah or Imam or farmandeh and a warning rushed through him. “They murdered my father for no reason without trial and outside the law and made him small, they took away everything that he had as a man, a father, as a beloved father. As God wants, I should say and I will try. But I cannot believe it is what God wants. It may be what Khomeini wants. I don’t know. We women will soon find out.” “What? What do you mean?”
“In three days we women march in protest - all the women of Tehran.” “Against what?”
“Against Khomeini and mullahs who are against women’s rights-when he sees us marching without chador he will not do what is wrong.”
Lochart was half listening, remembering her a few days ago - was it only a few days ago that all this nightmare began? - Sharazad so content with herself and wearing chador, so happy to be just wife and not a modern like Azadeh. He saw her eyes and read her resolve and knew that she had committed herself. “I don’t want you to take part in this protest.” “Yes, of course, husband, but every woman in Tehran will march and I am sure you would not wish me shamed before the memory of my father - against the representatives of his murderers, would you?”
“It’s a waste of time,” Lochart said, knowing he was going to lose but impelled onward. “I’m afraid, my love, a protest march of every woman in Iran or all Islam will not touch Khomeini a little bit. Women in his Islamic state will have nothing not granted in the Koran, nothing. Nor will anyone else. He’s inflexible - isn’t that his strength?”
“Of course you are right - but we will march in protest and then God will open his eyes and make all clear to him. It’s as God wants, not as Khomeini wants - in Iran we have historic ways of dealing with such men.” His arms were around her. Marching is not the answer, he thought. Oh, Sharazad, there’s so much to decide, to say, to tell, now not the time. But there’s Zagros and a 212 to ferry out. But that leaves Mac alone to carry the ball, if there’s a ball to carry. What if I took him too? I couldn’t, unless by force. “Sharazad, I might have a ferry to do. To take a 212 to Nigeria. Would you come too?”
“Of course, Tommy. How long would we be gone?” He hesitated. “A few weeks - perhaps longer.” He felt her change in his arms, imperceptibly. “When would you want to leave?” “Very soon. Perhaps tomorrow.”
She moved out of his embrace without moving. “I wouldn’t be able to leave Mother, not for a while. She’s… she’s torn apart with grief, Tommy, and… and if I went I’d be afraid for her. And then there’s poor Meshang - he has to run the business, he has to be helped - there’s so much to do and to look after.” “Do you know about the confiscation order?” “What order?” He told her. Tears filled her eyes again and she sat up, her pain for the moment forgotten. She stared at the oil flame and at the shadows it cast. “Then we’ve no home, nothing. As God wants,” she said dully. Then almost at once in a different voice, “No, not as God wants! As Green Bands want. Now we have to join together to save the family, otherwise they will have beaten Father - we cannot allow them to murder him and then beat him as well, that would be terrible.”
“Yes, I agree, but this ferry’d solve our problems for a few weeks…”
“You’re right, Tommy, as always, yes, yes, it would if we needed to leave but this is our home just as much if not more, oh, how happy we’ll be here! In the morning I will get servants and bring everything of ours from the apartment - pah! what are a few carpets and trinkets when we have this house and ourselves. I will arrange everything - oh, we will be happy here.” “But if y - ”
“This theft makes it even more important for us to be here, to resist, to protest - it makes the inarch, oh, so much more important.” She put a finger on his lips as she saw him start to speak. “If you must do this ferry - and of course you must do your work - then go, my darling, but hurry back quickly. In a few weeks Tehran will be normal
