patient.
It had been easy for her to weave her spell, deeper and deeper into the fabrication so that soon she was believing it - but not quite. God will forgive me, she told herself confidently as she always told herself. God will forgive me. Azadeh and Hakim have always hated us, the rest of the family, wanted us dead, outcast, to take all our heritage unto themselves, they and their witch of a mother who cast an evil spell over Father to turn his face from us for so many years. Eight years he was under the spell - Azadeh this and Azadeh that, Hakim this and Hakim that. Eight years he dismissed us and our mother, his first wife, took no notice of me, carelessly married me to this clod, Mahmud, this foul-smelling, now impotent, vile, snoring clod, and so ruined my life. I hope my husband dies, eaten by worms, but not before he becomes Khan so my son will become Khan after him. Father must get rid of Hakim before he dies. God keep him alive to do that - he must do it before he dies - and Azadeh must be humbled, cast out, destroyed too - even better, caught in her adultery with the saboteur, oh yes, then my revenge would be complete.
Friday - February 23
Chapter 43
NEAR TABRIZ ONE, AT THE VILLAGE OF ABU MARD: 6:17 A.M. In the dawn, the face of another Mahmud, the Islamic-Marxist mullah, was contorted with rage. “Have you lain with this man?” he shouted. “Before God have you lain with him?”
Azadeh was on her knees in front of him, panic-stricken. “You’ve no right to burst into th - ”
“Have you lain with this man?”
“I… I am faithful to my… my husband,” she gasped. It was only seconds ago that she and Ross had been sitting on the carpets in the hut, hastily eating the meal she had brought him, happy together, ready for immediate departure. The headman had gratefully and humbly accepted his pishkesh - four gold rupees to him and one she had secretly given to his wife - telling them to sneak out of the village by the forest side the moment they had finished eating, blessing her - then the door had burst open, aliens had rushed them, overpowering him and dragging them both into the open, shoving her at Mahmud’s feet and battering Ross into submission. “I’m faithful, I swear it. I’m faithf - ”
“Faithful? Why aren’t you wearing chador?” he had shouted down at her, most of the village collected around them now, silent and afraid. Half a dozen armed men leaned on their weapons, two stood over Ross who was face downward in the snow, unconscious, blood trickling from his forehead. “I was … I was wearing chador but I… I took it off while I was eat - ” “You took off your chador in a hut with the door closed eating with a stranger? What else had you taken off?”
“Nothing, nothing,” she said in more panic, pulling her unzipped parka closer about her, “I was just eating and he’s not a stranger but an old friend of mi… old friend of my husband,” she corrected herself hastily but the slip had not gone unnoticed. “Abdollah Khan is my father and you have no r - ”
“Old friend? If you’re not guilty you’ve nothing to fear! Before God, have you lain with him? Swear it!”
“Kalandar, send for my father, send for him!” The kalandar did not move. All eyes were grinding into her. Helplessly she saw the blood on the snow, her Johnny groaning, coming around. “I swear by God I’m faithful to my husband!” she screamed. The cry went over them all and into Ross’s mind and seared him awake.
“Answer the question, woman! Is it yes or no? In the Name of God, have you lain with him?” The mullah was standing over her like a diseased crow, the villagers waiting, everyone waiting, the trees and the wind waiting - even God. Insha’Allah!
Her fear left her. In its place was hate. She stared back at this man Mahmud as she got up. “In the Name of God, I am and have always been faithful to my husband,” she pronounced. “In the Name of God, yes, I loved this man, years upon years ago.”
Her words made many that were there shudder and Ross was appalled that she had admitted it.
“Harlot! Loose woman! You openly admit yourself guilty. You will be punished accord - ”
“No,” Ross shouted over him. He dragged himself onto his knees and though the two mujhadin had guns at his head, he ignored them. “It was not the fault of Her Highness. I - I’m to blame, only me, only me!” “You’ll be punished, Infidel, never fear,” Mahmud said, then turned to the villagers. “You all heard the harlot admit fornication, you all heard the Infidel admit fornication. For her mere is but one punishment - for the Infidel… what should happen to the Infidel?”
The villagers waited. The mullah was not their mullah, nor of their village, nor a real mullah but an Islamic- Marxist. He had come uninvited. No one knew why he had come here, only that he had appeared suddenly like the wrath of God with leftists - also not of their village. Not true Shi’as, only madmen. Hadn’t the Imam said fifty times all such men were madmen who only paid lip service to God, secretly worshiping the Satan Marx-Lenin. “Well? Should he share her punishment?”
No one answered him. The mullah and his men were armed.
Azadeh felt all eyes boring into her but she could no longer move or say anything. She stood there, knees trembling, the voices distant, even Ross’s shouting, “You’ve no jurisdiction over me - or her. You defile God’s name…” as one of the men standing over him gave him a brutal shove to send him sprawling then put a booted foot on his neck pinioning him. “Castrate him and be done with it,” the man said and another said, “No, it was the woman who tempted him - didn’t I see her lift her chador to him last night in the hut. Look at her now, tempting us all. Isn’t the punishment for him a hundred lashes?”
Another said, “He put his hands on her, take off his hands.” “Good,” Mahmud said. “First his hands, then the lash. Tie him up!” Azadeh tried to cry out against this evil but no sound came out, the blood roaring in her ears now, her stomach heaving, her mind unhinged as they dragged her Johnny to his feet, fighting, kicking, to tie him spread-eagled between rafters that jutted from the hut - remembering the time she and Hakim were children and he, filled with bravado, had picked up a stone and thrown it at the cat, and the cat squealed as it rolled over and got up, now injured, and tried to crawl away, squealing all the time until a guard shot it, but now… now she knew no one would shoot her. She lurched at Mahmud with a scream, her nails out, but her strength failed her and she fainted. Mahmud looked down at her. “Put her against that wall,” he said to some of his men, “then bring her her chador.” He turned and looked at the villagers. “Who is the butcher here? Who is the butcher of the village?” No one replied. His voice roughened. “Kalandar, who is your butcher?” Quickly the headman pointed to a man in the crowd, a small man with rough clothes. “Abrim, Abrim is our butcher.”
“Go and get your sharpest knife,” Mahmud told him. “The rest of you collect stones.”
Abrim went to do his bidding. As God wants, the others muttered to each other. “Have you ever seen a stoning?” someone asked. A very old woman said, “I saw one once. It was in Tabriz when I was a little girl.” Her voice quavered. “The adulteress was the wife of a bazaari, yes, I remember she was the wife of a bazaari. Her lover was a bazaari too and they hacked off his head in front of the mosque, then the men stoned her. Women could throw stones too if they wanted but they didn’t, I didn’t see any woman do it. It took a long time, the stoning, and for years I heard the screams.” “Adultery is a great evil and must be punished, whoever the sinner, even her. The Koran says a hundred lashes for the man … the mullah is the lawgiver, not us,” the kalandar said.
“But he’s not a true mullah and the Imam has warned against their evil!” “The mullah is the mullah, the law, the law,” the kalandar said darkly, secretly wanting the Khan humbled and this woman who had taught new disturbing thoughts to their children destroyed. “Collect the stones.” Mahmud stood in the snow, ignoring the cold and the villagers and the saboteur who cursed and moaned and, frenzied, tried to fight out of his bonds, and the woman inert at the wall.
This morning, before dawn, coming to take over the base, he had heard about the saboteur and her being in the village. She of the sauna, he had thought, his anger gathering, she who had flaunted herself, the highborn whelp of the cursed Khan who pretends to be our patron but who has betrayed us and betrayed me, already engineering an assassination attempt on me last night, a burst of machine-gun fire outside the mosque after last prayer that killed many but not me. The Khan tried to have me murdered, me who am protected by the Sacred Word that Islam together with Marx-Lenin is the only way to help the world rise up.
He looked at her, seeing the long legs encased in blue ski pants, hair uncovered and flowing, breasts bulging against the blue and white ski jacket. Harlot, he thought, loathing her for tempting him. One of his men threw the chador over her. She moaned a little but did not come out of her stupor. “I’m ready,” the butcher said, fingering his knife.
“First the right hand,” Mahmud said to his men. “Bind him above the wrists.” They bound strips of sacking ripped from the window tightly, villagers pressing forward to see better, and Ross used all his energy to stop his
