“What’s it say, Andy?”
Gavallan reached into the back for his briefcase. He found the envelope and put on reading glasses. “It’s addressed: D. D. Captain McIver, Esq.” “I’ll give him whatfor one day with his bloody ‘Dirty Duncan,’” McIver said. “Read it out.”
Gavallan opened the envelope, pulled out the paper with another attached to it, and grunted. “The letter just says: ‘Get stuffed.’ Clipped to it’s a medical report…” He peered at it. “… signed by Dr. G. Gernin, Australian Consulate, Al Shargaz. The old bastard’s ringed cholesterol normal, blood pressure 130/85, sugar normal… everything’s bloody normal and there’s a P.S. in Scrag’s writing: ‘I’m going to buzz you on me f’ing seventy-third birthday, old cock!’”
“I hope he does, the bugger, but he won’t, time’s not on his side. He’ll m - ” McIver braked cautiously. The street led out onto the square in front of the bazaar mosque but the exit was blocked by shouting men, many waving guns. There was no way to turn aside or detour, so McIver slowed and stopped. “It’s the women again,” he said catching sight of the surging demonstration beyond, cries and countercries growing in violence. Traffic on both sides of the street piled up with great suddenness, horns blaring angrily. There were no sidewalks, just the usual muck-filled joubs and banked snow, a few street stalls and pedestrians.
They were hemmed in on all sides. Bystanders began to join those ahead, pressing into the roadway around the cars and trucks. Among them were urchins and youths, and one made a rude sign at Gavallan through his side window, another of them kicked the fender, then another, and they all ran off laughing.
“Rotten little bastards.” McIver could see them in the rearview mirror, other youths collecting around them. More men pushed past, more hostile looks, and a couple banged the sides carelessly with their firearms. Ahead the main part of the marching women, “Allah-u Akbarrrrr…” dominating, were passing the junction.
A sudden crash startled them as a stone slammed against the car, narrowly missing the window, then the whole car began to rock as urchins and youths swarmed around it, jumping on and off the bumpers, making more obscene gestures. McIver’s rage exploded and he tore the door open, sending a couple of the youths sprawling, then jumped out and ripped into the pack that scattered at once. Gavallan got out equally fast, to charge those trying to overturn the car at the rear. He belted one and sent nun flying. Most of the others retreated, slipping and shouting, amid curses from pedestrians, but two of the bigger youths rushed Gavallan from behind. He saw them coming and smashed one in the chest, slammed the other against a truck, stunning him, and the truck driver laughed and thumped the side of his cabin. McIver was breathing hard. On his side the youths were out of range, shouting obscenities. “Look out, Mac!”
McIver ducked. The stone narrowly missed his head and smashed into the side of a truck, and the youths, ten or twelve of them, surged forward. There was nowhere for McIver to go so he stood his ground by the hood and Gavallan put his back to the car, also at bay. One of the youths darted at Gavallan with a piece of wood raised as a club while three others came at him from the side. He twisted away but the club caught the edge of his shoulder and he gasped, lunged at the youth, hit him in the face off balance, slipped, and sprawled in the snow. The rest came in for the kill. Suddenly he was not on the snow surrounded by hacking feet but being helped up. An armed Green Band was helping him, the youths cowering against the wall under the leveled gun of another, an elderly mullah nearby shouting at them in rage, pedestrians encircling them all. Blankly he saw McIver was also more or less unhurt near the front of the car, then the mullah came back to him and spoke to him in Farsi.
“Man zaban-e shoma ra khoob nami danam, Agha” - Sorry, I don’t speak your language, Excellency - Gavallan croaked, his chest hurting him. The mullah, an old man with white beard and white turban and black robes, turned and shouted above the din at the watchers and people in other cars.
Reluctantly a driver nearby got out and came over and greeted the mullah deferentially, listened to him, then spoke to Gavallan in good though stilted English: “The mullah informs you that the youths were wrong to attack you, Agha, and have broken the law, and that clearly you were not breaking a law or provoking them.”
Again he listened to the mullah a moment, then once more turned to Gavallan and McIver. “He wishes you to know that the Islamic Republic is obedient to the immutable laws of God. The youths broke the law which forbids attacking unarmed strangers peacefully going about their business.” The man, bearded, middle-aged, his clothes threadbare, turned back to the mullah who now loudly addressed the crowd and the youths and there was widespread approval and agreement. “You are to witness that the law is upheld, the guilty punished and justice done at once. The punishment is fifty lashes, but first the youths will beg your forgiveness and the forgiveness of all others here.”
In the midst of the uproar from the nearby demonstration, the terrified youths were shoved and kicked in front of McIver and Gavallan where they went down on their knees and abjectly begged forgiveness. Then they were herded back against the wall and thrashed with mule scourges readily offered by the interested and jeering crowd. The mullah, the two Green Bands, and others selected by the mullah enforced the law. Pitilessly. “My God,” Gavallan muttered, sickened.
The driver-translator said sharply, “This is Islam. Islam has one law for all people, one punishment for each crime, and justice immediate. The law is God’s law, untouchable, everlasting, not like in your corrupt West where laws can be twisted and justice twisted and delayed for the benefit of lawyers who fatten on the twistings and corruptions and vilenesses or misfortunes of others…” Screams of some of the youths interrupted him. “Those sons of dogs have no pride,” the man said contemptuously, going back to his car.
When the punishment was over, the mullah gently admonished those youths who were still conscious, then dismissed them and went forward with his Green Bands. The crowd drifted away leaving McIver and Gavallan beside the car. Their attackers were now pathetic bundles of inert, bloodstained rags or moaning youths trying to drag themselves to their feet. Gavallan went forward to help one of them, but the youth scrambled away petrified so he stopped, then came back. The fenders were dented, there were deep scratches in the paintwork from stones the youths had used maliciously. McIver looked older than before. “Can’t say they didn’t deserve it, I suppose,” Gavallan said.
“We’d’ve been trampled and very bloody hurt if the mullah hadn’t come along,” McIver said throatily, so glad that Genny had not been here. She’d have been punished by every lash they got, he thought, his chest and back aching from the blows. He pulled his eyes off his car, eased his shoulders painfully. Then he noticed the man who had translated for them in a nearby car still in the traffic jam and trudged painfully across the snow to him. “Thanks, thanks for helping us, Agha,” he said to him, shouting through the window and above the noise. The car was old and bent and four other men were crammed into the other seats.
The man rolled down the window. “The mullah asked for a translator, I was helping him, not you,” he said, his lips curling. “If you had not come to Iran, those young fools would not have been tempted by your disgusting display of material wealth.”
“Sorry, I just wanted to th - ”
“And if it wasn’t for your equally disgusting films and television that glorify your godless street gangs and rebellious classrooms that the Shah imported at the behest of his masters to corrupt our youth - my own son and own pupils included-those poor fools would be all correctly law-abiding. Better for you to leave before you too are caught breaking the law.” He rolled down the window and, angrily, jabbed the horn.
AT LOCHART’S APARTMENT: 2:37 P.M. Her knuckles rapped a short code on the penthouse door. She was wearing a veil and dirt-stained chador. A series of knocks answered her. Again she tapped four rapid and one slow. At once the door swung open a crack, Teymour was there with a gun in her face, and she laughed. “Don’t you trust anyone, my darling?” she said in Arabic, Palestinian dialect.
“No, Sayada, not even you,” he replied, and when he was sure she truly was Sayada Bertolin and alone, he opened the door wider, and she pulled away her veil and scarf and went into his arms. He kicked the door shut and relocked it. “Not even you.” Then they kissed hungrily. “You’re late.” “On time. You’re early.” Again she laughed and broke away and handed him the bag. “About half’s there, I’ll bring the rest tomorrow.”
“Where did you leave the rest?”
“In a locker at the French Club.” Sayada Bertolin put her chador aside and was transformed. She wore a padded ski jacket and warm cashmere turtleneck sweater and tartan skirt and thick socks and high fur boots, all of it couturier. “Where are the others?” she asked.
His eyes smiled. “I sent them out.”
“Ah, love in the afternoon. When do they return?”
“Sunset.”
“Perfect. First a shower - the water’s still hot?”
