abject submission of all the generals to Khomeini and Bakhtiar’s resignation. “Asinine!” Abdollah Khan had said. He was a corpulent man in his sixties, bearded, with dark eyes and full mouth, bejeweled and richly dressed. “Why should Bakhtiar resign? He gains nothing so there’s no reason, yet.” “And if Khomeini wins?” Erikki had asked.
“It is the Will of God.” The Khan was lounging on carpets in the Great Room, Erikki and Azadeh seated in front of him, his armed bodyguard standing behind him. “But Khomeini’s victory will be only temporary, if he achieves it. The armed forces will curb him and his mullahs, sooner or later. He’s an old man. Soon he will die, the sooner the better, for though he has done God’s will and been the instrument to remove the Shah whose time had come, he’s vindictive, narrow-sighted, as megalomaniacal as the Shah, if not more so. He will surely murder more Iranians than the Shah ever did.” “But isn’t he a man of God, pious and everything an ayatollah should be?” Erikki asked warily, not knowing what to expect. “Why should Khomeini do that?”
“It’s the habit of tyrants.” The Khan laughed and took another of the halvah, the Turkish sweets he gorged on.
“And the Shah? What will happen now?” As much as Erikki disliked the Khan, he was glad for the opportunity to get his opinion. On him depended much of his and Azadeh’s life in Iran and he had no wish to leave. “As God wants. Mohammed Shah did incredibly well for Iran, like his father before him. But in the last few years he was totally curled up in himself and would listen to no one - not even the Shahbanu, Empress Farah, who was dedicated to him, and wise. If he had any sense he would abdicate at once in favor of his son Reza. The generals need a rallying point, they could train him until he’s ready to take power - don’t forget Iran’s been a monarchy for almost three thousand years, always an absolute ruler, some might say tyrant, with absolute power and removed only by death.” He had smiled, his lips full and sensuous, “Of the Qajar Shahs, our legitimate dynasty who ruled for a hundred and fifty years, only one, the last of the line, my cousin, died of natural causes. We are an Oriental people, not Western, who understand violence and torture. Life and death are not judged by your standards.” His dark eyes had seemed to grow darker. “Perhaps it is the Will of God that the Qajars will return - under their rule Iran prospered.” That’s not what I heard, Erikki had thought. But he held his peace. It’s not up to me to judge what has been or what would be here.
All Sunday the BBC and the VOA had been jammed which was not unusual. Radio Moscow was loud and clear, as usual, and Radio Free Iran that broadcast from Tbilisi north of the border also loud and clear as usual. Their reports in Farsi and English told of total insurrection against “Bakhtiar’s illegal government of the ousted Shah and his American masters, headed by the warmonger and liar President Carter. Today Bakhtiar tried to curry favor with the masses by canceling a total of $13 billion of usurious military contracts forced on the country by the deposed Shah: $8 billion in the U.S.A., British Centurion tank contracts worth $2.3 billion, plus two French nuclear reactors, and one from Germany worth another $2.7 billion. This news has sent Western leaders into panic and will undoubtedly send capitalist stock markets into a well-deserved crash…”
“Excuse me for asking, Father, but will the West crash?” Azadeh had asked. “Not this time,” the Khan had said and Erikki saw his face grow colder. “Not unless the Soviets decide this is the time to renege on the $80 billion they owe Western banks - and even some Oriental banks.” He had laughed sardonically, playing with the string of pearls he wore around his neck. “Of course Oriental moneylenders are much cleverer; at least they’re not so greedy. They lend judiciously and require collaterals and believe no one and certainly not in the myth of ‘Christian charity.’” It was common knowledge that the Gorgons owned enormous tracts of land in Azerbaijan, good oil land, a large part of Iran-Timber, seafront property on the Caspian, much of the bazaar in Tabriz, and most of the merchant banks there.
Erikki remembered the whispers he had heard about Abdollah Khan when he was trying to get permission to marry Azadeh, about his parsimony and ruthlessness in business: “A quick way to Paradise or hell is to owe Abdollah the Cruel one rial, to not pay pleading poverty, and to stay in Azerbaijan.”
“Father, please may I ask, cancellation of so many contracts will cause havoc, won’t it?”
“No, you may not ask. You’ve asked enough questions for one day. A woman is supposed to hold her tongue and listen - now you can leave.” At once she apologized for her error and left obediently. “Please excuse me.”
Erikki got up to leave too, but the Khan stopped him: “I have not dismissed you yet. Sit down. Now, why should you fear one Soviet?”
“I don’t - just the system. That man has to be KGB.”
“Why didn’t you just kill him then?”
“It would not have helped, it would have hurt. Us, the base, Iran-Timber, Azadeh, perhaps even you. He was sent to me by others. He knows us - knows you.” Erikki had watched the old man carefully.
“I know lots of them. Russians, Soviet or tsarist, have always coveted Azerbaijan, but have always been good customers of Azerbaijan - and helped us against the stinking British. I prefer them to British, I understand them.” His smile thinned even more. “It would be easy to remove this Rakoczy.”
“Good, then do it, please.” Erikki had laughed full-throated. “And all of them as well. That would really be doing God’s work.”
“I don’t agree,” the Khan said ill-temperedly. “That would be doing Satan’s work. Without the Soviets against them, the Americans and their dogs the British would dominate us and all the world. They’d certainly eat up Iran - under Mohammed Shah they nearly did. Without Soviet Russia, whatever her failings, there’d be no check on America’s foul policies, foul arrogance, foul manners, foul jeans, foul music, foul food, and foul democracy, their disgusting attitudes to women, to law and order, their disgusting pornography, naive attitude to diplomacy, and their evil, yes, that’s the correct word, their evil antagonism to Islam.”
The last thing Erikki wanted was another confrontation. In spite of his resolve, he felt his own rage gathering. “We had an agreem - ” “It’s true, by God!” Khan shouted at him. “It’s true!”
“It’s not, and we had an agreement before your God and my spirits that we’d not discuss politics - either of your world or mine.”
“It’s true, admit it!” Abdollah Khan snarled, his face twisted with rage. One hand went to the ornamental knife at his belt, and at once the guard unslung his machine pistol and covered Erikki. “By Allah, you call me a liar in my own house?” he bellowed.
Erikki said through his teeth, “I only remind you, Highness, by your Allah, what we agreed!” The dark bloodshot eyes stared at him. He stared back, ready to go for his own knife and kill or be killed, the danger between them very great.
“Yes, yes, that’s also true,” the Khan muttered, and the fit of rage passed as quickly as it had erupted. He looked at the guard, angrily waved him away. “Get out!”
Now the room was very still. Erikki knew there were other guards nearby and spyholes in the walls. He felt the sweat on his forehead and the touch of his pukoh knife in the center of his back. Abdollah Khan knew the knife was there and that Erikki would use it without hesitation. But the Khan had given him perpetual permission to be armed with it in his presence. Two years ago Erikki had saved his life. That was the day Erikki was petitioning him for permission to marry Azadeh and was imperiously turned down: “No, by Allah, I want no infidels in my family. Leave my house! For the last time!” Erikki had got up from the carpet, sick at heart. At that moment there had been a scuffle outside the door, then shots, the door had burst open and two men, assassins armed with machine guns, had rushed in, others fighting a gun battle in the corridor. The Khan’s bodyguard had killed one, but the other sprayed him with bullets then turned his gun on Abdollah Khan who sat on the carpet in shock. Before the assassin could pull the trigger a second time, he died, Erikki’s knife in his throat. At the same moment Erikki lunged for him, ripped the gun out of his hands and the knife out of his throat as another assassin rushed into the room firing. Erikki had smashed the machine gun into the man’s face, killing him, almost tearing off his head with the strength of his blow, then charged into the corridor berserk. Three attackers and two of the bodyguards were dead or dying. The last of the attackers took to their heels, but Erikki cut them both down and raced onward. And only when he had found Azadeh and saw that she was safe did the bloodlust go out of his head and he become calm again.
Erikki remembered how he had left her and had gone back to the same Great Room. Abdollah Khan still sat on the carpets. “Who were those men?” “Assassins - enemies, like the guards who let them in,” Abdollah Khan had said malevolently. “It was the Will of God you were here to save my life, the Will of God that I am alive. You may marry Azadeh, yes, but because I do not like you, we will both swear before God and your - whatever you worship - not to discuss religion or politics, either of your world or mine, then perhaps I will not have to have you killed.”
And now the same cold black eyes were staring at him. Abdollah Khan clapped his hands. Instantly the door opened and a servant appeared. “Bring coffee!” The man hurried away. “I will drop the subject of your world and go to another we can discuss: my daughter, Azadeh.”
