“Oh, you’re a fine one to talk, ya big . . . skinny . . . procrastinator!” Now that it had become glaringly obvious I was out of good insults
and
a hypocrite — because all I wanted to do was put off dealing with this anguished, crazed woman — I gave up and joined the let’s-save-Zarsa team.
I stepped forward, holding up my hands slowly so Zarsa could see that . . . whoops. Still armed. I gave Asha my weapons. “Don’t lose those,” I ordered. “They’re not mine. And translate fast. All she has to do is pull that candle four inches toward her and we’re going to be scrambling for the fire extinguishers.”
“You are not a student,” she said flatly, taking in my blades, my state of dress and, I supposed, the trail of blood leading from my neck to the apple-sized blotch on my chest. “I felt it when I touched you. You are —”
“A student as far as anyone needs to know,” I replied firmly, my eyes telling her to keep my damn secrets as I touched my throat warily. I looked at my fingers. Fairly clean. Well, at least I’d stopped bleeding. We should celebrate. With cake. But no candles, thank you very much. “So, you’re looking like hell,” I said. “Is this the new Iranian spring fashion I’ve been hearing so much about? Little bit of a you-suck to the government for their ridiculous women’s apparel crackdown?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, Zarsa. Talk to me. I’m not here to stop you.”
Liar!
“I just want to know why.”
She leaned against the wall behind her, one hand braced to help her legs hold her upright. “I can hardly breathe,” she said, her eyes suddenly hidden behind a veil of tears. “My husband. My children. I know I should be happy to have them. I am a blessed woman. But that is why my soul weeps. To love so deeply, with every atom of your being, is to know what they can lose. To realize how horror awaits them around every corner now that my last hope is gone.” Her smile reminded me so much of Vayl’s twitchy-twitch I had to suppress a shudder.
“But, I thought you had new hope after we talked last night. Remember? About the Amanha Szeya?”
“I did,” she said. “Until I dreamed of him.”
Uh-oh.
“What, uh, what happened in your dream?”
“The same atrocities I described to you yesterday. All of them under the unwavering gaze of the Amanha Szeya. He alone can change nothing for me and my people.” She jammed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “And now I see the visions constantly. Everywhere I look it is as if the killings have already begun. Even you” — she pinned me with her desperate stare — “seem little better than a walking corpse to me.”
Now I understood the immensity of her pain. And her problem. With Vayl a no-deal and Asha unable to weight the balance, she had no place left to turn. So her desperation loomed, taking all the air out of the room, all the hope out of her heart.
For a second I couldn’t imagine how to help this woman. But I figured she’d already come up against a brick wall. She didn’t need any company in the helpless/hopeless department. So I said, “Zarsa.” I waited for her eyes to clear. For her attention to center. Knew that anything I said might not mean squat if she’d truly counted down to self-destruct. “Your original vision. What makes you think it was wrong?”
“I . . . there was a man. I thought Vayl . . . ”
“So you weren’t sure who would partner with you in this rise to power?”
“I didn’t see him clearly. That is, Soheil was with me, but there was another.”
“So you got greedy. Decided now’s the time when maybe you should have waited a week. A year. Until the right person came along. Whoever that was.”
“There
is
no right person!” Zarsa insisted hysterically, the candle shaking so badly I was afraid she’d drop it on herself accidentally.
“Seriously? You haven’t heard of anybody that open-minded Iranians like you and Soheil look up to? Some sort of underground ass-kicker who knows how to get people stirred up without resorting to blowing up shoppers and schoolchildren —”
“FarjAd Daei,” she whispered.
That name. Where had I heard it before? I had to hammer at my memory banks for a second before it came to me. The young woman who’d been hanged. She’d cried it out just before they’d executed her. “Who is he?” I asked.
“I have only heard rumors. He speaks in common places. Markets. Tea houses. He talks of peace. Of treating women as partners, not cattle. Changing our minds. Changing our times.”
“Yes!” said Asha, finally finding the courage to speak for the first time. “I overheard two men who were planning to go and hear him tonight. He’s speaking at the Oasis.”
I grabbed Asha’s arm. “Where?”
When he’d repeated the name back to me twice, I knew there was no mistake. “Do either of you know what he looks like?” I asked, digging the picture out of my pocket that I’d carried since our initial briefing.
Zarsa shook her head, but Asha nodded. “I have seen him. And heard him. That is why I was so interested in tonight’s talk. He is a teller of stories, you know.”
“You mean a liar?”
