“Will your son think I’m too young to play with?”
“No. No,” said Frank. “I think you’ll get along just fine.”
“What is your son’s name?”
“Jake,” said Frank. “His name is Jake.”
* * *
“You’re wonderful with children,” said Mina, coming back into the room. It had taken some insistence on Anwar’s part to get her to take the children upstairs. “Your son must miss you.”
“I’m afraid he doesn’t get to spend much time with me.” He glanced at Anwar. “I guess men are out of the picture too often.”
“Of course,” said Mina. “You leave civilization to women. Such barbarians.”
“We aren’t all that bad,” said Anwar.
“Poof. If it weren’t for women, there’d be no society, no culture. Not even families. Just war and religion. Especially here. At least in America our children would have a better chance to grow up civilized. But I worry about Mina. She was born here. Does that make her an Iranian?”
“It may,” said Frank. “But she has an American mother. That makes her an American. You should run it through the embassy. Get her an American passport.”
“I’ve already done that,” said Mina.
I should have known, thought Frank.
“Then you won’t have any problem,” said Mina. “Getting us all to America?”
I’m being played, thought Frank. He smiled. And I’m enjoying it.
“Anwar told me you’ve lived in many countries. So I had cook prepare some specially Persian things. He wanted to cook American, but he followed my orders. I hope you don’t mind?”
“I can always cook American for myself,” said Frank, but his expectations sank when Hamid entered the room. Frank thought of the invariably sodden
chelakebab
and stale snacks he served at Supreme Commander’s Headquarters.
“You recognize him?” said Anwar.
Frank nodded.
“Don’t worry. He does what he has to do at work. Hamid cannot read or write, but he speaks and cooks in several languages. Isn’t that so?”
Hamid nodded and began serving. They remained semicircled around the coffee table, ignoring the large oval dining room table behind them. Hamid set out individual plates of salad greens decorated with radishes cut like roses and miniature carrots spread like a fan, separate bowls of yogurt, and a tray they shared containing mint, leeks, basil, and other herbs Frank could not identify. To Frank’s regret, Hamid removed the caviar, but only as far as the dinning room table, which he used as a serving stand.
Still silent, Hamid left them.
“I hope you enjoy,” said Mina.
“I am. It all looks much better than what Hamid serves us at work.”
“Yes, Hamid,” said Anwar. “I notice your friend Commander Simpson talks to him.”
“Maybe he’s trying to negotiate something better for lunch,” said Frank.
“You should warn Commander Simpson to be cautious with Hamid,” said Anwar.
“Really?”
“As I told you and Commander Simpson, Hamid reports to
Savak
. He watches over us all during the day, because we are military officers, and, since Mina’s family are Baha’i, he watches us in the evening, but not for
Savak
. In the evening he works for J2, military intelligence. I understand Mossad and the GRU have also tried to recruit him. I’m surprised you haven’t.”
“I had no idea,” said Frank. “What are his languages?”
“Farsi, Arabic, French, English, of course, and, interestingly enough, Russian.”
“Oh?” Frank wondered if Gus knew that Hamid spoke Russian.
“He also speaks Kurdish,” said Mina. “I’ve heard him with some of the other servants.”
“He’s an Azari,” said Anwar. “Originally from a poor area somewhere between Baku in Soviet Azerbaijan and Tabriz.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Frank, smiling. “Maybe we should recruit him.” He watched as Anwar and Mina glanced at each other.
“You could do better,” said Mina.
Hamid returned. He placed a huge tray on the table behind them. He cleared the salad and served plates of green rice, laced with mint, basil, onions, and leeks from a steaming earthenware pot. He added to each plate slabs of fried chicken and onions, then placed on their crowded table two bowls of a stewlike sauce, which Mina identified as
khoreshe
. Both involved lamb, one with eggplant and tomatoes; the other with tomatoes, onions, and what Frank took to be chickpeas.
“It has pleased me,” said Hamid, bowing, “to have prepared for you in the Persian style this humble meal. Enjoy, with God’s blessing.”
“Inshallah,”
said Anwar.
“Inshallah,”
echoed Mina.
“Thank you,” said Frank.
They ate with just their hands and the thin, pancakelike bread to wrap their food.
“I hate to tell you,” said Mina, “but there’s more. A saffron rice that’s very special. Hamid will be very disappointed if we don’t gorge ourselves on it.”
“Save some room for the apple pie,” said Frank.
“I will,” said Anwar.
Hamid, possibly calling on his knowledge of Kurdistan, made coffee in the Turkish style, but, at Frank’s request, his came without sugar. Hamid had warmed the apple pie.
When Hamid had left them, Anwar said, “This is wonderful.” He took another forkful. “You really do know how to corrupt a man, don’t you?”
“It’s a great American tradition.”
“Khomeini is right. You are the Great Satan.”
“Official America doesn’t believe in God or Khomeini,” said Frank. “All we worry about is the Soviets.”
“Don’t you know anything about the history of this part of the world?” said Mina sharply. “Long before Soviets, Russia has always wanted this part of the world. It doesn’t matter if they call themselves Soviets or czarists. Iran, Afghanistan, a gateway to the subcontinent, warm-water seaports, all the way back, at least to…” Her flash of anger had taken him by surprise. “… to Catherine the Great.”
“Catherine the Great Satan,” said Frank.
“Exactly,” said Anwar. “And it’s a great pity, the way we have turned against America.”
“It’s true,” said Mina. “You were loved here, more than any other foreigners. For a while.”
“You will think we are fickle,” said Anwar. “But after World War II, when the Russians occupied us in the north, you forced them out, and you forced the British in the south to give up their control of our oil. You freed us from the two colonial powers who had fought over us for more than a hundred years, and, for a time at least, you were loved for it.”
“What happened?”
“1953,” said Mina.
Frank nodded. He knew enough of Iran’s history to recognize the date of the coup that toppled the government of Mohammed Mosaddeq, the prime minister who had attempted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry.
“Do you know the name of the street you follow most of the way when you go to the palace?” asked Anwar.
“Pahlavi?”
“That is its name just now. And you know what that name signifies?”
“The Shah,” said Frank. “The Shah’s family name.”
“The name the Shah’s father chose when he made himself Shah. Till then, he had been Reza Khan. Pahlavi was an ancient Iranian language. Before Farsi. Before Persia. Before Islam. Reza Khan made people stop calling our country Persia. He wanted to go back to Aryan times and said we must be called Iran. He was much influenced by Ataturk, who back then had turned Turkey into the secular state it is today. Reza Khan gave freedom to women and tried to forbid them to wear the chador. He wanted men to give up their prayer caps and wear fedoras like a European. Can you imagine a man like Munair wearing a fedora?”
“No,” said Frank. He couldn’t suppress a grin. “I guess I can’t.”
“As I told you before, that’s why he has that knot on his forehead. From touching his head to the tiles of the mosque when he prays to Mecca. He couldn’t do that wearing a hat with a brim.”
“Today, no one wears fedoras,” said Mina. “Not even Americans. But here women have to wear the chador or be stoned. The Shah’s father did away with that fifty years ago.”
“But it wasn’t just about funny hats and chadors,” said Anwar. “Reza Khan was also much impressed by what he considered his Aryan brothers, the Germans, because the Germans fought our enemies, the British and the Russians. That’s why England and Russia invaded us in 1941 and replaced Reza Khan with his son, who has been Shah ever since.”
“What Anwar means to be telling you,” said Mina, sharply, “is that the street, Pahlavi, used to be called Mosaddeq.”
“You must forgive me,” said Anwar. “Sometimes I get carried away by our history.”
“Major Sullivan, Great Satan,” said Mina, suddenly very soft and feminine again. “Can you take us to America?”
“Me?”
“No, I was asking Mohammed Mosaddeq.” Again, anger flashed, but now only in her eyes. Her voice remained gentle.
“Why do you want to go to America?”
“So I can be a woman.” She said it softly, eyes on her plate. She raised her eyes to his. “So I can be me. Without a
chador
.”
“Anwar?”
“I don’t want to be a woman. Or wear a fedora. But I would like to be myself.”
“You can’t here?”
“No.” They said it together.
“Where would you go? What would you do?”
“I have friends in Texas,” said Anwar. “Mina has relatives, her parents and many relatives, in Los Angeles.”
“No,” said Mina. “We should go to Washington. Texas is too much like—not enough like Paris or London or Rome or New York. And Los Angeles, I don’t want to be surrounded by my family. Anwar can be a consultant in Washington. Washington needs people like him who understand the Iranian military and speak Farsi. And me, little Mina, I want to go to Washington and work for CIA.”
“Say what?”
“You heard what I said. I’m an American, so I could work for CIA. And America needs people like me and Anwar.”
“That’s true,” said Frank, “but I’m not sure America knows that. And I have a hunch Iran needs people like you and Anwar even more than America does.”
“I don’t care,” said Mina. Her thin features contracted, lips not pouting but pursed; her sparkling eyes darkled and narrowed. “I want to be American, and I want to be beautiful. And I want everyone to know it.”
“You are,” said Anwar. “You are already American and very beautiful.”
And you must be a very tough woman to live with, thought Frank.
“No,” said Mina. “Not here. I am too hard, too harsh. Too harassed.” It was another of her odd inflections. She pronounced it “hair-assed.” “Too shrouded. In America I could be happy.” Her eyes melted toward Anwar. “In America I always could be beautiful for you.”
* * *
Frank saw that Anwar was tiring. He wanted to get home, but he also hoped to outlast the indefatigable Mina. He did not. But finally, Anwar sent Mina off to bed. “Wait up for me,” he said, “I want to have a word alone with Frank.”
Mina obeyed. She might be American, but, as Anwar said, she was not an American wife.
“Speak to Hamid before you leave,” said Mina. “He has some caviar for you to take home. Good night.”
They watched her leave, and Anwar closed the double doors that led to the hallway. He went to a stereo system and put on, to Frank’s amazement, a Billie Holiday tape. “I’m pullin’ through and it’s because of you…”
Anwar sat so close to Frank at the coffee table that their knees touched. “I have tried to help you as much as I can. Can you help us?”
“You should talk to my friend Gus. He has more knowledge of these things than I do.”
“Can he help us?”
“I don’t know. You’ve been so helpful to us here that, to tell you the truth, the Americans might do more to help you if you stayed here.”
“Help us how?”
“Arrangements can be made.”
“The only arrangement that could help us is an arrangement that would get us to America, help us to find a way there. Earn a living. Get our children into school.”
“Other arrangements can be made.”
“Here? What arrangements? Money? My wife’s family is extremely wealthy and more generous than your friends are likely to be. Prestige? What can you do to further the career of a military officer under the Shah when the Ayatollah rules?”
“Will you talk to Gus?”
“Of course. I talk to Gus every day. I like him. But I want to talk to you, and Mina and I want to go to America.”
“To tell you the truth, so do I. But I have an assignment here.”
“I wonder about you,” said Anwar. “Munair may be right about you.”
“That’s another reason why you’re so valuable here,” said Frank. “Because you’re smart enough to wonder.”
“I have something for you. Something from Munair.”
“Oh?”
Anwar crossed to the stereo system. He waited till Billie Holiday finished the last chorus of “Strange Fruit,” then ejected the tape and replaced it with another cassette. The tape sputtered, then Frank recognized the familiar, raspy voice.
“It is very old,” said Anwar. “Munair planned to play it for you himself, and explain it, as a test. But you already failed the test. My cousin has played other tapes for you, but not so old.”
“Tell me what he says.”
“No need.” Anwar retrieved a manila envelope that sat on one of the stereo’s speakers. “Here. In his painstaking way, Munair translated it for you. You can read later. It dates from 1967, from Iraq, where Khomeini settled after being exiled for opposing the Status of Forces Treaty the Shah signed with the Americans. Do you know about these things?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Frank.
“To be truthful, neither did I. Our schools and government do not educate us about such parts of our history, but Khomeini does.”
“He sounds very angry,” said Frank, nodding toward the voice that trebled from the speakers.
“Yes. He had much to be angry about. Here, for example, he attacks the man who was then premier, Abbas Hoveida, for extorting money from the merchants of the bazaar to help pay for the Shah’s coronation on his fortieth birthday.”
“The same Hoveida who was arrested last week?”
“The same,” said Anwar. “Listen. Here Khomeini attacks what you call the Status of Forces Treaty. Khomeini had been in and out of prison several times for protesting against the Shah and his corrupt government—but it was because of this, his attack on the Americans, that he was exiled for good in 1964, put on a plane for Turkey. A year later he managed to get to Najaf, a Shi’a holy city in Iraq, where he made this tape.