"never, never been in the middle of a nightmare like that, charlie," nogger lane continued shakily. "troops were all as young as the mobs and they all seemed scared shitless, too much to take night after night, mobs screaming and throwing stones... a molotov cocktail caught a soldier in the face and he burst into flames, screaming through the flames with no... and then those bastards cornered us and started manhandling paula, trying to get at her, pawing her, tearing at her clothes. i went a bit mad myself and got hold of one bastard and smashed his face in, i know i hurt him because his nose went into his head and if it hadn't been for this mullah..."
"take it easy, laddie," pettikin said worriedly, but the youth paid no attention and rushed onward.
"... if it hadn't been for this mullah who pulled me off i'd've gone on smashing until that bugger was pulp; i wanted to claw out his eyes, jesus christ, i tried to, i know i did... jesus christ, i've never killed anything with my hands, never wanted to until tonight but i did and would have..." his hands were trembling as he brushed his fair hair out of his eyes, his voice edged now and rising. "those bastards, they had no right to touch us but they were grabbing paula and... and..." the tears began gushing, his mouth worked but no words came out, a fleck of foam was at the corners of his lips, "and... and... kill... i wanted to killlll "
abruptly pettikin leaned over and belted the young man backhanded across the face, knocking him spread-eagled on the sofa. the others almost leaped out of themselves at the suddenness. lane was momentarily stunned, then he groped to his feet to hurl himself at his attacker.
"hold it, nogger!" pettikin roared. the command stopped the youth in his tracks. he stared at the older man stupidly, fists bunched. "what the bloody
hell'sthematterwithyou, youdamn near broke my bloodyjaw," he said furiously. but the tears had stopped and his eyes were clean again. "eh?"
"sorry, lad, but you were going, flipping, i've seen it ace "
"the bloody hell i was," lane said menacingly, his senses back, but it took them time to explain and to calm him and calm her. her name was paula giancani, a tall girl, a stewardess from an alitalia flight.
"paula, dear, you'd better stay here tonight," genny said. "it's past curfew. you understand?"
"yes, understand. yes, i speak english, i th "
"come along, i'll lend you some things. nogger, you take the sofa."
later genny and mciver were still awake, tired but not sleepy, gunfire somewhere in the night, chanting somewhere in the night. "like some tea, duncan?"
"good idea." he got up with her. "oh, damnit, i forgot." he went over to the bureau and found the little box, badly wrapped. "happy anniversary. it's not much, just a bracelet i got in the bazaar."
"oh, thank you, duncan." as she unwrapped it she told him about the haggis.
"what a bugger! never mind. next year we'll have it in scotland."
the bracelet was rough amethysts set in silver. "oh, it's so pretty, just what i wanted. thank you, darling."
"you too, gen." he put his arm around her and kissed her absently.
she didn't mind about the kiss. most kisses nowadays, hers as well, were just affectionate, like patting a beloved dog. "what's troubling you, dear?"
"everything's fine."
she knew him too well. "what that i don't know yet?"
"it's getting hairier and hairier. every hour on the hour. when you were out of the room with paula, nogger told us they'd come from the airport. her alitalia flight it'd been chartered by the italian government to evacuate their nationals and had been grounded for two days had got clearance to leave at midday, so he'd gone to see her off. of course takeoff was delayed and delayed, as usual, then just before dusk the flight was grounded again, the whole airport closed down, and everyone was told to leave. all iranian staff just vanished. then almost immediately a group of heavily armed, and he meant heavily armed revolutionaries, started spreading out all over the place. most of 'em were wearing green armbands, but some had iplo on them, gen, the first nogger'd seen. 'iranian palestine liberation organization."'
"oh, my god," she said, "then it's true that the plo's helping khomeini?"
"yes, and if they're helping, it's a different game, civil war's just started, and we're in the bloody middle."
at tabriz one: 11:05 p.m. erikki yokkonen was naked, lying in the sauna that he had constructed with his own hands, the temperature 107 degrees fahrenheit, the sweat pouring off him, his wife azadeh nearby, also lulled by the heat. tonight had been grand with lots of food and two bottles of the best russian vodka that he had purchased black market in tabriz and had shared with his two english mechanics, and their station manager, ali dayati. "now we'll have sauna," he had said to them just before midnight. but they had declined, as usual, with hardly enough strength to reel off to their own cabins. "come on, azadeh!"
"not tonight, please, erikki," she had said, but he had just laughed and lifted her in his great arms, wrapped her fur coat around her clothes, and carried her through the front door of their cabin, out past the pine trees heavy with snow, the air just below freezing. she was easy to carry, and he went into the little hut that abutted the back of their cabin, into the warmth of the changing area and then, unclothed, into the sauna itself. and now they lay there, erikki at ease, azadeh, even after a year of marriage, still not quite used to the nightly ritual.
he lay on one arm and looked at her. she was lying on a thick towel on the bench opposite. her eyes were closed and he saw her breast rising and falling and the beauty of her raven hair, chiseled aryan features, lovely body, and milky skin and as always he was filled with the wonder of her, so small against his six foot four.
gods of my ancestors, thank you for giving me such a woman, he thought. for a moment he could not remember which language he was thinking in. he was quadrilingual, finnish, swedish, russian, and english. what does it matter? he told himself, giving himself back to the heat, letting his mind waft with the steam that rose from the stones he had laid so carefully. it satisfied him greatly that he had built his sauna himself as a man should hewing the logs as his ancestors had done for centuries.
this was the first thing he had done when he was posted here four years ago to select and fell the trees. the others had thought him crazy. he had shrugged good-naturedly. "without a sauna life's nothing. first you build the sauna, then the house; without sauna a house is not a house; you english, you know nothing not about life." he had been tempted to tell them that he had been born in a sauna, like many finns and why not, how sensible when you think of it, the warmest place in the home, the cleanest, quietest, most revered. he had never told them, only azadeh. she had understood. ah, yes, he thought, greatly content, she understands everything.
outside, the threshold of the forest was silent, the night sky cloudless, the stars very bright, snow deadening sound. half a mile away was the only road through the mountains. the road meandered northwest to tabriz, ten miles away, thence northward to the soviet border a few miles farther on. southeast it curled away over the mountains, at length to tehran, three hundred and fifty miles away.
the base, tabriz one, was home for two pilots the other was on leave in england two english mechanics, the rest iranians: two cooks, eight day laborers, the radio op. and the station manager. over the hill was their village of abu mard and, in the valley below, the wood-pulp factory belonging to the forestry monopoly, iran-timber, they serviced under contract. the 212 took loggers and equipment into the forests, helped build camps and plan the few roads that could be built, then serviced the camps with replacement crews and equipment and flew the injured out. for most of the landlocked camps the 212 was their only link with the outside, and the pilots were venerated. erikki loved the life and the land, so much like finland that sometimes he would dream he was home again.
his sauna made it perfect. the tiny, two-room hut at the back of their cabin was screened from the other cabins, and built traditionally with lichen between the logs for insulation, the wood fire that heated the stones well ventilated.
some of the stones, the top layer, he had brought from finland. his grandfather had fished them from the bottom of a lake, where all the best sauna stones come from, and had given them to him on his last home leave eighteen months ago. "take them, my son, and with them surely there'll go a good finnish sauna tonto" the little brown elf that is the spirit of the sauna "though what you want to marry one of those foreigners for and not your own kind, i really don't know. "
"when you see her, grandfather, you'll worship her also. she has bluegreen eyes and dark dark hair an "
"if she gives you many sons well, we'll see. it's certainly long past the time you should be married, a fine man like you, but a foreigner? you say she's a schoolteacher?"
"she's a member of iran's teaching corps, they're young people, men and women, volunteers as a service to the state, who go to villages and teach villagers and children how to read and write, but mostly the children. the shah and the empress started the corps a few years ago, and azadeh joined when she was twenty-one. she comes from tabriz where i work, teaches in our village in a makeshift school and i met her seven months and three days ago. she was twenty-four then..."
erikki glowed, remembering the first time he ever saw her, neat in her uniform, her hair cascading, sitting in a forest glade surrounded by children, then her smiling up at him, seeing the wonder in her eyes at his size, knowing at once that this was the woman he had waited his life to find. he was thirty-six then. ah, he thought, watching her lazily, once more blessing the forest tonto spirit that had guided him to that part of the forest. only three more months then two whole months of leave. it will be good to be able to show her suomi finland.
"it's time, azadeh, darling," he said.
"no, erikki, not yet, not yet," she said half asleep, drowsed by the heat but not by alcohol, for she did not drink. "please, erikki, not y "
"too much heat isn't good for you," he said firmly. they always spoke english together, though she was also fluent in russian her mother was half georgian, coming from the border area where it was useful and wise to be bilingual. also she spoke turkish, the language most used in this part of iran, azerbaijan, and of course farsi. apart from a few words, he spoke no farsi or turkish. he sat up and wiped the sweat off, at peace with the world, then leaned over and kissed her. she kissed him back and trembled as his hands sought her and hers sought him back. "you're a bad man, erikki," she said, then stretched gloriously.
"ready?"
"yes." she clung to him as he lifted her so easily into his arms, then walked
out of the sauna into the changing area, then opened the door and went outside into the freezing air. she gasped as the cold hit her and hung on as he scooped up some snow and rubbed it over her, making her flesh tingle and burn but not painfully. in seconds she was glowing within and without. it had taken her a whole winter to get used to the snow bath after the heat. now, without it, the sauna was incomplete. quickly she did the same for him, then rushed happily back into the warm again, leaving him to roll and thrash in the snow for a few seconds. he did not notice the group of men and the mullah standing in a shocked group up the rise, half hidden under the trees beside the path, fifty yards away. just as he was closing the door he saw them. fury rushed through him. he slammed the door.
"some villagers are out there. they must have been watching us. everyone knows this is off limits!" she was equally enraged and they dressed hurriedly. he pulled on his fur boots and heavy sweater and pants and grabbed the huge ax and rushed out. the men were still there and he charged them with a roar, his ax on high. they scattered as he whirled at them, then one of them raised the machine gun and let off a burst into the air that echoed off the mountainside. erikki skidded to a halt, his rage obliterated. never before had he been threatened with guns, or had one levered at his stomach.
"put ax down," the man said in halting english, "or i kill you."
erikki hesitated. at that moment azadeh came charging between them and knocked the gun away and began shouting in turkish: "how dare you come here! how dare you have guns what are you, bandits? this is our land get off our land or i'll have you put in jail!" she had wrapped her heavy fur coat over her dress but was shaking with rage.
"this is the land of the people," the mullah said sullenly, keeping out of range. "cover your hair, woman, cover y "
"who're you, mullah? you're not of my village! who are you?"
"i'm mahmud, mullah of the hajsta mosque in tabriz. i'm not one of your lackeys," he said angrily and jumped aside as erikki lunged at him. the man with the gun was off balance but another man, safely away, cocked his rifle: "by god and the prophet, stop the foreign pig or i'll blow you both to the hell you deserve!"
"erikki, wait! leave these dogs to me!" azadeh called out in english, then shouted at them, "what do you want here? this is our land, the land of my father abdollah khan, khan of the gorgons, kin to the qajars who've ruled here for centuries." her eyes had adjusted to the darkness now and she peered at them. there were ten of them, all young men, all armed, all strangers, all except one, the kalarldar chief of their village. "kalandar, how dare you come here!"