Whirlwind Read online

  “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 blue-green 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 leveled at his stomach.

  “Put ax down,” the man said in halting English, “or I kill you.”

  Eri
kki 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 kalandar—chief—of their village. “Kalandar, how dare you come here!”

  “I’m sorry, Highness,” he said apologetically, “but the mullah said I was to lead him here by this trail and not by the main path and so—”

  “What do you want, parasite?” she said, turning on the mullah.

  “Show respect, woman,” the mullah said even more angrily. “Soon we’ll be in command. The Koran has laws for nakedness and loose living: stoning and the lash.”

  “The Koran has laws for trespass and bandits and threatening peaceful people, and rebellion against their chiefs and liege lords. I’m not one of your frightened illiterates! I know you for what you are and what you’ve always been, the parasites of the villages and the people. What do you want?”

  From the base, people were hurrying up with flashlights. At their head were the two bleary-eyed mechanics, Dibble and Arberry, with Ali Dayati carefully in tow. All were sleep ruffled, hastily dressed, and anxious. “What’s going on?” Dayati demanded, thick glasses on his nose, peering at them. His family had been protected by and had served the Gorgon Khans for years.

  “These dogs,” Azadeh began hotly, “came out of the nigh—”

  “Hold your tongue, woman,” the mullah said angrily, then turned on Dayati. “Who’re you?”

  When Dayati saw the man was a mullah, his demeanor changed and at once he became deferential. “I’m… I’m Iran-Timber’s manager here, Excellency. What’s the matter, please, what can I do for you?”

  “The helicopter. At dawn I want it for a flight around the camps.”

  “I’m sorry, Excellency, the machine is in pieces for an overhaul. It’s the foreigner’s policy an—”

  Azadeh interrupted angrily, “Mullah, by what right do you dare to come here in the middle of the night to—”

  “Imam Khomeini has issued ord—”

  “Imam?” she echoed, shocked. “By what right do you call Ayatollah Khomeini that?”

  “He is Imam. He has issued orders an—”

  “Where does it say in the Koran or the Sharia that an ayatollah can claim to be Imam, can order one of the Faithful? Where does it sa—”

  “Aren’t you Shi’ite?” the mullah asked, enraged, conscious of his followers listening silently.

  “Yes, I’m Shi’ite, but not an illiterate fool, mullah!” The way she used the word it was a curse. “Answer!”

  “Please, Highness,” Dayati said, pleading with her. “Please leave this to me, please, I beg you.”

  But she began to rage and the mullah to rage back, and the others joined in, the mood becoming ugly, until Erikki raised his ax and let out a bellow of rage, infuriated that he could not understand what was being said. The silence was sudden, then another man cocked his machine pistol.

  “What’s this bastard want, Azadeh?” Erikki said.

  She told him.

  “Dayati, tell him he can’t have my 212 and to get off our land now or I’ll send for the police.”

  “Please, Captain, please allow me to deal with it, Captain,” Dayati said, sweating with anxiety, before Azadeh could interrupt. “Please, Highness, please leave now.” Then turned to the two mechanics. “It’s all right, you can go back to bed. I’ll deal with it.”

  It was then that Erikki noticed Azadeh was still barefoot. He scooped her up into his arms. “Dayati, you tell that matyeryebyets and all of them if they come here again at night I’ll break their necks—and if he or anyone touches one hair of my woman’s head I’ll crawl into hell after him if need be.” He went off, massive in his rage, the two mechanics following.

  A voice in Russian stopped him. “Captain Yokkonen, perhaps I could have a word with you in a moment?”

  Erikki looked back. Azadeh, still in his arms, was tense. The man stood at the back of the pack, difficult to see, seemingly not very different from the others, wearing a nondescript parka. “Yes,” Erikki told him in Russian, “but don’t bring a gun into my house, or a knife.” He stalked off.

  The mullah went closer to Dayati, his eyes stony. “What did the foreign devil say, eh?”

  “He was rude, all foreigners are rude, Her High—the woman was rude too.”

  The mullah spat in the snow. “The Prophet set laws and punishments against such conduct, the People have laws against hereditary wealth and stealing lands, the land belongs to the People. Soon correct laws and punishments will govern us all, at long last, and Iran will be at peace.” He turned to the others. “Naked in the snow! Flaunting herself in the open against all the laws of modesty. Harlot! What are the Gorgons but lackeys of the traitor Shah and his dog Bakhtiar, eh?” His eyes went back to Dayati. “What lies are you telling about the helicopter?”

  Trying to hide his fear, Dayati said at once that the fifteen-hundred-hour check was according to foreign regulations imposed upon him and the aircraft and further ordered by the Shah and the government.

  “Illegal government,” the mullah interrupted.

  “Of course, of course illegal,” Dayati agreed at once and nervously led them into the hangar and lit the lights—the base had its own small generating system and was self-contained. The engines of the 212 were laid out neatly, piece by piece, in regimented lines. “It’s nothing to do with me, Excellency, the foreigners do what they like.” Then he added quickly, “And although we all know Iran-Timber belongs to the people, the Shah took all the money. I’ve no authority over them, foreign devils or their regulations. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “When will it be airworthy?” the Russian-speaking man asked in perfect Turkish.

  “The mechanics promise two days,” Dayati said and prayed silently, very afraid, though he tried hard not to show it. It was clear to him now that these men were leftist mujhadin believers in the Soviet-sponsored theory that Islam and Marx were compatible. “It’s in the Hands of God. Two days; the foreign mechanics are waiting for some spares that’re overdue.”

  “What are they?”

  Nervously he told him. They were some minor parts and a tail rotor blade.

  “How many hours do you have on the rotor blade?”

  Dayati checked the logbook, his fingers trembling. “One thousand seventy-three.”

  “God is with us,” the man said, then turned to the mullah. “We could safely use the old one for fifty hours at least.”

  “But the life of the blade…the airworthy certificate’s invalidated,” Dayati said without thinking. “The pilot wouldn’t fly because air regulations requi—”

  “Satan’s regulations.”

  “True,” the Russian speaker interrupted, “some of them. But laws for safety are important to the People, and even more important, God laid down rules in the Koran for camels and horses and how to care for them, and these rules can apply equally to airplanes which also are the gif
t of God and also carry us to do God’s work. We must therefore care for them correctly. Don’t you agree, Mahmud?”

  “Of course,” the mullah said impatiently and his eyes bore into Dayati who began to tremble. “I will return in two days, at dawn. Let the helicopter be ready and the pilot ready to do God’s work for the People. I will visit every camp in the mountains. Are there other women here?”

  “Just…just two wives of the laborers and…my wife.”

  “Do they wear chador and veil?”

  “Of course,” Dayati lied instantly. To wear the veil was against the law of Iran. Reza Shah had outlawed the veil in 1936, made the chador a matter of choice and Mohammed Shah had further enfranchised women in ’64.

  “Good. Remind them God and the People watch, even in the foreigner’s vile domain.” Mahmud turned on his heel and stomped off, the others going with him.

  When he was alone, Dayati wiped his brow, thankful that he was one of the Faithful and that now his wife would wear the chador, would be obedient, and act as his mother acted with modesty and not wear jeans like Her Highness. What did the mullah call her to her face? God protect him if Abdollah Khan hears about it…even though, of course, the mullah’s right, and of course Khomeini’s right, God protect him.

  IN ERIKKI’S CABIN: 11:23 P.M. The two men sat at the table opposite each other in the main room of the cabin. When the man had knocked on the door, Erikki had told Azadeh to go into the bedroom but he had left the inner door open so that she could hear. He had given her the rifle that he used for hunting. “Use it without fear. If he comes into the bedroom, I am already dead,” he had said, his pukoh knife sheathed under his belt in the center of his back. The pukoh knife was a haft knife and the weapon of all Finns. It was considered unlucky—and dangerous—for a man not to carry one. In Finland it was against the law to wear one openly—that might be considered a challenge. But everyone carried one, and always in the mountains. Erikki Yokkonen’s matched his size.