Whirlwind Read online

  They all stared after him dismayed. Lochart felt sad for all those who had found the oil and developed the field and put so much energy, money, talent, gamble, and risk into it. Scandalous, he thought, but we’ve no option. Nothing else to do. We evacuate. I cancel Scot leaving and use all airplanes and do the job. We work like hell for five days and forget Tehran and Sharazad and that today’s the day of the Protest March she’s forbidden.

  “Kalandar,” he said. “Without your benevolence, and assistance, we must leave.”

  Nitchak Khan saw all the eyes turn to him. “I have to choose between the base and my village,” he said gravely. “That is no choice. I will try to find the terrorists and bring them to justice. Meanwhile, best that you take no chances. These hills are full of hiding places.”

  With great dignity he got up and walked out, quite sure that now he would not have to burn the base, though, if God wanted, he knew he would do it without a moment’s hesitation, whether it be full or empty.

  He allowed himself the shadow of a smile. His plan had worked impeccably. All the foreigners had accepted Hassan the Goatherd as a genuine Green Band whose pretended arrogance and temper were marvelous to see; the foreigners had swallowed his fabrication about “terrorists” murdering a shepherd and he had seen their fear; these same “terrorists” had mutilated the oil rig, the most difficult to reach of all eleven and, in the black hours tonight, these same “terrorists” would fire part of the Rig Rosa and then would vanish forever—back into the village life stream from which they came. And by dawn tomorrow, he thought with satisfaction, terror will be widespread, all foreigners will be falling over themselves to leave, their evacuation is assured, and peace will come to Yazdek.

  Fools to play games where only we know the rules! But there is still the problem of the young pilot. Was he a witness, or wasn’t he? The elders have advised an “accident” to be safe. Yesterday would have been perfect when the young man was hunting alone. So easy to slip and fall on your gun. Yes. But my wife advised against an “accident.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the schoolhouse was a marvelous thing,” she had said. “Wasn’t it the first we have ever had? Without the pilots it would never have been. But now we know and can easily build another of our own; because the pilots have been good for us, without them we would not know much that we now know, nor would we have such a rich village; because I think that young man told the truth. I commend that you should let him go, don’t forget how that young man made us laugh with his fairy stories about this place called Kong in the land called China, where there are a thousand times a thousand times a thousand times a thousand people, where all their hair is black, all eyes black, and they eat with pieces of wood.”

  He remembered how he had laughed with her. How could there be so many people in one land, all the same? “There is still the danger he lied.”

  “Then test him,” she had said. “There’s still time.”

  Yes, he thought, there are four days to uncover the truth—five including Holy Day.

  TEHRAN: 5:16 P.M. Now the Women’s March was over.

  It had begun that morning with the same air of expectancy that had enveloped Tehran for two days—when incredibly, for the first time in history, women by themselves as a group were about to take to the streets in protest, to show their solidarity against any encroachment of their hard-earned rights by the new rulers, even by the Imam himself.

  “The proper dress for a woman is the hijab that requires them to cover their hair and arms and legs and zinaat—their enticing parts.”

  “I chose to wear the chador as a protest against the Shah, Meshang,” Zarah, his wife, had screeched at him. “I chose it! I did! I’ll never wear a veil or chador or scarf against my will, never never never…”

  “Coeducation introduced by the Satan Shah a few years ago will cease as in practice it has turned many of our schools into houses of prostitution.”

  “Lies, all lies! Ridiculous!” Sharazad had told Lochart. “The truth must be shouted from the rooftops. It’s not the Imam saying these things, it’s the zealots surrounding him…”

  “The Satan Shah’s heinous Marriage Protection Act is disapproved.”

  “Surely that’s a mistake, Hussain,” the mullah’s wife had said carefully. “The Imam can’t be saying that. It protects us against rejection by a husband, against polygamy, and grants us the right of divorce, gives us the vote and protects a wife’s property…”

  “In our Islamic nation everyone will be governed only by the Koran and the Sharia. Women should not work, they must return to the home, stay in the home, to do their blessed, God-ordained duty to bear and bring up children and look after their Masters.”

  “By the Prophet, Erikki, as much as I wish to have your children and be the best wife to you,” Azadeh had said, “I swear I cannot sit idly by and watch my less fortunate sisters be forced back into the Dark Ages without any freedom, or rights. It’s the fanatics, the zealots, not Khomeini, who are trying to do this. I will march wherever I am…”

  All over Iran women had prepared sympathy marches—in Qom, Isfahan, Meshed, Abadan, Tabriz, even small towns like Kowiss—but never in the villages. All over Iran there had been arguments and quarrels between most fathers and their daughters, most husbands and their wives, most brothers and their sisters, the same fights, pleadings, cursing, demands, promises, beggings, forbiddings and, God protect us, even rebellions—covert and overt. And all over Iran was the same secret resolve of the women.

  “I’m glad my Tommy’s not here, that makes it so much easier,” Sharazad had told her reflection in the mirror this morning, the march due to begin at noon. “I’m glad he’s away because whatever he said, eventually I’d disobey him.” A tremor of excitement, pleasing and at the same time painful.

  She was checking her makeup in the mirror a last time, just to make sure that the bruise around her left eye was well covered with powder. It hardly showed at all now. She smiled at herself, pleased with what she saw. Her hair was curled and flowing and she wore a warm green sweater and green skirt and nylons and Russian suede boots, and when she went out she had decided to wear a matching fur-lined coat and hat. Isn’t green the color of Islam? she thought happily, all her soreness forgotten.

  Behind her the bed was littered with ski clothes and other clothes that she had considered and discarded. After all, women have never protested as a group before so we should certainly look our best. What a pity it’s not spring, then I could wear my light yellow silk dress and yellow hat and…

  A sudden sadness took her. Her father had given her that dress for her birthday present last year, and the lovely pearl choker necklace. Poor dear Father! she thought, her anger welling. God curse the evil men who murdered him. God cast them into the pit forever! God protect Meshang and all the family and my Tommy and let not zealots take away our freedoms.

  Now there were tears in her eyes and she brushed them away. Insha’Allah, she thought. Father’s in Paradise where the Faithful belong so there’s no real reason to mourn. No. Only the wish to see justice done to the foul murderers. Murder! Uncle Valik. HBC. Annoush and the children. HBC! How I hate those letters! What’s happened to Karim? She had heard nothing since Sunday and did not know if he was denounced, dead or free, or anything more about the telex—nothing to do but pray.

  So she did. Again. And swept those problems out of her mind onto the shoulders of God and felt cleansed. As she put on her little fur-lined hat, the door opened, and Jari hurried in, also dressed in her best, “It’s time, Princess. Her Highness Zarah has arrived, oh, how pretty you look!”

  Filled with excitement, Sharazad picked up her coat and ran down the corridor, skirts flying, down the stairs to greet Zarah who waited for her in the hallway. “Oh, you look beautiful, Zarah darling,” she said embracing her. “Oh, I thought Meshang’d stop you at the last minute!”

  “He never had a chance,” Zarah said with a laugh, a cute fur hat jauntily on her head, “I star
ted on him yesterday at breakfast and continued all day and all night and this morning about the new sable coat that was absolutely necessary, that I absolutely must have or I would die of shame in front of my friends. He fled to the bazaar to escape and forgot all about the march. Come along, we mustn’t be late, I’ve a taxi waiting. It’s stopped snowing, the day promises to be fair, though it’s chilly.”

  There were already three other women in the taxi, friends and cousins, two proudly wearing jeans and high heels and ski jackets, hair free, one with a ski hat, and they were all as excited as if they were going to a barbecue picnic in the old days. None of them noticed the muttering disapproval of the taxi driver, or cared about him. “To the university,” Zarah ordered, and then they all chattered together like so many birds. When they were still two streets away from the university gates where the march was to assemble, the taxi had to stop, the crush was so huge.

  Where a few hundred had been expected, there were thousands and more arriving every minute from all points of the compass. Young old, highborn lowborn, literate illiterate, peasant patrician, rich poor—jeans, skirts, pants, boots, shoes, rags, furs—and over all the same fervor, even from those who had come wearing chador. Some of the more militant were already making speeches and a few were shouting slogans:

  “No chador by force…”

  “Unity, struggle, victory…”

  “Women unite, we refuse to be forced into purdah or chador…”

  “I was at Doshan Tappeh against the Immortals—we didn’t fight and suffer to give ourselves over to despotism…”

  “Death to despotism by any name…”

  “Yessssss! Hooray for women,” Sharazad shouted, “down with enforcing the chador and veils and scarves!” Like the others she was caught up in the excitement. Zarah paid the man and gave him a good tip, turned back joyfully, linking arms with Sharazad and Jari, and none of them heard the taxi driver call out, “Whores, all of you,” as he drove away.

  The crowds were milling around, not knowing what to do, most of them overwhelmed by the enormous numbers and variety of women and costumes and ages—even a few men joining them enthusiastically. “We’re protesting, Zarah, we’re really here, aren’t we?”

  “Oh, yes, Sharazad! And there’re so many of us…”

  Shouting in the noise, listening to a well-dressed woman, a well-known Tehrani lawyer and activist and champion of women’s rights, Namjeh Lengehi—a few groups of men, students and teachers, for and against, along with a few mullahs, all against, also listening: “Some mullahs say we women can’t be judges, should not be educated and must wear chador. For three generations we have been unveiled, for three generations we have had the right of education and for one generation the right to vote. God is Great…”

  “God is Great,” a thousand echoed her.

  “Some of us are more fortunate than others, some better educated than others, some even better educated than some men. Some of these know modern law better, even Koranic law better than some men—why shouldn’t those women be judges? Why?”

  “No reason! Those women for judges,” Zarah called out with a hundred others, drowning the mullahs and their supporters who shouted, “Sacrilege!”

  When she could make herself heard, Namjeh Lengehi continued: “We supported the Ayatollah with all our hearts…” More cheers interrupted her, a great outpouring of affection. “We bless him for what he did and we fought as best we could, side by side with men, shared their suffering and the prisons and helped win the revolution and threw out the despot and now we are free, Iran is free from his yoke and from foreign yoke. But that does not give anyone, mullahs, even the Ayatollah, the right to turn back the clock…”

  Huge cries of, “No! No! No! No despots. Votes for women! No to despotism under any cover! Lengehi for the Majlis! Lengehi for minister of education!”

  “Oh, Zarah, isn’t this wonderful?” Sharazad said. “Have you ever voted?”

  “No, darling, of course not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want the right to if I wanted to. A hundred times I told Meshang that of course I’d ask him who to vote for, but I still want to go into the booth myself, by myself, if I choose to!”

  “You’re right!” Sharazad turned and shouted, “Up the revolution. God is Great! God is Great! Lengehi for the High Court! Women for judges! We insist on our rights…”

  Teymour, the PLO-trained Iranian who had taken over Sharazad’s apartment and had been sent to monitor the march and identify the militants, recognized her from photographs he had seen there. His anger increased. “Women to obey God’s law,” he shouted. “No women judges! Women to do God’s work!” But he was drowned by the thousands and no one paid any attention to him.

  No one knew how the march began. They just seemed to set off and soon they massed the avenues, wall to wall, stopping all traffic, surging happily along, an irresistible force. Those at the stalls and at the windows and balconies of houses adjoining stared at the marchers open-mouthed.

  Most men were shocked. “Look at that one, the young whore with the green coat that flaps open in the front to show her cleft, look, look there! God curse her for tempting me…”

  “Look at that one with the pants like an outer skin.”

  “Where! Ah, I see her, the blue pants! God protect us! You can see every ripple of her zinaat! She’s inviting it! Like the one she’s linking arms with—the green coat! Harlot! Hey, harlot down there, you just want a cock—that’s what you all want…”

  Men watched and seethed. Lust followed the march.

  Women watched and wondered. More and more forgot their shopping or their stalls and joined their sisters, aunts, mothers, grandmothers, fearlessly removing their head scarves and veils and chador—wasn’t this the capital, weren’t they Tehranis, the elite of Iran, no longer villagers? It was different here, not like back in the village where they would never have dared to shout slogans and pull away veils and scarves and chadors. “Women unite, God is Great, God is Great! Victory, unity, struggle. Equality for women! The vote! No to despotism, any despotism…”

  Ahead of the marchers, behind them, around them, on highways and in the side streets, groups of men began forming. Those for and those against. Arguments became more and more violent—Koranic law demanded that Muslims resist any attempt against Islam. A few scuffles began. One man pulled a knife and died, another man’s knife in his back. A few guns and woundings. Many clashes. Scattered riots between liberals and fundamentalists, between leftists and Green Bands. A few heads broken, another man dead and, here and there, children caught in the crossfire, some dead, others cowering behind parked cars.

  Ibrahim Kyabi, the student Tudeh leader who had escaped the ambush the night Rakoczy had been caught, ran into the street and picked up one of the petrified children while his friends gave him covering fire. He made the safety of the corner. Once he was sure the little girl was unhurt, he shouted to his friends, “Follow me,” knowing they were outnumbered here, and took to his heels. There were six of them and they ran into the alleys and side streets. Soon they were safe and heading for Roosevelt Avenue. The Tudeh had been ordered to avoid open clashes with Green Bands, to march with the women, to infiltrate the ranks and to proselytize. He was glad to be active again after being in hiding.

  Within half an hour of Rakoczy’s being captured, he had reported the betrayal to his controller at Tudeh HQ. The man had told him not to go home, to shave off his beard and keep out of sight in a safe house near the university: “Do nothing until the Women’s Protest on Tuesday. Join that with your cell as planned, then leave for Kowiss the next day—that should keep you safe for a while.”

  “What about Dimitri Yazernov?”—the only name he knew Rakoczy by.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get him away from the scum. Tell me again what the men looked like.”

  Ibrahim had told them the little he had remembered about the Green Bands and the ambush. And then he had asked, “How many men will come with me to Kowiss?”

&
nbsp; “You and two others should be enough for one rotten mullah.”

  Yes, he thought again, but I don’t need anyone—soon my father will be avenged. His hands tightened on the M16 that had been stolen a week ago from Doshan Tappeh’s armory. “Freedom!” he shouted, and hurried into Roosevelt to join the front ranks of the protest, his friends spreading out.

  A hundred yards farther back, an open truck filled with youths trundled along slowly, surrounded by the thousands, waving and shouting encouragement. These were airmen out of uniform. Among them was Karim Peshadi. For hours he had been searching the marchers for Sharazad but had not seen her. He and the others were stationed at Doshan Tappeh where order and discipline were almost nonexistent, komitehs holding sway, issuing orders and counterorders, others coming from the High Command subservient to Prime Minister Bazargan, others from the Revolutionary Komiteh—and others over the radio where, from time to time, Ayatollah Khomeini would speak and set the law.

  As all other pilots and officers throughout the land, Karim had been ordered before a komiteh to be cross-examined on his record, his political beliefs, and his pre-revolutionary connections. His record was good, and he could truthfully swear he supported Islam, Khomeini and the revolution. But the specter of his father hung over him and he had carefully buried his desire for revenge in his most secret heart. So far he had been untouched.

  The night before last he had tried to sneak into the Doshan Tappeh Tower to find the HBC clearance book but had been turned back. Tonight he was going to try again—he had sworn to himself not to fail. I mustn’t fail, he thought, Sharazad depends on me…oh, Sharazad, thou who gives my life meaning even though thou art forbidden.

  Anxiously he hunted for her among the marchers, knowing she was somewhere here. Last night he and a group of his friends heard a violently incendiary broadcast by an ayatollah fundamentalist, opposing the Women’s Protest and demanding there be counterprotests by “Believers.” He had become gravely concerned for Sharazad, his sisters, and relations who he knew would also be marching. His friends were equally concerned for theirs. So this morning they had taken the truck and had joined the protest. With guns.