A Persian Requiem (22 page)

Zari put the glowing coals on the hookah, and took a puff herself before taking it into the parlour. On the way she looked in on the stranger, who seemed to be sobbing in his sleep. She thought of waking him, but decided against it. He was a well-built man.

In the parlour the argument was still raging. From outside she could hear Sohrab urging Yusef, “Now that I know what’s going on and have decided what to do about it, why do you want to stop the others from helping me? Are you saying I’m ambitious and
dangerous
and you’d hate to see me succeed?”

Zari entered the room and placed the hookah in front of her husband. The air in the parlour was hot and stifling with all the doors shut, and she could see the sweat-beads on the men’s
foreheads
. Majid had removed his coat and opened his shirt collar. She went to the cupboard and took out some fans which she placed on the table in the middle of the room. Then she took out some side-plates and knives and forks and set them noiselessly on the table.

“I’ll be the only one facing danger in this plan,” Sohrab
continued
. “I know my death will be just one step away. But if I don’t do it, the nightmare of our massacre will drive me mad. You say this plan is yet another kind of show … my dear fellow, don’t you see I’ll be courting death of my own free will?” He put a hand to his eyes and suddenly wept. Zari stared at him in amazement and offered him a fan which she put on his lap. Sohrab quickly
composed
himself and smiled at Zari, saying, “Otherwise I’d have to wait for you every Thursday to bring me bread and dates in the asylum!” Turning to the others, he added, “Khanom Zahra is like my own sister. I revealed my plans to her before I told any of you.
Unfortunately, apart from her and her sister-in-law, some undesirable people also heard. Still it’s too late for all that now. Even if you don’t help me, I’ll go ahead and do it. My brother will have to provide me with gunmen, and Yusef Khan must give us provisions. I myself have thirty reliable men who are willing to risk their lives.”

Strangely enough, the two water-melons which Zari had just cut open were both yellow and unripe. She took this as a bad omen. The third water-melon wasn’t too bad, and she was about to cut each slice in a zig-zag pattern when she decided that her guests were too preoccupied to notice. She placed the dish of melon slices next to the map of Iran which they had spread out on the table. They were all bending over it now and Malek Sohrab put his finger at a particular spot on the map.

“If we can reach Yasuj,” he explained, “it’s not too far to Basht. Then we can go on to Gachsaran …”

“It’ll take a long time to get the locals on our side,” Yusef said, “but we have no choice. This is just a first step. Meanwhile Mr Fotouhi has to create some internal diversions …” Then turning to Zari, he said, “Please don’t make so much noise.” Zari realized she was being asked to leave again. As she was going out, she heard Majid’s voice, “I doubt, Fotouhi, if your army of comrades will approve of such a plan. If you agree to it yourself, that’s a different thing.”

On Yusef’s instructions, she set the table for lunch in the parlour. They had all removed their coats and ties and were using their fans by now.

At lunch, Yusef asked for wine, and Zari brought out two bottles of red from the cupboard. She imagined they must have reached some sort of an agreement to be asking for wine in the mid-day heat. As she was pulling on the cork, half of it broke off and the other half fell into the bottle as a result of the pressure. Yusef must have been watching her since he told her not to worry and that the cork must have been rotten. She poured wine for everybody, and they all drank her health. But she could only think to herself, “What use is health alone?”

They were talking and joking together, ignoring her presence, her sole function being to pass the salt here, fill a glass there or make sure Majid got the giblets which she knew he liked best.

“It would’ve been easier for our fathers,” said Yusef, “but if we
don’t take action, it will be harder for our sons. Our fathers had to face one usurper who became Shah and unfortunately they gave in to him, so that now we have to face two usurpers. Tomorrow there will a third, and before we know it, even more the day after that … and they’ll all be guests at this table …”

“If we achieve nothing more than showing the way to our children, we will have done enough,” Malek Rostam said.

“Even if it’s me against a whole army, I won’t show them my back …” put in Malek Sohrab.

“And for thousands of years, everyone’s blood will rise in our revenge, brother!” Malek Rostam said, and added, draining his glass, “To the blood of Siavush!”

Yusef held out his glass to be filled, but Zari was seized with such fear of the things they were saying that the pitcher slipped from her hand and broke to pieces on the floor. As she bent over to clear away the glass, she felt her throat constrict from the tears she struggled to hold back.

“Oh Lord, what kind of men are these who know what they’re doing is no use, but just to prove their existence and their manhood, and just so their children won’t spit on their graves, go ahead and actually dig them—God forbid—with their own hands …” She bit her lip.

And what odd things women remember at the strangest moments, Zari thought, as her mind jumped back to one night when Yusef had sighed in his sleep, and she had woken up and put on the bedside lamp, only to gaze for the longest time at the soft down on his earlobe which had looked just like pink velvet brushed the wrong way …

The stranger slept until sunset, then came out into the garden wearing Yusef’s pyjamas which they had given him that morning. He sat by the pool and washed his face, and then watched Majid and Yusef playing backgammon. The other guests had left earlier that afternoon despite the heat. It was obvious from the man’s demeanour, his easy movements and his comments on the
backgammon
game, that he was no truck driver.

Khadijeh brought him some food. He ate voraciously. By the time Zari brought him the spirits he had asked for, he had already finished his meal.

The stranger stood up and looked at the garden, saying, “You have a nice life. But it’s a pity you don’t have any children. There should be at least ten or twelve of them running about in this garden.”

“Do you have any children?” Zari asked.

“I have two sons,” the man sighed.

It was a long time before the man got round to talking about himself, confessing that he was a lieutenant in the army. Only slowly did he warm up to his tale of the events that had befallen him. In the middle of his story, the twins arrived. The man fell silent and looked at them with envy. Yusef kissed the children and ordered Khadijeh to take them to Ameh on the roof terrace, but to watch out that they didn’t fall or touch the hot coals in the brazier. The man took up his tale again, by now more involved than his audience, and then finally became so engrossed that by the time Khosrow and Hormoz arrived, he barely replied to their greeting.

I
was the commander of a motorized convoy travelling from Shiraz to Abadeh. All in all, we had fourteen yellow provision trucks, forty-five soldiers and five non-commissioned officers for guarding the trucks. A third-lieutenant, just out of the academy, was my immediate subordinate. He was young—no more than nineteen or twenty years old. We were carrying provisions in three of the trucks, and soldiers’ uniforms, gasoline, and weapons in the others. We also had an ambulance. I had verbal orders to lead the convoy to Abadeh and wait there—no one had given me any written instructions. In Abadeh I received a telegram telling me to clear the needs of the Isfahan division and then proceed to Tehran.

Among my men was a fellow called Rezvani-Nejad who had accompanied me on several other missions and whom I knew well. The poor man had fourteen mouths to feed, including his parents who were blind. His brother was with us too. Both of them were warrant officers.

We spent the night at Abadeh. Late at night when we were returning from a good time out on the town, I saw a light in one of the trucks, I got in and saw Rezvani-Nejad and his brother having a little tea and dry bread. I felt sorry for them. I gave them permission to go out together and have rice and kebab at the local inn. I told them they could get the best spirits there—so pure you could set fire to it. But the man said, “Sir, don’t you think we’d thought of having a drink ourselves? We would have liked to have had a good time too. But we took on this mission just to earn a two-hundred toman bonus for our children, and take it home to them.”

In the morning we started off again, and stopped on the banks of a river by noon. We were supposed to wait there for a tank. When I got out of the truck I noticed a few tribesmen nearby. They were
wearing their felt hats and cloaks. Their unsaddled horses were being watered on the other bank of the river. As soon as one of them saw us, he jumped on his horse and galloped off in the direction of the mountains. We went to a nearby orchard to eat our lunch. A few more tribesmen were there with their felt hats, but these men were wearing thin cloaks. We didn’t realize they were spies. We only found that out from the tank commander. When he arrived, he told us to get into battle-formation since we would be passing through a gorge surrounded by tribesmen. Up until then we had all imagined we were on a simple mission of delivering
provisions
, weapons and gasoline to the Semirom garrison and returning home safe and sound.

I said to the tank commander, “But my friend, we have only a handful of men! How can we possibly traverse a route surrounded by tribesmen?”

“They won’t attack in daylight, and that’s when we’ll be passing through. If we start off right now, we’ll reach the garrison by late afternoon. We’ll return then if we can, and if we can’t, we’ll just spend the night at the garrison and come back first thing in the morning.”

So we started out. But we had no sooner taken the first bend to the left, than we realized the road had been sabotaged. Every twenty metres or so the trucks either fell into potholes and stalled, or else they got stuck in deep puddles. We weren’t even doing five
kilometres
an hour. We didn’t turn the headlights on and the trucks followed each other closely. Later we found out that the man responsible for planning the road obstructions had been one of our own officers. Sentenced to death by the government, he had deserted and taken refuge with the tribe. He had even drawn up their general strategy and combat-formation.

Eventually the tank engine overheated and after a few yards, it stalled. It was getting dark and we could see scattered bonfires high up on the mountain. Obviously they were Qashqai and Boyer Ahmadi entrenchments. We had just reached the Khorus Galoo Pass, and they were high up on either side of us, but they were leaving us alone for the time being. They only made shrill,
frightening
noises like a war cry.

We decided to open the hood of the tank to let it cool down. But as soon as we did, we realized the pump had sustained several holes. The decision was to repair it by the light of a lantern, so
while this was being done, I gathered up the men to dig trenches around the trucks as a precaution, with some of the soldiers on guard and others patrolling. I told everyone that we neither had the right nor the possibility of turning back.

All our truck-drivers were sergeants. The senior sergeant came over and told me the soldiers were new conscripts and had no combat experience. I ordered him to distribute their weapons among the officers and sergeants. Each of us received one rifle and fifteen bullets. We left three light machine-guns to guard the tank: two on either side, and one at the rear.

We spread out in the individual trenches which the soldiers had dug, cocked our weapons and sat ready for the attack. I had a revolver hidden under my tunic. We had no food or water, the weather was very cold, and we could neither turn back nor advance. The tank commander and a few others were working on the pump, but they never managed to repair it. Meanwhile the tribesmen kept up their shrill cries until ten o’clock that night. But they were still leaving us alone. When the tank commander—he was a lieutenant like me—gave up on the pump, he became so frightened he got the runs.

“There must be two thousand of them!” he said. “A thousand Qashqais on this side of the Khorus Galoo and a thousand Boyer Ahmadis on the other. They’re going to tear us into pieces! If only we could leave the tank …”

I didn’t let him finish his sentence. “You’re ruining everyone’s morale,” I said. “Get inside the tank for now and keep the hatch shut.”

It was well after ten, and darkness engulfed us. There was no light, no moon, no lamps. We didn’t dare strike a match. All we could see were their bonfires, dotting both sides of the mountain. I ordered the sergeants not to waste any bullets but to wait until their target came well into range. Maybe help would arrive in time from Semirom or Shahreza. When the tank commander had first joined us, he’d talked of another mobilized convoy leaving from Shahr Kurd for Shahreza.

It must have been after eleven when, from behind us, I heard the sound of horses trotting. There must have been ten or twelve riders. The senior sergeant said, “Sir, here they are!” From the sound of the horses, I estimated them to be about thirty metres away. “Here they come!” said the sergeant manning the machine-gun at the rear
of the convoy. The darkness was vast, and so was the silence. They had come to test us—to see if we were awake. Three or four of them let out a whooping cry as they fired a few shots that rang against the metal of the trucks. Our machine-gun fire drove them away.

By dawn I could see some horsemen appearing and disappearing on the skyline. Suddenly they started down the mountain. The soil inside the trenches still felt cold from the morning air. Shots rang out against the body of the trucks. I ordered the men not to fire back. “Shoot only when they’re all the way down the slopes,” I told them.

The sergeant who drove the last truck was an old man. Suddenly he cried out and fell. I rushed to his side. An Isfahani sergeant called to me, “Sir! Get down! Lie flat! They’re still shooting!” I dragged the old man towards the ambulance and stretched him out on the bed inside, hoping for the best. Three minutes later, another soldier was wounded in the shoulder, and then another in the stomach and in the thigh … the men dragged those two to the ambulance and stretched them out on the beds as well. There were only three beds in the ambulance—it was one of those old brown Fords with the lion and sun emblem on it.

The tribesmen crawled and slid down the mountainside. They took up positions behind the brick wall of a garden about a hundred and fifty metres from our trenches. We in turn opened fire as soon as they came within range. One Turkoman sergeant who drove the first truck volunteered to take a short-cut up to the top of the mountain and check out the enemy’s situation. I refused
permission
because it was too light. It must have been seven,
seven-thirty
in the morning.

From the top of the mountain came the sound of about sixty or seventy of them whooping and chanting: “Army men, weapons down! Hands up! Army men, weapons down, hands up!”

“They can go to the devil!” I said. “We will not surrender.” By around nine-thirty, twelve of our men had been wounded. We heard the shrill cries again, followed by “Attack!” and then they swarmed down the mountain. We jumped into our trucks, and two of the drivers desperately tried to turn round. There was no other choice. The tank had to be abandoned so we could at least try to save the trucks carrying fuel and weapons. I’m ashamed to say that we had to leave the wounded behind, even though some of them were crying out …

They charged. There were about a thousand, maybe more, of them. The Turkoman driver managed to slip out from behind the steering wheel in the nick of time, but the driver of the truck in front was shot so our way was blocked. We were forced to get out then. The tribesmen were crawling forwards on their bellies, firing away all the time. I had only one bullet left. Now they were just ten steps away. Rezvani-Nejad raised his head to shoot, and fell. He cried out, “Khandan!” as he rolled to the ground. I imagine it was his child’s name. The poor man had fourteen mouths to feed. The bullet had blown his brains out—I saw the white of his brain with my own eyes. His brother ran to help him, but they shot him too. The bullets seemed to nail the two brothers together. I kneeled and aimed with my one remaining bullet at the man who had killed them. I got him in the middle of the chest. His friend ran to him, wailing, “Did he hurt you, Zargham?”

I crawled underneath the weapons truck, and gradually managed to pull myself into one of the trenches. The sergeant inside the trench was dead. I stretched myself out on top of the dead man like another bloodied corpse. The Boyer Ahmadis were coming at us at a gallop, and once or twice they jumped over my head, covering me with dust. Then the looting began. First they took our weapons, and then I could hear their women ululating and repeating the shrill war-cry. I heard that chant so many times, I learned it by heart:

“Up the pass, down the pass, there’s a camp, Sohrab Khan, look ahead, look ahead, how many thousand are there?”

And:

A Qashqai loomed over my head and dug his heel into my shoulder. “You dog, you’re alive! Get up, I saw you lie down. Give us the new gun, get up, get up!” A short, dark Boyer Ahmadi arrived just then. As I handed my gun to the Qashqai, the two men began to fight each other for it until the Boyer Ahmadi killed the Qashqai and grabbed the gun. Again I stretched out on top of the dead man in the trench, close to passing out from thirst and fatigue, and trembling with anger. By this time the Qashqai and Boyer Ahmadi women had arrived and were throwing out the sacks of provisions from the trucks. They tore them open and poured the
tea, sugar and rice, beans and peas into their own sacks. I saw a Boyer Ahmadi take the gun belonging to the third-lieutenant, the one who had just graduated from the academy, and make him undress. Stark naked. The boy grabbed a piece of canvas to cover his genitals, but one of the women immediately snatched the rag from him and used it to collect some onions. Finally the women and children of the nearby village arrived on donkeys and filled their saddlebags with whatever remained.

We had left three wounded sergeants in the ambulance which was clearly marked with the lion and sun emblem. But they didn’t realize, and set the ambulance on fire. You could smell the burnt flesh for a long time. And then they set the fuel truck on fire.

Again a Qashqai came along to where I was lying and kicked me in the shoulder, saying, “Get up! Take off your jacket!” I gathered all my strength and threw him bodily on to the burning fuel truck. But almost immediately another rider came towards me. He was a thin, dark man, carrying a baton spiked with a knife. His gun was fastened to his belt. He too, wanted my uniform. He said he wouldn’t kill me so the clothes wouldn’t be bloodied. He took my uniform and gold medals and army boots. Then he ripped off my watch with his knife, and with the same knife cut loose the revolver at my waist. Finally, the tribesmen drove away in the two
undamaged
trucks which contained military uniforms and
ammunition
. Later I heard they used those uniforms as disguise for a surprise attack on the Semirom garrison.

I ran off in the direction of the mountains. On the way, I heard a moaning in the distance. I decided I’d find the person and steal his clothes. It turned out to be one of our own sergeant-drivers. He was spattered with blood. I asked if he was shot, and he said he’d managed to escape in time by giving up his gun. “Get up and come with me, then,” I told him. He pleaded, “Captain, I beg you, my suitcase, my souvenirs from Shiraz …” I interrupted him, “From now on, we’re equals.” And we started up the mountain. We passed the tribesmen’s entrenchments, made of white stone and each taking four people, but now littered with empty cartridge shells.

We were heading towards Abadeh by way of a side-track, and we had just passed the mountain ridge when we noticed a Qashqai rider approaching us at a gallop. We threw ourselves on the ground beneath a bush. Before long he was standing over our heads and
saying, “Hey you army dogs! Get up! I saw you.” Eyeing the sergeant he said, “Is it you, Mirza Hassan, you bastard? Where’s your gun?” The sergeant sat up, and started to undress of his own accord. Standing in nothing but his underwear, he took off his army boots and handed everything in a neat bundle to the Qashqai.

“How fat you’ve become, Mirza Hassan, you bastard!” said the Qashqai.

“You’ll be wasting two bullets if you kill us,” I told him. “Don’t shoot us. On the other side of the mountain they’re looting
truck-loads
of goods—rice, chick peas, beans, lump sugar, tea, onions, oil, military uniforms, ammunition and guns. If you hurry you’ll get there in time.”