A Door between Us Read online

  Ganjian set the phone down again and called to the boys by the door. “Bacheha! Take one of the motorbikes and go up to the house to help out your buddies. Hurry!”

  He turned back to Sadegh. “What a mess! We’re still stuck with the guests we brought in on Wednesday.”

  Sadegh was surprised to hear Ganjian had held several dozen prisoners for almost forty-eight hours. The facility was a small house in a residential neighborhood and had only ever been used to process people before quickly moving them elsewhere.

  “They’re still here?” Sadegh asked.

  “Yeah, it’s been a real pain in the ass. No one has room to come get them. But neither do we in that tiny house. And we’re out of cash. This morning I bought breakfast for all thirty of them with my own money. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. They’ll be gone tonight.”

  “You’re out of cash? And you didn’t tell me?” Sadegh asked. “How many times do I have to tell you to let me know if funds get low. Especially with what’s going on these days, there are a lot of people in the Bazaar who want to help. I’ll make a few calls and make sure you’ve got enough by tonight.”

  “Mersi, Sadegh-jaan. You’re too generous.” Ganjian stood up and tucked his cellphone and a small pistol into his pants. “I should go up to the house and check on things. The guys up there don’t know what they’re doing. You want to come? Why’d you come in anyway?”

  “I figured you could use the help,” Sadegh said. “And I have something to ask you. Come on, I’ll drive you up to the house, and we can talk on the way.”

  Sadegh told him about Sarah and Ali as they left his office. They climbed the stairs up to the Mosque’s main floor and began crossing the deserted prayer hall. As Sadegh described Ali’s arrest on the night of their wedding, Ganjian stopped walking, looked at him intently, and cracked a smile.

  “Unbelievable! I’m the one that arrested him.”

  “Really?” Sadegh asked. “What did he do? Or had you already been looking for him?”

  “He and his wife were hiding protesters in their car.” Ganjian answered. “You know, things have been so strange out there I actually wondered if the bridal clothes and car were some sort of disguise. Damn! I almost arrested her too!”

  “Sarah’s just a kid.” Sadegh said dismissively. “But this family she’s married into . . . well, they aren’t what we thought they were. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you were after Ali for questioning. Anyway, where’s he being held?”

  Ganjian’s doughy face became serious. “We were working with Heydari’s group that night. You remember him, right?”

  Sadegh had only met the small, trim man with strange-colored lips once, but he’d left an impression. Several years back, Sadegh had joined a few of the Basijis from Ganjian’s team to help Heydari respond to a call about an alcohol-fueled party in the Fereshteh neighborhood. When Sadegh arrived, Heydari explained that, rather than enter the home, he had his man stationed outside to arrest the drunken guests as they left. They had just detained a group of three young men and a girl. Sadegh watched one of Heydari’s men separate the girl and direct her into a dark alleyway. When one of the young men protested, Heydari immediately punched him in the gut. The boy doubled over, and Heydari twisted his ear, shouting angry obscenities as he continued to pummel him.

  Sadegh wasn’t worried about the girl. He knew she was being ushered to join the other females that had been detained. But he was taken aback and also a bit impressed by how quickly Heydari had lashed out. Ganjian wasn’t shy about using force or even violence if necessary, but he had strict rules about keeping one’s emotions in check and expected his crew to take action for the sake of Allah and not for the satisfaction of their own anger. Clearly Heydari didn’t have the same expectation, and Sadegh was left to wonder which approach was right. These partyers they had to deal with were corrupted by sin and, allowed to continue, would rot the moral underpinning of the Islamic Republic. Perhaps a bit of righteous anger was justified.

  “I thought Heydari left to be a specialist for the Guards.” Sadegh said. The Revolutionary Guards was a more professional force of security and intelligence specialists that often oversaw the volunteer paramilitaries of the Basij.

  Ganjian continued. “Yes, but with all this going on, we needed more experienced people in the streets, so they sent him back to oversee his old team. Anyway, we already had too many guests at our station, so Heydari took all the detainees that night. If he’s had as much trouble as we have getting them transferred, your cousin’s husband might still be with him.”

  Sadegh considered this. He hoped for Ali’s sake that he hadn’t actually done anything to warrant arrest and that he’d behaved respectfully and obediently since his arrest. Heydari and his men weren’t likely to tolerate much.

  Ganjian’s cell phone rang again.

  “Akh! They won’t leave me alone. Sorry.”

  Ganjian answered and began walking again toward the Mosque exit. “What is it?” he demanded. “Can’t you leave me alone for five minutes?”

  Sadegh wasn’t paying much attention to Ganjian’s conversation as he followed him outside, although he did notice his former teacher’s increasing agitation. Just beyond the mosque’s arched doorway, Ganjian stopped so abruptly that Sadegh almost bumped into him.

  Sadegh backed up and moved around Ganjian to the top of the mosque’s stairs. He noticed an old woman in a black chador limping around his car. A beggar?

  “Pedarsaghay Ahmagh! ”

  Sadegh turned back to Ganjian, who was swearing into the phone, calling whomever he was talking to a son of a dog as he kneaded his right eye with his flattened palm.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? Okay, just shut up. Look, there’s a doctor’s office in the alley across from ours. Run over there and get someone to come take a look at him.

  “Wait! No, actually, take the kid there directly. I don’t want anyone coming to the house. Got that? Do not bring anyone to the house. Take the kid there, see if you can fix him up, and if not, take him to Modarres Hospital. I’ll be right there. And don’t you dare lay a finger on another one of those kids, dammit.”

  Ganjian flipped his cellphone shut and turned to Sadegh.

  “Shit! Look, I’m just going to run up there. It’ll take twice as long going through the roundabout with the car.”

  “Are you sure?” Sadegh asked. “It’s all uphill. I can take you. What’s going on?”

  Ganjian squeezed his eyes shut and massaged them both with the thumb and middle finger of his right hand. “One of the prisoners might need a doctor. Damn it! No, I’m going to go. Meet me there, okay?”

  Ganjian took off at a slight jog up Sa’adat Abad Avenue.

  Sadegh moved toward his little car. The woman he’d noticed earlier was still standing there. She wasn’t as old as he’d first guessed from her limping walk. Her outermost coverings were draped loosely, revealing a black headscarf and modest tunic under the chador that cascaded casually from the middle of her head and around her shoulders before being tucked under an elbow. When she noticed Sadegh moving purposefully toward his car, she began rearranging her coverings to stand more formally. The folds under the elbow were dropped as she leaned forward to pull the top of the chador toward her forehead, smooth the sides along her lined, but surprisingly attractive, face and unite the two sides of the material like a theater curtain closing across the stage of her body.

  “Befarmayeed, madar. What can I do for you, mother?” Sadegh used a gruff voice to indicate that, despite the politeness of his words, she’d better move along.

  But his words had an unexpected effect. The woman’s shapely eyebrows lifted as she inhaled sharply and her breath came in sharp ragged bursts. She swayed as if she might fall and reached a chador-covered hand toward the car for support.

  “Are you ill?” Sadegh asked, alarmed.

  “No, my dear. No.
I’m fine. I just . . . I didn’t expect . . . You can’t imagine how I’ve longed but never expected to actually get to hear you say . . .”

  The woman could barely speak for crying. Her grimaces, tears, and shiny sweat had greatly diminished whatever beauty she possessed. Sadegh felt distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Do you need help?” Sadegh asked. “I’m in a hurry and have to go, but there are ladies in the mosque. I could . . .”

  “No. Azizam. I’m so sorry. I’m okay,” the woman replied and took a deep breath before going on. “Sadegh, my sun, my moon, my stars, do you have no idea who I am?”

  And that was when Sadegh knew exactly who she was.

  CHAPTER 3

  Saturday, June 27, 2009—fifteen days after the election

  Truly, why do we women have to sit around and wait for someone to tend to us? We have to be the ones who step forward. We can learn much from the stories of great women in history.

  —Zahra Rahnavard, artist, professor, and wife of 2009 presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi2

  What you have done, Mazi, makes my blood boil. I don’t want to raise my hand against you, but what do you suggest I do with someone who has insulted the Leader?

  —Revolutionary Guard interrogating journalist Maziar Bahari3

  “Good morning, Maman,” Azar greeted her mother in the kitchen, where she was drinking tea at the round table with uneven legs and worn varnish that had been slowly decaying since Azar was a child.

  “Sobh bekheir, my dear,” her mother answered with a warm but concerned smile. “Did the television wake you? I told the boys to keep it down.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Azar said. “I have to get them ready. There’s going to be a lot of traffic from your house to their day camp.”

  In fact, Azar had been woken before sunrise by the flock of crows that seemed to favor her parents’ home as an early morning conference hall. Azar and her boys had been staying with her parents since Ali’s arrest two nights ago. But Azar wasn’t sure she could take the squawking another day.

  Azar opened her mother’s freezer and pulled out a bag of sangak flatbread that had been cut into single-serve pieces. She popped the bread into the toaster and then went back to the refrigerator for butter, cheese, walnuts, and the quince jam that was her mother’s specialty.

  Her mother rose and began opening cabinets for plates, cups, and silverware to set the softly rocking table.

  “Did you hear from Ms. Tabibian last night?” her mother asked.

  “No. I don’t know what’s going on,” Azar answered. “Even if she wasn’t able to get any information about Ali, she should have at least answered my calls. And I have to talk to her about this week’s court cases too.”

  “And Ibrahim? Did you hear from him?”

  “Oh, yes,” Azar lied. “He wanted to talk to both of you, but you were already asleep. He’s doing fine, just worried like the rest of us about Ali.”

  Azar busied herself with checking the bread. She didn’t want to worry her mother, but she hadn’t heard a word from her husband since he’d left last week. They’d agreed it would be safer for him to stay away from the house and off phones until there was a change for the better. It was the right decision—several of their friends had been taken in, probably to Section 209 of Evin as political prisoners. But, except for those early tumultuous years, it was the longest they’d gone without talking. Azar felt the pain of his absence like the reed flute in Mawlana’s famous poem whose melancholic notes cry out for the reed bed from which it has been separated. “Beshno az ney chon hekayat mikonad / az jodayiha shekayat mikonad.” Ibrahim loved poetry and would often recite verses like these spontaneously and apropos of nothing.

  Azar quickly blinked back tears as she took the warmed sangak from the toaster and put it in the bread basket. “Do you mind pouring the tea?” she asked her mother as she set the bread basket on the table. “I’m going to get the boys.”

  Azar announced breakfast once, twice, three times, before turning off the TV herself and ordering Hossein and Muhammadreza into the kitchen over cries of indignation about being in the middle of a show and not being hungry for breakfast anyway.

  “Shhh!” Azar hissed. “Your grandfather is still sleeping. Selfish boys! Don’t you know we’re all exhausted from worrying about your uncle and all you care about is your show? In the kitchen, now.”

  Still grumbling, the boys moped into the kitchen, where a quarrel erupted over the fact that nine-year-old Hossein kept pointing his index finger at his younger-by-a-year brother, Muhammadreza. Azar’s threats of punishment ended the visible provocations, but Muhammadreza continued to complain that he was certain his brother was still pointing at him from under the creaky old table, which registered its own objections to the commotion by rocking so violently it threatened to unload their breakfast onto the floor.

  Thankfully, the doorbell rang, indicating the driver’s arrival. The boys scrambled for shoes and bags before chasing each other out the door and into the courtyard only to return and report that it wasn’t the driver but their mother’s secretary who’d rung the bell and was now standing outside the courtyard door.

  Azar was surprised. Ms. Tabibian was here? Why hadn’t she just called? Perhaps she had news that couldn’t be discussed by telephone.

  Azar threw on a house chador and a pair of brown plastic outdoor sandals before heading downstairs. As she crossed the courtyard, she noticed her boys throwing pebbles at a stray cat stalking atop the wall separating their building from the neighbors’. She opened her mouth to object but then decided against it. Surely the cat had escaped worse torment, and at least the boys were occupied for a moment.

  “Ms. Tabibian? Is that you?” Azar asked.

  Azar opened the door to see her secretary standing before her in a tightly drawn black chador held in place with a fist under her chin.

  “Salam, Ms. Rahimi,” Ms. Tabibian said with a bow. “Are you well? I’m so sorry to impose on you this early in the morning.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Azar answered. “I’ve been waiting for your call. Where were you last night?”

  “Forgive me, Ms. Rahimi. I lost my cellphone, and by the time I got home it was too late to call. Also—” Ms. Tabibian leaned closer and lowered her voice. “—I thought it might be better to talk in person.”

  This could only mean she’d gotten some useful information from Mr. Sadegh. Azar pushed the door open wider and invited her secretary inside.

  Ms. Tabibian limped through the door with her usual pattern of one long step followed by the short half-circle swing of her left leg.

  As Azar closed the door behind her, the sound of pained cries came from their neighbor’s courtyard.

  “Ow! Vwah! Where the hell did that come from?” a male voice shouted from the other side of the wall.

  Azar glared angrily at her boys who had clapped their hands over their mouths to prevent their laughter from escaping. Clearly, the pebbles they’d been throwing at the cat had hit another target.

  At that moment, a squeal of brakes and quick beep-beep announced the driver’s arrival. The boys grabbed their bags and ran out of the courtyard and away from their mother’s hisses that they should be ashamed of themselves.

  Azar sighed as she shut the door and turned to show Ms. Tabibian across the courtyard. She didn’t like having her secretary witness her boys’ bad behavior. Azar had always made a point of keeping her home and work lives as separate as possible. The office was a place where she felt calm and confident, strong and in charge. She had no desire for her clients or employees to have knowledge of the weaknesses and insecurities that were usually stored safely at home.

  Indeed, it was only the combination of strange coincidence and present danger that had led Azar to invite an office worker into her parent’s home today. The wellspring of this unusual event was the discovery, ten days ago,
that she and her secretary were about to become relatives.

  * * *

  “Befarmayeed, Ms. Tabibian. Please, take a seat,” Azar directed the woman toward the couch. “Shall I bring some tea?”

  “Oh no,” Ms. Tabibian said as she shifted her weight to her good leg, sat down, and relaxed her coverings so that the scarf and mandatory manteau tunic she wore under her chador were visible. “I won’t be staying long. Again, forgive me for not getting in touch earlier.”

  Azar decided against removing her house chador. All she had on underneath was a long nightgown which was not the sort of thing she wanted an employee to see her in. So she hitched up the light cotton cloth and sat facing Ms. Tabibian.

  “Yes, I can’t tell you how disappointed I was not to hear from you last night.” Azar chided. She was not one to mince words with an employee—or anyone else, for that matter. And berating her secretary was a way of unconsciously compensating for her own embarrassment over her sons’ behavior in the courtyard. “It’s a very sensitive time, and we need to find him as soon as possible. You should have called or come here immediately.”

  Ms. Tabibian looked pained. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It was just that it took so long to—”

  Azar cut her off. She wasn’t interested in excuses. “Were you able to get any useful information?”

  “I think so,” Ms. Tabibian said as she nodded. “I—”

  “Wait,” Azar cut her off again. She didn’t think they would be talking about anything sensitive. If anyone was listening in, all they’d learn is that she was looking for her brother, which would be no surprise to anyone. But she’d promised Ibrahim she’d be careful. “You said you lost your cellphone. So you don’t have a phone with you?”

  “Oh, well, I got a . . . um, a replacement this morning,” Ms. Tabibian answered.

  Azar held out her hand and Ms. Tabibian rummaged through her purse before handing over a Samsung phone with a sliding keyboard. It was much nicer than the flip phone Azar had seen her using previously.