A Door between Us Read online

  The guard said nothing but gestured for them to wait as he called to one of the errand boys. “Hey, go tell Mr. Heydari his guests are ready to see him now.”

  Azar was confused, angry, and unsettled. Perhaps she should have tried to walk out earlier as that’s what seemed to finally spur these people to action. She had no clues as to the best course of action and was simply running on emotion. She remained standing to indicate they weren’t willing to wait much longer.

  Azar heard her father murmur quietly behind her, “Stay calm my dear. We don’t know who these people are.” For a brief second, Azar’s heart expanded like a balloon with more hate for her father than she thought it could hold. When would he learn that sometimes one had to take a stand?

  The errand boy returned and indicated that they should follow him. Finally. Azar hoped this would be a lesson to her father. If she’d stayed calm, they would likely be waiting several more hours.

  Azar stood aside to let her father go first. But the errand boy looked at the guard and shook his head.

  “No, there isn’t room for everyone. Just her.”

  Azar’s father pushed forward. “I’ll go. Azar, you stay here.”

  The guard looked confused a moment. Then he shrugged. “Look, Heydari’s assistant said she could go. If you want to go instead, I’ll have to ask and I don’t know how long that will take.”

  Azar took her father’s forearm. “It’s okay, pedar, I’ll go.”

  He ignored her. “It’s not right,” he said to the guard. “My daughter shouldn’t be by herself with all these men.”

  Azar’s heart ballooned again, this time with love for her elderly father, who still sought to protect her.

  “Don’t worry hajj-agha,” the guard reassured him. There are other women in the back.”

  Azar took his hand and squeezed gently. “I’ll be right back. With Ali, insha’allah.”

  * * *

  The boy led her past a long row of file cabinets set up, it seemed, to divide the big living room of this converted house into different office spaces. Azar noticed a few hallways as well as a staircase leading to a second floor. Where would they be keeping Ali? Oh, Ali. Her serious and often irritatingly self-important little brother. They were too far apart in age to be truly close, especially since she’d gotten married when he was still a child. But he was a man now. It was impressive how he’d managed to revive her father’s business by switching from the import of high-end men’s luxury goods to more affordable Chinese knockoffs. He was a wonderful brother, her sons adored him, and Azar’s heart ached at the thought that he was alone and frightened and abandoned by the ridiculous wife he had chosen. With luck, this would all be over soon.

  The boy stopped and knocked on the door of what must have once been a bedroom.

  “Befarmayeed. Come in.”

  Azar entered. The small room contained an ugly sofa and coffee table at one end, a desk and row of chairs at the other, and a couple cheap card tables pushed together in the center. Mr. Heydari’s assistant seemed to be finishing a conversation with a few younger men who were gathering what looked to be maps and other papers off the card tables. There were no other women in the room.

  “Salam.” Azar greeted the man.

  In contrast to his earlier friendly demeanor, this time, Heydari’s assistant barely looked at her as he gestured impatiently for her to sit on the sofa. He wrapped up his conversation and then ushered the men out but left the door open. He took a pad of paper from the desk and pulled a chair up to sit near the sofa. As he did before, he twisted the agate ring as he spoke.

  “Khob. Okay, now tell me why you’re here.”

  This time, Azar got right to the point. “It’s my brother. He was taken in by mistake on his wedding night. I was told that he might be here.”

  “What’s your brother’s name?” Heydari’s assistant asked.

  Azar told him, and he took notes on his pad.

  “And who told you he might be here?”

  “A family member suggested it,” Azar answered, not wanting to bring up Ms. Tabibian or her son.

  “And where is your husband today?”

  “Excuse me?”

  The man looked up from his notepad and spoke contemptuously. “Why didn’t he come with you? Why did he send you here by yourself ?”

  “I’m not by myself. My father is with me.”

  “Where? You’re here, alone, with an unrelated male. A namahram.” The man’s purple lips curled with contempt. “I had to leave the door open for common decency!”

  Azar was lost. What did he mean by this? Surely he knew that his own guards had prohibited her father from joining her.

  Azar spoke slowly. “Hajj-agha, I think I’ve answered enough questions. I’d like to speak with Mr. Heydari now.”

  He snorted a wheezy high-pitched chortle that was entirely incongruous with his trim and controlled appearance. “Oh yes, Mr. Heydari. Let me call him now.” He stood up and walked toward his desk.

  It was then that Azar understood. The man wasn’t Heydari’s assistant. He was Heydari himself. A fear that seemed centered in Azar’s bowels began to root upward, stroking her intestines and lungs with tiny tendrils. The deception itself wasn’t so important. What scared Azar was that she had underestimated her adversary. She had assumed she was dealing with a simple Basiji. Now she wasn’t so sure. Tactics like keeping people waiting for hours or lying to them about who they’re speaking to were likely meant to keep targets off-balance and trip them up into revealing things. Tactics like these were more advanced than what a traditional Basiji needed or used.

  But it wouldn’t do to let on that she’d been rattled. Like animals, these bullies would pounce at any sign of fear.

  “Khob, I see, Mr. Heydari,” Azar enunciated his name with additional emphasis to convey she had noted his lie. “I’m here to take my brother home. The poor kid was arrested on his wedding night! And he’s never been involved in any political activities. He has no interest in it.”

  Heydari twisted his agate ring and pulled it off his hand. He placed it on his desk and picked up a thick dictionary-sized book that Azar recognized. The Open Society and its Enemies by Karl Popper had become popular reading among many of her friends for its arguments against totalitarianism. Azar herself had never been able to get through the heavy philosophical treatise.

  “But you, Mrs. Jafari.” He gave her a meaningful smile as he used her husband’s last name. “You do have an interest in politics, don’t you? You must know this book well.”

  Azar struggled to keep her face neutral. His use of her married name, her husband’s last name, meant he knew exactly who she was. But she still had no clue as to who or what she was dealing with. Did the Basij have its own intelligence capabilities? She was sure the answer was no. But it was possible this man was actually with the Revolutionary Guards, a more professional force that often oversaw the Basij. Or could he even be with the Ministry of Intelligence? These men would stop at nothing to protect the power and privilege the Islamic Republic created for them.

  She said nothing.

  Heydari absently fanned the pages of the book. “It’s surprising you even had time to come in today. Don’t you have to be in court to help another one of those depraved women leave her family so she can pursue her own pleasures? Isn’t that what you are after with your One Million Signatures campaign?”

  How did Heydari know so much? Azar, like many others active in the area of women’s rights and divorce law, had been a strong supporter of the campaign to get one million signatures in support of equal rights for women. She’d hosted several events to gather signatures from friends and family, and she often mentioned the campaign to clients who were on the receiving end of Iran’s discriminatory laws.

  Again Azar said nothing.

  Mr. Heydari’s voice was soft, his face smiling. A casual obs
erver might have thought he was making friendly conversation.

  “Where is your husband right now?” He hefted the book up and down in his hand like a baseball.

  A new thought formed in Azar’s increasingly cloudy brain like the sudden appearance of an oncoming vehicle out of thick fog. Ms. Tabibian. She had to be a part of this. Why else would she have insisted Azar bring Ibrahim? How else could Heydari be so familiar with the details of her court cases and her involvement with One Million Signatures?

  “Who is he working for?” Heydari demanded.

  Her father was right. They were after Ibrahim.

  Azar clenched her jaw defiantly and narrowed her eyes with contempt. If they thought arresting Ali and threatening her would be a way to get information about her husband, they were in for a disappointment.

  Heydari pursed his lips so tightly their color changed from the weird purple to a more natural light pink. Azar was gratified to note that he looked frustrated. She hated him and all he stood for and would take her small victories where she could.

  “Your boys . . . Hossein and Muhammadreza are both at Adab school, right?”

  The fear in Azar’s gut traveled up her esophagus, and for a moment she thought she might vomit.

  He clucked sympathetically as he walked toward her. “Poor kids. You and your parents stuck here. Their father not around. Who’ll be there to open the door when they get home? Perhaps we should pick them up for you. Bring them here until we can finish our conversation.”

  Azar released her fear and anger in a roar. “How dare you talk about my children. How dare you threaten them! What kind of animal are y—”

  As she yelled, Azar vaguely noticed the newly concentrated focus of Heydari’s eyes as well as the way he shifted weight to his back foot and raised the arm holding The Open Society. Still, somehow, she didn’t recognize these as warning signals for an attack until her angry outburst was interrupted by the heavy spine of the book making contact with her nose.

  Her instinctive inward gasp of air brought the blood streaming from her nose into her lungs. She coughed on the thick blood as a second blow landed on the back of her head.

  Heydari screamed over her as he continued beating her with the book. “Shut up! How dare I threaten your children? How dare you even ask that question! How dare you threaten this country? How dare you mislead all these poor young people out in the street to threaten the rahbar and Islam? I would do anything to protect Islam! I would sacrifice my own children. You think I would hesitate for one second to sacrifice you or the children unlucky enough to have you as a mother? Answer me you cowardly, God-hating traitor. We will eliminate all of you!”

  Azar, who had never in her life been struck, was slow to find a position that would protect her face. Heydari swung sideways and the corner of the book tore into Azar’s eyelid before crunching into her nose again. Azar would have screamed for pain, but with all the blood pouring into her throat, the only noise she produced was a gurgling cough. She pressed her bloodied face into the sofa and raised her arms and knees to create a protective cage around her head. Her chador had slipped and she instinctively clutched at her head scarf to make sure it was still in place.

  The beating continued. Azar heard Heydari’s heavy breathing and grunting as he pumped the book into her huddled body. Her last thought before a wallop to the base of her head brought welcome blackness was that her worrying had been so misplaced. She had worried for Ibrahim. She had worried for Ali. She had never thought to worry for herself.

  Kalame, “ ‘If a Nation Wants to Change Its Destiny’: Zahra Rahnavard on Women’s Rights and the Green Movement,” in The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future, eds. Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel (Brooklyn: Melville House, 2010).

  Maziar Bahari, “Newsweek Reporter’s Ordeal in Iran,” Newsweek, November 21, 2009.

  PART TWO

  Two and a Half

  Months of Fall

  US support for Iran’s newly born civil rights movement, the Green Movement, was seen by the Iranian leadership as clear evidence of US interference in the internal affairs of Iran.

  —Seyed Hossein Mousavian, former Iranian diplomat and

  nuclear negotiations team member, in his book Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View

  CHAPTER 4

  Monday, September 21, 2009—three months and twelve days after the election

  Hundreds of students have staged an antigovernment demonstration at Tehran’s Sharif University, the second such protest in two days.

  Many students were chanting “Death to the Dictator” and “Political Prisoners Must Be Released,” in reference to the more than 100 people still jailed in Iran.

  —Golnaz Esfandiari, senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty4

  Sarah didn’t recognize the man she’d married three months ago.

  She was at a window table in Yassi Café by Laleh Park with a crowd of her university friends. Minoo, her highlighted hair barely covered with a gauzy yellow scarf was regaling the group with a story of being stopped by an Afghan Basiji while on a date with her boyfriend Sam in Chitgar Park. The Basiji had offered to let them go in exchange for a kiss from Minoo but readily agreed to the couple’s counteroffer to give the man a ride in Sam’s Audi S4 instead.

  Sarah had just quipped that Minoo ought to have been offended that the Basiji seemed to value a car ride more than a kiss from her. The table erupted in laughter, and that was when Sarah noticed the man standing in line at the cash register with a briefcase in one hand and a phone in the other.

  There was something about him that looked familiar, and Sarah tried to place him. He was a bit young to be a friend of her father’s, but perhaps he worked at Baba’s office. Or maybe he was a distant relative she’d met at a family party. It wasn’t until the man, looking up at the menu of choices before him, ran his tongue over the notch in his front tooth that Sarah recognized Ali with a jolt that both thrilled and terrified her.

  It wasn’t just the passage of time but also several physical changes that had lengthened the gap between seeing and recognizing the man she’d loved. Ali had lost quite a bit of weight, and his suit hung on him. He’d grown a beard and looked older and quite serious as he gave his order and handed over several bills.

  Minoo went on with her story of the Basiji, but Sarah couldn’t hear, her pulse beat so loudly in her ears. Would he see her? How should she respond to this man who had abandoned her? She had just gotten used to hating him, but the sight of Ali’s still-thick fingers reminded her of the way he’d caressed hers during the only time they’d ever been alone together.

  The girl at the counter delivered Ali’s drink. From the frothy green liquid gleaming through the transparent plastic, Sarah could see it was a melon smoothie. Ali took it and turned to leave. But he turned the opposite way, so he never faced Sarah’s direction. Then his phone rang, and Sarah watched him pass his drink to the hand also holding his briefcase and awkwardly crook the phone between his chin and shoulder so he could push the door open and exit. As the door swung shut behind him, she heard the beginnings of his greeting to whoever had called. He was gone.

  What were the odds, Sarah wondered, that in this sprawling city of ten million people, they would be at the same café at the exact same time? And how strange and almost tragic that God should bring them so close without creating an opportunity for them to actually interact. She wondered whether they would ever cross paths again. Perhaps the next time, Ali would be the one to see her, and she would carry on with her day like he was doing now, entirely unaware of having been so close to the one he had once loved.

  “Sarah!” Minoo called.

  Startled, Sarah pulled her attention from the café door Ali had just exited to her friends that were calling her name. Then she followed their pointing fingers to the other side of the window, where A
li was standing, staring at her.

  * * *

  He came back inside.

  As she stood to greet him, Sarah’s heart beat so hard she wondered whether it might bruise her ribs from the inside.

  “Sarah-khanoom . . . salaam.” He set the briefcase and smoothie down and jammed his thick hands into his pockets. He looked shocked and maybe even a little scared but also pleased to see her.

  Sarah dipped her head in formal greeting. She was aware of her school chums’ curious eyes. None of them knew the real reason she and Ali weren’t together. And Sarah did not want to be humiliated again.

  “I . . .” Ali paused and looked around the table at all the young women listening in. “It’s so . . . nice to see you.”

  Really? Sarah thought. It’s so nice to see me, and yet you’ve made no attempt to do so? What kind of man gets out of prison and doesn’t bother to contact his wife?

  Aloud, Sarah responded with stiff Persian pleasantries, asking about the health of his parents and other family members in a way that she hoped would convey indifference and also a little anger.

  Ali looked disappointed as he responded to her tone. “Oh, well,” he said finally, “I don’t want to bother you. I guess I’d better be going anyway.”

  He picked up his briefcase but kept standing there tapping it against his shins and pulling at his beard with his free hand. Sara decided the beard looked good on him because it narrowed his neck. Although, perhaps that was really the result of his weight loss.

  “If you’re in the neighborhood,” Ali said finally, “I’ll be here at the same time next week.”

  Then, almost before he’d finished his sentence, he nodded farewell and left.

  As Sarah sank into her seat, she noticed Ali’s untouched melon smoothie sweating on the table where it had been left behind. Without warning, Sarah burst into tears.