Whirlwind

by James Clavell

  Across the room Zarah was watching Sharazad, astonished with the change but thanking God that she had accepted her lot and was going to obey which would make all their lives easier. What else could she do? Nothing! And nothing for me to do but accept that Meshang has a fourteen-year-old whore who already has her fangs out, boasting that soon she’ll become his second wife.

  “Zarah!”

  “Oh! Yes, Meshang, my dear.”

  “The evening’s perfect, perfect.” Meshang mopped his brow and accepted a soft drink from the tray that also contained glasses of champagne for those who cared for it. “I’m delighted that Sharazad got her senses back, for of course it’s a perfect match for her.”

  “Perfect,” Zarah said agreeably. I suppose we should be thankful he arrived alone and did not bring one of his fancy boys—it’s true, he really does smell of the ordure he sells. “You’ve arranged everything perfectly, darling Meshang.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. It’s working out just as I planned.”

  NEAR JALEH: To reach the small grass airstrip, once the home of an impoverished aero club now disused, Lochart had skirted the city and kept low to come under any radar. All the way in from D’Arcy 1908 he had tuned his radio to Tehran International but the airwaves were silent, the airport closed down for Holy Day, no flights permitted. He had been careful to arrive at sunset. When he cut the engine and heard the muezzins he was pleased. So far so good.

  The hangar door was rusty. With some difficulty he managed to open it and wheeled the 206 inside. Then he reshut the door and began the long walk. He wore his flight clothes and, if he was stopped, he planned to say that he was an airline pilot whose car had broken down and was going to spend the night with friends.

  As he reached Tehran’s outskirts, the roads became more and more crowded, people going home or coming from the mosques, no color or laughter among them, only a brooding apprehension.

  There was not much traffic except army vehicles crammed with Green Bands. No troops or uniformed police. Traffic wardens were young Green Bands. The city was coming back into order. Never a woman in Western dress, all chadors.

  A few curses followed him, not many. A few greetings—his pilot’s uniform gave him standing. Deeper into the city he found a good place to wait for a taxi near a street market. While he waited he bought a bottled soft drink, took a wedge of warm fresh bread and munched it. The night wind picked up a little but the brazier was cheerful and inviting.

  “Greetings. Your papers, please.”

  The Green Bands were youths, polite, some with the beginnings of beards. Lochart showed them his ID that was stamped and current and they handed it back to him after some discussion. “Where are you going, may we ask?”

  Deliberately in atrocious Farsi he said, “Visit friends, near bazaar. Car break down. Insha’Allah.” He heard them talking among themselves, saying that pilots were safe, that this one was Canadian—isn’t that part of the Great Satan? No, I don’t think so. “Peace be with you,” they said and wandered off.

  He went to the corner and watched the traffic, the smell of the city strong—gasoline, spices, rotting fruit, urine, body odor, and death. His sharp eyes saw a taxi with only two men in the back and one in the front at an intersection now blocked by a truck making a turn. Without hesitation he ducked through the cars, shouldered another man out of the way, jerked the back door open, and crammed himself inside, apologizing profusely in good Farsi, and begged the occupants to allow him to accompany them. After some cursing, some haggling, the driver discovered the bazaar was directly on the route that he had arranged with the others, all individual travelers who had also fought their way in. “With the Help of God, yours will be the second stop, Excellency.”

  I’ve made it, he told himself exultantly, then allowed the other thought to surface: hope the others made it too. Duke and Scrag, Rudi, all of them, Freddy and good old Mac.

  BAHRAIN—INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: 8:50 P.M. Jean-Luc stood at the helipad and trained his binoculars on the two 212s that were over the end of the apron now, navigation lights winking. They had been cleared for a straight-in and approached fast. Beside him was Mathias, also using binoculars. Nearby was an ambulance, a doctor, and the Immigration officer, Yusuf. The sky was clear and star-filled, the night good with a warm fine wind.

  The lead 212 turned slightly and now Jean-Luc could read the registration letters. G-HUVX. British. Thank God, they had time at Jellet, he thought, recognized Pettikin in the cockpit, then turned his glasses back to the other 212 and saw Ayre and Kyle, the mechanic.

  Touchdown for Pettikin. Mathias and Jean-Luc converged, Mathias for Pettikin and Jean-Luc for the cabin door. He swung it open. “Hello, Genny, how is he?”

  “He can’t seem to breathe.” Her face was white.

  Jean-Luc caught a glimpse of McIver stretched out on the floor, a life jacket under his head. Twenty minutes before, Pettikin had reported to Bahrain Tower that one of his crew, McIver, seemed to be having a heart attack, urgently requested a doctor and ambulance meet them. The tower had cooperated instantly.

  The doctor hurried past him into the cabin and knelt beside McIver. One look was sufficient. He used the hyperdermic he had prepared. “This will settle him quickly and we’ll have him in the hospital in a few minutes.” In Arabic he called to the paramedics and they came on the run. He helped Genny down into the light, Jean-Luc now with them. “I’m Dr. Lanoire, please tell me what happened.”

  “Is it a heart attack?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes, it is. Not a bad one,” the doctor said, wanting to gentle her. He was half-French, half-Bahrain, very good, and they had been fortunate to get him at such short notice. Behind them the paramedics had McIver on a stretcher and were easing him gently out of the helicopter.

  “He…my husband, he suddenly gasped and sort of croaked, ‘I can’t breathe,’ then doubled over in pain and fainted.” She wiped the sweat off her upper lip and continued in the same flat voice: “I thought it must be a heart attack and I didn’t know what to do, then I remembered what old Doc Nutt had said when he gave all us wives a lecture once and I loosened Duncan’s collar and we put him on the floor, then I found the…the capsules he’d given us and put one under his nose and crushed it…”

  “Amyl nitrite?”

  “Yes, yes that was it. Doc Nutt gave us each two of them and told us to keep them safe and secret and how to use them. It smelled awful but Duncan groaned and half came around then went off again. But he was breathing, kind of breathing. It was hard to hear or to see in the cabin but I thought he stopped breathing once and then I used the last capsule and that seemed to make it better again.”

  The doctor had been watching the stretcher. As soon as it was safely in the ambulance, he said to Jean-Luc, “Captain, please bring Madame McIver to the hospital in half an hour, here’s my card, they’ll know where I am.”

  Genny said quickly, “Don’t you think th—”

  The doctor said firmly, “You’ll help more by letting us do our job for half an hour. You’ve done yours, you’ve saved his life, I think.” He rushed off.

  TEHRAN—AT THE BAKRAVAN HOUSE: 8:59 P.M. Zarah was at the dining table, making a last check that all was ready. Plates and cutlery and napkins of white linen, bowls of various horisht, meats and vegetables, fresh breads and fresh fruits, sweetmeats and condiments. Only the rice left to arrive and that would be brought when she called for dinner. “Good,” she said to the servants and went into the other room.

  Their guests were still chattering, but she saw that now Sharazad was standing by herself, near Daranoush who was deep in conversation with Meshang. Hiding her sadness, she went over to her. “My darling, you look so tired. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Of course she’s all right,” Meshang called out with loud, brittle humor.

  Sharazad put a smile on a face that had become very pale. “It’s the excitement, Zarah, just all the excitement.” Then to Farazan, “If you don’t mind, Excellency Daranoush, I won
’t join you for dinner tonight.”

  “Why, what’s the matter?” Meshang said sharply. “Are you sick?”

  “Oh, no, dearest brother, it’s just the excitement.” Sharazad put her attention back on the little man. “Perhaps I may be allowed to see you tomorrow? Perhaps dinner tomorrow?”

  Before Meshang could answer for him, Daranoush said, “Of course, my dear,” and went closer, and kissed her hand, and it took all of her willpower not to heave. “We’ll have dinner tomorrow. Perhaps you and Excellency Meshang and Zarah will honor my poor house.” He chuckled. His face became even more grotesque. “Our poor house.”

  “Thank you, I will treasure the thought. Good night, peace be with you.”

  “And with you.”

  She was equally polite with her brother and Zarah, then turned and left them. Daranoush watched her walk away, the sway of her boyish hips and her buttocks. By God, look at her, he told himself with relish, imagining her naked, cavorting for him. I’ve made an even better arrangement than I imagined. By God, when Meshang proposed the marriage I was only persuaded by the dowry, along with the promises of political partnership in the bazaar—both substantial, which of course they should be for a woman pregnant with a foreigner’s child. But now, by God, I don’t think it will be so difficult to bed her, have her service me as I want to be served, and sometimes to make children of my own. Who knows, perhaps it will be as Meshang said, “Perhaps she’ll lose the one she carries.” Perhaps she will, perhaps she will.

  He scratched absently until she left the room. “Now, where were we, Meshang?”

  “About my suggestion for a new bank…”

  Sharazad closed the door and ran lightly up the stairs. Jari was in her room, dozing in the big chair. “Oh Princess, how d—”

  “I’m going to bed now, Jari. You can leave now and I’m not to be disturbed, Jari, by anyone for any reason. We’ll talk at breakfast.”

  “But, Princess, I’ll sleep in the chair and b—”

  Sharazad stamped her foot, vexed. “Good night! And I am not to be disturbed!” Loudly she locked the door after her, even louder she kicked off her shoes, then, very quietly, changed quickly. Now the veil and chador. Cautiously she opened the French doors to the balcony and slipped out. Stairs went down to a patio garden and from there a passageway led to a back door. She eased off the bolts. The hinges creaked. Then she was out into the alley and had wedged the door shut. As she hurried away, her chador billowed out behind her like a great black wing.

  In the reception room, Zarah glanced at her watch and walked over to Meshang. “Darling, would you like dinner to be served now?”

  “In a moment, can’t you see His Excellency and I are busy?”

  Zarah sighed, then went off to talk to a friend, but stopped as she saw the doorkeeper come in anxiously, look around the room for Meshang, then hurry over to him and whisper. Blood drained out of Meshang’s face. Daranoush Farazan gasped. She rushed over to them. “What on earth is it?”

  Meshang’s mouth worked but no sound came out. In the sudden hush, the frightened servant blurted out, “Green Bands’re here, Highness, Green Bands with a…with a mullah. They want to see His Excellency at once.”

  In the great silence everyone remembered Paknouri’s arrest and Jared’s summons and all the other arrests, executions, and rumors of more terror, more komitehs, jails filled with friends and customers and relations. Daranoush was almost spitting with rage that he was here in this house at this time, wanting to rend his clothes because he had foolishly agreed to ally himself with the Bakravan family, already damned because of Jared’s usury—the same usury that all bazaari moneylenders were guilty of but Jared was caught! Son of a burnt father and I’ve agreed publicly to the marriage and agreed in private to participate in Meshang’s plans, plans I can see now oh God protect me that are dangerously modern, dangerously Western, and clearly against the Imam’s dictates and wishes! Son of a burnt father, there must be a back way out of this house of the damned.

  Four Green Bands and the mullah were in the reception room the servant had shown them into, sitting cross-legged and leaning against the silk cushions. They had taken off their shoes and left them beside the door. The youths were wide-eyed at the richness of their surroundings, their guns on the carpets beside them. The mullah wore fine robes and a fine white turban and was an imposing man in his sixties with a white beard and heavy dark eyebrows, a strong face and dark eyes.

  The door opened. Meshang tottered into the room like an automaton. He was pasty, and his head ached with the strength of his terror. “Greetings…greetings, Excellency…”

  “Greetings. You are Excellency Meshang Bakravan?” Meshang nodded mutely. “Ah, then again greetings and peace be with you, Excellency, please excuse me that I arrive so late but I am the mullah Sayani and I come from the komiteh. We have just discovered about Excellency Jared Bakravan and I have come to tell you that though it was God’s will, His Excellency was never condemned according to the law, was mistakenly shot, his property mistakenly appropriated, and that it will all be returned at once.”

  Meshang gaped at him, speechless.

  “Islamic government is committed to uphold God’s law.” The mullah’s brow darkened as he continued: “God knows we cannot control all zealots or simple-minded, misguided people. God knows there are some who through zeal make errors. And God knows too there are many who use the revolution for evil, hiding under the cloak of ‘patriot,’ many who twist Islam for their filthy purposes, many who will not obey the word of God, many who scheme to bring us into disrepute, even many who falsely wear the turban, many who do not merit the turban, even some ayatollahs, even them, but with the help of God we will tear off their turbans, cleanse Islam, and stamp out the evil, whoever they are…”

  The words were not reaching Meshang. His mind was exploding with hope. “He…my father… I get our…property back?”

  “Our Islamic government is the government of law. Sovereignty belongs to God alone. The law of Islam has absolute authority over everyone—including the Islamic government. Even the Most Noble Messenger, upon whom be peace, was subject to the law that God alone revealed, alone expounded by the tongue of the Koran.” The mullah got up, “It was the Will of God but Excellency Jared Bakravan was not judged according to the law.”

  “It’s…it’s true?”

  “Yes, the Will of God, Excellency. Everything will be returned to you. Didn’t your father support us lavishly? How can Islamic government flourish without bazaari help and support, how can we exist without bazaaris to fight the enemies of Islam, the enemies of Iran and the Infidel?…”

  OUTSIDE THE BAZAAR: The taxi stopped in the crowded square. Lochart got out and paid the driver as two of a mass of would-be passengers, a woman and a man, fought their way into the space he had vacated. The square was full of people streaming into and out of the mosque and the bazaar and surrounding the street stalls. They paid little attention to him, his uniform and cap giving him free passage. The night was chill and overcast. The wind had picked up again and guttered the flames of the oil lamps of street vendors. Across the square was the street of the Bakravan house and he walked briskly, rounded the corner, and stepped aside to let the mullah Sayani and the Green Bands pass, then went on again.

  At the door in the high wall he stopped, took a deep breath, and knocked loudly. Then knocked again. Then again. He heard footsteps, saw an eye behind the spy hole. “Doorkeeper, it’s me, Excellency Captain Lochart,” he called out happily.

  The door swung open. “Greetings, Excellency,” the doorkeeper said, still not over the shock of the abrupt arrival and departure of the mullah and Green Bands—bowed out humbly by Excellency Foul Temper himself, he thought in awe, who the very second the door was bolted had jumped up and down like a madman, drummed his feet on the ground, and rushed back silently into the house, and now here’s another apparition, by God, the Infidel who once was married to the betrothed of Excellency Piss.

  A squ
all blew dead leaves across the patio. Another pop-eyed servant stood at the open main door. “Greetings, Excellency,” he mumbled, “I’ll… I’ll tell Excellency Meshang you’ve arrived.”

  “Wait!” Now Lochart could hear the excited buzz of voices coming from the dining salon, glasses clinking, laughter of a party. “Is my wife in there?”

  “Your wife?” The servant collected himself with difficulty. “The, er, Her Highness, Captain Excellency, she’s gone to bed.”

  Lochart’s anxiety soared. “Is she sick?”

  “She did not appear sick, Excellency, she went just before dinner. I’ll tell Excellency Meshang th—”

  “No need to disturb him and his guests,” he said, delighted with the opportunity of seeing her alone first. “I’ll see her, then come down and announce myself later.”

  The servant watched him go up the stairs, two at a time, waited until he was out of sight, then hurried to find Meshang.

  Lochart went along a corridor into another. He forced himself to walk, relishing how surprised she would be and so happy and then they would see Meshang and Meshang would listen to the plan. At last he was at their door and turned the handle. When the door did not open, he tapped and called out softly, “Sharazad, it’s me, Tommy.” His spirit sang while he waited. “Sharazad?” Waiting. Knocking. Waiting. Then knocking a little louder. “Sharazad!”

  “Excellency!”

  “Oh, hello, Jari,” he said, in his impatience not noticing that she was trembling. “Sharazad, darling, unlock the door, it’s me, Tommy!”

  “Her Highness said she was not to be disturbed.”

  “She didn’t mean me, of course not! Oh! She’s taken a sleeping pill?”

  “Oh no, Excellency.”

  He put all of his attention on her. “What’re you so frightened about?”

  “Me? I’m not frightened, Excellency, why should I be frightened?”

  Something’s wrong, he thought. Impatiently he turned back to the door. “Sharazad!” Waiting waiting waiting. “This is ridiculous!” he muttered. “Sharazad!” Before he knew what he was doing he was hammering on the door. “Open the door, for crissake!”