Messenger from Mystery

by Deno Trakas

  A final pause. “O-kay.”

  As soon as we got to Azi’s room on the third floor of the Harakas, the phone rang and Baizan gave me instructions to take Azi to his room down the hall, and reminded me to be observant—he’d want to know if we saw anyone who looked suspicious in any way. He met us at the door and led us into a dim room furnished, much like mine, as if from Goodwill, with two threadbare armchairs, a sagging double bed, a faded seascape on the wall, a floor lamp and a low dresser—the exception was a compact, high-tech tape recorder on a side table. Baizan, a wiry guy, about 6´1˝, wore jeans and a Sorbonne T-shirt—with his long brown hair and stubble beard he looked like a rebellious student himself. He shook our hands then and introduced himself to Azi—he spoke English for my benefit and told us that he had been at the American embassy in Tehran the day before the takeover but had been called to Cairo unexpectedly; otherwise he’d be one of the hostages.

  He offered us the armchairs, then had a short conversation in Farsi with Azi, which, when it was over, he translated. “I told her we appreciate her coming, we want her to be safe and comfortable, and we’ll keep constant surveillance on the building just in case there are any curious Iranians around.”

  I could tell by the way Azi sat, letting the chair absorb her weight, that he’d already relieved some of her suspicions, and his knowledge of Farsi was also a welcome surprise, I was sure. He outlined his plans: we could come and go from the hotel like any couple enjoying a vacation, but we’d have to come to this room for interviews. “Do you speak Greek, Jason?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “Good. We’ll have one of our Greek agents keep watch, but that’s as close as we’ll come except when you’re here. The more Greek you speak, the better you’ll blend in. You want a Greek-English phrase book?”

  “Sure.”

  He pulled a tattered paperback out of a briefcase and handed it over, then looked at his watch. “It’s almost noon. Azadeh, you’re our guest. Would you like to answer some questions now, or do you want to rest first?”

  “Now is o-kay.”

  Baizan took out a legal pad and turned on the tape recorder.

  Azi pointed to it and said, “Why you have this?”

  Baizan turned it off and answered, “Well, for one thing, I don’t trust my ability to take accurate notes, and for another thing, I want to share your opinions and information with other members of my team, including those in Washington, so we can decide how to proceed. Is that okay?”

  She nodded.

  He conducted the taping session more or less the way he’d explained to me, except that it took four hours instead of two, with a fifteen-minute break for gyros and French fries that Baizan had one of his people deliver. Baizan spoke English for my benefit and the benefit of the others who would listen to the tape, but he encouraged Azi to revert to Farsi if necessary.

  The early questions were general: How serious are the student militants about their demands? What’s the mood of the Iranian people? How do they feel about the hostage situation, especially now that the Shah has died? How do they feel about their government—President Bani Sadr, Sadegh, the Ayatollah, the Majlis—and how do they feel about the student militants? How deep is their devotion to the Ayatollah? Baizan often asked for elaboration, and this part took well over an hour. But then the questions became more specific: Where are the hostages being held now? Are they being treated well? Are they being guarded by the same students who first stormed the embassy? How influential is the communist Tudeh party? Does Sadegh have regular contact with the students? With the Ayatollah? With the Ayatollah’s son? Are Bani Sadr’s personal opinions the same as those in his speeches? Will Sadegh continue to struggle against the Majlis, or will he give up? Does he have any ideas for breaking the impasse? Who are his principal adversaries? What, in her opinion, is the main obstacle to the release of the hostages? And what, in her opinion, will be the future of Iran, after Khomeini?

  Azi didn’t have an answer for every question. Using English mostly, but switching to Farsi when the complexity of the issue required, she explained that America’s decades-long support of the Shah, a corrupt and ruthless dictator, was still the problem even though he had died. Most Iranians, with their affinity for conspiracy theories, believed the U.S. was behind every move the Shah made, so what the militants wanted was, at a minimum, our admission of guilt and apologies. She said that although the Shah had spent most of Iran’s oil revenues on himself, his family, and friends, he had also modernized the country and improved conditions for women dramatically; but now the fundamentalists had pushed the country back to the old days of Sharia law and its many oppressions—if they had their way, women would be merely breeders and servants. Her point was that she wasn’t allowed to participate in political matters, but she was close to Sadegh, his favorite cousin, and sometimes talked to him privately about international affairs. She proved to be a keen observer of the internal wrangling and power struggle that had brought the hostage crisis to a stalemate.

  The problem now: the U.S. refused to give in to all the militants’ demands, and although some Iranian officials wanted to take control of the hostages and end the crisis, no one except Sadegh would speak or act boldly because they were afraid that if the radicals protested, the liberal officials would be called traitors, they would be arrested, they might even be executed. Sadegh, who had always been a close confidant of the Ayatollah, took risks, criticizing the students and demanding they turn over the hostages, but he couldn’t solve the crisis alone. He tried to persuade the Ayatollah to back him, but even the Ayatollah was afraid of making decisions that might nick the fickle will of the people—that surprised me.

  Finally, just before five o’clock, as Azi’s eyes began to droop, Baizan said he was asking the last question of the day: “Can we do anything to help, perhaps by paying bribes, eliminating a key adversary . . . ?”

  Azi asked for a translation, and when she heard it she shook her head quickly. “No, no. If person kill, the people think CIA. Bad, very bad.”

  “Okay,” Baizan said. “Any ideas?”

  Azi shook her head again, staring absently out the window. Then she rubbed her fingers together, looked at Baizan, and said, “Pishkesh maybe.”

  He glanced at me. “We call it a bribe. They call it a gift for a favor.” Then to Azi, “Who?”

  “Must to be careful, but maybe Rafsanjani, leader of Parliament. In past he is, how you say”—she spoke in Farsi again, which Baizan translated, “moneylender.” She nodded and continued. “And Beheshti, leader of Islamic Party, friend of Rafsanjani. Maybe they tell Majlis to discuss hostage soon. Or maybe Ayatollah Khalkhali. But pishkesh . . . very bad if CIA.”

  “We would have someone else make the offer. Maybe we could give you money to take back with you, to give to Sadegh to use according to his judgment.”

  She shook her head and said, “I no take suitcase of money to Iran.”

  “If we decide to send money, and you agree, we’ll use a bag with a secret compartment of some kind. But only if you agree.”

  She nodded again.

  Baizan turned off the tape recorder. “Okay, let’s stop for the day. That was great, Azi, very useful. We’ll have some follow-up questions tomorrow, if you don’t mind.”

  She gave me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look making my protective instincts kick in, so I said, “Hasn’t she given you enough?”

  Baizan looked at Azi. “You’ve given us a lot, but I’m sure my people will have a few other questions—we’ll try to keep it short.”

  She said, “O-kay.”

  “Good. Now the two of you can have some time to yourselves, but if you need anything, we’ll be here. Jay, you have our number, but try not to use it. One last thing: if you notice a Greek man following you—he’s about five ten, thin, has lots of curly black hair and a mustache, a scar on his chin—and if he’s good, you won’t see him, but if you do, he’s one of ours so don’t worry.”

  “Okay.”r />
  Azi’s room had a balcony with a direct view of the Acropolis, and she was visibly pleased when she saw it. Standing in front of the sliding glass door, looking out into the smog that blunted the view, I held her for a minute, massaged her neck, and asked what she wanted to do now. “Sleep, one hour maybe. Then we eat, o-kay?”

  “How much sleep did you get last night?”

  “No sleep. For you?”

  “A little.”

  I kissed her forehead and told her I’d call to wake her in a couple of hours.

  Azi slept off her exhaustion and suspicion, changed into a flirtatious red summer dress—where did she get it?—applied lipstick, and greeted me with an uninhibited hug.

  Because Baizan had impressed us with his professionalism and assured us of his protection, and because we didn’t know any better, we felt secure. First, since we’d miss it if we waited until after dinner, we went to the sound and light show at the Acropolis, starring the Parthenon and a few of the world’s other famous, crumbling, past perfect structures. I told Azi that, according to my father, the statues on the Porch of the Karyatids were modeled after the women of his family hometown, Karyae, so we were probably looking at my great-great-great etcetera grandmother. Azi opened her eyes wide to tease me for my exaggeration, but she was impressed nevertheless, and for a moment I felt like a descendant of Athena herself, with god-blood running through my veins.

  From there we walked down to the Plaka neighborhood below the Acropolis, where we ate roast lamb and Greek salads, sipped ouzo, clapped to the bouzouki, and danced with other tourists, arms on each others’ shoulders, in a line that swirled like a ribbon around the restaurant. I’d never danced with Azi before and admired her quick study, her light step—she danced as if she’d been holding in joy and had decided to let it out, and everyone watched her, enjoying her enjoyment, taking some of it for themselves. I played my role, spoke the Greek I knew, mimicked the Greek mannerisms I’d seen all my life, and enjoyed being Greek. But mostly I enjoyed being with Azi. I kept staring at her and touching her—hands, arms, shoulders, hair—making her blush, her skin like honey made from roses.

  With myths and moonlight caressing the marble pillars of the Parthenon in the background, against a black sky that knew its place, the evening couldn’t have been more romantic. And Azi couldn’t have been a more perfect companion: intelligent, lovely, sexy, happy. I was smitten, again. When the moon had risen to midnight, when we were sweaty and tired and almost deaf from the high decibels of the bouzouki, we walked out onto the uneven sidewalk in front of the restaurant. I turned to her, held her hands and said, “I hope you’re having as good a time as I am.”

  “Yes. Very good.”

  “Are you glad you came?”

  She smiled politely, closing her eyes for a second, then nodded as if to save words for more important questions.

  I pulled her into the dimly lit entrance area of a closed boutique to separate us from the tourists who still milled about. I put my arms around her, all the time trying to read the language in her eyes, and kissed her dark red lips. She kissed me back, into another flashback, this one of our walk in Five Points, just off-campus at the University of South Carolina. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”

  Holding my arms as if to prevent me from running there, she frowned and said, “You have other girl now? Nadia?”

  I wanted to lie but couldn’t because I didn’t know what Nadia had told Azi in her letters, and because, well, I didn’t want to. “Yes,” I said. I put my hands on her waist above her hips to let her know I wasn’t going anywhere and I didn’t want her to go anywhere either.

  She smiled again, but this time it was melancholy. “You love her?”

  I could have said Yes, or No, or Not like you, and all would have been true, but I said, “I don’t think so. I told you about the fire, right?” She nodded. “And about moving in with her?” She nodded again. “Well, she went home to Kuwait for the summer, and while she was gone, I moved out—did I tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I did. I’d say we’re just friends, best friends.” It sounded like a cliché people use when they want to date two people at the same time.

  She nodded as if she thought the same and waited for me to say more, but I didn’t know what to say—I didn’t want to get into a philosophical or psychological discussion of love and friendship with Azi about Nadia.

  She came to my rescue and said, “You know poet Rumi?”

  “Yes. You introduced me to him in December.”

  “He say love is language of messenger, I think that is word, messenger?” I nodded. “Messenger from mystery. I say it right?”

  “I don’t know—it sounds right. Messenger from mystery. I like it. That’s not how I feel about Nadia—it’s how I feel about you.”

  She hugged me, held it, I did too, and when she tried to release me I wouldn’t let her, I held her longer, until she pushed me back and wiped her eyes, smiling but sad.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Do you have someone in Tehran?”

  She shook her head. “My mother and father want for me to marry, but I no want. I go to movie with friend sometime. Just friend.”

  “Why didn’t you write me more often? Why didn’t you tell me . . . ?”

  Looking into me as if she were probing a wound, she answered, “I think I never see you again. I think better for to forget, better for Jay to forget. And I am, how you say, confused?”

  “Yes.”

  “Confused,” she said again, and I could see it in her eyes, shadows and light, confusion just like mine: what was she to make of my distant, messy, impossible love.

  “Don’t you think you’ll ever come back?”

  She shook her head. “Mother want me stay, father want me stay, Sadegh want me stay.”

  “But what do you want?”

  “In better world, I come.”

  I felt as if Zeus himself had picked me up like a doll and was squeezing my chest to see if I’d make a sound. “And there’s nothing we can do about it?”

  “We have good time. Sunday, good-bye again.”

  I felt surges of love and loss just as I had in December—she was the one, she was perfect . . . I wanted to get down on my knee and propose . . . but it was . . . the word kept coming back . . . impossible. She could see my agony and said, “What, Jay?”

  “I wonder if Rumi has a poem about love that is personal and powerful but impossible because of political problems?”

  “You feel this?”

  “Yes.”

  She hugged me hard again and pressed her face against the damp shirt over my heart. I closed my eyes and gave into it, felt her body every place it touched mine, felt bruised, loved, and helpless. Also exhausted. With my arm around her shoulders and her arm around my waist, we headed back to the hotel.

  I slept pretty well, if alone, or maybe because I was alone—Azi had insisted. We went out to a leisurely American-style breakfast at a nearby café and acted like lovers on vacation. Without the bouzouki blaring or the tape recorder rolling, we were able to talk, to fill in some of the story of the last eight months without worrying about spies or terrorists or the definition of love. I told her about studying for comprehensive exams, waiting tables at the Peddler, fighting with Saad, and more, but not all, about my relationship with Nadia.

  Azi told me about the austere and lonely offices of her home life with her miserable mother and sonofabitch—I supplied that word—father, her uncertain job at the bank, the general paranoia that gripped the people, the strangeness of living in a city where hope was on hold and where normal business struggled to survive in the tangled underbrush of revolution, which caught fire every few days. She thought she might continue her education some day, but she wasn’t sure of that or anything else. She made me ashamed to think so much of my puny problems.

  The afternoon passed much like the previous one, consumed in part by another session with Baizan, who apologized but had to ask detailed
and exhaustive follow-up questions, and then wanted to work out a specific plan of action: he wanted to give her money to take back to Sadegh to distribute as pishkesh, and he wanted her to talk to Sadegh about the possibility that the U.S. might help Iran by supplying spare parts for its military hardware in exchange for the hostages. That struck me as ironic and idiotic—we had virtually brought the Shah to power, supplied and supported him, and now we were going to support and supply the radical regime that deposed him.

  Finally Baizan looked at his watch and said, “Okay, we can wrap it up for today. That was great, Azi, thank you. But I’d like to talk to you briefly one more time tomorrow morning. I think your plane leaves around noon, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Jay, yours leaves about 1:00, so I thought you could take her to the airport.”

  “Fine.”

  “Azi, can you meet me here at 8:00 A.M.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We’ll talk, make final plans, and I’ll have a bag for you to take back—it’ll be well disguised.”

  “O-kay.”

  “Good. Well, as far as I’m concerned, you two are free until tomorrow morning. If you haven’t tried it, I recommend the Olympia, across the square—the moussaka is the best.”

  A few hours later, we returned to the hotel, limp with exhaustion and disappointment that our time was almost over. As we stepped into the room, before we could even turn on the light, a man grabbed Azi, yanked her away from me, and put a small handgun to her head. He spoke quickly but quietly in Farsi, which she translated. “He say come, move slow, close door.” Terrified and confused, I did as I was told, and as I shut out the light from the hall, the room became a gray box with an eerie red hue from a neon light across the street. “He say he want to kill you, and me, he want to kill me, but if we do that he say, he no will kill.”

  He was pressing the barrel hard against Azi’s temple and twisting her arm behind her so that she winced, convincing us that he was serious. Desperate thoughts flashed through my brain: could I knock the gun away? In movies heroes disarmed villains in less time than it took to pull a trigger, but there was no way. I was sure, sure that if I tried anything, he’d kill Azi. But why, who was he, what did he want, where the fuck was Baizan, where the fuck was the agent who was supposed to be watching us? I held up my hands and said, “Okay, don’t hurt her.”