The morning they followed their father and the guards, the mullah and the captured, into the secreted valley, time passed in that same strange way. One moment eleven Kurdish men stood in a huddle, eyes open and hands tied, and the next moment they stood blindfolded, lined up shoulder to shoulder. One moment eleven revolutionary guards stood before them, rifles alongside their legs, and the next instant the soldiers knelt, rifles propped on their shoulders and one eye snapped shut. There was the year of the mullah’s walk between the two lines, the decade of their father’s cigarette and the eternity Saladin spent mourning his mud-caked shoes.
If there was a keeper of this odd time, it was a young man with two cameras. The photographer moved lightly among them, snap snap snap, and would, with his photographs, push the morning out longer than the seconds or minutes or hours it held in actual time. Saladin watched as the photographer took one picture of the line of executioners and one of the line of near dead and another of the wet mud between them.
The mullah stood between the lines like a gray pillar. He said nothing and ran two fingers and a thumb through his thick beard, and after a time everyone stood still and ready and in silence. The mullah dropped his hands and held them open like a book. Then, from empty palms, he read.
This afternoon you have been found guilty for the crimes of firearm trafficking to Kurdish nationalist rebels to the west, a violation of the laws of the Islamic Republic that merits instant execution. As you were under the Shah, violent, aggressive, vainglorious, you have exhibited yourself at the dawn of the Islamic Republic, and we will let your deaths serve as examples to your sons. Let them know the righteous path of the devoted heart lies with the Ayatollah Khomeini, and that all other associations and their subsequent actions are Mozzafir-al-den.
The mullah folded his palms together, steadied his gaze. Then an enormous rage opened in his face just long enough for him to shout, Atash! And on that order eleven shots fired out from eleven barrels, as somewhere in the sky, a million threads were cut and the Kurdish men dropped to the valley floor like puppets, useless and tossed aside.
Saladin’s knees shook and his eyes blurred, but he tried not to fall as the men had just fallen. He pushed himself up and forced his ears to place the echoes of gunshots as they bounced back and forth along the high rock walls, bang bang bang with the same playful volley of thunder.
In the silence that followed, time stood still for everyone to see what was: A man shot in the head. A man shot just under the eye. A man shot in the neck. A man shot in the chest. Another man shot beneath the collarbone. Another in the forehead. Another in the hand that he held over his heart, blood spouting from the hand and from the heart. A man with a wound to his mouth and blood for words. And at the far end a man shot in the waist, still moving, his mouth beneath the blindfold taking in air, letting out whatever sounds came, his feet most alive, kicking and carving shapes into the thick mud.
The mullah approached the family.
Agha Captain. The pistols. Do you have them?
And his father drew out two pistols, one from his holster on his belt and one from the inside of his jacket.
The mullah did not speak, and in this slow time they stood there, four men and two guns.
The mullah nodded his head in the direction of Saladin and Ali.
It is your turn. We must ensure that the convicted die, it is only humane.
The mullah turned to their father.
If your sons complete this task, we will know all is well. If your sons are cowards, then that is a matter that will not last beyond today.
Their father nodded. With steady hands he lit a cigarette and looked toward the mountains.
Pesar-eh man. We have discussed what you must do, and now you must do it … These are complicated times …
The mullah continued for him.
Your baba is correct. We must know that there are only devoted men under the Ayatollah. Men devoted to this new Iran and nothing else.
If there were tears, Saladin did not feel them on his face. Like his limp hands and weak knees, his face was out of his control. All his senses had rushed to aid his imagination, which was busy taking stock of a life that ended today, this bright spring morning, at seventeen, before his first sex, before his life as a man, in America, on his own. He saw the gun and his father’s fallen face. He saw himself dead on the valley floor. He saw, beneath it all, his dirty shoes and knew that if his life was to take a direction, a step that would continue the days after today until they turned into the days of life where Saladin would be a happy stranger, no longer a brother or a son or a Kurd, all thought must stop. He must not think. Saladin let his mind go blank, and time picked up tremendous speed, and one minute his hand was empty and the next it was full with the gun taken off the palm of a father who looked away. Saladin’s weak knees were strong now as he walked out to the line of dead and pointed and aimed and shot four times at dead flesh or wet earth or whatever was near until he stood with a numb hand above the still-live man whose blindfold had slipped off such that he could stare at Saladin, eyes to eyes. It was Babak. The gun fell from Saladin’s hand, and with it, time fell off its fast rails and slowed. Saladin heard the shush of the mullah’s robes as he paced about Saladin’s father and brother, and the fury that rang through his voice.
Captain! What is this mess? Finish your work here! Show me!
The mullah shouted the order once, and the dying man twisted his body and pushed his face and all its agony farther into the mud. Saladin sobbed above him and could not, for all his newfound strength, unlock his eyes to see the scene of a mullah who yelled at a father who wished for his son to kill, simply kill, so that the father could go home, to smoke, to bed, to die. Without Saladin’s eyes on it, the movie of this life played out in sound alone, and Saladin heard his father clear his throat.
Ali. It is just as we do to the pigeons who cannot fly, to the goats who break their legs. It is God’s kindness. Take the gun. So it can be finished.
And with that all time opened up and generations rushed between father and son. Great-grandfathers from the beginning of their bloodline and unborn great-grandsons from far into the future roamed around the first man of these mountains who willed to make a son, to keep a son alive for the sake of more sons.
I will not. Not for you. Not for this Khomeini. It is against my blood. Ali’s voice had no tone.
Ali jaan. Do you love this land?
His father asked with cold control.
Yes, Baba. More than you.
Then do as they ask. Do it for the shape of this new country, to tell the new Ayatollah that the Kurds are loyal. Or put us all in danger, the Kurds, me, your brother, these mountains. Ali, take the gun, or forget it all, your home, your sisters, your life as a man here. I will tell the town to forget my first son.
The dying man panted in steady, even breaths. The bullet hole just above his hip surged blood, and Saladin stared at the great red life as it spilled out of him. He imagined himself reaching down to press into the open wound and save the life, but never bent to do it, never had a chance to stain his hand. A close shot blistered the silence, then another and a third. Saladin waited for his own blood to pour, for a pain to sear him, but all that came was the weak spasm of a kick from the dying man, and Ali’s fast, strong hand and ready shout.
Come! Come on!
There was a sharp jerk to Saladin’s shoulder and arm, and he felt his brother’s straight, fast pull and his feet coming unstuck from the mud.
Bodo! Hurry!
Time ran quickly and the brothers ran alongside it, one moment clamoring over the next so what was true seconds ago—Saladin stuck in the mud, the not-dead man as Ali’s hands wrapped around a pistol, shooting at the guards until three fell—was now past, and the new truth was Saladin and Ali, hand in hand, away from the bodies and quickly behind the closest boulders and then quickly through a tight crevasse so narrow they ran single file and became boys again, one fast in front of the other, escaping some st
oried force of death or dishonor that hunted them on the valley floor.
Behind them the story went like this: a furious mullah yelled at guards who were young again, inept and afraid and unable to give proper chase or load spent rifles or fire at the brothers who were now gone, sucked deeply into the veins of trails unchanged since their childhood days.
Behind them a father was kicked to the ground, a boot to his chest, no words off his lips.
Behind them a send-off party of murderers.
Not once did Saladin look back, hopeful for the music, dancing or well-wishes, but took the only celebrations available: the life in his lungs, his fast feet and, far ahead, the lacy chirp of birds. Saladin ran toward their song and then ran faster so to see them, so to know that somewhere in the high, happy calls, it was just as he’d planned it, the lift of his soul after takeoff, the lightness, the fated escape.
The fate of escape.
Days, weeks, maybe months later, the fate of Saladin’s escape is to be failed by his feet. The same feet that rushed the brothers up and out of the valley, fold and trip beneath him. He stumbles down the steep tongue of the cargo plane like a fool. Cocooned against the cold hull for seven? twelve? fifteen? hours, his body is crumpled and sore. When he reaches the tarmac, there is relief in the flat concrete and the hot, bright air. Jeeps and hangars and winged machines are all around him, but not one sign of welcome. Nothing says California. Los Angeles. Welcome, Saladin. And for these first minutes it is his fate to wonder, Have I arrived? Where have I arrived to? This is not how it he planned it, the end of all running and the beginning of home.
He shouts up into the dark hull of the cargo plane, Ali! Ali! Come out! We’re here.
Nothing answers and nothing moves. From underneath the cockpit a man approaches and shouts out, Hey! Then once more, with a quicker step: Hey! Saladin waves at him as if he belongs here and walks away from the plane, and he is running now, running again, easily and familiarly, from these past weeks. He passes oil trucks and netted boxes of freight and empty buildings and eventually runs in the direction of a far fence and the empty street beyond it. Just as it was in the valley, it is here, and the fate of escape is to never look back, for fear of the man who chases you, for fear your brother is not right behind.
Safe Houses
We go to the borderlands of the west and south where the mountains are inlaid with villages that exist outside of time. Here, we are met by men and women that know only what they know and consider one passing stranger to be as good or bad as the next.
These are the mountain towns that lead us out—to Diyarbakir and Ankara or Islamabad—the stops before the start where we, the strangers, are dropped off by one arrangement and told with little reassurance to wait for the next arrangement to come.
Tomorrow. After dark. A Datsun truck. The driver’s name is Ali Reza. Make sure his name is Ali Reza. I think he has a thin mustache. Anyone else is the patrol. After you are certain it is Ali Reza, pay him the rest of what you owe and he will take you across the border. God willing.
The arrangement provides no other advice and leaves us at the edge of villages, in small squares, at the doors of houses that are promised to be safe. Until that tomorrow there is today and tonight, and we have no place to be, nothing to do but worry and wait. A few minutes and a thousand fears pass, and in time something opens—a door, a mouth, the palm of a hand—and we are taken in and treated as if it were always known, as if we had spent the whole of our lives in this nameless spot.
We are fed, offered a mat and a flat pillow and left alone to drink tea, smoke cigarettes and fret. If the house has small children, they approach and watch our new presence, openly curious about the soft luggage, the fancy shoes, the digital wristwatches. They keep close to our wonders while their parents keep a distance. No questions are asked of affiliations, circumstance or destination. Everything has already been explained to them by the smugglers; all arrangements have been made.
Yes.
The men and women say, for a little bit of money they will lie during the weekly inspections of their homes and schools and mosques.
Yes.
They will keep us warm, feed us as best they can. Yes, for a little bit of money they will upset their lives and hide their young wives and oldest daughters from these fleet-footed strangers without homes or futures.
Yes. For a little bit of money, befaymin.
Night comes and we sit with the men and women of the village. They are quiet. To soothe ourselves we talk, beseech God, try to explain.
I was halfway along life’s path, ay Khoda, you must understand this is not how it was planned.
I had a position at the university.
I was a second administrator at the TV station.
I just received my certificate to practice dentistry.
I was in love.
In school.
Engaged.
Now what? Three months have passed and the country is already falling apart. I am an Islamic man, just like you, but this regime is like a black hand over our faces, his picture, his komiteh guards, are everywhere, as bad as SAVAK. My own uncle was taken to prison for refusing to take off his tie. My cousin took twenty lashes to the soles of his feet for holding his girlfriend’s hand, for refusing to call her a slut in front of the police. My brother-in-law, my next-door neighbor, my father, my mother, missing for weeks …
We tell of the last time and the time before that and how this escape is the choice.
I had to go. What else was there to do?
In dim rooms we tell these things to the men and women of villages that have no before and no after, where no person has stood before another person and said, And now we are in the era of King so-and-so, and now we are in the era of Shah so-and-such and next year his son will rule over us. For their part they sit quietly, take their tea and are careful not to look at our sad, scurrying eyes and keep their ears tuned outside, to the sounds of the wind.
In the morning we awake tired from the night’s unwieldy dreams and stare absently into the wide eyes of children who toss us a ball, a half-knit sweater, a crayon, a smile. Exhausted, we stare back, and soon we are touching the child’s hand, tossing the ball, enjoying the hot tea and the warmth of a hearth that did not fade in the night. From the kitchen we are enticed by the smells of onions, saffron and grilled meats, and under our feet a rug with worn patterns pleases our eyes. Suddenly, there is comfort. Comfort to make the will soft, the knees feeble, comfort to change the mind.
The villagers notice our sudden calm, the way we look about and consider their warm homes and quiet lives. They remind us.
Go, go, now, take some fresh air while you wait. The camion will be here any minute.
We have forgotten ourselves.
Yes. Of course. I must not miss the camion, of course. I must leave immediately.
And we do as we are told even if we don’t know why. When the arrangement comes, it is a truck or a small van. Maybe it is a pack of mules saddled heavy with blankets or a broad-chested man who carries the complete skins of sheep, heads included, and issues only one instruction.
Wear this. Yes, the head over your head. Cover your shoulders and walk on your hands and knees. But slowly. They patrol from the air now. Remember, move slowly, sheep have no reason to run.
We tune our hearts to a frequency somewhere between empty and intrepid and forget the child, the rug, the tea, and move on. There are no farewells, and like that we come and go from these border villages. Years later, in the new country, we will remember that awkward escape, the flavor of the khoresht we ate that night, the color of the child’s asking eye. These memories can’t be controlled. They grow and fade and harass us in dreams and waking life the same.
Behind us, in the villages without time, there is no memory.
In our wake there is no talk of where to or why or when, and the men and women of the villages resume their life, undisrupted. The cycles of seasons, sex, birth, planting, harvest and death come and go. On
ly the children, for whom the cycles are not yet set, still fascinate on the appearance and disappearance of birds and butterflies. They run to ask those who know, But why? Why do they stop in our hyatt? Why do they leave?
Those who know ask back.
Are there flowers in your hyatt? Are the flowers in your hyatt fragrant?
Yes.
Are they colorful and beautiful?
Yes.
Are the walls of your hyatt tall and safe?
Yes.
In the villages without time the children wait only so long for understanding to come.
First Nights
It is not as he imagined, this Los Angeles, the America on the other side of the fence, and Saladin walks away from the airport with quick steps, hungry for some sign to convince him he has arrived—a nice car, women in short skirts and lipstick, a sandy beach—anything to welcome him as California’s newest son.
He walks through an area of no end. The buildings are low-slung and the streets are dirty and without life, and it is no different from the anonymous outskirts of Ankara, Istanbul, and Tabriz. The similarity makes him nervous, nervous that he is lost and nervous that he has failed, and his feet pick up as much speed as they can and soon he is running, a fast step for every line he mutters beneath his breath. I have come. Where have I come? I have come? Where have I come? Beyond the flat rooftops he sees mountains, shorter than the mountains he has known, but green and near. He sees their dry dirt and dusty shrubs, and somewhere among them a clutter of wooden letters spells HOLLYWOOD, high and white. Saladin anchors himself in their direction and moves on.
The Walking Page 2
