by M G Vassanji
Ramji and Michel drove to Santa Monica, parked the car at the office, and then walked up to the Promenade. The meeting had been set for one. As arranged, Darcy was waiting for them at the corner patio table of a self-serve sidewalk café. He stood up, and, with a surprised look at Michel, as though he had expected someone different, said, “Well, well,” and shook him warmly by the hand.
“And how are you?” Darcy asked. “You’ve come on urgent business, it seems.”
“I’ve come for your advice and help, Mr. Darcy,” Michel said with deference.
“Inqalab will do its best,” Darcy replied, immediately putting a formal distance between himself and the visitor, as Ramji observed.
They picked up their coffees and returned to their table, and after a while Darcy turned to Michel and said, “So, tell us now what you have come to tell us.”
Michel began straight off with a plain but loaded statement. For several years, he said, he had been involved in the activities of the Restore Iran Movement. By this revelation, he succeeded in quite stunning his audience of two, who had not the remotest idea of any such connection. Having made his impact, Michel had paused.
“And this pertains to the bombing in Ashfield?” Darcy inquired quietly.
Michel nodded.
“And, from what I’ve been told, also to the Pork Riots in Dar es Salaam. You were not there at that time, were you?”
“I was. I’ll come to that.”
“Hm.” Darcy seemed lost in thought, but after a moment he nodded and said, “Go on, then.”
The politics of Iran’s Islamic revolution, and the Pork Riots in Dar es Salaam — Darcy had had a story to tell, linking the two, as Ramji recalled with excitement. That story had been Darcy’s last journalistic coup in Dar before he left for the States. Darcy had boasted about it. And here was Michel making the same connection. It was now obvious why Michel had wanted to talk to Darcy in particular: Michel had been in Dar during the riots and he had known about Darcy’s revelation in the newspapers there. A bit of Darcy’s past, it seemed, had come stalking him. Incredibly, though, Darcy, sitting back in his chair, legs crossed, showed not a twinge of excitement as he let Michel proceed.
Michel’s story began in 1969, when he was sent to school in Lausanne, Switzerland. There he met several Iranian boys and girls and immediately took a strong liking to them and their ways. He was intrigued by their country, and one summer he even paid a visit there. He spoke as if he felt that his roots lay there, which was highly unlikely given his surname, but neither Ramji nor Darcy challenged him. Michel returned to Iran a few years later to attend university in Shiraz. He loved the country, and during the five years he spent there, he learned the Farsi language. He also became close to a local girl, the daughter of a politician.
Later he went to study pharmacy in the States. Two years into his course the tragic (as he described it) revolution happened in Iran. He spoke of his grief at the loss of that beautiful country to religious fundamentalists. In Michigan, where he was at that time, Michel was introduced to the Movement.
And the girl? — Ramji asked. Michel said he had not kept regular contact with her, but after the revolution he lost touch altogether. Recently he had learned that she was married and living in the San Francisco area.
His manner was composed as he told his story, his voice remained flat and neutral despite interruptions from his two listeners. He wore denim jeans and a rugby shirt, shades in his shirt pocket, Gucci sandals. He could be in Geneva, Ramji thought. He doesn’t look the least bit worried that at this very moment the FBI could be out looking for him.
Darcy, beginning to look more relaxed, would set off on the odd tangent, to discuss at length some aspect of the history of Iran (for one thing), before returning to Michel’s story. There would be the trace of a smile on him, and the look of an indulgent father. He wore his trademark beige suit and red tie.
It was beautiful outside, sunny; not many people were about. Pigeons loitered between the tables looking for crumbs. Once, the sound of laughter a few tables away startled them, as if they’d been caught in a foolish, or guilty, moment. This had come, coincidentally, just after Darcy, inspired by mention of Iran and the ancient romantic city of Shiraz, all of a sudden broke wistfully into a few lines of poetry by a Persian poet.
“Why don’t you tell us about the recent events in Ashfield,” Ramji said to Michel, impatiently. “You can fill in the background later.” He turned to Darcy. “We may not have much time — those events may soon catch up with us.”
“There will be time,” Darcy said. “Let him tell it the way he wants to. This way, too, he won’t forget the details. And pardon my poetic digression — that seems to have irked you.”
“Not at all,” Ramji said, and lied.
Michel continued. He had obtained his nickname in school, in Switzerland; and he adopted it as his nom de guerre. They all had one, in the Movement — Michel, Pierre; Irma, Françoise, Debbie. It gave them a sense of professionalism, though most of them were hardly professionals. They were divided into cells. At the top — according to rumour — were some members of the Iranian royal family; but the man whose name was whispered as the real guy in charge was someone called Robin. He was believed to have been a general in the former Iranian air force.
Michel’s involvement with the Movement was casual, during weekends only. But his Iranian friends devoted most of their time to it, and he joined them when he could.
In those first months in the Movement, he simply attended demonstrations in several cities. The Tehran hostage crisis was on, and there was an expectation that the Americans would attack the new regime. It was a godsend, this crisis, a strong ray of hope — and a weakness that the revolutionary government, out of sheer obstinacy, had exposed itself to. Those in the Movement wished fervently that at least one of the hostages in the American embassy in Tehran would die or be killed, to provoke a response from the U.S.; there was talk of sending someone, a suicide killer, to shoot a hostage and put the blame on one of the Ayatollah’s followers, even of sending poisoned food parcels. Then the Carter fiasco happened, with the botched attempt to rescue the hostages, and a mullah was shown in the news exhibiting a dead U.S. marine — and even then there was no landing of troops.
They worked for Ronald Reagan, demonstrated against Carter; collected signatures at subways, exhibited photos of Iranian torture victims in shopping malls. After Reagan was elected president, the hostages were released, and those in the Movement knew that the long haul had now begun and counter-revolution would not come easily. That was when the cells tightened; the situation was grim, with a lot of waiting and no instructions. There would be small meetings — five to six people exchanging information. And then instructions began coming again, directed and regular.
He attended one military training camp, in Arizona, after which, under intense pressure from his family, he withdrew from the Movement.
The training was in weapons, yes. Handguns, grenades, machine guns. Workshops on explosives, which only a few were allowed to attend.
“Were you one of the select few?” Darcy asked, eyeing Michel intently.
“No.” Straight, without a change in tone.
“Good. At least that simplifies matters.”
At that, Michel coloured a bit and looked away, met Ramji’s eyes. But by this time Ramji himself was feeling distinctly uneasy about Darcy. The man had been disruptive, and even flippant, with his lengthy digressions; he had taken time to recite poetry. He seemed utterly detached from the purpose of the meeting, at least as Ramji had envisioned it.
“Let’s pause here,” Darcy said, looking at the other two, “and discuss procedure for a moment.”
It was agreed that Ramji would produce a written account of Michel’s story, with the latter supplying the details as required.
“Details about that training camp in Arizona might be of interest,” Darcy told Michel. “For example, were any Americans ever present there?”
“We saw them onc
e.”
“Where?”
In the log cabin that was the headquarters. A jeep and a sedan had come to the camp late one evening, and there followed a lengthy meeting in that cabin. This was just after the Carter debacle, and it was believed that volunteers would be dropped into Iran. So at night he and some fellow trainees walked towards the cabin in the dark, stopped some yards before a clearing, and watched. That was a U.S. army jeep. For sure.
Darcy nodded abstractedly, then he looked impatiently around, and outside at the street — they had been sitting at the same spot for a couple of hours — and announced, “And I’m all for a change of scenery now. Let’s go to the restaurant across the street and have a bite to eat.”
Ramji had come expecting to hear Michel’s entire story that day, including his version of what had transpired in Ashfield. And Ramji had anticipated that soon, perhaps the next day, they would arrive at some sort of resolution concerning Michel and his story. And so he stared in utter disbelief as Darcy ordered a scotch with his sandwich; and when the man took his first relished sip, Ramji had no doubt that the day’s proceedings were effectively over. What was wrong? Had he so completely misread the significance of Michel’s arrival, the urgency of his circumstance — that he could be named a suspect any time in the bookstore bombing, and that he had come here to give a version of that event? Meanwhile here was Darcy holding forth on the Iranian situation before and after the revolution; asking questions, interested in everything about Michel’s family background; taking delight in an account of Michel’s experience at the Movement’s training camp. (A balaclava-clad Robin had addressed the recruits, in the company of a miniskirted woman in boots, who reputedly took one recruit to bed every night she spent at the camp.) One thing Darcy did not seem intent on pursuing was the last part of Michel’s story.
Finally, Michel took a bathroom break, and Ramji had his chance. He turned to Darcy, saying, “We have to hear the full story as soon as possible. I think we have to decide upon a course of action.”
“Don’t worry,” Darcy said. “There’s time for it tomorrow. We can guess roughly what it’s going to be, can’t we? I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting — but I’m tired now. I need time to think. We don’t want to rush into anything. We have to know what this young man is about. I’m going to be making some inquiries.” He looked pointedly at Ramji and asked, “But why did you take him home instead of asking him to stay at a hotel?”
Ramji explained why.
“No need to take unnecessary risks,” Darcy said.
Ramji, to his own surprise, replied, “But he’s not charged with anything.”
“The question is, how did he end up in such a lunatic situation, involved with a book-burning rally.”
Michel, having observed them in conversation, had strolled off outside. When he returned, they all agreed that the meeting would continue in Ramji’s apartment the next morning.
Ramji drove home with Michel, as anxious as when he had first got up that morning. Perhaps, he thought, Darcy was right in taking things easy. Nevertheless, this was not the Darcy he had come such a long way to work with, someone who would have been delighted to see his story about the Pork Riots vindicated, someone who would normally have been alert as a hound to the prospect of an unofficial and perhaps darkly secret version of the events in Ashfield.
“What did you think of Mr. Darcy?” Ramji asked Michel. “Was he quite what you had expected him to be?”
“He’s quite a cool customer,” Michel said. “It’s hard to say what he’s thinking.”
“You’re right.”
Did the magazine Inqalab have much impact on the Community in Ashfield, Ramji asked.
Only some people seemed aware of it, Michel said, he and his friends, and they used to discuss its contents.
He wanted to know more about Zayd and Basu, and Ramji told him that they had founded the magazine as a cultural newspaper, with a very different name, when they were both in Queens, New York, in the eighties. Michel had been quite taken by their views on the Phantom, which he and his friends in the community had seen in Inqalab.
“Have you actually read the Phantom’s book?” Ramji asked.
“No, but I’ve heard portions. They were read out to us at the rally.”
“They can’t have been too offensive if they were read aloud.”
“They were,” Michel said forcefully. “Have you read the book?”
Ramji took a long moment to reply. At length, he said, “Yes.”
“And?”
“I can see how it could offend, but I didn’t find anything that offended me.” Some of the opinions expressed even seemed familiar to me, he might have added, but he didn’t.
That night after dinner Michel helped Rumina with the dishes, and the two of them struck up a lively, intense conversation. He liked her, Ramji observed with a pang of jealousy, very much. Even when she told him to go inside and sit with Ramji, he insisted on staying to help her.
A ladies’ man, as I suspected: What does she tell him about me?
She was beaming as she came in; he followed right behind her.
“Yes, I’d love to,” she told Michel as she sat down on the love seat, across from Ramji, and Michel disappeared. “His girlfriend,” she said archly.
Michel returned holding a small framed picture.
The two of them were standing side by side; Ramji was startled to see that she was a white American. She was slim and of medium height, with a scarf round her head and wearing a large red T-shirt, and she was leaning slightly towards Michel, her brown skirt reaching a little below the knees. Wisps of blonde hair showed from under the scarf, her blue eyes gazed intently at the camera, lips curled in a smile.
“What’s her name?” Ramji asked.
“Shirin,” he said, then added, “We met last year.”
“She’s very beautiful,” Rumina said. “How did you meet — or are you not telling?” she asked playfully.
“You won’t believe it — how I met her. It was through a personal ad.”
That stopped Rumina in her tracks, her mouth gaped open in amazement. She turned to Ramji.
“Not the Inqalab,” said Ramji; though the idea of having personal ads had been tossed about.
“No, a Muslim paper,” Michel said.
“You put in the ad?”
“No, she did.”
“What did she say?” Rumina asked. “I’m being nosey, aren’t I?” She eyed him for a moment. “You don’t have to tell us. Let me guess: Beautiful American Muslim — that’s a BAM.”
She laughed, and Michel said, “No. This is how it went, listen —” he closed his eyes, to recall, then recited, “— ‘Muslimah, blue-eyed, slim, age thirty, looking for a good-looking Muslim man in thirties for possible marriage.…’ So I applied and we exchanged photographs and so on.”
“Have you called her? Why don’t you give her a call from here?”
“Maybe tomorrow. It’s a little late now, there.”
Ramji breathed out a sigh, watched Michel look gratefully at Rumina.
He had come to them like a spectre out of nowhere, or from TV-land, or the imagination. And his presence among them had grown. He was now a man with a past, and a photograph of someone he loved. He was one of them. It was not going to be easy to be rid of him.
8
It was the middle of the night. Ramji sat up in bed. After a moment’s hesitation, he slipped out and stepped quietly towards the bedroom door. He turned to glance behind him at Rumina; she had not stirred, was lying on her belly, one arm above her and over her pillow. Ramji went to the living room, turned on the light beside the couch, then from the bookshelf picked out a slim paperback book. It was K. Ali’s 101 Letters — its front and back covers a matte black, with no illustration, only bold white and red type, its spine green with black type. This little book, an argument in theology, history, and cultural freedom, had gone up like a missile and landed on a random target, the town of Ashfield, Michigan, c
ausing disruption, taking three lives.
When news of the Phantom’s book broke a few weeks ago, by the time Ramji arrived at Hooked on Print on Third Street to buy a copy it was sold out. There had not been many copies to begin with, Sam the manager told him. But — he put a hand under the counter, gave a shadow of a smile — he had saved “you guys” a copy. There was always a calm but knowing look on his face when dealing with people from the Company. A former radical perhaps.
Ramji had flipped through the book once, soon after acquiring it; he had been aware of some of its contents even before that, through Zayd’s discussions at the office regarding the Phantom’s letters. In his mind Ramji had always dismissed the author as some academic crank who had garnered undeserved attention. And yet Ramji had found himself in silent agreement with some of the opinions expressed. He would not have denied, though, that there were things said in the book that could offend some people. Rumina for one — she had been sitting with him when he first browsed through the book — had been offended by one passage in particular. Ramji turned the pages and found it, the Phantom’s Letter 23 …
“Why don’t you quote it?” Will asks.
Will Jones, the friendly federal inquisitor, who arrived one day with photographs of the bombed bookstore and said, “Tell me, how did the likes of you get involved in such an event?” and then became a regular visitor, presumably to record for his agency how a person like me — haunted by the ghosts of faraway places — ticks in its alien manner.
Thus he breaks into my narrative, barges in. But why deny him access, simply for the sake of narrative form? He’s always been at hand — a gravitational force influencing my trajectory, though I’ve tried to keep a steady hand as I write my story. But now I’ve entered his own territory — the bookstore bombing and its aftermath, and the seeming coincidence (his term) of my involvement with a protagonist of this attack and with that of another twenty-five years ago.
Why my unwillingness to quote from the Phantom’s book? It’s a free country, as Will reminds me, you can say anything you want to here. I don’t quite buy this; nowhere is free from those who, let us say, have strong feelings. But also, to be fair, if governments can put their scissors to compromising exposés, or lock up secrets for years — and they do, you know that, Will — then why not accept censorship from the guardians of the faith? If security of the state is a crucial consideration, then why not also security of the faith?
