Baba gathered a search party of his hotel employees who each headed in different directions, combing the streets of Mashhad. For eleven hours, they hunted for the two teenage boys who raped the elderly woman and left her for dead.
She had provided few details – a white Peykan with a broken back window, a taller teenager with arrogance in his voice, and his meek and shorter accomplice who was thinner and had longer, tangled hair. Everything else had been a blur for the woman. Baba had little to go on, but he was determined to find them.
Baba had been searching since morning. Now the moonlight was brighter, the wind cooler. From a distance, Baba spotted the Peykan. Pigeons scattered as Baba sped down the dimly lit alley toward the muddy car. His car lights reflected off the edge of the broken back window as Baba jumped out of his car and began to inspect the bumper, then the scraped, dented trunk. When he saw the dried blood caked on the lower side of the bumper, he knew he had found the perpetrators. Anger rose as he visualized the few details he knew of the brutal attack, the alcohol being forced down the woman’s ripped mouth before she was repeatedly assaulted. He went up to the house, where the car was parked. With both fists, he pounded on the door.
The door opened, only a crack, and a teenage boy with long tussled hair peered out, meeting Baba’s glare.
The strong smell of alcohol greeted Baba as he pried the door open. “Come outside! Now!”
The boy squinted at Baba. “Who are you?” he asked lacking the usual politeness that was customary even between strangers.
Baba slapped a hand on the doorframe. “I said come now, or I’ll wake up your entire family. Where were you last night?”
“Nowhere. I wasn’t anywhere.”
Pushing the door open and grabbing the boy’s arm, Baba pulled him down the alley to the Peykan, and pointed to the brown stains smearing the trunk. “You want to tell me how this blood got here?”
The boy’s lower lip quivered.
“Is your father home?”
“No.”
Baba squeezed the boy’s arm again, twisting it. “Open the trunk.”
Drenched in the stench of liquor, the bloodied chador and the victim’s ripped blouse and skirt sat in a tangled heap. When Baba saw a chunk of gray-streaked hair, he slammed the trunk and shoved the boy against the car.
“You were ‘nowhere’?”
The boy began to cry. “I want to call my parents.”
“What, you want to call your SAVAKi father?”
The boy shifted from foot to foot. Having a father with the Shah’s desperately-feared secret police, the SAVAK, was not something you admitted. Everyone knew that members of the SAVAK would be hunted down and executed by the new regime for the crimes they committed against the Iranian people.
“He’s not a SAVAKi. He left the Shah a long time ago. I want to call him.”
“Get in and shut up,” Baba ordered as he pushed the boy into the backseat of his car. He was livid; he didn’t notice that the boy hadn’t yet pulled his foot in the car before Baba slammed the door. The boy let out a yelp. Shattering the winter quiet, Baba hit the accelerator and sped down the street, scattering the pigeons again.
Baba cursed the boy under his breath as he weaved through the dark street; he did not even slow down when the car tires dug into the potholes. Instead, he sped up.
“It wasn’t my idea,” the boy mumbled from the backseat. “I can’t even remember what happened.”
Baba reached the main street. He hit the brakes and turned to face the boy behind him. “Where does your friend live? Direct me!” Baba demanded, his index finger centimeters from the boy’s nose.
“I can’t remember.”
Baba accelerated, then suddenly slammed on the brakes, the boy’s chest hit the seat in front of him. Baba pointed his finger at the boy’s eye. “I said right or left?”
“It was his idea, I swear to God.” He lifted his arm and pointed to the right.
“What is your name?” Baba asked almost as an afterthought. In his mind, it didn’t matter. The boy’s crime was what identified him.
“Hakim is my name.”
As they approached the home of the second boy, Baba told the boy in the car that they would stop in front of the house on the side of the road. Baba kept his hand gripped in a vise around the boy’s arm, just in case he thought of escaping.
When they reached the front of the house, Hakim knocked on the door, asked for his friend, and took a step back when his accomplice came out. Once outside, Baba grabbed the new boy by his shirt collar, and, paying no attention to his fighting arms or shouts, pulled him toward the car. Hakim, dug in his hair, pulling at strands, and wept. With his head down, he got into the backseat, and didn’t look up when Baba threw the taller boy next to his friend. Baba shut the car door, glad to be getting a whiff of fresh air, for the stench of alcohol had traveled to his head.
The taller boy stared out the window, avoiding eye contact with Baba in the rear view mirror. His body was wobbling; his eyes almost shut by the swell of a hangover as his head bounced on the headrest.
Baba broke numerous speed limits crossing town to the Grand Ayatollah Shahami’s home. He wasn’t worried about getting pulled over by the police. He was on a mission, above and beyond the law.
Because of the turmoil on the streets, the boys were unlikely to be arrested or even put on trial for rape. Baba knew getting them to Ayatollah Shahami was even more imperative. The Ayatollah had told Baba that until order had been restored, he would lock them in his son’s bathroom. This was the best plan for the time being.
Baba was confident that these two boys would be properly dealt with. After an eighteen-hour ordeal, having done his duty for his community, he headed home.
Abdollah
Baba and Abdollah pushed through the crowd of protesters chanting “Death to the Shah!” Posters of the stern Ayatollah Khomeini were stapled to sticks. Graffiti slogans were painted on walls on every street. My father and brother made their way, not joining in, careful not to be jostled into the drainage ditch near the screaming crowds. Burning placards of the Shah curled at the edges, and pieces of ash floated in the air. Baba ducked to avoid being hit by a huge poster depicting a bloody fist smashing the Shah’s face. The Islamic Revolution was in full flame.
It struck Abdollah as odd when Baba turned down a side street, and stopped at the large double glass front doors of an anonymous-looking building. Abdollah hurried to catch up.
“Where’re we going?”
As Baba touched the door handle, two men rushed across the cream-colored marble floor to pull the door open, and a third man ran to meet Baba. He clasped his hand and began kissing Baba’s cheeks before reaching out to embrace him.
The shouts of the protesters grew fainter as the doors slid shut. Placing his arm around Abdollah’s shoulder, Baba kissed his cheek.
“This is my son, Abdollah. He’s the noor, the light of my eyes, and has made me very proud.” Baba gently guided Abdollah into the one-car showroom, and then pulled out the heavy wooden chair at the manager’s desk. “Let’s talk price and make this finally happen.”
Abdollah was shocked – buying a new car in the midst of a revolution? It didn’t make sense. Nonetheless, he was fifteen, and his heart pounded with joy just at the thought. No one in Mashhad had such a car – certainly no boy his age.
He stared at the sleek, black two hundred and forty horsepower Camaro parked in the center of the marble floor. He was accustomed to receiving lavish imported gifts from Kuwait and Europe, but this was extreme, even for Baba. He looked at Baba, “This is too much, Baba Jaan.”
Baba winked at him and turned back to leafing through papers. Abdollah stepped closer to the Camaro and placed his palm on the gleaming hood. “But I can’t drive yet.”
That my fifteen-year-old brother would not be eligible for a driver’s license for another three years was of no concern to Baba; he had let Abdollah regularly practice with the hotel vehicles in the parking lot. Baba was
determined to buy his first-born son this imported foreign car even if, in part, it symbolized the excess of the Western world – the same West whose influence Baba feared and fought. He didn’t see the contradiction.
While the salesmen refreshed Baba’s tea for the fifth time, Abdollah’s eyes never left the shiny, two-door sports coupe, which gleamed in the reflection of the yellow showroom lights bouncing off the door. He circled the car, studying each detail and curve of this exotic creature. Since the age of six, when he first saw a Camaro in a car magazine, Abdollah dreamed he would one day drive one of these powerful cars. He had long fantasized about the brushed aluminum panels, the shiny leather interior, and the fast and responsive six-cylinder engine. He even imagined someday driving it all the way to Mecca or through the streets of Paris.
In response to Baba’s bargaining, the dealer suggested a less expensive car. “No, no. It’s got to be this car, this make, and this model. Nothing else. My son has been talking about this car for some time. Make the price work.”
After Baba walked out several times and the dealer begged him to come back, the two men put down their teacups and embraced.
“Let’s go home, son.” Baba handed Abdollah the keys. “We’ll take the back roads.”
Abdollah, dazed at his good fortune, hopped behind the wheel, and said, “This is the best day of my life” and drove off, into the revolution.
When I look back upon what later happened to Abdollah, to what destroyed our whole family, this is the first of my “If onlys,” almost all of them concerning Baba:
If only Baba had not bought Abdollah that car… If only…
Abdollah had owned the Camaro only for a week when Baba summoned him to the office and told him they had to drive to a house on the other side of Mashhad. He then ordered the porters to fill the Camaro’s trunk with enormous packages of food and supplies. Baba insisted they go after midnight and observe the speed limit. “We can’t be pulled over. We can’t risk anyone finding out who lives there.”
His son realized: his father was taking him on a very secret mission. Was this the reason Baba had given Abdollah such a valuable car at such an unlikely time?
When they arrived at the distant house, it was dark inside and the curtains were drawn. It appeared to be deserted. Baba knocked twice before stopping for a minute. He knocked a third time, offering a signal to those on the other side of the door. The man who answered grasped Baba’s hand; his eyes were moist. “We’re forever indebted to you. For the first time in weeks, we’re wearing clean clothes and having a fresh meal.”
Abdollah blinked. He recognized Ayatollah Khabazi from the newspapers. An intimate from Khomeini’s circle, Khabazi had been arrested and tortured for treason when he had openly challenged the Shah for executing anyone who opposed the monarchy. He was rearrested for the fourth time when he spoke out against the SAVAK and accused them of worse acts than those of the KGB. The Shah had ordered Ayatollah Khabazi’s execution but the holy man had disappeared.
Ayatollah Khabazi had not disappeared at all; he was right here, in Mashhad, under Baba’s protection.
Now Abdollah learned that Baba had been hiding Khabazi and his family for months in the home Baba had bought for his own aging aunt. Baba had supplied them with everything they needed from clothes to appliances. The family never left the house except when Khabazi went to the Haram in disguise to pray. They didn’t even register their children in school.
Abdollah shook Khabazi’s hand and kissed his cheek. He noted the cleric’s tightly buttoned white-collar shirt and his long black cloak, which was wrinkled and worn.
While the men spoke, Abdollah gave the bags of food to a woman whose face was almost entirely covered by her black chador, her one visible eye nearly indiscernible. Abdollah recognized her by the shape of the tip of her nose.
Abdollah would now be bringing groceries to the Ayatollah Khabazi’s family after dark and then secretly driving Ayatollah Khabazi to the mosque. It was official: Abdollah was a grown-up. He was a man.
And now Abdollah understood his “miracle gift.” He would use the Camaro to commute across secret lines, lines that would soon be redrawn between factions of the Islamic Revolution. They were lines that would impact his own life, writing an ending he never could have foreseen.
He was fifteen. Abdollah, the “Servant of God,” drove forth on dangerous missions, glad for the car and the thrill of the forbidden.
Rahimeh
After Iman and I were caught alone in the hotel, all I knew was that the number “314” was whispered and that Iman and I were restricted to our own house. The hotel was forbidden, even the lobby, and especially, the third floor.
“If they ever go anywhere near there…” Maman said, late at night to Baba. I had not meant to eavesdrop, but the intensity of their exchange seemed to traveled like electricity through the wall.
Hadi, older and the most adventurous, was also curious and in the past days and nights he reported mysterious activities: Why did strange men go into the hotel at regular intervals? Why was there a sudden flurry of light and motion on Sunday night? Why did we continue to see one light on the third floor when the rest of the hotel was dark?
Before Hadi could find out more, Maman discovered the truth.
We were sitting in the kitchen, when she slammed the receiver onto the phone’s cradle several times before finally hanging up. I had never seen her so angry. In fact, I had never even seen her angry. It frightened me, and I felt inexplicably – guilty.
“What’s happened that you had me run home so fast?” Baba was out of breath.
“What are you doing, Haji?” She called him Haji, a nickname he had earned after his Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca several years earlier. “My brother just called me,” Maman said, as she moved and stood over Baba who was taking off his shoes at the door. “I know what you have done!”
He stopped and looked up at her. “And what did Mohsen have to say?” But he already knew.
Maman, always so adoring, glared at my father. “I don’t care if the Grand Ayatollah Shahami says there’s no police force to take them, Haji. They’re rapists. They may be boys, but they raped a woman my mother’s age. We have a little girl. Haji, are you blind? Why isn’t your instinct to take care of yourself and your family first? For God’s sake, Abdollah works there. And you kept this a secret from me?”
Baba looked down, averting his eyes.
“You are behaving like your father!” Maman accused. Baba’s father had lived a secret life for years, hiding an affair from his wife. The pain forever damaged Baba’s mother. Of course, Baba was keeping secrets; he knew no other way. But Baba’s secret was far more dangerous than keeping a mistress.
Maman closed her eyes and took a deep breath to center herself. “It’s not enough that we’re in the middle of a revolution – with riots, looting, daily protests, and flying bullets – and now we have rapists staying in our hotel? How can you possibly believe this is a good idea?”
Baba fell into a chair. “It’s chaos out there. I know this doesn’t feel good, but it’s the right thing to do. There’s no choice, azizam, these boys would be walking scot-free, sweetheart. At least we know where they are. I promise you, it’ll just be a few more weeks, just until Ayatollah Shahami has a position and they have a handle on the government’s new police force.”
Maman would not accept this: “If it’s only a short time, why doesn’t Shahami keep them in his house? I’ll tell you why! Because he doesn’t want to risk exposing his wife and kids to criminals, but he asks us do it!” Maman began to pace, hugging herself. “He’s using you. Do you think about that? They all use you. You don’t need to help everybody, and you don’t need to be a big shot.” After a short pause, she spoke again. She put her hands by her side and let her voice soften. “Please don’t do this for them.”
Baba explained Khomeini’s ad hoc security forces were jockeying for power over the Shah’s police, the Kalantari, neither police force was willing to apprehen
d the boys. Under these circumstances, Ayatollah Shahami requested that Baba confine and guard the two boys in the hotel.
“Just for a short time – until things settle down,” Baba explained. “Do you want them to run free? Isn’t that even more risky?”
I put down the orange slice and looked toward the window. What did Maman mean? Do what for whom?
Pulling a chair toward him, Baba motioned to Maman. “Sit with me.”
She didn’t sit, but let her body slacken. “What about Abdollah?”
“Trust me. The manager and I will be guarding the room; we’ll feed them. We are in the makings of a revolution. We have no tourists; no one is coming to stay at the hotel right now. And no one will, until the boys are gone, and then sent to a proper jail, I promise you.”
Maman straightened her shoulders, sighed, and dropped into a chair. “Listen to me. Our little children aren’t to put one foot in the hotel until those thugs are gone. I don’t care if the rooms are locked. Not one foot. And it’s only a few weeks, right? You promise?”
Baba kissed Maman’s cheek. “You have my word.”
I stared in the direction of the hotel. How will I get the Kit Kats out of the hotel freezer now?
A week later, Baba burst into the house. “Khomeini’s in Iran,” he declared with a smile. “Everything’s going to change. It’s going to be all right.” Unable to contain his enthusiasm, he piled us into the car to drive to the celebration where thousands, including some of the Shah’s former police, poured onto the streets to welcome Ayatollah Khomeini back from his fourteen-year exile in Iraq and France.
From the car window, I watched as people threw candy, lollipops, and bubble gum into other open car windows. Men were riding each other’s shoulders chanting, "Esteghlal, azadi, jomhouri-ye Eslami.” They wholeheartedly believed in independence, freedom, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Rose Hotel Page 3
