Among the Ruins

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  The name Barsam meant “Great Fire.” Prisoners in Evin’s infamous Ward 209 whispered to each other of his coming—the Great Fire is here to burn us down.

  The tour guide approached Khattak again. This time Khattak made a lengthy request. The guide listened, his head cocked to one side. When Khattak finished, the guide waved to his friends. They departed as a group for the chaikhaneh.

  When they were out of earshot, Khattak asked, “Why? What could that possibly gain you? The Iranian government rarely admits culpability in these cases. At most, they’ll hold a low-ranking interrogator to account. You won’t be able to get Radan. You know he’s much too powerful.”

  He didn’t want to ask why the Canadian government would want such proof or what they intended to do with it. He could sense the shadowy presence of an intelligence agent behind Touka Swan’s façade.

  Touka’s smile was tight.

  “That’s why we need him. Radan is an operator, he runs a network of spies and informants. He has a finger in every pie. If he’s implicated and we can prove it, that’s a significant blow to the entire apparatus. And it would protect dual citizens like Zahra.” Sensing Khattak’s skepticism, she continued. “That’s not our primary focus. Our government has a problem on its hands. We’re on the brink of resuming diplomatic relations. The prime minister is planning to re-open our embassy in Tehran. And Canadian businesses have been waiting for the chance to invest. There’s a lot at stake here—politically, financially. But we won’t be able to do any of these things if we don’t demand accountability from Tehran. And not a low-level interrogator, as you suggested. Zahra’s son has managed to capture the attention of the press. He would never accept that as a solution.”

  Khattak cut her off.

  “Would you, if it was someone you loved?”

  “There are other ways of seeking justice, Inspector Khattak. Didn’t you decide that in the Drayton case? I believe that’s what you said at the inquiry.”

  Khattak looked at her quickly. How long had he been on Touka Swan’s radar? And just how thorough was her dossier on him?

  “Even if everything you say is true, how could I get you proof of Radan’s involvement? What kind of inquiries could I make? I have no authority here, and I certainly have no jurisdiction.”

  At his words, Touka Swan relaxed a little. She must have sensed he was giving in.

  “Don’t worry about jurisdictional issues, you won’t be saying or doing anything in an official capacity. You speak Farsi, you’ll blend in, and you know how to be careful. We’ve heard a rumor there’s a video.”

  Khattak was appalled. “Of the interrogation? Or the murder?”

  He didn’t know which would be worse.

  But Touka was shaking her head, ash-gray hair drifting into her eyes.

  “I don’t know. If I can locate it, I’ll want you to take a look at it. Someone will contact you if I can get my hands on it. If you have sources you can work in Canada, do so. Have your partner visit Max Najafi. It would help to track Zahra’s movements before she left for Iran.”

  Khattak felt a quick lift of his spirits. He wouldn’t be alone. He knew he could ask anything of his partner, Rachel Getty, and she would be there to help.

  With a small sigh of defeat, Khattak said, “I won’t go to Evin. I won’t put my family through what might happen to me there.”

  “You won’t need to,” Touka said, assured now of her victory. “Zahra has a stepdaughter from her husband’s second marriage. Roxana Najafi is the prisoner she went to Evin to free. Roxana’s family is under house arrest in Esfahan. Start there and tell me what you find.”

  When Khattak seemed to hesitate, she added, “I know your résumé better than you think. You’re on leave because of what happened in Algonquin. You’ve also had your share of difficulties with the press. If you deliver Radan, I can make that go away.” She waited a beat. “And if you don’t, you might find your difficulties worsen.”

  Khattak raised his head. He looked straight at Touka, holding her with his gaze.

  “If I did, that wouldn’t be the reason. If you’ve been keeping tabs on me, you should know that about me by now.”

  The blush that rose to Touka’s face made her a little less formidable.

  As she walked away without a word, her left leg dragging on the road, Khattak placed his hand over the spot where she had rested hers on the bridge, covering the card she’d left behind. A phone number was typed on its surface in black ink. And under this she had written in a miniscule hand, Yes, you are being followed.

  * * *

  The guide returned with his friends and a supply of bottled water, carrying several steaming paper bags. Lavash bread and kebabs, accompanied by small containers of a yogurt mixture called mast-e khayar, along with grilled tomatoes and onions, a snack for an afternoon picnic.

  He’d asked Fardis, the guide, to drive him to see the Salt Lake, a salt flat that spread out from the southwestern part of the wetlands, a striking contrast between hot blue sky and boundless earth. Fardis chatted on about this and the wonders of the Black Mountain, a magma formation that signaled the beginning of the wetlands. Much was being done to promote tourism in the region, to offset the drying up of the marsh and the extinction of wetland species. Fardis’s friends showed Esa photographs from their trips to visit the lake.

  When they reached the lake, Esa witnessed its wonders for himself. A vast white plain, a heartbreaking sky, the salt gathered like shabby mounds of snow.

  As he drank from the bottled water Fardis had poured into a glass, Khattak thought again, These poems rise in great white flocks.

  The women in chadors, the flurries of salt foam, the rose-gold crosses on a dusty floor—what a stark and beautiful country this was.

  Fardis quoted Hafiz with gentle pride.

  Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, you owe me.

  A love like that lights the whole sky.

  He wondered if the words expressed Zahra’s feeling for her country. Was it the reason she’d risked her safety to return to Iran, to fight for Roxana Najafi? Had she loved Roxana like a daughter of her own? So much so she couldn’t bear the thought of her broken and misused body? Had she risked a worse fate for herself in order to spare Roxana?

  He shook his head at the stupidity of the regime, at its mindless and needless savagery. Left to herself, Zahra Sobhani would have raised her voice in support of Iran’s political prisoners. Obstructed by the petty tyrannies of the state, she would have returned to her home in Canada to be with her only child.

  The murder and defilement of Zahra Sobhani would become an international incident, a diplomatic nightmare with long-lasting consequences. The voices of protest that had gone underground, the attention of the world’s media that had moved on to other tragedies would now return. The spotlight was back. The regime had created the very thing it wished to suppress.

  And now Esa thought of the poet Rumi.

  The wound is the place where the light enters you.

  Staring out at the salt flat, he raised his glass to Zahra’s memory.

  5

  Everything I do violates a law.

  I sing, I draw, I speak, I write—everything I do violates a law.

  But what kind of law cleaves us like a sword?

  What kind of law pounds us like a stone?

  What kind of law hangs us from a crane?

  * * *

  They’ve killed our mother—the mother of all the children of Iran, her death a stone, a ripple in the pond, a crack in the wall, a crack in the regime—the place where the fortress is breached, a treasure among the ruins.

  I slip through the crack to find you, borne along on a sea of light.

  I have so many stories to tell you, but I find I have so little time.

  Before the guards come, there is something you must do.

  You must find out what Zahra wanted with the letters.

  6

  Khattak placed the second letter behind
the brick in the courtyard. Nasih had brought it to him inside a tea cozy in a box addressed to Khattak. And he wondered whether Nasih was beginning to suspect there was more to these gifts than readily appeared. Why would Khattak, a stranger to Iran, be receiving gifts from someone he didn’t know? It would make anyone curious.

  Though the second letter was a more dangerous possession than the first, Esa couldn’t bring himself to destroy it. The letter read as if it had been written by a prisoner at Evin, possibly Zahra’s stepdaughter—if any of what Touka Swan had told him was true, something he’d ask Rachel to verify.

  As painful as the circumstances of Zahra’s death were, he found himself relieved to be shaking off the sense of lethargy that had immobilized him during his stay in Iran. There were two possibilities to consider. The first was that Touka Swan was not who she claimed to be and he was being set up for reasons unknown. The second possibility mirrored the first: the letters were sent not from any political prisoner or jailed activist, but rather by an agent of the Ministry of Intelligence, as a means of entrapment. And Nasih could be that agent, though Khattak found it hard to suspect him of anything more than an interest in Khattak’s well-being.

  But the fact remained: Khattak was a high-ranking police officer, a status he’d kept to himself when he’d applied for his pilgrimage visa—so he could see the potential for trouble, perhaps even detention—he could be used as a bargaining chip. But he cautioned himself as well. He was an insignificant player in the larger scheme of things, he’d attended the pilgrimage sites faithfully and with vivid interest—and a Canadian officer of any stripe was not of the same value to the regime as an American.

  It was possible Touka Swan was an emissary of the Canadian government. But that didn’t answer the question of the letters. He couldn’t envision a scenario where a prisoner inside Evin would have the freedom to write these letters, and arrange to have them sent to his lodgings. The letters indicated knowledge of his movements. By what means could a prisoner inside Tehran’s notorious prison have gained such knowledge?

  The letters were a blind of some kind.

  And what had the letter writer meant by telling him Zahra had been seeking the letters?

  Were there more to come?

  And if there were, how could Zahra have known about them?

  It was circular logic that made little sense.

  He realized if Rachel was able to confirm the basic facts of Zahra Sobhani’s death, the most sensible course to pursue would be to return to Tehran to speak with Zahra’s mother, and to arrange a viewing of the body, both of which were dangerous propositions. Perhaps that was why Touka had suggested he seek out Roxana’s family in Esfahan first.

  He looked up at the sound of ice cubes clinking inside a glass. The spring weather was temperate, the trees coming into blossom, a wide variety that included willows, hackberries, walnut trees, and elms. And the Chahar Bagh gardens were famous for their chinar plane trees.

  Nasih was approaching him, a cold glass of juice on the tray before him. It was an inspired concoction of watermelon and lemonade, made with Shirazi lemons. He invited Nasih to join him beneath the quince tree, wanting to assess how the proprietor of the guesthouse might be connected to the letters.

  “Agha Nasih,” he began, making use of the respectful form of address, “I don’t know who is bringing me these gifts. Did you happen to see anyone this time?”

  Nasih nodded. His sunburned face was set in welcoming folds. His manner had become less formal in the weeks Khattak had spent in Esfahan, and he answered Khattak with warmth. And without, as far as Khattak could discern, a trace of deception. But that could be a cover, if Nasih was an agent of the Ministry of Intelligence, instead of just the host of his guesthouse.

  “It was a young man who left it at the desk. His name was Ali. He said a man paid him to bring you the box, he wasn’t told the man’s name.”

  A request for a description met with little success. Ali was possibly in his twenties or early thirties, dark-eyed, dark-haired, smooth in manner.

  And Ali as a name in Iran was as common as Jacob or Matthew in Canada.

  Esa thanked Nasih, finished his drink, and decided to walk over to the gardens of Chahar Bagh to make his call to Rachel in private. The time difference wasn’t extreme, unless he needed to call her in the evenings, but he did wonder if it was possible that his phone calls were being monitored. The disturbing sensation of being watched had vanished. He didn’t recognize anyone in the park as someone he’d spotted before, or observe anyone lingering close enough under the trees to overhear his call.

  Rachel’s voice was bright with welcome and tinged with surprise.

  “Sir, how are you? Have you been enjoying the break?”

  They spent several minutes catching up—enough time to learn that his friend, the prosecutor Sehr Ghilzai, was doing well at her new job and seemed happy, a thought that gladdened him. He found himself thinking of Sehr more often these days, a fact that caught him by surprise. He asked after Nate and Audrey Clare, and about Rachel’s brother, Zachary. Neither of them mentioned Esa’s sister Rukshanda. Ruksh had asked her brother to leave the family home as soon as their mother had returned from Pakistan, and Esa hadn’t spoken to her since. It was a situation he needed to rectify, but he found himself needing time to reflect before he could begin to earn back his sister’s trust.

  “Can I do anything for you, sir? Send you anything?”

  Esa’s response was careful. “I’d like to be kept up to date on the news if you don’t mind. There must be many developments I would find interesting, especially as I’m in Esfahan. Nate could probably give you a sense of what I’d like to hear.” And before Rachel could ask for specifics, he hurried on, “Don’t use your personal account, be creative. And be aware that I may also call you from other numbers at odd times, depending on where I’m traveling.”

  There was a long pause on the line. He could almost hear Rachel thinking, just as he could hear her munching something over the phone.

  “I can do that, sir. But you should come home. Now, without delay.”

  So Rachel had heard about Zahra Sobhani’s murder. And she was as sharp as ever at putting the pieces together. She was warning him about the severity of the Canadian government’s reaction to Zahra’s death. A change in the wind had seemed possible with the lifting of sanctions against Iran and the election of a new prime minister in Canada; now relations between both governments would harden. Unless he was able to satisfy Touka Swan’s demands, demands that were beginning to seem more urgent.

  “There are a few remaining sights I’d like to see, visits I still have to make—but I don’t expect to be here much longer.”

  “Ah.”

  Neither of them spoke Zahra Sobhani’s name.

  “The sun is bright here, though it’s not officially spring.”

  “Don’t tell me that, sir. Not to be indelicate, but we’re freezing our buns off in Toronto.”

  Khattak grinned to himself. He rather enjoyed Rachel’s unvarnished style of expression.

  “You’d be surprised at how important a symbol the sun is in Persian culture. I’ve learned that it dates back to Zoroastrianism.”

  He waited for Rachel to catch on.

  “All right,” she agreed. “Maybe it’s time I broadened my horizons. Explored a little bit, asked a few historical questions.”

  Well done, Esa thought. She’d realized he wanted her to speak to Max Najafi.

  “I’ll follow up soon.”

  “Fair enough. Don’t overdo things, all right?”

  Esa thanked her. In their roundabout way, they’d discussed a safer means of communication. He’d reminded her to use her anonymous e-mail accounts, while she’d warned him not to overstep his bounds in a country where their government sustained no diplomatic relations.

  He was thinking of his Pakistani passport.

  And wondering about the distance to the border.

  7

  The Container<
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  It happens quickly. Forty boys in a container designed for ten. The pro-democracy activists, the ones who lined up for hours to vote and then to protest the results of the vote. We are terrified. We rattle off our family names. A younger boy, he may be fifteen, has urinated on himself. The stink fills the container. Out of politeness, no one looks. At the beginning, we’re all polite. From my name, they can tell what I am, and everyone looks sorry. “Just tell the truth,” I say. “Tell them you’re not political.” I try to smile, the others look away. “Tell them you don’t know me, you never met me before this minute.” The sad thing is it’s the truth. But the truth won’t help them now.

  8

  Rachel rang the doorbell at Winterglass, a house she’d fallen in love with. Its weathered stone and ordered garden gave way to a wildness of lake and sky at the back. The tarnished stone rose from the Bluffs, a temple against a cinereal sky.

  Nathan Clare was waiting for her, dressed in shabby tweeds and a jacket he’d buttoned over his sweater. He’d wound a thinly striped scarf about his neck, in a shade that mirrored the bronze of his glasses. He welcomed her with a smile, his warm hands enveloping hers, a gesture that discomfited Rachel. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her parka, following Nate through the grand entrance to a room that led off the kitchen.

  Nate had arranged a breakfast of coffee and pastries. Beside these, she could see he’d collected the morning papers and folded them back. He’d been reading the coverage of Zahra Sobhani’s death.

  Rachel hung her parka over the back of a chair. She helped herself to a slice of cheese strudel as Nathan poured their coffee. The pastry was delicious. She wondered if he’d flown it in from Vienna because the other options were plum cake with hazelnut crumble or apricot-flavored Punschkrapfen fondant. Nothing at Winterglass was served on an ordinary scale.

  “You ever hear of this place, Esfahan?”

  Rachel enjoyed spending time with Nate, though the opportunities to do so had been few. An old and dear friend of Khattak’s, Nathan Clare was a well-known writer and public figure. His father, Loveland Clare, had been an icon of the foreign policy establishment. And the distinction of the Clare name, coupled with Nate’s own public stature, had resulted in Nate being asked to serve as an informal envoy, representing the nation’s interests at various cultural festivals and summits. Though he’d declined to do so more and more of late, Nate still maintained an influential network of contacts.