Among the Ruins

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  Supporters of the Green Movement had begun to wear it after the 2009 election. It was imprinted with English and Farsi slogans.

  Freedom. Democracy. Hope.

  Some of the bands read, “Where is my vote?”

  “Who are you?” Khattak asked. “How do you know my name?”

  “We have a mutual friend. She mentioned you were in the country, she said you’d help us find out what happened to Zahra Khanom.”

  He used the respectful form of address for Zahra Sobhani. The mutual friend had to be Touka Swan, but Khattak needed to be sure. He sensed a stillness in the others, a nervous, hopeful attention. He had a sudden, swamping sense he could do nothing but disappoint the hopes of these young people.

  “Your friend’s name?”

  “Touka Swan. I’m Ali Golshani. This is my brother, Darius. He’s a film student, he was a student of Zahra’s.”

  Ali’s voice caught on the name. Embarrassed, he blinked away his tears.

  Khattak turned his attention to the other young man lurking under an arch.

  “Step out where I can see you, please.”

  Darius peered out from the gloom, letting the light brush his face. Khattak kept his own expression impassive, trying not to show his reaction to the serpentine scar that colored Darius’s face. It puckered the skin under his right eye, snaked across his cheek, and disappeared into the neckline of his shirt. His solemn young face was mournful.

  “You’ve met Taraneh and Nasreen, Taraneh gave you the drive. What did you think of it?” Ali asked.

  “Did it come from Touka?”

  “No. We have someone inside Evin who made us a copy.”

  “Why not give it directly to Touka? She’s the one who wanted evidence.”

  Ali moved closer to his brother.

  “You don’t sound as helpful as Touka said you would be. You seem detached. But wasn’t Zahra a Canadian citizen? And don’t you catch criminals for a living?”

  “Forget it, Ali. What did you expect?”

  The bitter words came from Nasreen. Her white scarf had fallen all the way back, her rich, dark hair parted to one side. A delicate hand touched a necklace at her throat that caught the streaming light.

  “He doesn’t know us, why should he trust us?”

  Khattak pointed to the band on Ali’s wrist.

  “Is it safe for you to wear that?”

  “Is anything any of us have done safe?” Ali gestured at his brother’s scar. “Probably not. Do you have the drive with you? Did you see anything on it?”

  The moment of decision had come.

  If Khattak’s Iranian idyll were to end, it would be the result of a considered choice.

  Rachel and Nate had confirmed Touka Swan worked for the Canadian government. And if Touka had infiltrated this group of young people, it meant she trusted them. If he chose to help them, he would have to accept there was no point in second-guessing them. But still he felt afraid.

  He removed the drive from its pouch and held it out to Ali Golshani, who pocketed it, his brows raised.

  “There’s nothing on it?”

  Khattak weighed his words.

  “Touka told me she was looking for something that would implicate Barsam Radan in Zahra’s death. It’s not possible to form a clear picture of who’s in the crowd and who isn’t, but what is clear is that even if Radan is the one who arrested Zahra, that’s not a clear connection to her death.”

  Taraneh clapped her hands, the sound echoing through the chamber of the pigeon house.

  “You are a real detective,” she said. “Very impressive. Anything else?”

  “Don’t listen to my cousin,” Ali said. “Taraneh doesn’t understand what’s at stake. This isn’t a game. The regime can’t keep murdering its dissidents.”

  A sob sounded from the far end of the gallery. Concerned, Khattak flicked a glance at Nasreen, risking the pull of her eyes. She shielded her face with her scarf, moving to a door at the end of the gallery that led to a walkway outside. The others let her go.

  “I’m sorry,” Ali said. The apology was for Nasreen. “I shouldn’t have been so frank. Nasreen’s brother is being held at Kahrizak prison. They’ve had no word for fifteen months. For all we know, Saneh is dead.”

  Khattak circled the gallery until he was at the door, pulling it closed. Nasreen didn’t need to hear his next question. As notorious as Evin was, Kahrizak’s recent reputation was worse. The brutalization of young men and women at Kahrizak had caused a scandal, the prison shut down after the election. When the regime had secured its grip, Kahrizak had re-opened.

  “Why do you think he’s dead? What was he charged with?”

  He didn’t know if the question mattered. He was speaking about a criminal justice system that had rotted through from the inside.

  “They haven’t charged him. He was held at Evin at first, then released, then picked up again. Then released. Then finally taken to Kahrizak. Since then we’ve heard nothing. No one will tell us anything, no matter whom we ask. His situation is like Roxana’s.”

  The grief in his voice welled up.

  “Do you know Roxana?” The connection flagged Khattak’s attention.

  It was Darius who answered him, his long fingers stroking over his disfiguring scar.

  “Yes. We worked together. We’re all supporters of the Greens—the children of writers and artists and unionists. Our parents were once dissidents, now it seems to be our turn.”

  He said it with a note of disbelief in his voice: How was it possible Zahra had been killed so easily, with so little accountability?

  Khattak’s missing memory re-surfaced, the mystery of the letters unraveled.

  The children of writers.

  The writer’s child.

  We are bound together, chained.

  His secret correspondent was writing about the Chain Murders, a series of assassinations that spanned the 1990s. Dozens of prominent intellectuals had been murdered, either openly or in secret, the murders coming to light in the brief period of freedom known as the Tehran Spring.

  In 1997, Mohammad Khatami, a dark horse reformist candidate, had been elected president by a landslide popular vote. He’d run on a platform that promised the people greater freedom. Under his administration, restrictions on the press had eased. Dozens of new publications were launched, and a series of exposés on political crimes was published—the most riveting of these on the Chain Murders.

  In the fall of 1998, six of Iran’s most respected writers and academics had been assassinated in a string of mysterious attacks. The press had uncovered a connection to similar attacks dating back to the earliest days of the revolution. In response to a public outcry, a committee formed to investigate the murders held the Ministry of Intelligence and Security responsible.

  The victims of the Chain Murders had been founders of the Iranian Writers’ Association—a group of intellectuals who espoused independent thought, and whose critique of the regime was subtly and subversively apparent in their writings.

  Khattak looked at Darius, his voice cool and steady.

  “Is Zahra’s death connected to the Chain Murders? Is that why Touka needs my help?”

  Darius looked shocked.

  “What? Why would you think that?”

  “You just said your parents were dissidents. That would place them in the generation of the Chain Murders.”

  Khattak withdrew the letters from his pouch. He gave one each to Taraneh and Darius, and the remaining two to Ali Golshani, whom he sensed was the group’s leader. He spared a thought for Nasreen. If her brother was in Kahrizak, better she know nothing about these letters.

  The group read the letters and exchanged them.

  “We didn’t write these to you,” Ali said.

  “Someone who knew me did, someone who knows where I’m staying. A young man named Ali dropped them off.”

  Ali’s answer was firm. “It wasn’t me. Touka told us to meet you, we have no reason to engage in intrigues. We we
re planning to tell you everything in order to enlist your help.”

  “It was a coincidence,” Darius said with great earnestness. “Ali is a blogger, I make short films, our parents were academics. Taraneh’s mother is a lawyer, Nasreen and Saneh were students. But yes, our parents were dissidents.”

  Khattak noted the past tense. Had Nasreen and Saneh graduated? Before he could ask, Ali held up the second letter.

  “I think you may be onto something, Inspector. Take a look at this.”

  He read the last line of the letter to the others.

  “‘Find out what Zahra wanted with the letters.’ I think I know the letters in question, they were quite famous.”

  Nasreen re-entered the gallery from the walkway. A cleansing rush of air cut across the odor of the dovecote.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  Ali ignored her. “I think Zahra Khanom may have been looking for the correspondence between Prime Minister Mossadegh and Dariush Forouhar. They were personal letters that Forouhar was said to treasure. I thought they were destroyed years ago.”

  Khattak knew the story of the CIA coup that had toppled Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, an episode of little distinction that had sabotaged Iran’s prospects for democracy. A principled champion of democracy, Mossadegh had represented an independent, nationalist position. His government had rejected alignment with either the United States or the Soviet Union, at a time when the United States had sought an ally deferential to its interests, invoking the specter of a Communist takeover. When Mossadegh was accordingly deposed, the Shah of Iran had been propped up in his place—setting the stage over time for Khomeini’s revolution.

  Like many prominent dissidents, Mossadegh had lived out his life under house arrest. His legacy as a proponent of democracy was still greatly respected inside Iran.

  But Forouhar was a name Khattak didn’t recognize.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he said.

  “The Chain Murders, Inspector Khattak.” Ali’s answer was quiet. “Dariush Forouhar was the first of six people murdered in that chain. The Mossadegh letters vanished the same day.”

  * * *

  A cough in the background startled Khattak. He swung around, expecting to see the man from the restaurant rooftop.

  A figure emerged from the shadows. It was a young man wearing aviator glasses. His long hair fell to his shoulders, an unlit cigarette poised between his lips. He wore several heavy chains around his neck and five or six green bands on each of his wrists. The sleeves of his Versace shirt were rolled up, the neck unbuttoned down to his waist. He was bulging with over-developed muscles. He eyed Taraneh with an intimate smile.

  “This is Omid Arabshahi,” Ali said. “He wanted to hang back until he was sure you were who Touka said you were.”

  Omid Arabshahi made a cavalier gesture. Khattak could tell he was the member of the group with the strongest disregard for authority, the one who would take the most risks.

  “So you’re Inspector Khattak,” he said. He spit out the cigarette, speaking English with a drawl. “Now that we’ve met, we can get on with finding out why Zahra Khanom was murdered.”

  “And why is that?” Esa asked.

  “Because I’m the tech expert. I’m the one who can help you with the drive.”

  Khattak hesitated. There was a moment on the security footage he needed to see slowed down, close-up. And if he was right about it, it was possible there was more to Zahra’s death than the assassination of a critic of the government. Would the regime have risked killing her at this pivotal moment in relations between Canada and Iran? There had to be another reason.

  “Have you already seen the footage?”

  “Of course,” Omid said.

  “And?”

  “Radan is there. Like you said, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Anything else?”

  “You’re the detective,” Omid answered with a shrug. “We don’t even know what we’re looking for, do you?”

  “I think so. But I don’t think it’s safe to meet at my guesthouse.”

  Ali had a laptop bag strung across his shoulder. Now he unlatched the straps and handed Khattak a book. It was a tourist guide to the sights of Esfahan. The Hezar Jarib dovecote was marked with a note.

  “If you’re being followed, you’ll need that when you leave. If you come to the meeting tonight, Omid will help you with the drive.”

  “Who’s going to be there?” Khattak asked.

  Ali’s reply was a little self-conscious.

  “All of us. The Green Birds of June. We’re the children of the writers.”

  Ali had now used two phrases from the letters: the writers’ children and the Green Birds of June. The first reference was clear. The second could mean anyone who was a member of the Green Movement. The stolen election had been held in June.

  “Is this a name you use publicly?”

  “No. No protest movement can work openly in Iran.”

  “Do you have access to unmonitored communications?”

  “Perhaps. Why?”

  “I need to send some information to my partner in Canada. And I’d also like to send her a copy of these letters.”

  Ali made no move to return the letters to Khattak. He divided them between himself and Darius. He passed the drive of the security footage to Omid.

  “Omid can photograph them and send them to anyone you wish without being traced.”

  “How?”

  Omid slid the letters and the drive inside his shirt and buttoned it up.

  “It’s nothing all that advanced. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of Telegram. It’s an app that lets you send and receive encrypted messages, which is handy in Iran. Come to the meeting and I’ll show you.”

  Khattak gave him Rachel’s anonymous e-mail address, and asked Omid to forward the footage from Evin. He saluted Khattak, whistling as he descended the staircase. Darius waited five minutes to follow him.

  Ali nodded at Nasreen.

  “Now you.”

  “What about the meeting place? You haven’t told him.” Her voice was low and hoarse. She was staring at Khattak, but her expression remained the same: inward-seeing and fixed, frozen at the mention of Zahra Sobhani.

  “Go ahead,” Taraneh said, her impatience beginning to show. “I’ll tell him.”

  Ali linked his arm through Nasreen’s.

  “Come on,” he said. “The caretaker will be back soon.”

  She seemed to snap back into herself. She pressed her fingers hard into her neck, blotting out the charm on her necklace. Khattak couldn’t tell what it was.

  He knew he should have looked away, out of politeness if nothing else, but he couldn’t. Her tragedy was so magnetic, it electrified the air around her with the force of a dying star.

  She followed Ali down the stairs and disappeared.

  Taraneh leaned close to Khattak, her perfume filling his nostrils.

  “She’s too young for you,” she said, half-teasing.

  “So are you,” he replied firmly. He stepped back, retreating under an arch. “Are you sure you and Nasreen should be involved in the Green Birds?”

  Taraneh’s flirtatious manner went flat.

  “Whether you help us or not won’t change anything. We’re committed to the movement, Zahra was our friend. She managed to get some of us released.”

  “You?” Khattak asked, surprised.

  Taraneh flushed.

  “Not me, Nasreen. Nasreen and Saneh Ardalan are Kurds. They’ve been treated more harshly than other members of the Greens.”

  Khattak felt his stomach drop. He found he didn’t want to think about what might have happened to Nasreen behind the gates of Evin.

  “You said they were students, what did you mean? Why aren’t they now?”

  Taraneh’s rearrangement of her scarf betrayed her discomfort with the subject.

  “That’s not for me to say, we don’t share each other’s secrets.”

  Sh
e ducked her head against Khattak, her mood changing on a whim, suddenly playful. She whispered a street address and a time into his ear, then descended gaily down the staircase.

  “If you help us, we’ll consider you’ve joined us,” she called up. “You’ll be an honorary member.”

  Khattak knew better than to answer.

  * * *

  He explored the dovecote on his own for several minutes, impressed by the purposefulness of the structure. During the Safavid empire, the dovecotes had been used to collect guano to fertilize crops. The smell that lingered mixed with the lighter notes of Taraneh’s perfume.

  He absorbed the moment, the place. The rose-pink light streaming from the crosshatched opening, the looming tomb-like arches, the red-gold pigeon nooks like a serried cliff rising upward. He followed the path Nasreen had taken to the walkway, looking down on Mardavij Square.

  At the base of the pigeon tower stood a thin man shrouded in shadow. The orange tip of a cigarette cast a glow on the lower half of his face. He was fourteen meters below and a short distance away, but Khattak recognized something in his posture. It was the man from the roof. He felt an immediate pang of fear—he was being followed, and his activities were being monitored.

  Soon the man was on the walkway beside Khattak, his cigarette extinguished, the scent of smoldering bark clinging to the clothes he wore, a spring jacket over an open-necked shirt and dark slacks. He had a face Khattak thought would be difficult to place, his smile sharp, his features congested. His hair was combed over his forehead, his half-closed eyes reminding Khattak of Ahmadinejad, the politician who’d claimed victory in the stolen election of 2009.

  The man gestured at Khattak’s guidebook.

  “You are a tourist?” he asked in English. His Persian accent was rich and beautiful. He spoke in a voice that would not have disgraced a tenor of the opera.

  The man knew exactly who he was, Khattak thought. These were just preliminaries.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I’m a visitor to your country. Esfahan is a beautiful city.”