Reverb (Story of CI #2)

by Rachel Moschell

  The prisoner swallows slowly, sits up a little straighter in the Snoopy desk, hoping it is imperceptible.

  There are six rows of mustard-colored tiles, from the floor to halfway up the wall where the plaster begins. There were six before, and there will still be six today. There is some stability in the world. There are just as many tiles here today as there were yesterday. They don’t change.

  And God never changes.

  Like the mustard tiles.

  The bazju curses and shifts inside his stained leather jacket, reminding the prisoner that he already knows what is waiting for him if he doesn’t cooperate. A thin shiver scurries up the prisoner’s spine, despite the thick wool sweater. He still remembers what it had felt like, ten seconds before you knew you would die.

  Twenty-eight tiles from one side of this wall to the other. And—yes—six from top to bottom, with the pearly white grout in between.

  See? God never changes.

  I think I am losing my mind.

  5

  Nasty Past

  AFTER HER KID BROTHER HAD SAFELY EVACUATED Rostam from the scene of the beating near the coffee shop, Neelam took a deep breath and crossed the street. She guided a very annoyed Ava towards a nearby plaza, glancing over her shoulder for any more unwelcome bearded faces. Ava looked irritated, but she also could have been about hiccup out little hysterical tears.

  “He was ok, wasn’t he?” she asked smally as they made their way across the concrete plaza. Ava’s chunky high heels tapped against the ground as they navigated between bare cement pillars and a dry fountain adorned in Farsi graffiti. They plopped down on a bench, and crossed arms in front of their manteaus. “It makes me so angry,” Ava huffed. “I couldn’t even look at him to see what they did to him. Because then they would have hurt him even more.”

  Her tone was definitely simmering just on the edge of tears. Ava was her friend, but Neelam just wasn’t comfortable with tears. “He looked ok,” she assured Ava, just wanting her to calm down. “He was bleeding a bit. But nothing like it used to be. Pretty much like a normal guy.” Here she grinned. Imagine that, Rostam a normal guy. “I’m sure my aunties will take care of him. They’ll fuss about evil religious vigilantes and serve him tea and chocolates for hours.”

  In lieu of parents, Mirza and Neelam had aunties. Two of them, Gordia and Feriba. Neelam’s parents died in a horrific car crash, leaving her and her brother behind.

  She had been seven, Mirza, five.

  “I can’t believe this had to happen today, of all days,” Ava exhaled loudly, and sleek black bangs fluttered on the breeze. “But Rostam was really asking for it. He was trying to hold my hand in public.”

  “Well, he loves you.” Neelam cocked her head to one side. “That’s not a crime. Ok, at least it shouldn’t be.”

  Ava smiled, tapping one black Juicy Couture sandal nervously against the concrete. “We have company” she half-sang. Neelam was instantly on alert.

  Sure enough, peeping between two spray-paint splattered pillars, a little crowd of young people had gathered, giggling and filming with their cell phones. Just because she was in a good mood that Ava and Rostam were getting married tonight, Neelam threw the crowed a lazy wave and a flirty grin.

  “Time to move on.” Ava was already standing, dusting off the rear of her burnt-orange manteau. “The market? I know the guys were going to do some errands after this, and I don’t have to be at the spa for an hour. Mother’s totally got everything taken care of at home. Keep me busy, Neelam, or I just might faint.”

  The two of them sauntered out of the plaza, flipping hair over their shoulders underneath their veils. Neelam was not a vain person by any means, but it did get a little old being followed by people and their camera phones when you went out. And it was hard not to saunter, knowing that all those people were watching. The two girls grinned at each other and then darted in coordination around a corner to lose themselves in the crowd.

  The entrance to the market was pale green stucco, plastered with fading flyers and glossy posters advertising everything from baby food to Herbal Life supplements. The scent of sweet Persian spices and rotting fruit washed over Neelam and Ava as they entered the labyrinth.

  “Ok,” Ava said a little breathlessly, trotting in her heels to keep up with Neelam’s quick pace. “Remember what you just said, that Rostam loves me? Well, I kind of need to talk with you about something. I wanted to earlier but…things have been really crazy. Plus, it’s a little embarrassing. More than a little embarrassing.”

  “What’s going on?” Neelam frowned. A large poster loomed overhead, she, Neelam Samadi, caressing a black crystal perfume flask covered in Celtic symbols. It was more than a little distracting. Moneta Z’s music hadn’t passed government censors, and it was really hard to make any money off your music when you had to do everything underground. Thus, the photo shoots for famous Iranian products. It paid the bills.

  But oh did Neelam hate seeing herself all fancied up with make up and pearls.

  “Neelam, look!” Ava called. “Before I spill my guts, you’ve got to see this magazine. It’s like eighteen months old. Do you think they have that picture of you with Andrew?”

  Neelam cringed. Eighteen months…that would be about the time of Moneta Z’s extended tour in Europe. Andrew, her Austrian ex-boyfriend from the band no one had heard of, the only man she had ever kissed. She’d kissed him once. But the Iranian tabloids had a picture of them, not kissing but grinning into each others’ eyes in the most cheesy fashion.

  “I…don’t think we need to look at that right now,” Neelam said. Her eye caught another reason not to approach the kiosk full of magazines that would surely be spirited away under the counter should any Ansar-e Hezbollah members or policemen come by. Dead center on the magazine counter was a large-sized magazine featuring Ashavan, obviously from last year as well, before everything. It was from the release of Ashavan’s latest album, Dominated by my Purse. Sami’s eyes bore into the reader with that unmatched purity the world had never seen again, and behind him stood Jalan, Ardalan, and Tarsa, the other three members left after Sami converted and their bass guitarist fled in fear to the United States.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be telling me something?” Neelam managed around a throat that felt like cotton. She tore her gaze away from the magazines and focused unsteadily on Ava and her nervous sandal-tapping. Thank God tomorrow the wedding would be over.

  “Yeah, well, ok. Here we go. I need you to talk with your brother for me.”

  “And you can’t talk to him because?” The Samadi siblings, Rostam and Ava were members of the same house church, besides knowing each other through Moneta Z. Ava was always over, hanging out with Neelam or cooking with the aunties.

  “Like I said, it’s really embarrassing.” Ava began to walk down the narrow market aisle and Neelam matched her pace. “You know I was…before. I used to go to all the parties at the bachelor flat. With Sami and Mirza.”

  Speaking of Mirza, there he was, right over their heads, pinned up as a giant banner over a kiosk stuffed with a rainbow of olives and rectangular sandwich meat. Neelam nearly chuckled as her friend paused right under the image, not even realizing it. Mirza half-glared out at the crowd in a gray t-shirt and jeans, a model for some company whose name on the banner Neelam couldn’t quite make out.

  “Yeah, I know that. And?” This wasn’t really news. Ava’s wealthy father had never been strict and Ava had been quite the university party girl. Neelam had rarely deigned to attend those types of parties, with all the drugs, drinking, and lewd behavior. Those forms of rebellion were too common-place for her, and she had found her own.

  “So it appears that at some party, I….kissed your brother.”

  Neelam stared at Ava as if she had sprouted two heads.

  “And, I just found out from a friend that Mirza has a picture of us. Or maybe several pictures of us. Kissing.”

  “Are you serious?” Neelam’s mouth fell open. “My brother…eww. O
k sorry.”

  “Yeah. I’m humiliated. Your brother is cute, but now he’s like my brother too. I didn’t even remember---I was probably high. But this friend said he saw the picture when he borrowed Mirza’s laptop. He knows about it, and maybe some other people do too. Rostam is so insecure about me loving him…if he sees the picture, I can’t imagine what it would do to him. He loves Mirza so much and thinks the world of him.”

  “Yeah, we can’t let Rostam see that picture,” Neelam’s brow puckered. “Oh no. What if it ended up on Facebook?” Or published in the newspaper. This was Iran, and being caught in immorality could get a girl into deep doo-doo.

  “I know!” Ava looked stressed and continued pacing down the crowded market aisle. Portly women in billowing black chador robes bustled by her with hefty market bags. “Can you ask your brother about it? Please, just tell him to delete them.”

  “Of course I will. Those pictures need to disappear. But....well, there is something else I should tell you. Since tomorrow will, you know, be too late.” Neelam debated if she should say this, but one of these days it might get out and it was better if Ava heard it from her. “There’s something that, if Rostam found out, could make him feel really, really bad.”

  “Do you mean that Sami asked your brother to marry me, before he asked Rostam?”

  Yes, that was exactly what Neelam meant. “You know about that?”

  “Sami told me,” Ava said simply. “He just seemed to know he’d be arrested, and he wanted someone to take care of me, a Christian brother. He went to Mirza first, after he had cleared it with me. And, as I guess you know, your brother felt God wants him to stay single. Mirza said he couldn’t marry me.” Ava paused, looking at Neelam curiously. “So, how did you find out about all this?”

  “Oh, Mirza never told me, I swear,” Neelam assured her. “Let’s just say I am sneaky and I overheard some things. So, since you said you just think of Mirza like a brother, I guess you made the right choice, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess I did,” Ava said softly. After a long silence, she added, “I did love Sami, though. I’m sure you knew that.”

  At the mention of Sami’s name, the light in Neelam’s eyes went flat and Ava sighed deeply. “He never said anything to me, about us being together. I don’t know if he loved me. But now that he’s gone away, I won’t think about him anymore. Rostam’s the right one for me to marry.”

  Ava sounded pretty in love, and she did sound sure. But despite it all, Neelam’s tummy still felt queasy.

  Somewhere out there were pictures that could get her friend in a lot of trouble. And that was just the icing on the cake. Neelam’s best friend Tarsa, who had been in the band with Sami, was already in Evin Prison, one of the most notorious prisons on the planet. And their beloved friend Sami...gone.

  Tonight should be a night for celebration…munching on delicious food, sipping sweet wine and dancing happily in honor of two lives becoming one.

  But right now, surrounded by magazine photos of Ashavan and the lives that had been sucked away from her, Neelam felt nothing but fear.

  6

  Spy Clothes

  APPARENTLY, ALEJO MARTIR HAD INHERITED HIS gift with languages from the member of the family he had always least wanted to be like: his father. It was kind of funny, if you thought about it.

  Wara had figured this out while talking with Nazaret Martir, her best friend from Bolivia, on the phone. She stretched her legs out on the futon on her half of the porch, taking in a view of plum-colored mountains and listening to Nazaret tell of the Martir family’s latest adventures. Since fleeing the trouble Alejo got them into in Bolivia, Rupert had resettled the large Martir family in a small town in Italy.

  “The rest of us can barely buy bread at the market,” Nazaret giggled over the phone. Wara imagined the dimples denting her heart-shaped face, the dyed blond ringlets bobbing. “Our Italian stinks,” Nazaret sighed. “But Dad is already preaching at the tiny little church here. And people think he’s Italian. He’s also teaching Greek at a high school!”

  So Pablo Martir had passed on the language genes to Alejo. Nazaret’s brother, as far as Wara knew, seemed to speak an infinite number of languages. N

  But the thought of Alejo caused Wara’s mood to sour. She was going to Iran on a secret mission, just a fact-finding mission to see what working with CI would be like. God had obviously led her to do this. But she was going with Alejo. She still hadn’t told Nazaret he was here.

  Alright. She was going to have to bring this up. Wara leaned forward and peered over the pine porch railing, making sure no one had wandered within earshot in the backyard.

  “So,” she drew out the word, anticipating her friend’s reaction to the thing she was about to say. “You’ll never guess who is here right now, staying in my parents’ guest bedroom.”

  “Uh…” Nazaret seemed to be racking her brain, running through the list of their mutual friends from Bolivia. “Tanja? No, wait. Didn’t she go back to Germany a little after we left? Yeah. Ok, um…I don’t know. Oh gosh, I hope it’s not someone from that group my brother worked with! Can you imagine if they ever found out you’re alive?”

  Nazaret snorted out a little giggle, and Wara knew she was just joking. But her heart slowed and time froze as she remembered the guys who had kidnapped her. Gabriel with his merry eyes, grinning into the camera on his suicide video just before blowing himself up for Allah. The other guys whose names she couldn’t remember. And most shocking of all, Lázaro, her ex-boyfriend. He’d been there, and he hated her. She could still see the venom in his eyes when he told Noah how awful she was, and then had nearly cut her throat before Alejo saved her.

  Wara nearly gagged on the horrible memory. Bile washed through her chest and she swallowed hard, blinking back the emotion. She had to get control of herself.

  “No,” she managed shakily. “None of those guys, thank God. Its your brother!” Wara paused to let it sink in. For sure, Nazaret never would have guessed that one.

  “What! Are you joking?”

  “No, I’m not joking!” Wara snorted. “He just showed up, yesterday, and nearly scared the beejeebers out of me! We were supposed to meet in another city to go on that trip I told you about. To see if we’ll work with CI.”

  “Yeah. Mom and Dad thought CI sounded so cool. And they couldn’t believe Alejo was going to work with them too.” Nazaret’s voice trailed off.

  “Hmm. Well. We both met the same person, and he told us about it. We both want to work helping people how we can in the future, and this just seems like it will work out. CI works with literacy and linguistics and education and anthropology studies---perfect for your brother. And for me, I guess.” Wara took a breath and turned her gaze towards the jagged purple mountains, cut against a baby blue sky.

  Alejo and I, working together? How in the world did this happen again?

  “Weird, I know,” she shook her head. “But I guess we’ll go on this trip, and then decide.”

  “I think it sounds perfect.” Nazaret’s voice was soft. “I can’t believe Alejo is there at your house. Your parents let him in?”

  “They don’t know.” Wara bit her lip. “All they know is that he’s your brother. They think he and I are old friends from Bolivia, too.”

  “I can’t believe you let him in,” Nazaret muttered. “I love my brother, but it’s still gonna take some time to get to know him again, after everything that happened. After what he did to you.”

  Wara shrugged, then realized Nazaret really couldn’t see that. “I know how you feel,” she said. Boards creaked on the porch floor, and Wara realized someone was coming around the corner of the house; the porch wrapped around the entire back of the ranch house, with doors that led to her own room and the guest room.

  It had to be Alejo.

  “I’ve gotta go, but I’ll call you again soon,” Wara said lowly, really hoping she now had her voice and countenance under control. She would not be happy if Alejo could tell she had been crying. S
he and Nazaret said ciao, just as Alejo came into view, carrying a couple black plastic bags.

  Que tal,” he greeted her, and she nodded back, stuffing her mom’s cell phone in the pocket of her jeans. Saturday night and Sunday after church Alejo had eaten with her family, then spent the rest of the time doing stuff off in Bozeman or making small talk with her and her parents. Now it was nearly sunset, and in the morning she and Alejo were going to the airport. Going to Morocco, where Rupert had his headquarters. Then off to Iran.

  Wara blinked and forced herself to focus on Alejo. “Can we talk for a bit?” he asked. She gave an indifferent motion and scooted to the far end of the futon that had been on the porch outside her bedroom since she was a teenager. The vinyl cushions shot a puff of air between them as Alejo sat. “First of all,” he began, “I grabbed some stuff in London you’ll need once we get to Iran.”

  For a minute, Wara was thrown off guard, because Alejo said it in Farsi. But then all the studying of the past few months surged to the surface and she pointed towards the black bags with her chin. “Lovely bags. Must be a really nice store.”

  Alejo grinned and dumped the contents of the bag on the futon between them. “You’ve been studying. I’m impressed.” He switched back to Spanish and handed a pile of what looked like clothes to Wara. “These are special spy clothes for the trip. You know, radio transmitter sewn in under the arm. Make you invincible to radiation.”

  Wara drew back, then realized he must be kidding. She met his eyes, and saw green flecks twinkling in the brown. “Ha ha.”

  “Yeah, they’re just from this shop in London that sells Iranian clothes. I have a friend who works there, a girl, and she helped me pick out the latest fashions. I’ve got all kinds of Iranian friends in London now, people I used to know when I lived in Tehran. If you don’t like the clothes, I guess it’s Leila’s fault.”

  Wara was in the middle of fingering a beautiful olive green shirt with tangerine stripes when she realized what Alejo had said. “You lived…in Tehran?”