Escape

by James Clavell

  ‘Yes, thank you, the PM insisted I arrange it, insisted—the importance of our department, I suppose.’

  ‘As God wants!’ Bakravan said.

  Well satisfied, they all went out of the room, down the narrow stairs and into the small passageway that led to the open-fronted shop. Their smiles vanished and bile filled their mouths.

  Waiting there were the five Green Bands, Revolutionary Guards, lolling on the desks and chairs, all armed with U.S. Army carbines, all in their early twenties, unshaven or bearded, their clothes poor and soiled, some with holed shoes, some sockless. The leader picked his teeth silently, the rest were smoking, carelessly dropping their ash on Bakravan’s priceless Kash’kai carpets. One of these youths coughed badly as he smoked, his breath wheezing.

  Bakravan felt his knees weakening. All of his staff stood frozen against one of the walls. Everyone. Even his favourite teaboy. Out in the street it was very quiet, no one about—even the owners of the moneylending shops across the alley seemed to have vanished.

  ‘Salaam, agha, the Blessing of God on you,’ he said politely, his voice sounding strange. ‘What can I do for you?’

  The leader paid no attention to him, just kept his eyes boring into Paknouri, his face handsome but scarred by the parasite disease, carried by sandflies and almost endemic in Iran. He was in his early twenties, dark eyes and hair and work-scarred hands that toyed with the carbine. His name was Yusuf Senvar—Yusuf the bricklayer.

  The silence grew and Paknouri could stand the strain no longer. ‘It’s all a mistake,’ he screamed. ‘You’re making a mistake!’

  ‘You thought you’d escape the Vengeance of God by running away?’ Yusuf’s voice was soft, almost kind—though with a coarse village accent that Bakravan could not place.

  ‘What Vengeance of God?’ Paknouri screamed. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, nothing.’

  ‘Haven’t you worked for and with foreigners for years, helping them to carry off the wealth of our nation?’

  ‘Of course not to do that but to create jobs and help the econ—’

  ‘Nothing? Haven’t you served the Satan Shah for years?’

  Again Paknouri shouted, ‘No, I was in opposition, everyone knows I. . . I was in oppo—’

  ‘But you still served him and did his bidding?’

  Paknouri’s face was twisted and almost out of control. His mouth worked but he could not get the words out. Then he croaked, ‘Everyone served him—of course everyone served him, he was the Shah, but we worked for the revolution—the Shah was the Shah, of course everyone served him while he was in power. . .’

  ‘The Imam didn’t,’ Yusuf said, his voice suddenly raw. ‘Imam Khomeini never served the Shah. In the Name of God, did he?’ Slowly he looked from face to face. No one answered him.

  In the silence, Bakravan watched the man reach into his torn pocket and find a piece of paper and peer at it and he knew that he was the only one here who could stop this nightmare.

  ‘By Order of the Revolutionary Komiteh,’ Yusuf began, ‘and Ali’allah Uwari: Miser Paknouri, you are called to judgment. Submit yo—’

  ‘No, Excellency,’ Bakravan said firmly but politely, his heart pounding in his ears. ‘This is the bazaar. Since the beginning of time you know the bazaar has its own laws, its own leaders. Emir Paknouri is one of them, he cannot be arrested or taken away against his will. He cannot be touched—that is bazaari law from the beginning of time.’ He stared back at the young man, fearlessly, knowing that the Shah, even SAVAK had never dared to challenge their laws or right of sanctuary.

  ‘Is bazaari law greater than God’s law, Moneylender Bakravan?’

  He felt a wave of ice go through him. ‘No—no, of course not.’

  ‘Good. I obey God’s law and do God’s work.’

  ‘But you may not arres—’

  ‘I obey God’s law and do only God’s work.’ The man’s eyes were brown and guileless under his black brows. He gestured at his carbine. ‘I do not need this gun—none of us need guns to do God’s work. I pray with all my heart to be a martyr for God, for then I’ll go straight to Paradise without the need to be judged, my sins forgiven me. If it’s tonight, then I will die blessing him who kills me because I know I will die doing God’s work.’

  ‘God is Great,’ one of the men said, the others echoed him.

  ‘Yes, God is Great. But you, Moneylender Bakravan, did you pray five times today as the Prophet ordered?’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Bakravan heard himself say, knowing his lie to be sinless because of taqiyah—concealment—the Prophet’s permission to any Muslim to lie about Islam if he feels his life threatened.

  ‘Good. Be silent and be patient, I come back to you later.’ Another chill racked him as he saw the man turn his attention back to Paknouri. ‘By order of the Revolutionary Komiteh and Ali’allah Uwari: Miser Paknouri, submit yourself to God for crimes against God.’

  Paknouri’s mouth struggled. ‘I. . . I. . . you cannot. . . there. . .’

  Ali Kia cleared his throat. ‘Now listen, perhaps it would be better to leave this until tomorrow,’ he began, trying to keep his voice important. ‘Emir Paknouri’s clearly upset by the mista—’

  ‘Who’re you?’ The leader’s eyes bored into him as they had into Paknouri and Bakravan. ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’m Deputy Minister Ali Kia,’ Ali replied, keeping his courage under the strength of the eyes, ‘of the Department of Finance, member of Prime Minister Bazargan’s cabinet and I suggest you wait u—’

  ‘In the Name of God: you, your Department of Finance, your cabinet, your Bazargan has nothing to do with me or us. We obey the mullah Uwari, who obeys the Komiteh, who obeys the Imam, who obeys God.’ The man scratched absently and turned his attention back to Paknouri. ‘In the street!’ he ordered, his voice still gentle. ‘Or we’ll drag you.’

  Paknouri collapsed with a groan and lay inert. The others watched helplessly, someone muttered, ‘The Will of God,’ and the little teaboy began sobbing.

  ‘Be quiet, boy,’ Yusuf said without anger. ‘Is he dead?’

  One of the men went over and squatted over Paknouri. ‘No. As God wants.’

  ‘As God wants. Hassan, pick him up, put his head in the water trough and if he doesn’t wake up, we’ll carry him.’

  ‘No,’ Bakravan interrupted bravely, ‘no, he’ll stay here, he’s sick an—’

  ‘Are you deaf, old man?’ An edge had crept into Yusuf s voice. Fear stalked the room. The little boy crammed his fist into his mouth to prevent himself from crying out. Yusuf kept his eyes on Bakravan as the man called Hassan, broad-shouldered and strong, lifted Paknouri easily and went out of the shop and up the alley. ‘As God wants,’ he said, eyes on Bakravan. ‘Eh?’

  ‘Where. . . please, where will you be taking him?’

  ‘To jail, of course. Where else should he go?’

  ‘Which. . . which jail, please?’

  One of the other men laughed. ‘What does it matter what jail?’

  For Jared Bakravan and the others, the room was now stifling and cell-like even though the air had not changed and the open front on to the alley was as it had ever been.

  ‘I would like to know, Excellency,’ Bakravan said, his voice thick, trying to mask his hatred. ‘Please.’

  ‘Evin.’ This had been the most infamous of Tehran’s prisons. Yusuf sensed another wave of fear. They must all be guilty to be so afraid, he thought. He glanced behind him at his younger brother. ‘Give me the paper.’

  His brother was barely fifteen, grubby and coughing badly. He took out half a dozen pieces of paper and shuffled through them. He found the one he sought. ‘Here it is, Yusuf.’

  The leader peered at it. ‘Are you sure it’s the right one?’

  ‘Yes.’ The youth pointed a stubby finger at the name. Slowly he spelled out the characters. ‘J-a-r-e-d
B-a-k-r-a-v-a-n.’

  Someone muttered, ‘God protect us!’ and in the vast silence Yusuf took the paper and held it out to Bakravan. The others watched, frozen.

  Hardly breathing, the old man took it, his fingers trembling. For a moment he could not focus his eyes. Then he saw the words: ‘Jared Bakravan of the Tehran bazaar, by order of the Revolutionary Komiteh and Ali’allah Uwari, you are summoned to the Revolutionary Tribunal at Evin Prison tomorrow immediately after first prayer to answer questions.’ The paper was signed, Ali’allah, the writing illiterate.

  ‘What questions?’ he asked dully.

  ‘As God wills.’ The leader shouldered his carbine and got up. ‘Until dawn. Bring the paper with you and don’t be late.’

  He stalked out.

  Near the U.S. Embassy: 8:15 P.M. Erikki had been waiting for almost four hours. From where he sat in the first-floor window of his friend Christian Tollonen’s apartment, he could see the high walls surrounding the floodlit U.S. compound down the road, uniformed marines near the huge iron gates stamping their feet against the cold, and the big embassy building beyond. Traffic was still heavy, snarled here and there, everyone honking and trying to get ahead, pedestrians as impatient and self-centred as usual. No traffic lights working. No police. Not that they’d make any difference, he thought, Tehranis don’t give a damn for traffic regulations, never have, never will. Like those madmen on the road down through the mountains who killed themselves. Like Tabrizis. Or Qazvinis.

  His great fist bunched at the thought of Qazvin. At the Finnish embassy this morning there had been reports of Qazvin in a state of revolt, that Azerbaijan nationalists in Tabriz had rebelled again and fighting was going on against forces loyal to the Khomeini government and that the whole oil-rich and vastly strategic border province had again declared its independence of Tehran, independence it had fought for over the centuries, always aided and abetted by Russia, Iran’s permanent enemy and gobbler of her territory. Rakoczy and others like him must be swarming all over Azerbaijan.

  ‘Of course the Soviets are after us,’ Abdollah Gorgon Khan had said angrily, during the quarrel, just before he and Azadeh had left for Tehran. ‘Of course your Rakoczy and his men are here in strength. We walk the thinnest tightrope in the whole world because we’re their key to the Gulf and the key to Hormuz, the jugular of the West. If it hadn’t been for us Gorgons, our tribal connections and some of our Kurdish allies, we’d be a Soviet province now—joined to the other half of Azerbaijan that the Soviets stole from us years ago, helped as always by the insidious British—oh, how I hate the British, even more than Americans who are just stupid and ill-mannered barbarians. It’s the truth, isn’t it?’

  ‘They’re not like that, not the ones I’ve met. And S-G’s treated me fairly.’

  ‘So far. But they’ll betray you—the British betray everyone who’s not British and even then they’ll betray them if it suits them.’

  ‘Insha’Allah.’

  Abdollah Gorgon Khan had laughed without humour. ‘Insha’Allah! And Insha’Allah the Soviet army retreated over the border and then we smashed their quislings, and stamped out their “Democratic Azerbaijan Republic” and the “Kurdish People’s Republic”. But I admire the Soviets, they play only to win and change the rules to suit themselves. The real winner of your world war was Stalin. He was the colossus. Didn’t he dominate everything at Potsdam, Yalta and Tehran—didn’t he outmanoeuvre Churchill and Roosevelt? Didn’t Roosevelt even stay with him in Tehran in the Soviet embassy? How we Iranians laughed! The Great President gave Stalin the future when he had the power to stuff him behind his own borders. What a genius! Beside him your ally Hitler was a craven bungler! As God wills, eh?’

  ‘Finland sided with Hitler only to fight Stalin and get back our lands.’

  ‘But you lost, you chose the wrong side and lost. Even a fool could see Hitler would lose—how could Reza Shah have been so foolish? Ah, Captain, I never understood why Stalin let you Finns live. If I’d been him I would have laid waste Finland as a lesson—as he decimated a dozen other lands. Why did he let you all live? Because you stood up to him in your Winter War?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. I agree the Soviets will never give up.’

  ‘Never, Captain. But neither will we. We Azerbaijanis will always outmaneouvre them and keep them at bay. As in ’46.’

  But then the West was strong, there was the Truman Doctrine towards the Soviets of hands off or else, Erikki thought grimly. And now? Now Carter’s at the helm? What helm?

  Heavily, he leaned forward and refilled his glass, impatient to get back to Azadeh. It was cold in the apartment and he still wore his overcoat—the central heating was off and the windows draughty. But the room was large and pleasant and masculine with old easy chairs, the walls decorated with small but good Persian carpets and bronze. Books, magazines and journals were scattered everywhere, on tables and chairs and bookshelves—Finnish, Russian, Iranian—a pair of girl’s shoes carelessly on one of the shelves. He sipped the vodka, loving the warmth it gave him, then looked out of the window once more at the embassy. For a moment he wondered if it would be worth emigrating to the U.S. with Azadeh. ‘The bastions are falling,’ he muttered out loud. ‘Iran no longer safe, Europe so vulnerable, Finland on the sword’s edge. . .’

  His attention focused below. Now the traffic was totally blocked by swarms of youths collecting on both roads—the U.S. embassy complex was on the corner of Tahkt-e-Jamshid and the main road called Roosevelt. Used to be called Roosevelt, he reminded himself idly. What’s the road called now? Khomeini Street? Street of the Revolution?

  The front door of the apartment opened. ‘Hey, Erikki,’ the young Finn said with a grin. Christian Tollonen wore a Russian-style fur hat and fur-lined trench coat that he had bought in Leningrad on a drunken weekend with other university friends. ‘What’s new?’

  ‘Four hours I’ve been waiting.’

  ‘Three hours and twenty-two minutes and half a bottle of my best contraband Russian Moskava money can buy anywhere, and we agreed three or four hours.’ Christian Tollonen was in his early thirties, a bachelor, fair and grey-eyed, deputy cultural attaché at the Finnish embassy. They had been friends since he came to Iran, some years ago. ‘Pour me one, by God, I need it—there’s another demonstration simmering, and I had a hell of a time getting through.’ He kept his trench coat on and went to the window.

  The two sections of crowds had joined now, the people milling about in front of the embassy complex. All gates had been closed. Uneasily Erikki noticed that there were no mullahs among the youths. They could hear shouting.

  ‘Death to America, death to Carter,’ Christian interpreted—he could speak fluent Farsi because his father too had been a diplomat here and he had spent five years of his youth at school in Tehran. ‘Just the usual shit, down with Carter and American imperialism.’

  ‘No Allah-u Akbar,’ Erikki said. For a moment his mind took him back to the roadblock, and ice swept into his stomach. ‘No mullahs.’

  ‘No. I didn’t see one anywhere around.’ In the street the tempo picked up with different factions swirling around the iron gates. ‘Most of them are university students. They thought I was Russian and they told me there’d been a pitched battle at the university, leftists versus the Green Bands—with perhaps twenty or thirty killed or wounded and it was still going on.’ While they watched, fifty or sixty youths began rattling the gates. ‘They’re spoiling for a fight.’

  ‘And no police to stop them.’ Erikki handed him the glass.

  ‘What would we do without vodka?’

  Erikki laughed. ‘Drink brandy. Do you have everything?’

  ‘No—but a start.’ Christian sat in one of the armchairs near the low table opposite Erikki and opened his briefcase. ‘Here’s a copy of your marriage and birth certificates—thank God we had copies. New passports for both of you—I managed to get someone in
Bazargan’s office to stamp yours with a temporary residence permit good for three months.’

  ‘You’re a magician!’

  ‘They promised they’d issue you a new Iranian pilot’s licence but when, they wouldn’t say. With your S-G ID and the photocopy of your British licence they said you were legal enough. Now, Azadeh’s passport’s temporary.’ He opened it and showed him the photograph. ‘It’s not standard—I took a Polaroid of the photo you gave me—but it’ll pass until we can get a proper one. Get her to sign it as soon as you see her. Has she been out of the country since you were married?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘If she travels out on a Finnish passport—well, I don’t know how it will affect her Iranian status. The authorities have always been touchy, particularly about their own nationals. Khomeini seems even more xenophobic so his regime’s bound to be tougher. It might look to them as though she’d renounced her nationality. I don’t think they’ll let her back.’

  A muted burst of shouting from the massed youths in the street diverted them for a moment. Hundreds were waving clenched fists and somewhere someone had a loudspeaker and was haranguing them. ‘The way I feel right now, as long as I can get her out, I don’t care,’ Erikki said.

  The younger man glanced at him. After a moment he said, ‘Perhaps she should be aware of the danger, Erikki. There’s no way I can get her replacement papers or any Iranian passport, but it’d be very risky for her to leave without them. Why don’t you ask her father to arrange them for her? He could get them for her easily. He owns most of Tabriz, eh?’