The Sigheh

By Suzanne Monroe

Zari Alavi doesn’t remember her turbulent childhood in post-revolutionary Iran or the father that she and her mother left there so many years ago. Suddenly, thirty years later, she finds herself on a plane to Teheran to cover the 2009 presidential elections for the Florida Sun-Sentinel. Within a week of landing, she’ll find herself married to a stranger, hunted by the government, and making a daring escape attempt through impossible terrain. Will forces from her past save her or lead to her ultimate destruction?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Caddo Nine Tales
• Release date: Apr 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476120867

Suzanne Monroe

Suzanne Monroe lives with her family in Lousiana.

Book preview

The Sigheh

by Suzanne Monroe

Copywright 2012 Suzanne Monroe

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Chapter One

Zari watched the ground coming closer, and for the first time, she heard the dire warnings that everyone she knew had been giving her over the last month. Everyone, that is, but Roger, who had convinced her that everything would be alright, and she would return in two weeks with a career making story under her belt.

I forbid this.’ Anita Alavi, whose blazing red hair and plump, happy face smiled out from the front yards of real estate properties all over Palm Beach County, had paced back and forth, waving a Marlboro as she yelled. Her face had not been smiling. ‘I nearly died. We nearly died getting you out of that godforsaken place.

You can’t forbid me, Mom. I’m thirty three years old.’ She had been perched on a bar stool dressed in a sundress, sneaking strips of bacon from her mother’s forgotten plate. ‘I still have Iranian citizenship because of Dad. Everyone will think I’m just there to find my father. Roger has found a woman who will rent me a room in Tehran. I’m the only one that can get in to cover the elections. Roger says I’ll make editor if I get a good story.

Goddamn Roger. I thought when you divorced him, we’d be done with him. What right does he have to send you on this suicide mission? And your father! Here’s hoping the devil has already taken him. Just because Iran thinks you have Iranian citizenship doesn’t mean squat. You were born in America, you’ve lived here since you were three. What do you know about Iran? You go there, and you’ll never get out. Then what will your precious Roger do for you?

I’m going, Mom. I’ve got both passports, my birth certificate showing Dad’s nationality, and a 30 day visa. I’ll be back.

The high pitched squeak of the plane’s landing gear touching pavement cut off Zari’s reminiscence as if a door had closed in her mind. Now there was only the dimly lit runway, and the pre-dawn darkness beyond. Somewhere in the distance, a modern terminal blazed with light, and the city of Tehran sparkled behind, but in the protected capsule of the airplane cabin, Zari felt as if she had left the earth and was about to step out onto a hostile new planet.

We will be arriving at the terminal momentarily.’ The pilot’s smooth British accent informed the passengers. ‘Please have your passports ready for inspection by the local authorities as you exit the plane.

Zari gripped her Iranian passport tighter, even though her fingers had not let go of it during the entire six hour flight from London. The sleeves of her jacket (manteau, she reminded herself) nearly covered her fingers, and its two large pockets were full of papers. It was, she had been told, required wear for women in Iran as was the black headscarf that wrapped around her ebony hair. Her right hand felt her bulging pocket as she mentally checked off its contents. Her birth certificate, showing her Iranian father was most important, along with a 30 day visa granted so that she could search for her father and his family.

What do you think is going to happen if they find out you are a reporter? Her mother had driven her to the airport, still campaigning against the ‘suicide’ mission.

How will they know? I have a visa. I’m not going to interview anyone, just take a couple of pictures. What can they do about a couple of pictures?

Now, as she stood in line to exit the plane, she saw a reception line of guards, dressed all in black with pistols at their sides and rifles slung over their backs. As each passenger handed over papers, she thought glumly, ‘I wish I hadn’t asked.’

The man two people ahead of her nervously gave his papers to the first guard to the left. After a quick glance, the guard burst into rapid Farsi, and two other guards gathered around. The man, dressed simply in a wrinkled grey suit and carrying a black leather laptop case, suddenly turned and tried to re-enter the airplane, pushing against Zari and the black clad woman in front of her. Zari saw a foot, clad in a black sock and thick black rubber sandals, snake out from the folds of the woman’s chador and trip the man. His laptop banged into Zari’s ankle as she watched, frozen by the surreal scene. The man reached for the case and she noticed that the man had a green wristband that had been hidden by his suit jacket. It was only visible for a second before the guards fell on him, jerking him to his feet. Another guard secured the laptop, and they began to drag the man down the brightly lit hallway.

Death to the dictator!’ The man screamed in English. ‘Vote for the government of hope! He was repeating himself in Farsi when one of the guards took his pistol from its holster and struck the man in his left temple. The grey suited man collapsed in their grasp and was dragged into a door that opened in the gleaming white wall of the terminal.

The chador clad woman watched this with a satisfied smile on her face. As the door closed, she muttered to herself in Farsi.

Zari stared openmouthed as the remaining guards reformed their reception line, and the crow like woman ahead of her proceeded through the line with respectful bows and shouts of approval. Zari was stopped from following her by the arm of a guard thrust into her path. As she looked into his face, his dark eyes held hers intensely as he slapped his hand, barking at her in Farsi.

"What? I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ still dazed from the scene that had played out before her moments ago, she stared dumbly at the man.

Papers. Now. Are you American? The dark eyes narrowed and his hand inched toward his side weapon.

Zari swallowed and quickly went into the speech she had rehearsed for days. I live in America, yes, but my father is Iranian. I have returned to the land of my father’s family in order to find my true family. She repeated it in careful Farsi, painstakingly taught to her by an Iranian member of the Sentinel staff.

The hand moved slightly away from the gun. Papers.

Zari’s hand that held her Iranian passport extended quickly, and she began to reach into her pocket for her visa. A flash of her picture wrapped in a headscarf caught her eye as she held the paperwork out to the guard.

For an eternity, the man bent over the papers. Zari stood, afraid to breathe, blink or swallow as she waited. Her eyes kept moving toward the space in the wall were the grey suited man had disappeared. Now, the wall appeared unbroken, just a gleaming expanse of white.

She was lost in trying to convince herself that the incident had never happened, when the guard thrust her papers back to her. You may pass.

He signaled to the guards that formed the ominous path before her, and it seemed to her that they parted somewhat, although she hadn’t seen any of them move. As she walked through them, she kept her eyes on the white floor, counting the tiles as her feet moved steadily until she noticed that there were no longer black boots framing her field of vision. Looking up, she found herself standing alone in the middle of Imam Khomeini Airport. ‘Now what,’ she thought to herself, looking up at the bright red directional signs that hung from the ceiling. They were all in Farsi, and she began to panic until she noticed the picture of a small suitcase on one that pointed down an escalator. She allowed her lungs to draw in a deep breath once more, and moved toward what she hoped was baggage claim.

The baggage claim area could have been in any American city, except for the fact that it was newer and cleaner than most of its American counterparts. The ceiling was light blue and so high that it looked as if a cheery blue sky hung overhead. Giant concrete columns dotted the huge space. Beams of metal connected them like a great industrial cat’s cradle, and gleaming steel baggage carts were lined up next to the equally efficient looking baggage carousels.

As Zari descended on the escalator, she took all of this in, noticing a young woman that stood at the foot of the escalator waving a tattered cardboard sign in front of every female passenger that passed her. She was shorter than Zari by at least a head, and rounder by at least twenty pounds. She was dressed in jeans, but a long black manteau came down to her knees, and a black headscarf covered her hair. Darkly lined black eyes darted from one person to another as the crowd from Zari’s flight passed her. A tall man that stood beside her caught Zari’s gaze and held it as he tapped the woman’s shoulder. The woman looked up at her and shook the sign at her. It bore her name.

She smiled, not at the woman, but at the man, whose eyes had not left her face. She felt them demanding her attention, and she yielded to their call, meeting his gaze with her own. He was taller than most of the men that passed him. Zari estimated at least six foot tall. His dark hair was cut close on the sides and slightly longer on top, giving him a rumbled, careless look. Watching her descend to him, he bared a set of impossibly white teeth in a smile that reminded her of a wolf bearing down on a tethered sheep. He leaned back against a concrete column, crossing his