Escape From Iran: The Re-enslavement of Women and the Death of Modern Music

By T. Mike Walker

Escape From Iran is an action/adventure/romance/historical/political novel which takes place in Iran during the 1979-1980 revolution which deposed the Shah and eventually seized American hostages working at the U.S. Embassy. Escape From Iran traces the interconnected lives of three idealists-Ara Vartan, an American musician; Kereshmae Nasraddin, an educated, westernized Iranian widow, and Mostafa, a pivotal leader in the new revolutionary government- all of them caught up in the bloody battles and inter-personal struggles between political factions which deposed the Shah, rejected western control of Iran, then turned upon each other in their struggle for control. Ara Vartan, an American-born musician of Armenian-Assyrian decent, has traveled to Iran on a Guggenheim Award to study Iranian classical and folk music to obtain a Ph.D. from Berkeley, CA. A product of student revolts in the late 60's, Ara is quickly caught up in the fever of political protest, then forced to flee from Tehran with his teacher, hiding out in the mountains of Kuristan to continue his studies while other Americans were being evacuated. The book begins when the Kurdish communists seize power in the the Zagros mountains. Ara is forced to flee, this time back toward Tehran where he hopes to convince the U.S. Embassy to send him home. On the bus, he meets a beautiful young widow who is also on her way to Tehran-to die! Kereshmae intends to join an anti-mullah party (Motjadeen-Khalq) and fight for women's rights. Thrown together by circumstances, she and Ara are captured outside the Tehran bus terminal after curfew. Kereshmae is branded as a prostitute and condemned to death. Ara insists that he is a CIA spy and demands to speak with someone high enough in authority to listen to his story, but the Mullah who interrogates him also discovers that Ara has been using drugs and condemns Ara to death. However, Ara's old friend and mentor from Berkeley, Dr. Mostafa Bazaari, who helped plot and execute the anti-Shah revolution, learns that Ara is in the Palace and intercedes on his behalf. When Ara pleads that Kereshmae be released too, Mostafa resists, finally conceding only on the condition that the two get married! Thus begins one of the strangest romances of modern times! Through their struggles the unlikely lovers are hounded by war, stripped of all beliefs and forced to face their deepest fears before they can achieve their dreams. Escape from Iran is a fast moving exotic adventure through a country in flames! It is the story of a search for peace in the rage of war, where desperate men and women must choose between their lives and their ideals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: May 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781478790181

T. Mike Walker

Author, Artist, retired English Instructor, T. Mike Walker grew up in San Francisco and received his MA in Language Arts from San Francisco State University. He was a Creative Writing and English teacher, a San Francisco Policeman. He taught High School English in the Haight Ashbury District in San Francisco and Walker explored making collages and selling them through the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street. Walker published three books based on his experiences: Voices From The Bottom of the World, A Policeman's Journal; Respect, Hippy High School in the Summer of Love, and The Butterfly Bride and Other Tales from a Wedding Minister. Through all of his changes, he has continued painting, making collages, writing, revising, and daring to publish and exhibit his creative work. Learn more on his Outskirts Press webpage: https://www.outskirtspress.com/escapefromiran or contact him at [e-mail]

Book preview

DEATH IS A CAMEL...

After a sleepless night of riding in a rattling second class bus from Sanandaj in the Zagros Mountains of Western Iran, Ara Vartan was relieved to see the thin crack of dawn running like a knife-edge along the nearly flat horizon to the east. In the distance, on either side of the road, several massive dirt mounds stuck up like ugly lumps amidst the rolling fields, as if dumped there by a giant child making sand castles using a huge bucket. Ara nudged his friend Khorso, who dozed beside him. What are those strange structures off to the right? Ara pointed toward the dark conical shapes.

Startled from sleep, Khorso looked confused, then peered out the window. Dung-makers, The young man dismissed the mounds with a yawn. For hundreds of years farmers used to collect pigeon droppings in those mounds to fertilize the fields of Isfahan. Then Shah’s big business agriculture replaced them by using chemicals, and the chemicals killed the birds. When the farmers complained, Shah told them it was progress. He shrugged and closed his eyes again. Try to sleep before we reach Isfahan.

Ara stretched his legs into the aisle, trying to shake the powerful combination of fatigue and fear which gripped him. Twenty-four hours earlier he had been awakened at dawn by machine guns firing in the village square. Kurdish rebels had seized control of Kul, a small mountain village where Ara had been hiding for nearly six months, since Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution had turned the ancient Persian landscape into a bloodbath of terror.

Now Ara was running for his life, perhaps the last American still loose in the land.

Ara remembered the fear on the face of his music teacher, Ustad Freydoon Ferdowsi, the famous Kurdish setar player, as he rushed into Ara’s small sparsely furnished bedroom waving a pistol, shouting for he and Khorso, Ara’s roommate, to dress and leave immediately. Ara sat up sluggishly on the thin straw mat that had served as his bed for so many months. He groped for his clothes on the floor beside him. He was still riding the tail end of an opium dream. What’s going on?

Insurgents have surrounded the village mosque! They call for a free Kurdistan and demand succession from the Central Government in Tehran. They have already taken many villages to the north, including the city of Mahabad, and now they are here! Hurry! I no longer have power to protect you. Soon the villagers will remember that two foreigners live in my house and they will blame you for their misfortunes. My son, Amir, has our horse and two mules ready to take you down the old trail to Sanandaj. You must not take the main road, as it is occupied by rebels.

But where can I go from there? Ara pleaded for direction.

God alone knows. All of the roads will be watched. Ferdowsi shrugged, helping him stuff clothing, hand-scribed music books, cassette tapes, whatever he could carry, into Ara’s rough cloth bag and one large suitcase. If you are lucky you may catch a bus to Isfahan, but where you should go from there I can not say. All of the borders are certainly closed. There is a chance the American Embassy in Tehran will help if you can reach them. I wish you had gone on the airlift with the rest of the Americans during the evacuation, Ara, but no, you were so stubborn! You thought you were different, but now you see that you are merely mortal like the rest of us. Now death is a camel that can walk into our courtyard at any moment. Quick, both of you! He ducked back through their door.

Ara packed furiously, taking every scrap of paper covered with notes and musical scales he had copied out for his Doctorate thesis at Berkeley--if he ever got back alive to complete it! Ara pulled on his blowsy Kurdish trousers and rough white country shirt, over which he wore a colorfully woven Kurdish vest. He cinched his shirt tight around his waist with a colorful blue sash shot through with sparkling silver treads. After lacing his soft leather boots tight, he slipped on his dark wool jacket and dark cloth cap, disappearing into the landscape like the rest of the residents of these small mountain villages.

Glancing once more around the small stable that had been his home for over six months, Ara sighed regretfully to leave his simple life of studying and playing music. He was being thrown back into the real world before he was ready to return and he resented it greatly. How dare anyone interrupt his creative reverie with a war!

Grumbling to himself, Ara locked his suitcase and hoisted it with his right hand, surprised at its weight. He slung his Syrian oud around his neck, picked up his old second-hand santir by the frayed leather handle of its battered hard cloth case, and followed Khorso out to the cobblestone courtyard where two small, foul smelling donkeys stamped impatiently.

Amir arrived at a gallop, riding Ferdowsi’s best horse, a large chestnut stallion that dwarfed the donkeys. Servants brought food for the journey, flat bread and sour cheese wrapped in damp cloth, as well as two musical instruments which Ferdowsi presented solemnly to Ara and Khorso, his last two music students.

To Khorso he handed an hourglass shaped leather case with a long slender neck.

You are the seed of our tradition, Khorso, the one in a million every teacher yearns to have as a pupil. I give you my own instrument now, because you are the one who will carry on our traditions. The music I have taught you belongs to our people. When you play, the music becomes the fire and life of their blood. For six years I have given you all that I know and you have absorbed every drop. Now the music is yours to pass on. We are of different faiths, but in our hearts and through our music we are united.

Next he turned to Ara. The old man’s freckled hands trembled as he pressed a trapezoidal wooden case into the young American’s hands. Without opening it, Ara knew that it contained a finely crafted Persian santir, great grandfather of the hammer dulcimer.

"To you I give my second best santir, Ara, as a gift to my fellow countrymen who are exiled in America. When you play it for them there they will hear their country sing again through you. I do not know if you studied so hard out of love for our music or love for our opium, but to my amazement you have learned quickly. I pray that you will always play santir with a pure spirit, never adulterate our music by mixing jazz, as I have heard you do with your oud. On this santir you will play only Persian music. You must swear!"

I swear, Ara agreed. Even though I am unworthy of your gift. May I leave my own poor instrument with you for your next student? I can’t possibly carry them both.

Of course. He took Ara’s case and placed it on the dirt.

How do you propose I get back to my country with your beautiful instrument intact? Ara looked deeply into Ferdowsi’s eyes, searching for the Sheik’s wisdom.

I can not say, but it’s your instrument now. Treat it as you would your own body and soul. Perhaps now you are having second thoughts about all those demonstrations you were in before I brought you to these mountains. Do you see now what your protests in Tehran have accomplished? Lawlessness breeds lawlessness, and where will it stop? Before you throw out one tyrant, it is important to be certain another isn’t waiting to take his place! How could you know what forces you were unleashing? Shah Reza Phalavi was crazy and corrupt, no doubt, but many of us wished to sow the seeds of a more just government first before we overturned the soil. Now the central government is too weak to hold the country together, communists are clamoring on our doorsteps, and what good has your interference achieved?

Ara stared at his boots for a moment, ashamed. You’re right, Ustad. Perhaps I acted foolishly. It wasn’t my fight, and now it looks as if the cure may be worse than the disease. But how could I know that then, when your whole country cried for revolution?

No matter now, Ferdowsi shrugged. It’s too late for tears. He waved his hand as if to brush the problem aside. Those of us who remain must try to survive. Last night I heard on the radio that Ayatollah Khomeini has proclaimed that popular music is no better than opium. He has banned all Western influenced music from radio and television and he forbids musicians to play modern music outside of their own private homes. In addition, women have been banned from any public performances of music or acting, in films or on television. I also heard that gangs of revolutionary guards are breaking into music stores in Tehran, destroying records and tapes and smashing musical instruments.

My God, that’s crazy! Ara felt his stomach sink at the magnitude of the disaster. How can the mullahs murder their own music? They’re cutting the heart out of their own culture. It doesn’t make sense.

Obviously you are not a mullah, Ferdowsi laughed, tugging at his short gray mustache. Besides, it is the West’s decadent musical influences that they reject, not our own classical music traditions, such as you have studied with me. Now you must go. Only Allah knows your path. May He bless and protect you on your journey home.

Ferdowsi embraced each of them, kissing them on their cheeks. Tears glistened at the edges of the old man’s eyes. Then he turned and strode toward his brick and mud house without looking back.

Amir waited a few moments for Ara and Khorso to secure their bags and instruments to the thin leather saddle cinched around the donkey’s belly. After a few tries, Ara finally mounted his donkey and followed Amir down a narrow rocky back trail that led out of the mountain village toward freedom or death.

It had taken all day to reach the outskirts of the city of Sanandaj, where Ara and Khorso finally dismounted. Handing over the reins of their donkeys to Amir, they thanked him for his guidance. Ara opened his suitcase and took out his portable cassette player, placing it in Amir’s hands as a gift of gratitude. It also lightened Ara’s load as he and Khorso walked the rest of the way into town carrying their instruments and baggage. At the bus terminal, they were in luck. He and Khorso were able to purchase the last tickets on a crowded overnight bus to Isfahan. During the night they had been subject to two stops and searches by para-military groups, but so far their luck held. Or, rather, Ara’s luck held! Khorso was an Iranian citizen, even if he was a member of the despised Baha’i religious minority. It was Ara who was a stranger in a suddenly hostile land, an American in a country where Americans were suddenly anathema, a musician in a land where music was outlawed, and a Christian of Armenian heritage in a land where the dominant Islamic majority openly repressed all other ethnic and religious groups. The date stamped on his student visa had expired six months ago, so he was also traveling as an illegal alien. His life, he realized, wasn’t worth much more than the coins in his pocket.

Khorso had his own reasons for concern. As a Baha’i, he feared for his own and his family’s safety where they lived in Shiraz, the ancient southern capital of Persia. Many Baha’i were well educated and had been highly placed in government as civil servants during the reign of Reza Pahlavi. However, since the revolution they had fallen from their position of power and there was a growing danger of possible retaliation against Baha’i as a group. Like Ara, Khorso was rushing from one danger to another, yet he was determined to return to his home in Shiraz to share his family’s fate. He had given Ara his address and offered to hide him there for a few days, but Ara had declined.

Ara instinctively knew that his fate lay in the opposite direction, to the North. He roused himself in the cramped bus seat, coming more fully awake as they neared their next transfer point. Shadows of the ancient past were fading with the night. At one point during the long night drive Ara had dreamed of himself robed in white, marching at the head of a line of 100 Harpers strumming celestial music as they preceded King Cyrus through the high-walled city of Ecbatana, seat of the ancient empire. Swelling and fading like the vibrations of plucked strings, Ara’s dream of that ecstatic music dissolved back into the dull roar of the motor and the shuffling and coughing of passengers on the bus.

As they neared Isfahan, the road began to fill with bicycles, pedestrians, and donkeys pulling wooden carts rolling on Goodyear tires, loaded with sacks of grain, vegetables, or yellow bricks. There were very few private autos, and even the number of taxis seemed greatly reduced from a few months ago when Ara last came through the area. Back then, at least two trucks a minute rushed past on the narrow two-lane highway, carrying everything from oil to consumer goods north to Tehran or South to Bandar Abbas and the oil ports along the rich Persian Gulf. Now the trucks had thinned to a trickle, and people were reclaiming the roads with their feet. The round mud huts and old brick structures of the poor became more frequent along the roadsides, gradually merging with larger, square mud buildings and greasy garages where many men were already at work, busily repairing a variety of trucks and tractors manufactured in Europe and America.

It will be good to be in a civilized place again, after so many months in that village of mud, Khorso sighed. I can hardly wait to return to the jewel of my heart, Shiraz. It is so boring to live without benefits of culture.

Don’t get your hopes too high, brother. Culture is not big with the mullahs. Ara pointed out the window as the bus passed the burned-out shell of a Cinema, with a ruined marquee still reading Vertigo. They passed a whole block of closed and empty retail stores that had specialized in European and American imports--appliances, home furnishings, records and tapes. Steel grids over the smashed glass windows told their own story of abandonment. Ara and Khorso exchanged glances, but spoke no further on the subject.

Ara noted that many of the fire-glutted buildings had been supermarkets and automobile dealerships. Graffiti scrawled in huge black and red letters on the walls still proclaimed revolutionary slogans such as Down with Shah, and Death to the USA!

Further up the road, Ara was startled to see a neatly lettered road-sign in both English and Farsi: Bell Helicopter Assembly Plant, with a smoothly paved road leading off from the main road to a modern complex of dark and deserted buildings. When the Shah fell, most of the Western trained technicians fled, leaving whole industries to collapse.

Ahead of them Ara could see a skyline of slender minarets and domes inlaid with aquamarine tile which shimmered in the rising heat of dawn. Squinting through the dirty window, he gazed at block after block of dirt hovels that housed the masses of poor and relocated people who lived at the edge of town, warming themselves at smoldering fires of donkey dung, or forming long lines outside the bakeries to buy their morning bread.

The bus rolled past many dingy brick buildings housing textile and other industries, most of them closed, and crossed a bridge over the Zayan deh-Rud river which ran underground through part of the center of Isfahan. Char Bagh Street carried them through the desolation of the older, southern part of town into the heart of the ancient capital to Mayday-Shah Parade Ground and garden. Built over five hundred years ago, the central square and garden was surrounded by domed mosques and government buildings covered with painted ceramic tiles. The enormous garden’s still green beauty was an oasis for Ara’s eyes after the rough mountains and desert they had crossed in the night.

But like every oasis, Isfahan was surrounded by danger. Many young revolutionary guards in khaki colored clothing walked in pairs, carrying rifles and watching everyone with suspicion. Ara felt his stomach sink in fear as one of the guards pointed at their bus as it passed. A minute later the bus turned into the main terminal in the center of town and stopped, waiting for the passengers to unload and retrieve their baggage near the main entrance before two parking assistants banged on the sides of the bus, directing the driver inside to his stall.

TRANSFER

The bus station was an enormous garage with an odd assortment of vehicles of varying makes and manufacture packed impossibly tight. Some of the buses were parked only inches away from each other, as if squeezing them so close together was a new kind of Iranian art form.

To Ara’s relief, no revolutionary guards were waiting to pounce on the passengers, checking their identity cards as they got off the bus. But that didn’t mean they weren’t somewhere close. After retrieving their instruments and luggage from the storage bin beneath the seats, Ara and Khorso entered the huge terminal and stopped, amazed. Hundreds of people stood in long lines to buy their tickets. All buses were delayed, due to roadblocks and frequent security checks. Unlike in American, where bored children ran yelling through crowded terminals, increasing the chaos, here the children sat stiffly on wooden benches close to their parents. Whole families, complete with grandmothers, cousins and grandchildren, waited patiently for their buses to carry them away to anywhere else. Khorso paid a young boy a few rials to watch their luggage while he and Ara went outside to buy some food.

Along the sidewalk a variety of vendors sold hot tea, fresh fruit, Iranian candy, and nuts. Others sold souvenirs of handcrafted pottery, jewelry and silver-work from the out laying villages, but all the displays were sparse and dull. An odd assortment of men in ragged clothing lounged along the walls, neither beggars nor thieves, but displaced, homeless and lost men within a society that was exploding from the inside out.

Khorso led them to a yektar, a small stand-up cafeteria where they ordered Russian cutlet sandwiches for breakfast. A nasal voice droned from the vendor’s radio, reading from the Koran, and Ara yearned for the wealth of music, news, drama and entertainment which had flooded the airwaves only a few months back--silenced now by Islamic law.

Of all the casualties of the revolution, the murder of modern Persian music had been an unexpected and shocking tragedy for Ara. In the absence of any strong, organized opposition among the loose coalition of desperate and feuding groups which had formed the Islamic front, Khomeini had silenced all popular music with a stroke, proclaiming music itself to be an unnecessary distraction from prayer.

I advise you to stock up some supplies of food for your trip, Khorso advised. It is a much longer journey than you may remember. What once took a few hours can now take days.

Thanks for reminding me, Ara nodded. He bought bread, cheese, some candy and a bag of pistachios. As he gulped a mouthful of dogh, a salty yogurt drink, he suddenly felt his stomach tighten. Turning slowly, he noticed the two revolutionary guards he had seen from the bus heading toward the terminal, and his instincts quivered like a struck chord.

"Ashhadu an la illa llah..." a muezzin sang from the minaret of a nearby mosque, calling the faithful to prayer.

Handing the half-empty bottle back to the vendor, Ara grabbed Khorso by the arm and led him hurriedly across the street toward the mosque, joining a flood of other men who had stopped whatever they were doing to turn toward God. Come on, Khorso, I believe that it’s time to pray.

Don’t be foolish, Khorso protested. We are not of the faith!

Never mind that. Soldiers are coming this way. Let’s merge with the crowd. Crushing through the main gate of Masjid-Shah mosque with a hundred other men, Ara and Khorso removed their shoes and made their ablutions, then mingled with others to remain out of sight. The guards stepped inside the gate behind them and scrutinized the courtyard.

Moving closer to the mosaic tile walls of the massive mosque, Ara was impressed by the twin minarets that rose like space needles, guarding the main gate. When he looked up, the azure-blue tile dome of the mosque seemed to squirm with dark green arabesques of exquisitely glazed mosaic writing. He rubbed his eyes, dazzled by the beauty, then followed the crowd through the arched doors.

Inside, the vast room had a thickly carpeted floor. Forty columns of carved white marble carried his consciousness upward in ascending spirals to the high tiled arches and curves of the twin mosaic domes. The walls were covered with spiritual scriptures, Koranic verses and prayers baked into brilliantly colored tile. Small nooks were notched into the wall, and Ara pulled Khorso into one where they kneeled, as if in deep contemplation.

Shah mosque was music frozen in space, a symphony crystallized in stone. Ara felt he could actually hear its harmonies inside his heart, but at that moment his heart was trembling as much from fear as it was from beauty. The guards were standing in the doorway, looking carefully over the crowd of men as they moved through their ritual prostration’s, reciting their prayers.

Standing, bowing, kneeling, knocking his head on the floor, Ara repeated the prayers he had mastered before leaving California. All forms of worship were equally valid to him, and he respected all religions. However, he preferred his own form of worship, which was to fling his soul toward God on wings of song. Since that form of prayer was forbidden now in Iran, he lifted his voice with the others.

The eyes of the revolutionary guards slid right over him without hesitating and after a minute they stepped back outside. Feeling suddenly dizzy, Ara shivered violently. His brain seemed to explode in a burst of light and he swayed on his knees, shaking and sobbing.

Are you sick? What is it? Khorso shook him by the shoulder, whispering.

Ara took several deep breaths, waving Khorso away, finally gaining control of his racing heart. The prayers ended and all around them men began rising to their feet and heading for the doors. Ara remained kneeling for a moment more. It might be from exhaustion, or then again it could be a reaction of fear. Either way, there’s nothing I can do about it except keep moving. Give me a hand…

Khorso grabbed Ara’s hand and pulled him to his feet. They followed the crowd back to the courtyard where they retrieved their shoes.

The guards were nowhere in sight. They hurried back toward the bus depot with their supplies, constantly glancing around them for possible pursuit.

I feel like a crazy man, Ara. Why should I feel like a criminal in my own country? What have I done wrong? Khorso was distressed.

Wrong or right has nothing to do with it anymore. But don’t worry. I’m convinced that it’s me the guards are attracted to, not you. I think that once I’m on the bus you will be safe.

"Inshallah," Khorso shrugged, using the most common expression in Iran. It meant If Allah so wills. Muslims said it before any projected action, but coming from Khorso, a Baha’i, it made Ara grin.

"Inshallah," Ara agreed.

Outside the terminal a ragged vendor approached them carrying a smoking brazier of charcoal which he swung back and forth calling, "Esfand...esfand!

What’s this? Ara wondered. Smells like some kind of incense.

Exactly, Khorso agreed. "It is customary to bathe our heads in esfand to keep away the evil eye and make our journey safe."

Normally I’m not superstitious, but right now it sounds good to me, Ara agreed. "We need all the luck we can get. Okay," he gestured, and the man poured a few rue seeds onto the charcoal, creating a sweet pungent odor. He swung his brass brazier under Ara’s nose.

Ara inhaled deeply, fanning the smoke around his face and chest. He pointed to Khorso and handed the man a few coins. Him, too.

It seemed like a fair exchange to pay for spiritual insurance--certainly no less silly than buying insurance from a machine, which is what he had done when he left America from Oakland International Airport! For twenty dollars he bought half a million dollars in insurance and left it all to his grandmother, Maryam. If his plane had crashed, she could have paid off her farm in Fresno! But the plane didn’t crash, and if he died today she wouldn’t get a dime. In fact, his life was hardly worth much more than a dime now, but the thought of his grandmother renewed his determination to get back home—even if California was half a world away from where he stood!

Back inside the terminal, Ara learned that the First Class bus to Tehran had just arrived from Shiraz. They paid the boy a few extra pennies for watching their bags and the boy helped them carry Ara’s luggage to the loading platform. Ara paid the driver’s assistant five tomans extra to help him build a protective wall around his instruments to keep his oud and santir from being crushed by sliding baggage.

Finally it was time to go. Ara and Khorso embraced like brothers, heading toward their separate fates. Good luck, Ara said, kissing Khorso on his cheek. I have a strong feeling that we will meet again. When I get back to California I’ll send you an I-20 application form for UC Berkeley. You’ll like it in the states...

Shhh! Khorso cautioned him, hissing in Ara’s ears as they hugged. "Pasdaran are behind you, coming toward us. Quick, get on the bus before they notice you. I think it is your clothing that attracts them. Perhaps you should change as soon as possible."

Ara scrambled quickly onto the bus and Khorso hurried off, as if to lure the guards away. Was Khorso right? Ara considered. As a musician, he loved costumes, but his colorful Kurdish sash and the vest he wore under his darker outer coat undoubtedly linked him with rebels only a few hundred kilometers away. Even his regional head scarf! It was like wearing a red flag when going to visit a bull. He removed his head covering, untied the scarf from his waist, and stuffed them both in his coat pocket as he scrambled up the stairs onto the bus.

Trying to act normal, Ara paused at the top of the stairs to glance down the aisle, looking for a seat on the nearly full bus. Most of the passengers were middle-aged men in white turbans, wearing dark western business suits or clean and pressed rustic clothes appropriate for riding a First Class bus. To Ara’s relief there were no goats or chickens either inside or on top of this bus, which only stopped at terminals in major towns, not for every person waving his hands beside the road.

Several women were clustered in the back, clutching thin black chadors that partially hid their faces, but not their disapproving stares as they held their children in their laps and watched Ara in silence. Sitting alone near a back window was a slender, almond-eyed woman with raven black hair who was staring directly at him. She wore a stylish gray Parisian cut woman’s suit and high-buttoned white lace blouse. A sheer brown and blue flower print chador was tossed casually over her head, worn more like a scarf than a veil, with her hair falling loose to her shoulders. Her eyes flashed fire and held his gaze for a moment before she looked away, pretending to study the scene outside the window.

Ara walked directly down the aisle and stood beside the vacant seat. He took off his heavy coat, quickly removed his vest, and looked down at the woman. Is this seat taken? he asked in his fractured Farsi, thick with a Kurdish accent.

Sit, please, she said quietly, pretending to ignore him.

Ara put his jacket back on, rolled the sash and scarf inside his vest, and tucked them beneath the seat in front of him as he sat down. After a moment, Ara whispered, I respect your courage. You are obviously a woman of strong beliefs or you would not be sitting here alone in this manner. Are you from Shiraz?

Her eyes opened wide, surprised at his guess, but before they could say more the driver climbed aboard and the whole bus shook violently as he started the engine. Suddenly one of the Revolutionary Guards climbed up the stairs and glared down the aisle as if he was searching for someone. His eyes rested on Ara momentarily, then flicked over to the woman beside him. Where they brother and sister? Husband and wife? The guard seemed uncertain, hesitated for a moment, then stepped back down and waved his hand, permitting the driver and his turbaned assistant to proceed.

The assistant banged on the side of the bus, guiding the driver out of the stall. Ara leaned back and sighed with relief.

It seems that your friend is in trouble, the woman whispered beside him.

Ara glanced out the window to see the revolutionary guards questioning Khorso, who kept shrugging his shoulders, shaking his head and pointing back toward the main door of the terminal. Ara prayed silently for them to let Khorso go in peace. Khorso was a brave man, a good friend, but terribly sensitive and fragile. As the bus pulled out of the crowded terminal, Khorso was still arguing with the guards.

Inshallah he will be okay, Ara said to her. I am the one they wished to catch. Suddenly, on a hunch, he asked, Do you speak English?

Why do you ask? She lifted one eyebrow, interested.

"Because if you do, we can talk freely. Many ears are listening, I think," he said softly in English.

What difference would it make? It is forbidden for me to talk to you in any tongue, she whispered peevishly in English.

Excuse me, but I keep forgetting all your country’s crazy rules. I’m used to speaking to whomever I please. Have a pistachio? He offered the bag.

Thank you. She took one from the sack and cracked it delicately between her small white teeth, chewing thoughtfully on the salty meat. How can this be? A Kurdish rebel speaking English?

Ara laughed, much to their embarrassment, as all the surrounding people turned and glared at them for a disapproving moment. Ara smiled back and nodded and they all looked away. So it had been his costume attracting those guards after all! No wonder they had been chasing him through the streets of Isfahan. Khorso had been correct in his assessment, and Ara realized that he had to change the rest of his clothes as quickly as possible.

Excuse me, Ara apologized. "I didn’t mean to laugh, but I’m not a revolutionary. I’m a music student from America and I have been living in a Kurdish village. Communist rebels just closed down my school, which is why I am on my way to Tehran. I’m hoping that my embassy will put me on the next flight home."

"Really? That is very strange. I was staring at you because with your vest, your sash, and your mustache, you look like those rebels I saw last night on television. I thought to myself, this man must be a true revolutionary, perhaps even a hero. I am a rebel myself, she said proudly. A woman in revolt."

Which revolution are you referring to? The last one or the next?

The revolution that is still going on. The revolution that is not yet finished, in spite of what the mullahs says. The revolution that has been betrayed! She paused for a moment in sullen silence, gazing out the window. When she spoke again her voice was quietly bitter. Side by side I marched with my husband against the Shah, fighting for justice and equality. Together we faced the soldiers in the square. One day I placed a flower in a soldier’s gun; the next day that man shot my husband in the face and tried to shoot me too, but I ran and kept on running. Now I will run no more. She tossed her head defiantly and stared out the window, brooding.

The bus crossed the river on one of the famous arcaded bridges of Isfahan, then slowly threaded its way down the busy boulevard that carried them out of town. Eventually they left the crazy rush of traffic and honking horns behind as they rode steadily north through the desert. On both sides of the road Ara saw many military vehicles with armed revolutionary guards pulling vehicles off the road for questioning--especially private cars. Anyone not on government business was obviously suspect. Of what? Of being free? He shivered to think of what prospects awaited him in Tehran. Would he be able to contact the embassy before he was caught and questioned by the fanatical young revolutionary guards? Would they even believe Ara’s story if he told them the truth? Over the gates of the University of California at Berkeley was carved the inscription: The Truth shall make you free.

The trouble was, in Iran the truth could also make him dead!

KERESHMAE

The hot afternoon sun baked down on the dry earth, burning Ara’s eyes as he gazed into the distance, thinking. After several minutes of silence, Ara offered the lady more pistachios, moving the bag slightly toward her but not looking directly at her. She accepted with a sigh, dipping her slender brown fingers back into the bag as if she was doing him a favor. He noticed that she still wore a diamond wedding ring on a gold chain around her throat. In much the same manner, millions of Iranians wore small gold coins on chains around their necks, depicting the image of Ali, the Shi’ite’s primary savior and saint. Ali, the Perfect Man, whose aphorisms and ideals still formed the core of Shi’ite theosophy.

She frowned at Ara for a moment, thoughtfully cracking a shell with her sharp, manicured nails. She delicately placed the green salty meat on her tongue. Leaning close, she lowered her voice to a murmur of melodious English that was music to his ears: "I think you must be in some trouble, but you are lucky. Those Pasdaran are mostly poor boys the mullahs take in off the streets and pay to be revolutionary guards. They are not educated or very bright as a rule. If you are clever, you can fool them easily."

Not if they search me and find my expired student visa, Ara disagreed. They won’t have to be smart to figure that out. Do I detect some bitterness in your voice?

She whispered faintly but fiercely: Had I known that the mullahs would betray women, I would have fought for Shah, bad as he was! She glanced around, anxiously, but the gossips in back were already busy enough with their conjectures not to care what she really said or did, and the men seemed to be totally disinterested in them. I should not be speaking like this to you. I am sorry. So now I know that my grief and my anger have made me crazy, because I do not even know your name.

Ara Vartan, he said quietly. I know that you’re not supposed to speak to strangers, so tell me your name. Then we’ll be friends. He glanced carefully at her and smiled.

Kereshmae Nasraddin, she whispered.

That’s a beautiful name.You don’t have to apologize to me about being angry. A whole lot of people are angry over how the revolution is evolving. The Kurds are taking back everything they claim is theirs, and they’re a very tough army. How do you women plan to get your rights back from the mullahs?

We need to organize, educate, and demonstrate, she ticked off the steps on her fingers as if explaining them to a class.

My God, Kereshmae, you sound like a woman after my own heart.

After your heart? She frowned, not comprehending the idiom.

I mean we think alike on these issues, he explained. "Organize, educate, and demonstrate, that was the same strategy my old friend Mostafa employed back in Berkeley to build a world-wide student’s movement against the Shah. Where did you learn English, if you don’t mind me asking?

At the University of Shiraz. I majored in Social Sciences, but after revolution I was not permitted to enroll in graduate school because I am a woman, even though I was in top three percent of my class! But what difference does it make now? The schools are all closed by mullahs, so even the men are equally deprived. She stripped another shell from a pistachio and popped the nut in her mouth, chewing it thoughtfully for a moment.

I am going to join my cousin in Tehran. She lowered her voice again, leaning close to his ear. "She belongs to an opposition party, and soon we will make big demonstration against chador."

"Why pick the chador as your first issue? It seems so trivial, it doesn’t make sense to me. Why not demand your human rights?"

"How do you expect a woman who is in a black bag to think about her rights? Chador is symbol of our slavery. Material covers our whole body like a tent, except for the round of our face, so we can see out but no one can see in. What kind of existence is that? But it is mainly for liberation of women that we demonstrate, because the outer decoration is merely the