A TIME TO BETRAY (35 page)

After eight years of suffering, more than half a million people dead, injured, or wounded, and a great cost in economic damage, our Imam still held to the belief that he was sacrificing for the sake of the Islamic Republic. I could not feel more shame for what I once believed.

Now that the war was over and conditions on the base were less chaotic, I thought this would be a good time to talk to Kazem. I went to his office on a Wednesday afternoon. It was Somaya’s birthday. I had called her earlier that day and she was in tears.

“Reza, it’s been three years. Omid has started first grade. I cannot
pretend everything is okay, because it’s not. He needs you. I need you, too. I understand your love for your … whatever you love about that country, but I am sick and tired of this. You belong with your family.”

She did not give me a chance to wish her happy birthday, but I told her that I would call her back later that night when she’d calmed down. I was hoping that I’d have things straightened out with Kazem by then and that I could offer her the birthday present she truly wanted.

I was surprised to find Rahim in Kazem’s office because I hadn’t seen him for some time. He hugged me when he saw me, saying, “
Salam aleikom,
Baradar Reza. It is so nice to see you again.”

“
Salam,
Baradar Rahim. It’s nice to see you, too.”

I hoped Rahim would leave soon so I could talk to Kazem. Apparently, they were in the middle of a discussion about Khomeini’s acceptance of peace. Kazem, who had earlier stated that the only acceptable end to this war was the destruction of Saddam and his allies, now acknowledged Khomeini’s decision. But he was still furious with America.

“I wish that we had taught America a lesson and responded to its bullying,” Kazem said.

“Rest assured, Baradar Kazem, that time will come,” Rahim said. “But the Americans had sent a strong message that if we didn’t accept peace with Iraq, they would use all their power, including nuclear bombs. Hajj Agha Rafsanjani has promised to retaliate for their downing of our civilian jetliner and much more. I know from many high commanders that if we had the atomic bomb, we would have used it against them. But there is a time to step back, get stronger, and then confront the evil powers of imperialism and Zionism.
Inshallah,
we will destroy them both.”

Kazem looked at me and nodded. I could see he was satisfied with Rahim’s response.

“I believe our Imam’s decision was spiritually inspired,” I said, playing the role I always played in the office. “As Imam said himself,
we have to submit ourselves to God’s will and Allah will empower us to defeat evil.”

At some point, Rahim asked about my wife and son living outside the country away from me for such a long time. I remember telling him that they were with my in-laws in London.

“They are fine. My father-in-law, Moheb Khan, has a big apartment in the Mayfair district, and I am happy that my wife and son are safe and living with her family.”

“Moheb Khan? I know this name. Is his last name Hadidi?” Rahim asked. I nodded, shocked that he knew my in-laws.

“Moheb Khan is a great Muslim and his contribution to the London mosque is well regarded. I was not aware you were related to him.”

I did not know how to feel about having this connection. Would I earn more respect and credibility or be watched more closely? I knew Moheb Khan had a good reputation among Muslims in London, as he was a righteous man and a trustworthy businessman. But Moheb Khan was also openly against the crimes and unjust rule of the Iranian government. Would this put my family and me under more suspicion?

Rahim glanced at his watch and told Kazem that they should be going.

“If you are not busy, Baradar Reza, you should come with us, too,” Rahim said. “You should witness justice in action.”

Before I could ask where they wanted me to go, somebody knocked and opened the door to Kazem’s office.

“Baradar Rahim, can I talk to you for a second?” the Guard asked.

Rahim got up and stood by the halfway-opened door, holding on to the handle with his arm twisted behind him. The two men whispered something. All I could hear was Rahim saying, “Sure, sure, I’ll be there.”

Rahim came back into the room and said that he had to go somewhere else immediately, as something had come up. He said that Kazem and I should go without him. I felt relieved, as going on a
trip with Kazem alone would give me the opportunity to talk to him about my plan.

However, when Kazem told me where we were heading, I felt nauseous. He was taking me to a stoning.

“It is only a forty-minute drive from here.” Kazem looked at his watch. “We can probably get there in time if we leave now.”

I felt a surge of anger and directed all of it toward Kazem. How could he be so indifferent, so cold-blooded, to talk about this as though it were another appointment on his calendar? How could I possibly consider someone like this a friend? I was so livid that I couldn’t speak to him about anything, let alone my plans, on the way there.

We arrived at the end of an unpaved, dusty road in a deserted spot in the shadow of the surrounding hills. A small crowd had gathered. Several Guards’ and Komitehs’ Land Cruisers were parked along the roadside. A short distance from the crowd, a couple of motorcyclists leaned against their bikes watching the event. Among the crowd were a few women in black chadors. In front of them were piles of fist-sized stones.

A young woman, wrapped in a white shroud and held on both sides by two policemen, stood in front of a hole dug especially for her. Behind them, five
pasdar
with machine guns watched the crowd.

A black-robed mullah announced the crime.

“Asieh Najmali, thirty-two-year-old mother of two, has been convicted of adultery.”

The crowd sighed.

“Today we are here to bring justice. This is God’s verdict. Asieh Najmali has committed a sin that can only be punished by the rule of Allah. She has brought shame and disgrace to Islam and her family. …”

“Let’s go up farther so we can get a better view,” Kazem whispered.

“You go ahead; I can already see.”

Kazem frowned at me and forced himself into the crowd. I hid
behind a row of men at the end of the circle they had made around Asieh. From what I could tell, her sin was trying to feed her two children by the only means available to a woman stricken with poverty because of the policies of the Islamic government: selling herself to a man for a few thousand rials. Now she was to face the punishment decreed by fanatical mullahs in Allah’s name. I spied Kazem watching the proceedings avidly and wondered how my God could be so different from his.

“Kill this adulterer!” a man in the crowd shouted.

This set off a volley of epithets. From every corner you could hear people yelling,
“Binamoos … zenakar … kesafat,”
calling Asieh shameful, unchaste, and an adulterer. “Kill her, kill her!” they chanted.

I tried to think about what Somaya might be doing for her birthday in an effort to distract myself. I closed my eyes, but when I did, I saw Somaya in the hole. This set my nerves on fire. Driven by some force I barely understood, I pushed myself through the crowd. Suddenly, I felt that I needed to witness this moment with my eyes wide open. A young woman was being slaughtered, and I had to stop hiding behind my own shadow. I had to know her pain.

Asieh was now standing in the hole. They’d covered her body from the waist down with dirt. I saw no sign of surrender in her eyes. I could tell that she knew she was not guilty. She had submitted herself to the God she believed in, the God who would look after her two innocent kids, the God who had already forgiven her.

The Guards started shoveling more dirt in the hole until they buried Asieh up to her shoulders.

The crowd hushed.

A Guards commander reached into the pile of stones. He picked up a rock and aimed it at Asieh. I bit my lip and said to myself,
God, please, please put a stop to this. How can you let these savages contaminate the love you put into your creation. How can you watch and not be enraged.

The rock hit Asieh’s forehead and blood ran down her pale face.
She didn’t plead and she didn’t scream. Her God had given her strength and his love and protection.

The crowd attacked the pile of rocks. With all of the hatred they felt in them, they threw rocks at Asieh. Soon Asieh’s face was veiled in blood and her head tilted to one side. She was gone. But the crowd continued to assault her.

“Die, you filthy, sinful woman. Die.”

Eventually, the mullah stepped in. “Justice has been carried out. She is dead now, and God’s will is satisfied.”

The crowd started to scatter. Kazem was chatting with some Guards, but I could not take my eyes off Asieh. A pickup truck pulled close to the hole. A man stepped out and removed a shovel and a blanket from the bed of his truck. Then he opened the passenger door for an old woman, presumably Asieh’s mother. The woman sat on the ground while the man dug out Asieh’s body. She did not wail. She did not mourn. She just stared at the man digging out the bloodied body of her daughter. A mother watched her daughter stoned to death, a part of her being ripped apart, and could say nothing. She was not even able to shed a tear.

The man wrapped Asieh’s body in the blanket, laid it in the bed of his truck, and drove away. Kazem and the Guards were still talking. I walked back to the car. I did not want to be a part of their conversation. I did not even care if my walking away from them insulted them. I was ready to spit on them and tell them how ashamed I was of them. Knowing that I was likely to say anything if provoked, I tapped the shirt pocket where I kept the rat poison capsules. I wanted to be sure they were with me.

The angry roar of the two cycles revving their engines in the distance caught my attention. Why in the world weren’t they leaving? They’d seen what they wanted to see.

I turned around to find Kazem coming to the car. The other Guards were headed to their cars as well. Kazem put some papers in the trunk and waved good-bye as the last two Land Cruisers took off, leaving a cloud of dust behind them.

Kazem arranged some stuff in the backseat and hopped in behind the wheel. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked as he turned the key in the ignition. I was convinced that he truly had no idea.

“I am leaving the Guards,” I said in a voice filled with contempt.

Kazem scowled at me. “What?”

He had never looked at me with such derision. At another time in my life, I might have shrunk from this or tried to appease his anger, but it meant nothing to me now. I was ready to tell him how disgusted I was with him, his Islam, and his God. How for all those years I’d just pretended to be his friend. How I’d used him to get revenge for Naser and my lost country.

“Did the stoning bother you? You think a sinner like her didn’t deserve that punishment? She was a disgrace to our society. Women like her are filthy. They should …”

“Kazem, stop it!” I shouted.

I thought in that moment that Somaya would never see me again. There was no way I could hold back the torrent of my feelings now. I had planned to discuss this with Kazem calmly, telling him that I wanted to leave the Guards for a while to stay with my family. I was confident he would accommodate that. But my outrage stripped me of any discretion.

“Kazem, it is not just the stoning.” I shook my head. “No—not just that! It’s all you do to these innocent people. All the injustices this Islamic Revolution heaps on this country. You are blind, Kazem. I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. This is not the real Islam. It is not God’s will to kill and kill more.”

Kazem floored the gas pedal. He maneuvered around cars and said nothing. He kept biting his lower lip and looking at the rearview mirror. I held on to my seat. People were honking at us, probably thinking that the driver had lost his mind.

I thought Kazem was doing this because he hated me for what I was saying to him. But then he adjusted his rearview mirror and said, “I think we have company.”

“What?” I checked my side mirror and saw two motorcycles approaching us. “I saw these riders at the stoning.”

“Are they friends of yours, Reza?” he remarked sarcastically. “You know what Javad once said to me? He told me you were not to be trusted, that you were either part of the Mujahedin or a spy for America.” He shifted manically to another lane. “I slapped him in the face and told him, ‘You get off Reza’s back or I’ll send you where you belong.’”

Another loud, long honk split the air as Kazem cut in front of an eighteen-wheeler.

“You know what else I told Javad? I told him that I’d give my eyes for you. ‘If anybody, anybody among us is a pure believer and committed to this movement, it is Reza,’ I said. And I would still like to believe that.”

He turned his head to check the side mirror. The bikes were still behind us. He started to roll up his window and told me to do the same.

“Kazem, do you see what is happening here? Is this what you believe in? Is this the religion of love and forgiveness? Is this the same loving God you worshiped as the kid I knew? Or is this the one they want you to worship?”

A loud blast overwhelmed my words.

“Duck! Duck!” Kazem yelled as he pushed my head down and held it with his hand. We were under attack. The two bikers were shooting at the car. Kazem was zigzagging, trying to maneuver the car between lanes, and honking the horn. Then another blast shattered the back window, blowing shards of glass inside. I moved as far under the dashboard as I could and Kazem reached over to push me farther down. The car hit some bumps but we kept barreling forward.

Then came more gunshots and another window broke. We hit a heavy bump. I closed my eyes. The car lurched up and came down hard. When we landed, I realized that I could no longer feel
Kazem’s hand on my head. The car was still moving uncontrollably. Suddenly, we came to a violent stop as we hit something. My head crashed into the glove compartment and pieces of glass showered over me.

After that, all was quiet, except for the howl of air rushing through the broken windows. I uncrossed my arms from around my head and carefully moved the glass away. I rose up and saw Kazem’s head leaning to one side.