The Corporal's Wife (2013) (34 page)

‘I came here. All of my family came. It was a homecoming, my territory, my place. I live off the border with Islamic Republic. The border feeds me and I live well. The Americans are not here, nor the Germans, and I am not investigated because of my cousins who operate north of London, the Green Lanes of Haringey. It is tranquil for me here.’

Twice, Mandy had glided into the kitchen and come back with more beer. Now their supply was exhausted. Mandy hadn’t drunk any, but Dunc had tried to match the visitor, who had had nine.

‘My problem here is not with foreign agencies but with the local military. He is the major, Emre Terim. His unit is mechanised infantry, and he is the second in command of the garrison. The commander I could make an arrangement with, not with the bastard Terim. With the police also I can make an arrangement, but not with Terim. I am better on the far side of the frontier. With Iranian Customs I have arrangements, and with many of their border troops, but not with Terim. The military send men here from the other end of the country and they are taught to hate Kurds. That is my problem.’

When had he fallen asleep? Dunc didn’t know. He didn’t know when Mandy had drifted off either.

‘I have a wife who looks after me. I do not go with whores . . . I have four daughters. Two live still in Istanbul and refuse to come here. They will go to Germany when they have finished education. Of the other two I need one to make a good marriage, into another clan, and then I have an alliance. I built this house for them to live in. I need an alliance because the future worries me . . . if a rival can be trusted. The future is difficult. My boy has a handicap. I do not believe he could survive as my successor. His condition is the pain of my life. He is wonderful with the horses, but I fear for him.’

They had crashed out with the maps on the table, the rendezvous point marked, the call sign for their communications and so much else. He didn’t know whether Mandy and the organised-crime baron had talked after he had fallen asleep.

‘I was reasonable with Major Terim and offered him “opportunities”, but they were rejected. In Iran,
anyone
can be bought and sold. He said to me, “You are scum and I do not have a price.” Offensive, yes? If my people are caught with fuel or heroin, or with those needing to leave Iran, or going the other way with alcohol, and the soldiers take them, they will be arrested, charged and put in the prison at Van. If they are intercepted but cannot be taken they will be shot. The boy has to be with the horses because of his understanding of them, and love for them, and their response, but the soldiers – I worry – will kill him on one night. It is a dangerous place, the border. You must hope the Jews have made a good alliance. I am the best but the people they will use, coming from Khvoy, are cheaper. Was it a good economy? Of course, without an arrangement – even for trained men – it is impossible to cross. I enjoy talking with you . . .’

The horses were back, grazing on freshly scattered fodder. Mandy would wake when he cleared away the bottles and the ashtray, but first he would make coffee.

His wife brought him the phone. She looked hard at him, puzzled. He was out of the shower, had scrubbed his teeth, had swallowed several glasses of cold water – and had no regrets. The bottle, what remained in it, was locked away.

Reza Joyberi had come to bed after her and risen before her. Her confusion would not have been caused by him joining her late or waking early, but by his strange aloofness. He didn’t discuss his work with her. When he travelled to another city in the Republic, he would bring back gifts for her and their son, but he wouldn’t tell her where he had been and what the business had involved. He never shared anxieties. Together, they did not socialise inside the upper ranks of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. He didn’t tell her about the visits he had made, covertly, across the border with Iraq, or when he flew to Damascus and was infiltrated to the southern hills and valleys of Lebanon. Their conversation at meals was polite and attentive. He listened to progress reports from the school – always favourable for the child of a man of rank – but confidences were limited. She had not asked where his driver was. He had not talked about the clouds gathering over him. She didn’t know that he had plans in mind, if not in place, to ship her out. He was dressed in civilian clothing, tying his shoelaces, and took the phone from her. His smile was brief, wintry.

He answered, was told who had called, then given further information.

He was not asked whether he had pressing appointments that day, whether the meeting was convenient. He was given a time and a location. In the early afternoon he was required to present himself at Block Six of the Kazemi Garrison’s sector, inside what had once been the Nest of Spies. Had he told the caller to go fuck himself a squad of boot-faced functionaries would have been at his front door almost immediately to bundle him into the back seat of a car and take him to the building that had, in former times, housed the US embassy. He ended the call, and went into the kitchen.

His son had books spread on the table with his breakfast. He kissed his wife briefly, then the boy.

He wore the shoulder holster under his jacket, with the automatic pistol. Reza Joyberi could not then have said whether his enemies were gathering in front of him or closing on his back. He didn’t say when he would be home or whether he expected to eat with them. He didn’t know. He had seen others falter many times. They had been great men who stumbled, fell from grace, and  became isolated. Enemies gathered. Those others would all have had plans in place to slip away at the signs of danger, to put their families on aircraft flying out and themselves to head for the border with Turkey, Armenia, Turkestan or Pakistan, or board a fast boat on the Gulf coast. When to make the move? It was always difficult.

He shrugged into his coat. He would fight. Of course. He was a respected servant of the regime. An
untouchable
? He called a farewell, and was gone.

It was a fine morning. He headed for the bus stop but might find a taxi before he reached it. Two of his neighbours, in chauffeur-driven cars, passed him but they avoided his eye. There were no offers of a ride down the hill towards the city centre. He didn’t have to leave that early to keep the appointment at the Kazemi Garrison, but he had thought panic might overwhelm him if he stayed at home.

The packages of refined heroin resin reached the city limits of Tabriz. It was appropriate that the city, founded by Armenian migrant settlers more than two thousand years before, should retain a vibrant commercial sector dominated by that ethnic minority. An Azerbaijani trader purchased the twenty packages, and paid for them in cash at $7,500 per kilo. He would expect to make an additional 10 per cent on his outlay when he sold them on. It was an ancient city, lying close to the north-eastern end of Lake Urmia, on one of the inland sea’s tributary rivers, and had been a centre of commercial dealing for more than a millennium, a principal junction for Mongol rulers, the Turkish Ottoman empire and Soviet forces. It had ancient mosques and a citadel that drew visitors, the Arg. Khayyam Avenue was beyond the historic district, out of the centre and past the bus station. Off it, to the right and beyond a filling station, a narrow street led to lock-up garages with unpainted concrete walls, corrugated-iron roofs and doors that had rotted at the corners. One was different from the rest. Behind the walls there was an additional lining of brickwork, under the roof there was the additional protection of compacted and reinforced chipboard; behind the doors there were steel sheets. Owned by the Azerbaijani, the garage was a fortress in the tradition of the Arg, a place where precious items could be stored in safety. The packages would remain there for thirty-six hours, then would be taken forward and – in accord with further deals done by Internet and satellite phone – moved into other hands.

Tabriz had been astride the great Silk Road; moving goods with discretion was fundamental to its existence and its economy. Before he had paid, the Azerbaijani had cut into the wrapping, through the waterproof paper, of a single package to satisfy himself that he had not been duped. In his world, alliances and enmities could be speedily exchanged. He would have said, if asked, ‘We can shoot each other on one day and kiss each other on another.’ He was a man of great wealth, but used this insignificant lock-up as his principal storage centre. He couldn’t flaunt luxury in the city and sent his money abroad where it was administered by relatives in Germany, Great Britain and the United States. He allowed himself two week-long breaks each year, in Paris and Rome, for extravagance. One day he would slip away across the border, with the same discretion and with the same couriers who would carry the packages, but that day had not yet come.

The slanted sunlight fell on the doors, further flaking the paint. Behind them, he worked and worried as to how he would divide up the seventy-nine packages now stockpiled; which would go to which clans for transportation on the most difficult section of the journey, and who had the capacity. The value of what he held that morning was in excess of a million American dollars, and for the Azerbaijani that was not remarkable. There was a man he trusted, who was reliable, the best. That morning, the radio had reported an incident on the road, bandits at a police road block, but it had been far to the south and hadn’t troubled him. It was important for him, and his colleagues across the border, that alerts and emergencies did not take place in the security zone at either side of the frontier, that the armed forces of both nations were bought or careless. Otherwise there was potential for disaster.

She was on a moonscape. He came over an incline and she was ahead of him, perhaps half a mile away.

She was going slowly. He had picked up the trail within a few hundred yards of the van when he had come out of the trees. He had seen the guys going their separate ways, and they were spokes on a wheel. At first he had seen places where the salt deposits had been kicked or were broken. Further from the water, heading inland from the shoreline, the salt was more evenly spread and thinner. There had been rain enough for the ground under the white crust to have soften, and she had left one clean shoe imprint, and another that dragged. There was no cover for her. The salt had killed grass shoots and the autumn flowers. It was an aberration that they had found trees under which to hide the van. Here, in the open, the wind had gained force.

She didn’t look round, and wouldn’t have known that he was closing on her.

She was in the wind’s teeth and the
chador
made a tent that billowed behind her. When he was nearer, Zach could see that her right foot was bare and that she was carrying the boot that had lost its heel. He thought, when he caught up with her, that she would be dry-eyed: life would, already, have thrown too much at her for tears after a struggle against a cutting wind. Nothing lived here. No flowers, no bushes, no rabbits, no mice and no rats. No birds flew over them. The pelicans and flamingos were far behind. It was a place where hope had died. No farmers lived here, and there was no fodder for cattle, sheep or goats. No one witnessed her flight.

He cupped his mouth and shouted her name. The wind whipped coarse salt grains against his cheeks and dispersed his voice.

She didn’t acknowledge him – might have heard him and might not. He saw blood on the ground where her bare foot had trodden.

He shouted her name. She didn’t turn.

Zach closed the distance between them and was alongside her. He reached for her arm. She tried to pull away from him, slipped and fell. He wouldn’t let go of her so he went down with her. He looked at her. He saw neither fear nor that she was glad he had found her. He was near enough to notice each pore in her skin, the tiny lines around her eyes and the fine hairs on her upper lip. Her eyes were dry. He knelt, easing away from her.

‘We have to go together. It’s why I came here. You have to be with us.’

‘I hate him.’

‘You can go to him or turn your back on him. It’ll be your choice when you’re there.’

‘And I’m a burden to you.’

‘No. Not at all.’

She pushed herself up and the wind tore at the scarf of the
chador
, dragging it off her hair.

‘And what if you’re a burden to me, all of you?’

‘We’re ordinary people, doing our best, hoping it’ll be enough. With our best you’re stronger. Without it you’re weaker. I promise.’

‘Do you understand, Zach, where you are, who you’re with and what you’re doing? Perhaps it’s better if you don’t.’

He stood, and she did.

He picked her up and put her over his shoulder, one arm around her legs, behind the knees. He braced himself for a struggle, but none came. The wind was behind him and he could follow his footprints to the top of the incline, then over it. The pocket of trees was faint in the distance, and beyond was the pure white of salt where once there had been water, then the blue of the lake and the dead landmasses that were islands. He had no idea how to keep the promise he had made.

‘I have nothing to say.’

Petroc Kenning had thought himself good with alcohol. Wrong. He had rarely, as a student, nursed a substantial hangover. There had been beers with Sidney. Then, with Auntie, there had been coffee, and brandy from the emergencies cupboard. The night had been punctuated with calls from London. What the hell did they expect him to do? Never explained. His head ached. The drink was to blame, and the wrecked night.