The Corporal's Wife (2013) (6 page)

He cut a good figure. He was not tall – many of the men around him dominated his slight build – and not heavy in the chest and hips. He had no jowls, and his hands were small, the fingers narrow, almost delicate. His eyes roved continuously. He did not appear to be a man who inspired nervousness in those around him. None of the junior officers who walked with Brigadier Reza Joyberi would have contradicted him: none would have told him to his face that he was wrong in any assessment he made; none, behind his back, would have been foolish enough to criticise a decision he had confirmed. A man who had risen to the most senior ranks of the al-Qods division had arrived there neither by luck nor accident.

He dressed differently from those who escorted and briefed him. If he was visiting a missile battery, ground-to-ground or air defence, those with him would be in military uniform and he would wear civilian dress – slacks, polished slip-on shoes, a collarless shirt and a lightweight grey jacket. Should he be with civilians, inspecting a laboratory or an area of the University of Technology where nuclear or chemical research took place, those with him would be in civilian clothing and he would have chosen the fatigues of the Guard Corps. It was his style to ask few questions, to listen keenly to what he was told, then to pick the best from the bones. He would write a paper, then send it as an edict to those he had seen. It would have been unwise for any of them, officer, scientist or engineer, to gainsay his final decision. Any who ignored an instruction given in the name of Brigadier Joyberi, al-Qods division of the Guard Corps, faced a dismal future, their influence curtailed, with the possibility of arrest or detention.

His duties were many and increasing.

The sun came from behind him, throwing grotesque shadows over the concrete platform and the rocks below it. He watched as a giant oil tanker negotiated the shrunken shipping lane from the Gulf into the Arabian Sea. It was the Strait of Hormuz, a choke-point through which a fifth of the world’s oil supplies passed. Dislocation of those lanes, or the threat, through missile strikes, the sowing of mines or the use of fast patrol boats, was a primary weapon in his country’s arsenal. He had responsibility for the protection of the batteries, the reinforced bunkers where the mines were stored and the harbour where the patrol boats were moored.

He listened. He was told the likely success of the defence system round the missile sites, and queried the readiness for dispersal of the patrol boats. The previous week he had been to the uranium mine at Yazd: he had found its protection inadequate. Ten days before he had been to Esfahan: orders to deepen caves, air-raid shelters, had been issued but not carried out. The threats of sabotage grew and Zionist menaces were ever more shrill. Responsibility burdened him.

Other matters queued for his attention. Among them were the bank accounts, which could be accessed via offices in Dubai, what they held and where investments should be made during the recession that gripped the global market. Another matter was the scale of imports – widescreen TVs and Apple-brand computers, pads, phones and MacBooks: a rightful ‘benefit’ for those prominent in the service of the state. Then there was his wife’s health and . . . He had heard brave predictions of how an enemy could be stalled by the defences of the missile and gun battery and how an enemy’s fleet could be countered by the skilful use of acoustic or magnetic mines. Brave predictions. He had seen the American war machine. The brigadier had been in Iraq to organise the training of the foot-soldiers who would lay the explosive-force projectiles that could blow out the interior of an Abrams main battle tank. He had been on the ground in the rocky outcrops and steep-sided valleys of south Lebanon, advising Hezbollah field commanders when the Zionists had come with their armour, artillery and airstrikes. He understood modern warfare, so he was burdened with responsibilities.

Now a new one was loaded onto him.

One of his talents was to make those who met him feel he had their attention, that they alone – if their work was satisfactory – were at the top of his list of priorities. If Iran was attacked by the Great Satan and the Zionists, there would be retaliation abroad against American assets, their allies and Israel. He carried a crushing workload. A lesser man might have crumpled under it.

He looked into the eyes of each man who spoke to him, sought out weakness, indecision, exaggeration. His beard was neatly trimmed, not the cut of a poseur but of a tidy-minded man, and his silver hair was short. His clothing might have come from any good tailor in a bazaar, and was not beyond the financial reach of those around him. They would have regarded him as a credit to the principles of the revolution. His voice was quiet but direct, and men hunched forward to hear him better. He had control. None would have known that his driver collected statements from a bank in Dubai, and that associates organised the importation, without Customs hindrance, of valued electronic equipment.

Later he would go to Bandar Abbas. He would tour more facilities with his staff of liaison officers, then take the train to Tehran: fifteen hundred kilometres, nineteen hours, and a chance to brainstorm with them. The laptops would be battered as the papers were written. On arrival the next day in the capital, he would be met by his driver and his workload would again be stacked in front of him.

His opinion: it would go hard for them if the United States attacked – and the great tanker, maybe ferrying a hundred thousand tons of crude, slipped from sight.

He showed no sign of it, but would be glad to return to familiar ground, and have his driver’s familiar face close to him. A good man, reliable.

Her home should have been better furnished. Her husband was in the Qods, a lowly corporal, but he earned nearly four hundred American dollars a month. Farideh, on the reception desk of an insurance company, was paid two hundred. No family on their staircase had such a large combined income, yet they were on the edge of poverty and struggled.

As did so many.

She knew of the poverty on the different floors. Her staircase, going up four flights, covered the front doors of fifteen other apartments. No one ever complained in her hearing. She was from the Qods and was not trusted. Her neighbours smiled thinly at her and hurried past. She endured the loneliness because of the room above the garage and the adoration of the aged mechanics.

She had finished dressing and would be warm against the cold – she had seen from the window that snow was in the air. She went through the apartment, clearing and wiping surfaces – she had no affection for her husband but she had standards. Her family were respectable, God-fearing, supported the revolution, and they, too, suffered a new poverty: the linen shop on the north edge of the bazaar had fewer customers, and the ones who came bought cheaper cloth. She and her husband had less cash because Mehrak paid his brother’s bills. The brother had been a computer engineer but had been sacked and had found no other work. The rent had to be paid, his family had to eat, and Farideh’s husband kept them.

There were flowers on the table. Mehrak had left them. She didn’t know where he was and hadn’t asked where he was travelling to. She didn’t know what business he was on. She was indifferent to where he was and what he did. He brought flowers home and would put them on the table. She didn’t thank him – and certainly didn’t kiss him, not even on his cheek. She would leave them on the table until they wilted, then put them into the bin.

She let herself out and locked the door behind her. There was more thieving in the capital this year. Her husband, a loyal supporter of the regime, would not have admitted that the government’s tax hikes and lower subsidies led to increased crime. She heard footsteps on the staircase above. They stopped. Whoever – the hospital orderly, the post-office official, the carpenter – had heard her door opening, closing, then being locked didn’t want to pass the time of day with her.

It was a cold morning, and on the street, hurrying to the bus stop, the chill wind hit her. The cold crawled through her
chador
to penetrate her jeans and sweater. She shivered. She had never shivered in the room over the garage. Farideh took a bus to work. At that time, it was always crowded and women were relegated to the back, clinging to straps or the backs of seats. Every morning, she stood on the left side of the bus and could see out through the grimy windows. It was a better view in the afternoon when she returned home with her shopping and stood on the right.

The route took her along the Vali Asr Avenue, then right onto Enghelab Avenue, when she would be on the left. At the time she went to work, traffic clogged the wide thoroughfare and the bus crawled. She could guarantee she’d see the place.

She waited at the bus stop.

There was, Farideh knew, a problem of heroin addiction in the Islamic Republic. The men at the garage said it was caused by the strict laws against alcohol, that people should be able to escape from the dreariness of life with weak beer but instead they resorted to the needle. She was addicted to looking from the bus window at the north side of Enghelab.

The addiction had taken hold four years ago. The previous evening, there had been nothing on the television or radio. Mehrak had said there were small disturbances in the city centre, a few terrorists paid by the Americans, and that the president had been re-elected, which was good for the future. Without a second thought, she had voted for him. That afternoon she had walked with her shopping to the bus stop on Enghelab. She had been deep in thought, considering the price of the bread she had bought, and worrying about whether the yoghurt was too old because it had been marked down. There was to be a film on TV that night, with Norman Wisdom, her favourite, and . . . She had come round a corner to find the street filled with the black uniforms of the
basij
. They were masked, carrying clubs and wearing motorcycle helmets. Her first reaction: there would be no trouble because the
basij
were there.

The gas was fired. Stones pelted around her, skidding away from her towards the paramilitaries. She had turned and seen the young people, whom she would have called ‘terrorist enemies’. More gas was fired and some of the canisters were hurled back. The
basij
had charged and laid about them now with clubs. She had frozen – she couldn’t move from the middle of the pavement. She was on
their
side, a loyal and unquestioning supporter of
their
leader. She had voted for
their
president. She had been felled by a swipe from a
basij
who rode pillion and hit her with a pickaxe handle. She had been sprawled on the pavement and two on foot had come, running, and beaten her with their weapons, a truncheon and a length of metal piping. She was choking on the gas and sobbing.

The
basij
had gone forward another hundred metres, then had been among the narrow streets. Stones and bricks, from a building renovation, had rained on them and they had been driven back. Anyone in their way, on the ground or reeling out of control from the gas, they hit. They were close to her.

She had flinched back, and her bag was beyond her reach. The yoghurt had burst open and the bread was flattened. She had prepared to be hit again – but then he had come. She had not seen him until his hands had clasped her and the hem of her
chador
had ridden up. His arms were under her thighs and round her back. He had bent to pick up her bag and had carried her into an alleyway. Her headscarf had loosened and her hair was on his bare arm, his face inches from hers. Her
chador
was torn at the throat but he ran fast with her. There was a square. A metal gate was ajar, and he had carried her through it.

She was Farideh, the wife of an al-Qods corporal, and he was Johnny, who came from the old rich of the days before the Imam’s return from Paris and lived high on the hill above the city. She had gazed into his eyes – and might as well have taken heroin. Each day, going to work and coming back, she would look for the side street on Enghelab, the corner she had come round with her bag of shopping, and would glimpse, down that street, the dark slit of the alley. That was where he had taken her and where her life had changed. That evening she would be there.

A bus came, and she pushed onto it. Whether she lived or died from a tightening noose depended on her being careful, never reckless.

‘I wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstanding, Miss Ross – and, I appreciate this is not a secure line – but a property such as the one you want, and in the time span available for arrangements to be made, doesn’t come cheap. I don’t want to sound vulgar, Miss Ross, but it’s pricy . . . No problem?’

His wife, Anneliese – head cook at the Canadian Residence – put a steaming mug beside his notepad. Before dawn the suburb outside the inner city, between Favoritenstrasse and Prinz-Eugen-Strasse, was still dark. Sidney clasped the phone and scribbled with his free hand.

‘Of course, Miss Ross, you’ll need me as local liaison, and my wife as cook-housekeeper. There’s cleaning to be done, you’ll have me to drive, and Anneliese to cook. We’ll buy ourselves out of our present commitments. I’m sorry to introduce this element, Miss Ross, but there will have to be generous recompense. I appreciate you won’t be shopping around, and that you want to nail it.’

Christmas coming early. Call the Canadians on the mobile. You’re sick. Indefinite.