The Persian Price (5 page)

There was silence after he had spoken. Khorvan sipped his coffee. He didn't hide his resentment and James tried to warn Logan not to say any more. But Logan ignored him. He leaned back in his chair and he seemed perfectly relaxed.

‘I take it you feel our investment is insufficient,' he said. ‘What else do you suggest?'

‘You talk of building a pipeline to Abadan,' Khorvan said. ‘The distance from Imshan to the refinery is too great. For the quantity of oil that Imshan will produce, we want a separate refinery. Built by you in exchange for the discount on your oil price.'

Logan looked at James. He turned back to Khorvan.

‘No mention of a separate refinery was made to Mr Kelly.'

‘No,' the Minister agreed, ‘but it was to me. His Imperial Majesty is determined that a refinery should be built at Bandar Muqam, near Imshan on the coast. And that whoever goes into partnership with the National Oil Company should finance it. He considers that is a fair contribution.'

The suggestion had come from Khorvan himself. He knew the Shah's determination to squeeze the last dollar out of Western investors in Iran. The refinery investment would be a major step in the long-term industrialization of the country. If Imperial Oil wanted to develop Imshan and to break the oil price to save the West, then it was up to them to find the money. Logan lit a cigarette.

‘The cost of a refinery big enough to cope with even half of Imshan's eventual production would be in the region of another three hundred million,' he said. ‘An investment of three hundred million, or possibly more because of inflation, would wipe out our profit margins for the next ten years.'

Khorvan said nothing. He made an arch with his fingers and looked at the tips of them.

‘I'm afraid it's not possible,' Logan said. ‘No company in the world would agree to such a deal. My board wouldn't sanction it even if I recommended it. Surely you can appreciate that.'

‘I do,' Khorvan said. ‘But unfortunately it is not my problem, Mr Field. I am not negotiating for our oil; you are. If you really cannot see your way to building the refinery, then the deal must be offered to someone else.'

‘That's perfectly fair,' Logan said. ‘But exactly who is in a position to undertake this? Don't tell me Exxon, because I know as well as you do that Iran doesn't want America having an interest in such a vital asset. You've got enough American soldiers and bases here already. You couldn't let them within a mile of Imshan without having Russia breathing down your neck.'

Khorvan looked at him with dislike. He had turned rather a sallow colour, a sure sign that he was close to losing his temper. He wasn't accustomed to the tone used by Logan.

‘There is a Franco-German consortium,' he said.

‘I know there is,' Logan shrugged. ‘But they won't be able to make an investment on this scale for no profit either.'

James spoke to Logan. He could feel the tension in the atmosphere.

‘Perhaps we should go away and look at the figures.'

‘I know the figures,' Logan answered. ‘So does the Minister. If we build this refinery, we have no profit for ourselves. It's as simple as that.' He offered his gold cigarette case to Khorvan.

‘No,' the Minister said, forgetting his manners. ‘I only smoke Turkish.'

‘I used to like them,' Logan said. ‘Now I use these things.' He held up a mentholated filter tip cigarette. ‘They're supposed to be safer. I don't suppose it makes any difference.
“La illah, illalah wa huwa qadir all kulli shayy.”'

James nearly fell off his chair. ‘There is no God but Allah and he is powerful over everything.' He had no idea that Logan knew a word of Arabic or Farsi. Even Khorvan showed that he was impressed. Field looked at him and the hard lines of his face creased into the smile which held such charm.

‘And if Allah wills that we build you a refinery, Minister, then who knows? I'll take Mr Kelly's advice. We'll go away and think about it. It would help if we could have another appointment with you before the end of the week.'

Khorvan stood up.

‘Unfortunately I am going out of Tehran.'

Logan didn't move.

‘Then when will you be back?'

‘In ten days' time.'

‘I think we should have a meeting before then.' Logan stood up. ‘I have an audience with the Shah and I can't go to the Palace with this question unresolved.'

Khorvan hesitated. He had no knowledge of a date being fixed and he was unprepared. The last thing he wanted was for Field to bring the question up before the Shah until he had undermined the whole negotiation.

‘How long will it take you to consider your figures, Mr Field?'

‘When do you leave Tehran?'

‘On Thursday. I don't like to travel on a Friday.' As a devout Moslem, he avoided working or moving about on the equivalent of the Christian Sabbath.

‘Then it'll, take us until Wednesday morning,' Logan said. ‘Mr Kelly will fix the time with your secretary.' He held out his hand and gripped the Minister's hand until it hurt. ‘Good morning, Minister.'

Khorvan sat down as they filed out. He had no intention of leaving Tehran, and as soon as Field had gone, he put through a call to the Palace and asked to speak to the Minister of the Court. He learned that, although the British Ambassador had made a formal application for Logan Field to see the Shah, no date had been given. Logan had scored a point off him that morning, but it was insignificant beside the battle Khorvan had just initiated with that impossible demand. They couldn't hope to comply and he was confident that he could make their refusal seem like intractable greed to the Shah. Once it became a matter of government policy, Iran had no choice but to force the terms upon the Western company or suffer a loss of face. Either way, Imshan would not fall into the hands of Imperial Oil and Logan Field; and the Russian technologists, with all due modesty, could re-present themselves.

Peters had finished packing up; all that remained of his possessions were a toothbrush, shaving kit and pyjamas. Enough to see him through one night. He had been brought up with what he described as ‘things'. His mother collected ornaments; the house in Cleveland was like an obstacle course, strewn with her expensive, maddening knick-knacks. His father had cars, a workroom full of gadgets; for his eighteenth birthday they had given him an elaborate hi-fi system which he had never used. They were ‘thing' people, obsessed with what they owned or wanted to buy. They couldn't understand his contempt for material possessions. There were three children, an older sister and another boy, described by his mother as an afterthought. Peters thought this the most humiliating thing he had ever heard; the fact that it was always said with an arch smile and a pat on the boy's head only made it seem worse. He had resented it, but his brother didn't seem to mind.

He was the odd one out, the silent introverted child, the withdrawn hostile adolescent; a sharp stone in the family sandpit. His sister had gone through college and business school, married a keen young advertising man and moved to San Francisco. Peters hadn't seen or heard of her since he left America. His younger brother was going through school when he took off; he seemed cast in the same plastic mould as his parents and his sister.

Peters had never explained to them why he diverged; he had found it impossible to communicate because their words didn't mean the same thing as his. When they talked of freedom, he saw it as conservative repression; his freedom was nothing but anarchy to them. Morals meant sexual behaviour to them; to him they were an ethical approach to humanity which didn't include copulation. Success was a word that they used like a weapon. He had to succeed. At school, at college, with the neighbours' daughters. He had to compete and be better. The effort not only repelled him but with all his soul he rejected the prize. He didn't want to better his friends in order to win the approval of a generation which he despised and whose standards he refused to accept. He had worked at school and taken his degree at college, but not for any of the reasons put forward by his parents. He wanted to study life and history, to understand the riddle of the world he lived in without accepting ready answers. He never discussed anything with them or confided in them. They complained, sometimes to his face, that he was a stranger. Peters had long recognized this and adjusted to it. Birth was an accident; he had been left at the wrong doorstep.

He was not aware of being lonely until he went to Kent State University. He didn't mix readily with the other students, although he found the atmosphere the most congenial he had experienced so far. There was a revolutionary spirit on the campus, a liberality of thought and a lack of convention which stimulated him. He made a few friends, discontented intellectuals from similar backgrounds to himself, and formed the first deep relationship of his life. Andrew Barnes was his thesis adviser in political science; he was twenty-six years old, and Peters just eighteen. Barnes was slight and limped after an attack of polio as a boy; he was quiet and serious, with a sense of humour that was usually at his own expense. By contrast, his favourite student was powerful, with a talent for athletics which would have brought a different character into the top ranks of college football; Peters was reserved and silent, Andrew Barnes loved talking. He initiated Peters into the pleasures of debate; he taught him to think and to express his thoughts. He overcame the younger boy's inclination to hold back from things and people that he disapproved of, and he preached the gospel of change through attack. Attack through education, debate, ideas. And as a last resort, through confrontation. Barnes was a Marxist; he would have rejected in horror the accusation that he lived a life of Christian unselfishness, wholely devoted to the welfare of others, a fearless champion of the less fortunate, determined to withstand injustice and to work for the improvement of society. To Barnes the word connoted people; he lacked the cold intellectualism that sees humanity in terms of economics. To him, political science was about human beings and his concern for them gave his own political beliefs a shining sincerity. He was the most attractive person Peters had ever met. His personality gathered a devoted group of student disciples around him, but for Peters the first term at Kent under Barnes's auspices was the step on the road to Damascus.

All his life he had felt rootless, condemned to a life of rejecting without an alternative choice. Listening to Barnes, he discovered a new meaning to existence; a light shone at the end of the tunnel which had seemed so dark and lacking in direction. All the resources of love that were in him found a double outlet. The frail, impassioned teacher took the place left vacant by his parents, and because he was light miles away from the limited, conventional father with whom Peters had no point of contact, he never mentioned Barnes or let his parents meet him.

Barnes's teaching gave life a purpose for Peters; he adopted the political beliefs with the fervour of a personality starving for something to fight for. He would have followed Andrew Barnes to hell and out again, and on the 18th of June in 1968 on the campus of Kent State that was exactly what he did. It began as a protest against the Vietnam war; a number of students had been called up for military service, a rally was organized and its leader was Andrew Barnes. There had been other demonstrations; Peters had taken part and recognized the pattern. Speeches, slogans, an outbreak of stone-throwing against the police. The ugly baton charges, violence, injury, retreat and regrouping. When the National Guard were called out, he and Andrew Barnes were in the front ranks. He remembered afterwards, seeing the troops with their levelled weapons and trying to get in front of Barnes. There was a second baton charge, more violent than the first; some of the student ranks gave way, there was a horrible confusion when people seemed to be running in all directions and there were shrill screams from frightened girls. Peters heard Barnes shouting, telling them to hold on. And then the shots cracked out. Until the first students fell, everyone thought the troops were firing over the heads of the crowd. There was a lull of a few seconds when there was no sound at all but the echo of the rifle shots. Then the first screams of horror unloosed the panic and Andrew Barnes fell with a bullet in his chest.

For years afterwards, Peters woke from the nightmare where he was kneeling in the dirt, surrounded by fleeing, shrieking people, holding the dying man in his arms. His memories were confused. He had heard the groans of pain as Andrew Barnes bled from the mouth and seen the head fall back suddenly as if he were holding a puppet and the string had broken. He was weeping when the police arrested him; it took four of them to drag him away and wrench the dead man out of his arms. He had been punched and kicked, fighting like a madman on his way to the police wagon. Inside, with his hands handcuffed behind him, he was punched in the kidneys and in the groin and beaten up again in the station. His parents had come to bail him out and there was a moment when they saw their bruised and beaten son when they reached out to him without conditions. But it was too late. Although they joined the outcry against police brutality and the murder of the students on the campus, Peters didn't identify with them in any way. Their concern, their indignation meant nothing to him. The best human being he had ever met had been killed by the society which they and their generation represented. Barnes and the seven dead students were acclaimed as martyrs. There was a national scandal and world condemnation of the massacre at Kent State. Peters said nothing. He spent ten days in hospital and then returned to the campus. It was not the same and never would be. The limping figure, his head thrust a little forward as he tried to match the quicker walk of his students, was no longer part of Peters's life.

There would be no more evenings spent debating, no suppers eaten in Barnes's house where the talk went on into the night. When the press talked of martyrdom it was a cliché which Peters dismissed with contempt. They hadn't known Barnes or loved him. Only Peters and the group which had been close to Andrew Barnes knew the extent of the crime that capitalism had committed. For most of the students at Kent that day in June would leave a scar, mental or physical. But most would go out into the world and be absorbed into the society they hadn't been able to change.