Tomy and the Planet of Lies (7 page)

The room was artificially cooled, heavy drapes blocking out the bright daylight. To the left of one of windows lay a beautifully colored Persian carpet upon which stood a massive desk. Behind this sat a tall man with perfectly combed, graying hair. He radiated calmness and superiority. On his left arm, he wore a black band of mourning. Somebody he knew must have died recently. When he started to speak, it was in the matter-of-fact style of a newsreader and I could sense his alertness. He was not imperious or domineering and yet the way that he expressed himself left you in no doubt that his orders would be carried out to the letter. At first, he spoke in Arabic to Tomy and then he turned to us and switched to English.

“I have been in contact with Teheran and our embassy in Switzerland to find out a little bit about you. Our religious police are not too pleased to hear you are here, Mr. von Däniken, but you have a valid visa and we will make sure that nothing happens to you.”

He waved us over to a group of upholstered armchairs and sent “Fidel” out, calling something to him as he left. Tomy translated that our tank was to be filled up. I pulled out the $600 that I had prepared for the commandant and added $30 more for the cola and the water. The gasoline was on the house, he told us generously, but he would like a favor from us: Tomy's help.

I had known that something was fishy and I asked what form this help was to take. We could discuss it in the morning, he said meaningfully. Now we were to drive to Zahedan, only 80 kilometers from here. It was a good stretch of road and he had reserved rooms for us in the Sahedan Inn Hotel. A jeep would escort us there. The commandant got up, shook our hands, and called for an orderly. Was that it? We had waited around for an hour for this brief audience?

Our Range Rover was back in the courtyard, the windscreen wipers were back in place, and only the canvas rear window remained to show what we had been through. A quick check confirmed that all our baggage was still there and the needle on the gas gauge was pointing to “full.”

The first thirty kilometers on the “good” road were not much better than they had been in the desert trip through Baluchistan. We drove past some stony-looking mountains and then, finally, around fifty kilometers before Zahedan the road was suddenly asphalt paving. It had already gotten dark when we finally drove into Zahedan. The place seemed to me like it had been conjured up out of the tales of one thousand and one nights. Clean, paved streets and squares, houses with more than one story, traffic signs, and neon advertising signs. Then a large board: TOURISTS WELCOME AT THE SAHEDAN INN. The empty parking lot in front signaled an empty hotel. As we got inside I caught a glimpse from a mirror next to the reception of an Erich von Däniken that I had never seen before: white hair and eyebrows, beard stubble, dried out skin which looked like red leather, dry and broken lips and a shirt stained by filth and sweat. Marc was dog-tired and went straight to bed. I didn't feel much better, but I wanted to talk to Tomy about the future. He, being thirty years younger than me, had coped with the strain considerably better.

After a luxurious shower, I felt reborn and dressed and went down to wait for Tomy in the foyer. He called down on the telephone to tell me that he had nothing to put on except for Marc's clothes. I told him to come down as he was, as I needed his ability to speak Arabic to go shopping. I changed some money at the hotel reception and asked where we might find shops that were still open. Although it was eight-thirty in the evening, we found quite a few. In no time at all, Tomy was kitted out. He looked good—like the young Erich thirty years ago.

Sitting at a freshly laid table with a bottle of chilled white wine bearing the label Omar Khayyam—after the Persian poet—I told Tomy about my worries. What did these military types want with him? What could he even do? What would happen if we refused? I knew that the Iranian secret service had had a brutal reputation during the Shah's reign and now, under the mullahs, nothing had changed. What would they do if we didn't follow their orders? Or if we tried to flee? Would we be able to keep Marc out of it all? Maybe put him on a plane out of Teheran and fly him home? In my naivety, I thought that the commandant only knew my and Tomy's names, but Tomy reminded me that Marc's passport had probably been registered as we entered the country. So, I suggested that Tomy should take over the commandant again and convince him that it had all been a dream.

However, Tomy insisted that he was incapable of lying. It was enough to make you mad! I suddenly remembered the line from “Hotel California” by the Eagles: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave!”

I can hardly recall the abstruse ideas that I bombarded Tomy with that evening. Couldn't he fetch help from his home planet? Was it possible for him to split himself and take over two people at once? Tomy waved them all aside; which was particularly frustrating for me, because I prided myself on always being able to find a solution for every problem and because Tomy was, so to speak, my younger brother. Only cleverer than me. This thirty-year younger and yet obviously infinitely older young whippersnapper laid his hand—or was it my hand?—comfortingly on mine. Then he suddenly asked what the name of the president and prime minister were; and wanted pictures, too. I went to the reception and feigned admiration of the Iranian system of government—which, in reality, I held in very low regard. The receptionist, who was luckily fairly fluent in English, brought me a brochure with names and pictures. Unfortunately, it was in Arabic, but this turned out to be no problem for Tomy. Then I began to suspect what he was up to.

The next day, I didn't wake up until ten o'clock—I had slept eleven hours solid. Marc was lying next to the swimming pool, and Tomy was sitting at a table studying the Iranian newspapers—after all, he had no problem reading them. I paid the hotel bill and stowed the luggage in the Rover. Two cars were blocking the entrance to the parking lot. They were parked so that nobody could drive past them, however they might try. Two large motorbikes were stationed at the end of the street. I went back inside and the man on the reception told me that a table had been reserved for us for lunch. I had him show it to me: it was set for seven people.

I tried to use the hotel telephone to contact my wife in Switzerland. After countless failed attempts, I finally got through.

Ebet was overjoyed to finally have a sign of life from me, and said she wanted to let Marc's parents know as soon as possible. I noticed a strange echo on the line and realized that the phone was being tapped. So I restricted myself to telling her banalities and made no mention of Tomy. At around one o'clock—I was getting bad-tempered by this point—two official limousines flying Iranian standards on their grills arrived at the hotel. Out of one of them emerged the commandant we had met the previous day, dressed up as if he were at a diplomatic reception, but still with the black armband on his left arm, and then two older, serious-looking gentlemen. They were introduced to me but I didn't catch the Arabic names. One moved smoothly, like a dancer, so I called him Ali. He stank of cheap cologne. The other reminded me of the Egyptian actor Omar Sharif. He smiled constantly in an understanding way with the charming affectedness of a salesman in a bazaar. His charm was captivating; he could probably have even seduced a man into bed.

The commandant, now wearing the khaki uniform of a four-star general, invited us to join him at the table. Us three—the other three—and one place remaining empty. A lady would be joining us, the commandant informed us, but we needn't wait for her before beginning.

We talked in English—Marc had no problems with the language, he grew up in Canada, and Tomy, too, seemed to have no problems keeping up. We started with the seemingly harmless topic of archeology in general and the grand Persian culture in particular. Four waiters and a chef de service flitted constantly around us; it was probably the entire complement of the hotel. They brought a two-pound jar of Iranian caviar, served on a trolley on a bed of crushed ice. It was accompanied by capers, chopped egg, onion rings, lemons, butter, and toast. I can't stand fish eggs, as I've already mentioned, I think they're disgusting. Nevertheless, there's no accounting for taste. For the sake of politeness, I took the smallest possible amount and noticed that Tomy screwed up his face in disgust. For him it was the first taste of Iranian caviar in his life. Marc, the son of a family of restaurateurs, dug in.

The second course was smoked salmon, served with all the usual accouterments. A perfect meal, except that the Coca Cola didn't exactly fit the bill. With every minute that passed I kept asking myself, when these fine Iranian gents were going to let the cat out of the bag. An exquisite, expensive meal just for the sake of small talk? I smelled a rat. Marc and Tomy seemed oblivious. Finally, as our conversation had just steered towards the mysteries of the great pyramids of Egypt, a tall brunette made her entrance, walking a little like a catwalk model. Everyone stood—how well brought up! The woman, who was aged around 28 and had shoulder-length brown hair, kissed the commandant and “Omar Sharif,” shook hands with us and stopped in front of Tomy. “It's him,” she observed, smiling charmingly at him.

She had a cheerful face, full, sensual lips, and a finely proportioned nose. Something about her bothered me. Was it her self-assured manner? Her lack of concern? The way she treated us like friends? Was it her extremely feminine figure, which was accentuated by her thin, pale-blue blouse? Or was that just because I hadn't seen a beautiful woman in such a long time? Her accent was unmistakably French. Unmistakable for me, because I grew up in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. And, indeed, she introduced herself as Chantal, the commandant nodding and smiling as she did so. She had grown up, she explained, in a small town south of Carcasonne in France and now worked in Iran as a translator for a French oil company.

The third course was served—tender lamb in a white wine sauce with young peas. We talked about hundreds of unimportant and irrelevant things and it didn't escape my attention that sparks were beginning to fly between Tomy and Chantal. Finally, the commandant asked the chef de service to leave us. “Ali” spoke.

“This lad here,” he indicated Tomy, “is he your son?”

“No,” I answered tensely, “my younger brother.”

“Does everyone in your family have this unique ability?” he asked directly.

“No. Tomy really is something special. He always says that he's not of this world.” It was a somewhat direct formulation, but the commandant knew anyway.

Silence. Then, without beating around the bush, the commandant said, “These two gentlemen are from the Iranian state security service. I used to work for the department myself. Madame Chantal,” he nodded towards the attractive French woman, “is attached to a friendly service. We have been instructed to ask her to assist us.”

I was not wholly surprised. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that Chantal seemed so young to be so deeply involved with the spy racket.

“Ali” said that they could provide us with any assistance we might need, but the country was in crisis and they needed our help. There were terrorist groups that were being financed and controlled by persons unknown and they needed to find out as soon as possible who was the brain behind it all.

“It has to be Tomy's decision,” I insisted, adding, “of his own free will.”

Again, there was silence, until “Omar Sharif” noted, a hypocritical smile dissecting his face, that ‘the young man' had no papers and was, therefore, illegally in the country. He said they could help us out with that problem, and as he shrugged his shoulders and splayed his fingers it was clear to everyone what he was getting at. Marc, being a bright young man, realized it, too, and he looked nervously at me. These men could have us arrested at any time—legally. Chantal placed a hand gently on Tomy's arm. It dawned on me that her sights were fixed on him and he had no experience at all with the wiles of earthly women. The situation was tense. I wondered if Marc couldn't jump in and “save” him. Tomy and Marc were about the same age—although in Tomy's case it was hard to tell, really—and they were both good-looking young guys. Being attractive is a privilege of youth. But more to the point, how were we going to get out of this mess?

“My colleague,” I said, indicating Marc, “has a valid visa from the Iranian embassy in Bern. I'll have him fly back home from Teheran.”

“Omar Sharif” shook his head, displaying one of his disarming smiles. “He is an accessory.”

They had us hook, line and sinker. Marc nudged me under the table: I could feel his fist clenched next to my thigh. I could sense that he would just love to tip over this exquisitely laid table in their faces and get the hell out of there. Finally, with feigned diplomacy, I said I could fully understand their dilemma, after all terrorism was not only a problem in Iran. What's more, these Islamic terrorists with their holy warriors were a daily insult to Allah.

“How do you mean?” asked Ali dangerously.

“Just read Sura 2, verse 117 of your holy Qur'an. It says there ‘when He wills a thing to be, He but says unto it, “Be”—and it is. He is infinite, omnipresent and almighty.' If he wants something to happen, he just has to will it so, and doesn't need any earthly warriors. To presume that Allah is so small and powerless that he needs the help of fanatics is an insult to Allah!”

“Ali” rubbed his chin thoughtfully; the commandant pressed his lips firmly together; “Omar Sharif's” smile turned a touch more serious.

“An interesting interpretation,” he said.

“So it is,” I confirmed and then pleaded for more time to consider their offer. I needed to consult with my younger brother. The commandant informed us that the coming evening marked the start of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. The Moslem faithful were prohibited from drinking or eating, and even smoking, from sunup to sundown. Only after nightfall was the prohibition lifted, so we shouldn't be surprised if it got loud on the streets after eight o'clock. Then he consulted with the two security service men and Chantal. I thought I could tell from their body language that two were in favor and “Ali” was against. Finally, “Ali” gave me his business card. I couldn't read the Arabic writing, but the numbers for his telephone number were legible. With a serious look on his face, he stressed that we couldn't afford to make any mistakes and if we had the slightest problem, we should contact him immediately using the number on the card. There was a 24-hour answering service and they spoke English, he added with a touch of pride. They really need us! I thought.