Читать книгу Escape From Paradise - Majid MD Amini - Страница 12

Eleven people followed the old Kurdish guide, walking in single file in the silence that had descended upon them. Fatemeh was the first one who daringly took off her veil and chador and broke the silence by shouting with an enthusiasm that had rare traces of bitterness, “To hell with the Revolutionary Guards, especially all those stupid mullahs, those diaper-heads!!”

With a flushed face, Fatemeh felt the startling sensation of the sun and the breeze on her hair and her skin for the first time since the bloody revolution. She felt the sudden rejuvenation of her spirit. Everyone involuntarily turned and looked at her and began to laugh with noticeable expressions of excitement on their faces. This was the first time any of them had laughed since they left Tabriz. Apparently, the words Fatemeh used to express her distaste and sheer animosity towards mullahs were the common denominators among the escapees. At that moment, despite their overwhelming anxieties, they unknowingly became a group, on their way to a much dreamed of places – splendid countries, that could offer them safety and freedom – a world that could let them start their lives again with some degree of certainty.

The blonde woman removed her green scarf also. Her long naturally golden hair glittered in the bright midday sun and tendrils of it danced above her manicured eyebrows. “It's been more than a year since my hair has seen the sun,” she said with a noticeable and cute foreign accent, talking to herself, but almost everyone heard her words. Rayan was walking close to her and commented, “Those self-appointed opportunist authorities think a woman's hair radiates an invisible ray that excites men.”

“That’s stupid! Oh, the hell with those backward wrecks! They're full of shit up to their eyebrows and under their turbans!” Fatemeh said with the flash of a smile. “I will bet you anything that those bastards would give their right arms to kiss the golden hair of that girl,” pointing at the blonde woman. Looking at her, a smile still lingering on her face, she then added, “I bet you want them to drop dead before you let them touch that beautiful hair of yours. Is that right, honey?”

The blonde woman smiled widely in response and replied, “You’re absolutely right!”

“Those buffoons can come and kiss my koon [ass]. Can you believe it? Those monkeys believe that a woman’s hair, skin, and even her voice is sexually ... what is the word they use, honey?” she turned and asked the blonde woman.

“Provocative,” the blonde woman replied, laughingly.

“Yes. They say it’s sexually provocative. We must cover ourselves and not be heard in public. Provocative? My butt! I say, if men don’t like to look at my hair, skin, and don’t want to hear my voice, they can close their goddamn eyes and plug their ears.” Fatemeh released a small dose of her accumulated frustration and the sounds of their laughter became several decibels louder.

“No one knows why those holy men dedicated to God’s work are so much against anything beautiful,” Javad commented.

The other women, including the blonde woman's daughter, removed their scarves with quick moves of their hands. The short nervous old man, who was walking behind Fatemeh turned to her and asked, “You're Zee-Zee, the famous singer, aren't you?” The question turned everyone's attention to her. Referring to his past generosity, he boasted, “I used to throw thousand-Toman bills on the stages where you performed.”

With blood rushing to her face, Fatemeh turned quickly and responded with bitterness, “I used to be Zee-Zee. I hate that name now. Call me Fatemeh!” There was an underlying anger in her voice. “Hey you, mister, you wanna know something? The money you used to throw on the stages where I performed, I always tipped the stage boys with it!”

“I didn’t mean any harm! You ...” the short nervous old man registered his disapproval of Fatemeh’s remarks, but Fatemeh did not let him continue. “You see ... I didn't give a damn for you or your money then, and the same goes for now. Do you hear me, mister?”

Fatemeh’s harsh, cold and furious words struck the man unexpectedly. He froze and remained silent for a moment, then summoned his courage and responded, “Yes I do. But I was just gonna say that you look fantastic ... that's all!”

She gave him a sidelong glance while trying to control her rage, and said, “Come on, man! You can do better than that!”

“What do you mean?” the man asked, confused.

“Look. You're as full of shit now as you were then!” she answered coldly.

Apparently, the man didn’t find enough courage in himself to summon a response to Fatemeh’s last harsh remark and instead lowered his head and kept up the pace.

Akbar soon reached the hilltop. He waited until everybody caught up with him and then without uttering a word, disappointing the tired ones, whose faces were drenched in sweat, he started the descent to the other side. Inhaling the smell of the earth on the cool April breeze, he led them, heading down towards the valley below where a thick long line of medium-tall willows and aspens were protecting a riverbank. From a distance, with their branches bent, the willows appeared to be trying to quench their thirst in the river. And the shining aspens, without bending their bodies, were cooling their feet by washing them in the river’s crystal clear water. The breeze spread spring’s smells over the highs and lows of the land. The lecherous sun was shamelessly kissing the trees’ leaves and their branches. The river curved through the lowland, like a long snake, extending to the far horizon. The earth glowed in the sun.

It took them more than forty-five minutes of downward walking that was hard on their knees to reach the river. Once there, the vastness of the green valley, spectacularly stretching to distant mountains, where the fast flow of the river had carved a large opening into the seemingly impenetrable boulders, was spread out in front of them. The different shades of green in the valley met the sky’s turquoise blue at the horizon that gradually turned into a deep sea-blue higher above. There were small scattered, twisted, snow-white clouds plastered motionless on the sky. The world was as still and shining, as if it had been freshly painted. The province of Kurdistan was at its glorious best. But it appeared that no one had the spirit or the energy to notice, to take in and enjoy all that beauty the earth and the heavens were generously offering.

“Let's sit here, for just a short break,” Akbar said. “I gotta tell you a few things.”

With most of them by now tired and dragging their tired bodies, everyone gathered around him and sat near the water. “My name is Akbar ... Akbar Jafary. I am a Kurd. The going is gonna get very tough from here on. If we don't see any soldiers, guards or Komoleh’s fighters, we've got about six more hours of walking. If we find soldiers along the way, then we gotta travel only at night and lie low during the day. If not, we will camp at night and tomorrow someone else will take you to the next stop. There are two more days of walking to reach the border. ... Now eat and drink. We gotta cover as much ground as we can. Oh, don’t forget to take as much water as you can carry.”

He talked as if he were reading from notes, emotionless, for he spoke his mind clearly. He then took off his backpack and automatic and placed them against the trunk of a tree. He drank from the river with his hands, filled his canteen with fresh water, and sat against the tree trunk chewing on some dry meat. Everyone drank, chewed some snacks and sat back to rest.

Feeling guardedly comfortable with each other and their surroundings, they began to introduce themselves to one another but took care to reveal as little information about themselves as possible. Rayan was the first one who seized the opportunity to go around and introduce himself to everyone. The young man with the tense and resolute face and the young slender woman he traveled with introduced themselves as Rasol and Jaleh and explained they were husband and wife. The beautiful blonde with the cute foreign accent was Maryam. Her son, Jamshid, and daughter, Zohreh, blushed and waved their hands timidly when introduced to the others by their mother. Javad also introduced himself to those who were interested in meeting him. Rayan then introduced his wife, Pary, to everyone. The short man with gauze wrapped around his wounded head did not show any interest in meeting the others and kept himself occupied nursing his wounds. But in the course of that conversation he had unwillingly introduced Fatemeh to the others.

A westerly breeze has accompanied the mid-April warmth from the mountainside, making the shade of the trees very pleasant. The women had shed more of their heavy clothes, and everyone’s mood was slowly changing. They were more talkative and sociable and appeared to be in better spirits than earlier in the morning. Perhaps breathing the fresh air of freedom blowing from beyond the Iran-Turkish border was helpful in reducing the accumulated fear in their hearts.

“So, I understand you were a famous city singer,” Akbar addressed Fatemeh.

“What is it to you?” Fatemeh responded coldly.

“Oh nothing. But, can you sing us a song?” Akbar asked.

“Only if you sing me a Kurdish song,” she responded with gaiety.

“I've heard my own voice a thousand times. I'm too old, my voice has grown coarse, no longer pleases me. I'll tell you, it's not something you'd like to hear. ... It's yours that I'm interested in.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Fatemeh reputed Akbar’s statement.

“Look, lady. Don’t you know that when a song comes from under a mustache it is worth nothing, but boy-o-boy, when it comes through the soft lips of a woman it drives you nuts and takes you straight to paradise?” Akbar questioned philosophically. He paused for a while as if he had changed his mind. He said authoritatively, “We gotta go now.” He didn’t wait for anybody’s comment, rose and kept going, leaving the others with no option except to follow him.

“I'll sing you a song if you let us sit here a little longer, just ten more minutes,” Fatemeh proposed, giving in to Akbar’s wish.

Akbar turned, looked at her, brightened his face with a smile, and responded, “It's too late, lady. Let’s move on!”

Responding, she whispered to herself, “You men ... you're all the same. You're all beasts.”

“Let's vote again to see whether we rest here a bit longer or not,” the short nervous old man said seriously.

More than half voted to move on. Those who voted against whispered their disapproval but moved on. The result of the voting turning in his favor pleased Akbar. He followed a narrow trail on the riverbank’s north side, sometimes walking through fields blanketed with rainbow colors of wild poppies and tulips in full spring bloom, spectacularly surrounded by endless patches of mustard grass ranging in color from light yellow to dark olive.

The trail ended at the river with its own carved banks at the bottom of a shear cliff. They were left with no choice except to cross the river by jumping from rock to rock, scattered just above the water, while trying to avoid getting wet. The possibility of slipping on the wet moss-covered rocks made it difficult for the women to cross by themselves. Javad offered his help to Maryam after easily carrying the children on his back to the other side. She accepted, and he lifted her in his arms like a feather, crossed the river and put her down on the other side. The nervous little old man, who had had his eyes on Fatemeh since she took off her veil, walked to her and said, “Can I help you, I mean carrying you across?”

She gazed at him, went over his entire body length, as though trying to find something terribly wrong with him. She then responded, “You look like you're gonna shit in your pants any minute, and you wanna carry me across the river, Mr. David! You're really funny. No, I can cross the damn thing by myself.”

Stunned by hearing his name out of the blue, David said, “That was uncalled for.”

“I wasn’t about to tell the others who you are, but you asked for it.”

Still shocked, David kept quiet. Maybe it was a calculated attempt to protect whatever might have been left of his accurate identity, especially from those who might not have heard Fatemeh's forthright response. But it seemed it was too late. Everyone heard the conversation and turned to look at him.

When Rayan came back to help Fatemeh, she had already taken off her shoes and socks and was walking through the knee-high freezing water towards the other bank. The water’s cold temperature shocked her and sobered her up if she hadn’t been already. Rayan reached for her and grabbed her arm ignoring her comment to David. She looked at him sideways as they crossed the water.

“You know, mister?” she addressed him. “I don't really need your help. ... Do you know that?”

“I'm sure you don't. It's just a matter of courtesy. I don’t see any harm in it, do you?”

“No, I don’t, but I mean, that goes to show stupid me. ... I could’ve done a lot better without any man's help, if only I hadn’t been afraid to get my feet cold and wet.”

“That’s for sure,” Rayan replied calmly.

“You know what?” she asked again. “You're all right in my book.”

“I think you're a fine person, too,” he said, smiling.

With that they reached the bank of the river. For the first time in her life, she felt her own long-hidden self-confidence. She liked herself at that moment. The feeling brought a smile to her lips, a genuine smile, the first in a long time.

When the man with bloody gauze wrapped around his head tried to jump over the rocks, his foot slipped and he fell into the water. He was partially submerged, getting his head wet. Javad immediately rushed to his rescue, grabbed his shoulders firmly and pulled him out of the water. With all his clothes soaking wet, the small man pathetically looked even smaller.

Further down, they had to cross the river four more times in the same fashion before the valley widened, and each time Fatemeh crossed it without anyone's assistance and felt a little better about herself.

The trail reappeared and remained on the south side of the river. Ten minutes later, Akbar waited for everybody to catch up. He pointed to a long steep slope where the trail zig-zagged upward cutting through the rocks and boulders.

“You see the pass up there? It’ll take us to another valley. It’s gonna take us more than four hours to get up there. Just take short small steps, one foot in front of the other, and don’t think about where you’re going, because that’s too far and you are not there yet. And one more thing, don't get too far behind.”

With sure, rock-steady steps, he then began walking, and they all followed him silently.

Thirty minutes into the hiking only Rasol, Jaleh, Javad, Maryam and the children could keep up with the pace. Fatemeh, the man with the gauze around his head, the short old nervous man, and Pary and Rayan were spread out, quite a distance behind Akbar.

Moaning, the man with the head wound apparently could no longer endure the severe pain on the left side of his head. Fatemeh's energy had rapidly diminished and was gone. She could hardly take another step. David was totally exhausted. Akbar looked back and saw them far behind in various spots on the winding trail. He waited impatiently, naively expecting them to catch up quickly.

“I don't think those guys back there are gonna make it,” Akbar expressed his pessimistic view of the situation to Javad.

“Give them more time. ... They'll slowly make it,” Javad responded with optimism.

“We gotta make camp before nightfall. The next guide is waiting for us up there. I’m afraid we're gonna miss him,” Akbar explained the reason for his pessimism. He then lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, let the smoke out and began to whisper a Kurdish song. His voice went into a higher pitch with a few lines of lyrics; it bounced against the rocks and its echoes fragmented the silence of the valley below.

It took some time for the rest to straggle in, fatigued beyond their fortitude. Asking no one’s permission, they all dropped to the ground as they arrived. Akbar looked at them, shook his head and began another song, a song with melancholic notes wrapped around sorrowful lyrics. He stopped abruptly, turned to Fatemeh and said, “Now it's your turn, Fatemeh. Give us one of those happy songs. One you used to sing for the city folks on TV.”

“I'm so tired that I can hardly breathe and this crazy man wants me to sing for him. You must be out of your mind,” she replied with cynical scorn, addressing no one in particular and shaking her head.

“Let's go then!” Akbar ordered.

“Give us a break. ... Can’t we sit for a few more minutes?” Fatemeh begged without trying to conceal or suppress her own discouragement. “How about thing, that voting business again?” she asked Javad. But the response from Javad was only, “Not this time. I'm afraid he's right. We have to move on. The second guide is waiting for us out there.”

“We'll wait for you guys up on the pass,” Akbar said with a spirit of compromise.

“This man is bleeding! The poor man is in pain. He needs help,” Fatemeh said, pointing at the man with the gauze wrapped around his head that had withdrawn from the group. A line of blood ran down the side of his face from under the gauze. Javad rose, walked to him, touched his head and said, “Let me open the bandage and see, Dr. Omid.” The wounded man was startled hearing someone address him as doctor.

“You know each other?” Fatemeh asked.

“I know Dr. Hassan Omid. I don't think he knows me. After all, he was our ambassador to several countries.” Javad spoke in a queer flat tone but with the absence of any malice. Without waiting for the wounded man's permission, he gently untied the knot and unrolled the blood-soaked gauze. “My God, your ear is missing!” Javad said with horror that also registered on his face. Fatemeh looked with disgust at Dr. Omid's wound. She turned her face away immediately.

“What happened to you?” Javad asked inquisitively.

“Three men broke into my room last night. They robbed me and cut off my ear,” Dr. Omid moaned, without going into more detail.

“My God, what terrible things we do to each other these days!” Rayan said, trying to help. Rasol rushed to his backpack and took out a box, opened it, brought out a bottle and a roll of unused fresh gauze. “Let's wash the wound first,” he volunteered.

“Are you a doctor?” Javad questioned him politely.

“No, but I had some training in taking care of wounds.”

The signs of infection on the side of the man’s head, where his ear was supposed to be, made the wound repulsively hard to look at. Patiently, Rasol washed the wound carefully, brought out a tube of antibiotic cream, gently rubbed it on the wound, bandaged it again, and wrapped the man’s head with fresh gauze. He then gave him two small bottles of pills and said, “Take two of these pills when you feel pain and two a day of the other ones for your infection.”

“I've been taking some pills, thank you.”

“Most probably those are for pain. These two are for the infection.”

“Thank you,” Omid said.

Hassan Omid was feeling better about the fact that no one embarrassed him further by questioning him about his injury. But the anguish caused by the certainty that everyone knew him and that the ghosts of his past would most certainly follow him to his grave, compounded his physical pain. There was something quite strange, rather ambiguous about the feeling that suddenly came over him. It was the first time he seriously questioned his own identity. He was almost certain that he wasn’t Dr. Hassan Omid and no longer even wanted to be identified with such a name. The fictitious title of doctorate that was surely an enormous asset in the past, which had aided him and helped him in achieving his goals, now sounded hollow – excessive hard-to-carry baggage, a liability and no longer useful.

“How do you expect this man to walk with his open wound? Fatemeh asked Akbar, pointing at Dr. Omid’s head.

“Fatemeh is absolutely right. ... He will bleed again,” Rayan said firmly.

“We must wait here for a while,” Javad said authoritatively.

“The man will bleed to death, and you will be responsible for it,” Fatemeh told Akbar.

“All right. We take a break,” Akbar gave in.

With his eyes closed, Dr. Omid began to take a tour of his past.