The Revolutionary’s Cousin

Prologue

Prologue

Tehran, Iran, November 1979

The large house was so quiet that Zahra could hear the rain spattering intermittently on the bedroom windows behind the heavy drapes. In the distance the azan-e-magreb, the evening prayer call, echoed through Elahiyeh, the elegant suburb of Tehran where she had lived for over two months. Finding it impossible to think straight about her future with her five-year-old son Ahmad jumping on the bed and chattering, she sent him down to the kitchen to play cards with the housekeeper’s niece. Alone with her thoughts, Zahra folded pillowcases and tablecloths and put them in boxes to be shipped to the United States. Her employers, the Konari family, like so many Iranian families, had left hastily after the Ayatollah Khomeini had seized power.

Her thoughts wandered to her cousin Firzun, the self-styled revolutionary. He had survived the failed raid he had led to free the American hostages held at their embassy, only to be killed in a random bomb blast ten days ago. His leg had been injured during the raid and he walked with a cane. That was all they found after the blast—that and, she shuddered, part of his leg.

She remembered their visit to Iran as children sixteen years ago. Foolishly brave even then, Firzun was determined to have an adventure. She had always done what he wanted, always followed.

Zahra put her hand on the pile of linen and stared ahead remembering …

The Tower of Silence, Yazd, Iran, 1963

‘Vulture, look out!’ her cousin yelled.

Zahra crouched low, her arms over her head as the bird swooped toward the ground. She heard the beat of its wide wings as it rose with a deep throated squawk, carried aloft on the warm currents of the desert air.

Firzun ran across the baked earth of the circular tower and yanked her arms away from her head, pulling her roughly to her feet.

‘It scared me,’ she wailed.

‘Don’t be a baby, Zahra. You’re eleven years old.’

‘It’s getting dark …’

‘Turn around and look!’ Firzun ordered. ‘The fire worshipers leave their dead bodies here. Then he and his friends come and eat them.’

He pointed to the vulture, now an ominous moving silhouette against the red blaze of the setting sun. Firzun threw his arms out and ran around the tower squawking like the bird. He stopped at a shallow pit in the centre.

‘The vultures pick the bodies clean, then the priests throw the bones in here. Come and look!’

Zahra peered into the shallow pit, but when he touched her arm she turned too quickly and lost her balance. With a shriek, she fell into the subterranean charnel-house. The soft earth clung to her hair and clothes like the fingers of the dead. She put her hands out to push herself up and felt something rigid and smooth. The empty eyes of a whitened skull stared back at her. Paralysed with fear she screamed out to her cousin. As he dragged her out, the bird returned and circled overhead. She saw its golden throat feathers lit by the setting sun, its hooked beak hungry for prey. A mournful cry came from deep in its body. It was so close that Zahra could hear the beat of its wings as it headed toward the desert and the distant mountains.

She gripped her cousin’s hand and threw her head back, gasping for breath. ‘Quick, it’s getting dark!’

Bright shards of light from the setting sun lit a pathway for them across the tower. She ran toward the wall with Firzun, desperately sweeping the clinging soil and white powder from her long cotton shift and pants.

‘It’s lime. Don’t touch it,’ he gasped as they ran.

He squeezed through a hole in the ancient wall that was hardly bigger than his fourteen-year-old body. She blinked, trying to clear her vision as they stumbled down the steep trail to the road. She risked a look back at the dumpy mud-brick tower silhouetted against the darkening sky. Several vultures now circled over its looming stillness, making her shudder and take to her heels. They ran through the scrub and clinging branches toward the blinding lights of her uncle’s car as it skidded to a stop.

‘I told you to wait at the farm,’ he yelled as they scrambled in. ‘Stupid Afghan kid!’ her uncle spat at Firzun. ‘You’re nothing but trouble.’