A Bitter Veil (25 page)

The next twelve hours were studded with moments of clarity, but most of it was like a fugue state from a Fellini film. Bright lights. Bare walls. Doctors in white coats. Nuns at her side. The smell of alcohol and iodine. Flashes of excruciating pain. Blessed blackness. Guttural cries she learned later were her own. Orders barked at her in Farsi, then English. Gentle voices pleading with her. Sweating until the sheets were soaked, then numbing chills on the same sheets.

At one point someone lifted her up, and there was stabbing pain. Then a rumble, the smart slam of doors, and her entire body began to vibrate. The sense that she was in a vehicle of some kind. More lights, voices, doctors, nuns. Sharp pokes and sticks. Masks over her nose and mouth. Plunging back into darkness.

There were dreams, too. Nouri angry. Nouri kind. Nouri and she making love. Swimming in the Caspian Sea. Someone was with them. The baby. But how did it know how to swim? She had an image of a whale with its offspring, but when she twisted her head around to check, the image vanished, and she was driving through the desert back from Esfahan with Nouri. The sun blasted down, and the sand whipped them with such force it stung, like thousands of fire ants. She had an enormous thirst. Her father appeared with a glass of cold water. She thanked him. It didn’t seem strange that he was in Iran. Had he been here all along? Before she could ask, she sank back into darkness.

*****

A voice urged her to wake up. Anna reluctantly climbed up to consciousness. It had been so pleasant, the darkness. She had been warm and comfortable. She didn’t want to leave.

“You have been very sick,” a voice said in thickly accented English.

Anna cracked her eyes. A blurred image swam before her. She blinked slowly and turned her head toward the voice. A nurse was holding her wrist. Taking her pulse. Anna blinked again, and her vision began to clear. The nurse looked like a nun in a habit, with black head gear that reached to her waist. Under the cloak was a white manteau that looked like a raincoat.

“Who—” Anna croaked, but stopped after just one word. A profound sense of weariness washed over her.

“Don’t talk,” the woman said. “You are weak. You are in hospital in Tehran.” She pressed her lips together. “You…collapsed…in Evin Prison. I am Sister Zarifeh. Your nurse.”

Anna frowned. Hazy memories flashed through her mind: her feet being lashed; Sister Azar examining her over her glasses; a Kurdish girl named Nousha. Was she really there? Was it real, or just another dream? Then it came—Nousha had been executed. Anna couldn’t sleep. Then the stabbing pain in her belly.

“The baby? Is it all right? What happened?”

The nurse blinked, then turned her head away. “I am so sorry. You miscarried. There was much bleeding…we didn’t…they didn’t know if you would live. That’s why they brought you here.”

Anna sank back onto the pillow. She let her eyes close. There was no reason to stay awake. Not anymore.

*****

The next few weeks were a blur of sleep and wakefulness, during which doctors and nurses prodded and poked. Gradually Anna’s intervals of awareness lengthened, and she took stock of her surroundings. She was alone in a small hospital room. White walls, black bars on the window. The view through the window was of a brick wall. The door to her room was closed, probably locked. There was a small glass panel at the top. The antiseptic smell of the hospital was strong, but at least there was no scent of disease. No oily hair smell either. Or saffron.

Sister Zarifeh attended her during the day, but another nurse, a surly woman who rarely spoke, had the night shift. Still, they seemed to be taking good care of her. The tea was good and strong and camphor free. The food, although soft, was surprisingly tasty.

One morning she asked Sister Zarifeh why she wasn’t back in Evin Prison.

“It is as I told you. You needed emergency treatment that wasn’t possible at Evin. You were transported here.”

Anna motioned toward the bars. “Am I in another prison hospital?”

Sister shook her head. “You’re in a special ward of the government-run hospital in north Tehran.”

“What ward is that?”

“The ward for criminals and prisoners.”

Anna was crestfallen. Once she had recovered, they would send her back to Evin. She had been dreaming that, by some fiat or dictum or magic, she might have been freed, her ordeal over. She slumped back against the pillow, a fresh fog of misery threatening to swallow her.

The nurse seemed to know what she was thinking. “Be grateful we did not strap you down. Most prisoners are shackled to the bed, even in hospital.”

Anna didn’t reply. She might as well be chained. She couldn’t go anywhere; there was nowhere to go. She rolled into a fetal position and stared at the wall. She was doomed to die in Iran. Like Nousha, she would spend the rest of her life in prison, waiting for the day the guards appeared and told her to gather her things. How ironic to make her healthy just so they could kill her later.

She turned onto her back and gazed out the window. She could just spot a tiny bit of sky above the brick wall. She stared at the patch of blue, wondering if it might hold the key to her freedom. Out there, in the free world, the hot Iranian summer was coming to an end. People were still wiping sweat off their brows, anticipating the cool rainy season.

The Tehranians who had spent thick summer nights on their rooftops would soon go back to their beds. The markets would stock a profusion of fruits and vegetables. Anna recalled the mornings she’d spent ferreting out the freshest, most tender produce. Her eye had become so sharp that even the shopkeepers couldn’t trick her into buying inferior goods. But the simple pleasure of buying fruit was something she would never do again.

She drifted into sleep. For some reason her dreams were particularly vivid. It was as if her subconscious was mourning the loss of the baby by reliving her childhood. She was with her mother and father on the playground of her grade school. They pushed her on a swing, laughing as she rose higher and faster. Anna was ashamed to admit she was afraid. If she went too high, it would break up the family, and her mother would move to Paris. So she smiled bravely and pumped the swing, all the while terrified that she would swing too far. It occurred to her, in that eerie way dreams evolve into something else, that God was punishing her because she hadn’t wanted the baby at first.

A few hours later she woke. A doctor had come in to examine her. After he finished, she asked, “Doctor, will I still be able to have children?”

Frown lines popped out on his forehead, and he took his time answering. Did he know something she didn’t?

“I don’t know,” he finally said.

She searched his face and decided he was telling the truth. She concluded his response was better than an unqualified “no.”

“How long have I been here?”

“You developed a staph infection after the miscarriage. Probably from the Evin infirmary. That’s why you were brought here.”

“Yes. So how long has it been?”

“About a month.”

Anna was surprised it had been that long. Then again, she had been delirious for much of the time. “Is there any chance I could get some books in English? I would love to read.”

The doctor said he would ask, but something in his tone made her think he wouldn’t follow through. She was just a prisoner, after all. Inconsequential. After he left she fell back against her pillow.

She recalled Hassan’s visit to Evin—it seemed like just last week, but must have been almost a month ago. He said they were trying to get her out. That Bijan had contacted her father. That the family was planning to leave Iran. Laleh was leaving in a month. A burst of anger flashed through her. Laleh was free to leave, but she was not.

She was dozing later that afternoon when an argument erupted outside her door. The row was in Farsi, the bitter raised voices those of a male and female. It was probably a squabble between a Guard and a nurse. Nurses wanted to nurture. Guards wanted to punish. The argument subsided, but it roused Anna. She drowsily recalled another argument not so long ago. What was it about? Who was fighting? Where? She couldn’t quite place it, but something told her she should. She tried to concentrate, but it wouldn’t come. She let it go.

It wasn’t until after her evening meal of soup and toast—they had started to give her solid food—that the memory came unbidden. A contentious argument between Laleh and Nouri. An argument that, like the one this afternoon, woke her. She couldn’t understand much of what they said, but they were both furious, spitting out what she knew were nasty insults.

She recalled how Nouri, hostile and red-faced, had turned on her when she came out of the bedroom. How Laleh quickly scurried out of the house, hoisting her bag on her shoulder. How Nouri shouted that all the women in the family were disobedient whores. She frowned. Then another memory surfaced: Laleh prowling the third floor of their house while Anna was cleaning. The third floor that had nothing but a closet and a door to the roof.

The closet.

The closet that Nouri opened and closed. Anna had looked inside it the day she was hunting for her passport, but it had been empty. At least it appeared to be. She continued to ponder it. When she suddenly put it together, the air left her lungs in a gasp. She looked around her hospital room. She needed to get well. She needed to get out. She knew who’d murdered Nouri. And why.

A few days later, during the nurses’ shift change, Sister Zarifeh said goodbye to Anna. Anna frowned. Usually she said good night. It was probably just a slip of the tongue.

“See you in the morning,” Anna replied. She finished her meal, wondering how to spend the long hours until bedtime. She was feeling stronger. She thought she was ready to leave. But with her recovery came a feeling of dread. Once they knew she was well, they would send her back to Evin. It would be smarter to pretend she was still sick.

She thrashed around in the bed. As she had recovered, so too had her realization that the hospital bed was uncomfortable and hard. The pillow too. Finally she dozed. She was dreaming about jogging down the Midway Plaisance in Chicago when she felt a tug on her arm. She ignored it, thinking it was part of her dream. Someone wanted to jog with her, even though she’d never jogged a block in her life. Was it Nouri? There was another tug. She wanted to say, “Leave me alone. I’m trying to jog,” when she heard someone whisper her name.

“Anna, Anna, wake up. Hurry.”

The whisper, though soft, sounded urgent. She cracked open her eyes. The night nurse stood at her bedside. Why was she whispering her name? Anna frowned in irritation.

The nurse leaned closer. “Anna, do you know who I am?”

Anna opened her eyes wider and stared at the nurse. She saw the nun-like habit, the white manteau underneath. Then she focused on the nurse’s face. The light was dim, but suddenly it dawned on her. The figure at the side of her bed wasn’t the night nurse. It was Roya!

Anna sucked in air. “How did…what is going on?”

Roya shushed her with a finger on her lips. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“What time is it?”

“It is three o’clock in the morning. Can you walk?”

Anna ran her tongue around her lips. “I…I think so.”

“Good. I have a uniform for you. Put it on. Quickly.”

Anna was fully awake now. Her pulse started to race. Slowly she swung her legs to the edge of the bed and stood. She had been walking to the bathroom regularly; still, she felt shaky. Roya gripped her arm and handed her the white manteau. Together they slipped it over her head.

“Now this.” Roya unfurled a headdress from the folds of her manteau. She helped Anna put it over her head and fasten it. Finally she handed Anna a pair of rubber-soled shoes and helped her put them on. They were too tight but Roya said, “They will have to do.”

“How did you get these—”

“Later,” Roya said softly. “We only have a minute. Listen carefully. I will walk out of the room but I will make sure the door stays unlocked. I will turn left down the hall. At the end of that hall I will turn right. There is a door to the outside at the far end of that corridor. You will count to twenty and then follow me. That will be the most dangerous part. Do not speak to anyone. Not a word. If someone talks to you, just nod and continue down the hall. I will wait for you outside the door behind the flowering bush. If you do not come in ten minutes, I must leave. Do you understand?”

Anna nodded.

“Good. We go now.”

Without another word, Roya opened the door and edged out of the room. Anna heard the soft thud of her footsteps. Then they disappeared.

Anna’s mouth went dry. Her hands trembled. How had Roya managed this? She longed to escape, but what if someone stopped her? What if she was recognized? Then she remembered that she was supposed to be counting to twenty. She guessed she should already be at ten. She counted out ten more beats.

She went to the door and twisted the knob. As Roya had promised, it was unlocked. She took a breath. This would be the first time she had been out of her room since they’d brought her here. She cautiously opened the door. The nurse’s station was down the hall on the right. To the left was a series of closed doors. No one was in sight. No nurses, no doctors, no Guards. Then again, it was the middle of the night.

Anna took a tentative step to the left. It was difficult not to run—to gallop as fast as she could down the hall, and throw herself against the exit. But that would give her away. She padded down the hall, following a blue stripe that ran down the center of the floor. She was almost afraid to breathe.

After what seemed like an endless length of time she reached the end of the corridor and turned right. Ahead of her was another hall. At the far end, the shadow of a figure disappeared through a door. It had to be Roya, leading the way outside. To freedom.

Anna followed her. The scent of iodine permeated the air, as well as a gummy smell that reminded her of adhesive tape. Someone behind one of the closed doors murmured. Were they chanting prayers? She tried to tread lightly but heard soft footfalls—her own—on the linoleum floor. The fluorescent light, flat and shadowless, bathed everything in blue.

She reached what she guessed was the halfway point. She had about one hundred more feet. She kept walking. She began to see the outline of the door leading outside. Now there were only eighty feet. Although each step seemed as long as a city block, she began to think she might make it. She picked up her pace. Sixty feet. That was all.

Suddenly a woman’s voice called out. “
Khâhar vâysâ!
Stop!” A door closed behind her. “I need your help, Sister.”

Anna slowed. Who was calling her? Probably a nurse. Maybe even the night nurse who’d attended her. But Roya had said not to stop. Not to engage with anyone. Still, if she didn’t, the nurse would suspect something, wouldn’t she? Anna ignored her. She was only fifty feet from freedom. Just fifty feet.

The woman let out a stream of Farsi, fast and furious. Anna couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable. She was probably saying something like, “Don’t you have ears? What is wrong with you?” But Anna was too close to freedom to stop. Best to pretend she hadn’t heard. If the woman followed her out the door, perhaps Roya could say or do something. She kept going.

The woman’s voice followed her, closer now. It felt like tiny birds were fluttering in her stomach. The woman was coming after her. Anna’s hands were shaking. She hid them in the folds of her uniform. It couldn’t end this way. Not after everything. She was only twenty-five feet from the door. She tried not to break into a run.

Suddenly a door opened behind her, and a man’s voice called out in a stage whisper. A Guard? A patient? A doctor? He spoke to the nurse in Farsi. Anna couldn’t understand. She didn’t want to. Was he telling her to shut up? That it was late and people were trying to sleep? The woman argued back. Her voice was low, but insistent. Anna imagined her flailing her arms and pointing to Anna. She only had fifteen more feet. She kept walking. Ten.

The man’s voice replied. His irritated tone sounded like he was criticizing the nurse. The nurse tried one more time. Anna reached the door. She opened it and sailed through. She was out. A well-worn dirt path led from the door around the corner of the building.

She glanced in both directions. A bush with red flowers stood on one side of the door, and a spotlight cast elongated shadows from it across the path. Anna wedged herself behind the bush. Roya crouched a few feet away. Anna hurriedly explained what had happened. Roya nodded, told Anna to stay where she was and stood up, brushing twigs and leaves off her uniform. She was pacing back and forth near the door when the woman who had pursued Anna came through.

“What do you think you’re doing, Sister?” the woman asked. “I’ve been trying to get your attention.”

“Just getting some air, Sister,” Roya said.

Anna caught a glimpse of the women’s faces in the light. The nurse—Anna could see that she was wearing a uniform—threw Roya a suspicious glance. “Who are you?”

“This is my first shift here. I transferred from Pars Hospital.” Roya heaved a sigh. “This place…well, it is more depressing than I imagined.”

The woman planted her hands on her hips. “The nurse I am looking for was not as tall as you.”

Anna’s heart stopped. She was petite. Roya was at least four inches taller. The woman had obviously noticed.

“She just came out. Did you see her?”

There was silence for a moment. Oh god, what would Roya do? Anna held her breath.

Finally, Roya said, “It was me, Sister. I just came outside. Surely, I am not that tall. My brother used to tease that I was too short.” She giggled.

The woman’s silence told Anna she was measuring Roya, trying to decide if she was telling the truth. Finally the woman muttered, “Well, it’s too late now. I do not need you anymore.” She turned around, and went back in.

Roya waited a beat, then exhaled into the silence. So did Anna. The silence deepened, but Anna was elated. It was the silence of freedom.

*****

The air had never felt so sweet, the darkness so soft, the stars so bright. Anna floated down the path. She was free. She would never again take it for granted.

“How did you arrange this, Roya? I can’t believe it. You—”

“Hurry.” Roya picked up her pace. “We are not safe yet.”

Anna followed as they made their way toward the street.

“No,” Roya whispered. “Walk beside me. If anyone stops us, we are two nurses on break.”

But it was the middle of the night and no one stopped them. They exited the hospital grounds and crossed the street. The only sounds were the thuds of their rubber-soled shoes on the pavement. The mullahs had decreed that women must only wear footwear with rubber soles, Anna recalled. The tapping of heels against the floor was considered too arousing.

Anna matched Roya’s pace, but she was breathing fast and hard. An adrenaline rush had fueled her escape, but now that she was out, she realized how weak and out of condition she was.

“It is not much farther,” Roya said encouragingly. She turned a corner onto a commercial street with small storefronts crowded together. There were no lights in the windows, and the street was deserted except for a car parked at other end. “There.” Roya pointed.

Anna squinted. She could just make out the figure of a man in the driver’s seat. They continued walking and, when they reached the car, Roya threw open the door. Hassan was behind the wheel. He was drumming his fingers on the steering column. He stopped when he caught sight of Anna.

Anna smiled. Hassan had been telling the truth when he came to see her in Evin. He had helped her escape.

“Climb in the back,” he said quietly. “Quickly.”

Anna obeyed. Roya sat in front. Within ten seconds, Hassan started the engine and they pulled out. The tires screeched as they melted into the streets of Tehran.