April 2, 1999
The Iranian
Part IV
March 1979
Babak woke up, dressed, ate his breakfast and went outside to wait for
the school bus. It was a normal day, a bit chilly but you could smell spring
in the air. It had been an unusually dry year and not much snow or rain
had fallen on Tehran. Babak remembered how his mother had worried there
wouldn't be a white Christmas, but as it had for all of the 18 years they
had lived in Iran, a good foot fell on Christmas eve to make it a perfect
score.
This morning was different. A somber mood blanketed the school and as
Babak dropped out of the bus door onto the ground he could tell it was
going to be another bad day. By now the school had been half emptied as
parents fearing the changes had fled the country overnight pulling the
kids from school and enrolling them in schools in Switzerland, London,
Paris and the U.S. All the Americans had gone as the embassy, noting the
current situation in Iran, was recommending everyone to leave and even
offered chartered planes for evacuation. As Babak made his way up the walkway
to the main quad of the school he noticed a coupe of girls sobbing and
when he got to the main open area, found it all but deserted. Before the
place would have been a bustling crowd of kids talking chatting about the
previous night's Six Million Dollar Man episode and where the next party
was. An American girl would be kissing her Iranian boyfriend there, the
three brainy girls would be hanging over the ledge there, and someone would
have thrown Niroo Yavari's clog in the pond again and he would be fishing
it out with his binder.
But this morning was different. Babak finally found his homeroom class
and went in. Somebody had brought in the morning paper. Instead of headlines,
weather and such, the front page had been transformed into a list of names
with post mortem photos of people accused of crimes against the land who
had been executed the previous night.
The sobbing was for kids who found out their fathers or grandfathers
or uncles had been killed. There were frequently no advance notices. Babak
had heard of people being taken for simple questioning and held for several
days. When the wife of the accused would go to the holding area to bring
a change of clothes or food, they had produced the corpse and asked her
to take the body away.
The rumor in town was that one such occurrence had sent the daughter
of a well-known Air Force general into a rampage. This general had loved
his daughter so much that he doted on her every skill and interest he had.
He taught her to fly a Phantom fighter, hang glide, ski and of course shoot
weapons. Equally entranced, she had loved him more than a daughter loves
her father; he was strong and tall, and embodied the ancient Persian warrior
hero. When he had been dragged from his bed in the early hours of one morning
and shot in front of their home while she watched with her mother, they
had taken her as well.
Now the rumor went that she roamed the streets of Tehran in a Blue Chevy
Blazer. In the back she had placed a large machine gun, the kind mounted
on a tripod with a very long range. Her targets were roadblocks manned
by revolutionary guard -- street kids, many of whom Babak had grown up
and played soccer with in the streets.
She would maneuver her Blazer in a line with the roadblocks and open
the back hatch, crawl around the back, set up and began firing until the
roadblock had been completely shattered. Because of the distance, no one
could see where the bullets were coming from and this went on for a month
or two as she exacted her revenge on roadblock upon roadblock. The wanted
posters which only confirmed the rumors eventually started to fade and
people forgot about her as they looked for the next announcement and list
of executed fathers.
End of part two. Go to part
five
* Part
one
* Part
two
* Part
three
* Part
four
* Part
five
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