Odyssey...~~~ 8- Anguish

Van did not come home one night. Sleepless and worried, Hana went to Behroz's home at five in the morning; running the entire twenty minutes walk to her grandparents. Everyone at home was in bed. Nobody knew that she even left home. She woke up Behroz by throwing a rock at his window from the alley. She had to repeat that a few times until he woke up. She did not want to ring the bell and worry her grandparents. Besides their room light was on; which meant they were up to do their first, before sunrise prayer.

When Behroz joined her and heard the story, they both ran all the way to that inauspicious house in that alley. There, standing breathless, they looked at each other without speaking, as though each was expecting the other to take an action. Hana, after a few minutes of bewilderment knocked the door. A young, stern man opened the door. He was dressed in suit and tie that early in the morning. After looking at him for a moment in an ambiguous way, Hana finally found the courage to speak:

"I am looking for my brother."

"So your brother was one of them." The stern man answered; and then he added: "Are you one of them, too? I must arrest you, too."

Before Hana and Behroz could realize what was happening, a few more men also showed up from inside the rooms and they handcuffed and blindfolded them both. They put them in the back of a car that was parked there. The driving took about half an hour to Hana's estimation; while neither of them knew where they were taking them. However, they understood those men were Savak agents and they were taking them to one of Savak buildings. Inside, after their eyes were gradually accustomed to the light, they found themselves in a small room. A dim lamp was hanging from the ceiling; and it made the room like a scary cage. There was no window; and the only furniture was a big desk with one chair at one side and three more at the other side of it. A middle-aged man, about fifty, with civilian suit was sitting behind the desk and looking at some papers. Hana and Behroz, who had shared many secretive things being so close family and also having a strong friendship, felt a gloomy hope of being together. That aspiration enabled them to answer all the questions honestly and fearlessly. Finally the interrogator said:

"You can go, both of you. You're clean; but Van is not. We need to get rid of these communists who try to overthrow our monarchy."

"Oh, please, he is just a young boy!" Hana said hysterically.

"These young boys, as you put it, are more dangerous than the other ones." He had no mercy in his tone of voice.

"Please, for God's sake, we just lost our father. Have a little leniency. My mom is going to die if she hears about this."

"Where was she when your brother was planning a sabotage?"

"Oh, God, he is just a boy. How can he? My mom is still mourning the death of my father. She didn't know."

"There is many of them out there, young lady, and together they can bring down a government. Conversation is over. You must leave now before I change my mind about you two."

Behroz began pulling Hana by hand, but Hana was still begging for Van.

"Can we see him?" She said.

"No, you can't."

"Where is he?"

"I can't tell you."

"What are you going to do with him?" She asked while her uncle kept pulling her to leave: "Let's go."

"I can't tell you; and stop questioning me." Hana saw in his eyes that another question of her would be catastrophic.

The first man that they had seen in front of the house, where Van was attending those meetings, this time only blindfolded them and drove them somewhere in close approximately of where they lived and dropped them, but not before to get the black blindfolding fabric out of their eyes. Before driving out, he told them to keep their mouth shout.

Two months passed and no one knew or had any idea where Van was. Meanwhile, searching for a clue, Hana trusted a colleague and told her about the misfortunate disappearance of her brother. Fery, being very sympathetic, told Hana about a friend of her brother.

"My brother has a friend, and I think he has a relative in Savak."

"Hana, all excited, begged Frey to introduce her to her brother's friend. That was how she met Hamid.

To Be Continued

Odyssey... ~{~{ 8- Anguish

Dallas-

When the telephone rings, Hana looks at the clock next to bed; it is two in the morning. Who can it be? She is almost sure it must be bad news, as many other times in past when the phone rang in the early hours of the morning. It is Hamid. He had an accident which leaves Hana no choice but calling a friend at that time for help and a ride. At the scene of accident, unfortunately Hamid is fine but the car is not. While thinking how she will go to work next morning and how they will be able to buy another car while they still have a payment on this one, she does not speak her true feeling: "It's okay. Thank God you're fine, Hamid."

The significance of having car for Hana is going back and forth to work; whereas for Hamid is going out at night and getting drunk.The same friend who gave Hana a ride, cosigns the notes so they can buy another used car. She prays that Hamid will not abuse this one like many others.

While she tries to smooth out many problems they face everyday because of Hamid's selfishness, Lila, her other- half, finds the courage to convince her of freeing herself from this miserable marriage. Hana does not know why she has not done anything about this matter yet. Is it because of fear, loyalty, or the culture she was brought up in? Strangely she comes to conclusion that the only way out of this situation is her husband's death and nothing else.

Numerous occasions of Hamid's violent behavior in the three years living in Dallas Make Hana think about Lila's recommendations. She begins planning different techniques to get rid of him; however knowing him the way she does, she recognizes that as long as he lives, he would not leave them alone even if they are divorced. Temporarily she forgets about her plan. Instead she tries to inspect life from past to present more to discover how she has gotten to this abyss of affliction.

Tehran-

As lonely as Hana felt in both her inside and out side world, another distress tormented her. Van, her brother, was coming home late every night. He was talking about quitting school although he was an excellent student and if he studied hard, he would had been even better than Hana, her older sister. Hana's talking to him irritated him and she could not make him to speak with her. His given name was Vandad, but he had become Van during years. He was at twelfth grade, a very intelligent young man that now was rude and did not care about mom's worriment. He slept all day and stayed out all night. Since Hana could not make him to open up his feeling to her, she decided to sneak on him by following him one night. She asked Behroz, her only confidant, to go with her.

In the dark alleys they followed Van. He walked fast and occasionally stopped to watch back as though he was afraid that someone was following him. In the turn of an alley, Hana and Behroz thought they lost him; but soon they saw him again entering a house. Hana's prediction was wrong. He was not spending his time somewhere drinking. What came to Hana's mind shivered her, for he was doing something far more dangerous than drinking or doing drugs. Behind the closed doors of that house, Both Behroz and Hana were thinking the same thing without speaking it, "political meetings"; something that was very common those days among young people. Totally frightened, they returned home and decided to do some investigation about that house.

The next night, Hana and Behroz went there earlier than Van. They wanted to see what kind of people went to that house. Eight young men, one of them Van, and three young women entered the house. Some of them carrying boxes which seemed heavy. Behroz suggested to climb the wall to see what was happening there; but Hana said that would be too dangerous. How could they find out what was going on in that house? The next night an older man, about forty, entered the house which nearly proved Hana's theory. Behroz suggested to approach some of the boys he knew, and to pretend he wanted to join. She agreed. It took him couple of weeks to gain their trust' and finally one day he told Hana the shocking news:

"This is an antigovernment meeting. They're brain washing these young men and women. The boxes you saw are filled with books and handouts."

Even though Hana had instinctively known, the news made her shudder. She recognized what the Government and Savak (the Iranian Intelligent Agency that worked for the Shah, and even its name brought a shiver to people) could do with these people if they found them.

"What are we going to do? Mom can't take another misery!"

"I don't know. We must talk to Van. We must stop him of going there; and we must not tell anyone." Behroz said with concern.

"Agreed." Hana stammered.

Talking to Van was useless. He stubbornly talked about government unjust policy, political prisoners, and freeing the country and people from all the inequitableness. Deep down inside, Both Hana and Behroz knew he was right; nonetheless, changing the regime would take more than bunch of young people with some books and handouts, whom mostly had faced a hard life or a loss. All Behroz and Hana could do was praying. They never thought to discuss this matter with a wiser member of family, like uncle Nabi, for Van said:

"If you try to stop me, I leave home. They will give us room and board. Then I can become like a foot soldier. Do you want that?"

Someone else was doing his homework at the same time. Reza, Hana's uncle, whom she had thrown out from their home, was still angry at Hana's treatment of him and Asad. He had planned in details to stab his dead brother's family in back. Now that he had learned by his sources about van's activity in one of antigovernment parties, he decided by betraying the location of that house, to avenge his unruly niece. The soft hearted Asad, his younger brother, could not stop him of going to the officials; and it happened.

To Be Continued