The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,80

to the park. Before he reached the concourse, he took out a cap and pulled it low, so that it half covered his face. They must have fixed surveillance in these stations, television cameras that monitored everyone in and out. He wouldn’t make it easy for them. Karim traveled west for ten stations, listening to the rumble of the train and clutching his bag of gifts. He hoped the ice cream wouldn’t melt. When he got to the western terminus at Sadeghiyeh Square, he exited and walked the few blocks to his uncle’s villa. He stopped several times, and took one deliberate detour down a dead-end alley. He didn’t think anyone was following him.

His aunt and uncle welcomed him at the door with many kisses. Darab was overweight, with a thin mustache and a sneaky look in his eye. Nasrin was a beautiful woman who had let herself go. She belonged to the caliphate of food. They sat him down in the new sitting room. Plastic seat covers were still on the couches and chairs. They hadn’t seen nephew Karim in months. Where had he been? He looked too thin. Was he eating? He needed a wife.

Karim was embarrassed. His uncle’s family bored him. They were bee-farhang, “uncultured”—the worst thing a decent Iranian could say about someone—a crass bourgeois household becoming prosperous off the tidbits of the regime. One of Uncle Darab’s silent partners in the shipping business was a clerical family from Qom. Karim doubted that Darab prayed once a year, let alone five times a day, but he was playing along like everyone else. Just as Karim himself had played along, until a few months ago. Who was he to judge?

Uncle Darab said he liked the American book. “They trust you,” he said with a wink. Yes, answered Karim. They trust me. He hoped Darab wouldn’t get in too much trouble later, if things went bad. His uncle was an ass, but he didn’t deserve to suffer more than anyone else because of Karim’s inner compulsion to connect and live.

“It is terrible about Hossein,” said Uncle Darab when Nasrin had gone into the kitchen. “Why did they make him leave? He loved the Pasdaran. It was wrong.”

“Yes, uncle. Hayf. I was very sorry for Hossein. They had no reason to treat him that way.”

“What did he do?” whispered Darab. “Was it something very bad?”

“No,” answered Karim. “He had the wrong friends. A new team came into his section, and poof. That was it. They made up something about him, to get him out of the way. But I do not think it was true.”

“Did you try to help him, Karim? You have influence. I know that.”

“I did what I could,” he said. Karim looked down at his shoes. He was embarrassed. In truth, he had done nothing to help his cousin. He had been too afraid.

“Well, I can tell you, it has been hard for me. Hossein was a help. He knew the people who mattered. When I had a problem, he could help me solve it. And now, I have to find other ways.” He looked at Karim expectantly.

So that was it. Uncle Darab’s sorrow for cousin Hossein was a business matter. What really upset him was that he had lost a fixer high up in the Revolutionary Guard.

“I wish I could help,” said Karim. “But you know, my work is scientific. I don’t meet these politicians.”

“I would never ask, my dear. Never. But it’s not easy for a businessman. There are so many hands out. Still, we do all right. I am opening a new office in Bandar Abbas. Did you know that? What would your father say about that, if he were alive? His kid brother Darab, with three offices and a new house. He would say I am a success. He would be proud of me, rest his soul.”

“I am sure Father would be very happy,” said Karim. He thought, in truth, of the contempt his father had felt to the day he died for the vulgar cheerleaders of the new Iran, people like dear Uncle Darab.

Nasrin served up a mountain of food. Somehow in the few dozen minutes between Karim’s text message and his arrival, she had managed to cook minced lamb chelo kebab over a heaping tray of rice, a roast chicken covered with a fesenjun sauce of pomegranate juice, walnuts and cardamom, and a dolme bademjun of eggplant stuffed with meat and raisins. It was the best meal Karim had eaten