dissident to leftist. “Wasn’t he your good friend?” Colonel asked while pondering what card to play.
WAS, Ahmad mouthed.
“It’s an art, finding the right friend,” The colonel fingered a card, decided against it. “The true buddy.” He slapped a card on the table. “Anyway, if you ever feel like seeing him, they just transferred a bunch to the general section. He could be there.”
Ahmad was not certain whether this was a trap. Back in Tehran he went to Sara’s house and rang the bell. Her husband opened the door with a smile that was replaced instantly by a look of disgust. The untested but known fact that Ahmad was the father of Ameer, the boy Salar had raised and loved, his boy, had eaten his soul for years. Again Salar forwent the formalities and did not invite Ahmad in. He left the door open and went inside.
Sara came to the door in a skirt and blouse, a forty-year-old woman, with forty-year-old creases in the corners of her eyes, who did not seem very excited to see her visitor. Ahmad wrote the news about Salman on his notepad and handed it to Sara. Sara’s eyes opened wide, then she quickly regained composure. “Why would they want to trap you?” she asked as if suddenly doubting the veracity of Ahmad’s words. The regime had been after the leftists for years, had not stopped hunting, arresting, and imprisoning them even during what they called leniency. They would try to wring more names out of anyone. Ahmad had been a political poet and had run for the parliament backed by a group not known for their conservatism. He asked her not to go to the prison yet.
Sara read the note and looked at Ahmad. Packed with more snow, dark clouds were coming from the western skies to replace the lighter ones. “You are a selfish man, deluded in your ambitions,” she said, “and I don’t know why I’ve always loved you.” The confession was so abrupt that it took Ahmad a few moments to deliberate on what he had heard. “See, and you never knew that, because nobody else ever matters to you.” Halfheartedly, Ahmad started to shake his head, but Sara ignored him: “But the real news is that you loved me and you didn’t even know it.” Now Ahmad was shaking his head to categorically deny. “No, this is exactly what I’m talking about. When you come to give news about Salman, you make it all about yourself. We can’t go look for that poor boy because everything is about you.” Not giving Ahmad much time to reply, Sara promised him not to make an inquiry for some time and said goodbye. But once she was back inside, the mere thought of seeing her brother again was strong enough for her to immediately break her promise. She asked Ameer to take her to the prison.
The notorious Evin Prison had been built a few years earlier in the north of the city, far from any existing building. No one came out of it without having confessed whatever it was he had to confess. Sara waited outside as the heavy metal gate cracked for Ameer to go in. A chilly wind swept the dry snow like sand and fluttered the tail of Sara’s scarf. Sara went back and sat in the car. Soon the gate opened again and Ameer stepped out. Salman was not there; they had to go to the Palace Prison. Once a Qajar king’s dwelling, the Palace Prison was within Tehran and there they found Salman. But, not being an immediate family member, Ameer came back to his mother without having seen him. The snow kept coming down. That was it for Sara. She got out of the car and went in herself.
In the face of the man sitting on the other side of the glass Sara looked for familiar features, but the only thing she found was the wonder in his tired eyes, the disbelief at what he was seeing before him. She had never seen Salman so thin. His cheeks and eyes had sunken into his pale face, his bulging veins snaked up his bony hand. To Sara’s questions Salman answered, with an overzealous optimism, that everything was fine. He had been transferred only a week before and there were no problems here. He played volleyball in the yard with new friends and he hoped to be released in the near future. The din of visitors and inmates on both