The Twelfth Imam (9 page)

17

Gouin Reservoir, Quebec, Canada

It was Monday morning, and they had just one day left.

The glorious aroma of strong, black coffee and thick Canadian bacon lured David from his slumber. He put on his glasses, stepped out of his cabin into the brisk fall morning, and inhaled the smoke drifting his way. He looked around the campsite but saw no one, save Marseille. Wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt with pink lettering that read
Jersey Girl
, she stood over the fire, scrambling some eggs.

“Hungry?” she asked.

“Famished,” he said. “Where is everyone?”

“The First Church of the Walleye.”

“They’re fishing already?”

“It’s almost ten.”

David couldn’t believe it. He rubbed dirt off the face of his watch. She was right. He must have been more tired than he’d realized. The day before, David had spent another day with his dad, this time going farther up a river they’d found and discovering a small lake full of pike. They had caught far more than they could possibly eat, thrown most of them back, and broiled the rest over the fire for dinner.

“How come you didn’t go fishing?” David asked.

Marseille laughed. “I needed my beauty sleep.”

David doubted that but said nothing as she served him runny eggs and burnt bacon on a cold tin plate.

“Hope you like ’em,” she said, turning back to the fire to pour him some coffee.

David choked down the food and a cup of coffee so bitter he had to add four cubes of sugar to it. Cooking evidently was not one of Marseille’s strengths. When she suggested they hike back to the A-frame they had made their own, David readily agreed. He gratefully set down the mug, helped her douse the fire, and led her into the woods.

“My dad says your mom is the best cook in the world,” Marseille said as they began.

“Really?” David said, genuinely surprised.

“Apparently your mom makes some kind of Persian stew that is out of this world,” Marseille continued. “My mom has tried to make it I don’t know how many times. It’s horrible.”

“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” David said.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Marseille said. “She’s a great mom. The best. And she’s brilliant. My dream is to become a smidgen as smart and successful as she is. But cooking is not exactly one of her gifts. Let’s just say, we eat out a lot.”

“Really?” David said, restraining a smile.
Like mother, like daughter.
“So what else do your parents say about my parents?”

Marseille shrugged. “What do you mean?”

“Well, they went through quite an ordeal together,” David said. “They must have told you some interesting stories—maybe some I can use to, you know, blackmail my folks next time I want something good.”

David expected her to laugh. Instead, Marseille suddenly grew quiet. Her smile faded. “I wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

David was confused.

“What just happened? Did I miss something here?”

“Really, it’s nothing.”

“Marseille, I can see I’ve offended you. I just don’t know how.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause, and then she said, “It’s just that . . . my parents don’t talk about their time in Iran . . .
ever
.”

“Why not?” David asked as they came over a ridge and spotted the old cabin.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you must have a guess.”

“Maybe it was just too painful.”

“I don’t understand. What was so painful? They were only there for a few months, and they were heroes.”

“That’s not how they see it.”

“Why not?”

“You’d have to ask them, David. I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you,” David said.

“You’re calling me a liar?”

“No, I’m just . . .” David didn’t finish the sentence. There wasn’t any point.

They were silent until they got to the cabin and flopped on their chairs, side by side.

“Do you know the story?” Marseille finally asked.

“What story?”

“You know, how our parents escaped.”

“From Iran?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course—don’t you?” David asked.

Marseille shook her head, then turned and looked him in the eyes. “I’ve stopped asking,” she explained. “I asked them for years, but they always changed the subject.” There was another long pause, and then she said, “It’s not fair. It’s a part of my life, too, not just theirs. It’s part of who we are as a family. Don’t I have a right to know?”

David was moved by her desire to figure out a piece of the puzzle of her family’s past. At the same time, he felt deeply uncomfortable. He couldn’t imagine why the Harpers weren’t proud of what they had done. Their story was amazing. It was certainly worth sharing with their only child. But if—for whatever reason—they didn’t want to tell her what had happened, was it really his place to do so?

He looked into her eyes and saw pain he hadn’t seen before. “That’s really between you and your parents.”

She took his hand, pulling him toward her, to the edge of his chair. “I can’t talk to them,” she said. “Not about this. Not about Iran.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just can’t.” Then she whispered, “Please, David, tell me the story.”

He said nothing but felt strangely electrified to be so close to her.

“Please,” she whispered. “It would really mean the world to me.”

David swallowed hard. He didn’t trust himself alone with her just then. A storm of emotions was erupting inside him. He needed space—a walk, a swim, some kind of change of pace and setting.

“I can’t, Marseille,” he said. “I wish I could. But it’s not my place.”

There was a long, painful silence.

“Fine,” she said, letting go of him and looking away. “Never mind.”

“Marseille, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be hurtful to you; it’s just—”

“Forget it. It’s no big deal.”

He reached for her hand again, but she drew it away. He was hoping desperately that the chemistry in the room would change back. But it did not.

18

For the rest of Monday, Marseille was distant and aloof.

She spent most of her time alone, while David hung out with his father.

That evening as the sun began to set over the glassy waters, David looked up from a book to see Mike Calveto, one of Saeed’s friends, sidling up to Marseille as she was standing by the shore. David couldn’t hear what Mike said, but he saw him try to grab her from behind and kiss her on the ear. What was he doing? Was he crazy? Marseille looked shocked and a little scared. David was on his feet instantly, sprinting to her side. Mike was embarrassed by the rebuff but tried to laugh it off. No one else saw the incident, and none of them wanted to escalate the matter by getting their fathers involved. But when Mike finally went his way, Marseille asked David to stay with her.

“You’re not mad at me anymore?” David asked.

“I am still mad at you, but I don’t have any choice,” she replied. “At least you’re trying to be a gentleman.”

When it was clear that they were alone, she slipped her arm through his and they began to walk. Her touch was intoxicating.

“He means well,” David sputtered.

“No, he doesn’t,” Marseille said.

David thought about that, then conceded, “No, you’re right. He doesn’t.” At least the friction between them seemed to have disappeared.

They walked to the end of the dock, dangled their feet over the edge, and talked until after sundown.

It was nearly dark when they heard Marseille’s father calling them for supper. Reluctantly, they stood and turned to head back toward the camp. Abruptly Marseille leaned forward and kissed him. It lasted only a moment, but it was a first for David, and for the rest of the evening he could still feel her soft lips on his and the warmth of her body nestled up against his own.

“Rise and shine, buddy.”

David heard his father’s kind voice and felt his father’s hands gently shaking him awake. But it was early. Way too early—and still dark and cold. A quick glance at his watch told David it was barely six in the morning. He rolled over in his sleeping bag and put his pillow over his head.

“Just let me sleep,” he moaned.

“Sorry, young man,” his father replied, “but we’ve got to pack up, break camp, and get moving so we’re ready before the planes get here.”

Two hours later, they were ready.

The cabins had been swept. The dishes had been cleaned. The sleeping bags had been rolled up. The fire had been covered with sand. They were all down by the dock, bags packed, awaiting the floatplanes. There had been little talking. Most were too groggy for that. But when they were sure no one was looking, David and Marseille would occasionally steal a glance at one another and smile, savoring their moment on the dock the night before.

And yet, a sadness was beginning to creep into David’s spirit. It was born of the sudden realization that their time together over the past four days was destined to burn away forever like the fog as the sun came up. He lived in Syracuse. She lived in Spring Lake, a little town on the Jersey Shore, hundreds of miles away. Neither of them could drive. How, then, could they date? These, David realized, were likely to be their last minutes together for quite some time.

The still, brisk midmorning air was quiet. Too quiet. The planes should have been there by now. David looked at his watch again—10:15. He couldn’t believe how quickly time was slipping away from them. This wasn’t good. Their train would be pulling out of Clova at 11:20. But where were the floatplanes?

The dads were growing anxious. There was a low hum about the camp as the murmuring against Larry McKenzie and his fellow pilots grew. David’s father, he remembered, had to perform an open-heart surgery at ten in the morning the following day. But if they missed the train to Montreal, they’d never make their flight to Philadelphia or their connection to Syracuse.

Finally one of the fathers asked what everyone else was thinking. “So if we miss this train, when’s the next one?”

“I don’t know,” another father confessed. “We’ve been doing this for, what, six years, and we’ve never missed the train yet.”

All eyes turned to Dr. Shirazi.

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” he insisted.

“Absolutely,” Charlie Harper chimed in.

“But what if it’s not?” one of the dads asked. “What if McKenzie doesn’t show in the next two minutes? What then?”

“I’m sure they’ll be here any second,” Dr. Shirazi insisted as David strained to see any sign of the de Havillands on the horizon. But there were none to be found.

David whispered to his father, “Dad, when
is
the next train?”

His father said nothing. Several minutes went by. David wondered if his father had actually heard him, but David saw his clenched jaw and knew that he had.

Then his father whispered back, “Thursday.”

19

“Thursday?”

David hadn’t meant to say it so loud—or at all. It had been an involuntary reaction, and the flash of anger in his father’s eyes didn’t help any.

“Tell me he’s kidding,” one of the fathers insisted.

“I’m afraid he’s not,” Dr. Shirazi conceded.

“Thursday?” another demanded, cursing. “How is that possible? I’ve got patients waiting for me. I can’t be here until Thursday!”

Panic and anger were a volatile cocktail, and these men swallowed it whole. The fathers gathered around Dr. Shirazi, all angrily explaining their highly important and finely crafted schedules to him—as though there was anything he could do. David shrank back from the group. He felt terrible for his father. It wasn’t his fault. It was McKenzie’s.

Where were the pilots? How could they just strand them all there? Was it engine trouble? Why didn’t they send other planes? And what exactly were they supposed to do? They had no cell phone coverage up here, no radios, no satellite phone. They had no way to contact civilization at all.

Most of the men—with the exception of Charlie Harper—were now threatening to sue McKenzie Air Expeditions for every red Canadian cent they had. “We’re going to own that company!” one of them vowed.

But the threats did little good. As the hours passed, there were still no floatplanes. By two that afternoon, everyone was not only anxious but hungry as well. They were sick of fish by now, and there wasn’t a lot of extra food. They snacked on leftover candy bars and some unfinished bags of gorp and tried to figure out what to do. Should they just sit tight and keep waiting or unpack and set up their camp again?

For the rest of the day, they hung out together, playing hearts, reading novels, or trying to nap and forget their troubles. But when the sun began to set and the temperature began to drop and still no floatplanes had come, they realized they had no choice. The men and older boys unpacked again, and David and Marseille were sent out to gather more firewood.

“What do you think is going to happen, David?” Marseille asked as they headed back into the woods.

“It’ll be okay,” David reassured her. “Old Man McKenzie will come for us.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“He will.”

“Then why hasn’t he?”

David stopped, turned to her, took her hands. “We paid a lot of money for this trip. McKenzie has every incentive to make us happy. There’s just some mechanical problem or something. But he’ll be here.”

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“I promise.”

Thunder began to rumble and boom above them. Confident they were alone, David stepped close to Marseille and put his arms around her small frame. She stepped in closer and held him tight. Suddenly they were kissing again, and for those few moments, all other thoughts melted away. Despite the chill, he felt warm all over. He wondered if she could feel his heart pounding so intensely. And then it began to pour.

Wednesday passed, and still no planes.

The rain didn’t stop. The card games inside the damp cabins were getting old fast. It was now Thursday, still gray and growing colder, and no planes. For most, anger had turned to fear. They were stranded in the middle of nowhere. Their provisions were nearly gone. The men debated whether they should use the fishing boats to try to find help, but the truth was, they were hundreds of miles from the nearest human being. They had no maps. They had no compasses. They had little fuel, and the thought of running out of diesel somewhere on the reservoir finally ruled out that possibility.

Everyone was on edge, and David could tell his dad was feeling worse by the hour. How had they misjudged McKenzie’s ability to fulfill his obligations so badly? What could possibly be keeping him? In six years, nothing like this had ever happened. Surely their wives and secretaries would be calling the outfitter’s offices in Clova or the police or someone. Send in the Mounties for goodness’ sake!

But for David and Marseille, the days were a gift. They brought their blankets, music, and books to the A-frame and let go of the rest of the world. They covered every imaginable topic, amazed that their conversations never seemed to become tired.

“Do you believe in God?” Marseille asked at one point.

“I don’t know,” he said. No one had ever asked him that before.

“Aren’t you a Muslim?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Okay, yeah, I’m a Muslim—a Shia, actually.”

“A what?”

“That’s a kind of Muslim,” he explained. “The kind from Iran.”

“So you believe in God,” she clarified.

“I don’t know what I believe,” David admitted.

“Why not?”

“Because my father’s an atheist,” he explained, “and my mom’s an agnostic.”

“Aren’t they Muslims too?”

“Technically,” David said. “But after all they saw during the Revolution, they decided Islam couldn’t be true.”

“Why not?”

“They didn’t know how to believe in a god who would command people to kill and maim and torture so many innocent people.”

Marseille said nothing for several long minutes. Then she asked, “What do you think about Jesus?”

David shrugged. “I believe he existed. Muslims say he was a prophet. But I don’t know.”

“Do you believe if we pray, God will answer us and get us out of here?”

He shrugged and said he didn’t know, but he didn’t think so.

“It couldn’t hurt, though, could it?” she asked.

“Praying?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“I guess not,” he said, unconvinced.

But she didn’t pray. Instead, she lay down on the bed and stared out the window. Within a few minutes, she was sleeping. David covered her with a blanket to keep her warm. He lay down beside her and slept too.

Several hours later, David woke up. Marseille turned over and faced him. Her eyes held a sudden purpose as she stared into his, and her request was irresistible.

“David, I need you to tell me the story of our parents,” she whispered. “Please. Don’t say no.”

He couldn’t refuse her now.

So with mesmerizing detail, he explained how Marseille’s mother had vetoed at least three plans the CIA and the State Department had drawn up, schemes—in her view—ranging from impracticable to suicidal. Then he explained how Marseille’s father had devised the plan that was finally accepted and executed. The Harpers, the Shirazis, and the other American FSOs would be given false Canadian passports. This, however, would take a special, secret act of the parliament in Ottawa, since the use of false passports for espionage was expressly forbidden by Canadian law. They would also be given false papers that identified them as film producers from Toronto working on a new big-budget motion picture titled
Argo
, set in the Middle East, in conjunction with a major Hollywood studio. Their cover story would be that they were in Iran scouting locations. The CIA would set up a front company in Los Angeles called Studio Six, complete with fully operational offices, working phone lines, and notices in the trade papers announcing casting calls and other elements of preproduction. The Americans and the Shirazis would then further develop and refine all the details of their cover stories, commit them to memory, and rehearse them continually. Eventually, the CIA would send in an operative named Jack Zalinsky to go over the final details and to see if they were ready for any interrogation they might encounter. When the time was right, Zalinsky would take the team to the airport and try to get them through passport control without getting caught—and hanged.

“You’re saying my father came up with this idea?” Marseille asked when David was finished.

“Actually, your mom helped quite a bit,” David replied.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she protested. “How would my parents even know . . . ?”

Her voice trailed off. The wind rustled through the pines. Once again, dark clouds were gathering overhead. Another storm front seemed to be brewing, and it was getting colder. David glanced at his watch. They needed to get back to the camp before people got worried about them.

But Marseille urged him not to leave. “Just a few minutes more,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it gently. “I want to know the rest of the story.”

“Marseille, it’s getting late.”

“I’ll make it worth your while,” she smiled.

“How?”

She reached into her knapsack and pulled out a box of Junior Mints.

“I can’t believe you have any left,” David said.

“This is the last one.”

“And you’re actually going to share them with me?”

“Only if you finish the story.”

David’s stomach growled. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse, so he didn’t.

“Okay, now we’re talking,” he said, as one of the mints melted on his tongue. “D-day was set for January 28, 1980. There were a bunch of regional elections going on. Ayatollah Khomeini’s people were trying to maintain control. The secret police had their hands full murdering dissidents and killing the opposition, so this Zalinsky guy believed they might have a window where the police might be distracted somewhat. It was a long shot, but it was the best they could do. So Zalinsky got the team to the main airport in Tehran. They were going through passport control, and my parents were absolutely terrified. Your parents were cool as cucumbers, but my parents—not so much. They don’t exactly look Canadian, after all, and they were never convinced your parents’ plan was going to work. But your father and Mr. Zalinsky kept insisting that if the tickets and passports said they were Canadians, then the guards at the airport would accept it. And they did.”

“That’s amazing,” Marseille said.

“So before Khomeini’s thugs knew what was happening, your parents, mine, and the others were taking their seats on board Swissair flight 363, heading for Toronto via Geneva. As soon as they cleared out of Iranian airspace, Mr. Zalinsky ordered champagne for the whole team.”

“But my parents don’t drink,” Marseille said.

“Neither do mine!” David said. “But believe me, they did that day. From what I hear, they finished off two bottles while Mr. Zalinsky toasted them and asked what they were going to do with their newfound freedom.”

“And?” Marseille pressed, hanging on every word. “What did they say?”

“Well,” David said, “your folks said they were going to work for the State Department for a few more years, move to New Jersey, and buy a little house near the beach. Your dad said he wanted to teach. Your mom said she wanted to work in the city and make a boatload of money. And that’s just what they did, right?”

Marseille nodded, her eyes misting. “What did your parents want?” she asked.

“They just had one question,” David said.

“What’s that?”

“When they finally got to America, would they really be let in?”

Just as he said it, the alarm on David’s watch went off.

“It’s almost time for dinner,” he said, turning the alarm off. “We really need to get back.”

But Marseille wasn’t hungry for dinner. She squeezed his hand and pulled him closer. She stared deep into his eyes with a look of gratitude and desire, which he returned with equal intensity. She kissed him with a passion unlike anything he had ever imagined. She kissed him on the neck and the lips and wouldn’t stop. She was holding him tighter and gasping for air, and David felt himself losing control. He knew where they were going was wrong, but he couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to stop.

He felt intoxicated by her presence and her touch, and the room began to spin. Ignoring all of his cautions, all of his fears, and everything he’d been brought up to believe, he willingly, eagerly let Marseille take him from one world into another, savoring every moment along the way.