When Daniel awoke, his body was shaking. Beneath him, the floor was shaking, too. How could he still be so drunk? Or was this an especially horrific hangover?
The windows began to tremble. The wedding photo on his desk tipped over, its glass cracking. It wasn’t him, then. The world was shuddering. Daniel struggled to rise. His stomach tightened, and he spewed hot bitter liquid everywhere. Outside, men were shouting. These were not the chaotic shouts of the mad but the precise, self-assured shouts of people who worked for the law.
“More to the left! Stop there. You! Do you hear me? There!”
What was happening? Crawling on his hands and knees, Daniel went to the window and peered over the ledge. He tried to make sense of the scene below. The traffic circle and the road were overrun with uniforms. There had to be thirty men out there. This was no ordinary parade of military might. What had happened while he’d slept? Jeeps were parked along the circle, their engines running. He could hear the eager voices of obedient young men asking questions, ready for a fight. Excited. Daniel knew now why the earth was shaking. A column of tanks was moving toward the circle. He reflexively put a hand on his chest as if feeling his heartbeat would prove this was real.
He saw men and women stalking and running away from the scene, disappearing into nearby streets. But others simply stood on the sidelines, staring. Two soldiers were arranging the installation of signs and barricades around the area as the tanks came closer. Others brandished machine guns, which they aimed at the Ministry of Finance. Their medals and stripes shone in the sun. So did the emblem on their chests. They were close enough that Daniel could read the word at the center of the red logo: kalq. The more radical of the two main Communist factions was now shouting orders outside his building, no longer marching in the street or waving flags in front of a nightclub. They were here. Armed, organized, and with intent. Above the name was the gold star. He pictured agha with his cane, alone at home, unable to flee. They wouldn’t harm an old man with a bad leg—surely they wouldn’t. His stomach twisted, squeezing out more liquid. Fighting to catch his breath, he backed away from the window. When the room stopped trembling, his terror deepened. It meant the tanks had come to a stop. There were more shouts, more loyal men obeying orders.
Hugging his knees, Daniel lowered his head, willing his mind to work. He crawled to his desk and pulled the phone to the floor. He lifted the receiver. Nothing. They had cut the lines. He switched on the radio. Nothing. That was when he realized that they had taken control of the radio signal yesterday afternoon, shutting it off throughout the city. He got to his feet and left his office, but it was as empty as he’d thought. Everyone had gone home.
He didn’t have to hunker here alone. There were civilians in the street whom the Kalq seemed to be ignoring. And Daniel had diplomatic immunity. He tore off his soiled shirt and took a clean one from his desk drawer. He rummaged for his wallet and took out his diplomat’s ID. He found a satchel in Iggy’s office, dumped its contents, and stuffed it with every document he could find about Fever Valley. He left everything else behind, wondering if he would see any of it again. His broken wedding photo remained facedown on the desk. His intoxication was rapidly turning into a hangover, stabbing at his eyes and the back of his head. In the bathroom, he washed his face. The cold water stung. He walked slowly down the stairs and exited the building into an alley, where his car was parked.
It was a beautiful day. The springtime air was soft and cool, and the sky was the color people meant when they said “sky blue.” Not far, a shepherd coaxed his fluffy flock away from the men with the guns and tanks. The world of pastels made the garish red and gold of the Kalq uniforms uglier, the jagged violence of men tearing apart the contours of the gentle day nature had made. A few of the soldiers were smoking, leaning against their trucks, but others were now watching a huddle of urchins who had emerged from the alleys. A boy walked boldly toward one of the tanks and clambered aboard. A soldier nonchalantly lifted him off and told him to scram, but other children came now. “Coins?” said a little girl, her hand outstretched. The soldier slapped her fingers, sending her running.
Daniel’s eyes were on Imran. The street sweeper had just come into view from behind the Ministry of Finance. He held his broom tightly to his chest as he made his way toward the circle. He tried to talk with a soldier who was visibly bald under his cap. The man in uniform grew angry, shouting, “Go sweep somewhere else.”
“No,” Imran said, tapping the ground with his broom handle. “Please, saheb. I count a certain number of strokes for each block, and I have to start here or I lose count.”
When the soldier shot Imran in the leg, he crumpled like a cartoon character, falling to the ground in a sequence of sharp movements that made his killer laugh. A short, redheaded soldier threw open the doors of an unmarked van, dragging one of the urchins inside. His comrades helped, herding the kids into the van, lifting the smaller ones and manhandling the taller teens, who protested loudly. He promised the children they wouldn’t be harmed, that he was taking them somewhere better. He didn’t know that the innate wisdom of children about the untrustworthiness of adults was magnified a thousandfold in those who’d grown up in alleys. Fighting with all they had, the urchins called the man a liar and pounded their abductors with their fists. Daniel got into his car, put it in reverse, and drove backward, aiming directly for the circle. The soldiers dispersed. Guns were raised and safeties released.
Are you going to run them over? Telaya asked as gunmetal flashed in the mirrors of her dress.
“Stop!” the soldiers shouted as Daniel drove toward them.
He stopped. The bald soldier who’d shot Imran tapped on the car door with his gun and ordered him out. Daniel tried to look surprised as he stepped into the road with his hands up, diplomatic ID clutched between his fingers. The man examined his credentials and jabbed him in the stomach with his rifle.
“What do you think you’re doing, Mr. Abdullah Sajadi?”
Soldiers corralled more children into the van. A boy biting his captor’s wrist earned a slap across the face. He didn’t cry, nor did he stop fighting.
“I was just leaving work, listening to a tape with headphones on. I didn’t realize what was happening here.”
“Headphones?” The redheaded soldier, who had ambled over, sounded more jealous than skeptical.
His bald colleague spoke. “Let me explain something to you, Mr. Abdullah Sajadi.” He wagged a finger inches from Daniel’s eyes. “If you do not go directly home—though you must stop at every checkpoint—and if you make any detours or disobey my orders, your immunity will be revoked.”
Daniel promised to comply. He desperately wanted to gather some of the kids who were fleeing down the alley and get them into his car before they were caught. As he spoke, the earth shook again, a sudden, terrible tremor, and billows of smoke rose in the distance.
“Go home now,” the man said. “And be careful. I cannot promise my comrades will take the same magnanimous view of you.” Before he walked off, he said one last thing. “You know how children play that game where you look at something with your left eye closed, then you switch, and it seems like the thing you’re looking at has moved? It’s an optical illusion. The object doesn’t actually move.” He tapped Daniel’s chest with his gun. “You are that object.” He closed his right eye, then his left. “If I look at you through my left eye, you are the worst of the old regime, the smug and complacent who deserve to die. But when I look at you through my right eye, I see a member of the American government, protected by diplomatic immunity, and maybe a man who deserves to live. I choose my right eye for now.” He walked away backward. “We are not savages, after all.”
Daniel nosed the car down the street and pushed open the back door, calling to a knot of urchins who had taken refuge in a stairwell. There was nowhere else to go. Soldiers’ footsteps rang in the background, boots coming closer.
“Get in,” Daniel said. “I’m a friend.”
Most of the children scattered, but two jumped into the moving car, a girl and a boy who tried to pull the door shut. A soldier was upon them in seconds, and the boy tumbled to the pavement. It was too late for him. Daniel picked up speed and told the girl to duck. She curled herself into a ball on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said.
“Just drive faster,” she replied.
Daniel wanted to switch on the radio, wondering what the insurgents were broadcasting, but he didn’t want to frighten the girl. As he drove through the city, soldiers were everywhere, barricading roads, setting up checkpoints, ordering civilians to go this way or that. They pushed some into military jeeps.
“Stay down low,” Daniel said. “Do you understand?”
She made a face. “Just because I don’t have nice clothes doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” She wore a ragged ensemble of a mismatched top and bottom. The pants were too short, leaving her ankles bare.
A whistling sound made him look up. Fighter jets were in formation. At a manned intersection, a soldier signaled for him to stop, leaned into the window, glanced at his ID, and waved him through. Laila’s apartment was close, and just now he wanted more than anything to see her. He parked out front. Like most houses, hers had no street-facing windows. He knocked quietly first, then louder. No one answered. As he came back to the car, he saw the little girl running away, vanishing into a maze of alleys no car could enter.
He drove slowly. Soldiers were telling beggars to move. He passed the man without arms. A soldier barely out of his teens struck him with the butt of his rifle and told him to find another place to sit, but the old man cowered and shouted, “I am full of broken glass, I cannot move! I will cut you if you break me!” The soldier left him alone.
Daniel made it home. His hands were hot, the wheel wet with his sweat. Footsteps rushed toward him in the foyer. He expected to see Firooz or Ahmad. It was Peter. His eyes looked like they hadn’t been shut in days. He was holding up a transistor radio. He’d found Voice of America on shortwave, a reporter breaking through the static. Daniel had never been so glad to see him. They embraced.
“Where’s Laila?” Daniel said. “Are the phones working yet?”
“I don’t know.” Peter fixed a bloodshot gaze on him. “And no, the phones aren’t working.”