PART ONE
Three Days in June
While there was intense attention to the June 12 presidential election and its potential impact on Iran’s internal balance of power and foreign policy, no serious analyst or scholar predicted the series of events that has transpired in the wake of that ballot.
—Suzanne Maloney, Iran Expert at the Brookings Institute,
June 26, 2009
CHAPTER 1
Thursday, June 25, 2009—thirteen days after the election
Baton-wielding riot police in thigh-length black leg guards swarmed from the shuttered Interior Ministry in the early hours of June 13. They went to work beating people.
—Roger Cohen, “Iran: The Tragedy & the Future”1
Sarah was bored at her own wedding.
The blind mullah apparently couldn’t pass up an opportunity to lecture a captive audience on an obscure topic nobody cared about. He’d been flown into Tehran at great expense, ostensibly due to the prestigious nature of his association with the Imam Reza shrine, Iran’s most important pilgrimage site and also, Iranians were fond of noting, the largest mosque in the world. But what Sarah cared about most was the man’s blindness, which meant that as soon as the sigheh marriage contract was finalized, she could immediately remove the slippery satin bridal chador that covered her like a white cocoon from which only her face was visible. Sarah was eager to stand before Ali uncovered for the first time so he could admire the way her thick black ringlets grazed her bare shoulders and be even prouder of the wife he’d fought for. If the mullah took much longer before getting to the sigheh, Sarah’s ringlets were going to go flat and frizzy and the four hours spent doing hair and makeup that morning with one of Tehran’s most sought-after beauticians would have been entirely wasted.
As the blind mullah rambled on about a happy family life, which could be preserved by taking care to enter various rooms with the right or left foot—bathrooms with the left, bedrooms with the right—Sarah admired the exquisite sofreh aghd wedding spread laid out on the floor before her and Ali like an ornate picnic blanket. There were the Swarovski candlesticks and a rhinestone-encrusted Venetian mirror her mother had purchased for her on a trip to Austria back when Sarah was still a toddler. A Quran on a hand-carved wooden rehal was open to Chapter 30, Verse 21, about the love between spouses being another sign of God’s mercy. There was a bowl of honey for when Ali and Sarah would use their pinkies to feed each other a small taste of what would hopefully be a life full of sweetness. The rest of the spread was filled with decorated candies, eggs, nuts, herbs, gold coins and other symbols of piety, fertility, and prosperity.
All the female relatives from Ali and Sarah’s families had left their tables and were crowded around the sofreh in a semicircle with Sarah, Ali, and the mullah seated on a raised platform at one end. Sarah recognized some of the women from their shoes. She wished she could look at everyone and enjoy their congratulatory and admiring glances or even a few teasing eye rolls. But she knew Aunt Mehri, the family matriarch, wouldn’t approve, and Sarah wanted to be particularly respectful of the old woman’s feelings today. Best to stick to the role of the dutiful, shy bride with her head firmly bowed.
“So now we come to the marriage contract,” the mullah said.
Finally, thought Sarah.
“In Islam, of course, there is no compulsion in marriage just as there is no compulsion in religion. See how advanced Islam was at a time when little girls were being buried in the desert? The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, was the first person to recognize the rights of . . .”
The mullah launched into yet another lecture. Was there no way to stop the man? Sarah was sure her father would have prodded him to finish thirty minutes ago. Baba had no patience for grandstanding. But Maman-joon was too timid to ever consider interrupting anyone, let alone a respected mullah. And Aunt Mehri, who might have stepped in under normal circumstances, had washed her hands of the whole affair.
They were lucky she’d even agreed to attend the wedding.
“So now it is time to ask this young lady if she will give me permission to perform this marriage to enter her into a marriage contract with—”
“Yes!” Sarah exclaimed, cutting the mullah off before he even finished asking the question. Sarah was determined to move things along, and she hoped the mullah would get the hint.
There was a beat of silence. What was the mullah waiting for, Sarah wondered. Why didn’t he get on with asking Ali to accept as well?
Then Sarah heard a sound that started off as a cough but turned into laughter that spread across the group of women gathered around the bridal spread. Sarah realized that she’d answered the mullah much too soon. In this part of the ceremony, the bride wasn’t supposed to answer the first or even second request to marry, let alone cut him off before he’d completed the question. Sarah should have remained silent, playing hard-to-get, as the female wedding guests answered the mullah in a traditional singsong chant that the bride was out picking flowers, Aroos rafte gol bechine. Then the mullah would have to try again, three times, before she finally consented.
Sarah’s cheeks grew warm at her too-quick response. How embarrassing!
Yet even as her cheeks burned, Sarah wished once again that she could lift her head and join in the laughter herself. After the mullah’s long sermons the ladies needed some entertainment, and Sarah didn’t mind providing it, even at her own expense.
Had Ali been amused as well? Provoking his amusement had become one of Sarah’s chief goals and unexpected pleasures during the few months they’d been engaged. The first time she’d accomplished the feat had been entirely unintended. In their only private moment during the traditional first meeting of khastegari courtship. Sarah had primly announced that she had no intention of marrying Ali or anyone else and that she’d only agreed to meet him because of her parents’ pressure and Aunt Mehri’s insistence that he was a good match from a good family. It was Ali’s surprised chuckle and friendly encouragement that she should pursue what she wanted independent of her family’s wishes that made her notice his honey-colored eyes for the first time.
Straining her eyes to the left as far as they’d go with her head still down and constricted by her chador, Sarah could just see Ali’s profile in her peripheral vision. Ah, there it was—his clean-shaven cheeks, so unlike those of men in her own family in the way they revealed every facial expression, had a slight fold that meant he was definitely smiling.
Sarah felt a rush of love, joy, and pride. She would gladly endure much worse embarrassment to amuse her sweet, stubborn Ali, who had wanted her, and only her, so much he refused to let Sarah go, even when the whole mess of the election brought their families’ political differences to light. Sarah wished she could look directly at him and admire how handsome he was in the Brioni suit her father had purchased for him in Italy. The suit’s light-olive color made Ali’s honey eyes look almost green, and its tailored design narrowed his oddly thick neck so that, if not quite elegant, at least it didn’t look wider than his head.