City of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

and tortured. Pictures of bodies hanging from cranes, lashed backs and prisoners with lifeless eyes flashed up on an overhead projector. Nearly all the victims were members of the Group. Dariush was outraged.
    Afterwards, they sat around tables eating
zereshk polo ba morgh
, barberry rice and chicken, chatting about their children and their jobs. It was more like the gathering of a town council than a rebel group. Dariush was astonished by the ordinariness of it all. Arezou was warm and open, unlike how she was in public. She was the happiest he had seen her.
    The meetings became a regular part of Dariush’s life. He found himself increasingly maddened by the atrocities meted out by the Islamic Republic towards members.
Baradar
Fereydoon singled out Dariush for special attention, spending time with him. He began confiding in him, explaining that the reason he walked with a limp was from an injury during a secret operation that had killed his comrade, now a war martyr. He entrusted Dariush with nuggets of top-level information and spoke of the Group’s spies on the inside, MEK members who had infiltrated the government and who were even working on nuclear sites. Soon Dariush was spending hours a day listening to taped messages from the leaders. It was impossible not to believe what they said. He fundraised for the Group and learnt about its main base in Camp Ashraf, where he hoped to be sent. The situation in his mother country was an emergency, and he had to act. Dariush began parroting
Baradar
Fereydoon’s lines: ‘Our people love us, they are waiting to be saved from hell.’
    BANG. It sounded like a bomb. Dariush instinctively dived under his bed. BANG BANG BANG. BOOM. Now he could hear whizzing. He had heard the sounds of all sorts of artillery during training but these were not noises he recognized. Then there was screaming, and what sounded like laughing. As he crept towards the window, he saw an explosion of white sparkles glittering in the sky like a flower. He had forgotten it was
chaharshanbeh souri
, the fire festival.
    The Group had sent him during
norooz
, New Year, which in Iran coincides with the first day of spring. The Group had said it was good cover, as it was when exiles returned to visit family. Dariush would just have to bide his time for a while. He read books that Kian had brought round for him, including one of his favourites,
Marxism and Other Western Fallacies: An Islamic Critique
by Ali Shariati.
    He took a walk. Hundreds of kids were in the streets, jumping over bonfires they had made in the middle of the road, chanting an ancient Zoroastrian mantra to burn away bad luck and ill health. Packs of boys and girls were playing chase, sparklers in their hands. On Vali Asr firecrackers hurtled up and down the road. The cars were at a standstill, music blasting, people hanging out of the windows. The government had tried to ban
chaharshanbeh souri
; it was a pagan remnant of Zoroastrianism and the regime had declared it un-Islamic. But
norooz
and all that came with it was as culturally important to Iranians as the Islamic festivals; try as the government might, this was one battle they could not win. He stared at the people in wonder, surprised they could be enjoying themselves under the circumstances. He could not understand why there were so many discrepancies between what the Group had been telling them and what was happening in the country. But it was still possible to read the situation through the Group’s prism: these kids were brave, for they were demonstrating audacious disobedience. He watched a group of teenagers down a side street start dancing and clapping; a few were on car bonnets singing and hip-swinging; one of the girls even whipped off her headscarf and waved it in the air as the crowd around her shrieked in appreciation. Dariush realized he was witnessing a mass act of rebellion.
    When Dariush was especially chosen for the mission, Arezou said she had never felt so proud. Senior