A Bitter Veil Read online

  A Bitter Veil

  Libby Fischer Hellmann

  ALLIUM PRESS OF CHICAGO

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Also by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Copyright Page

  PART ONE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  PART TWO

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  PART THREE

  Thirty-nine

  Forty

  Forty-one

  Forty-two

  Forty-three

  Forty-four

  Forty-five

  Forty-six

  Forty-seven

  Forty-eight

  Forty-nine

  Fifty

  Author’s Note

  Reading List

  About the Author

  Also Published by Allium Press of Chicago

  Praise for Libby Fischer Hellmann’s previous novel

  Set the Night on Fire

  “A top-rate standalone thriller that taps into the antiwar protests of the 1960s and 70s…A jazzy fusion of past and present, Hellman’s insightful, politically charged whodunit explores a fascinating period in American history.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Superior standalone novel…Hellmann creates a fully-realized world…complete with everyday details, passions and enthusiasms on how they yearned for connection, debated about ideology and came to belief in taking risks to stand up for what they believed.”

  Chicago Tribune

  “Haunting…Rarely have history, mystery, and political philosophy blended so beautifully…could easily end up on the required reading list in college-level American History classes.”

  Mystery Scene

  “Politics, suspense, and action all blend seamlessly together to create a fine thriller.”

  Deadly Pleasures

  “[H]er best novel yet…This wonderfully written roller-coaster ride will make a fan out of anyone who hasn’t read this author before…A beautiful, suspenseful, and altogether amazing novel, this is one that shouldn’t be missed.”

  New Mystery Reader

  “Libby Fischer Hellmann masterfully combines contemporary suspense and historical elements in equal parts…A terrific read.”

  Midwest Book Review

  “The author creates the atmosphere of the sixties perfectly…This is a terrific book for those who want to relive those times when we thought we could do anything.”

  Murder by Type

  “The 1960s-set backstory is compelling…this is an exciting book for readers who enjoy an action-packed thriller mixed with their historical facts.”

  Nanette Donohue, Historical Novels Review

  “Hellmann has done a superlative job with the 60s Chicago setting. I felt as though I had entered a time machine and been transported back. She makes the entire time come alive, recreating a historical time in perfect detail.”

  Reviewing the Evidence

  Also by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Set the Night on Fire

  **

  THE GEORGIA DAVIS SERIES

  ToxiCity

  Doubleback

  Easy Innocence

  **

  THE ELLIE FOREMAN SERIES

  A Shot to Die For

  An Image of Death

  A Picture of Guilt

  An Eye for Murder

  **

  Nice Girl Does Noir (short stories)

  **

  Chicago Blues (editor)

  Allium Press of Chicago

  Forest Park, Illinois

  www.alliumpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Descriptions and portrayals of real people, events, organizations, or establishments are intended to provide background for the story and are used fictitiously. Other characters and situations are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not intended to be real.

  © 2012 by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  All rights reserved

  Book and cover design by E. C. Victorson

  Front cover images:

  Woman by Daniel M. Nagy/Shutterstock.com

  Backgrounds by ilolab and pavila, both Shutterstock.com

  Tile border by kasia_ka/iStockphoto.com

  *****

  Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

  Hellmann, Libby Fischer.

  A bitter veil / Libby Fischer Hellmann.

  p. ; cm.

  ISBN: 978-0-9831938-1-4

  1. Iran--History--Revolution, 1979--Fiction. 2. Political prisoners--Iran--Tehran--Fiction. 3. Americans--Iran--Tehran--Fiction. 4. Iranians--Illinois--Chicago--Fiction. 5. Intercountry marriage--Fiction. 6. Historical fiction. 7. Love stories. I. Title.

  PS3608.E46 B58 2012

  813/.6 2012932763

  *****

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-0-9831938-2-1

  For all those who've been brave enough to take

  a stand against tyranny…whatever its guise

  Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing

  and rightdoing there is a field.

  I’ll meet you there.

  —Rumi

  PART ONE

  One

  Summer, 1980

  Anna was deeply asleep, which was unusual for her. She generally tossed and turned until the desperate hours of the night passed. But tonight she’d succumbed almost immediately.

  The first knock seemed like part of a dream, and her brain started constructing a story around it. As she swam up to consciousness there was another knock. The sound left a residual imprint in her ears, and for an instant she tried to figure out its intent. Was it an angry thump? A frightened plea? A perfunctory tap? She checked the clock and grew immediately wary.

  She threw the covers aside, grabbed her chador, and draped it over her baby doll pajamas. Nouri was not home. After what had happened earlier she wasn’t surprised, but it meant she had to answer the door. Still, she hesitated. Whoever was there would see her sharp features, pale green eyes, and blonde eyebrows. They would know she wasn’t Iranian. They might even suspect she was from the decadent West, perhaps the Great Satan itself. And if that happened, whatever mission brought them would be tainted with that knowledge.

  She carefully pushed the curtain aside and looked out. It was summer in Tehran, a hot, arid time that reminded her of the dog days of August in Chicago. She and Nouri lived on an upscale street in Shemiran with walled-off houses set back from the road. At this hour the street was quiet and dark, save for a black Mercedes parked by the gate. The engine was off, but its headlamps were still on, and two precise beams of light illuminated tree trunks and overgrown bushes.

  Three uniformed men, all bearded, crowded the door. One had his hands planted on his hips. The other two stood hunched over, arms folded around machine guns. Somehow they’d been able to break through the gate. Fear pumped through her
veins. Revolutionary Guards. She had no choice. She had to open the door. If she didn’t, they would break in, claiming knowledge of crimes she’d committed against Islam and the Republic. They might confiscate her books, her makeup, and Nouri’s stereo, for starters. She didn’t need that. Not now. Not with all the other troubles.

  She padded out of the bedroom in her bare feet. Clasping the folds of the chador under her chin, she took the steps down, cursing inwardly at the garment’s awkwardness. How could any woman manipulate the yards of heavy black material without feeling clumsy? When she reached the first floor, she slipped into a pair of black ballet slippers she kept by the door. If the Guards saw her toenail polish, they could report her.

  She held the chador with one hand and opened the door with the other. One of the men’s hands was high in the air, as if he was just about to knock again. He stepped back, looking startled.

  “As-Salâmo ‘Alaikom, Sister,” he said stiffly, lowering his arm.

  She gave him a curt nod.

  “You are the wife of Nouri Samedi?” he asked in Farsi.

  Her heart caromed around her chest. She and Nouri had argued viciously, and he’d threatened to have her arrested. Is that why they’d come? She nodded again, more uncertainly this time.

  The men appraised her. Women were supposed to keep their eyes down in the presence of men, to be submissive and quiet. But men had no such limitations, especially Guards. They were free to ogle. Make demands. And if those demands were not met…she shivered, recalling the stories she had heard.

  One of the other men stepped up to the door. His lips curved in a predatory smile. She tightened her grip on the chador, for once thankful it covered her body. If she was back home, she would call the police, report them as intruders. But here these intruders were the police. Or what passed as security.

  “Your husband…” he said, his voice dripping with scorn. “Do you know where he is?”

  She shook her head and looked at the floor. Oh god, were they going to beat her up? She knew people who claimed they were beaten during nighttime visits by the Guards.

  “You are certain you do not know his whereabouts, Sister?”

  She stole a look at him. His smile had disappeared, replaced now with a scowl. “You have been home all night?”

  She nodded. She never went out much, certainly not alone.

  His eyes narrowed in disbelief.

  “What is it? Has something happened?”

  “You already know.”

  Always the charades. The brinkmanship. Anger roiled her gut, but she could not show it. “No.”

  “Your husband is dead. His body was found in an alley nearby. He was stabbed.”

  She gasped. A steel gate plunged down the center of her brain, separating her emotions from her thoughts. She wished she was wearing a burqa to hide her face as well as her body. Her jaw dropped open. Through her fingers she heard herself cry out, “No!”

  Despite the Supreme Leader’s admonition to limit eye contact between the sexes, the men stared hard at her. If she were Iranian, she would cry out, collapse, even faint. But she was an American, and Americans were not demonstrative. Odd to be thinking of cultural differences at such a moment.

  She drew a ragged breath. “That cannot be,” she lied. “He was with his friend Hassan tonight. Hassan is a Guard,” she added, as if that gave her legitimacy. “He said he would be home late, because—”

  “We have notified his family. They are coming to identify the body.”

  What game were they playing? She was Nouri’s family. But she said nothing. At least they do not call her on her lie.

  The man who’d been talking suddenly shoved the door open wider and barged in.

  Panic tickled Anna’s spine. “What are—where are you going?”

  He and another Guard pushed past her and went into the kitchen. She started to follow them, but the third man aimed his machine gun at her. “Stop,” he barked. “Don’t move.”

  She froze.

  She heard murmurs from the kitchen. Then a cry of triumph.

  The first man returned from the kitchen, brandishing a steak knife. She and Nouri didn’t eat much red meat, except lamb—in kababs and meatballs, but she’d brought the wooden block of knives from the States with her when she came. It reminded her of home.

  “There are only five knives,” he said. “Where is the sixth?”

  She stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He nodded and the man with the machine gun shoved her into the kitchen.

  “Six slots. Five knives. You see?”

  He was right. She turned to him. “It’s been missing for a while. I don’t know where it is.” She bit her lip. A weak excuse. They could tell.

  A victorious smile curled his lips, as if he knew he’d won. “Ah, but we do. We have it. It was the murder weapon. You murdered your husband. Killed him so you could escape Iran and return to America. Now you will never leave. You will die in Iran, just like your husband.”

  Two

  January 1977

  The dusty smell of books, both new and used, was reassuring. Anna wound through the store’s narrow aisles, thinking of the hours she’d spent in the library when she was a little girl. She had never been popular; her schoolmates kept their distance. So she’d spent a lot of time by herself. But her governess—or nanny, as they called them here—permitted her to ride her bike to the library after school, and it became her refuge, a place to lose herself in the stacks. The children’s librarian would suggest novels, which she wolfed down like a starved animal, sometimes two or three in as many days. It wasn’t long before she’d tackled Gone With the Wind and A Tale of Two Cities, at which point the children’s librarian handed her off to the adult fiction section.

  Now, as she closed in on the poetry section in the back of the store, the collected knowledge on the shelves comforted her. She shrugged off her down jacket and pulled out her syllabus for Middle Eastern Literature. She was an English major at the University of Chicago. Her father, a scientist, had not been pleased with her choice.

  “What sort of job can you get with an English degree?” he sniffed when she told him. “A teacher? Do you have the patience to teach spoiled American teenagers who are only thinking about the next rock concert or marijuana cigarette?”

  She didn’t argue. She had no good answer except that she suspected a grounding in literature, especially that of other cultures, would give her a solid base for whatever she eventually pursued. Sometimes it was anthropology, and she saw herself authoring a breakthrough study of some obscure Native American tribe. Sometimes it was law, and she imagined herself a female Clarence Darrow. Other times it was film. She would be a highly sought after director, the American Lina Wertmuller, whose Swept Away Anna had seen three times, each time reveling in the brutal but magnetic sexuality of Giancarlo Giannini.

  She scanned the books on her syllabus. The first few books she’d need were The Selected Poems of Rumi; Ghazals from Hafiz; and The Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam. She plucked the Rumi book from a shelf of brightly colored volumes and thumbed through it. The introduction described Rumi’s background as a Sufi and mystic, his erotic energy, how reading his poetry was like making love. A smile curled her lips. This would be fun.

  “I gaze at the porcelain of your face and my heart lights up…” A male voice cut into her thoughts.

  She spun around. A young man was watching her. He was tall—taller than she—and slim. Straight black hair, curling below his ears. A flat chin and aquiline nose balanced his face, and his skin was as pale as hers. But it was his eyes that took her breath away. Pools of rich brown, they flashed with hints of amber and were surrounded by thick black lashes.

  “Your gentle nature teaches me to float into your embrace…”

  Her insides went warm.

  As if he knew his effect on her, he smiled. “It is from the Divan, the collected works of Rumi in his middle years.”

  She noticed
how the bulky blue sweater under his jacket emphasized his shoulders, how his tight jeans did the same for his buttocks.

  “There is no better poet to fall in love with.”

  He bowed and gestured with a flourish. “I am Nouri.” He straightened up, smiling. “And you?”

  She tucked the book under her arm and extended a hand. “Anna.”

  He took her hand and held it a beat too long. His skin was soft. Not a speck of dirt under his nails. “Anna is a beautiful name.”

  Her cheeks felt hot. She knew he was trying to pick her up, and she knew she should be wary. But she also remembered how, in The Godfather, Michael Corleone was hit with a thunderbolt when he met his Sicilian wife for the first time. Was this what it felt like?

  She watched him take her in. She considered her own looks average, but he seemed pleased with her long blonde hair—that could hide her face with a shake of her head—her frank green eyes, sharp chin, and athletic build. “May I see your syllabus?”

  She handed it over, aware that apart from her name, she hadn’t yet spoken a word.

  He studied it. “Rumi, Hafiz, Khayyam, Ferdowsi.” He nods. “Yes, these are all masters. Is your professor Persian?”

  “I…I’m not sure.” She grimaced mentally. Her first words should have been more confident, more assertive.

  He didn’t seem to notice. “I am from Iran.”

  “Are you a poet?” she asked shyly.

  He laughed. “I’m studying engineering. At UIC.”

  The University of Illinois at Chicago campus was a few miles north of Hyde Park. “What are you doing down here?”

  He gestured toward the shelf. “This is one of the only bookstores with a decent collection of Persian literature.”

  An engineer with a love of literature. She smiled a little. She couldn’t help it.

  His dazzling grin made up for her puny effort. “Will you have tea with me?”

  She considered it. The wintry, frigid afternoon was threatening snow, and light was already slipping away like a thief in the night. She could think of nothing she’d like more.

  *****

  “Nouri Samedi,” Anna said, stirring her tea thirty minutes later. They were in the lounge of the student union, a nondescript university building with brick walls, linoleum floors, and plastic furniture.