Khomeini's Boy: The Shadow War with Iran Read Online Free Page B

believe me if I said I never meant to insult him?”
    “I doubt it, Jamsheed. Now that they’ve put a camera in here with you, the ayatollahs won’t stop until they have a confession. You’d best decide how you want to approach that.”
    Jamsheed looked at his trembling hands, remembering how fast and strong they had been when he was whole. He said, “I really did want to be a piano player. I keep telling them that, and nobody believes me. My grandfather showed me a little before the war, then after the war I took lessons and they called me a natural, so I kept playing around Tehran. A human rights lawyer from France was stationed in Tehran, and she heard about me. We had…something, and then she invited me to play a show in Paris. They loved me, so the lawyer and her friends got my visa extended. Have you been to France?”
    The man replied, “No, sadly. These last few years my attentions have turned eastward. Unusual things are afoot in Afghanistan, even for that place. Did you enjoy it?”
    Jamsheed smiled again, still looking at his hands, as he said, “France is how our poets describe ancient Persia. Gardens, art, music, the best food on earth. There are red wines in France that would make you cry if you tasted them.”
    The man gave a paternal head shake and said, “I also wouldn’t talk about drinking alcohol when Khamenei’s people come for another try at the camera. So if you love living in France and playing piano so much, why ruin it by becoming a traitor? Why spout bile about the Revolution to godless foreigners?”
    “I didn’t. It was after my seventh concert, in Lyons. By then I was well-known, so they filmed the concert and convinced me to do an audience interview after the show. Some woman asked me about my experience during the Revolution. That’s all.”
    “You said the Revolution was a mistake. You said that the war with Saddam Hussein was a mistake.”
    Jamsheed shook his head weakly. “I said mistakes were made while Khomeini led us. I told them those mistakes made the Iranian people suffer.”
    The man leaned in. “What manner of mistakes?” he asked.
    Jamsheed felt his rattling breath sneak out through his semi-clenched teeth. He’d been careless with this man so far, just because he didn’t immediately start off screaming like the other jailers.
    Jamsheed answered anyway. “I didn’t elaborate. My French wasn’t good enough to go into details.”
    “Elaborate with me.”
    Jamsheed felt the visitor’s eyes on him even while he looked down at his own ruined hand. He knew that those eyes weren’t unpinning him until he gave a satisfactory answer.
    Jamsheed said, “Khomeini…never should have ended the war. Not while Saddam Hussein was still alive.”
    The man countered, “He only consented to the ceasefire after his advisors told him that we could not win. America had fully rearmed the infidels by 1988, and Saddam Hussein was poised to reinvade Iran with a chemical arsenal. Do you really think Imam Khomeini had a choice?”
    Jamsheed balled his left hand into a fist, ignoring the pain that shot up his arm. “He could have chosen not to betray me. He could have chosen to honor the sacrifices I made by letting me finish the war that he started,” he growled.
    “Saddam started the war. Iran defended itself then counterattacked to neutrali—”
    “ Khomeini started my war when he ordered me out of my schoolyard to become a minesweeper. He and his clerics pushed me forward, telling me that I was fighting for God and holy Iran. Then what did they do? They rolled over onto their bellies as soon as the war went badly for them, like whipped dogs. Then they told us to just go home . As if I could ever expect to see my parents again, and not look at them like meat about to be shredded by enemy artillery. As if they could look at me and see their child again, instead of a skinny half-grown man with dead, killer’s eyes…” he trailed off, his voice cracking.
    The officer nodded