My Enemy My Friend
by
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CHAPTER 1
My wonder at being back in
Why hadn't I noticed them sooner? Had I been out of the loop that long?
Each sharp-edged shadow cast by the area's buildings concealed a soldier. And each soldier carried an automatic weapon. My map showed me that the school huddled somewhere within the neat maze of streets behind Kourush-I-Kabir. I'd have to pass down the center of the military gauntlet to follow my map. With my backpack bouncing damply against my T-shirt, I had set out in search of my school along the gray, dirt road my map had reduced to a curved, white line.
Wandering along, I alternately peered down at the paper and up at the buildings to find some English letters among the spots and slashes of the local Farsi. I remembered feeling the adventurous possibilities I'd reveled in at the airport evaporating in the heat of the day. No one seemed to be going where I was going. Soon I realized I didn't even know where I was going myself. I stopped to get my bearings where the roadway spanned a sunken aqueduct.
With steel-runged ladders descending its walls every thirty feet or so, the empty waterway ran downhill into the city from the dun-colored mountains in the north. It vanished into the maze of city streets to the south with dirt roads flanking either side.
Then I heard the sound of a revved-up, miss-hitting motor. I watched a truck bear down on me flanked by swirling clouds of yellow dust. What looked like a nattily dressed mountain gorilla in a woolen cap gripped the wheel. The driver flashed a malicious smile. Then he swerved to get a better line. I tossed my pack against a building and sidestepped the truck. My lean sent me over the side of the aqueduct. I twisted as if in slow motion. My fingers clamped onto the rungs. I pulled myself into the wall. The toes of my boots jammed into the concrete. They hit more rungs. I huddled against the wall listening to the truck drive away.
After I climbed out of the ditch, I squatted next to my backpack. My heart dieseled to cool down. My mind raced back through the action. I catalogued the driver's face in my mental mug book for future reference. When my body quieted, I picked up my pack and blew the dust off my map.
When I turned around to see how far I'd come, I saw them.
A horde of white-robed men streamed from the mosque on the corner. The men filled the road; curb to curb. The soldiers, all fully armed and armored, did nothing to stop them. The mob marched closer. Their voices grew into a roar and their roar became a chant. "Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!" Their anger echoed off the buildings. Figuring they weren't rushing over to welcome me, I hauled on my pack and ran as fast as I could.
My legs were lead. I started my sprint like a Long Island Railroad train from a dead stop. My absence from the company’s regimen hadn’t helped my level of fitness any more than it helped my powers of observation. The added weight of my pack didn't help me either. My stride, which I remembered as akin to gazelle-like leaps, had shrunk to a kind of Looney Tune wind-milling motion. I was getting nowhere fast. Thirty-two doesn't sprint like twenty. With the addition of fifty backpacked pounds, I needed something more than long legs and a quick carriage return to outrun the over-righteous yahoos streaming down the street. Their hearts were full, their heads were empty, and they definitely did not love Jesus. But where my flesh was weak; my spirit was scared shitless. I galloped down the street like an amphetamined mule until I spotted a tarnished copper plaque above doublewide metal doors.
As I skidded past the gate, I caught the iron bar handle and wrenched it open. The heavy metal door swung around with me hanging on like a badly dressed rodeo clown. It hit a brick wall with a neat metallic clang. I followed in a slightly wider arc and hit the wall with a slightly duller thud. As the gate bounced back around on its hinges, I pulled on the handle and vaulted through the narrowing gap as the door clanged shut. The gate rattled securely as its hooks and hasps fell into place. The white-robed mob pounded angrily on the doors as I lay on the hot blacktop gulping air. My jeans were caked with dust and my T-shirt stuck to me with a mottle of sweat and dirt, but I'd outrun the mob and reached the schoolyard unscathed. As far as I was concerned it had been a successful day.
It got better when I heard the applause.
Applause for the player. Yep, that's me. One more player in the game . . . Jeez.
I never thought I'd come back to
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About the Book
It is 1978. The Shah of Iran is in trouble and Barney Rosen is back in Iran. Barney’s performance during the Shah’s 1970 celebration in Persepolis cost him his wife, his job and his self-respect. His new job brings him back to Iran as an art teacher at the International School of Tehran and face to face with a new love—Sarah Atkinson. Haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife and surrounded by examples of love-gone-bad in marriage, Barney must fight his fears and find a way to show Sarah that he loves her. As a reluctant courier for the American State Department in the Pre-Revolutionary Iran, Barney works undercover delivering messages from an American politician to an Iranian enemy. Barney begins to suspect that elements in his government may be trying to manipulate Iran’s intricate alliances to influence the outcome of the American Presidential election. While on assignment in Isfahan, Barney realizes he too needs help from an enemy--himself. The maelstrom of December’s Revolutionary March on Tehran’s Shayad Monument gives Barney the opportunity to prove his love to Sarah.
About the Author
In 1974, the author left New York City to sell his paintings on the West Coast of the United States. In 1976, with a Pong championship to his credit, he accepted a job in Iran where he met his wife. After the Revolution, the author, his wife and the Shah all left Iran for Egypt. Two of them got jobs...the other one died. The author has since lived in and written about Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Haiti and Shanghai. His novels are ‘The Missionary Position’, about Angela Benedetto’s adventures in Irian Jaya, ‘My Enemy, My Friend’, about a love affair during the Iranian Revolution ‘Shanghai’d’ about a Chinese/Israeli plot originating in 1930's Shanghai, ‘Maiden Shanghai’, about Shanghai’s Green Gang’s covert aid to China’s Xinjiang Seperatists and Something Came Up about a young man's search for self. He has written published articles for Channel East Magazine, West-East Magazine, Media Magazine, Asian Hotel and Catering Magazine, www.zingasia.com, www.chinaOnline.com and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He now writes while out-dodging drivers who don’t signal and waiting on telephone trees when he wants to communicate.