Das Road

  Soon the road peters out and we are driving through open desert again. The village passes out of view; not even the smoke from its hearth fires is visible any longer. We stop at the foothills. Jon cuts the engine. It dies hard, running on crankily, finally halting with a jolt and a loud pop. Gasoline fumes drift in the air.

  “Eureka!” Jon says.

  60: The Canyon

  He’s here, but he’s not here. He rejects the here and is unhappy with it. – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig

  The world turns an eerie calm with the silencing of the VW. I slip from my tortuous seat and stretch myself. Once the gas fumes clear away, the air smells fantastically clean, like the cool scent at the dawn of creation. The chaos of Esfahan recedes from my consciousness until it seems to be roiling on some distant planet.

  “Are we going to pitch camp now,” I ask, “or carry the stuff with us?”

  “Let’s just go,” Jon says. “I want to travel light.”

  I hesitate. The sky is starting to look a bit dodgy, as if something unpleasant could be brewing up there. I tamp down my suspicions; we can always backtrack if the weather begins to turn nasty. Besides, I feel a challenge coming that I cannot ignore.

  I shove my arms through the straps of my ‘granny pack.’ It doesn’t weigh much – just some extra clothes, first aid kit, space blanket, a little food and water. Jon gives me a condescending look and moves off.

  He charges steadily uphill across the rolling terrain, trying to leave me behind, as usual.

  But today is different. I feel such renewal at my escape from Esfahan that I take off with a fresh burst of energy. Soon, I am beside Jon, matching his blistering tempo.

  He glances over, and surprise registers on his face. He starts moving faster, nearly running across the uneven ground. I fall behind, but then my second wind kicks in, and I again equal Jon’s pace. On and on we dash, our leg shadows mingling in the harsh sunlight. Minutes pass, half an hour – I don’t know how long.

  My chest heaves like a blacksmith’s bellows, and my heart pounds like his hammer, but I dig deep into my energy reserve and move ahead of Jon. The primordial air rips into my burning lungs. The world narrows down to the hot pain in my muscles and the sound of our feet pounding the earth.

  My vision begins narrowing to a dark tunnel, but I can still see Jon off to my left and back a little. The ground rises sharply to a broad, flat area. If I can only get up there first! With a final desperate heave, I gain the summit, a step ahead of Jon.

  I stop, gasping for air. With a weary jerk, I drop my pack and stoop over, bracing my hands on my knees. After a while, my vision begins to clear and I can breathe normally again.

  I glance back down our route. Haze lends an ethereal cast to the bleak, undulating ground with its patches of snow. Toward the horizon, a low band of sky shines dusty blue, while the higher atmosphere sags under heavy overcast. Brisk air whipping over the mesa evaporates my sweat.

  Mesa – the Spanish term seems out of place in this Asian wilderness. Is this the mesa I’d thought I was leaping onto when I first came to Iran – the one that was supposed to elevate me above my frustrated ennui? Well, as badly as things are turning out, at least nobody can say that Iran is boring.

  I look ahead, expecting to see Jon disappearing in the distance. Instead, he is standing nearby, hands on hips, observing me from the corners of his slit eyes.

  “Piece of cake,” I say.

  Suddenly, Jon turns my direction and grips my shoulder in an almost affectionate manner. A smile creases his usually harsh and stony face.

  “I’m really glad you could make it today, Tyler,” he says.

  I am stunned. In all the time we’ve traveled together, Jon has scarcely seemed to notice me. Now he is acting like the best of old pals. I feel as if a great honor has been bestowed.

  “S-sure,” I say, “me, too.”

  “I’ve missed you,” Jon says. “It hasn’t been the same without you.”

  His charm is compelling, and his smile warms me to my very depths. I already knew why so many people are scared of Jon, now I understand why others like him so much – Mr. Jong, the Irish priests, the wine house girls. For the first time in ages I feel fully alive.

  To quiet my jumble of emotions, I pull my compass from beneath my Cheju Do sweater. The needle swings crazily.

  “What the hell?”

  I move the compass away from myself. The needle swings again, doing a full circle.

  “Look at this ... ” I start to say, but Jon is already gone.

  I watch his back while he strides away, his curled-toe shoes beating an eager path along the stones. I look again at my Silva – the needle is slowly revolving in the opposite direction now.

  I know that local magnetic forces can influence compass readings; I’d even seen such phenomena in Wyoming. But I fear that something unknowable and unnatural is causing my compass to flip out. What is it, I wonder – the chaos?

  A shudder runs through me, and I slip the now useless instrument back under my sweater. Whatever is out here, Jon intends to find it.

  Far ahead, Jon scales a rock outcrop and waits for me. As I approach along the stony terrain, my legs seem to move slower and slower until they hardly cover any distance at all.

  The outcrop consists of three large boulders about eight feet above the surroundings. The two flanking ones lean in toward the middle. Jon sits upon the central rock staring into the distance, as if perched on a fantastic throne.

  The land starts dropping away, becoming part of the sky. As I mount the boulder to Jon’s right, the ground before me suddenly plunges down into a canyon. The great gash in the earth has appeared as unexpectedly as a corpse at a birthday party. Vertiginous anxiety stabs at me and I stumble back.

  “This is it, man!” Jon says.

  The wind kicks up, and I pull my jacket collar around my throat. My foot loosens a stone which tumbles noiselessly into the void.

  Don’t let it scare you! I tell myself. This ain’t the Grand Canyon.

  It has something of the Arizona gorge’s vast and terrible silence, though – its hulking, otherworldly presence. This place is as the Grand Canyon must have been millions of years earlier in its gouging progress down through the earth. Far below, a stream cuts through the abyss.

  “Let’s go in!” Jon says.

  I grope for an excuse to escape entering this void. The thickening overcast provides a good one.

  “I don’t like the looks of that sky,” I say. “It’s getting worse.”

  “The sky?” Jon glances up briefly. “Its always there, isn’t it?”

  He descends the outcrop, quick as a mountain goat, and takes up a narrow trail into the canyon. After some hesitation and another glance at the sky, I follow.

  We walk in a gradual descent along the narrow, crumbly trail, sending showers of pebbles cascading down the slope. The canyon threatens to overwhelm me with its presence, like some towering ogre.

  Screw it, I tell myself, this is just a slice in the ground.

  I recall my insight on Mount Fuji – how the great volcanic mountain was really nothing more than a heap of insignificant components lacking the complexity of even the simplest human being. But this tells only part of the story, I realize now. Immense geology like this is more than just the sum of its parts – it has power. At least it can persuade human minds that it does.

  The trail levels off. Jon pauses to drink from his water bottle, and for a moment, I glimpse the feral look in his eyes again. The expression quickly vanishes, though, replaced by something resembling merriment. A broad grin carves wrinkles into his weathered face. He gestures toward the Canyon’s vast open spaces.

  “King of the Universe, eh?” he says.

  I do not reply. Concern for the rapidly deteriorating weather stifles any desire for conversation.

  Beyond the rim of this canyon world, the sky is darkening fast, bringing the threat of a storm. I look back dow
n the narrow trail and try to gauge the distance to our entry point. How long to get back to the car?

  Jon walks a bit farther ahead and pauses. I catch up.

  A smooth, sloping rock surface curves across the trail, then plunges straight down delineating the course of an erstwhile water fall. Above us, outside the canyon, a dry stream bed would be winding through the desert toward this drop off point – an arroyo, another word that seems out of place in this Persian setting.

  I peep over the waterfall edge, look away, peep again. Each time the distance to the bottom seems to get longer. Jon steps out onto the smooth rock.

  “Coming, Tyler?” he says.

  “Hell, no!”

  Amusement flickers across his face. “It’s not far to the other side, Tyler.”

  I peruse the sky, then turn back toward Jon. He remains standing in the middle of the arid waterfall, hand on hip in that cocky pose he so often assumes. Again, I am struck by the Bruce Lee analogy. The Caucasian face which could have modified this illusion is turned away from me, gazing off into God knows what vistas.

  “Come back with me, Jon,” I yell. “That sky looks really bad. A flash flood could pass right through here.”

  He gives the sky a cursory glance and shrugs. “That could be interesting.”

  He remains arrogantly rooted to the stone, observing me. Only his Arabian Nights shoes with the curled up toes detract from his force-of-nature persona. Blood stains the left toe, evidence of the kick to Alex’s face.

  Acrophobic dread grips my chest. I try to hold Jon with my eyes, but he turns away and, with rapid, mincing steps, crosses to the far side. He pauses there and looks back toward me.

  My left foot advances, then my right. I am almost out on the polished waterfall rock now.

  A voice screams in my mind: Turn back!

  Another one, even more one forceful, cries: Go ahead!

  It promises me a spectacular denouement, answers to all the universe’s mysteries. I seem about to rip in two.

  Then thunder rumbles. The ominous sound gives me the strength to halt. I look upwards. The sky has become a deep, threatening black.

  “That looks like the end of the world coming!” I shout.

  “End of the world, eh?” Jon laughs. “All we can do is hope.”

  “Get back here, right now!” I scream.

  Jon laughs again. “Take these, Tyler, just in case!”

  He tosses me the car keys, and I damn near go over edge reaching for them. Then Jon starts walking away. I pull off my knapsack and, rotating my body like a discus thrower, fling it across to him. It thuds at Jon’s feet. He turns back toward me, an ironic little smile on his face.

  “Take the goddam thing!” I yell.

  61: Into the Maelstrom

  The storm hits just as I emerge from the canyon. Great blasts of wind whip snow and icy rain through the blackened air. Huge electrical charges build up in the atmosphere, making my hair stand on end.

  Then lightning erupts, throwing the nightmare landscape into sharp relief. I cower by the outcropping but can find no sheltered lee. The tempest whips into every niche, yanking my breath away.

  Then, after what seems an eternity, a blessed lull arrives. I stand up, almost too paralyzed with cold to move. Wind screeches along the distant mountain peaks, and the setting sun casts harsh shadows through cloud breaks. Shafts of light jab down like death rays.

  I am drawn toward the mountains, almost in a trance. The shrieking winds try to snatch my mind.

  “Jon!” I call into the empty wilderness.

  With a supreme effort of my flagging will power, I tear myself away from the lure of the mountain crests and begin walking toward where I hope the car is parked.

  The storm builds its power and strikes again, practically battering me down. Darkness seizes the world. I hear howling nearby and the patter of rushing feet. Hard little snow crystals sting my face. Vertigo assails me as visibility plummets to near zero. Terror hampers my movements.

  I struggle within the maelstrom, barely able to remain standing. The frigid wind, polluted with death, bites into me and drives me mercilessly onward. Then I am running, somehow negotiating the rocky ground without tumbling over.

  I hear snarls all around me; something snaps at my hand. Anger pushes aside the fear. I grab a rock and hurl it. A yelp of pain.

  “Dirty bastards!” I yell.

  I pick up another rock and am about to throw it when I run into something solid. The VW! My hands grope in stunned disbelief over the car. I wrench open the door. The wind tries to yank it away, but I hold on tight and fling myself inside. The automobile wraps its sheet metal wings around me.

  Storm and snow beasts remain outside, lashing at my refuge with frustrated rage. I watch them for a long time before my shattered faculties begin to recover. The ear-splitting wind howl deadens in the car’s snug interior and, at last, I realize that I am safe.

  Helpless feelings of loss and grief overcome me. Jon is still out there!

  You should have stopped him! I curse myself bitterly. You should have brought him back somehow.

  But even in my state of emotional collapse, I know that I could have done nothing to save him.

  “Damn it to hell!” I shout into the storm buffeting the windshield.

  The snow crystals batter the cracked glass with renewed force, mocking me. The car rocks amid the storm’s fury but holds firm. I bury myself in a sleeping bag and spend the night staring out into the darkness, hoping to see Jon appear. I try to turn on the headlights for him, but they don’t work.

  62: Solo Return

  “Uncertainty is life. I will remain until my time is up, whether for good or bad.” – Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran

  I must have dozed off towards morning, because the Iranians take me by surprise. I awake with a start to see a mustachioed face pressed against the window.

  “Mister ... mister!” He taps urgent fingers on the glass.

  I roll down the window and stick my head out. Several Iranian men are standing around in the snow. The sky blazes a sharp, punishing blue.

  “Where you friend?” The man with the mustache says. He seems the only one who can speak any English.

  I stare at him, unable to answer.

  “We come from village,” he says. “We think maybe trouble with you.”

  Tears start gliding down my cheeks, until I am sobbing openly. The village men stand around, uncertain what to do. Finally, I get enough of a grip on myself to explain what happened.

  The men organize search parties, and we set out to look for Jon.

  I take them to the drop off where I had last seen him. No sign of Jon, or of my knapsack, either. We scour the area for miles – down to the valley floor, along the rim on both sides, over the mesa.

  “Jon!” I call a hundred times throughout the day.

  No answer ... nothing. As if God, or something else, has whisked him off the face of the earth. Then the sun goes down.

  I spend the night at the house of the village leader. He is a kindly old gentleman and regards me through sad eyes within his weathered face. I am so exhausted that I drop off immediately after the evening meal and sleep like a dead man.

  Early Monday morning, I empty the gas cans into the VW’s tank and drive back to Esfahan. The car is dying around me, leaking fluid as it gasps along, filling my ears with creaks and grindings. Jon had broken it on the mad drive Saturday, inflicting fatal injuries. Now the VW drags me along with its last strength, like a horse running itself to ground.

  Finally, I make it back to town. I’ve never driven in Iran before, and am unfamiliar with the traffic regulations. What if the cops pull me over and find out that I have no license.

  My God, that is the least of your worries!

  Traffic is light, due to the strike-induced fuel shortages, and I make it to corporate headquarters without incident. The VW conks out as I arrive, gliding the last tortured yards into a parking space, giving off a st
ench of burned oil.

  Inside the building, I explain Jon’s disappearance to the director, to corporate security, to anyone who wants to hear. They listen soberly. A granite-faced security man asks most of the questions, grilling me on every detail, asking the same questions with new twists, trying to expose inconsistencies in my story.

  All I can do is repeat the truth, or at least my perception of it. Who the hell really knows what happened? They ply me with coffee and speak among themselves in low voices.

  Then they let me go. An Iranian office employee drives me home, slowly traversing the stricken city under a leaden, late afternoon sky. The heavy overcast lends a funereal quality to the already ghastly day.

  63: The Men in White

  “I will declare holy war when we reach a deadlock in our attempts to find a peaceful solution.” – Ayatollah Khomeini

  A strong man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one. – Bram Stoker, Dracula

  I shuffle up the three flights to my apartment like a condemned man mounting the scaffold. Somebody has stuck yet another message on my door:

  GO HOME, CURSED YONKY, OR WE WILL KILL YOU

  DEATH TO THE SHAH!

  Pocketing the missive, I enter my apartment and lock myself in. At least the electricity is still going. Taking advantage of this luxury, I turn on lights and start playing the Beach Boys record sitting on Rolf’s old machine. The sunny, upbeat lyrics of California Girls provide an absurd contrast to my situation.

  I watch the turntable spin and try to collect my thoughts. So much has happened since I’d first seen this record player on the boat to Japan. The machine seems to be some kind of extravagant symbol, the meaning of which I can’t hope to interpret. My body feels as if it has been crushed in a vise.

  I head to the bathroom for a shower. The lukewarm spray brings slight relief. I stretch my tired back under it until the water becomes a cold trickle. Then I wrap myself in a towel and climb into bed.

  But the weight of the covers suffocates me – like a man already dead and in the grave. I start drifting off to sleep, then jerk back awake. After a couple of miserable hours, I get up and go to the living room. The apartment is frigid as a meat locker, so I dress up in my jeans and Cheju Do sweater. I don my hiking boots and heavy socks.