Zendegi

The floor vibrated again, the intruder retreated. The door swung closed.

After the truck had been unloaded in a noisy warehouse, the driver parked nearby and unscrewed the panels that concealed his extra cargo. Behrouz was released first, but he was still bent double and massaging his legs when Martin emerged, hobbling and squinting. He’d grown used to the smell of machine oil from the compressor, but it had been masking the cargo area’s own distinctive scent of unwashed refrigerator. He glanced over at Behrouz. ‘I’ll give you a hundred dollars if you can find me a hot bath in the next fifteen minutes.’

Behrouz snorted. ‘What am I now, a tour guide? Don’t be such a wimp, we’ve got work to do.’

‘That would sound much more convincing if you showed signs of being able to walk.’

The nervous driver hurried them out of the truck onto a dark side-street, then took off with a deafening squeal of rubber. They were both wearing heavy coats and woollen hats, but away from the freezer they were overdressed for a summer evening this far south. Abadan was on an island bounded by rivers, fifty kilometres inland from the Persian Gulf. To the west, across the Arvand River – renamed Shatt al-Arab once crossed – was southern Iraq; Basra wasn’t far upstream.

Behrouz had brought a map of the city; he led the way to a truck-stop offering fast food and, most urgently, a toilet. In the restaurant, Martin slung his coat over his shoulder but kept the woollen hat on; in spite of the balmy weather many of the customers were wearing them, and though he’d always look foreign close up in good light, he still hoped that out on the street the right cues would prevent too many second glances.

The oil refinery was visible for miles, the vast complex lit up like a NASA launch site. Though it had been bombed into the ground by Saddam Hussein in 1980, it had been built up again after the war until it was once again the most productive in Iran, churning out nearly half a million barrels a day – when it was operating.

As they drew nearer to the complex, the streets became crowded; the picket line itself was still not in sight, but there were so many people coming and going – supporters bringing food and supplies to the striking workers, or people just wanting to witness the spectacle – that street vendors had set up half-a-dozen stalls. Martin saw a group of soldiers lined up in front of a government building, but they looked more uncomfortable than threatening.

Dariush Ansari had been born in Abadan, the son of an oil worker, and he’d worked in the same plant himself, briefly, as an engineer. His father had since retired, but his former colleagues had shut down the refinery for the funeral ten days before and they had not returned to work since. Ordinarily, Tehran would have sent in the army to deal with the pickets and bussed in workers from across the country, but someone in the regime must have grasped the fact that if they did that, it would end with the city in flames.

Half the people in the crowd were speaking Arabic; Martin’s vocabulary was negligible, but he could easily distinguish it from Farsi. Many of the refinery workers were Arabic-speaking Iranians; whilst Ansari had not belonged to that ethnic group, he had been a local, and fluent in the local dialect – quite different from the Arabic studied in Iranian high schools – and his willingness to use it in speeches here had helped attract supporters. But rather than trying to inflame ethnic tensions, or demanding special treatment for the region, he’d focused on the benefits of a determined, nationwide assault on corruption and nepotism. People here knew that their wealth was being pilfered and wasted, but Ansari’s answer had been transparency and equity, not separatism.

When they came within sight of the picket line, Martin saw that the usual Referendum! signs had been supplemented with photographs of Ansari and a new slogan that Behrouz translated as ‘Murderers, get lost!’ That soldiers weren’t tearing the signs from people’s hands was no less amazing than if they’d borne the strongest profanities, given that this accusation and advice was meant for the government.

Martin took out his new phone and snapped some pictures of the pickets, trying to balance a fervent wish to avoid being seen by the soldiers with a fear that if he looked too furtive the people around him would take him for an informer. One young man did move towards him, scowling, but Behrouz stepped in and whispered an explanation that seemed to satisfy him.