Zendegi

Behrouz nudged him. ‘Look.’ Four men had picked up one of the concrete benches that were scattered throughout the park and were carrying it over their heads like an upside-down canoe. Martin supposed the concrete might offer a degree of protection from descending gunfire… but any safety advantages would be negated by the fact that the men were marching straight towards the prison itself.

When they passed out of sight behind a tree, Behrouz rose to his feet. ‘Come on.’

Martin’s skin turned to ice. ‘Are you crazy?’

‘We don’t have to get too close, but we should keep them in sight.’

For one uncharitable moment Martin wondered if Behrouz was just trying to outdo him in the bravado stakes – as if the mere suggestion that he might have wanted to rejoin his family had wounded his pride. But that was unfair; what he was proposing was reasonable. Martin stood and followed him, zigzagging across the grass from tree to tree, wondering what an observer from above would make of them scuttling along in the wake of the concrete canoeists.

They stopped at the corner of the park; they had a tree to themselves and a clear view of the road that ran past the park and alongside the prison’s perimeter wall. The men with the bench were already in front of the prison, twenty or so metres away. The wall itself blocked the line of fire from the watchtowers, but one of the helicopters was hovering directly above the prison gates. Martin couldn’t imagine what the men’s purpose was – unless they planned to use the bench as a battering ram, and he couldn’t see that ending well.

Before the men reached the gates they stopped and rid themselves of the bench, depositing it on the ground in an upturned V. Then they turned and walked back towards the park.

‘I don’t get it,’ Martin confessed. ‘Do they think the prisoners are going to be moved by truck?’

Behrouz said, ‘The general population’s about fifteen thousand, but even the thousand or so politicals would take an awful lot of helicopter trips. So maybe the helicopters are for the top brass, and the grunts and the prisoners will go by truck.’

‘Okay, but how is a park bench going to slow them down?’

Behrouz spread his hands; he had no idea.

Now that he was out of the direct glare of the spotlights, Martin could see the placement of the helicopters more clearly. Along with the one hovering above the gate, there were four lined up in a queue that stretched eastwards from the far side of the prison. As he watched, a sixth helicopter rose into sight and flew north, up along the slope of the mountains. Then the first in the remaining queue of four approached and descended inside the prison walls. It was like a taxi rank.

Another two groups of men came down the road, carrying two more benches from the park. Martin wasn’t sure how many benches there were in total, but perhaps a large enough pile of them would constitute more than a trivial nuisance that could be moved aside in seconds. As they approached the prison gate there was a burst of automatic gunfire from the helicopter standing sentry; Martin flinched and the men stopped walking, but nobody appeared to have been hit.

He stared at the surreal tableau: the grey wall, the hovering helicopter, the eight men standing in a bright pool of light, holding up the benches like office workers warding off rain with newspaper umbrellas. Belatedly he lifted his phone and began recording.

The group at the front started walking again. There was another burst of gunfire, and one man collapsed. His comrades heaved the bench onto the ground, then two of them lifted the fallen man, who was able to put his arms across their shoulders for support, and they all began walking back towards the park. The second group took a few steps forward, then they too dropped their bench and retreated.

As the injured man approached the edge of the park, a man and a woman ran forward to examine him. There was a dark patch of blood on his right thigh, soaking through his trousers, but he was still conscious; one of the men pulled off his T-shirt and the woman tied it as a tourniquet around the injured leg. Martin knew there were medical students among the protesters, though he hadn’t seen anything more than the most primitive first-aid supplies. He was torn between following the retreating group back into the park and retaining his present vantage point to see what the authorities’ next step would be. He suspected that at any moment a couple of guards would emerge to move the pieces of the aborted blockade aside – and unless all the rules of the game had changed and the protesters were preparing to physically attack the guards, that would be the end of it.