The Spurious Moves E-Book

Simone Malacrida

• Herausgeber: Simone Malacrida
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The unfathomable dilemma of man faced with choice and a possible turning point in his life and in history is the common background of an instantaneous chronicle of over half a century, relived in different contexts and nuances.
Not always aware of the harm they will cause, individual people move in a predetermined pattern, in which however the move is inevitable and totally required.
No stalemate is possible, given the looming moment and time that chases every existence and no match can be played to its conclusion, given the limited nature of the challenger and contender.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

SIMONE MALACRIDA

“ The Spurious Moves”

Simone Malacrida (1977) | Engineer and writer, he has dealt with research, finance, energy policies and industrial plants.

ANALYTICAL INDEX

AUTHOR'S NOTE: | In the book there are very specific historical references to facts, events and people. Such events and such characters really happened and existed. | On the other hand, the main protagonists are the result of the author's pure imagination and do not correspond to real individuals, just as their actions did not actually happen. It goes without saying that, for these characters, any reference to people or things is purely coincidental.

The unfathomable dilemma of man faced with choice and a possible turning point in his life and in history is the common background of an instantaneous chronicle of over half a century, relived in different contexts and nuances. | Not always aware of the harm they will cause, individual people move in a predetermined pattern, in which however the move is inevitable and totally required. | No stalemate is possible, given the looming moment and time that chases every existence and no match can be played to its conclusion, given the limited nature of the challenger and contender.

I

II

III

OBEDIENCE

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

HOPE

XIII

XIV

XV

BROTHERHOOD

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

SIMONE MALACRIDA

“ The Spurious Moves”

Simone Malacrida (1977)

Engineer and writer, he has dealt with research, finance, energy policies and industrial plants.

ANALYTICAL INDEX

BELIEVE

I

II

III

OBEDIENCE

IV

V

VI

STRUGGLE

VII

VIII

IX

REMEMBER

X

XI

XII

HOPE

XIII

XIV

XV

BROTHERHOOD

XVI

XVII

XVIII

INSTANT

XIX

XX

XXI

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

In the book there are very specific historical references to facts, events and people. Such events and such characters really happened and existed.

On the other hand, the main protagonists are the result of the author's pure imagination and do not correspond to real individuals, just as their actions did not actually happen. It goes without saying that, for these characters, any reference to people or things is purely coincidental.

The unfathomable dilemma of man faced with choice and a possible turning point in his life and in history is the common background of an instantaneous chronicle of over half a century, relived in different contexts and nuances.

Not always aware of the harm they will cause, individual people move in a predetermined pattern, in which however the move is inevitable and totally required.

No stalemate is possible, given the looming moment and time that chases every existence and no match can be played to its conclusion, given the limited nature of the challenger and contender.

“In life it happens like in the game of chess: we outline a plan, but it is conditioned by what the opponent is pleased to do in the game of chess, in life by destiny.”

––––––––

Arthur Schopenhauer

BELIEVE

I

Tehran, summer 1978

––––––––

“What idiots.”

An expression like that hadn't come out of my mouth in a long time.

I had learned to control myself to better conceal what would happen in a few months, but in the face of certain evidence it was not possible to remain calm.

“Everyone underestimates us,” were the words of my friend Omar.

With a broad smile, we parted ways.

It was already evening and it was better for me to go home.

There were whispers in many quarters of an imminent curfew, especially in Tehran.

We were anxiously awaiting such an event.

It would have been the beginning of the Revolution.

And not like what the current allies thought, those who had placed themselves at the head of the armed bands of resistance to the Shah's regime.

They were called many things, but the most common were Fedayyin and Khalq, i.e. the people's volunteers.

People who really thought about a possible socialist and Marxist revolution, evidently armed by our common neighbor to the north, the Soviet Union.

For us, however, it disgusted us almost as much as the Americans, the true infidel devils who had plagued our territory.

Not directly, of course, but through the Shah.

A regime that had suppressed all freedom, but this was more of interest to the right-thinking and reforming bourgeoisie.

Not to us.

To us, all that mattered was the trampled religious traditions.

Women who were ordered not to wear the veil, in defiance of what is written in the words of the Prophet.

And mass distractions, such as gambling and prostitution.

All unacceptable things for those who firmly believe in religious supremacy.

When we meet, we smile, even though there is very little to rejoice about.

If they caught us, we wouldn't end well.

Prison, if all goes well.

Shooting or hanging in other cases.

Yet, we think we can do it and maybe we are even considered crazy.

Omar handed me the last cassette, I will listen to it at home, where I will find my parents.

I didn't grow up with the comforts of rich families, but at least I was able to study and now I'm in my last year of medical school.

Soon I will be a doctor and I plan not to specialize in anything, but to serve in a general way.

All-round doctors will be needed in the new Iran, the one that will emerge from the revolution.

An Iran with a unique political and religious leadership.

And with some certain rules.

First, the maximum elevation of sacred words to supreme law.

And then, re-establish distances.

Out with the infidels and their aberrant practices.

Women in their place, at home and veiled.

Not like now when I find them at University in the same classrooms and with their hair blowing in the wind.

An insult to the way of being faithful to the word of the Prophet.

A desecrating of one's idols, a practice transformed by the West.

They will notice.

Better to hurry up and not think about these things.

The heat is suffocating.

Damp and full of dust.

You arrive home drenched in sweat, but also covered in a light dust.

The city has changed.

It's always been chaotic, but cars have brought about a big change.

Noise and smell of gas.

Furthermore, these Westerners are without any restraint.

They told us to hold back our feelings and not expose ourselves too much, at least until the time is ripe.

It seems to me they already are.

The cassettes with the messages of our great guide, Ayatollah Khomeini, circulate freely and have spread widely.

He has been taken as a reference by everyone, even by Marxists and socialists, as he is the only charismatic person to oppose the Shah, even if he does so from Paris.

What a paradox, this West.

On the one hand, it finances the Shah.

On the other hand, it hosts its greatest enemy, without knowing that, once it takes power, the entire West will tremble.

Socialists delude themselves and are idiots, they don't understand that tradition and religion will win over everything.

They tell the committee to let them do it.

That their weapons and their organization will be useful in the first phase, but then we will be the ones to lead everything by mobilizing the masses.

There have already been street protests, albeit in a limited way.

And I've already noticed how the crowd moves.

Unlike the single person, despite being made up of single people.

Taken one by one, none of them are able to chant slogans and expose themselves, but if reunited, things change.

Spurred by the mass and the large number, somehow protected by their neighbors, it is easier to maneuver and incite them.

Make slogans chant in unison.

Words give strength to everyone and then we can move on to action.

An angry crowd aimed at a target can do anything.

Attack a building, overthrow a government, win a revolution.

Even without weapons.

Weapons are instruments of repression and serve to instill fear and fear, but they do not give victory.

This is not a clash between armies, but a handful of soldiers against millions of people.

And at that point, a minimal defection is enough to trigger the avalanche effect.

Maybe I'm dreaming or getting ahead of myself, as everyone tells me.

This projecting outside and into the future helps me not to feel the fatigue and weight of tasks.

Between studying, home and preparing for the revolution, I don't have much time for rest and my body is starting to feel tired.

I'm young and I shouldn't have any kind of problem, after all, at twenty-two you are at the peak of your faculties.

Despite this, the tension that accumulates begins to show some evident signs.

I find myself yawning in broad daylight or feeling numb and closing my eyes at the first dusk.

Once around the corner, I glimpse my house.

A modest apartment, like many others.

My family is there.

My father, my mother and my brother Mohammed, two years younger than me and already on his way to a secure job as a labourer.

Everyone will already be home.

I'm always the last to return and now everyone knows why.

Studying had never kept me so far from my daily home and my father, at my mother's suggestion, had explicitly asked me what I did every day to come home so late.

He was afraid that I had ended up on the corrupt path of the infidels.

When I confessed to him my active involvement in promoting the revolution, he hugged me.

I still remember that day at the beginning of the year.

Tears welling up from deep inside and a sense of admiration.

My mother had never stopped wearing the veil, defying the law imposed by the Shah, a kind of absolute monarch who, in exchange for money and rampant corruption, had sold the soul of her country.

Away with traditions, away with the great Sunni school.

At least he hadn't closed the madrasas and hadn't touched our holy city Qom, but this was of little use if it then emptied the content of all our beliefs.

I'm about to take the stairs of the building and the steps slide under my sure step.

Two by two, like I did when I was little, competing with my brother.

The smell of home welcomes me.

It is something familiar and indescribable, as if the air inside it remained there forever.

I know that this is not the case and that the external environment recirculates every single atom of the air, but then why is this scent only here?

Is an anonymous door or window enough to delimit such a clear boundary?

Nobody asks me anything.

Better for them not to know the details.

After dinner, I will play the tape for them and they will all be thrilled to hear about the future that awaits us.

I owe it mainly to my parents, who spent their lives suffering the continuous expansion of the Shah and the regime corrupted by Westerners.

I nod and go and rinse off, then I'll be at the table.

My brother is constantly scrutinizing me.

I know he wants some previews, but I no longer have the strength to speak, so I ask a few stopgap questions.

“What do they say at work?”

We are interested in the general opinion.

The masses will decide the victory or failure of our revolution.

“Everyone is waiting for a move. An event. The people are ready."

My father shares his vision.

My mother says nothing, as a woman should.

Listen and learn.

Stay in your place, queen of the house, but no further.

Instead, in the University, there are Iranian women, young and my age, who dare to question the founding principles of our beliefs.

They will be punished properly, there won't be much time left for this change.

I scan the table and think of the millions of other families in Iran.

Old or young, all united by a dual tension.

Once dinner is over, I leave with my brother, who, despite his profession, is much better at chess than me.

Our father taught us when we were little, but I didn't have the cunning and strategy and, since then, I have constantly lost, despite my efforts and studies.

Unlike my brother, I know the names of the moves and the contraindications in attacks and defenses, but I have no intuition.

At each of our games, which usually lasts at least a couple of months, making one move each day, I am always amazed at the solutions put in place by my opponent.

Today it's his turn to move.

He stands still, as usual, staring at the board, to let the time pass.

I'm sure he's been picturing the pieces for most of the day and already knows what to move and how to do it.

Move the bishop that sweeps the black diagonals.

It is an interlocutory move, perhaps to clear the center or perhaps to open the pawn.

I hadn't expected something like this.

I remain in meditation for about ten minutes, then my father signals me to place the cassette in the cassette player and to listen to the Ayatollah's voice together.

A slow and calm speech, but with fiery words.

Revolution and Islam.

Two concepts that may seem antithetical.

We are all refreshed, as if listening had nourished us more than food.

The Shah and the regime in power had understood nothing a few months ago, when they denigrated him so as to focus all expectations on his figure.

Reza Pahlavi had made the great mistake of bringing all his enemies together and would soon pay for all his misdeeds.

*******

In a hotel in central Tehran, the unmistakable sound of an Olivetti Valentine echoed off the walls of a lonely room.

Olga Martinez, an almost thirty-eight year old Mexican correspondent, was about to write her piece to send, under dictation, to the editorial staff of the newspaper she worked for, the Excelsior, one of the main Mexican newspapers, despite the developments of 1976 having undermined the credibility and independence of the newspaper.

The fingers flowed quickly over the keyboard, almost as fast as the thoughts.

Olga was the newspaper's foreign correspondent, dedicated to the Middle East, since at least the beginning of 1978.

She had asked for a transfer to that place to be at the center of the world and they had looked at her badly.

Iran was certainly not a very famous country, especially in the American continent.

“You'll think again,” he told the editor-in-chief.

At the same time, he also wrote for the services of Mexican public television.

There were few of them in Tehran and almost all of them always found themselves in the same places.

“It is no longer safe to walk around alone, especially women.”

So Rafael, a television operator, had told her, but perhaps more out of interest than out of real danger.

Olga did not go unnoticed.

He had thick black hair, but his facial features were not typical of Mexico.

Nothing about her suggested the conquistadors or a mestizo heritage, much less the ancient inhabitants of Mexico in the pre-Columbian era.

Nobody knew of its origins, conveniently hidden and hidden for years.

It had always been a danger to reveal the truth for someone like her and the profession of journalist helped her to dissemble and mislead.

Having finished the piece, he reread it.

It was dry, with a sentence ending.

Something was going to happen soon.

Hope or illusion?

His sources were never wrong, they just had to wait.

He looked at the portable, compact red typewriter.

A marvel of ingenuity and design.

He smiled, got dressed and went down to reception.

In a lobby of the hotel, a kind of press room had been set up, from which foreign journalists could broadcast their pieces.

Olga used to type the piece in the evening, take it to her workstation and then check it again in the morning, given that the time difference, eleven and a half hours with Mexico, meant that in her country it was still the evening of the previous day, when instead she got up with the dawn of the new day.

After a quick look, he went back up to the room.

Nocturnal noises are less and less widespread, almost as if it were a curfew ante litteram.

Restful sleep and the alarm clock.

Breakfast very different from the usual one, and perhaps this was the most unusual thing for someone like her.

Nothing new happened during the night, so the piece was broadcast identically to what was written the night before.

*******

“We cannot strike in Tehran.”

The revolutionaries, who did not yet have any identifying names, actually pretended to be such.

Nothing previously thought was completely correct when applied to them.

Few outside Iran would have understood.

A symbol was needed, something terrible, but also of considerable impact.

“They will be martyrs.

It is up to us to construct the truth.

Do you feel them, Abbas?”

And they also ask me if I'm on their side?

Obviously yes.

From my point of view, they are not innocent.

Anyone who wants to go to a cinema to see Western shows should be punished.

This is what our Ayatollah will put into practice and no one has understood it yet.

We in Tehran will have to do little, just spread the truth, that is, our version of the facts.

It will be the one that people listen to because they want to hear these things.

A few more days and then the result will be clear to everyone.

*******

“Can't we reach Abadan?”

Rafael shook his head.

"Are you crazy? It's a thousand kilometers on impassable roads, it will take a whole day.

We rely on other media.”

Olga was eager to get first-hand news.

There had been a terrifying attack in a cinema in a city on the border with Iraq.

The number of deaths was unspecified, hundreds were said, but as always there were conflicting figures.

The government spoke of three hundred, Olga's sources of seven hundred.

Where was the truth?

And whose responsibility was it?

Of the infamous SAVAK? The secret police in the service of the Shah who were said to engage in torture so brutal as to be unspeakable?

That insecurity did not allow Olga to write a good piece.

*******

“It's like a game of chess.”

My brother will only understand this way.

It's about dismantling the regime's excuses and making the truth of the creed triumph.

“Didn't you see the shoes?”

It was said that there were far more shoes than the bodies recovered.

But my brother needs to explain everything, since, outside of the game, he isn't very interested.

“It means they took the bodies off the street.

And who can act in this way?”

There is only one possible answer.

“Those of SAVAK”.

It finally came to the conclusion we wanted.

And if he does it, everyone will.

Our truth will triumph, even if we know it is a little lie.

Small, compared to those of the regime and above all said for a good purpose.

To ensure that the people rebel and make a clean sweep of the current regime.

We'll take care of the rest.

My parents were even more easily persuaded.

They hate the Shah and the government so much that they agree with every little move we make.

They asked me to keep my ears open at the University.

To understand which professors are openly hostile to us.

It means that the showdown is near.

Now all that remains is to wait for the fuse, unleashed elsewhere and not in the capital.

Here in Tehran we will wait for the right time, when everything is clear and when we are told to mobilize the crowd.

At that point, everyone will have to take us seriously.

Even those cursed foreigners, who destroyed our country.

Today I saw a journalist, she was obviously someone from the West and she had her card clearly displayed with the words "press" in English.

As if behind that screen, they thought they were protected and enjoyed some immunity.

She was a woman and was walking down the street alone.

Without veils and without respecting our traditions, all in our home.

It must never happen again.

We will no longer have to allow mixing with these infidels who defile us.

I wanted to pick up a stick and beat her, but it wouldn't have done any good.

They would just arrest me.

Our contacts tell us to stay calm, that there will be time to sort things out and draw up lists.

We are many, millions, and we must neither be afraid nor do our own thing.

The Ayatollah will tell us everything and we are just waiting for his arrival.

Better if I start studying.

I don't miss much, in a few months I should start working at a hospital.

It makes me sick to think of serving this government, even if maybe only for a short time.

I already see myself projected forward, into the future, in the new Iran, governed by Islamic law, as every other country should be.

We will be the lighthouse of the entire East, just as we were the center of the world millennia ago, before the arrival of another corrupt Westerner.

Homosexual, moreover.

I open the book from which I am getting ideas for the thesis discussion.

I immerse myself in reading and time passes quickly, as if I were transported to another world.

Bacteria and viruses, infections and operations.

Even as a child, I wanted to be a doctor and, when all my friends were scared by a wound or the sight of blood, I instead approached the victim out of curiosity.

I tried to scrutinize as much as possible of how a man was made inside, beyond the layer of skin, a shell that covers us and hides our true nature.

Maze of veins and fabrics, even if not beautiful to look at, but functional.

I don't think I've ever changed my mind, at any point in my growing up.

And now I already see myself at the service of the Revolution, when we become the most advanced state, but not in the Western sense.

We don't need money and business , as the Americans say.

We need the recovery of tradition and loyalty.

Believing in something bigger than us.

One thing I learned at University is to suspend all activity at the time of prayer.

This is what differentiates us from others, from the sacrilegious and desecrated.

And by those women, who fortunately have no real power, but whose mere presence is an insult.

We will have to do a lot to safeguard the revolution, much more than we do today.

It will have to be a thorough and non-stop check.

Everywhere and without any exception.

Waiting is destructive, at least for someone like me who is used to taking action.

Abbas the quick, Abbas the quick, that's what they nicknamed me as a child.

Unlike my brother.

The thoughtful and the thinker, the one who is instead a labourer, but is happy like this.

Without responsibility and without worries.

His meditations are internal or at most linked to chess, a game in which he is a true marvel.

We had also tried to convince him to sign up for a tournament, but the competitive spirit is not his thing.

He always remains on the sidelines and doesn't want to take on challenges, except those with me or my father, in which he constantly wins.

Even though I sometimes get a friend to help me out, there's no beating that.

Pure instinct, without knowing the technique and moves.

He doesn't know when he adopts the Sicilian defense or sets up the Spanish game, but he does it.

Naturally and without suggestions.

Crazy, when I think about it I go crazy.

The darkness of the evening suddenly overtakes me.

Better to move to the kitchen and living room.

What will my house be like?

I do not know.

I have no idea about building a family.

Not now.

Now we have to make the Revolution, then we will have our whole life ahead of us.

*******

Olga tapped the keys quickly.

There was no time to waste in spreading the news globally.

The television stations gave little detail about the events outside Tehran, but by now the long wave of what happened on the border with Iraq was about to arrive in the capital too.

Large demonstrations against the regime, which had deployed the police.

And hence another carnage.

Who to believe?

Everyone was aware of the lies spread by the ministries and the secret police.

Indeed, many journalists were afraid to write something contrary to the regime, especially if there was a socialist orientation.

The Shah had adopted an intransigent policy towards the so-called rebels, without understanding the very meaning of what was happening.

Even Olga hadn't realized it until she noticed some looks.

One, in particular.

Of a young man.

He had some books in his hand and, although Olga knew little Farsi, she had guessed it was a medical treatise.

The young man was probably a student at the university or a novice doctor.

The established doctors walked around dressed differently and without books under their arms.

This young man had a thin beard, the kind that grows occasionally on still boyish faces.

He would never have, not even in ten or twenty years, one of those typical Middle Eastern beards.

Olga felt uncomfortable for the first time since the beginning of the year.

He had never guessed what was behind it.

It was no longer a secular clash between opponents of the regime and loyalists of the Shah.

It was no longer about politics, but about religion.

Something that no one had touched and which was now completely surprising.

Despite Khomeini's constant outbursts and frequent attacks, in Iran no one harmed an imam or any religious leader.

Qom and the madrassas had not been touched.

How had Olga remained so blind?

What the Iranians wanted was not just the overthrow of the Shah and a new government.

This was the first step, which would not be followed by the second, the one hoped for by the West.

None of them wanted democracy and elections.

But only the end of a dictatorship considered immoral to supplant it with another dictatorship.

Of the people and the proletariat by the Marxists, of the word of the Prophet by the religious.

Olga's piece flowed in a linear fashion.

From people's looks to their thoughts.

An entire people devoted to sharia and Islamic law.

Some measures seen as symbols to be eradicated, among which the freedoms granted to women certainly stood out.

While in other parts of the world, feminism had been reaping successes for about a decade, with a progressive emancipation of the female role with respect to the family, procreation and domestic affairs, in Iran all this was seen as Western and infidel corruption.

Beginning of September, continuous riots.

Autumn that promised to be more incandescent than the humid summer that was about to end.

The woman knew that the world was deaf and that there were other general tasks.

Iran was seen as a secondary state and certainly not fundamental on the international stage.

He feared for his origins.

Until that moment, no one had discovered them, also because they had been properly hidden.

His parents had wanted to erase every trace of their past, out of fear and fear.

When Olga was born, at the end of August 1940, people like them weren't doing well.

Even though he had not yet been fully aware of what terrible things would happen in the following five years, it was enough for a German Jew to have lived through the first period of the advent of National Socialism.

The Zimmermanns had fled Cologne a few months after the arrival of the Fuhrer, during the summer of 1933.

They stopped in Paris for a year, but then took the road to the new continent.

Mexico, where it was hot and they could count on some support.

But when they were certain of Olga's arrival, they changed their surname.

Martinez.

Unmistakably Hispanic.

And Olga had grown up without any German or Yiddish idiom, but as a native Spanish speaker.

He learned German later, along with English.

The Zimmermann origin had been buried behind years of oblivion.

Now, however, Khomeini cited Israel as the greatest aberration in the Middle East.

The Western Satan who showed up and occupied Jerusalem, in whose presence the Saudis, custodians of the sacred places of Islam, had succumbed to corruption.

How had she been so blind and deaf?

And the world underestimates all this?

An advent of an Islamic republic would have changed the course of history forever and Israel would no longer have been safe.

What if they discovered its origin?

He trembled as he dictated the piece on the other end of the phone.

He hoped he was wrong.

*******

We finally received the order.

Mobilize as many people as possible.

Insist on action.

No weapons, but protests.

Send people into the streets to shout slogans and we will have to be unscrupulous.

We need women, veiled and in the front row.

The signal will come from them, despite their clear minority.

I still have two months of study, no more. End of November should see my medical degree.

I'm happy, but everyone at home knows the reason for this jubilation.

My father looks at me proudly for a double result that we will all achieve.

A doctor in the house, but above all a new Iran.

I saw my brother getting busy.

Perhaps the laborer is just his way of appearing under the radar.

"What can I do for you?

At least twenty people listen to me at work and I can drag them to the square or elsewhere.”

I smile.

Quick Abbas can count on a dense network of trusted acquaintances, against whom not even SAVAK agents can do much.

I know we need the army's support and it won't be easy.

“For now, we wait.”

The arrival of the Ayatollah will change everything.

Let's recite some verses from the Koran together, as we did when we were children.

Outside the sun illuminates the plateau where the capital of the new Islam is kept.

The world will tremble and the foreigners will have to leave.

I will look for them in hospitals and clinics, in universities and in every place, until the last infidel has left our land in peace.

II

Tehran, winter-spring 1979

––––––––

“Abbas, when will we stop?”

My brother doesn't seem to understand the historical significance of the event.

“Not now”, I simply tell him, smiling with a sincere and boyish smile.

Why stop at this moment?

We are getting the first results of our struggles.

Bakhtiar's appointment and the cessation of American support for the Shah are only the first step.

It is clear that Reza Pahlavi will have to go.

Some say already tomorrow.

It would be a landslide victory.

“The important thing is to take to the streets. Show that we are united.

Can you mobilize the usual thirty?”

I have become a constant point of reference for my community and my name begins to circulate high in Tehran.

As a doctor, I can access where others do not have permission and I can understand the situation of the clashes.

For now, very few.

No real massacre has been carried out, at least not in the last two months.

What would be the point?

Maybe a few shots will stop the natural course of events?

Certainly not, given our determination.

We must press on the accelerator as long as there is time, before the world realizes what we have in mind.

Nobody is ready, except us.

We will take to the streets to shout the joy of the end of the monarchy and the farewell of the Shah, but without supporting Bakhtiar, whatever decision he takes.

He is not our leader and no one obeys him anymore.

He is a puppet who gives orders to the wind.

And this wind will not take us away, but will bring back our great Ayatollah.

Everyone is waiting for his official speech before taking a definitive position.

The socialists and the Fedayeen thought they would put us under their yoke and use us, but they understood nothing.

Better and better news reaches me from the University, in a sort of like-like spread of our beliefs.

Women are rightly starting to cover themselves and be afraid to show themselves.

They will have to suffer for their unbecoming conduct.

And the same is said of foreigners.

It seems like a general stampede of Westerners and Americans.

The same ones who have poisoned us for years are now running away.

There was a great debate about what to do with these foreigners, whether to detain them or let them be.

Some would have liked to arrest them or keep them confined and then take revenge, while others were already happy with their passing.

“They leave the country in our hands, what more do you want?”

Their line was found to be the majority, but this does not mean it is the correct one.

I am sure that now we cannot antagonize too many people and too many states, but these escapes only fuel a future counter-revolution.

They'll arm someone to come at us.

It is clear.

We are too strong and efficient and this is thanks to the Shah, who was supplied by the Americans and now leaves us a legacy of respect.

Another sign of the idiocy and lack of foresight of this regime, whose only peculiarity was to introduce corruption into Iran.

The atmosphere is harsh, especially at night.

The heights make themselves felt and it is not healthy to stay out for long.

There is a risk of a cold which, as far as it has to happen, is harmful.

Woe betide you if you were forced to bed due to an illness on the days of the great celebration and liberation.

The home phone started ringing more and more often and almost never for work-related reasons.

I had to leave a contact number at the hospital to be available outside of duty hours, but so far they haven't called me, except once.

For the rest, they are brothers' calls, so we appeal while waiting to find a right term.

Almost always code words, but now we are no longer afraid of the secret police.

The smartest ones are already changing their coats or disappearing, as are the soldiers and even some officers.

I think the Shah's escape will speed things up.

"And tomorrow".

I almost cry listening to what is said to me.

Having put down the phone, I inform everyone that the Shah will be leaving the next day.

Everyone hugs me and the hours pass quickly, engulfed by the desire to live.

We are in the square, among thousands of other people.

Unprecedented human crowd.

We celebrate, to a limited extent.

This is just the beginning.

Now Bakhtiar remains who can't do much, in fact he will be put in a corner.

At least we hope so.

It will be a speech by Khomeini that will decree his end.

*******

Escorted by some men, Olga remained on the sidelines of the demonstration.

The television crew documented the incident.

After years, the reign of the Shah in Iran ended.

An escape, requested and awaited.

The woman understood how no one would stop.

None of those present wanted to hear anymore about monarchy, nor about democracy.

In the evening, distraught, she tried to put her ideas together.

Articles of different nature.

On the one hand the hope of the natives, on the other the fear of the Westerners.

Nobody knew how the situation would evolve.

Olga needed reliable, first-hand sources.

There were European correspondents to draw from and the best were the French.

Perhaps due to the fact of hosting Khomeini in Paris or due to the less obvious way of being flattened by the Americans.

He walked through the hotel lobby until he reached the French television station which broadcast to a large range of French-speaking countries.

“What do you know?”

The first one grimaced.

Maybe he didn't feel like sharing.

Olga knew how to leverage people.

It was a natural skill she had learned as a child.

The second, more inclined to dialogue, wanted some reassurance.

No direct quotes or scoops to burn.

“Are you going to wait until tomorrow night?”

Olga remembered the time difference between Europe and Mexico.

The two Frenchmen looked at each other and, catching a glimpse of the harmonious figures under the woman's dress, gave in.

In Mexico they would have read the whole thing when the newspapers would have already been sold in France.

No interference.

The second, shorter and more placed, but also younger, thought that such a favor could lead to an acquaintance.

You never knew how it would end up with your colleagues, especially from other countries.

Without any possibility of interference in normal lives, relegated to states where foreigners were not welcomed, perhaps there was a hope of a few fleeting nights.

“Bakhtiar will approve press freedom and give the green light for new democratic elections.”

A good point, according to Olga.

Finally something positive.

“And then it will block oil exports to South Africa and Israel.”

The woman nodded disapprovingly.

No news ever came without a negative twist.

Israel as a sworn enemy, even by secularists.

The first French journalist intervened.

“Why that expression?

Here they will look at everything in the opposite way.”

Olga understood the reference, but could not notice a small anti-Semitic hint.

By the yardstick of an Iranian, blocking Israel's oil was more than sacrosanct, but freedom of the press and free elections were an insult to Koranic law.

For this reason, he understood that the fight would not stop.

"Thank you".

He smiled and glanced at the two.

They might as well have made them deluded after such news.

*******

“His word is worth nothing”, tell everyone.

Someone touches me inside with their elbow, I turn and see that it is a young man I have never seen before.

We already call each other by another name.

Pasdaran, or guardians of the Revolution.

Even if there has been nothing yet and even if everything has yet to materialize.

We know, however, that we won't have to wait long.

Ten days.

The ten days that shocked the world, other than Marxists and Fedayeen.

We will be the ones to destroy every false Western belief and bring back the great faith in Shiite Islam, the only true one worthy of existing.

Bakhtiar was disavowed by Khomeini, who promised to arrive in Tehran at the end of the month.

On January 31, 1979 we will see an entire country acclaiming its new mentor, the pastoral and ethical leadership it needed after years of corruption.

The army seems to have vanished, at least in reality.

On paper it still exists, but we know, through our infiltrators, that this is not the case.

I rush into the street, where chaos reigns supreme.

It's a strange mess.

Mixed between those who see one world collapsing and those who see another one arriving.

The former have their gaze turned to the past and see no future, perhaps some are even thinking of fleeing.

The latter want the future to shine like the ancient past.

And I am part of this part, considered a minority and a loser for years, left in a corner, mistreated and ignored.

We grew up in the shadows, without exposing ourselves, while the secret police agents undermined the other oppositions, making scorched earth of those who could annoy us.

A big thank you to these idiots.

In the hospital, everything is fine.

The news must have spread that I am part of the Pasdaran and I notice that everyone looks at me with fear, even the elderly doctors.

They are right to fear.

We will be inflexible against those who have betrayed the people and traditions.

We will have to be patient a little longer, enough to install a new government with a new law.

Maybe a month or two, but then the whole future will be ours.

A world in which Iran will stand as a beacon of Islam and defender of the words of the Prophet, fighting first and foremost the servants of the Western Devil within the Muslim world.

After we have defeated all our internal enemies, we will turn outward.

By destroying Israel and the Americans' allies and then there, in the epicenter of corruption.

Maybe I won't see the triumph of sharia on a global level, but I will leave a more just world for my children.

A world in which women will not dare defy the dictates of the law.

The voices preceded me.

At home I find frenzy and the search for conformity.

My brother blocks me.

We even gave up our game of chess, since now there is much more at stake than checkmate.

“Is it true that he's coming back?”

I shake my head in the affirmative.

We have a trembling exultation, we are almost thrilled with joy.

I see our father cry.

He had probably been waiting for a moment like this his whole life.

It is the culmination of a dream and a great hope.

“Still in the square, every day.”

Coordination is complex and well structured.

Without blocking the country, everyone must make their own contribution, manning squares and streets outside of their work shifts.

We don't stay at home for long, just at night and when it gets dark, but in the light of the sun, the whole world must see what is happening.

We know that there are foreign journalists with their televisions and they are documenting every hour and every demonstration.

We must make them tremble with fear.

In Tel Aviv and New York, in Moscow and Tokyo, in London and Paris.

Everyone will have to be afraid of us.

I feel that history is shaping under our hands and every day becomes better than the previous one.

Everything passes so quickly and ten dawns follow one another with impressive speed.

It is a prodigious flow, very different from the one that had anesthetized us for decades.

I noticed that more and more people are with us, we will see tomorrow what the Ayatollah's entry will be like.

Nothing will be the same as before.

*******

“Follow us and let's stay united.”

The cameraman and the Mexican television announcer were finishing scolding Olga.

They would have carried out a direct attack on the crowd that had already been crowded together on the streets of Tehran since the morning.

Fortunately, the press enjoyed some privileges, including that of passing checkpoints and not having to deviate.

The three got into the small van driven by a trusted local driver.

Olga took notes in a schizophrenic way, adopting the shorthand techniques she had learned twenty years earlier.

Incomprehensible signs that would be useful for her to rearrange her thoughts once she returned to the hotel.

“The risk is high.”

Fueled by months of remote propaganda, there was an entire population waiting for Khomeini's return, who would not calm down now that he saw the finish line one step away.

With the Shah already fled, Bakhtiar was a useless screen that would be carried away by the first gust.

The real target was foreigners.

And the women.

Olga had both characteristics within her.

She had covered her black hair with a veil, leaving only her face visible.

Somehow, we had to adapt.

However it was a mystery.

We had often seen revolutionaries who, once they had taken power, had settled down and their proclamations were forgotten.

“It's different here.”

Not only because of Khomeini's charisma, but because there was the impression that the battle was only just beginning.

It was not about overthrowing the Iranian government, but about posing a global challenge within Islam in terms of relations with the West and infidels.

The test case was certainly the Saudi leadership.

And then there was oil.

Something that everyone debated little about, but so evident in the interests and influences.

All the countries in the area were oil producers and the Saudis had control of OPEC.

The settlement of accounts with the West occurred through oil and mutual economic relations.

This was precisely the crux of the Khomeinist attack.

The airport was not far from the hotel.

The press knew they had to be comfortable for a possible escape.

Olga was the last to get out of the van and was struck by the mass of people surrounding her.

They would have been swallowed up.

Everyone chanted fixed slogans, repeated endlessly.

The plane would land within half an hour.

No photography possible, under penalty of the ferocity of someone who, in his agitation, could have done anything crazy.

When a plane approached, the crowd began to cheer.

It was his, without a doubt.

Minutes of frantic waiting.

A hieratic and timeless figure, modest and with the aura of an elder's wisdom rises above Iran.

This is history and Olga knows it well.

He has in mind to make a memorable piece, one of those worth setting.

Nobody knows the future, but young Iranians seem to have touched the sky with a finger.

*******

We are here, all of us, writing a piece of history.

Ours and that of the world.

I didn't think I could find a family even bigger than my original one.

I feel that I belong to this cause and this ideal much more than I ever wanted to become a doctor.

We put the regime in check, playing with a perfect strategy and with opponents who moved the pieces at random, facing certain defeat.

A few words from our guide.

From tomorrow, the efforts will multiply and we will get everywhere.

Next to me is my brother.

I think no real Iranian will work today.

It is the beginning of our liberation and the army or the police don't even dream of stopping us.

In fact, they join us.

I know that a revolutionary council is being prepared for the transition of power and that Khomeini will not be able to take over as Prime Minister, but these are transitory things.

Before long, we will crush them.

Our will is greater and we know we are right because we are guided by the words of the Prophet.

We returned home amidst cheering crowds.

Never seen anything like it.

"How was it?"

My mother is the first to ask us to account.

Let's go into detail and spare nothing.

My brother is even better than me, he has an excellent sense of observation and that is perhaps why chess suits him perfectly.

“I saw foreign journalists disorientated.

Even women.