Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks Page B

and he may be right. The drawback is that I can’t be seen in public with you. It would be dangerous for you. But down there, no one knows who I am. Also, the food, James . . .’ He spread his arms wide. ‘Better than your mother made it. As good as a poem by Hafez.’
    ‘I never imagined you were so poetic, Darius,’
    said Bond, with a smile. ‘My colleagues are normally cold-eyed men with guns.’
    ‘I don’t believe you for a minute, James. But gardens and poetry are close to the Persian soul. And poems about gardens, even better. ‘‘I saw a garden pure as paradise,’’ as Nezami put it. ‘‘A myriad different hues were mingled there/A myriad scents
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    drenched miles of perfumed air/The rose lay in the hyacinth’s embrace/The jasmine – ’’ ’
    ‘ The car is waiting, sir.’ Babak had materialized from the darkness.
    ‘Damn you, Babak! You have no soul. I’ve told you before not to interrupt when I’m reciting poetry. Are you ready, James? Shall we go and do battle with the madmen of the highway? Are you hungry?’
    ‘Certainly.’ Bond had declined the airline food and, apart from the caviar, had eaten nothing since a limp croissant at the airport in Paris.
    Farshad was waiting at the front with the Mercedes, and within a few moments they were heading south on the cacophony of Pahlavi Avenue, weaving through the traffic as though Farshad believed this was their last ever chance of eating.
    After they crossed Molavi Avenue, Bond gave up trying to orientate himself and surrendered himself to Darius’s narrative.
    ‘Kermit Roosevelt,’ Darius was saying, ‘was rather an absurd man, to be honest. I used to play tennis with him sometimes and when he hit a bad shot he would chastise himself by saying, ‘‘Ooh, Roosevelt!’’
    This was unfortunate since he was meant to be called
    ‘‘Mr Green’’ or some such thing. I’ve never seen a man drink so much liquor on the job. You’d think
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    he was nervous or something. Cases of whisky and vodka used to go into the little place where he and his friends were hiding out. When the big day came to put the Shah back on the throne Roosevelt discovered that it was the Muslim weekend, a Friday. Then, of course, it was the Christian weekend. So they all had another drink and waited for Monday. When they’d finally got the tanks out and the thicknecks from the bazaar had been paid to get the demonstrators on to the street, they found the Shah hadn’t signed the firmans , which were the binding documents dismissing Mossadegh and empowering himself. So the Shahanshah, the King of Kings, was lurking on the Caspian coast, the tanks and the mob were on the street and the paperwork was in an office in Tehran!’ Darius gave his huge, throaty laugh. ‘We got there in the end.’
    He leaned forward and gave a brief order in Farsi to Farshad, who swerved with a tearing-tyre screech into a side road and accelerated.
    ‘Apologies, James. I have talked too much. I have so much to tell you about this wonderful country. I think it’s important that you know as much as possible before you confront this Gorner and his people. Forewarned, as the English proverb has it, is forearmed.’
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    ‘ There’s no need to apologize. But why the Grand Prix tactics?’
    ‘In my verbosity I’d failed to notice a black American car – an Oldsmobile, I believe – that was behind us. Just as I was telling you about the Shah I realized we were being followed. I asked Farshad to lose him.’
    ‘And he was certainly happy to oblige.’
    ‘Happy by name, happy by nature. He loves a chase. We’re off the map now, James. Foreigners don’t come this far south. Over there is what they call the New Town. It’s full of brothels, bars and gambling dens. That way, down there, is a shanty town, the really poor arrivals from the country. Arabs and refugees from Afghanistan. They live in squalor.’
    ‘You don’t think much of the Arabs, do you?’ said