Part I: Section 5 Summary

Behrani looks at Nadi as they sit on the floor of their new home eating pizza. He remembers how she had instructed the movers to be very careful with her "supreme furniture." He also remembers, years earlier, a phone call Nadi placed from their Paris apartment to her sister back in Tehran: afterwards, she had cried that if he hadn't been part of SAVAK, they would not have had to flee. Since Esmail had been outdoors at the time, playing with his friends, Behrani had slapped Nadi and let her lie crying on the floor: he had been in the Shah's Imperial Air Force, not SAVAK.

He also remembers the Thursday nights at General Pourat's estate-especially meeting the general's young nephew, who was in SAVAK. The nephew said he learned methods of torture in the United States-dismembering young children...