THE ROAD TO TEHRAN 1943 PART II

Zaliv Kirova.
Pulled the car up next to the beach. A table was laid and the fine cuisine of the region spread out.
Black Sturgeon had their bellies ripped open and the black gold of their eggs filled the bowl.
Pungent goat cheese, spit roasted lambs, and olives.

The warm water of the Caspian lapped the lakes shore. After a fine feast I walked down to the water. I removed my shoes and walked bare foot along the waters edge for a few hundred metres. Further o­n the coast turned rocky and forbidding. O­ne feature had a crevice that was split like a woman’s good fortune…dank and deep it made me pine for my Svetlana.

I came back and the table was bare, picked over by the multitudes of gulls that littered the skies. Yuri my driver was gone; all he left was his pirate eye patch hanging off his chair. No worry, I was sure he would return.



I could hear the muezzin call the faithful to prayer. I sat down at the table and began to read the briefing files I had been given about the Tehran meeting. Gonnorhorrea, it said, was rife in the brothels of this Persian capital and I was warned if I was going to dip the wick then I should have it in a rubber prophylactic. Roosevelt had also been warned off the Persian whores, it seems that it was a great insult to Islam if a disabled infidel bedded a Muslim woman.

The afternoon sun made me doozy…the gypsies came to pick over my bones…I was naked o­n the table with a sundial shadow thrown o­nto my belly by my erect old fella…the teenage gypsy girl danced a magical spell…here, she said, light my pipe. I lay closer to her and she was warm to touch…kelp floated to the surface of the sea…next was hollering… I awoke and grabbed the bottle…the 80 proof liquor felt warm in my belly; I took the bottle and stared up at the sun through its bottom. I saw a rainbow.

Then night came…

Part I