In the Time of Our History: A Novel of Riveting and Evocative Fiction


 
 
 
 
 Table of Contents
 
 Praise for Susanne Pari and In the Time of Our History
 Title Page
 
 Copyright Page
 Dedication
 Part 1 - Sisters
 Prologue
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Part 2 - Julian
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Part 3 - Brothers
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 The Bird of Wisdom
 Epilogue
 Acknowledgments
 Discussion Questions
 
 
 
 Acknowledgments 
 During the course of writing this book, I lost three women who meant the world to me. Each of their lives—the way they lived and the way they didn’t—inspired and informed parts of this story. Unfading gratitude to my mother, Iman Khosrowshahi, née Faith Lita Knobel, who patiently and lovingly listened to early drafts through years of illness, recovery, and relapse; to Kathi Kamen Goldmark, whose presence I still feel whenever writing in a café, and whose friendship was as pure as sunlight; and to Asya Levai, the inspiration for “Olga,” who died in Tehran in 2014, dashing our hopes that we would see one another again. 
 This book would not have survived its long journey to publication without the tough love and unwavering heart of my brilliant agent, Laurie Liss. I am forever indebted to my private editor Joy Johannessen, who read through over a thousand pages, pointed to Version Two, and never lost faith, even when I did. So much gratitude to my editor, John Scognamiglio, for championing this book without hesitation, and for treating it with care and respect. 
 Once a novel is written, it must find a house in which to live and grow. If the novelist is lucky, that house becomes a welcoming, nurturing, and well-run home. I’m very lucky. Thank you to my Kensington family, especially Steve Zacharius and Adam Zacharius, Lynn Cully, Kristine Noble, Joyce Kaplan, Carly Sommerstein, Vida Engstrand, Michelle Addo, Matt Johnson, and Jackie Dinas. 
 My infinite appreciation to the people who read my words, listened to my frustrations, calmed my anxieties, advised me, drank my tea, fed me, yelled at me, laughed and cried and kvetched with me, lectured me, teased me, and held 
 The Bird of Wisdom 
 In the time of our history when a harmless boy named Amadou was slaughtered by police in New York, and when China banned all opposition groups, there was a man deep in the labyrinth of Evin Prison whose only wish was to hear of his daughter’s freedom. 
 In this place, information traveled like a vapor, in quiet centimeters. Some time ago—the man had lost sense of time—news came that the reformist government would seek justice for the Writers who had been strangled and stabbed and poisoned and bludgeoned, their bodies strewn and then discovered and then neatly buried in the Cemetery of Zahra’s Heaven. The Assassins—rogue agents and Chain-Makers of murdered bodies—would stand trial before the nation. 
 The man was not fooled. The Assassins took orders from the Righteous Patriarchs of the shadow theocracy. Nothing would change. He turned his gaze inward, hid the victims in the folds of his heart, and allowed himself a thimbleful of tears. He understood that the Tehran Spring was over, that it had been scorched by Summer, murdered by Autumn, and now buried by Winter. 
 When the vapor brought a message from the old Russian woman that his daughter was free, he rejoiced and silently toasted his oily tea at the walls of his cell. It was all that mattered, she was all that mattered. 
 He hoped he had nurtured her long enough, that she perceived all that he valued: the lure of Telling and the delirium of Remembering, the addiction of Uncovering and the liberation of Testimony. He hoped she would write the stories of the people who had been taken, which was the story of herself. 
 Lying on the dirty blanket