такое кино
Isfahan. Lamed (ל)
The Theater of Fire
15 Azar 1401 (December 6, 2022)
Tehran greeted them with a steel-gray sky and air thick with the smell of exhaust fumes and cold anxiety. The car drove them down Enghelab Avenue, and the city outside the window seemed not a living organism, but a vast mechanism whose gears turned with a strained, pained creak. Zahra looked at the flashing streets, but she didn’t see them. She saw beauty and fury, fused together in a ritualistic dance that was unfolding at the university gates.
On one side of the avenue, a fire raged. It was a sacred, cleansing fire, devouring symbols. Young men with burning eyes and headbands, their faces beautiful in their fanatical conviction, tore apart flags with stripes and foreign stars. The fabric, a symbol of a hostile universe, writhed in the flames, turning to black ash that the wind carried away and mixed with the snow falling from the mountains. The fire consumed it with the same methodicalness with which the crowd consumed its own rage, turning it into the ashes of satisfaction. Their cries—“Marg bar Āmrikā! Marg bar Esrā’īl!”—were not just the words “Death to America, Death to Israel.” It was a liturgy, a mantra, a collective prayer addressed to a god of wrath. Their fury was as pure as steel and as beautiful in its finality as a samurai’s ritual suicide. They were sacrificing not themselves, but their hatred, and in this act, they found their unity and meaning.
And just a few dozen meters away, separated by a cordon of black helmets and shields, another ritual was taking place. A ritual of silence and pain. Other young people stood there. There were fewer of them, and their weapons were not fire and shouts, but silence and gazes. They didn’t burn flags. They held white sheets of paper in their hands—a symbol of all that was unsaid. Their protest was as fragile as thin ice on a puddle, and just as doomed. The dispersal was not a battle, but a surgical operation. No fury, only cold resolve. Batons fell on shoulders and backs with a dull, business-like thud. Fragile bodies fell to the cold asphalt like autumn leaves. Their silence was louder than any cry, and their defeat more beautiful than any victory, because it held a truth that needed no justification. The blood on the asphalt didn’t scream—it simply spread, finding cracks in the pavement, creating abstract patterns.
Zahra watched, and her soul was torn in two. She was part of the world of those who burned flags, and the mother of those who were beaten with batons. Two rituals, two aesthetics of death, and between them—she, the bifurcation point.
“Don’t look,” the driver said, turning into a side street. “It’s a theater, for our guests. So they understand what kind of country they are in.”
The car entered the university grounds. Here, silence and order reigned.
The meeting took place in a conference room with a high ceiling and portraits of ayatollahs on the walls. The air was sterile and cool. The IAEA delegation—three men and one woman—sat opposite them. Their faces were as impenetrable as the pages of a diplomatic protocol. Next to Zahra and Rustam sat two nondescript men from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, whose job was not to speak, but to listen and remember. In the corners of the room, like shadows, stood several other men whose affiliation with the IRGC was as obvious as the geometry of a pistol under a jacket.
The conversation was less like an argument and more like a game of chess, where every word was a calculated move.
“We appreciate your willingness to engage in dialogue, Dr. Musavi, Dr. Yazdi,” began the head of the delegation, a gray-haired Austrian named Bauer. “However, our satellite data and analysis based on open sources indicate certain… discrepancies in the operation of the Fordow facility.”
“Discrepancies or interpretations, Herr Bauer?” Rustam gently countered. “Any set of data can be interpreted differently. A physicist sees a dance of quarks in particle traces, while a politician sees the outline of a bomb. It’s a matter of optics, is it not?”
“Our optics, Dr. Yazdi, are the Security Council resolutions. And they direct us to look not for dances, but for facts. For example, the fact of exceeding the enrichment level.”
“Facts are a relative concept,” replied the senior of the Foreign Ministry officials. “Glass is transparent, but it distorts the image. We prefer clarity.”
“An enrichment level of 60 percent is inconsistent with the needs of a civilian program,” one of the inspectors noted.
“We are conducting scientific experiments,” Zahra interjected. Her voice was as steady as the line on an oscilloscope. “We are studying the stability of cascades at peak loads. Any scientist understands that to obtain reliable data, a system must be pushed to its theoretical limit. This is not production. This is research.”
“The Tehran Research Reactor requires fuel enriched up to 20 percent, but to create a stockpile, we are forced to produce higher-enriched material, which is then downblended,” Rustam added.
“An interesting logic,” the Austrian smiled. “You create a surplus to achieve a sufficiency?”
“We create capabilities,” Zahra replied, and everyone turned to her. “In physics, as in life, potential is more important than kinetics. We are demonstrating a capability, not an intention.”
They spoke the language of physics, but every term had a double meaning. “Peak loads” meant “weapons-grade.” “Cascade stability” meant “warhead reliability.” It was a labyrinthine dialogue, where the direct path was the shortest path to failure. They exchanged formulas, graphs, references to scientific articles. And it was all just a facade, behind which the real game was being played—a game of intentions and suspicions.
After two hours of this intellectual fencing, Bauer announced a break. The delegates stood up. And at that moment, one of the delegation members approached Zahra—a Frenchman named Alain Duval, whom she remembered from her internship in Saclay.
“Dr. Musavi, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” he said with a polite smile. “Since I have the opportunity, I would like to pass on a personal greeting.”
Zahra tensed.
“From whom?”
“From Dr. Vitaly Smirnov. Do you remember him? The Russian physicist. He’s been working with us at the CEA since May of this year.”
Smirnov. Sarov. 2012. The man who had overseen her internship. The man with whom she had discussed the merits of the German Jagdpanther tank destroyer. Smirnov at the French Atomic Energy Commission. A coincidence? A signal?
The blood drained from her face.
“Yes, I remember him,” she managed to force out.
“He spoke very warmly of you. Said you were one of the most brilliant minds he’d ever had the pleasure of working with.” Duval paused, his gaze becoming serious for a moment. “And we, at the Agency, very much value your work and your contribution to science. We hope for further fruitful collaboration.”
“Science knows no borders,” she replied, quoting a platitude. “Only politics creates them.”
“That’s precisely why such meetings are important,” the Frenchman smiled and walked away.
The words hung in the air. They could have been simple politeness. Or they could have been a password. A confirmation. An order to continue.
He had extended his hand to her. She shook it automatically. His handshake was brief, dry, business-like. But for a moment, she felt his fingers squeeze her palm slightly harder, as if transmitting an invisible signal.
Or had she just imagined it?
On the way back to the airport, Rustam was silent, looking out the window at the passing scenery. Finally, he said:
“They know more than they’re letting on.”
“They always know more,” Zahra replied.
“No, I mean…” he turned to her. “Their questions were too precise. As if they have a source.”
She shrugged, feeling a cold sweat break out between her shoulder blades.
“Satellites. Open-source analysis. They’re no fools.”
“Yes,” Rustam agreed. “They’re no fools.”
But there was a note in his voice she had never heard before…
Outside the window, the Iranian winter flew by—gray, cold, full of hidden meanings. Just like her life. She remembered Rustam’s words: “They don’t want to weigh it, Zahra. They want to be sure the shadow doesn’t belong to a monster.” And she understood: she herself had become that shadow. Or perhaps, the monster.