Around Iran, statues of the shahs had been torn down and replaced with statues of the ayatollahs. Scowling men. In Qom, future mullahs studied those faces, practiced their own glowers in bathroom mirrors. “More Holy Men Than Any Other Culture,” the local posters bragged. In Isfahan, the old capital, soldiers showed up unannounced at the doors of old women, saying, “Congratulations, your sons have been martyred.” The mothers would have to hold back their tears, wringing their lips into the eerie not-quite-smiles they’d spend the rest of their lives perfecting. They were the lucky ones. Inside
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