It was as integral to him as his faith, and his will to fight. Hossein had borne his disability with neither pride nor shame. Although he had been right-handed, he was holding the microphones in his left hand this meant the photograph had been taken after 1984, when he lost his right arm. His hair was receding prematurely, but you could imagine him laughing like a boy. I was drawn to the fragility of Hossein’s features, to his delicate nose and lips. He was telling his men why the war against Iraq was a sacred war, and that if they were killed they would go to paradise. It showed Hossein in combat fatigues, talking into two microphones that had been taped together. There was a big mural on one of the walls, a copy of a photograph I’d seen before. I took off my shoes and she showed me into a living-room that looked onto a courtyard with a persimmon tree in the middle. Mrs Kharrazi told me to come in, rearranging her chador so it wouldn’t slide off her head. Hossein Kharrazi’s bicycle was leaning against the wall of his parents’ house in Isfahan.
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