MASH QASEM
Dear Uncle Napoleon’s faithful servant.
NANEH BILQIS
Dear Uncle Napoleon’s ancient maid.
DEAR UNCLE NAPOLEON’S CLOSE RELATIONS
NARRATOR
Dear Uncle Napoleon’s unnamed nephew.
NARRATOR’S FATHER
Dear Uncle Napoleon’s brother-in-law.
NARRATOR’S MOTHER
Dear Uncle Napoleon’s sister.
UNCLE COLONEL
Dear Uncle Napoleon’s brother.
SHAPUR, AKA PURI
Uncle colonel’s son.
DEAR UNCLE NAPOLEON’S DISTANT RELATIONS
ASADOLLAH MIRZA
An official in the Foreign Ministry and half-brother (by his father’s gardener’s daughter) of Shamsali Mirza. The “Mirza” of his and his brother’s names is a honorific indicating a distant relationship to the Qajar royal family.
SHAMSALI MIRZA
Asadollah’s half-brother, a retired examining magistrate.
DUSTALI KHAN
A favorite of Dear Uncle Napoleon, second husband of Aziz al-Saltaneh, Qamar’s stepfather.
MRS. AZIZ AL-SALTANEH
Dustali Khan’s wife and Qamar’s mother, a cousin of Asadollah and Shamsali Mirza.
QAMAR
Aziz al-Salteneh’s simpleminded daughter from a previous marriage.
MRS. FARROKH LAQA
A gossip and busybody.
NEIGHBORS, TRADESMEN, OFFICIALS, AND THEIR RELATIONS
DR. NASER AL-HOKAMA
The family doctor.
SEYED ABOLQASEM
A local preacher.
SHIR ALI
The local butcher; the “Shir” of his name means “Lion.”
TAHEREH
Shir Ali’s beautiful wife.
DEPUTY TAYMUR KHAN
A local detective.
CADET OFFICER GHIASABADI
Deputy Taymur’s assistant.
NANEH RAJAB
Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi’s mother.
AKHTAR
Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi’s sister.
AGSHAR THE DIESEL
Akhtar’s boyfriend and protector.
HUSHANG
A local cobbler and shoeshine man.
BRIGADIER MAHARAT KHAN
A Sikh Indian businessman; though not a military man, his honorific Persian title of Sardar, which loosely means “commander” has been translated as “Bridgadier.”
LADY MAHARATE KHAN
The Bridgadier’s blonde English wife.
NOTE: The word “Khan,” which often follows masculine names, is an honorific used to show respect (particularly from a younger to an older person) or, between equals, affection.
PART ONE CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE. In which the narrator falls in love, and a dubious sound interrupts one of Dear Uncle Napoleon’s war stories.
CHAPTER TWO. In which Dear Uncle Napoleon cuts off the water supply, and a family council is held to discuss the dubious sound.
CHAPTER THREE. In which a thief breaks into Dear Uncle Napoleon’s house, and Dear Uncle Napoleon holds a religious ceremony.
CHAPTER FOUR. In which Dustali Khan flees from his wife and takes refuge in Dear Uncle Napoleon’s house.
CHAPTER FIVE. In which relations between the narrator’s father and Dear Uncle Napoleon deteriorate further, and Dustali Khan disappears.
CHAPTER SIX. In which Deputy Taymur Khan uses his international system to investigate a murder.
CHAPTER SEVEN. In which Asadollah Mirza declares his love, and there are more discussions about the dubious sound.
CHAPTER EIGHT. In which Dustali Khan is found, and Asadollah Mirza has two opportunities to visit San Francisco.
CHAPTER NINE. In which attempts are made to persuade Asadollah Mirza to leave Shir Ali’s house.
CHAPTER TEN. In which the narrator’s father apologizes to Dear Uncle Napoleon, and uncle colonel throws a party.
ONE
ONE HOT SUMMER DAY, to be precise one Friday the thirteenth of August, at about a quarter to three in the afternoon, I fell in love. The bitterness and longing I’ve been through since have often made me wonder whether if it had been the twelfth or the fourteenth of August things would have turned out differently.
That day, as on every day, they had compelled us—meaning me and my sister—by force and threats and a few golden promises for the evening, to go into the cellar in order to sleep. In the savage heat of Tehran an afternoon siesta was compulsory for all the children. But on that day, as on every other afternoon, we were just waiting for my father to fall asleep so that we could go into the yard to play. When my father’s snores became audible I stuck my head out from under the coverlet and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was half past two in the afternoon. In waiting for my father to go off, my poor little sister had fallen asleep herself. I’d no choice but to leave her and I tiptoed out alone.
Layli, my uncle’s daughter, and her little brother had been waiting in the main garden for us for half an hour. Our two houses had been built within one big enclosure and there was no wall between them. As on every day, we settled down quietly to our games and conversation in the shade of a big walnut tree. And then I happened to catch Layli’s eye. A pair of wide black eyes looked back at me. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from hers. I’ve no idea how long we’d been staring at each other when suddenly my mother appeared standing over us with a little multi-thonged whip in her hand. Layli and her brother ran off to their house and my mother drove me into the cellar and under the coverlet, threatening me as she did so. Before my head was completely hidden under the coverlet I looked across at the clock on the wall; it was ten to three in the afternoon. Before she in turn put her head under the coverlet my mother said, “Thank God your uncle didn’t wake up, because if he had, he’d have torn you all to pieces.”
My mother was right. Dear Uncle (as we called him) was very particular about the orders he gave. He’d given an order that before five o’clock in the afternoon the children weren’t so much as to breathe. Within the four walls of that garden it wasn’t only we children who had learned what not sleeping in the afternoon and making a noise during Dear Uncle’s siesta meant; the crows and pigeons appeared in the garden much less often because Dear Uncle had taken a hunting rifle to them a few times and effected a general slaughter. The street vendors of our area didn’t go through our street, which was named after Dear Uncle, till five o’clock, because three or four times the man who came by on his donkey selling melons and onions had been slapped by Dear Uncle.
But that day my brain was working overtime and the name of Dear Uncle didn’t put me in mind of his rages and bad temper. I couldn’t get free of the memory of Layli’s eyes and of her gaze even for a moment, and no matter how much I tossed and turned and how much I tried to think of something else, I saw her black eyes, brighter than if she were really there in front of me.
That night, underneath the mosquito net, Layli’s eyes came after me once more. I hadn’t seen her again that evening, but her eyes and her beguiling gaze were there.
I don’t know how much time passed. Suddenly a weird thought seized my whole brain, “God forbid, I’ve fallen in love with Layli!”
I tried to laugh at this idea of mine, but no laughter came. It’s possible for someone not to laugh at a stupid idea; that doesn’t mean it’s not stupid. But is it possible for someone to fall in love, just like that, without any forewarning?
I tried to recall all the information I knew about love. Unfortunately this information didn’t amount to much. Although more than thirteen years of my life had passed, up to that moment I’d never seen anyone in love. At that time very few books about love or
descriptions of the condition of people in love had been printed. Besides, they wouldn’t have let us read any of them. My mother and father and relatives, especially Dear Uncle, the shadow of whose existence and thoughts and ideas enveloped every member of the family, forbade every kind of excursion from the house without a chaperone, and we didn’t dare approach the other children who lived on our street. And the radio, which had begun broadcasting only recently, contained nothing in its two or three hours of daily programs which could help illuminate my mind.
In going over the information I had about love, the first thing I came to was Layli and Majnun, whose story I’d heard many times. But however much I dug around in the corners of my brain, I realized that I hadn’t heard anything about how Majnun fell in love with Layli; people just said that Majnun fell in love with Layli.
Perhaps it would have been much better if I hadn’t brought up Layli and Majnun in my researches, since the identity of names between Layli and Dear Uncle’s daughter had an effect on what happened to me later, probably without my being aware of it. But I couldn’t help it. The most important lovers I’d heard of were Layli and Majnun. Apart from them, there were Shirin and Farhad, but I didn’t know anything special about how they’d fallen in love either. There was a love story published as a newspaper serial that I’d read, but I hadn’t read the first few episodes and one of my classmates had described them for me. Consequently I knew nothing about the beginning of the matter.
I heard the clock on the cellar wall strike twelve. O God, half the night was over and I hadn’t slept yet. This clock had been in our house for as long as I could remember and this was the first time I’d ever heard it strike twelve midnight. Perhaps this sleeplessness was evidence of my falling in love. From behind the mosquito net, in the half darkness of the yard, the strange, weird silhouettes taken by the shadows of trees and shrubs I saw terrified me—because, before I could reach a conclusion as to whether I’d fallen in love or not, I was terrified by the fate of the lovers I’d gone over in my mind. Almost all of them had suffered a sorrowful fate, ending in death and disaster
Layli and Majnun, death and disaster. Shirin and Farhad, death and disaster. Romeo and Juliet, death and disaster. Paul and Virginie, death and disaster. That love story in the newspaper, death and disaster.
God forbid, I’d really fallen in love and was going to die, too! Especially since at that time death was common among prepubescent children. Sometimes during family gatherings I’d heard them counting the number of children women had given birth to and the number that still remained alive. But then a flash of lightning lit up my mind with hope: we’d heard and read the story of the famous Amir Arsalan many times; only Amir Arsalan had brought his longing to a successful conclusion. Although the story of Amir Arsalan, and its happy conclusion, did on the one hand somewhat allay my terror of romantic adventures, on the other, in answer to my basic question, it weighted the scale in my mind toward the positive answer, that I had fallen in love. How had Amir Arsalan fallen in love? He’d seen a picture of Farrokh Laqa, and in that moment he’d given his heart to her. So, was it possible that I too had fallen in love with a single glance?
I tried to sleep. I squeezed my eyelids together so that sleep would come and I’d be free of these twisting, turning thoughts. Fortunately sleep doesn’t let a child stay awake till morning, even if he is in love. Apparently such problems are for grown-ups who are in love.
Morning came. I had no opportunity to think more, because I’d slept longer than usual. I suddenly jumped up from sleep at the sound of my mother’s voice, “Get up! Get up! Your uncle wants you.”
My whole body trembled as though it had been connected up to an electric outlet. My voice wouldn’t come and I wanted to ask which uncle, but the words stuck in my throat.
“Get up! He said you’re to go over there!”
I couldn’t think. Although it was contrary to all logic and reason, even a child’s reason, I was certain that Dear Uncle was aware of my secret and I trembled with fear. The first thing that came into my head to delay my torture was to say that I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.
“Get up and eat quickly and go!”
“You don’t know why Dear Uncle wants me?”
My mother’s answer calmed me down to some extent, “He said all the children are to go there!”
I breathed again. I was used to Dear Uncle’s sessions of advice and moral guidance. Every now and then he would gather all the family children together at once and give them a little advice and at the end of the meeting he’d give each one a candy. So bit by bit I pulled myself together and reckoned that there was no possible way Dear Uncle could have realized my secret.
I ate breakfast fairly calmly and for the first time since I had woken up I once again saw Layli’s black eyes, in the steam from the samovar, but I tried with all my strength not to think of her.
As I was going toward Dear Uncle’s house I caught sight of Mash Qasem, Dear Uncle’s servant, in the yard with his trousers rolled up, watering the flowers.
“Mash Qasem, do you know why Dear Uncle wants us?”
“Well now, m’dear, why should I lie? The Master said I was to call all the children. To be honest I don’t know what he wants you for.”
Only we, exceptionally, had the right to call Dear Uncle “Dear Uncle,” otherwise all our friends and acquaintances and the inhabitants of the area called him “the Master.” Dear Uncle Napoleon (as he was called behind his back) was one of those long seven-syllable nicknames. Really seven syllables, in that you had to open and close your mouth seven times in order to have the right to say anything about Dear Uncle’s existence. Dear Uncle’s father, who for his part had had a six-syllable nickname, was simply “the Master” and little by little people forgot his name. Dear Uncle’s father, on his own initiative, so that after he had gone there should be no split in the family unity between his sons and daughters, had had seven houses built in his huge garden and had divided them among his children while he was still alive. Dear Uncle was the oldest of these children and he had inherited the title “the Master” from his father, and, either because of his being the oldest or because of his own character and natural disposition, he considered himself the head of the family after his father’s death, and he had made such an issue of this that none of this fairly large family dared so much as to take a drink of water without his permission. Dear Uncle had interfered so much in the private and public lives of his brothers and sisters that most of them had resorted to legal action in order to separate their houses from his and had either built walls or sold up and left.
In the part of the garden still remaining there were us, Dear Uncle, and one other brother of Dear Uncle’s whose house was separated from ours by a fence.
Dear Uncle was in the sitting room with French windows, and the children were playing quietly in the inner courtyard of his house.
Layli looked up and came over to greet me. Once again our eyes stayed locked together. I felt my heart beating strangely. It seemed to be making a thumping sound. But I didn’t have much opportunity to think about it and draw conclusions. Dear Uncle’s tall, skinny, bony body, his leggings clinging to his limbs, appeared from within the room just as he was adjusting his thin cloak of Nain cloth over his shoulders. He was frowning. All the children, even those who were very little, felt that advice and moral guidance were not what was at stake and that something was badly wrong.
Dear Uncle’s tall figure stood in front of us and as he looked upwards from behind his usual thick sunglasses he said in a dry, frightening voice, “Which of you has chalked filth on the door of this yard?”
And with a long, skinny finger he pointed behind us at the door of the inner apartments, which his servant Mash Qasem had just closed and beside which he was standing. We all automatically looked in that direction. On the door, in fact on the back of the door that led into the yard, someone had sc
rawled unevenly in chalk:
“Napoleon is a donkey.”
The stares of most of us, of nine or ten children that is, turned toward Siamak, but before Dear Uncle lowered his head we realized our mistake and looked at the ground. For us there was no doubt that Siamak had done it, because we had frequently talked about Dear Uncle’s love for and interest in Napoleon, and Siamak, who was more mischievous than the rest of us, had sworn that one day he would write out Napoleon’s donkeylike quality on Dear Uncle’s door. But a feeling of common humanity prevented us from betraying him.
Dear Uncle, who was standing in front of the line of us like a commanding officer in a prisoner of war camp, started to talk, but in the forceful, frightening, threatening speech he made he mentioned nothing about the insult to Napoleon; the pretext was making the door filthy with chalk.
After a terrifying moment of silence had passed Dear Uncle suddenly yelled out in a voice that seemed quite out of proportion to his skinny body, “I said, who did this?”
Once more surreptitious stares turned toward Siamak. This time Dear Uncle both noticed the stares and fixed his own angry and terrifying gaze on Siamak’s face. At this point something happened. (I’m embarrassed to write this but I hope considerations of truthfulness and honesty will excuse such openness.) Siamak was so afraid that he peed in his clothes and began to stammer apologies.
When the punishment for both the crime itself and the crime committed during the search for the guilty one had been carried out, the crying Siamak set off for his house and we children followed him in a silence that was partly the effect of our fear of Dear Uncle, and partly respect and sympathy for Siamak’s painful ordeal, since we to a great extent had caused it.
When the weeping Siamak complained to his mother about Dear Uncle, she, though she’d guessed and was in fact certain which Uncle he was talking about, automatically asked, “Which Dear Uncle?”
And her pain-wracked little boy unthinkingly answered, “Dear Uncle Napoleon.”
We were all aghast, and stood there rooted to the spot. This was the first time that the nickname which we had given to Dear Uncle among ourselves had been spoken aloud before one of the grown-ups.
My Uncle Napoleon Page 2