My Uncle Napoleon

by Iraj Pezeshkzad

  I didn’t hear any more of Mash Qasem’s explanation. I’d thought of everything to do with love and being in love except a rival. And I should have thought of this before everything else. In every love story I’d ever read there was one person in love, the person he was in love with, and a rival. There were Layli and Majnun and Shirin and Farhad right in front of my eyes and I hadn’t thought of a rival.

  God, what was I to do about this individual? If I’d been as strong as him I’d have gone and given him a couple of juicy slaps around the head. The long smiling face of Shapur, the great genius, floated before my eyes and he looked far uglier to me than before.

  The first straw it occurred to me to cling onto in this stormy sea was once again Mash Qasem; trying to appear completely calm I said, “Mash Qasem, do you think it’s possible that Layli could become Puri’s wife?”

  “Well, m’dear, why should I lie? Layli’s a big marriageable girl now. And this master Puri’s finished his schoolin’ . . . you know what they say, ‘A marriage between cousins is arranged in heaven.’ It’s true he’s a bit of a mammy’s boy, and stupid with it, but he’s a sly one.”

  Once again the terror of love overwhelmed me. I wanted to find some way to free myself. I was right to have been afraid of love from the beginning. Now I was ready to forget about love, if that were possible. But it was a bit late.

  After I’d spent almost till noon struggling with the torments of my tortured heart, I once again went in search of Mash Qasem. “Mash Qasem, can I ask you a favor?”

  “Say on, m’dear.”

  “I have to tell Layli something about some schoolbooks. Would it be possible for you to tell her, this afternoon when Dear Uncle’s asleep, to go into the garden, just for a minute?”

  Mash Qasem was silent for a moment. Then he raised his eyebrows, looked me up and down, and with a slight smile said, “OK, m’dear . . . we’ll manage somethin’.”

  “Thanks, Mash Qasem, thanks.”

  That afternoon, as soon as I felt my father was asleep, I went into the garden. I waited almost half an hour. Cautiously, fearfully, Layli opened the door of the inner apartments and stepped into the garden. I came face to face with her under the same tree where, at about a quarter to three on Friday the thirteenth of August, I’d fallen in love with her.

  The first thing she said was that she had to get back quickly, because Dear Uncle had said to her that if she set foot in the garden and spoke so much as one word to me or my sister he’d burn the whole house down.

  I didn’t really know what I wanted to say to her. Why had I wanted her to come? It would seem I had something important to say to her today. But what should I say?

  “Layli . . . Layli . . . do you know what Mash Qasem says? He says Puri likes you and wants . . .”

  From the look on Layli’s face I realized that she knew nothing about this. I suddenly realized what a stupid situation I was in. Before the lover confesses his love to his beloved he becomes the means by which his rival confesses his love.

  Layli was quiet for a moment. Like me, she didn’t know what to say. We were both as tall as adults but we were still children. After a period of silence in which Layli was perhaps trying to find words, I said, “Puri wants to have his family ask for your hand.”

  Layli continued to stare at me as if dumbfounded. Finally she blushed and said, “If they do, what will you do?”

  If they did, what would I do? What a difficult question she was asking me. I didn’t even know what to do now, never mind if this happened! God, how hard it is being a lover! Harder than arithmetic and geometry. I had no idea how to answer. I said, “Well, nothing . . . I mean . . .”

  Layli looked into my eyes for a moment, then suddenly burst into tears and ran sobbing toward the door of her house. Before I had time to show any reaction she’d entered the house and closed the door behind her.

  Now what was I to do? I wished I could cry, too. But no, I mustn’t cry. From the moment our eyes opened on the world, even before we could get our tongues around words or knew what they meant, they’d repeatedly dinned into our ears, “You’re a boy, you mustn’t cry! Are you a girl to be crying like that? Ha, this isn’t a boy crying, it’s a girl. Hey, Mr. Barber Man, come and cut his willy off!” When I was back in the basement and had got my head under the coverlet, I realized what I should have said, “I’ll kill that Puri like a dog . . . I’ll carve his black heart out with a dagger.” Bit by bit I got more excited, till I suddenly frightened myself with the sound of my own voice, “You think I’m dead that I’d let that idiot get close to you. You’re mine! You’re my love . . . no one in the world dare separate you from me.”

  My father’s angry voice returned me to the real world, “You damn fool, what are you shouting about? Can’t you see everyone’s trying to sleep?”

  That night was hard to get through, too. In the morning I once again went in search of Mash Qasem. But Mash Qasem looked extremely angry. With a very serious, even melancholy face, and with a spade in his hand, he was standing by the water channel at the point where it flowed toward our part of the garden.

  The layout of our houses in the garden was such that the channel of water coming in from the street entered the garden at the part that belonged to Dear Uncle, then from there it flowed to the part of the garden that belonged to us, and from our house it went to uncle colonel’s house; so that in order for the water to get to uncle colonel’s house, which was at the end of the garden, it had to go first through Dear Uncle’s house and then our house.

  I was still looking for a way to ask indirectly how Layli was when uncle colonel arrived with his jacket flung over his shoulders and his long underwear tucked into his socks. In a surprised, expostulating voice he said, “Mash Qasem, our man says that last night you wouldn’t let the water through to our storage tank.”

  Mash Qasem stood there without moving, his spade in his hand, and, without looking at uncle colonel, he said in an expressionless voice, “Well sir, that’s how it is.”

  “What do you mean, that’s how it is? What do you mean?”

  “Why should I lie? I don’t know nothin’!”

  “What do you mean ‘I don’t know nothin’?’ You stop the water coming through to us and now you don’t know about it?”

  “Ask the Master! This is what he told me.”

  “You mean to say that the Master told you to stop the water coming through to us?”

  “Ask the Master, I don’t know nothin’.”

  Uncle colonel, who still couldn’t believe that such an order could have been given by his older brother, went up to Mash Qasem to try to get the spade out of his hand and open the water channel, but from the extremely stern face of Mash Qasem, who stuck to his post without moving, like a brave sentry conscious of his duty, he realized that the matter was more serious than he had thought. He suddenly stopped going toward Mash Qasem and set off for the inner apartments of Dear Uncle’s house. Mash Qasem, very calmly, said, “If only you knew it, you’re payin’ for someone else’s sins.”

  Whatever passed between uncle colonel and Dear Uncle Napoleon remained unknown to us. But we soon realized that cutting off our water, and, as a result, cutting off uncle colonel’s water, was part of Dear Uncle Napoleon’s attempts to be revenged on my father.

  And this was the worst revenge that Dear Uncle Napoleon could have taken on us. At that time, when there was no piped water, once each week the man who distributed the water let the water into our street’s channel and with this water we had to fill the storage tanks. During the twenty-four hours that the water was flowing we had to fill the tanks or we had no water until it was our turn again.

  Two whole days passed in which I didn’t see Layli; I even cried at the memory of her tearful eyes, but there was so much coming and going, and the diplomatic discussions aimed at peacefully solving the crisis and restoring the
water supply went on for so long, that I’d more or less forgotten about my own troubles. There wasn’t even one drop of water left in the storage tank in uncle colonel’s house. The flowers and trees had withered completely. My father was acting stubborn and didn’t make the slightest objection because we still had a little water in our tank, so he just sat tight, apparently trusting in uncle colonel’s efforts, as what happened to him was completely dependent on what happened to us. Every now and then I heard, from behind closed doors, members of the family suggesting to my father that he apologize to Dear Uncle Napoleon, but each time my father raised his voice and got out of it and even said that if Dear Uncle Napoleon didn’t apologize to him and still persisted in cutting off the water, he’d get his rights by turning to the courts and the police. The words “courts and the police” made every member of the family tremble and everyone cried out what a calamity it would be if the centuries-old honor of a noble family were thrown to the winds like this. In any case my father felt the strength of his position and not only was he not ready to apologize to Dear Uncle Napoleon, but he firmly expected Dear Uncle, in the presence of everyone else, to apologize to him. Poor me, stuck in the middle of this! And poor little Layli! And poor, hapless uncle colonel!

  On Friday I became aware of a great deal of coming and going in uncle colonel’s house. I made my way over there, in the hopes of seeing Layli. Layli wasn’t there and we children were not allowed into the living room, but, from the people who were arriving, I realized that this wasn’t a question of an ordinary friendly visit but that a real family council was in progress. Dear Uncle’s two other brothers came. Asadollah Mirza, an official in the Foreign Ministry, came. Dear Uncle’s sisters came. Mrs. Aziz al-Saltaneh came. In short, ten or twelve of the senior members of the family were gathered in uncle colonel’s sitting room. We children hung around in the corridor and in odd corners.

  When we realized that they had sent to inquire a few times for Shamsali Mirza, who hadn’t arrived yet, we knew that it was a more serious matter than we’d imagined. Shamsali Mirza was an examining magistrate; for some reason we weren’t aware of he’d been relieved of his duties and lived in Tehran.

  About an hour after everyone else had come, we realized from the extravagant compliments uncle colonel was making that Shamsali Mirza had also arrived.

  “Your excellency, please . . . your excellency, would you be so kind, this way, please . . .”

  Although they’d always told us that listening at doors and eavesdropping were disgusting things to do, I was all ears and in fact I’d glued my ear to the sitting room door. In truth I had more right to know what was going on than those who were in there, since they were simply losing their flowers and trees and perhaps their indestructible family unity, whereas I saw my love and perhaps my whole life as being in danger.

  Uncle colonel’s excited speech about the benefits of a sacred family unity, and the harmful results of the lack of a sacred family unity, didn’t last long and ended with these words, “Our late lamented father must be turning in his grave. I have done everything I could to preserve the unity of this ancient family and I’ve gone on bended knee to both of them but neither my older brother nor my sister’s husband will climb down from their high-horses and stop this pigheadedness. Now I’m begging you to do something to preserve the sacred, centuries-old unity of this family and not let the courts and the police set foot in this house.”

  I couldn’t see uncle colonel’s face but his excited, bitter tone of voice was testimony to how much he loved his flowers and fruit trees.

  After uncle, Shamsali Mirza started to speak. When the new court system had been set up, Shamsali Mirza had been appointed as an examining magistrate and he considered interrogation and cross-examination to be the key to solving all problems—social, familial or of any other kind. In a forceful and logical speech he suggested that before all else it must first be established whether the dubious sound which had caused the argument had a human or a non-human origin; secondly, in the case that it had a human origin, it must be established whether it came from the area where my father was or not; thirdly, in the case that it came from the area where my father was, was it intentional or unintentional.

  When Shamsali Mirza saw that the majority of those present objected to going into such details, he did what he usually did; he put his hat on his head and said, “Then, ladies and gentlemen, with your permission your humble servant will take his leave.”

  Asadollah Mirza, the official of the Foreign Ministry, had a habit, whenever he wanted to suggest that someone consider things for a while and not rush to conclusions, of saying, in English, moment, moment, pronouncing the word German-fashion with the second syllable accented. And that day, too, when he saw his brother Shamsali Mirza putting his hat on his head to go, he shouted, “Moment, moment!”

  And since everyone had reached a dead end in their attempts to solve the problem, they all joined in and sat Shamsali Mirza down again and submitted to his cross-examination.

  Shamsali Mirza’s first question, which was whether the dubious sound had had a human or a non-human origin, did not get a proper answer. This was because everyone present had also been at uncle colonel’s party that night, and some of them attributed it to a chair while a smaller group considered that it had had a human origin. And there were one or two people who hesitated between a human origin and a chair.

  A question that derived from the first and fundamental question was then put: Who had been close to the place where the dubious sound appeared? My father, Dear Uncle Napoleon, Qamar—the girl who was simple—and Mash Qasem. Cross-examination of the first two on this subject was not possible, while Qamar, considering her health and general condition, could not be a good witness. Mash Qasem was the key to solving this riddle.

  On Shamsali Mirza’s orders Mash Qasem was brought in, and Shamsali Mirza, exactly like an examining magistrate interrogating an accused man, first had him swear that he would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then—after pointing out that his testimony would be instrumental in preserving the sacred unity of a noble family and that he must give his evidence as conscientiously as he could—asked, “Mr. Mash Qasem, did you with your own ears hear the dubious sound which arose while your master was talking?”

  After a moment’s pause, Mash Qasem answered, “Well now, sir, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . God rest his soul, there was a man in our town who used to say . . .”

  “Mr. Mash Qasem, you are before a magistrate. I must ask you not to stray from the subject and to answer my questions!”

  “Yes sir, you’re the boss, you were saying about that duvious sound . . .”

  “Dubious!”

  “Come again?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Come again?’ You said ‘duvious’; I said, say ‘dubious’!”

  “Well sir, why should I lie? I’ve not had no schoolin’ but what I want to know is, what’s the difference?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “The difference between what I said and what you said?”

  Shamsali Mirza lost all patience and yelled, “I said ‘dubious’ and you said ‘duvious’; I said say ‘dubious’!”

  “And so what’s it mean, this duvious and dubious?”

  The inappropriate interruption at this point of Asadollah Mirza, the Foreign Ministry official, who always turned everything to a joke, and who explained the “dubious sound” for Mash Qasem by calling a spade a spade, infuriated Shamsali Mirza since one must not joke with the process of the law; once again he placed his hat on his head in order to leave. Everyone jumped up and sat him back down again.

  “All right, Mash Qasem, now you’ve understood what the meaning is, tell us whether you heard this dubious sound with your own ears or not?”

  “Well now, sir, why should I lie . . .”

  Shamsa
li Mirza angrily interrupted him, “Yes, yes, we know . . . to the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . we’ve one foot there already. But answer my question!”

  “Well now, sir, why should I . . . do you want the truth or a lie?”

  “What do you mean? Are you joking? When I ask a question it’s obvious I want the truth!”

  “Good, and I’ll tell you the truth . . . because why should I lie . . . to the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . Now I heard a sound . . . but whether it was a dubious sound or not a dubious sound . . .”

  “My dear sir, I said ‘dubious’.”

  “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “You said ‘duvious’.”

  “Well, as far as I remember, I said ‘dubious’; anyway, I heard a dubious sound . . .”

  “Do you consider that this sound came from a chair leg or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “Sir, my patience is at an end . . . or what my brother just said.”

  Hearing himself referred to, Asadollah once again jumped into the conversation, cutting it off with a loud burst of laughter and telling a story about a man from Qazvin and a cloth dealer, which went like this: “Just as the guy from Qazvin was buying some cloth he let out a loud fart, so he started to tear different bits of cloth so that the other guy would think it was the sound of the cloth ripping. The cloth-dealer grabbed him by the wrist and said, ‘There’s no point ripping the cloth and wasting it; after forty years at this job I can tell the difference between cloth ripping and other sounds.’”

  Once again those present sat Shamsali, who was on the point of leaving, in his place, and the cross-examination continued.

  “Well, you were saying, Mash Qasem . . . we are waiting for your answer.”

  There was absolute silence and everyone’s eyes were fixed on Mash Qasem’s mouth.