My Uncle Napoleon

by Iraj Pezeshkzad

  Dear Uncle went forward to welcome him and said, “Officer, I’m very pleased to inform you that the misunderstanding has been cleared up. The lady’s husband is in the best of health and is staying comfortably in the house of one of his relatives . . .”

  “You, silence! Where is the murder victim? Quick, now, immediately.”

  Then he brought his huge face close to Dear Uncle’s face and said in a very suspicious tone, “Are you quite sure the murder victim is alive?”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh interrupted, “Officer, fortunately it’s become clear that Dustali is alive . . . the cat’s got nine lives, he has that. You won’t find that donkey dying till he’s killed me first!”

  It was clear that Asadollah Mirza, who had been busy flicking the dust off his clothes since he’d come in, could no longer be bothered to carry on a conversation; he heaved a sigh of relief and said, “Thank God a hundred thousand times over, husband and wife are together again.”

  The deputy quickly turned in his direction. “Don’t be too quick about giving thanks. Now let me see! If the murder victim is alive, why did you confess to killing him? What was the reason for your confession? Well? Quick, now, answer!”

  “I think I must have had a dream . . .”

  “Silence! Have you been making fun of me? They kill someone, and then the murderer charms the murder victim’s wife with his sweet talk, the murder victim’s wife claims that her husband’s alive, the detective in charge of the investigation says ‘Good night’ to them like a good little boy and goes off home! Silence! I hope I place the hangman’s rope round your neck myself.”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh sprang at the deputy like a panther. “What? A hangman’s rope? Put a hangman’s rope round your own dad’s neck first! I’ll claw your eyeballs out of their sockets . . .”

  Dear Uncle anxiously interposed himself. “My dear madam, madam, please, I beg you, the deputy is only fulfilling his duty according to the law. You have to explain to him, not . . .”

  “Why are you interfering? Who the hell do you think you are? My idiot of a husband goes off on one of his jaunts . . . we get a detective in who’s a half-wit and he accuses an innocent young man, I tell him where to get off, and what’s it all got to do with you, eh?”

  “Silence! Everyone, silence! I said silence!”

  “Oh, shut up, you and your damn silence! I’ve a mind to hit you on the head with this rake so your glasses’ll smash into your blind eyes!”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh joined the action to her words, threatening the deputy’s head with the rake. Asadollah Mirza grabbed her arm. “My dear madam, please calm yourself.”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh calmed down. With unexpected mildness she said, “Whatever you say, Asadollah . . .”

  The deputy, who had been taken aback by Aziz al-Saltaneh’s assault, took courage. “Silence, madam! Until I see the murder victim with my own eyes, I cannot let the accused go free. Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi! Take charge of the accused!”

  Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi clicked his heels together and took hold of Asadollah Mirza’s arms. “At your service, sir!”

  But before anyone realized what was happening, the cadet officer began screaming and yelling. Aziz al-Saltaneh had jabbed the detective’s assistant violently in his hindquarters with the rake.

  The deputy screamed in a voice shaking with anger, “Silence! Inflicting an injury on a representative of the state while performing his duty! Madam, you, too, are under arrest! Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi, arrest this woman, too!”

  Clutching his behind, with all the muscles of his face twisted in pain, the cadet officer said, “Sir, please, you arrest the lady yourself, I’ll bring the murderer!”

  At this moment uncle colonel and Shamsali Mirza also arrived, but confronted by the determined face of Aziz al-Saltaneh, who was holding the rake aloft in a threatening way, they stood rooted to the spot. Quietly, Dear Uncle Napoleon said, “Asadollah, you do something!”

  Very quietly Asadollah Mirza answered, “Moment, moment . . . so now I’ve become a wild animal tamer have I!” But he went over to Aziz al-Saltaneh and said out loud, “Aziz, my dear, put that rake down . . . give us a chance to explain the matter to his excellency Deputy Taymur Khan. We’re not going to get anywhere by quarreling.”

  “I’m only letting them off for your sake, you handsome devil!”

  As Aziz al-Saltaneh was putting the rake down, Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi, who had no thought in his head except to carry out his orders, quietly made his way over to Asadollah Mirza and said in a mild voice, “We’d better be on our way. You’re a sensible fellow . . .”

  Asadollah Mirza jerked his arm free of the officer’s hand and said, “Get back, or the lady’ll get angry again.”

  Dear Uncle Napoleon interrupted, “Deputy, sir, taking into account that Dustali Khan has been found and has given news of his health over the phone to his wife, all this business of the investigation and complaints and so forth has become pointless.”

  “You seem to be the most senior of this group, get it into their heads that a prosecution that begins as a result of a private complaint does not end with that private complaint when murder is involved. I am arresting the murderer; you come tomorrow to my office with the murder victim and arrange for his release!”

  Asadollah Mirza could not contain himself, “Moment, moment, deputy sir, but what if the murder victim doesn’t want to come along, too?”

  The deputy screamed, “Silence! Off to prison with you! Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi!”

  Mrs. Aziz al-Saltaneh shouted in a louder voice, “And both of you two off to the graveyard with you!”

  Once again she made a quick lunge and grabbed the rake from Mash Qasem, who had picked it up, and said, “Come on, I’m going to phone their boss and see what’s what. Asadollah, come with me!”

  And she took hold of Asadollah Mirza’s hand and set off toward the inner apartments of Dear Uncle’s house. The deputy and Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi followed her at a distance, along with everyone else.

  While Aziz al-Saltaneh, with the rake in her hand, stood in the hall of Dear Uncle’s house trying to get in touch with the deputy’s superior on the phone, everyone gathered in a circle around her, at a sufficient distance, and no one dared go any closer. Only Asadollah Mirza was next to her. Finally she got through.

  “Hello . . . good afternoon, sir . . . that’s very kind of you, sir . . . yes, he’s been found, he’d been sulking and had gone off to stay with one of his relatives. Thank you. Thank you very much . . . but you see this deputy of yours, Taymur Khan, he won’t give up . . . just imagine . . . he insists they must have killed Dustali and he wants to arrest Asadollah Mirza . . . Yes? Yes, yes, that’s right . . . the grandson of Uncle Rokn al-Din Mirza . . . You can’t remember him? That year you came to Damavand he was with us . . . yes, yes, that’s exactly right . . . you don’t know what an angel he is, such a good man, such a gentleman he is . . . certainly, I’ll hand the receiver over to the deputy . . .”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh held out the receiver to the deputy and said, “All yours!”

  And when she saw that the deputy wouldn’t come any closer out of fear of the rake, she shouted, “Come here, I won’t bite you!”

  The deputy took the receiver, clicked his heels together, and said, “Good afternoon, sir . . . yes, sir . . . of course, whatever you say, sir . . . but you must realize, sir, that in the statement I prepared I wrote down the lady’s complaint concerning the murder of her late husband, and now unless I see the murder victim and establish his identity . . . Yes, sir . . . the lady herself? How can the lady herself be a guarantor for the accused? Yes?”

  With a sharp shove from behind, Aziz al-Saltaneh pushed him aside and snatched the receiver from his hand, “Hello . . . yes, I myself will be guarantor for Asadollah Mirza . . . there’s no question . . . tonight I’ll keep Asadollah Mirza at
my house, and your deputy can sleep at my house, too . . .”

  With round astonished eyes, Asadollah Mirza said, “Moment, moment, madam, what are you saying? What do you mean, you’ll keep Asadollah Mirza at your house?”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh put her hand over the receiver and in a somewhat reproachful voice said, “Don’t talk so much, Asadollah; let me hear what the chief has to say. The room upstairs is empty, you can go up there and sleep. Deputy, sir, come here, the chief wants to talk to you again . . .”

  “Hello . . . Yes, sir . . . certainly, sir, it shall be done, sir, that’s right . . . so that nothing will be against the regulations . . . as you say, sir . . . certainly . . . very good, your excellency.”

  Deputy Taymur replaced the receiver. He brought his huge face close to Asadollah Mirza’s anxious, dumbfounded face and said, “Silence! Tonight I am letting you go free with this lady as your guarantor; you must not leave the lady’s house! Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi will also stay in the same house to see that you don’t leave . . . Silence! Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi, open your ears and pay attention: tonight you will sleep in this lady’s house! The accused has no right to set foot outside of her house, and if he does, you will be held responsible!”

  In a voice of mingled triumph and sympathy Aziz al-Saltaneh said, “Asadollah, I’d rather die than let them drag you off to jail!”

  As he was wiping the sweat off his forehead Asadollah more or less collapsed onto a bench in the hallway and in an appalled voice said, “Moment, moment, now really moment! If it so happens that that prize donkey Dustali comes back to his house, then what? And what will people say? Give me permission to sleep right here; the cadet officer can keep me under observation here, too . . .”

  “Silence! I said Silence! It is only on this lady’s guarantee that the murderer is not going to prison; he must remain under her observation! This lady is your legal guarantor! Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi, quick march with the accused! Silence!”

  With his cheeks glowing, retired prosecutor Shamsali Mirza bawled, “Gentlemen, this is shameful! How can a healthy, full-grown man spend the night in the house of a respectable woman when her husband’s not there? You’re flinging the family’s honor and reputation to the winds!”

  Dear Uncle Napoleon interrupted him, “Stop shouting, Shamsali! Let this damned row die down . . . Asadollah’s not a mouse to be afraid that some cat’s going to eat him!”

  “What are you talking about, sir! What regulation is it contrary to that Asadollah can’t stay the night at his own house, or at least stay here?”

  Deputy Taymur Khan roared out, “Silence! Who gave you permission to interfere in the business of a representative of the law? Well? Answer! Quick, now, immediately, at the double! Silence!”

  Shamsali Mirza summoned up all his reserves of strength in order to answer calmly, “Officer, I also have some experience of the law. And I ask you, as a reasonable man, what is there to prevent my brother, on my guarantee, and that of this gentleman here, and even of the lady in question, from staying in his own house tonight?”

  “Silence! The guarantees of you and this gentleman and so on and so forth are of no interest to me. Mrs. Aziz al-Saltaneh is the gentleman’s legal guarantor. If she agrees, I have no objection. Madam, do you agree?”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh had seen no reason up to that moment to interfere; now she suddenly burst out, “And how am I to know they won’t make this young fellow run away the same as they made that poor devil Dustali run away? I can only answer for him if I can see him with my own eyes.”

  Shamsali Mirza was so angry the veins on his neck were swollen; he turned to Asadollah Mirza. “Asadollah, why have you been struck dumb? Say something!”

  With an innocent face Asadollah Mirza bowed his head and said, “Brother, what can I say against the power of the law?”

  Everyone present looked at him in astonishment, since they thought they’d been working to save him from the clutches of Aziz al-Saltaneh, but now they saw that Asadollah Mirza had submitted to his fate and perhaps he didn’t even feel too bad about it.

  Asadollah Mirza was famous in the family for his flirtatiousness and lascivious behavior, and there was no one the women of the family gossiped about so much, but even while they were damning him and calling him “shameless,” there would be a kind of knowing coquettishness in their voices which showed that the soft soap of his flirting had rendered all of them more or less compliant. In general, everyone knew about his lecherous behavior, but they never imagined that he wouldn’t pass up even a woman who was perhaps twenty years older than himself.

  Deputy Taymur Khan’s voice roused everyone from their incredulous astonishment, “Silence! Madam, take this pen and paper and write down whatever I say.”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh put the rake down and took the pen and paper.

  “Write, please: I the undersigned . . . write your name and first name . . . hereby undertake that I shall deliver Mr. Asadollah . . . write his family name and his father’s name . . . first thing tomorrow . . . to the criminal desk at the police station . . . Have you written that? . . . And will hand him over to the proper authorities . . .”

  “Moment, moment . . . she should write that she’s received him whole and in good health and that she’ll hand him over in the same condition . . .”

  “Silence! Who gave you permission to interfere? Well? Who? Quick, immediately! Silence!”

  “What do you mean, silence? The five limbs of my body are healthy. All its members, noble and not so noble, are healthy. God forbid that tomorrow they should say something was missing.”

  Coyly and flirtatiously, Aziz al-Saltaneh put the pen between her teeth and said, “Well now, God strike me dead, what things you do say, Asadollah!”

  “Officer, if this is to be completely according to law, there should be an official record of the extant members of the body . . .”

  Aziz al-Saltaneh burst out in a coy laugh and said, “O Asadollah, you’re such a rascal, you are!”

  “Silence! I personally shall accompany you to the lady’s house. Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi, quick march!”

  Asadollah Mirza sat on a chair. He gripped the chair’s arms firmly and, with a mischievous glint in his eye, said, “I’m not coming unless they drag me there by force!”

  “Silence! Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi!”

  Deputy Taymur Khan and his assistant took Asadollah Mirza by the arms and, while he was pretending to resist, lifted him up and set him on his way.

  As Asadollah Mirza was leaving between the two officers, he turned his face toward Dear Uncle Napoleon and said, “Moment, if—God forbid—something happens, you’re responsible because it was you who made me a murderer. Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi, we’re off to San Francisco!”

  Shamsali Mirza was on the point of fainting from rage; with a voice he could hardly drag from his throat he shouted, “Asadollah, God damn your impudence!”

  “Moment, moment, this is a fine to-do! I came here today just to make a friendly call and leave. I became a murderer, I was sworn at, I’ve had a square yard in the garden of my house dug up, and now, just as I’m off on a little trip, I have to hear an argument?”

  Mash Qasem, who was standing motionless in a corner, said with a grin, “Good luck to you, sir, so you’re going on a trip, are you? Where are you going?”

  “Somewhere close to San Francisco.”

  “God be with you then . . . don’t forget to bring back a present.”

  “God willing, the present should turn up in nine months’ time.”

  “Silence! I said silence! Good day to you, gentlemen!”

  As Deputy Taymur Khan and Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi were leading the accused out behind Aziz al-Saltaneh, uncle colonel weighed in for the attack against Dear Uncle Napoleon. “And you’re just standing there silent, as if it had never entered your mind that you
were the head of this family . . . how much shameful behavior are we going to have to put up with? How much stubbornness? Just think about it! Now that he’s climbed down, you leave off, too! He says he’s ready to open the water so it can come through to us . . . forget this whole business . . .”

  Dear Uncle Napoleon’s patience and strength were stretched to the point of exhaustion; in the detective’s tone of voice he yelled, “Silence! You’re here plunging a dagger in my back, too! I’ve had just about all I can stand! On the one side that . . . that filthy fellow, and on the other side all of you! God help me, what have I done to deserve this?”

  In a gentler tone of voice uncle colonel said, “Brother, now that this filthy fellow is ready to let bygones be bygones, why don’t you . . .”

  Dear Uncle Napoleon interrupted him, “Why have you become so stupid? Don’t you know this filthy fellow? Don’t you know how dangerous this snake is? As Napoleon said, the time the battlefield falls silent is the most dangerous moment. I promise you that right now that man is hatching some new evil plot.”

  At this moment, the group was in front of the private apartments of Dear Uncle’s house. Involuntarily I looked toward our own house. It occurred to me that Dear Uncle had guessed correctly, but I saw no sign of my father or of our servant who usually did his spying for him. Although for the whole time this was going on I’d tried to stay hidden in a corner out of Dear Uncle’s sight, it was still possible he would see me. I tiptoed away, back to our own house, to see where my father was and what he was up to.

  I saw no sign of him in the yard or in any of the rooms. The front door stood open and I peeped out. Looking carefully and searching around a little in the darkness of the street, I made out my father standing behind a thick tree trunk, and it was clear that he had hidden there and was waiting for something or someone.

  After a few moments I saw that my father had suddenly become rather agitated. I looked in the direction he was looking. Deputy Taymur Khan had come out of Aziz al-Saltaneh’s house and was walking so that he would pass by our house and then be on his way. When he had come a little closer my father came out from behind the tree and pretended that he was returning home.