My father spoke to Dustali Khan but in reality his words were directed at Dear Uncle Napoleon, who had turned as pale as a corpse and the muscles of whose face had contracted in a terrifying manner.
Dustali Khan quivered with rage and the veins on his neck were visibly swollen; he glanced at Dear Uncle. Dear Uncle’s answering glance signalled him to keep quiet. Having delivered his blow my father was busy peeling a cucumber. Asadollah Mirza wanted to change the subject, but Dustali Khan started in on the attack, “As you have such fraternal and egalitarian sentiments, how is it you never let your own sister’s grandson set foot in your house? Do you recall how that time when he came to the door, asking you to help him, you had a police officer get rid of him?”
Trying to remain calm and collected my father said, “That wasn’t because of his profession. It was because he had trampled on every human value and virtue . . . because he’d become a drug addict . . . because he couldn’t leave opium alone. He’d damaged our family’s good standing.”
Dustali Khan was so furious that he lost all self control and yelled, “How is it that your good standing’s so important but the good standing of one of the highest noble families in this country isn’t important?”
Dear Uncle wanted to get him to be quiet but he was so angry that he couldn’t utter a sound. Besides, my father wouldn’t let up.“You mean you’re trying to say that the honored and respected Mr. Ghiasabadi is just like that fool of a drug addict?”
Without at all realizing what he was saying Dustali Khan yelled, “And isn’t the man an opium addict then?”
The guests watched this argument dumbfounded, unable to find an opportunity to intervene. Suddenly Naneh Rajab, the cadet officer’s mother, overturned a bowl of fruit and let out a terrifying scream, “Do you understand what you’re saying . . . you and your family aren’t good enough to be my Rajab’s servants . . . you say another word like that and I’ll ram your teeth down your throat . . . God damn your shameless dirty mouths! Get up, Rajab! This is no place for us!”
Dustali Khan, who was quite beside himself with fury, yelled, “Shut up, you old witch, and may the gravediggers get their hands on that beard and mustache of yours in good time!”
Naneh Rajab leapt from her seat like a firecracker and before anyone could intervene gave Dustali Khan a resounding slap across the face. Dustali Khan tried to kick the old woman in the stomach but his foot hit her shin and she screamed with pain.
The cadet officer’s sister began shouting and wailing and cursing, “You’ve killed my mother, you shameless son of a bitch!”
And she went for Dustali. An extraordinary fight started. And then the cadet officer’s sister’s friend, Asghar the Diesel, who had controlled his anger up to this moment, in one leap got himself behind Dustali Khan, picked him up and ran quickly toward the pool in the middle of the yard. He threw Dustali Khan into the pool with such force that all the guests were soaked from head to toe.
I am unable to describe the noise and confusion and turmoil that ensued.
Half an hour later our house was completely quiet. All the tables and chairs and bowls of fruit and little cakes were scattered haphazardly on the ground. My mother was weeping soundlessly in a corner and my father was striding angrily and purposefully up and down the yard, his hands clasped behind his back; occasionally he would halt near the main garden and say something unintelligible.
I had passed one of the saddest and most unpleasant evenings of my life, and early the next morning I begged my mother to let me go and stay as a guest with a relative who lived on the other side of the city.
I needed to get away from that environment for a while.
When I came back to the house two days later I saw with utter astonishment that the whole garden between our house and Dear Uncle Napoleon’s had been divided by four rows of barbed wire that were a meter and a half high and so closely laid that not even a cat could have managed to pass gingerly from one side to the other.
PART THREE CONTENTS
CHAPTER TWENTY. In which it is proposed that Puri be given a test, and Mash Qasem visits the narrator’s school.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. In which Akhtar gives Puri his test, the narrator takes a firm decision, and Dear Uncle Napoleon’s health deteriorates.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. In which Dear Uncle Napoleon accuses Mash Qasem of treachery, and Asadollah Mirza and the narrator’s father decide on a plan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. In which Dear Uncle Napoleon receives a visitor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. In which Dustali Khan and his son-in-law lay their differences before Dear Uncle Napoleon, revelations are made, and the narrator’s prospects look bleak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. In which Dear Uncle Napoleon receives more visitors and is taken to the hospital, and Asadollah Mirza has a long chat with the narrator.
EPILOGUE. In which everyone’s fate is summarized.
TWENTY
“HELLO, MASH QASEM. Good morning!”
“Hello my lad! How come you’re up so early again . . . ? Eh lad, if you can get up so early every mornin’, go and say your mornin’ prayers through a couple of times. It’s not this world that counts after all, you should be thinkin’ of the next world!”
“You’re right, Mash Qasem . . . I’ve told myself that when I’m bigger . . . I mean when my studies are over, I’ll certainly say my prayers.”
“Eh lad, prayer’s got nothin’ to do with bein’ big or little . . . there was a man in our town who . . .”
If I let him start on his story I’d have lost my chance and I cut him off, “Mash Qasem, can I ask you to give this note to Layli?”
“Last night still thinkin’ of love and bein’ in love, were we? . . . There’s sin involved in this, too, you know . . . stirrin’ up a girl who’s ready to be married like this, and anyway it’s useless . . . there was somethin’ I wanted to tell you, but I don’t rightly know how . . .”
Mash Qasem thought for a moment. I guessed from his face that something new had happened, and I animatedly asked, “Is it about me and Layli?”
“No, no, it’s nothin’ at all . . . just think it was a . . .”
“Please, Mash Qasem! Please tell me!”
“Eh, God in heaven . . . I’ll bite my tongue out . . . I mean why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . It wasn’t anythin’ at all.”
I started pleading. Either Mash Qasem felt sorry for me or he couldn’t control his own love of chattering. He shook his head and said, “If you want to know, the marriage between Miss Layli and Mr. Puri’s goin’ ahead.”
“What? The marriage? How, Mash Qasem? Please don’t hide anything from me. Please, on the soul of everyone you love, tell me whatever you know.”
Mash Qasem lifted up his cap a little, scratched his forehead, and said, “It seems like Mr. Puri’s ailment’s all cleared up . . . meanin’ that Dr. Naser al-Hokama’s medicines have done the job.”
“Mash Qasem, please tell the truth. What’s happened? What is it you know about?”
“Well lad, look, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . it looks like that electric current that Dr. Naser al-Hokama’s been pumpin’ into his guts has done the job . . . now they want to put him to the test . . .”
“How are they going to put him to the test? I mean, is it possible that . . .”
“That’s it, lad . . . they’ve found a woman to . . . but you have to swear that you never heard what I’m sayin’ from me.”
“I swear, Mash Qasem, on my father’s soul . . . on the holy Quran . . . on Layli’s soul . . .”
“Well, this lad who wasn’t a man anymore due to losin’ his . . . now it’s like . . . meanin’ . . . well, to cut a long story short he’s all right again . . . they’re goin’ to send a woman in to him to test him. And if he doesn’t flunk this test, the next day
they’re goin’ to marry him to Miss Layli.”
Although I hadn’t really taken the matter in, I was unable to breathe. I stared wildly at Mash Qasem, with my mouth open. I was waiting for further explanations from him. He set off and said, “Lad, you wait while I go and buy the milk and come back, and then I’ll tell you all about it.” Mash Qasem went out of the garden door and I stood where I was, motionless and dumbfounded.
It was a Friday morning in the spring of 1942. Mash Qasem had long since heard about my secret from my own mouth.
A few months had passed since my father’s party in honor of Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi, and I had experienced a great feeling of pain and loss in the meantime. After that famous evening which had ended in such a tumultuous argument, and was the cause of Layli and I being separated by rows of barbed wire, all means of access were closed to me for three or four months.
Having divided his house from ours by barbed wire, Dear Uncle not only forbade all communication between me and Layli, but declared that the rest of the members of his family had no right to speak to any member of my father’s family.
And further, since he was utterly convinced that the English were not going to spare his family the horrors of their revenge, he had asked uncle colonel to procure a personal orderly for him. This orderly, who spoke Turkish and didn’t know more than a few words of Persian, was a man of imposing bulk who looked very severe. Each morning he accompanied Layli to the door of her school, and at noon he brought her home; the same thing happened in the evenings, and there was no possibility of my being able to speak to Layli when she was on her way to and from school, as I had planned. The couple of times that I followed her in the hope that we might be able to exchange a few words, the orderly whipped off his thick menacing belt from his waist and came after me in such a way that, if I hadn’t taken to my heels as fast as I was able to, I’d have been killed by him.
The telephone was also placed under strict watch. After a period spent in fruitless attempts to see and talk to Layli, I finally realized that my one hope of salvation lay in openly confessing my secret to Mash Qasem (it was clear that he had guessed what was going on, anyway) and asking for his help. Mash Qasem listened carefully and patiently, and with his head lowered said, “Eh lad, God have mercy on you. The Master’s feelin’ for family honor’s unique in this town. If the Master found out that someone was sweet on one of his neighbor’s girls, he’d split his belly open, so what would he do if it was his own girl!”
“Mash Qasem, Dear Uncle must know. Because it’s impossible that Puri or uncle colonel haven’t managed to let him know.”
“Eh, are you out of your mind, lad? Do you think the colonel and Mr. Puri are tired of life that they’d be tellin’ the Master somethin’ like that?”
That day Mash Qasem related to me various horrific stories about the disasters that Dear Uncle had visited upon the heads of people who had fallen in love with girls connected with his family, but my situation was beyond being influenced by such stories, and love for Layli had so filled my heart that no thought of such dangers could have removed it. Somehow I finally persuaded Mash Qasem to agree occasionally to take notes from me to Layli. And he agreed, provided there was to be nothing ‘unsuitable’ in the notes. Even so, every time I gave him a note to take to Layli he would say, “Lad, there’s nothin’ unsuitable in here, is there?”
“Mash Qasem, I promise you I haven’t written anything bad.”
For a long time our relationship was confined to these notes, which Mash Qasem refused to pass on more than once a week, and to the two or three times when I accidentally caught sight of Layli; I suffered inexpressible torments.
Fortunately this most recent war between my father and Dear Uncle lasted no more than four months and, through the family’s unceasing efforts, ended in peace. Now I can guess the reason why they made it up between them.
From the beginning of the quarrel, Dear Uncle’s terror of the English and their desire for revenge increased from one day to the next, to such an extent that he had made himself a virtual prisoner in his own room. Even when he slept he wouldn’t be parted from his revolver. Every night Mash Qasem slept with a rifle in the corridor outside his bedroom. He had had iron bars fixed to his bedroom window. His wife found this way of living intolerable, both for herself and for her children, and at her insistence various restricted family councils were called, consisting of uncle colonel, Asadollah Mirza, Shamsali Mirza and one or two other people. I heard about all this from Asadollah Mirza. Each of these individuals had talked separately with Dear Uncle. Dear Uncle had got a new notion into his head, which was that the English and Hitler’s agents had come to an agreement concerning his case. The idea was that the English would make concessions to Hitler in other areas on condition that they could pursue their vendetta against Dear Uncle unhindered, and it was for this reason that Hitler had withdrawn his undercover agent, meaning Hushang the shoeshine man.
On his own initiative and without letting the others know, Asadollah Mirza had two or three times telephoned Dear Uncle, using his disguised voice, as if relaying a message from Hitler, and by saying the special password had tried to convince him that the reason the shoeshine man had been withdrawn was that Hitler was now sure that the danger was over and that the shoeshine man had been sent on another important mission; but Dear Uncle hadn’t believed him and had responded with various angry messages for Hitler and Goering. He had called even Hitler a lackey of the English, someone colluding with them against him, and said he could only have faith in them if they made the shoeshine man the agent responsible for his safety again.
As a result Asadollah Mirza made desperate efforts to find the shoeshine man. After extensive investigations he realized that the shoeshine man had run away from our area out of fear of Shir Ali the butcher; apparently there had been a skirmish between him and Shir Ali on the same day he had disappeared. What had happened was that the shoeshine man had made a flirtatious remark to Tahereh, Shir Ali’s wife, and as luck would have it, Shir Ali had heard about this. He had struck the shoeshine man a blow on the head with a leg of mutton, and then, rumbling like a volcano, had run back to his house and reappeared with a cleaver in his hand. This attack was sufficient to make the shoeshine man flee from the area, without once looking back, with all the strength his young legs could muster.
Asadollah Mirza managed, with a great deal of difficulty, to persuade Shir Ali to forgive the shoeshine man. And then after an incessant search he finally found the shoeshine man in Amirieh Avenue, which was a considerable distance from our house.
After his three-month absence the shoeshine man returned to his former spot opposite the door to our garden, and for a few days Dear Uncle Napoleon was fairly calm. But ten to fifteen days later he was playing the same old tune again; whatever happened, the English wouldn’t forgive him for what he’d done.
Today I can analyze and understand the reasons why Dear Uncle and my father agreed to bury the hatchet. Everyone in the family was trying to convince Dear Uncle that, for a thousand reasons, the English had no further interest in what he had done to them. But Dear Uncle could not allow such an idea to lodge within his mind and heart. Among such people, not one of whom was ready to appreciate the danger he was in, he needed the existence of someone who, like himself, believed that the English would not forgive someone’s wrongdoings (and such wrongdoings at that, involving the destruction of whole regiments and armies) and that they would not rest until they had laid low the author of their defeats—and this person was none other than my father.
As a result of this psychological state, the person who took the first step along the road to peace was in fact Dear Uncle. Even so, Asadollah Mirza’s efforts, at my insistent pleading, played an important role.
To cut a long story short, after about four months of hostilities, they buried the hatchet; part of the barbed wire was taken away and once again I was able to see La
yli. Of course, it wasn’t with the old freedom, since now Puri kept a very watchful eye on us.
Puri had threatened that if he saw me hanging around Layli once more he would show the love letters I had written to Layli, and which he had kept, to Dear Uncle Napoleon. To satisfy his suspicions I pretended, with Layli’s collaboration, that everything was over between us and that I wouldn’t think of her anymore; fortunately Puri hadn’t taken any steps toward their marriage either. Mind you, the reason for this was nothing to do with his being considerate of the state I was in. Later I found out that because of the psychological shocks he’d suffered, both from hearing the rifle shot and from his anxiety at losing one of his testicles, he’d lost interest in marriage, and that he was in the process of being treated, very discreetly, by Dr. Naser al-Hokama.
Mash Qasem’s return broke the thread of my thoughts. “Just wait till I put this bowl of milk in the kitchen, lad, and I’ll be back.”
Mash Qasem came back into the garden, hitching up his trousers as he did so, so that he could water the flowers, and said, “Just you remember, lad, you swore you never heard it from me!”
“Mash Qasem, I’m ready to swear a hundred times more. I promise on my honor I won’t say I heard it from you, not if they tear me limb from limb. Why don’t you tell me? I’m dying with all this waiting. What’s happened? What’s all this about a test?”
“Well now, lad, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . What I heard with my own ears . . .”
Mash Qasem looked around and went on in a lowered voice, “Yesterday the colonel went to see the Master . . . they went into a room and shut the door. It just so happened my ear happened to be at the keyhole and I heard what they said. They were talkin’ about Puri . . .”
“What were they saying, Mash Qasem?”
“Well now why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . You know that Puri’s not been feelin’ too good ever since they took out one of the pair of his private equipment. It’s like his privates have lost all their spirit . . . Dr. Naser al-Hokama’s treatin’ him with that electric current thing . . .”
My Uncle Napoleon Page 45