My Uncle Napoleon

by Iraj Pezeshkzad

  Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi, who was eating a kind of nougat called gaz, jumped into the conversation, “You handed over two thousand tomans, and then I worked it out . . . now there’s still . . .”

  “What nonsense are you talking, you rotten, shameless little . . . What did you work out?”

  The cadet officer said tranquilly, “You lived for five years in my wife’s house at a hundred tomans a month rent . . . now, let’s say fifty tomans . . . in five years that’ll come to three thousand tomans. You still owe me a thousand tomans.”

  Dustali was so furious his voice seemed to stick in his throat. Asadollah Mirza murmured, “Oh no, sir, the rent would be at least a hundred tomans . . . You worked it out very generously! It’d be at least six thousand tomans.”

  Dustali Khan’s fury turned on Asadollah Mirza. “You just shut up, Asadollah!”

  “Moment, I didn’t say anything. The cadet officer had made a mistake in his arithmetic, I pointed it out.”

  Dear Uncle said sternly, “Asadollah, be quiet!”

  But Mash Qasem opened his mouth, “These days, if you please, it’s even more than two hundred tomans. I remember myself there was a man in our town who . . .”

  Asadollah Mirza said, “Mash Qasem, let Mr. Dustali Khan have his say . . . he was talking about the violation of honor.”

  Gently sawing at a piece of gaz with a penknife, so that he could then break it, the cadet officer tranquilly said, “Yes, please tell me whose honor I’ve violated.”

  Shaking with rage, Dustali Khan said, “Sir, you see how impudent he is! That sick, innocent girl . . .”

  The cadet officer cut him short, “Sick, innocent yourself! If you’re referring to my spouse . . .”

  Dear Uncle Napoleon shouted, “Cadet Officer, you work in the security ministry and you must know the rules and customs of the courts. This is in reality a family court. Until I give permission to speak, you have no right to interrupt. You will have your say at the appropriate time . . . Continue, Dustali.”

  “Take into account how some good-for-nothing stranger had deceived this sick innocent girl . . .”

  Once again the cadet officer interrupted, “Sir, take into account how he’s talking drivel.”

  And he immediately fixed his gaze on the ceiling and went on, “First, the good-for-nothing is the person who says it; second, he wasn’t a stranger at all.”

  Dustali Khan half rose from his chair in a threatening way. “He wasn’t a stranger? You know him . . . You know who planted the child in this innocent girl’s belly?”

  Popping a piece of gaz into his mouth, the cadet officer said tranquilly, “Certainly I know. It was me.”

  “You? You shameless liar!”

  “I’m speaking the absolute truth.”

  Laughter and happiness fairly burst from Asadollah Mirza’s face; he said, “Moment, Mr. Dustali Khan, reason and logic are not to be ignored! The cadet officer himself says that the child is his and you’re saying it’s the child of a stranger? Either you know the child’s father or you must take the cadet officer’s word for it!’

  Dustali Khan had turned as red as a tomato. He was so angry that his voice could hardly emerge from his throat, “But when? Where? . . . This man never even knew Qamar. Where did this happen without our realizing?”

  The cadet officer answered in the same tranquil manner, “Where have you been all your life, brother? Since last year, when I came with Deputy Taymur Khan looking for your corpse, my heart’s belonged to Qamar . . . we fell for each other . . . Oh, what nights they were . . . what moonlit nights!”

  Hardly able to keep from laughing, Asadollah Mirza said, “And you’re asking when and where? They’re not going to go to San Francisco in front of you! . . . San Francisco’s altogether a town for just two people. If there are three of you, you have to go to Los Angeles.”

  Dustali Khan, who was so furious he was on the point of collapse, yelled, “But Asadollah, wasn’t it in front of you that he said he wasn’t capable of anything? That in the war a bullet had hit his god-damned filthy member?”

  With his mouth full the cadet officer said, “The gentleman’s member is the goddamned filthy one.”

  “Moment, the jury must now vote on which of the two plaintiffs in the case has the cleaner member; I vote for the cadet officer.”

  Dear Uncle Napoleon ground his teeth together. He wanted to cut off their talk with dignity and firmness but he couldn’t find an opportunity to do so. Asadollah Mirza, who was in heaven he felt so happy, turned to the cadet officer with pretended surprise and said, “Moment, Cadet Officer, did you say such a thing? . . . I don’t remember your saying that a bullet had hit your member.”

  With a chuckle the cadet officer said, “It happens he’s telling the truth . . . I said that myself.”

  Dustali Khan yelled at Dear Uncle, “You see that? You see that? He confesses it himself!”

  But before Dear Uncle could question him, the cadet officer said tranquilly, “Well, the truth of the matter is that that day you had me over to the house with Deputy Taymur Khan, with the excuse a watch had been lost . . . I thought you’d realized that Qamar was having my baby and you wanted to catch me out and send me off to the courts and jail . . . I mean, I do this all the time, it’s my job . . . I’ve nabbed thousands of criminals . . . I said I’d been hit by a bullet so you’d leave me alone and not send me to the courts and the police . . .”

  Mash Qasem, who’d been silent for a while, jumped into the conversation, “Eh, can you beat that! . . . What a brain . . . Well done, Ghiasabad! I mean I kept sayin’ there’s no one like the folks from Ghiasabad when it comes to bein’ manly, to bein’ real men . . .”

  Asadollah Mirza could not control himself any longer and burst into a loud guffaw of laughter; with his words broken by peals of laughter he said, “Congratulations . . . Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi . . . from today I welcome you as an honorary citizen of San Francisco!”

  The cadet officer laughed along with him and said, “Very kind of you, your excellency . . . you’re really very good to me.”

  Dear Uncle shouted, “Gentlemen! The meeting is degenerating into laughter and jokes . . . Asadollah! . . . Cadet Officer! Silence!”

  Then he turned to Dustali Khan and said, “Continue, Dustali!”

  But Dustali Khan was as silent as if he’d been electrocuted; his complexion had turned the color of lead. Uncle colonel sat completely silent, with his head bowed. I could guess that thoughts of his Esfahani rug prevented him from following what was going on at the meeting. My father’s face was bright and cheerful.

  Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi began a furious counterattack. “I’m very fond of my wife. My wife’s very fond of me. We have a lovely little child . . . and there’s another on the way. In Mr. Dustali Khan’s eyes this is dishonorable, but when he himself went on Wednesday into a married woman’s house while her husband was away, that was perfectly all right.”

  Dustali Khan emerged from his catatonic state and yelled, “Me . . . in a married woman’s house?”

  The cadet officer mildly answered, “Will you let me call Fati here? . . . Fati, the daughter of Mrs. Khanomha, who’s Qamar’s aunt . . . so that we can ask her who it was sneaked out of Shir Ali the butcher’s house on Wednesday?”

  Once again Dustali Khan froze. A wide grin split Asadollah’s face from ear to ear. He took his glasses from his pocket and put them on. Staring at Dustali Khan’s face he said with a mischievous laugh, “Dustali? . . . Really? . . . You finally got to San Francisco with Tahereh, Shir Ali’s wife . . . Right into the city?”

  “Asadollah, shut up!”

  “Moment, Dustali! The truth will set you free! . . . Confess, because if you don’t the cadet officer’s going to send for Fati!”

  “Asadollah, just don’t complain if I do something terrible to you!”


  “Moment, moment, momentissimo . . . Good luck to you! . . . Shir Ali’s wife wasn’t enough, then; now you want to do something terrible to me, too? What kind of a pill have you swallowed to make you so evil minded?”

  Dear Uncle’s voice rang out, “Asadollah! Asadollah!”

  At that moment Dustali Khan snatched up the tin of gaz and, making as if to throw it at Asadollah, said, “I’ll knock your brains out if you’re not careful!”

  Asadollah Mirza stopped laughing and said, “What’s this, what’s this for?”

  Then he suddenly jumped up from his place and dashed over to the window. He bent down toward the yard and shouted, “Mr. Shir Ali . . . Shir Ali . . .”

  Dear Uncle Napoleon and everyone else shouted virtually in chorus, “Asadollah . . . stop it!”

  Asadollah went on with what he had been saying, “Shir Ali, if it’s not too much trouble, bring up a few teas . . .”

  For a moment silence reigned in the room. Mash Qasem made use of the opportunity, “Well now, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . In forty years I haven’t seen such shameless behavior. God help us if Shir Ali gets wind of it . . . You know, Mr. Dustali Khan, that today Shir Ali’s brought a leg of mutton along . . . ?”

  A moment later Shir Ali’s formidable and gigantic form, bearing a tray of tea glasses, came into the room. “Good day to you.”

  While everyone was silently taking glasses of tea and putting sugar in them, Asadollah Mirza, with a serious expression and a smile in his eyes, said as if he were continuing a conversation, “Yes, just as I was saying, these things can get very bad . . . Well, people who have any interest in their family’s honor and respectability become upset . . . It doesn’t matter if they’re upper class or lower class, whether they’re rich or tradesmen . . . take, for example, Mr. Shir Ali here . . .”

  And after pausing for a moment he turned to Shir Ali. “You, Mr. Shir Ali . . . I’d like to ask you . . . suppose you have a friend, someone you feel close to . . . and you see a strange man go into his house when he isn’t there . . . How would you feel?”

  Shir Ali muttered forcefully, “Your excellency, on the Master’s soul, don’t be saying those things . . . you just have to say those things and I come over all funny, saving your reverence, I want to crush these walls in my fists, I want to tear this door and these windows from their hinges . . .”

  Without realizing that he was still holding a tray with a glass of tea on it, Shir Ali clenched his fists; the glass of tea spilled on uncle colonel’s head, and a scream of “I’m scalded!” went up to the heavens. Dear Uncle Napoleon’s lips began to quiver. He turned pale, and as he tried to stand up he let out a terrifying scream, “I said, Enough! No more! . . . This is a plot of theirs, too . . . This is another blow . . . They want to smash my family into pieces . . . They’re afraid of me and they strike at my family . . . God, is there no end to their cruelty, to their lack of decency?”

  And in the midst of the general racket and uproar of the meeting coming to an end, Dear Uncle Napoleon once again fell back motionless on the sofa.

  His father’s cry had brought Puri into the room; he kept repeating, “Who did this . . . Who scalded my dad?”

  Finally Asadollah Mirza shouted, “You stupid donkey, instead of going for a doctor, you stand there screaming! Whoever did it, what do you want to do to him? It wasn’t done on purpose . . . The tea slipped from Shir Ali’s hand and spilt on your father’s head. And now you want to go and get a pin and stick it into him ’cause he’s been a naughty boy?”

  “So should I go for a doctor?”

  “Yes, go . . . it’ll be enough if you’re not here screaming, the patients’ll get better by themselves.”

  Puri went for a doctor.

  Asadollah Mirza and Mash Qasem were massaging Dear Uncle Napoleon’s hands and feet; no one was paying much attention to uncle colonel’s scald. Except that, with his face flushed with rage, Dustali Khan said, “It’s all the fault of that good-for-nothing little swine. Besides being a thief and a crook, the disgusting little swine’s a murderer . . . can’t you see how he’s blinded the colonel?”

  Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi tranquilly answered, “Did I have any thing to do with this, sir? Do you consider that I . . .”

  Dustali Khan’s yell interrupted him, “I’ll show you who you’re dealing with! You think you can scald the colonel’s face, do you?”

  “I’m waiting for you to show me.”

  And then he went on under his breath, “This is very peculiar. What has my wife getting pregnant got to do with the colonel’s head being scalded? It’s not as if I’ve the faucet on a samovar instead of . . .”

  Asadollah Mirza had caught his words in passing and said, “The cadet officer’s quite right. It’s not as if he has the faucet on a samovar to do his business with. And even if he did, it wouldn’t scald the colonel’s face and head. Unless of course, God forbid, we’re to imagine that . . .”

  Dustali Khan screamed, “Just shut up, Asadollah.”

  Instead of answering, Asadollah Mirza turned to Shir Ali. “Shir Ali, you won’t suddenly go off and leave, will you . . . I’ve a couple of words to say to you; if it’s not too much trouble, wait downstairs till I call you.”

  Dustali was so furious he had forgotten Shir Ali was there; he turned pale again and said in a mild voice, “Asadollah, this is no time for joking. Can’t you see that the Master has fainted . . . that the colonel’s been scalded!”

  Shir Ali left the room while uncle colonel was moaning and groaning, “Who feels sorry for me? . . . Who cares about me being scalded?”

  “Come, come, my dear colonel, we all care about you, but the Master’s not well . . . we have to make him all right first.”

  Uncle colonel whined, “You mean I’m all right? . . . My whole face feels as though it’s been put in a baker’s oven.”

  “Take your hand away and let’s see how it is . . .”

  At this moment Puri came back panting and said that Dr. Naser al-Hokama was not at home. While my father and Mash Qasem were busy pouring a cordial down Dear Uncle Napoleon’s throat, Asadollah Mirza more or less dragged uncle colonel’s hand away from his face. His cheek and chin were just a little red.

  In a scornful, mocking voice Asadollah Mirza said, “Dear, dear . . . look, a layer of skin and flesh has come away!”

  Mash Qasem took his words seriously and before he had even looked properly said, “Eh, can you beat that! . . . Savin’ your reverence, the colonel’s face is like. . . .”

  Asadollah Mirza guessed that Mash Qasem was about to compare the colonel’s face to something and interrupted him, “Mash Qasem, why are you stirring things up? . . . I was joking. Look, it’s just turned a bit red.”

  But Mash Qasem was not going to give up, “Well sir, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . In this business of burns and scalds I’m a bit of a doctor myself . . . There’s only one thing for a burn like this.”

  Anxiously uncle colonel said, “What thing? What do we have to do?”

  “Well sir, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . Savin’ your reverence, savin’ your reverence, if you’ll excuse me like, what you have to do is rub a little boy’s pee on it.”

  Asadollah Mirza was about to object but he suppressed what he’d been going to say and, after a moment’s pause, said, “I’ve heard that, too. But where are we going to get a little boy from now?”

  “I think if he’s a big boy it don’t matter. Just so long as he isn’t too old. If you ask me, I mean as far as I can tell, if it was Mr. Puri’s it’d be sure to work.”

  Uncle colonel’s objections shook the heavens, “Drop dead, will you! . . . Now you’re wanting to rub any bit of filth you can lay your hands on on my face ? . . . Instead of talking such rubbish, go and get a little oil.
Almond oil, castor oil . . . bring me some kind of oil.”

  As Mash Qasem was leaving the room he said, “All right then I’ll go . . . but it’s not nearly as good as the medicine I said.”

  Asadollah Mirza said, “Now, it’ll do no harm to try.”

  Puri spluttered his objections, “Don’t talk such nonsense . . . and anyway I can’t go now . . .”

  Uncle colonel was close to screaming again but Mash Qasem came back with a spoonful of something greasy. “Well sir, we didn’t have no almond oil nor no castor oil . . . so in the kitchen I got a bit of Kermanshah cooking oil and brought it.”

  After they had rubbed the Kermanshah oil, for lack of anything better, on uncle colonel’s skin, he calmed down somewhat and said, “Well, never mind about me . . . Think of something for my brother!”

  My father’s voice responded, “Don’t worry too much . . . his breathing’s become regular . . . now he’s coming round . . . just that it would be better if you went in the next room so the Master can rest here a little, so that he gets completely better.”

  Asadollah Mirza said, “I agree it would be better if we went in the other room so that there’s less noise in here . . . Come on, Puri . . . Off you go, Dustali!”

  Dustali Khan sat down on a chair and said, “I swear that until I know how I stand with this man, I will not set foot outside this room. I’ll stay until the Master feels better and he clears up for me where I stand with this esteemed in-law of his!”

  Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi’s voice joined in, “The same goes for me . . . I’ll stay here till the Master stops this esteemed relative of his from being such a nuisance.”

  In a peremptory tone Asadollah Mirza said, “Dustali, out!”

  “I said I’m not moving from here.”

  “You’re not moving, aren’t you? . . . Moment, moment, Mr. Shir Ali!”

  “Don’t you come all high and mighty with me . . . Call him and we’ll see if you dare mention his wife’s name.”