My Uncle Napoleon

by Iraj Pezeshkzad

  After supper I was sitting smoking near the pool, on a bench that was by a large sweetbrier arbor. A few of the guests were sitting under the arbor and a tar player, whom they referred to as a master musician, was performing pieces for them. Suddenly one of the guests in the arbor stood up and shouted in one direction, “Mr. Salar, come over and see us for a moment.”

  A dignified old man with a large white mustache and wearing thick glasses entered the arbor. All the guests stood as a sign of respect. The tar player bowed to him.

  At this moment my friend came over to me. “Hunched up and hiding yourself away again?”

  “No, I feel tired. If you don’t mind, I’ll sit for a minute.”

  “Then let me fill your glass.”

  “Thanks . . . tell me, who’s the gentleman with the white mustache?”

  “What, you haven’t seen Mr. Salar . . . ? Mr. Salar’s the host.”

  “What does he do? What’s his profession? He seems to be a man of some importance.”

  “Well, he doesn’t do anything, he’s a landowner. From what people say, he owned a lot of land in Tehran that he’d bought when it was still desert and later it got to be worth a thousand or two thousand tomans a meter . . . to cut a long story short, in a few years he became a millionaire . . . but he’s a very nice man, come and I’ll introduce you to him . . . you’re sure to like him. He’s got lots of interesting memories . . . do you know, he was one of the constitutionalists . . . and for years he fought against the English.”

  “Against the English?”

  “Yes, and it seems that the English tried to kill him a few times . . . come on, I’ll introduce you to him.”

  “No, thanks . . . they’re talking now. Later on.”

  Mr. Salar laid his stick aside, sat down and turned to the tar player. “Did I put you off playing by coming? Why don’t you play?”

  “It’s very kind of you, sir, I’m a little tired.”

  The old man laughed and said, “You see these youngsters of today? They play a few notes and they’re tired . . .”

  My friend’s mention of his former activities on behalf of the constitution, and his fighting against the English, made me prick up my ears. It seemed to me that Mr. Salar’s voice sounded somehow familiar; the old man went on, “What days they were to be sure, I remember well . . . it was in the thick of the Battle of Kazerun . . . I don’t know if I’ve told you or not. The English had hemmed us in from one side . . . on the other side there was Khodadad Khan who was one of their lackeys, with about a thousand cavalry . . . I saw there was no way out except for me to shoot Khodadad Khan . . . I had a fur hat and I put it on a stick. Khodadad Khan raised his head from behind a rock . . . I commended myself to Ali and aimed at the middle of his forehead . . . God rest his soul, I had a private who later on when the English wanted to arrest me, well, the poor devil wasn’t very brave and he was so terrified he had a heart attack and died . . . What was I saying . . . oh yes . . . we’ll leave aside how when the bullet hit Khodadad Khan his army scattered, and how we attacked the English . . . but we were talking about instruments . . . there was a Dustali Khan I knew who could play the kamancheh fiddle very nicely, believe me, sir, he’d play the kamancheh from when the sun went down to when it came up . . . again, some of those English we’d captured, their mouths were hanging open they were that amazed, they kept saying in English, Bravo, Well done, Terrific! . . .”

  At this moment the host’s daughter put her head round the edge of the arbor and said with a laugh, “Daddy, what kind of a time is this you’ve chosen to be retelling your memories? Let the guests enjoy themselves . . .”

  The men all objected together and made many fine compliments to the effect that the stories they were hearing could not be bettered, and for their part the women flirted, “Goodness knows you tell the stories so beautifully, Mr. Salar.”

  I more or less recognized both the voice and the person, but I was still not quite certain. The daughter suddenly sat herself down on her father’s lap and said laughing, “Now daddy, do you know any English at all?”

  “Well now, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . ”

  Mr. Salar suddenly went silent, as if he had not wanted to say these words, but they had escaped from his mouth all the same; he looked around, then continued with what he had been saying.

  Just then my friend came over with a glass of whisky and said, “You’re really listening to Mr. Salar’s conversation with great interest! Come on and I’ll introduce you.”

  I said, “I’d really like that, from the bottom of my heart, but I don’t want to come face to face with Mr. Salar just now. Later on, God willing.”

  And I didn’t get the opportunity to see him after that.

  Tonight I was busy writing out the last lines of this narrative. The phone rang. Someone wanted to talk to me from a hotel in Paris.

  “Yes, who is it?”

  “Hello lad, how are you then? Don’t you ever think of me? Don’t you recognize my voice?”

  “Eh, Uncle Asadollah, where are you?”

  “I’ve been in Paris for a week. . . . tomorrow morning I want to go to the south of France . . . and I’m taking two lovely little mademoiselles along with me, sweet as cooing doves they are. I wanted to know if you’d come for four or five days and we could be together?”

  “Uncle Asadollah, I’ve a thousand things to do . . . If I’d known earlier maybe . . .”

  “Moment, you wanted me to book time with you back during Nowruz in March for now? I only met these two yesterday, they’re from Sweden . . . don’t make such a fuss, just come . . . and from there we’ll take a little trip to San Francisco.”

  “Uncle Asadollah, I’m very sorry but I’ve administrative duties to attend to. And besides, I don’t know if I can get myself from Geneva to Paris by tomorrow morning. God willing, we’ll do it another time . . .”

  Asadollah’s shout rang in my ears, deafening me, “Oh, get out of here! Always the same story—when you were a child, when you were a young man, and now—you’ve never been up to San Francisco and you still aren’t . . . so goodbye till we meet in Tehran!”

  THE END — GENEVA, AUGUST 1970

  GLOSSARY

  AB-GUSHT: A soup made from meat, legumes and potatoes. The boiled meat is then pounded to a paste and eaten separately from the broth, which is eaten with bread.

  ALI/ MORTEZA ALI: The son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad and the father of Hasan and Hosayn (qv). After the prophet himself he is the most revered figure of Shi’i Islam and is considered by the Shi’i to be the paragon of all virtues, as well as being the archetypal victim of others’ evil. His name is frequently invoked in oaths, particularly but not exclusively by the very devout and the poor.

  AMIR ARSALAN: The hero of a very popular nineteenth-century prose romance probably orally composed by a member of the entourage of the ruling Qajar court named Naqib al-Mamalek and written down by the Qajar princess Fakhr al-Dawla.

  ASGHAR THE MURDERER: A serial murderer (his victims were boys whom he raped and then killed) of the 1930s who occupies approximately the place in popular lore that Jack the Ripper does in Britain or Jeffery Dahmer in America.

  ASH-RESHTEH: A soup made with herbs and noodles. Often when someone goes on a journey, a relative will make this soup which is then eaten at a party; this is thought to ensure a safe return.

  BAHOT: An Urdu and Hindi word meaning “a lot, completely, entirely.”

  CHELO KABAB: Pieces of meat grilled on skewers and eaten with rice.

  COLONEL LIAKHOFF: When Mohammad Ali Shah (qv) succeeded to the throne in 1907 he was determined to crush the forces within the country that had managed to set up a parliament (the majlis) and wished to break the monarchical autocracy. Colonel Liakhoff was the commander of a Cossack brigade which, on behalf of the new shah, c
arried out a coup against the shah’s constitutional opponents. Liakhoff’s most spectacular feat was the bombardment of the parliament building in 1908, and Dear Uncle Napoleon is supposed to have been present at this event as a member of the Cossack brigade.

  CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION: A Persian political movement which grew up in the later years of the nineteenth century. The movement was made up of differing groups, some religious and some secular; its secular aims included a devolution of power from the shah to a representative assembly (the majlis) and a drastic decrease in the influence of foreign powers (in particular the British and the Russians) over the government and economy of the country. Because of the latter aim the movement was with hindsight seen as intensely patriotic, and Dear Uncle Napoleon likes to imply that he was a participant in its agitations, though in reality he was involved in the movement’s attempted suppression under Colonel Liakhoff (qv).

  FERDOWSI: The great epic poet of Iran, who lived from 940 to c.1020. His poem, the Shahnameh, is popularly seen as the most patriotic of Iranian literary works and is full of descriptions of battles and individual heroism; it is thus entirely appropriate that many of the fragments of poetry which Dear Uncle Napoleon quotes are by Ferdowsi.

  HAFEZ: A fourteenth-century poet, and the most famous of Iran’s lyric poets. The poem by him to which Asadollah Mirza alludes, and which he says he quoted to Maharat Khan, is said to refer to a period of exile Hafez spent away from his hometown Shiraz, and hence its relevance to the occasion.

  HASAN: The son of Ali (qv) and brother of Hosayn (qv). Believed by the Shi’i to have been martyred by poisoning. The shrine to which Mash Qasem wishes to make a pilgrimage, in Chapter 12, is near Tehran and is the grave of a different and less significant Hasan.

  HOSAYN: The son of Ali (qv) and brother of Hasan (qv); martyred at the Battle of Karbela (qv), the commemoration of which is the most emotionally charged mourning ceremony in the Shi’i calendar.

  IMAM(S): The vast majority of Iranians belong to the Twelver Shi’i sect of Islam, which recognizes twelve imams. These are Ali (qv), his sons Hasan and Hosayn (qv), and male descendants of Hosayn to the ninth generation. The imams are considered to be sinless, to be particularly dear to God, and to be perfect exemplars of humanity. All are believed to have been martyred except the last, who went into hiding (occultation), still lives, and will emerge from occultation to lead the forces of good during the last days before God’s final judgment of the world.

  JEANETTE MACDONALD: A 1930s Hollywood movie star and singer.

  KAMANCHEH: A small stringed instrument, held vertically and played with a bow. It has a small cylindrical body, a long neck and a long blunt spike or foot which the player usually rests on one knee.

  KARBELA: The site (in modern day Iraq) of the battle at which Hosayn was martyred and where he is believed to be buried. A major site of Shi’i pilgrimage.

  LAYLI AND MAJNUN: The most famous pair of lovers of Islamic literature. Though the story is originally Arabic, well-known versions of the story exist in both Persian and Turkish. As the lovers belong to antagonistic tribes, and as the tale ends tragically, it is often compared to the story of Romeo and Juliet.

  MASUMEH: An epithet (meaning “the chaste”) applied particularly to Fatima, daughter of the Imam Musa al-Qasem, who died in 816 at Qom, in central Iran. The shrine erected over her grave is one of the two major sites of Shi’i pilgrimage in Iran, the other being the shrine erected over her brother Imam Reza’s grave in Mashhad.

  MOHAMMAD ALI SHAH: Shah of Iran from 1907 to 1909; an autocratic opponent of democratic reform, he was forced to abdicate after his attempts to crush the liberal opposition.

  MOHAMMAD SHAH: Shah of Iran from 1834 to 1848.

  MOSLEM IBN AGHIL: A nephew of Ali (qv) and a cousin and staunch supporter of Hosayn (qv); he was captured while attempting to raise forces on Hosayn’s behalf and was killed. His two sons were killed at Karbela (qv). Though he is an important figure for the Shi’i, he is not an imam and the anniversary of his death is not normally commemorated in the way that the deaths of Ali and Hosayn are, so that Dear Uncle Napoleon’s last minute arrangement of a mourning ceremony in his name has a rather desperate air to it.

  NAIN: A small and very beautiful oasis town in central Iran, famous for its carpets and cloth.

  NANEH: An affectionate term for an older woman, meaning “mother” (cf. the French use of mère).

  NASER AL-DIN SHAH: Shah of Iran from 1848 to 1896.

  NOWRUZ: The Persian New Year’s festival, which falls precisely on the Spring equinox around March 21.

  QAMAR-E BANI HASHEM: A title (meaning “Moon of the Hashemites”) given to Abbas, the brother of Hosayn (qv), killed at Karbela (qv).

  QERAN: The old name for the low denomination coin now called a rial.

  QOM: A town in central Iran, famous as a site of Shi’i pilgrimage and for its theological schools.

  QURAN: Also transliterated in English as Koran. The holy book of Islam, believed by Moslems to be uncreated and to have been revealed to the Prophet Mohammad in a series of revelations at Medina and Mecca.

  QORBAN: The festival of sacrifices, a major event in the Islamic calendar.

  SA’DI: A thirteenth-century Iranian poet. He is famous for the elegance, charm and canny worldliness of his writings, so it is entirely appropriate that the canny and would-be charming ladies’ man Asadollah Mirza quotes him frequently. Dear Uncle Napoleon also quotes him (the verses about a wolf cub growing up as a wolf no matter how he is raised, which Dear Uncle Napoleon applies to the narrator, are from Sa’di’s Golestan).

  SEYED: A direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammad. Seyeds are accorded particular respect by Shi’a Moslems.

  SHA’ABDOLAZIM: A minor place of pilgrimage to the south of Tehran.

  SHEMR: Commander of the troops who defeated Hosayn (qv) at Karbela (qv). Before the battle he caused the water supply to Hosayn’s troops to be cut off so that they suffered from extreme thirst; this latter incident is very famous in the lore of Shi’i Islam and it is this to which Mash Qasem refers when Dear Uncle Napoleon’s cellars are flooded.

  SHIRIN AND FARHAD: A pre-Islamic Persian love story. The lowly stone mason Farhad falls in love with the princess Shirin but his royal rival for her love has him told that she has died, whereupon Farhad himself dies. The story exists in various versions, the most famous being by the poet Nezami (twelfth century).

  TAR: A traditional plucked stringed instrument, similar to a slim lute.

  TOMAN: A coin equal to ten rials. Because of the vagaries of exchange controls and inflation it is difficult to give a precise western equivalent. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 there were approximately seven tomans to one US$. At the time of writing (1996) one US$ is worth more than 300 tomans.

  YAZID: The caliph who ordered Shemr (qv) to move against and destroy Hosayn (qv). Together Yazid and Shemr occupy a place in Shi’i lore more or less equivalent to that of Judas in Christian lore.

  ZARB: A small drum, held under one arm and played, often with dazzling rhythmic dexterity, with the hands (finger tips, palm, knuckles, ball of the thumb).