The King

by Kader Abdolah

  ‘Father, I don’t believe any of the things that you have told me. The vizier is an outstanding man. I like him very much. What makes you think—’

  ‘I have proof. You are still young. You have so much to learn. But soon you’ll be the mother of our heir. You have to strike while the iron is hot, or it will be your turn next. What we need now is a crown prince.’

  ‘To whom are you planning to give me, Father?’ asked Taj anxiously.

  ‘To a man from our tribe.’

  ‘How will you find such a man?’

  ‘We will work that out. We have dreamt that you bore a son for us,’ he said, and he lay back down.

  ‘Father, my womb is still too small. I fear I will not be able to give you a son.’

  The shah refused to hear another word. He shut his eyes and fell asleep. Noiselessly the old servant entered the room. She pulled a blanket over the shah and took Taj to her own room to sleep for the night.

  34. The Documents

  The vizier had taken three of his young advisors with him. One of them was Amir. The British had asked whether the negotiations could take place on one of their warships because they had better facilities. The look of their glorious ship would increase the pressure on the Persian delegation. The vizier had rejected this request and in turn invited the British to meet in the old fortress where the great world conquerors Cyrus, Darius, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan had spent time during their journeys.

  The fortress was one of the oldest barracks in the country. It was built on a hill beside the sea. There were no conveniences in the old fortress, but you could feel the glory of history there and the spirit of ancient powers. From the tower of the fortress you had a grand view of the Persian Gulf.

  Chiselled into the rock walls of the fortress were images of the wars waged by the world conquerors. There was a rare scene of Alexander the Great marching into India with his army. Behind his back was a cloud of smoke rising from the Persian palaces he had set ablaze. There was also an impressive scene of Genghis Khan looking west, with the conquered East in the background. It was common for a new oppressor to destroy all traces of the previous rulers, but miraculously the fortress had been respected by all of them. The wall images had been left alone.

  The vizier knew that the impressive wheels of the Industrial Revolution had rolled into the country by way of the Persian Gulf. He wanted to have this event recorded in stone.

  Mounted on horseback the vizier and his three advisors arrived on the beach. They refused to surrender their horses to a British sergeant and instead climbed the hill on foot with the horses’ reins in their hands. Once they reached the fortress they ignored the British officer who was there to welcome them. They brought their horses to the stable and gave them food and water. Only then did they go to the tent to sit down at the negotiating table. The vizier could feel the pressure. Groping for something solid to hold onto he began to recite a holy text.

  I repeat Your name.

  You who created everything and who governs all.

  You who determines fate and shows the way.

  You who pours down rain in abundance.

  You who cracks the earth open.

  You who makes the corn to grow.

  And vegetables and olive trees, dates, orchards thick with trees, and fruits and fodder.

  Alif lam meem.

  Alif lam meem.

  Alif lam meem.

  I pray to you and turn to you for help.

  Guide me to the path that is straight.

  The path of those on whom you have poured your mercy,

  Not the path of those who have earned your anger.

  For the vizier the first days of the negotiations were humiliating. The British delegation acted with supercilious arrogance, which was hard for the vizier to swallow. Every day at the end of each session the British negotiators would go back to their ship to eat, rest and sleep in preparation for day to come. The vizier and his advisors stayed in a tent in the fortress. After three weeks of difficult negotiations the following proposals were on the table:

  – England is to withdraw its warships from the Persian Gulf.

  – England is permitted to use the harbour of the Persian Gulf for trade with India.

  – The French are to leave the Persian army, and in their place the British officers will assume the job of reforming the army.

  – Mining contracts with the French are to be terminated and England will pay the insurance claim to the French.

  – The British are given use of the southern harbour with accompanying customs duties for the next fifty years, but supervision will remain in the hands of the Persian customs office. After deducting the costs incurred for the construction of harbour installations, England will pay a monthly allowance to the Persian state.

  – The British are given permission to search for raw materials throughout the southern province and to place the necessary installations there.

  – Seventy-five per cent of the extracted product will accrue to England and the remaining twenty-five per cent to Persia.

  – On paper Herat remains part of Persia, but leadership of the city will stay in the hands of the British.

  – England will construct a telegraph line to India exclusively for its own use and will retain the monopoly for fifty years.

  – England will construct a railway line from the Persian Gulf to the Indian border and will retain the monopoly for fifty years.

  The treaty was not a victory. The vizier had made passionate attempts to have two decisive demands included, which the British had ignored.

  He rose to his feet. ‘Then we won’t do it. If we go home with this agreement our wives will despise us.’

  He demanded that the following sections be added to the peace accord:

  – England will provide Persia with a telegraph network that will connect Tehran with all the major cities of the country.

  – England will not employ Indian clerks to work in the hundreds of telegraph offices, but will hire local ones instead.

  The head British negotiator was angry. He could not resist making the comment, ‘In this country no one has even heard the word “telegraph”. How, then, can they be expected to work in a telegraph office?’

  ‘They’ll learn soon enough,’ responded the vizier.

  The negotiations were temporarily put on hold and the vizier’s demands were sent to London.

  One week later London responded with a modified proposal:

  – England will provide Persia with a telegraph network on the condition that the total customs duties in all the harbours of the Persian Gulf be transferred to England for the next fifty years.

  This was a harsh and nationally sensitive demand, but after a long discussion with his young advisors the vizier agreed. The country was in no position to improve its outdated harbours. If the English ships wanted to use the harbours they would have to do the work of modernising them. It was also impossible to say what the future would bring. If the British ever left they wouldn’t be able to take the harbours with them back to England. The buildings and installations would remain for the country’s own use.

  The British thought the final accord was now within reach when the vizier tossed one more demand on the table:

  – England will construct a railway line from the Persian Gulf to India only on the condition that a national railway for Persia be built at the same time.

  The vizier took everyone by surprise, even his own advisors, because this was an unrealistic and unreachable dream that no one even dared to consider. The British realised that if they did not go along with it the Russians would take over the construction of the international telegraph network and the railway line. After a day of fierce discussions they all relented and agreed to the following section:

  – Should England ever begin constructing a railway line from the Persian Gulf to India, it will consider the possibility of a national railway system for Persia.

  The accord was finally signed, a
nd it took a week for the documents to reach Tehran by messenger. Begrudgingly the shah placed his signature and set his seal upon them.

  After the vizier and the head of the British delegation had handed each other the documents and shaken each other’s hands, all the British ships’ horns were sounded. The vizier was deeply moved, but he held back his tears. The ships’ horns were waking the people from a thousand-year sleep. Reports of telegraph cables and trains rumbling through the land were already racing through his head. Now he gave his tears free rein. Seated on his horse before the old fortress he watched as the British warships left the Persian Gulf.

  ‘A new page in our history has been written,’ said the vizier.

  35. Fagri

  Ever since Alexander the Great had set fire to the ships of the Persian Empire, the country had lacked the wherewithal to build a great seagoing vessel. This is why the people did not grasp the importance of their own Persian Gulf, and why they grieved daily for Herat and for Afghanistan.

  When they spoke of Afghanistan their eyes filled with tears, because Afghanistan had been the home of a handful of great Persian poets and because a few heroic love stories from the Shahnameh had taken place there. No one was ever able to accept the fact that Afghanistan was no longer part of the homeland. Nothing remained of its ancient grandeur. But among the people it was still very much alive.

  At the same time many sons of rich families and wealthy merchants went to Istanbul, where they gazed in astonishment on a whole different world. The city served as a bridge between West and East. It was in Istanbul that new western inventions such as the telegraph, the train and artificial light were first used by Easterners.

  The younger generation saw for themselves that Baku and Bombay had undergone enormous changes, while Tehran still looked like a big village. No other king had a harem, while the shah’s harem grew and grew, constantly being supplied with new women.

  Ideas from Russian resistance groups gradually reached big cities like Tabriz, Rasht, Tehran and Isfahan. Young intellectuals in these cities got together more and more frequently to discuss the future of the country. The protest there was comparable to the sounds being heard in Moscow.

  The resistance in Russia was growing in proportion to the industrialisation of the country, and Russian resistance leaders were succeeding in stirring up the workers to oppose the tsar. But in Tehran or Isfahan, the resistance groups couldn’t count on anyone. The people were ignorant; they saw the king as the representative of God on earth. Opposing him was the last thing on their minds.

  Like the vizier, the shah was following the changes that were taking place in neighbouring countries. He sensed the danger of an awakening people. And he knew that all eyes were on the vizier.

  The vizier’s enemies accused him of high treason. His advisors tried to convince the people that because of the peace accord the country would in fact be playing a greater role in the world. The shah didn’t know whom to believe. He was becoming increasingly aware of the declining potency of his power. He still made trips to surrounding villages to show himself off to the people, but these visits had less and less influence.

  In the meantime, after the signing of the accord with England, the vizier was being received like a celebrity as he travelled from one city to the next on his way to Tehran. Thousands welcomed him at the city gates with drums, flags and horns. Cows and camels were slaughtered as sacrifices for the vizier. There was a spontaneous sharing of dates and sugarbread in the streets, and the important merchants set up their tents in the squares and invited everyone in for a meal. In Isfahan, where the vizier stopped to rest for a few days, the residents carried him on their shoulders to the centre of town.

  When he finally reached Tehran it seemed as if the whole city had come out to admire him. Children climbed trees and women stood on the roofs. Hundreds of carpets were laid down along the route from the gate to the bazaar square. Horsemen accompanied him and his entourage to a large tent on the square as the people sang him songs of welcome.

  With a mixed sense of joy and pain the vizier surrendered to the happiness of the crowd. Important businessmen embraced him and congratulated him for his fighting and for the victory, but the vizier noticed that no one from the palace was present.

  The merchants helped the vizier into a chair they had placed on a sumptuous carpet beneath a tree – just for him – and they all gathered round. He was offered fresh tea and cakes, and he fell into conversation with the curious merchants.

  ‘The things we have accomplished will be to your benefit, businessmen,’ he said with a smile. ‘Make sure you’re ready. Get yourselves a couple of new suits and some new shoes. Before long you’ll have to start making trips to the telegraph office, and you’ll be able to travel by train.’

  Everyone took pleasure in the hope that emanated from the vizier’s words.

  ‘You have been warned. Don’t stock any more candles in your warehouses. You’re going to have to throw all those candles away, I’m afraid, because I’ve started purchasing electrical poles. Soon our houses won’t be lit by candles any more but by lamps.’

  He laughed, and everyone around laughed with him.

  As evening fell the vizier finally arrived at his own house to spend the night with his family. It was a large house just outside Tehran in a small village called Velenjak. The house was an official residence where the viziers of the country had lived since the olden days. His wife was the daughter of a prominent family from his own tribe in Farahan, and the couple had two sons and three daughters.

  The vizier had seen telegraph poles and cables for the first time in Paris, and in London he had seen his first train and railway line. Whenever he travelled abroad it was the women that always attracted his attention. He saw them in cafés, in playhouses and in political circles, where they kept company with their husbands. The inequality of the women in his own country was always brought home to him, because in fact they had no rights at all.

  In Moscow he had spent many nights with Russian women in drinking houses, women who had pampered him like a Persian prince. He had known many women in his life, but he found peace with his own wife, Fagri. He loved her and missed her when he was travelling, so he always wrote to her when he was away for long periods of time. His letters were very personal.

  Sometimes I feel like an old tree

  In which birds alight, flight after flight.

  But I want only you

  To sit among my leaves

  And sing for me.

  Now the vizier was home after a long absence. Despite the public euphoria that his deeds evoked he felt sad. There was something he couldn’t put his finger on. History was devouring him – he knew that as he stood at the gate of his house. He got off his horse, opened the gate and brought his horse to the stable. He washed his hands and face in the pool as Fagri, his wife, looked out at him from a window. Then he walked slowly to the veranda. You could see from his shadow that he was lame.

  Fagri saw it immediately. She came outdoors with a lantern in her hand. Silently he took her in his arms and held her for a long time.

  ‘I missed your lantern, Fagri. Keep me home. Don’t let me go away again.’

  Fagri wept.

  ‘Come inside, my husband,’ she whispered between sobs.

  She had heard that everyone in the shah’s circle had branded her husband a traitor, someone who had sold the country to the evil spirits. Now she feared for her husband’s life as never before. It felt as if every embrace could be the last.

  ‘Come inside, my love,’ she whispered, as she looked anxiously back at the gate.

  36. In the Palace

  The vizier waited in Velenjak for the shah to summon him, but to his chagrin there was nothing but silence. When it seemed to him that too much time had passed he decided to go to the palace on his own initiative.

  The shah was not there. Even the chamberlain, who always came to meet him, was nowhere to be seen. With great suspicion he pushed open the door. To
his surprise there were no candles burning in the wall lamps. He knocked on the door of the hall of mirrors and said quietly, ‘Your Majesty, it is I, the vizier.’

  There was no response.

  ‘Are you there, Your Majesty?’ he called, this time a bit louder. He considered going into the hall but decided against it. Instead he went outside and called the head of the guards.

  ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said the man.

  ‘There’s no one here. Where is the shah?’

  ‘His Majesty must be in the palace.’

  The vizier went back in, walked through the empty corridors and called the chamberlain: ‘Aga Moshir!’

  He tried to get into the kitchen, but it was locked. Then he opened the door to the hall of mirrors. ‘Your Majesty, are you there? Is everything all right?’

  The only possible explanation was that the shah was spending the night in the harem. He could return at any moment. The vizier sat down in a chair and began massaging his complaining right leg.

  Suddenly he heard a great clamour behind the building, and he went to see what was causing it. It was the shah’s wives out in the harem courtyard. Whatever was troubling them must have been serious because windows were being smashed and the women and children were screaming.

  He went to the end of the corridor and stood behind the door. Should he open the door a crack and look out? Should he call to ask if he could be of any help? It was too risky. If the shah were to regard his interference as an invasion of his privacy it could have far-reaching consequences for him. So he stayed behind the door and listened. All he could hear were the women, the children and Khwajeh Bashi, the harem overseer.

  The vizier understood from all the tumult that the women of the harem wanted to go out, but Khwajeh Bashi and his servants were trying to keep them in. Things were getting out of hand. The women were pounding on the door of the harem and were about to break it down. The vizier couldn’t just stand by and watch. He opened the door halfway and shouted, ‘Ladies! What’s going on?’