The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar

by Yury Tynyanov

  And Griboedov did not dare touch it.

  So they brought closer one candelabra after another, and some were long and thick at the top, others were engorged toward the bottom, and others again were swollen in the middle. Then bowls followed, and vessels. And all of them were covered with the minutest, needle-thin inscriptions.

  They were brought to the braziers, and the half-naked men swarmed, unloaded them, and placed them into the flames.

  The room grew lighter from the tiny streams of gold, from the flourishes and the little clusters that fell into the fire.

  Abbas looked neither at Griboedov nor at the chaparkhans. Pompous, stern, black-bearded, he looked at the gold, following each coagulate with his dull eyes.

  It suddenly dawned on Griboedov that in his battle for the throne, Abbas would butcher any of his brothers fearsomely, to the bitter end, and with no restraint.

  It did not occur to him that he, Griboedov Alexander Sergeyevich, was the gravedigger of the Qajar empire. He felt neither hot nor cold about it. Neither did he spare even a thought for Persia.

  But it occurred to him that he had spent his entire life as a hostage in an earthen hole alongside an alien Abbas, over a thousand miles and a thousand years; more alien than the melted candelabras, Abbas, for whom he cared nothing and to whom, in an evil hour, he had been tied by some force that had brought them together.

  And in the same pathetic and accursed way, the awful loneliness invaded him like a live creature.

  “Sixty thousand tumen,” said Abbas in French. “They will be taken to your mission tomorrow morning.”

  14

  Many a lovely figure is hidden by a veil.

  But lift the veil and you’ll see

  the mother of your mother.

  ▶ Sa’di

  The clay roads outside were as slippery as ice; the fireplaces produced no heat. Wrapped in a warm shawl, Nino still shivered, and conversations were somehow getting shorter. She was pregnant, and her pregnancy was a tough one, tormenting, with shortness of breath and sickness so severe that it turned her entrails inside out. When the asthmatic attacks came on, Griboedov became frightened and irritated. Then he felt guilty. He was attentive to Nino and kept a reverent eye on her. Her face had changed; its color was now not looking good.

  He received a letter from his mama, Nastasya Fyodorovna.

  “My Dear Son, Alexander,

  I received your letter. The post is slow these days; it came late, and hence the late response. I am delighted as any mother would be with your happiness. Send my blessings, belated as they are, to your wife, whom I’ve been able to picture pretty well from your letter … I can’t believe that you were so secretive and did not even think it necessary to share your intentions with your own mother. Though your poor mother is an old woman, even so, dear son, she is following your success with bated breath and dreams only of one thing: that a small corner be left free for her in your heart. For a long time now, I have had no other claim than this.

  I hope that you do not overtax yourself by working too hard. Take care of yourself, even if for your lune de miel alone. Knowing your nature, I am out of my mind with worry. You are hot-headed, but you also cool down quickly—all those ‘Fata Morganas,’ as your papa used to say.

  Marya Alexeyevna has really upset me. She is still cross with you for hinting at her in your vaudeville: she keeps saying to all and sundry that allegedly the Petersburg authorities are displeased with you for putting off going to Persia. That apparently, they consider it a faux pas. Be careful, my dear friend. Heed your mother’s warning. But bless her, what is there to talk about if, thank God, it hasn’t been published. I keep telling her that there is nothing of the kind in your vaudeville, but she won’t listen. Such are the fruits or your backstage escapades and duels.

  Alexander, I beg you, for the love of God and in memory of your father, listen to Ivan Fyodorovich, who is our only patron. As you may remember, when the wagging tongues told Eliza that you had portrayed him under the name of Skalozub, I had to write countless letters to reassure her. He is our one and only hope. In the old days, your papa used to change his allegiances and make his dissatisfaction known, so he died with the rank of second major. Be sensible and remember both him and your uncle Alexei Fyodorovich. The choice scarcely seems so difficult since we are as poor as church mice. I know that you had no liking for your uncle. Out of sheer stubbornness. Your mother knows you, my dear. I was not going to mention it, but all that theatrical posturing, my friend Alexander, it’s too immature and as your uncle used to say, sour in the mouth, green behind the ears. You know it in your heart that he knew how to live well, and life is not cakes and ale, it’s an art. Out of the frying pan and into the fire—and still alive—as he used to say! You are a family man now. There isn’t much to write about an old woman’s life. I take it one day at a time, in debt up to here, but still managing. I live only through you, my son, and wait for you, mon cher, and your young wife, whom I long to meet as soon as possible.

  Ah, mon Dieu, qu’élle est romantique, ta lune de miel dans ce pays pittoresque!”10

  He tore up the letter from top to bottom, very slowly. It was because of her that he’d come here. And how well she knew him! That’s why no one else in the world had such power over him.

  He was wakeful that night.

  The rain kept pattering with a muffled sound against the multicolored glass and reminded him of what he hadn’t had time to do during the day.

  Nino was asleep. Her face was yellow, like her mother’s, Princess Salome’s. He had no spectacles on and was surprised to note the similarity. He looked away.

  They were out of pocket. Pickled Date had held up his salary; the gifts for the shah had got stuck in Astrakhan. Dadash-bek gave the old man in the bazaar a good beating. Uncle Alexei Fyodorovich, the kurors, the kurors.

  It dawned on him: this was the war.

  No one fully understood it yet.

  Paskevich was fighting the Turks, but a war was being waged over here, a war without soldiers or guns, which was even more unnerving. And he was the only one who waged it, the commander-in-chief and the hostage. That’s why the damned time dragged on, in spite of his being so busy. And Sashka might be the only one to have sensed it.

  Something was lacking in the room. And this robbed him of courage, of confidence.

  Something was missing. He moved his shortsighted eyes about the room.

  It was cold; he saw the yellow blotch of Nino’s dress.

  The room was lacking the pianoforte.

  15

  So it started to rock, the little Russian ship sailing over the destitute country.

  The captain is of good cheer; he is poring over the maps. But don’t put too much trust in him, he is pale and wan. He does not allow himself to trust his instincts, and this is what you mistake for cheerfulness.

  Once he found himself doing a strange thing: he was humming an absurd little song:

  Midget Maltsov, worthless crumb

  Off you go, little Tom Thumb!

  And he realized that he couldn’t stand Maltsov, this respectful, assiduous, and efficient man.

  16

  It was one of those letters received as if from beyond the grave. There was nothing particular about it. But one phrase he came across in it made him so livid that he nearly choked. Not even a phrase, just a word.

  Nesselrode wrote in French to instruct that no zizanie11 should take place in relation to the British legation. And that the kurors were late.

  Griboedov mumbled:

  “Zizanie.”

  He leaped to his feet, gone pale, almost green:

  “Zizanie.”

  And with one sweep, he sent all the papers flying off the desk and onto the floor.

  Maltsov entered the study.

  “What is it?” barked Griboedov. “I am listening,” he said, noticing that Maltsov had changed color and was staring at the scattered papers.

  “Alexander Sergeyevich, Colonel Macdon
ald has sent a letter from Tehran. It is addressed to you.”

  Griboedov broke the seal and threw the crushed envelope on the floor.

  “… I caught up with His Majesty on his way to Farahan, and with all the courtesy I could muster, I conveyed to him Your Excellency’s words, but His Majesty ordered me rudely to mount my horse and forbade me to show my face before him again. I expect further instructions from Your Excellency …

  McNeill.”

  Griboedov burst into laughter.

  “Go on, then, mount your horse, and off you go!”

  Maltsov was staring at him with eyes wide open.

  “Ivan Sergeyevich,” said Griboedov, and Maltsov stood at full attention in front of him, “prepare everything for our departure. Get in touch with Abbas, request a mekhmendar. Inform the doctor. Tell the Cossacks to be ready to march. We are leaving for Tehran in two days.”

  Maltsov was silent.

  “Did you hear me, Ivan Sergeyevich?”

  “But Alexander Sergeyevich,” murmured Maltsov, “remember your words … The gifts for the shah haven’t arrived … You were sorry that you had to hurry to Tabriz. And to hurry now to Tehran …”

  “Would you care to make immediate arrangements? And no zizanie, if you please.”

  Maltsov went off.

  And so: Tehran.

  17

  When on the previous night he had discovered that he was a general without soldiers, a commander-in-chief without a front, when next to him, in the same room, there opened up this absurd and empty, desolate theater of war, his eyes had looked around for a friend and found not even a piano.

  This was ennui, the very same that in his youth had driven his quill or flung him from woman to woman, had made him play men off against each other in the snow-covered field.

  He was treading water over here—no wonder he was suffering from ennui.

  But on that accursed night, the ennui was different—it had ripened. His sleeping wife was next to him; he loved her. But the ennui had convinced him that her Tsinandali estate would be like a wide bed, coughing, yawning, drowsiness, and that he would turn into his uncle Alexei Fyodorovich in retirement, or a petty Georgian landowner sipping chikhir.

  Ennui was all around him. States were set up and furnished like rooms in order to fill the emptiness. Wars broke out, and theater shows were staged because of it. Men fought duels, pimped and slandered; everything occurred because of it, the ennui.

  He would sit down at his desk, and food bills and lists of Armenian families swam before his eyes.

  When he looked into the lively eyes of Abbas and the dull eyes of Colonel Macdonald, it seemed that he had no enemies. There were men, decent enough, whom he had encountered in the wilderness, like the old trapper. And he was a Russian officer by necessity, exiled over here and biding his time by the fireless Persian fireplace to escape the cold and snow, as well as trouble at work. So, what was Hecuba to him? What were the ill-fated Persian Hecuba and Nesselrode’s international Hecuba to him? Forget it, as General Sipiagin would say.

  A month or two, and he would return to Tiflis. He would never again return to Petersburg, and he was done with Moscow. Now Tehran was the concern.

  Tehran—he remembered some street, the corner of the street and the fruit seller sitting on that corner, a mosque, pale pink like a human body, a dense forest of minarets, filthy beggars; he thought of Alaiar-Khan, of the shah who could die at any moment, after which it would all start up.

  He was calm; his brow was covered in sweat.

  Tehran was his final fear. And he never fled from danger.

  Once he had been out riding in the outskirts of Tiflis, and suddenly bullets whizzed right past his face; somebody had shot at him from behind the ridge. He was alarmed, turned the horse around, dug in his spurs, and charged off down the road; there was nobody around. He forgot about it; nobody had seen it. One night at the nobles’ club, he was talking to somebody and suddenly remembered: the shot, his fear, the near-miss. Without saying a word to the man he was talking to, he jumped from his seat, went to the stables, ordered them to saddle his stallion, and rode slowly along that very precipice. He rode through that troubled area every night for a week, slowly, methodically, and his acquaintances at the club kept saying that he was showing off. Yakubovich’s laurels kept him awake at night. There were no more shots—to his regret.

  Now was the time to saddle the stallion.

  Tehran, his final fear, was awaiting him. Shame on him who leaves his business unfinished, when the drum has signaled departure but he has not even loaded his luggage.

  He pressed his hand to his brow and stroked his hair. It felt good.

  His feet ached like those of a man who was walking not where he wanted to go, but in the opposite direction.

  18

  Just before his departure, he received the news from Tiflis: General Sipiagin had died suddenly, before General Paskevich’s arrival. Dressed too lightly for a stormy autumn day, he had inspected a parade, immediately fell ill, took to bed, gave orders that nobody should see him, and died within twenty-four hours. He was calm before his death, made his own funeral arrangements, and when dying gazed at his military decorations, which he had ordered to be placed on the side table.

  General Paskevich instructed Zavileisky to sort through the papers of the deceased. They said everything turned out to be in a complete muddle.

  The manufacturer Mr. Castellas died suddenly at the same time. His papers were seized. Dr. Martinengo was appointed the widow’s trustee.

  Griboedov pondered the letter and then smiled. Nothing had changed.

  As Sipiagin once said: “Believe it or not … this is Russia …”

  Here was your Russia. Here was a Bayard for you, a knight beyond reproach.

  He spread his hands—what can you do?

  He arranged for Nino’s belongings to be transported to the Macdonalds’. It was unthinkable for her to stay alone at the deserted legation. The Macdonalds were very accommodating and gave her their best quarters. Their rooms were warm. Nurse Darejan fussed and grumbled.

  The house immediately felt empty, and voices echoed more resonantly—the house, like a musical instrument, sensed the forthcoming departure.

  When he was saying good-bye to Nino in the already-unfamiliar room, soiled by soldiers’ boots, she said nothing, just clung to him and burst into tears.

  He looked down, unsure. She was so submissive and spoke so easily about everything. She was his foreign bliss. He hugged her hard. When all was said and done he loved her very much. He knew that without her his life would be harder.

  And outside once again, the sound of the drums, the seeing-off, Nazar-Ali-Khan on a prancing horse, the motley caravan of his men, the hinnies, the bundles, the horses’ hooves, which hammered the dried, frozen earth. Snow was falling down in flakes and clusters and melting fast. A bunch of mounted Cossacks, eight pairs in number, were rocking in their saddles. About thirty servants were still pottering about the carts: Armenians, Georgians, Tiflis Germans, who had joined the caravan, peered out from the sodden covered wagons. Nazar-Ali-Khan’s retinue stood at a distance.

  The rich saddlecloths were soggy and coarse, like the canvas of a traveling circus, and the Persian crowd shivered from cold and curiosity.

  “Vazir-Mukhtar,” an old Persian nudged another one.

  “Sakhtyr,” replied another one and shook his head bitterly.

  His face was ashen and his beard was dyed red.

  Griboedov caught it and forgot about it at once.

  When they left behind the black gates of Tabriz and the caravan turned into what it really was—a weak and miserable handful of horsemen, a sluggish little convoy of hinnies, of slow and submissive plodding animals, of impassive people—Griboedov asked Dr. Adelung absentmindedly:

  “What is sakhtyr?”

  The doctor pulled a small dictionary out of his pocket, began to leaf through it, and nearly fell off the saddle. Finally, he found it:

 
; “Coeur dur, hard heart,” he read. “There may be another meaning; this is an old edition.”

  Griboedov had stopped listening to him. He was thinking: shouldn’t they turn back?

  08

  1

  Samson-Khan was marrying off his daughter to Naib-serheng Skryplev.

  Although he obeyed the Islamic custom, although his favorite daughter was not much different from any other khan’s daughter, nevertheless, contrary to Persian tradition, there was a certain degree of freedom in his house. For example, men and women dined together, and if subordinates came to see Samson, his daughters did not make a dash for the anderun; they just covered their faces with their chadors. This was inconvenient for eating, though, and the chadors would soon slip down their faces.

  He was not censured for this; he enjoyed a particular standing.

  Ensign Skryplev was bored without women. Samson often invited him to dinner, and it so happened that once, when it was just the two of them, the ensign hesitated, took a deep breath, and then suddenly announced, with military bravado:

  “Your Excellency, permission to ask for the hand of the fair Zeinab in marriage.”

  Samson grinned, touched his beard with his fingers, and examined the ensign.

  In spite of his tan, the ensign was fair-haired, and Samson agreed.

  “I’ll tell you what: men over here have lots of willing dames; it’s a disgraceful custom without question. They have agda and they have sigheh.”

  An agda was a permanent wife, a sigheh a temporary wife, by contract, according to which she “gave her passion to such and such man in exchange for such and such a sum for such and such a term.” A sigheh meant “contract” in Persian, so the contracted wives were also called sigheh.

  “I adhere, of course, to the law of the land, but I won’t have my own daughter being either an agda or a sigheh.”

  As it happened, the ensign needed neither an agda nor a sigheh. He was a stranger to all of that.