“There is some other business I’d like to talk to you about. I don’t want my daughter to want for anything, so I’ll set her up with a dowry.”
The ensign perked up and mumbled:
“Believe me, Samson Yakovlich, it hadn’t even crossed my mind that …”
“All right, all right.”
Samson waved his hand and suddenly bent his head and pondered.
He looked at the ensign gloomily and directly. Then he thought a little more, bit his firm lips, and smiled:
“And since you don’t have enough room at your quarters, I’ll divide my house into two halves, and you two can live in the other half. There you are; that’s all right then.”
It was obvious that Samson did not want to let go of the dark-eyed fashion-lover altogether.
“I am not a difficult father-in-law: live as you please. Don’t worry, Astafy Vasilich, I won’t meddle. And after my death, the house will be yours. Just one thing: you are an Orthodox Christian, my daughter is Muslim. How should we wed you?”
It turned out that the ensign hadn’t given it any thought at all.
“Never mind,” said Samson, “we will first marry you the Islamic way, and then the Christian. It’s acceptable, it can be done. Without any problem.”
Samson went to see Alaiar-Khan in order to invite him to the majlis-shirini.
He was treated to a breakfast with sweets, sherbet, and hookahs.
Alaiar-Khan was unpleasantly syrupy. There were some scores still to be settled between them. Who knows, there might well be some big business forthcoming. Samson-Khan and his bahaderans were the Qajars’ bodyguards. That’s why they were friends.
“Samson-Khan, don’t you like this nun-i-shirin? Alas. It really doesn’t seem sweet enough. And what about the masghati? Do the grapes not smell sufficiently tempting?”
“Forgive me, Guiding Light,” said Samson-Khan, “I am not used to sweet things. Besides, I have just eaten at home.”
Alaiar-Khan shook his black beard.
“Lion of Battle, dip your finger in salt,” he said slowly and gravely, “as proof of your affection for me.”
Samson stuck his calloused finger into the gold salt cellar and licked it.
“Now I am sure you are fond of me.”
And Samson invited his friend to the majlis-shirini, the first day of the wedding.
He also visited the eunuchs.
Khozrow-Khan, a dark-haired beardless man who looked rather like a young woman, lived at the palace, like his companions.
Fluffy rugs were crushed underfoot like grass, gold vessels adorned tiny tables, and Khorasan fabrics hung on the walls in such a way that the multicolored glass also looked like fabrics, only luminous ones.
The khan had a feminine voice and white feminine hands studded with rings. He looked with kohled, languid eyes at Samson’s bushy beard.
He had been castrated in early childhood, and his memory of maleness was very vague. He had a huge affection for horses. He loved breaking them; he would buy the best harnesses, silver ones. His stable could match the shah’s. And this Amazon1 had held discussions with Samson about horses—their builds, colors, and harnesses. They also had happened to exchange horses.
Having heard about the wedding, Khozrow-Khan smiled and congratulated Samson gracefully. He would be there by all means. Of all the girls, Zainab was the star.
Manouchehr-Khan, a stout, smooth-faced old man, received Samson majestically. His brother was Samson-Khan’s subordinate, but the old man couldn’t abide weddings because he was incredibly thrifty.
There were heavy chests covered with furs in his room, but the rooms reeked of emptiness, of the mustiness of old age mingled with the fragrance of dried, bitter oranges.
Khoja-Mirza-Yakub greeted Samson as always, calmly, with a blank face.
As smooth as a beam of wood, with his fluffy black eyebrows, thin-lipped mouth, and delicate skin, he always greeted people like this.
His thoughts were an enigma.
2
The first day was majlis-shirini.
They sat, right leg crossed over left, on Samson’s rugs, the Persians in tall turbans and colored socks—juraba. A mullah, Samson’s friend, recited the wedding kabole, and the ensign responded as Samson had taught him:
“Beli. (I do.)”
They spent a long time drinking sherbet from huge gold bowls, ate pusheki, and reached out for the hookahs, which the servants lit up with tiny embers.
The guests would leave in single file, arguing by the stairs about giving each other the right of way, and none of them, for love or money, would consent to go first.
The servants carried a sack of presents, peshkeshi, after each of their masters.
On the second day, they took the bride to the bathhouse.
In front of the entrance to the bathhouse, the crowd fired off rifles, somebody yelled that he was giving the bride ten thousand tumen, and hundreds of voices immediately yelled that they were giving money to the dancers. The torches smoked. Zainab came out of the bathhouse in a white chador, surrounded by six women in blue silk chadors.
Samson-Khan was waiting for her at the gate.
He took her by the shoulders and gave her a slight push:
“Go to the garden, which I am giving to you.”
He was tipsy and wore a rich gown.
Into the courtyard, they brought a fat ram, all trussed up and with gilded horns, and they threw it at Zainab’s feet.
The ram gasped and bleated, its sides heaving.
The urchins screamed behind the gates; the torches smoldered; hundreds of eyes lined the fence, like live coals.
Samson took a step back:
“Loosen his feet a bit,” he told somebody in Russian.
They put the ram on its feet. It was quivering.
Samson pulled out a scimitar.
He clenched his teeth, lifted the saber a little to the side, and took two short steps toward the ram.
He struck him with a prolonged, whistling movement right between the horns, and the urchins astride the fence clamored and shrieked: he had sliced the ram in two.
Its blood spurted over Zainab’s white chador. Samson’s boots and trousers were bloodstained all over; little rivulets of blood flowed everywhere. Staggering and gazing around moodily, Samson said:
“I grant a ruble in money and two shots of vodka to each bahaderan.”
“Hand me the sack, Skryplev, will you?” and he began to take out fistfuls of copper coins and throw them around the courtyard at the unfamiliar eyes that gleamed along the top of the fence.
The courtyard emptied; you could hear the urchins fighting behind the fence over the money and panting hard as they scooped it up.
“And now, let’s go in.”
Inside, a different ceremony began.
A little old priest from the Russian chapel, which Samson had built for the Orthodox Christians—a priest who had been defrocked in Russia more than thirty years ago—chanted about God’s slave Astafy and God’s slave Zeinaba (he pronounced the latter in a Russified way) and concluded:
“I congratulate you on your lawful marriage and wish you many years of good health.”
And he left as imperceptibly as he had arrived, through the secret door.
Naibs and naib-serhengs—Borshchov, Naumov, Osipov, Enikolopov and many other Russian naibs—came, and Samson told them all:
“I am celebrating today. Don’t judge too harshly.”
Strong grape vodka was served without any pusheki, and the naibs drank it, and so did Samson.
“I’m feeling weary,” he said, now that he had become really drunk.
His eyes grew dark, his lip drooped.
“I am weary, Skryplev,” moaned Samson, and burst into tears. “Drink until the morning; plenty of time to go to your wife. This is your bachelor night.”
The naibs sang.
Borshchov had a high, soulful voice. In his former homeland, he had murdered two men.
Small, nimble, and pockmarked, he sat, pressing his right hand to his chest, and his eyes rolled.
When a peahen struts about,
The bright peacock drops a feather.
As the wind sweeps the feather away,
So my troubles are here to stay …
“What a voice!” Samson kept saying. “What a singer!”
What awaits me is the service to the tsar,
What’s foretold is the long, wide roadway
To the glorious capital city …
Samson complained:
“What is he singing, eh? He always comes up with this one. I have no time for it, naibs.”
They sang another one:
She cursed and berated the scribe,
She berated him and scolded him …
Let’s go, dear heart, for a ride,
Dear girl, for a ride, for a ride.
“Call the old man!” yelled Samson. “Call the old man from the courtyard, let him swear; the old man’s swearing is really great fun.”
They dragged in the old Russian janitor.
He bowed eagerly to the host and the guests.
“Congratulations, Samson Yakovlich.”
“Have a drink, old man.”
“I don’t drink from an unsanctified glass.”
“Bring your own, then.”
“Here’s a new glass, untouched: drink.”
The old man drank to the dregs without flinching. He made a bow and was about to leave.
“Where do you think you are going?” asked him Samson. “I won’t let you—sing me a song, old man,” and he gave Naumov a wink.
“Woe betide you, city of Babylon,” said the old man venomously, “with all your concubines …”
“Hold on, what concubines?”
“The clanging cymbals …” said the old man, and gave a little hiccup.
“Who the hell are these concubines?” said Samson.
“ … And having renounced the god of the righteous, the wicked ones danced in a state of frenzy, worshipping the golden calf …” mumbled the old man into his beard.
“Have a drink, old man; it will clear your throat.”
The old man drank; he didn’t turn down drinks.
“My naibs can’t dance, old man. Not even the Cossack dances.”
The old man was now drunk. Besides being a religious dissenter, he was also a tosspot.
“I can dance all right; just don’t laugh at me because I am old.”
The old man made an entrechat.
“ ‘Danced in a frenzy’, huh?” said Samson. “I’ll show you what dancing means …”
He rose to his feet.
The old man kept squatting on the same spot, imagining that he was covering the entire room.
“Hell’s bells, devil’s spells, prison cells!”
“Stop right there, old man,” said Samson, “for this kind of hopping about, you deserve to be executed.”
He pushed him lightly toward the wall, and the old man stood straight up.
“We are going to execute you right now,” said Samson calmly. “Wait here, you, Babylon.”
And he pulled out his pistol.
Skryplev grabbed him by the gown.
“What?” asked Samson. “Who do you think you are to stop me?”
He was red-faced, his eyes were half shut.
Skryplev, quite drunk, murmured:
“I dare point out to Your Excellency …”
Samson was already oblivious of him.
He fired a shot.
When the little puff of smoke dispelled, the old man stood by the wall, stunned. A black hole was showing right above his head.
“I am weary, naibs,” said Samson, “go away now. And take that old bastard the hell out of here!”
3
The flickering sets fire to the body. The lips are silent, the body alone speaks: a roar comes from it that everyone might well hear but pretends not to notice.
It does not have to happen at night. It happens when you are in love.
Thoughts vanish, and only cunning jolly imposters remain. A man answers to the point, makes jokes, goes to work, but, strictly speaking, it is the shadow of the man who answers, works, and jokes on his behalf, while the transformed man is silent and his thoughts drift free. Their master is far away. This happens at age twenty and has been copiously described. Such love lasts just a year or two, no more. The love of a husband and the love of an old man have also been described; the former is like the frantic desire to enter a locked room. He could not care less whether passersby are laughing at him or how many people have already entered that door before him. He longs to enter the room. An old man’s love, judging by the descriptions, is much more like the desire to make oneself comfortable by leaning against the back of a chair, to stay inside the house, in the warmth, to bathe in warm water and to have some sweet fruit. But what is unfathomable is the love of a eunuch.
4
Lock them up with golden keys,
golden keys to ward off sleep,
give them all a name,
stirrups by their flanks,
bridles made of gold.
▶ Skoptsy2 song
In 1804, during the siege of the Erivan fortress, a cavalry squad of Georgian volunteers quarreled with Prince Tsitsianov and decided to go back to their native land. A number of Armenian merchants and some random folks joined them. The caravan was passing the Etchmiadzin monastery.
A youth named Yakub Markarian lived in the monastery at the time. He was eighteen, and he had distinguished himself by his assiduous love of scholarship. His parents were poor people. He was a native of Erivan and studied ancient Armenian in his native city. In order to improve his knowledge, he left his parents and went to the monastery school.
When the caravan was passing the monastery, Yakub secretly left without a single word to his teacher or his brethren and joined the detachment.
He had a little knapsack of books on his back. He didn’t have even a crumb of bread for the road. When a merchant asked him where he was headed and for what purpose, he replied that a famous scholar, Seropet Patkanian, had recently come to Tiflis and that he was eager to become his pupil. The merchant shared some of his bread and cheese with him from his stock. Yakub was a tall and gloomy boy.
Two days passed like that.
When the caravan was passing Babokatsor, there was a war cry, and it was suddenly attacked by a Persian detachment. A skirmish ensued, and the Georgian soldiers and some of the Armenians were killed. The others were taken prisoner and brought to Tabriz under heavy guard. They were badly fed and driven down the road like a herd of sheep. There, in Tabriz, Yakub and a few other young Armenians were castrated.
After that, as the most learned one, he was sent to Tehran, to the harem of Fat’h-Ali-shah. He studied Persian and Arabic under the tutelage of the old eunuch and succeeded in his scholarly pursuits. So, Yakub Mirza became a khoja. When he learned the art of double-entry bookkeeping from a visiting scholar, he won the title of mirza and became known to the shah. The shah sent him to Khorasan to check the governor’s accounts three times, and to Shiraz twice. He became the shah’s treasurer. He sent money to his parents. And each time the poor parents from Erivan received it, they would say: “Thank you, God!”
5
An iron-shod steed
▶ The Skoptsy term
Hooves in blocks, a sack on the muzzle, and a moment later, the tight apples of the horse’s testicles are steaming with blood on the snow.
Then the sack is taken off, and tears fall on the snow from the crazed eyes of the horse. Steam hisses from his nostrils; steam rises from his flanks. The flanks heave.
Such is the craft of a farrier.
And the horse becomes fat and calm; he carries heavy loads and no longer neighs. Only occasionally, having scented a female horse, his nose twitches, and he at once lowers his head submissively. Horses have short memories.
But the memory of the human body is long, and the emptin
ess in a man’s body is frightening.
There are eunuchs who are beefy, like horses, like old women, and there are eunuchs who are thin and upright.
Khozrow-Khan filled in the void with Amazonian games and luxury, Manouchehr-Khan—with power, money, and chests filled with treasures, while Khoja-Yakub had a library—his studies were as ardent as love. He spent his days poring over books. But he was wakeful at night. He gazed with dry eyes at the smooth ceiling. Emptiness was his bedfellow. When it became overwhelming, he would fall asleep. During the day, he was calm, as befits a eunuch. He was rich, lean, and learned.
One shouldn’t suppose that eunuchs are without feelings.
Their cantankerousness, like that of elderly women, was proverbial in the East. So they spent their accumulated emptiness on trifles.
But Khoja-Yakub was taciturn and polite in meetings and conversations.
A eunuch’s courtesy, however, is more frightening than his cantankerousness.
Herodotus wrote:
“There lived the youth Hermotius in the city of Pedassium. And a respectable merchant, Panionius, lived there too. He was a seller of live goods, of neither male nor female gender. He castrated the youth Hermotius and sold him for good money to the Persian tsar Xerxes. And Xerxes took a fancy to Hermotius: he was clever and brave, and Xerxes brought him closer to himself. And when Xerxes conquered the city of Pedassium, Hermotius asked him to be appointed satrap there.
And Panionius was terrified when he heard about the appointment.
But when the satrap arrived in the city, he showed kindness to Panionius and gave him a heartfelt welcome.
Soon he threw a sumptuous feast in honor of Panionius and his three adolescent sons. The feast lasted all night, and various honors were paid to Panionius and his sons.
Then, the satrap Hermotius rose and pulled his sword out of his sheath.
And he ordered the father to castrate his sons.
And he stood and watched.
And then he ordered the sons to castrate their father.
Such was the eunuch’s courtesy.
And according to Xenophon, the eunuch Gadat, who had been castrated and betrayed by the Assyrian king. said: ‘My disgraced and wrathful soul looks not at what is safest, because there is not and cannot be any child born from me, who would inherit my house: with my death my kin and my very name will be extinguished.’”
The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar Page 41