And the fresh springs of water run.
Joy was needed, jollity, but there was no pianoforte. There was only the white ivory inkstand, the kaliam-dan, in the shape of a tombstone. And it looked like the grave of Montrezor.
The sinful soul forgot his Holy Russia …
They glorify him in their song:
He lived a stormy life and now
He rests in peace and lies alone.
He was convinced that this song would be sung. Blind men and musicians wandering along that long, high road would sing it, and peasant women would cry over it:
To the deathbed of her son
No old mother comes to mourn,
No young bride to weep for him.
He put the sheet of paper aside, perplexed.
“Young wife.”
The drunk Samson had sung something like that ten years ago by his window, and Griboedov had not come out to speak to him.
This time he would achieve Samson’s extradition. He would not die; his greatest fear turned out to be just a run-of-the-mill official trip to fulfill his orders.
Griboedov saw his own face in four mirrors at once. The face looked back at him closely, abstractedly and, strangely, at a loss.
He called for Sashka, but Sashka failed to show up.
6
An audience with the shah.
The ferrashi are like a cloud around him. The sarbazes in the courtyard salute him in the Russian manner.
The court watches Vazir-Mukhtar’s every step, and every gesture is assessed. England is assessed by the depth of Vazir-Mukhtar’s bow, by the length of his audience with the shah, by the number and quality of the gowns receiving him, and the finery of the gold vessels in which the halviat is served.
The shah’s dwarfs, dressed in motley, stand by the staircase.
And Griboedov remembered Ermolov’s elephantine steps.
In 1817, Ermolov perceptively, patiently, and discerningly recaptured all the minutiae of the etiquette; and as a result, his soldier’s boots approached the very throne of His Majesty, and he took a chair and sat down in front of the shah.
Because a short distance from the throne signified the power of the state, and sitting right in front of it indicated the Russian state’s supremacy.
Since 1817, the Russians, after Ermolov’s heavy-handed example, had been relieved of the details of such etiquette.
The English, however, greatly enjoyed observing the minutiae. They would take their boots off, pull on the special red socks, and stand before the shah like red-legged birds.
But the etiquette changed ten years after Ermolov’s clod-hopping audience, when the Persians and Russians in the thousands bowed to each other, right down to the earth itself, and stayed like that, stretched out in their graves.
Now the etiquette was back in force, and the right to the chair and the boots would have to be won all over again because the chair and the boots were worth a few kurors.
A kalianchi dressed in ancient Persian clothes and with a tall hat on his head was holding a gold hookah on a mother-of-pearl tray.
The eunuchs glanced at the gilded breast of Griboedov’s uniform. His cocked hat was pressed to his side like a briefcase.
Manouchehr-Khan’s geriatric eyes peered into Griboedov’s, and he pointed hesitantly to the small side room.
The room was the keshikhane—the tent for the bodyguards where the boots were pulled off the ambassadors’ feet and the red socks put on. There, in accordance with ancient tradition, a Persian would touch the visitor’s foreign uniform, which meant a body search.
But Manouchehr-Khan merely looked with his old woman’s eyes into Griboedov’s. The khan’s eyes had seen a lot. And the hand in its blue sleeve returned immediately to its usual position.
Vazir-Mukhtar’s gaze was calm, concentrated, unspecific, as if looking past the eunuch’s eyes, or through him. Manouchehr-Khan understood: the socks were not going to happen. He drew open the curtain—the perde—with care, as if it were a sacred veil.
When, surrounded by the red-bearded crowd, Griboedov entered the hall, the shah greeted him standing, and Manouchehr-Khan looked into Griboedov’s eyes again. They were narrow, dry, squinting. And after receiving a sign from the shah, the eunuch made a sign, and Griboedov sensed a chair behind his back. Maltsov and Adelung stood behind him.
Griboedov made a deep but brief bow and sat down, just as Ermolov had done before him in 1817.
The shahinshah—the king of kings, the padishah—the mighty ruler, Zilli-Allah—the shadow of Allah, Kible-i-alem—the center of the universe, was standing by the throne dressed in the ancient garb.
The garb was solid, stiff; it was made of red cloth that couldn’t be seen from beneath the rash of pearls and the occasional carbuncles of diamonds which covered it completely. Diamond stars stood out like two wings on his shoulders and made them wider than they were. There was a pearl sun on his chest, two dragons with emeralds for eyes, and two lions with eyes of rubies. A string of beads—tasbikh—made of pearls and diamonds hung round his neck; his beard was combed out and looked like the collar of a woman’s oversized mantle. The shah looked like the Russian tsarina Elizabeth, “beloved silence,” except for the beard. The collar stood, and so did the mighty monarch, who was unable to move, with the clothes weighing fifty pounds.
A gilded bust of Napoleon in a glass case to the right of the shah gloomily observed the proceedings.
The richly dressed ministers in the multilayered red and brown jubbe, one on top of the other, as thick as greatcoats, had white shawls wrapped around the black kajari.
Prince Zil-li Sultan, fat and ceremonially dressed, with a diamond feather on his hat, stood in the front row. Corseted like a wineglass, pliant and feeble, with the smooth, swarthy face of a young libertine, the black-mustachioed younger prince, Abbas’s son, Khosraw Mirza, the grandson of the shah, stood in the second row. He was relegated to the second row on account of his pedigree: he was descended from a Christian woman and was therefore of impure blood.
A fat man, who would have looked like Faddei if not for his bronze complexion, stood next to Khosraw. The fat man snorted loudly and gazed at the proceedings with bulging eyes, mouth half-open and with no expression whatsoever.
That was the court poet, Fazil-Khan.
His duties included reciting poems to the shah, to the ministers and to noble foreigners. His poetry had to be as badly written as possible because Baba-Khan, similar to Nero, or King Ludwig of Bavaria, or the Mongol Khan Yun-Dun-Dordzhi, was also a poet and did not look favorably on rivals.
Khoja-Mirza-Yakub watched Vazir-Mukhtar closely.
And Vazir-Mukhtar sat in the chair looking relaxed as he observed the shah and the gold Napoleon.
He answered all the questions very precisely, but his strength did not lie in this.
Vazir-Mukhtar seemed deep in thought.
He sat like Olearius in front of the tsar of Muscovy and was in no hurry since it had happened already, three hundred years ago.
With his arms crossed on his chest and his unsophisticated head bent slightly sideways, the golden Napoleon observed the live, ancient tsar in front of his throne and Olearius sitting with his cocked hat pressed to his side.
The shah was turning purple.
Two large beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.
A quarter of an hour passed like that.
Maltsov thought that everyone must see him trembling.
What was Alexander Sergeyevich thinking of in his chair? What was he looking at? Why did he keep on sitting? How depressing all this was, dear God! The shah would pass out.
And indeed, what was Vazir-Mukhtar thinking of?
Perhaps of the kurors?
Perhaps of his wife, of her arms, of what she had said when they were parting?
Perhaps he was comparing the appearance of an Asiatic despot, with flightless wings and a fifty-pound costume, to the appearance of another, subtle and round, like a doll, wearing the blue uniform of
a gendarme, the color of the pale-blue sky?
Or perhaps the indecent lines of the great Russian poet were inappropriately passing through his head?
Beard, beard, glorious beard!
Pity you are not baptized …1
And Griboedov kept on sitting.
Dr. Adelung stood behind him staring at the eunuchs, looking like a short, round hookah in his uniform.
Eunuchs were of interest to him as a natural phenomenon: one of them stared at him unpleasantly, point blank.
The shah shut his eyes like a dying cock.
Beard, you increase the profits
Year-on-year in the country’s coffers …
At this point, Griboedov crossed his legs.
So he continued to sit, suddenly oblivious to everything, contemplating a pearled tray, with not a single thought in his head.
The ministers cringed. Alaiar-Khan bit his lip.
He did it deliberately, to stop the awful word, the one that can be uttered only by the shah, from escaping his lips.
“Murrakhus—depart.”
Alaiar-Khan would have liked to pronounce this word. It would untie everyone’s hands …
The shah’s arms dangled. His mouth gaped, he breathed heavily.
Napoleon under the glass seemed to have moved his head.
Maltsov’s legs felt numb, and he longed to sit on the floor.
Nobody said a word.
Oh, how blest your wearer’s might,
Beard, substitute for sight!
The shah moved his lips. Another minute would pass and …
Griboedov rose, made a deep, brief bow.
Everyone stirred into action. The retinue approached the shah, took him by the arms, led him out. His Majesty was indisposed.
In the adjacent room, Griboedov and his secretaries were treated to halviat—the ice-cold pink sherbet, tea, and coffee.
Manouchehr-Khan and Khoja-Mirza-Yakub were the hosts.
Fazil-Khan minced in small steps toward Griboedov and addressed him in French:
“I hope Your Excellency won’t be unfavorably disposed to the poet who would like to greet the famous son of a great country.”
Griboedov looked at the Persian man of letters with pleasure.
“You are not a historiographer, are you?” he asked politely.
“Oh, yes. To a certain extent. This is one of my responsibilities.”
Karamzin, however, was much subtler.
“Go ahead, please. I am all ears.”
Fazil-Khan stuck his belly out just a little bit.
His voice was high, tenorlike, and he declaimed like Shakhovskoi—with little howls.
Contrary to expectations, the poem was pretty good—about the fragrance of the flowers from a certain powerful country whose scent had reached Iran in the heart of a lily that had taken the form of a wonderful man.
“Marvelous. I am touched. Your poetry can be compared to that of our infamous poet, the illustrious Count Khvostov.”
Fazil-Khan blushed with pleasure.
An old man, whom Griboedov hadn’t noticed before, was wearing the poor clothes of a dervish. How could a dervish be admitted to the ceremony? Raised eyebrows, an ashen beard, an old gown, and the stooped back of a holy fool. This was no Count Khvostov. This was Nikita Pustosvyat on a visit to the Kremlin’s Faceted Chamber.2
His lips twitched very slightly and said something to Fazil-Khan. Fazil-Khan’s face lit up, and he translated for Griboedov:
“The Greatest Monarch of Russia was the mighty Peter, referred to all over the world as ‘the Great’ …”
That was the compliment of a dervish.
“I am happy to hear the name of our great monarch in a friendly country.”
The dervish’s lips twitched a little more.
Fazil-Khan dilated his eyes and babbled:
“… who, however, had no luck in his dealings with the Sublime Porte …”3
Griboedov narrowed his eyes:
“That success befell his great-great-grandson.”4
And the dervish said no more and never touched his coffee.
Vazir-Mukhtar had sat in front of His Majesty the shah for almost an hour.
Russia’s significance had strengthened so much that, when proffering a gold cup to Vazir-Mukhtar, Manouchehr-Khan did not dare look him in the eye. Because of his shortsightedness, Vazir-Mukhtar had failed to take a good look at the dervish. It was Abdul-Vahab, muetemid-ud-Doula,5 the enemy of Alaiar-Khan, a man of the old Persia. So a small failure goes hand in hand with success.
7
Two sarbazes carried Sashka by his arms and handed him over to the Cossacks.
The Cossacks lifted Sashka and carried him through all three courtyards.
They carried him into the ground floor, where Sashka occupied a nice enough room.
One of the Cossacks said sympathetically:
“Bloody hell, just look at him! Hold him higher—his hands are dragging on the ground.”
Griboedov saw all this through a glass door, from above.
He ran downstairs to see Sashka.
“Call the doctor,” he said gravely and quickly.
Adelung came in and sent at once for bandages and gauze.
Sashka lay bloodstained, as if painted all over with fresh red paint. Only his hands were pale, with firm, rectangular nails, and they lay twisted on the meager brown blanket.
Griboedov leaned low over him.
Sashka’s right eye had disappeared under a huge, rainbow-colored, swollen bruise, his mouth was ajar, a thin trickle of saliva gathered in the corner, and his left eye stared at Griboedov earnestly and attentively.
Griboedov’s lip began to tremble. He lifted the soft, matted lock of hair from Sashka’s brow.
“Can you hear me, Sasha?” he said. “My dear fellow.”
Sashka blinked at him with his one eye and groaned:
“Mmm.”
“Who’s beaten you so viciously?” asked Griboedov, helplessly, disgustedly. “Bastards.”
“We know who: some fellows at the bazaar, Your Excellency,” replied a Cossack equally quietly and with some dignity.
Dr. Adelung busied himself over Sashka. He washed the blood off with warm water, examined the head and felt his pulse, carefully, like a scribe who lingers at the beginning of a new paragraph.
“He is not in danger,” he told Griboedov. “Give him some vodka.”
They poured some vodka into him, and Sashka, clean, bandaged white all over, lay meekly in his bed. Griboedov never left his bedside.
He gave him a drink from a spoon and looked at him with that degree of apprehension and yet distance that in such cases can be felt only by the people one is closest to.
Sashka soon fell asleep. Griboedov sat there with him until evening.
Sashka was his milk brother. He remembered him as a little boy in a blue uniform. The boy had nebulous eyes, yellow, chickenlike hair, and a snub nose. He would stand motionlessly in the middle of the master’s drawing-room as if waiting to be pushed. Griboedov would push him. Sashka never cried.
Griboedov looked out of the window at the rectangular courtyard with the whitewashed walls.
When they were boys, his cousin Sasha Odoevsky would visit him, and they would harness Sashka and ride him around, pretending he was a horse. Like a hunted beast, Sashka would dash to and fro, stumbling into armchairs, until the mama Nastasya Fyodorovna would send him off to the servants’ room. Sasha Odoevsky was now in shackles, and Sashka was bandaged.
And he remembered how papa seemed to shy away from Sashka; he even seemed fearful of him and used to frown when he caught sight of him at home, and, as if to spite her husband, mama would call Sashka back in. He remembered his papa’s sidelong glances. And he looked at Sashka’s thin lips and tall forehead: was Sashka his half-brother? When he was little, he seemed to recall how they whispered about it in his presence in the servants’ quarters, that there was a row and they teased the nurse, and the nurse wept.
&nb
sp; He also remembered the warm knees of the nurse, Sashka’s mother, and a grave, singsong admonition:
“Ah, Alexander Sergeyevich, so full of mischief!”
Nino was suffering in Tabriz and he was to blame, his body was to blame.
May all those he had ever loved be saved: Sasha Odoevsky, Nino, Faddei, Katya, and Sashka. Let them be saved; may they live quiet, ordinary lives; may they go through them peacefully. Because if someone is marked, that person will have no peace and will have to find his own salvation.
“Since I am a man in the service of the state …” said Sashka hoarsely.
Griboedov listened closely.
“… Ignorance,” proclaimed Sashka.
“Go to sleep; there you go again. So full of mischief,” said Griboedov.
Sashka settled down.
The candles were lit, and Maltsov looked in: he needed to see Griboedov.
“Are we … ?” asked Sashka in a high-pitched voice. “Are we already leaving the city of Tehran?”
8
In the evening, Griboedov wrote letters: to Nino, to his mother, to Sasha Odoevsky. He laid aside the letter to his mother. He also put aside the letter to Odoevsky, who was doing time in a Siberian prison: he would have to wait for the opportunity to pass on the letter—which could take years.
Then he started a letter to Paskevich:
“My venerable patron, Count Ivan Fyodorovich,
I hope you haven’t thought even for a second that I could lose sight of my duties and fail to inform you about my actions … I bring to your attention every detail pertaining to my business for the simple reason that I have no other concerns besides those that are of relevance to you … Here is Bulgarin’s letter regarding you, and you can only imagine how happy I am to read this: ‘… The hero of the present war, our Achilles—Paskevich of Erivan, displays traits worthy of Generalissimo Suvorov … Glory and honor to him. He’s been victorious since 1827.’ And I would correct him: ‘since 1826.’ I am sending you a page of the original. I have copied it because his handwriting is quite illegible …”
He kept writing.
Then he suddenly stopped and scribbled:
“A Request”—and underlined the word.
The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar Page 44