The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar

by Yury Tynyanov

  “My precious benefactor. Now, without further ado, I throw myself at your feet and if we were now together in the same room, I would do it and shower your hands with my tears … I beg you, can you help in rescuing the unfortunate Alexander Odoevsky from adversity At God’s throne there are no Diebitsches or Chernyshevs …”

  9

  Sashka was ill for a week. He had indeed been badly beaten up.

  On those days, Griboedov would come to see him and spend a long time with him.

  Little by little, Sashka told him what the matter was, and it turned out to be not so simple.

  It wasn’t only the matter of ignorance.

  Sashka, a man in the service of the state, had been browsing at the bazaar. He was not really interested in any goods, and had no intention of buying anything; he simply inquired about prices.

  He felt some piece of fabric and lifted the cut from the counter in order to look at it in a better light and to examine it thoroughly. He might have taken a couple of steps away with it, because it was quite dark beneath the roof of the stall. He was not going to steal it, nor was he intending to buy it, it’s just that this was the practice of Moscow landladies of the best possible breeding. But because of his Persian crassness, the trader started to yell. Sashka did not understand what he was yelling, but he realized that he was being insulted. Sashka went back to the shop to return the cut of poor-quality fabric and to berate the shopkeeper.

  Then various locals joined in the shouting, and a cobbler, as long-faced as a horse, yelled louder than the lot of them, although Sashka had been nowhere near his shop because his goods stank abominably and the shop itself was pretty filthy and was littered with scraps of leather.

  At that point, two long-haired sarbazes ran up and without hesitation struck Sashka on the back with their sticks. Sashka told them that he was in the service of the state, from the Russian legation, and that his master was the highest official, appointed to be in charge of the entire city, and that it would be their own heels that would soon be cudgeled.

  In response to this, the sarbazes yelled at him in fluent Russian: “You scum! Moscow skunk!” and started to wallop him all over with their clubs.

  The shopkeepers thrashed him with whatever they could put their hands on, but he still stood firm.

  Then, when his vision started to blur, he thought he saw a Persian officer who barked at the sarbazes in perfect Russian: “What’s wrong? What the hell is this?” Then he might have said: “An extra guard duty!” and could have added: “And I’ll report you to the khan.” After which Sashka’s memory failed him, and he was brought home by the sarbazes, who were truly Persian in appearance.

  “Moscow skunk, you say?” asked Griboedov.

  And he wrote to the shah requesting the extradition of Samson-Khan. In his letter, he used only half of the shah’s titles, which made the document not so much a request as a demand.

  10

  Having made a full recovery, Sashka cheered up.

  Like a disheveled, white-feathered bird, he wandered about the three courtyards and tried to engage the Cossacks in conversation.

  “You, troopers, are country bumpkins,” he would tell a young Cossack. “Conscripted young and thrown into the deep end. While I am in the service of the state, in the civil service. I’m more interested in polite conversation. When Alexander Sergeyevich and myself go back to Petersburg, there will be music, refined talk, and no end of visitors.”

  To another Cossack, he said patronizingly:

  “I’d like to ask you, troopers: what does life hold for you? Drums and drills, day in day out. You are not your own masters. And I will soon be a free man.”

  Such idleness and garrulousness was not at all characteristic of Sashka. Griboedov was apparently not going to end his servitude. And the Cossacks frowned when he hovered about in the courtyard. He began to swing his arms, something that he had never done before. He looked as if he were about to take off. He repeated all the time that he was a man in the service of the state, that he had had enough of Persia, and he might be very useful in the future. To whom exactly remained unclear.

  He probably felt ashamed around the Cossacks who had seen him in a battered state, and he did not know how to behave with them. Once, when he left the embassy’s gate and took a few steps, he stumbled into that Russo-Persian officer who had rescued him from the clubs of the Russian sarbazes.

  Sashka passed him without an acknowledgment, but the officer stopped.

  “Wait a minute, old chap,” he said and blushed.

  Sashka retorted that he was a man in the service of the state, and the law prohibited him from standing there with a foreign officer.

  But the officer also seemed rather apprehensive. Without looking at Sashka, he said:

  “I have a very important matter to discuss. Can I see anyone from the high-ranking gentlemen of the Russian mission?”

  Sashka looked him over and asked brusquely:

  “What for?”

  “I could explain to one of the officials,” replied the officer politely.

  “Since I am now a man in the service of the state …” said Sashka …

  11

  “Khabar-dar! Khabar-dar!”

  A camel driver led his caravan through the bazaar so deftly that he nearly crushed three beggars.

  They gave vent to piercing shrieks:

  “Ya-Ali.”

  They tried to crawl into the shop of the aghengher, a blacksmith. With his tongs in his hands, the blacksmith yelled at them and drove them out. The hammers were pounding; the files of the chelonghers, locksmiths, squealed shrilly; the camel drivers were swearing; the beggars were shrieking; and in the commotion, a sarbaz pilfered a chunk of meat from the butcher’s.

  The butcher grabbed a rock, which served as a weight, and hurled it at the fleeing sarbaz. It went straight into the shelf of an artist selling kaliamdans, inkwells. The artisan lost his temper and dashed out of his tiny shop; along the way, he bumped into the baskets of ezgil and watermelon in a fruit seller’s stall. He grabbed the watermelon and hurled it at the butcher.

  The fight was in full swing. The lots were thrashing the beggars, while the starved, scalded dogs were biting the lots on the calves.

  “Khabar-dar! Khabar-dar!”

  Farther on, a crowd of servants, behind and before the ceremonial carriage, beat the backs of the passers-by with their fists to clear the way.

  The coffee drinkers observed the butcher, the artist, and the chelonghers. They carried on chatting, sipping coffee out of tiny cups.

  Indoor stalls, half-lit, with bowl-like cupolas, stretched on for miles. The sun was scorching through the holes in the cupolas, and the pillars of sunbeams that came in seemed to support the domes.

  During these days, particularly fierce fights broke out at the bazaars.

  The beggars blamed the camel driver, the aghengher blamed the beggars, the butcher blamed the sarbaz, the artist blamed the butcher, and the fruit seller blamed the artist.

  The crowds of beggars and lots roamed the bazaars.

  Everyone was to blame.

  And the coffee-shop customers calmly drank their coffee and chatted.

  During important debates about matters of state, the viziers drank coffee and tea and smoked their hookahs. Numerous pishkhedmets were always waiting on them, observing the elaborate etiquette, the tashahhus. The viziers debated loudly, windows and doors open wide. Ferrashi stood outside and listened.

  This was how their words spilled out onto the streets and spread about the bazaars.

  The coffee-shop customers discussed the latest news.

  If a rug in Persia was a piece of furniture, then a coffee shop was a newspaper. One of the visitors, a kadii, who sipped his coffee, was a significant front-page article; the two elders smoking hookahs were comic features; one of the merchants was the chronicle and another, a fatter customer, was the advertisements.

  “I no longer have the best rugs. There are no deliveries from Khorasa
n. But I have good quality rugs and they are not too costly. And they are even better than the ones from Khorasan.”

  “After the Muharram holiday, malik-ut-tujjar of the drapers will take three sigheh at once. When will he find time for his own agdas? How low have we sunk! My father had only four agdas and not a single sigheh, and he had time for each of them.”

  “The English hakim-bashi was giving away spectacles and penknives. He sent some spectacles to my house, but I don’t wear them—can’t see a thing with them.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” says the kadii, “between you, me, and the gate-post: two of Alaiar-Khan’s wives have left to go over to the Russian Vazir-Mukhtar. They are thoroughbred Persians; they left for the Russian embassy at night, and they are there now.”

  “I know. But I hear the women are infidels. They say they are from the Armenian town of Gharakilisa. Infidels,” says the old man.

  “Trade is slow,” says the merchant, “and I’ve vowed to slash my flesh in the days of Ashur.”

  “My son has given the pledge too,” says the old man nonchalantly, “and I’ve hired a helper in the shop. My other son will impersonate Yazid, may his name be cursed.”

  The sad month of Muharram, when the holy imam Hussein was murdered, was drawing close. Those who had made the pledge would be cutting their flesh with their sabers. The white shrouds that they wore would be stained with blood. They would pierce themselves with needles and nip their flesh with pincers. They would sprinkle their heads with ashes, and the actor who would impersonate the cursed Ibn-Sa’ad who had arrived on the black horse would be all but torn to pieces by the very same old men and vendors who even now were drinking their coffee so calmly out of those little cups. And on the second day of Ashur, having lit wax candles, they would search the courtyards for the vanished prophet or his remains.

  In the meantime, they kept sipping their coffee.

  Any news of Vazir-Mukhtar was as scarce at the bazaar as Khorasan rugs. Rugs from Khorasan were no longer available: there was unrest in Khorasan; one could do without them. Nobody remembered how the kafir servant had been beaten up at the bazaar. Kafirs were alien men, to be dealt with by officials. The quality of goods had deteriorated; gangs of lots roamed the country and plagued the city.

  Every day at the bazaar, the executioners cudgeled thieves’ heels, cut off their right hands, ripped open their bellies.

  12

  The visits were paid rather unsuccessfully; he visited Abu’l-Hassan-Khan third, while he ought to have visited him second. One could really lose one’s head with this tashahhus. On the other hand, the other two men were now on his side.

  Some of the high-ranking officials did not wish to favor him with a return visit. Never mind. That was the end of the matter.

  During a private audience, weighing fifty pounds less than during the official one, the shah told him: “You are my emin, you are my vizier, all my viziers are your servants: address all your concerns directly to me and the shah will not refuse you,” and so on. Griboedov assumed that it was all just a pure formality, a matter of phrasing, but he could sense that the shah was yielding, and in the end the eighth kuror would be paid.

  The issue of the prisoners was much more disagreeable. First of all, not all of them were captives. Many of them had lived here for ten or fifteen years and came from provinces that had been conquered by the Russians practically minutes ago. But the treaty had to be honored. Russian influence had to be exerted; otherwise, it was unclear what he was doing here.

  He was the representative of the Russian state in the East, and that was no small thing. Thousands of families were arriving, changing their lives—he was taking them out of Persia as Moses had once led the Jews out of Egypt. He was sick and tired of them; they were under his feet all day long, every day.

  One night, two women asked the Cossacks to let them through to the mission on important business. The Cossacks were reluctant. They called Maltsov.

  The women turned out to be an Armenian and a German. They had been recently abducted and delivered to Alaiar-Khan’s harem. Both were from Gharakilisa and were longing to go back to their homeland. They had managed to escape with the assistance of Alaiar-Khan’s eunuch, whom they had bribed.

  Maltsov ordered the matter to be reported to Griboedov. Without getting out of bed, Griboedov made arrangements: to let them in, to get them settled in the second courtyard, and to allocate them separate quarters.

  By the terms of the treaty, Alaiar-Khan had no greater privileges than any shopkeeper. It would do him no harm to give some thought to the Russian treaty.

  The next day, Khoja-Mirza-Yakub paid Griboedov a visit.

  The shah’s eunuch was instructed to ask Griboedov to let Alaiar-Khan’s wives go. He didn’t spend long at the embassy, and the conversation was short.

  Griboedov advised Alaiar-Khan that he should write to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to Mr. Nesselrode. He might make an exception in the treaty for Alaiar-Khan. Khoja-Mirza-Yakub looked in the mirrors, saw Griboedov and himself, thought a little, and then rose slowly, made a polite bow, and left.

  13

  When Samson found out that Griboedov was pressing for dastkhat on his extradition, he said nothing to his men. He pulled himself together, tightened his belt, and for some reason went to inspect his house.

  It was built very soundly.

  “Needs whitewashing,” said Samson to the old janitor, and stuck his finger in the peeling white paint on the wall, which looked like cracked eggshell.

  He picked at it, and the eggshell cracked delicately, and the cracks spread further. He examined the fence.

  “The fence is no good, needs new supports.”

  He was upset by the puddles in the courtyard.

  “Needs to be paved.”

  The very next day, they began to whitewash the house.

  When the house was replastered and joiners had mended the fence, Samson sent for Skryplev.

  “Take a seat,” he told him.

  Skryplev sat down on the edge of the chair.

  “This is not going to be an easy conversation,” said Samson, “and it’ll be a short one. I want the truth. No need for lies. I’ve outfoxed better brains than yours.”

  And only then did he glance at the blond hair and the big freckles.

  Skryplev breathed hard without saying a word.

  “Can you sing?” asked Samson earnestly.

  “Sing?”

  The ensign’s bewildered face became as ordinary as it usually was.

  “N-no, I can’t.”

  “I know you can’t,” said Samson, “but if you are reluctant to speak, you can always sing, can’t you?”

  “I’d ask you not to joke, Your Highness,” said the ensign hoarsely.

  “All right, I am joking,” said Samson. “It’s a joke. Everything is a joke, I’ve joked all my life, but now the joke’s on you. Very well, then. Don’t say a word. I’ll speak first. They’ve put out an order for an extradition.”

  The ensign seemed at a loss again, but then his face regained its usual expression.

  “They are going to extradite us to Russia, with a guard of honor. You, as commander, will be pardoned and awarded a silk stripe on the collar round your tender little white neck. Because you are high-ranking, and your father is the chief chickenherd in Kherson.”

  The ensign flinched. He quickly rose to his feet.

  “I’d ask you, Samson Yakovlich, not to refer to my …”

  “I just did!” said Samson. “I have referred to him without asking for your permission. You may submit a request in writing to ban me from referring to whomsoever I wish.”

  Skryplev headed toward the door.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry, Skryplev. Prepare the request, I’ll sign it, and together we’ll send it to His Excellency Ambassador Griboedov. Why labor on your own?”

  The ensign was no longer in such a hurry. He stood where he was, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down above his collar.r />
  Samson kept silent for a while.

  “I’m not having a black sheep in my flock,” he said flatly. “Get the hell out of here. I’m not holding you back. Go and get your things together right now. The janitor will give you a hand. And I’ll even give you a gift of a unicorn’s horn for the road. Call Zainab in here.”

  The ensign made for the door.

  “On the other hand,” said Samson, “should I let you go? You might start blabbing. You’re a big shot, a runaway ensign of His Imperial Majesty’s troops. You’ll have to earn your living somehow.”

  He looked at the ensign’s feet.

  “It’s a sure thing you’ll sell me out. No, I’d rather put you in a pit. We have good pits here. Should I put you in the pit? You spend a couple of years in one, and then you die. The janitor will hold an Old Believer burial service for you. Or should I call a proper priest?”

  The ensign was silent. A fair-haired creature with bright, homely freckles, a Russian ensign, Astafy Vasilyevich Skryplev was listening to Samson’s words as if they had nothing to do with him. As if he were in the theater watching a play in which a Russian peasant dressed up as a khan was reprimanding somebody else. By some fluke, that somebody turned out to be him. Persian pits, the insult to his father, his old father called a chickenherd, something about a unicorn’s horn as a gift—all these things swam in the head of the ensign, Astafy Vasilyevich Skryplev.

  “Call Zainab in,” ordered Samson wearily.

  Zainab came in and, for some reason, stopped by the door.

  Samson looked at her closely and sneered.

  “Not big-bellied yet, are you? Never mind.”

  Zainab was looking at him with unfaltering eyes.

  “Your husband is leaving,” he said in Persian. “Going back home. You’ll live with me. Move over to the anderun. Right now.”

  Zainab was not crying: she showed no fear.

  “Do you get it? Your husband is a kharab. I’ll find you another. Don’t cry.”

  She wasn’t crying.

  “My fault,” said Samson in Russian. “I’ve ruined the girl.”