The serheng locked the door on him and left. Night fell.
Maltsov heard marching: soldiers.
The same serheng entered the room with a bundle in his hands. He threw it to Maltsov:
“Get dressed.”
And left.
In the bundle, there were the old, threadbare clothes of a sarbaz. Maltsov changed and stuck the banknotes into the deep side pockets of the wide trousers. A few sarbazes came into the room and surrounded him. They took him away. The ground was battered. The air was ample and fresh.
12
1
Vazir-Mukhtar lived on.
A kebabchi from the Shimrun quarter knocked out his front teeth, somebody shattered his glasses with a hammer, and one of the lenses penetrated an eye. The meatman stuck the head on a pole. It felt much lighter than his basket of pies, and he kept shaking the wooden shaft.
The kafir was to blame for the wars, the starvation, the oppression by the elders, the bad harvest. Now he floated over the streets, laughing from the pole, with the death-grin on his gap of a mouth. Urchins took aim and hit the head with their pebbles.
Vazir-Mukhtar lived on.
A lot carried the right arm with its round signet ring, squeezing it firmly and affectionately in his own left hand, the only one he had. From time to time, he lifted it and regretted that the arm was bare, not a thread left of its golden clothes. The cholongher’s apprentice had stuck the triangular hat on his head; it was too big for him and slid down to his ears.
The rest of Vazir-Mukhtar, in a troika with his blond valet and some other kafir, all three tied to a pack of dead cats and dogs, was sweeping the streets of Tehran. They were being dragged by a pole, by four Persians, all as skinny as whippets, who were taking turns. The fair-haired one had had his leg cut off, but his head was completely intact.
Vazir-Mukhtar lived on.
In the city of Tabriz, Nino was awaiting a letter.
The mama, Nastasya Fyodorovna, proceeded from her boudoir through to the drawing room, and there informed a guest that Alexander did not take after her: out of sight, out of mind; he had forgotten her.
Bending over the galleys of his journal, the Bee, Faddei Bulgarin was editing: “… successfully arrived in the city of Tehran, was granted a solemn audience with His Majesty. First Secretary Mr. Maltsov and Second Secretary Mr. Adelung were equally honored …”
2
Standing in the middle of the room, Maltsov tried not to look at his wide trousers. The room, even though it was in the shah’s palace, was fairly poor; small but tidy.
The fat and bronzed Zil-li Sultan spread his hands and, avoiding looking into his eyes, bowed low at the sarbaz’s uniform. His grief was great, and he was genuinely at a loss.
“Mon Dieu,” he kept saying, lifting his hand to his brow, “Mon Dieu, as soon as I found out, I hastened to calm them down, but I was vilified, I was shot at,” and in a whisper, with fear in his eyes, “I was terrified for His Majesty—the palace was in danger, I completely lost my head, I dashed to defend His Majesty’s palace. This is mutiny, Your Excellency … Oh, Allah!”
Maltsov was not His Excellency at all.
He nodded:
“I understand you, Your Highness, all these riots … But rest assured, Your Highness, that I appreciate … My only request to Your Highness is to allow me to return to Russia so that I may immediately bear witness to the sad misunderstanding … the riots …”
Zil-li Sultan calmed down, and having bent his head slightly sideways, observed the wide trousers.
Then he remembered:
“In three days’ time, Your Excellency. In three days’ time. You have to understand: the mob … cette canaille1 … You need to wait for three days. You’ll find everything you wish for in here. These ferrashi are going to keep Your Excellency safe and sound …”
And he left. The ferrashi stood outside the door. Maltsov waited and stuck his nose out. He looked at them, gave them a smile, and asked them in. One of them knew some French.
“Please, come in,” he said. “Here’s some pocket money for you …”
He pulled a pack of banknotes from his pocket, right under their noses, and stuck a fistful into one hand and then another. Needless to say, they all accepted.
Maltsov said:
“I beg you, do you understand? … I need to know. I need to know what they are saying about me. And each time …” He touched the pack with his finger.
3
Vazir-Mukhtar, the Cossack, Sashka, and the cats and dogs were dragged along the Tehran streets for three days, from early morning until late at night.
He blackened and shrank.
On the fourth day, they flung him onto the midden-tip outside of town.
The previous day, the kebabchi had tossed the head into the gutter. He had lost interest in it. He had taken it to his place each night, so that no one else could have it, but he had to sell his pies; the holiday was over, and he ditched the head.
On the fourth night, a few men came secretly to the ruins. They had been sent by Manouchehr-Khan. They dug deeper into the defensive ditch around the ruins. They gathered all the dead into a heap, tipped them into the ditch, and piled on the earth. Vazir-Mukhtar was beyond the city boundary in the midden-tip.
For three nights, a procession of caravans crept silently along the road from Tehran; Armenian merchants were fleeing the city.
The rumor had spread fast and far.
Dr. McNeill, relatively calm, showed up in the city of Tehran.
A courier was sent from the shah to Abbas Mirza.
Young Burgess made a reverse journey from Tehran to Tabriz, carrying Dr. McNeill’s letter to Colonel Macdonald.
Nino had been waiting for Griboedov and looked into Lady Macdonald’s eyes the way that young maids look into the eyes of their older friends.
She was worried: there were no letters. She thought that Alexander had forgotten her. She was extremely weary. The morning sickness had stopped.
4
The ferrash turned out to be quite bright. The same day, he informed Maltsov that Prince Zil-li Sultan had been to see Mirza-Massi, and that Mirza-Massi had instructed him to pay Maltsov all manner of compliments, ensure his well-being, refuse him nothing, send him, of his own volition, back to Russia, and kill him on the way.
“What’s done is done: witnesses are always in the way,” said Mirza-Massi.
And Maltsov gave the ferrash a wad of banknotes.
He was well looked after. They would bring him some greasy pilaf, fruit, sweets, sherbet. He would pretend to eat until absolutely full, and indeed the pishkhedmet would take away the empty dishes. But no sooner had the door shut behind the pishkhedmet who’d brought him his dinner, than Maltsov would take fistfuls of pilaf and sweets and, slipping quietly, bending low, carry them into a dark corner, hide everything under the carpet, and pour the sherbet into the chamber pot. He starved himself cruelly and kept returning to the dark corner to feel the greasy chunks with his hands and hide them again, untouched. Only twice a day would he ask the ferrash to bring him some cooler water without troubling anyone, straight from the fountain, claiming that he was used to that water and that it was good for his health.
And on the third morning, all the viziers gathered in his room. They bowed to him slowly, with deepest respect. The old dervish, Alaiar-Khan, and the others were among them. They spoke through an interpreter. A translator sat quietly in the corner, with ink, paper, and a sharpened quill. Maltsov stayed seated, wearing a gown. He felt sore and sick in the pit of his stomach. The audience was like nothing Vazir-Mukhtar had ever had.
“Oh, Allah, Allah,” the dervish said, “the padishah has paid the eighth kuror, and what happens now? The will of Allah!”
“Allah,” said Alaiar-Khan, and Maltsov heard his voice for the first time. “This is what the mullahs and the Tehrani people have done, an unruly and uncivilized rabble.”
Abu’l-Hassan-Khan:
“Mon Dieu, ah, mon Dieu! Disgr
ace on all of Iran! What will the emperor say! God is my witness, the padishah did not wish for this.”
They barely glanced at him; they sat quiet and submissive. There were a great many of them.
Maltsov thought quickly: this is what it is all about!
He leaped up from his place, and all of them looked up at him, all staring and waiting.
Maltsov was pale and felt inspired.
The interpreter could scarcely keep up with him.
And the longer he spoke, the wider the eyes of those present grew, and those eyes were filled with bewilderment. Growing even paler, Maltsov said:
“One would have to be either a madman or a criminal to think even for a moment that His Majesty would have allowed this to happen had the rabble’s intentions been known to him even a minute earlier. Alas, I come from a country that knows all too well how willful the people can be, and I have no doubt that the Russian emperor, who ascended the throne under circumstances all of you are familiar with, will understand. I know that the padishah’s palace was in danger. I am now the only Russian witness of how gracious the padishah was to the ambassador, and of what unprecedented honors he had paid him. But,” he drew his breath, paused, and shook his head sorrowfully … “But, I am going to speak the truth.” He gave a sigh. “I know who is to blame for everything that has happened.”
Alaiar-Khan looked away. Maltsov pretended not to notice.
“The guilty party, I have to say it, to my great regret, is the Russian ambassador. He and only he.”
Silence in the room.
“Our wise emperor made a mistake. Mr. Griboedov failed to justify the trust we placed in him. I can talk about it now, and I will talk about it everywhere. He spurned and slurred Iran’s traditions, its sacred customs; he took away two wives from a certain venerable gentleman; he didn’t even stop at taking away a servant from His Majesty the padishah himself …”
He spoke through clenched teeth, showing his anger. He was no longer pretending; he really abhorred Griboedov now. All these tricks, the bespectacled omniscience, the casual gestures! “I ask you, Ivan Sergeyevich, to do what I say!”
And here he was, starved for the second day running, and they were bent on killing him. He had gone to Tehran without even allowing Maltsov to open his mouth. Griboedov did live on. Maltsov had not seen him from the eve of the day when everything had started. For Maltsov, he was nothing like the headless object that was now lying in a midden, in a common grave, along with dead dogs. Maltsov knew nothing of this. But Alexander Sergeyevich Griboedov, who had succeeded in bringing calamity upon him, was still alive.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “He forced me to take part in those evil deeds of his; I was obliged to defend the eunuch in front of the ecclesiastical court, but the eunuch … he told Vazir-Mukhtar in confidence that he had robbed the treasury. I will therefore testify before my emperor to the evil deeds of this unworthy ambassador. They keep me here in regal style. The courageous Persian guards, who saved me, protected everyone so gallantly—and who can say how many of those lionhearts have perished? The troops were sent, but who could blame them that the violent rabble prevailed? I am convinced that my sovereign, to whom I will bear witness to the honors paid to us, will get to the bottom of the matter and will maintain friendly relations with His Majesty.”
Silence. They were thinking. The quiet, invisible translator scratched on with his quill in the corner, barely audible.
“Mon Dieu,” spoke Abu’l-Hassan-Khan, “how fortunate we are that a sensible and well-intentioned man has witnessed this unhappy event and understands who is really to blame! But would you agree to repeat what you have just told us, personally, to His Majesty, who is so full of sorrow and eager to cleanse his soul?”
Maltsov gave them a bow. He suddenly felt weak and drained.
In the evening, they brought him some steaming pilaf for his dinner. For the first time in days, he ate a meal. He grabbed the huge chunks, and almost without chewing, gobbled voluptuously—and choked on them.
At night, he felt sick and frightened, and he lay for the rest of the night with his eyes open. It passed. He had starved for too long and had overeaten.
The following evening, two copies of the shah’s official firman to Abbas Mirza were drawn: one was intended for Russia.
The firman began as follows: “We are at a loss as to how to explain the vicissitudes of this world. Oh, Allah, what awful events sometimes come to pass.” Then followed the script regarding Vazir-Mukhtar, concocted by the court translator (and Ivan Sergeyevich Maltsov).
Furthermore, Fat’h-Ali-shah wrote by the hand of Abu’l-Hassan-Khan, although the contents of the letter were composed by the dervish:
“Our own envoy was killed in India at some point in the past. And we were reluctant to believe that it had been done by the people, without the connivance of the authorities, but when we became convinced of the favorable disposition of the British government, we realized that this incident was not deliberate, but purely accidental.”
And in conclusion: “All the dead have been interred with due honors. We are endeavoring to console the first secretary; the perpetrators will be punished without delay.”
The unofficial note asked Abbas: Let Maltsov go, or kill him? Or let him go and kill him? Enter into an immediate alliance with Turkey? And the note also ordered: Send emissaries to Georgia to foment an uprising.
Vazir-Mukhtar lay quietly. Vazir-Mukhtar’s name stole along the roads, rode on the chapars’ horses, advanced toward Tabriz, rippling with rebellion by the Georgian borders.
Vazir-Mukhtar lived on.
5
He finally dragged himself to Tiflis, where Princess Salome convulsed in hysterics and Praskovya Nikolaevna shed a peasant woman’s heavy tears:
“It’s my fault, my fault. Poor, poor Nino …”
Eliza Paskevich raised a scented handkerchief to the Griboedov hazel-colored eyes and remembered how, in their youth, Alexander had been so cheeky, so persistent, and had almost had his way with her, and how angry her papa, Alexei Fyodorovich, had been, forbidding him to show his face in their home.
She did not cry; she suddenly felt so tired, so sick at heart, and wrote a frenzied letter to her husband, Ivan Fyodorovich Paskevich: “Rejoice, Jean, this is the fruit of your politics—you kept saying that the Persians should not have been exempted from paying the reparation, we shouldn’t do this and we shouldn’t do that. And now look at the result—Alexander Griboedov has been murdered.”
And when Paskevich received the news and Eliza’s letter, he exploded and thumped the desk with his fist and yelled, wheezing and spluttering at Sacken and Colonel Espejo and Abramovich:
“Take five battalions from the rearguard and advance on Persia. I am changing the plan of the Turkish campaign. Lieutenant, call in Karganov—there is a rebellion in Georgia. Take a battalion and suppress it. Flog all the riffraff! And string up a mullah in each village!”
And only then did he remember that this was about Griboedov, that it was actually Alexander Sergeyevich who had been killed—how was it possible? Not a military man, a civilian, and suddenly here he was—murdered!
“These English!” he barked. “Call in Lieutenant Sukhorukov! Write to Abbas that if he doesn’t come here himself, I’ll go to war with the Qajars. And that the shah has been bribed by the English.”
The villages in the districts of Gori and Telavi were already burning, Ganja rising. And the landowning princes Orbeliani, Tarkhanov, and Chelokaev were leading the rebellion.
“Our ambassador has been murdered in Tehran. Persia is allying herself with Turkey. Tsarevich Alexander is advancing on Georgia!”
But there was a quiet island that stayed untouched by Vazir-Mukhtar, which he passed by. The little island was in Tabriz, in Macdonald’s house, on the top floor—Nino’s room.
6
At night, the fat Darejan told her stories about Princess Salome’s youth; how, having seen her only once, Prince Chavchavadz
e proposed the same evening. She brushed Nino’s hair, as she used to do when Nino was little, and she spoke very little of Alexander Sergeyevich. The letters were growing rare. Perhaps he had forgotten her; perhaps he was too busy. Lady Macdonald was unflustered with her, but her stories were more humorous than usual. The English journals were boring. Her apparent location was in Tabriz, and her real life in Tehran. And there were no letters.
Only once was there some commotion in the house. The colonel did not come down to dinner; the lady had red patches on her cheeks; she was unwell.
Later, the colonel invited Nino to his study downstairs. Nino looked into Darejan’s dull, round eyes and went down.
Colonel Macdonald met her at the door and gave her a deep bow. He sat her down, and Nino suddenly burst into tears. Then she wiped away the tears and smiled at the colonel. Macdonald said in a calm voice:
“Your husband, milady, is unwell. He has written to me requesting that you should set off to Tiflis and wait for him there. He expects to be traveling from Tehran straight to Tiflis, where he will meet you.”
They were silent.
“Could you please show me his letter?” asked Nino, and stretched out her hand.
Macdonald avoided looking at her.
“I have to apologize, but in the letter he discussed strictly confidential matters, and only the postscript concerned you. I had to attach it to my report to the board of governors of the East India Company.”
Nino got up.
“I don’t understand, Colonel—have you forwarded a letter concerning a lady to some company or other?”
The colonel gave her another deep bow.
“I am not leaving,” said Nino, “until I’ve received a letter from my husband. If I am burdening you …”
The colonel spread his hands.
Having returned to her room, Nino lay down for half an hour. Darejan was knitting a stocking.
Nino wrote a letter. She closed her eyes a few times while she was writing it. She sent the letter by courier to Tehran.
From then on, her room grew very quiet. She no longer came down to dinner: they brought it to her room. Something was happening outside the room—at night, somebody wouldn’t let her sleep, sat down next to her, talked to her. Darejan kept silent.
The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar Page 50