My Father's Notebook

by Kader Abdolah

  “Me? Heavens, no, I can’t climb up there. Only a few men have ever reached the well. They looked into it and saw the holy man.”

  “Who? Which men?”

  “The men who wear a green scarf around their necks. Haven’t you ever noticed? They walk through the village with their heads held high.”

  “Will I be able to climb up to the well some day?”

  “You have to have strong legs. But you also have to be clever and daring.”

  He’d attempted the climb a few times, but had always turned back halfway. At a certain point the narrow paths were so unsafe that you didn’t dare take another step. Perhaps the paths could be crossed only once, perhaps they’d collapse behind you. How would you get back if there was no path?

  You couldn’t think about that as you climbed, or you’d never reach the well. How could anyone dare to go to a place from which he might never return?

  That was the secret. It wasn’t just a matter of strong legs and quick wits, but also of necessity. You had to be prepared to leave your life behind, to say goodbye, to bid your life farewell. Only then could you reach the well.

  Aga Akbar was prepared. After his wife’s death, he’d reached a point where he wanted to go to the well and never come back again. He needed the holy man. He needed to kneel at the well and admit that he was afraid, that he no longer dared to live.

  Just when his bride was being placed in her coffin so she could be carried to her grave, he slipped out through the back door. He started up the mountain in order to forget life.

  People looked all over for him. The entire village was waiting at the cemetery, wondering where he could have gone.

  Kazem Khan decided to go look for him in the mountains. He thought he knew where his nephew was headed, but he was afraid that Akbar wouldn’t be able to reach the well, that he’d fall and no one would be able to rescue him.

  He saddled up his mule, grabbed his binoculars and climbed the mountain. He rode until the animal refused, or perhaps didn’t dare, to go any farther. He stood on a rock and peered at the sacred spot through his binoculars. No Akbar in sight.

  He looked again to see if … Wait a minute, someone was kneeling down, touching his forehead to the ground, or, rather, looking into the well. No, he was sitting on his knees and writing.

  “What a clever boy!” Kazem Khan said and laughed aloud. Akbar had reached the well!

  What could he do to help him? Nothing, no one could do a thing.

  Kazem Khan laughed again. The mountain echoed his laughter. “He’s reached the well!” he shouted. “My Akbar! Hurrah! Hurrah for him! Hurrah for me! Let him weep! Let him write! Ha, ha, ha. I wish I had my pipe. Oh, God, I wish I’d brought my opium. Then I’d sit on this rock and watch him and quietly smoke my pipe.”

  How would Akbar get back down the mountain? Don’t worry. Anyone who could make it up to the well ought to be able to get back down. Clever mountain goats always find their way home again.

  What should he do? Wait for Aga Akbar here or go home?

  He retraced his steps, for now he had a reason to celebrate, a reason to sit on his pipe-smoker’s carpet. Maybe it wasn’t quite the thing to do, he thought, given that Akbar’s wife had just been buried, but her family should have mentioned their daughter’s illness. We’re not going to mourn, we’re going to celebrate! We have to help Akbar get over her death. We’ll hold a party, first thing in the morning. No, we’ll hold it now, tonight, in the dark. I’m going to say to everyone I see, “Hurry! Hurry! Go up onto your roof! Salute my nephew! He’s reached the well!”

  Kazem Khan went straight to the house of his oldest sister. “Where are you? Go and get a green scarf for Akbar! What a man! Our Akbar has reached the sacred spot. At this very moment, he’s standing at the edge of the well! Here, take the binoculars! Hurry! Go up onto the roof! Look! He’s still standing there!”

  Then he rode over to the mosque, where people were mourning the bride. He got down from his mule and raced inside. “Men! Allah! Allah! Look, a green scarf! Here, take my binoculars! Go up onto the roof and look before it gets dark! Akbar has reached the well!”

  In the middle of the night, when everyone had begun to fear that he’d never be seen again, a dark figure strode into the town square. Akbar.

  Kazem Khan wrapped a green scarf around his neck and wept.

  Back before the railway had been built, in the days before the train, the area around the well had been shrouded in mystery. It was said that even the birds muffled their wing beats and bowed their heads when they flew over the well.

  The train changed all that. The well used to be synonymous with inaccessibility, but that was no longer true. It was hard to know whether the railway had desecrated the site or made it even holier.

  For the first two years after the train began running past the cave, the sacred well was still inaccessible.

  The mountain-dwellers took no notice of the train. It was as though that newfangled thing snaking its way up to the border had nothing to do with them. After all, it was Reza Shah’s train, not theirs. Gradually, however, they got used to the steel tracks cutting through the rock to the top of Saffron Mountain.

  As time went by, more and more pilgrims climbed the mountain by walking up the rails.

  “Look! A road! A divine road, ready and waiting!”

  Why take the treacherous mountain paths when there was a railway track? It even brought you a bit closer to the sacred well. (Did Aga Akbar use this route? It’s impossible to tell from his notes.)

  Now that people had discovered this holy path, they wanted to teach the mules to climb up the railway track. But the mules refused. They were frightened by the rails, which reeked of oil, and didn’t dare place their hooves between the wooden sleepers. The older and more experienced mules, in particular, were terrified. They fled.

  So, they tried younger mules. People spent days, even weeks, teaching young mules to step between the railway sleepers.

  And so, an entire generation of mules growing up on Saffron Mountain went and stood on the tracks the moment you smeared a bit of oil on their muzzles. Then the pilgrims mounted the mules and the animals gingerly made their way up the mountain, one railway sleeper at a time.

  The pilgrims, especially the older ones, were hesitant at first. But before long, you saw even little old ladies in chadors, giggling as their mules climbed up the tracks.

  The stream of pilgrims quickly swelled. Men came to Saffron Mountain from all over the country, carrying sick children, crazed wives and ailing mothers and fathers on their backs. They hired mules to take them up the mountain.

  The boom didn’t last long. On Friday evenings, when the train tooted its horn, the animals panicked. They shook off their mounts and raced back to the village and their stables. One of the mules invariably broke its leg, or even its neck. Others got their hooves caught between the rails. An old woman was sure to snag her chador on a railway bolt.

  Then, one day, a couple of trucks drove up. They were loaded with fencing materials and barbed wire. Dozens of labourers from the city fenced-off the tracks and strung barbed wire over the top. Not even a snake could crawl onto the rails now.

  But people discovered another route, another way to reach the sacred well. Not everyone was cut out for it. You had to be young, clever and strong.

  In the past only a handful of men had been able to reach the well. In the meantime their numbers had grown. Young men and boys now risked everything to obtain the coveted green scarf. It was a great challenge. A supreme test. Perhaps the most difficult test they would ever face.

  They climbed up the mountain to the place where the barbed wire came to an end. Then they waited in the dark for the train and jumped on its roof as it went by.

  That part was fairly easy. It could be accomplished by almost anyone who dared to jump on top of a moving train. The decisive moment came after about fifteen minutes, when the train made a sharp turn. You had to run across the roof as fast as you could, then leap on
to a rock.

  To land on exactly the right rock, you needed perfect timing, agility and courage. If you missed it, your broken or dead body would be loaded on a mule the next day.

  Anyone who managed to land the jump and keep his balance, gripping the rock with his toes, like a tiger, was supposed to signal his success to the villagers down below, who were watching anxiously from their rooftops. The moment someone waved from the rock, an archer would light a torch and fire it into the air.

  The rest of the trip was relatively easy. To reach the sacred well, all you had to do was scale seven tricky mountain walls. Almost everyone could manage that.

  Early the next morning, when you made your way back down the mountain, girls and boys and old men climbed up part of the way to greet you. They all wanted to embrace you and to touch your eyes, because you had seen the well and the holy man in the well, reading his book by the light of an oil lamp.

  The situation had got out of control. As we have seen, Reza Shah was determined to modernise the country. After he banned the use of chadors in public, his agents began snatching veiled women off the streets of Tehran and throwing them in prison. He had thousands of hats sent from Paris.

  His dream had been realised: the Trans-Iranian Railway now stretched from one end of the country to the other, from north to south and from east to west. Reza Shah had no doubt. The time had finally come to do away with the imams, with all that superstitious nonsense, with all those holy men in wells reading books.

  “Get rid of the well!” he ordered. “Cover it up! Fill it in and send the pilgrims packing!”

  Who would dare to do such a thing? To destroy the sacred well and send the pilgrims home? No one. If you so much as lifted a finger against the pilgrims, someone would set your house on fire.

  But the shah insisted. No pilgrim would be allowed to climb the mountain ever again.

  The pilgrims didn’t listen. They kept coming, carrying the sick and the lame to the sacred spot, where they prayed.

  Then, one day, a couple of armoured cars drove up. Dozens of gendarmes leapt out with their rifles cocked.

  “Go home!” they ordered.

  No one moved.

  “If even one mule starts up that path, I’m going to shoot. Go home!” screamed a gendarme.

  An old man began to climb. The gendarme aimed his rifle at him and fired over his head.

  “La ilaha illa Allah,” someone shouted.

  “La ilaha illa Allah,” hundreds of pilgrims shouted in response. Then they set off towards the well.

  The gendarme fired a few more shots into the air.

  The pilgrims kept climbing. Finally, another gendarme dared to fire on the crowd. Two men fell to the ground. At that point the crowd turned on the gendarmes and the terrified men raced back to their armoured cars and roared off.

  The next day the holy city of Qom was in an uproar. The ayatollahs who had been thrown in jail ordered the Muslims to close the bazaars and go on strike.

  Reza Shah was furious.

  “Plug up that well with cement!” he ordered.

  Who would dare to carry out his orders?

  No one.

  “Then I’ll do it myself!” he said.

  Early in the morning the whistle of a special railway carriage rang out over Saffron Mountain. Everyone knew immediately that something unusual was happening. No one had ever seen such an odd-looking train before. They all went up to the rooftops to see what was going on. The funny little train slowly wound its way up the mountain and stopped at the familiar curve where the young men always jumped off the train. Reza Shah got out and, with some assistance, climbed up to the sacred well. Five trained mountain climbers plodded up after him, carrying shovels, water and cement. He took off his army muffler, laid it down on a rock and went and stood with his boots planted firmly on the edge of the well. In the thirteen centuries since Mahdi had hidden in the well, no one had ever done such a thing.

  “Bring me that big stone!” he said. “Set it down right here!”

  The five climbers picked up the stone and, with trembling hands, laid it over the opening of the well.

  Then they plugged it up with cement.

  The shah declared the area a military zone. From then on, only the royal mountain goats would be allowed in.

  That same evening he flew to the holy city of Qom, arriving in the middle of the night. The striking shopkeepers had gathered in the golden mosque, where a young imam was delivering a speech against the shah. When the shah heard his inflammatory words, he issued an order: “Arrest that man.”

  Everyone was arrested. Everyone, that is, except the clever young imam, who was named Khomeini. He managed to escape over the roof.

  At that moment, not even the devil himself could have suspected that, fifty years later, that very same imam would destroy Reza Shah’s kingdom.

  During the second World War, the Allies forced Reza Shah to leave the country. He was sent to Cairo and there he died.

  Then those same Western governments helped his son (who would later be known as the shah of Iran) onto the throne.

  While all this was going on, Aga Akbar was living in Saffron Village. Several years had gone by since the death of his young bride, but no one had been able to find him a suitable wife. He went back to sleeping with the young prostitute. Kazem Khan didn’t like it, but he couldn’t stop him. Then he came up with the idea of sending Aga Akbar to Isfahan.

  Isfahan

  We go to Isfahan with Akbar, where

  we weave carpets. That and nothing more.

  When night-time comes, we sit on the roof

  of the Jomah Mosque and stare at the sky.

  The Dutch poet P. N. van Eyck (1887–1954) believed that life was good and beautiful because it was filled with mystery and sorrow. One of his well-known poems is “Death and The Gardener”:

  A Persian Nobleman:

  One morning, pale with fright, my gardener

  Rushed in and cried, “I beg your pardon, Sir!

  “Just now, down where the roses bloom, I swear

  I turned around and saw Death standing there.

  “Though not another moment did I linger,

  Before I fled, he raised a threatening finger.

  “O Sir, lend me your horse, and if I can,

  By nightfall I shall ride to Isfahan!”

  Later that day, long after he had gone,

  I found Death by the cedars on the lawn.

  Breaking his silence in the fading light,

  I asked, “Why give my gardener such a fright?”

  Death smiled at me and said, “I meant no harm

  This morning when I caused him such alarm.

  “Imagine my surprise to see the man

  I’m meant to meet tonight in Isfahan!”

  A sombre poem. A sombre story. A sombre Akbar rode on horseback with Kazem Khan to a deserted station, where he left for Isfahan.

  His uncle wanted him to leave Saffron Village for a few months, or even a few years. He had arranged for Akbar to stay with a friend of his in Isfahan.

  Kazem Khan wanted to free him from the isolation of the village, which he thought was a suitable place to live only if you happened to be old or ill or an opium addict. It was time for Akbar to move on and meet other people. But where was the best place to send him?

  Being an opium addict wasn’t easy. No matter where you were, you had to have a pipe, a fire in a brazier, a teapot, a special tea glass, sugar, a clean spoon, a carpet, and a safe but quiet place looking out over trees and mountains or some other pretty landscape.

  That’s why the opium addicts needed each other. That’s why they kept in touch. All over the country they had friends and acquaintances with whom they were always welcome to smoke a pipe.

  Kazem had many friends, especially poets and famous carpet designers. Men with high social standing. One of these men lived in Isfahan.

  The train came in and Aga Akbar climbed on board. It was his first train ride. In his pocket h
e had all the information he needed: the name and address of his contact in Isfahan, his own address in Saffron Village and even the telegraph number of the sergeant in charge of the local gendarmerie.

  Imagine leaving your birthplace for the first time and going directly to Isfahan, the city referred to as “half the world”. The city containing Persia’s oldest mosques. Centuries ago the builders had covered these mosques with beautiful azure tiles. The mysterious designs, numbering in the thousands, are so mesmerising that when you look upon them you no longer know where you are or what you’re doing there.

  Behind the magical Naqsh-e-Jahan Square is an ancient cemetery, with tombstones dating back to the time of the Sassanids. This is the burial place of the Persian gardener, the one mentioned by the Dutch poet. On his tombstone, it is written: “Here lies the gardener, the man who momentarily escaped Death’s clutches.”

  If you look to the left when you’re standing by the grave, you can see a tall cedar off in the distance. If you walk towards it, over an ancient stone path that meanders through a rose garden, you’ll eventually come out near a bazaar—the oldest in the country and the most beautiful in the Islamic world. That’s where you can see the most amazing Persian rugs. Hundreds of them are piled high in every store. In the rear there’s always a workshop, where an old, experienced weaver plies his trade. He doesn’t weave new carpets, but mends old ones. Expensive rugs are for sale in the bazaar. Sometimes these unique works of art get damaged, so there’s always an experienced carpet-mender—a craftsman—on the premises who can perform wonders with a needle and a few coloured threads.