Cry of the Peacock: A Novel

by Gina nahai

  There was another procession of the Shah's Warriors, then a string of children—boys and girls with lucky faces, whose very presence, the Shah believed, guarded him against evil. A single horseman galloped at full speed:

  “HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY!" he cried. “THE SHADOW OF ALLAH!"

  A shower of gold poured on Esther. She looked up. The sun had burst into a million particles—tiny circles of shimmering gold that danced in the fluorescent air as two dozen riders threw coins at the crowd.

  The Shah's carriage rolled slowly—a giant construction of enameled walls and gold-trimmed doors, decorated with jewels. Around it walked young women with white lace chadors and gold veils. They threw fistfuls of offerings at the carriage—cherry and apple blossoms, almond candies, mint leaves and cinnamon, pomegranate seeds the color of the rubies on the eunuchs' robes, violets and roses and jasmine— mounds and mounds of white jasmine.

  The carriage slowed, then stopped. A pale hand moved the velvet curtain shielding the glass portal and revealed the face of His Majesty. Fire moved up from Esther's legs, into her thighs, her stomach, her chest. She knew Agha Muhammad Shah. She had seen him in the quiet of her dreams.

  Darkness was fast seeping into the air. The crowd was moving behind the Shah's caravan into the square outside the Palace of Forty Pillars. Esther the Soothsayer walked with them—to find the eunuch Shah.

  She knew Agha Muhammad Khan's future. She had seen his death. Long ago, when she was still in the harem and he was not yet king, she had heard tales of his battles and of his quest for the throne. One night she was caring for the Sheikh's blind daughter—rubbing gold dust into her eyes to make her regain her sight. She had put the child to sleep, and gone to wash her own hands. She had looked into her palm, all shimmery and golden, and seen the Shah die.

  Esther the Soothsayer had been frightened by the knowledge, aware that if she revealed it, she would be sought by the King and put to death. For years she had kept the secret to herself, but tonight she had no more fears, and she would speak.

  In the year 1789 a new dynasty had come to Persia. For years before that the country had been at war, torn among rival tribes and warriors and heirs to old and defunct dynasties who commanded regional power, but could not unite the entire nation. Then Agha Muhammad Khan had prevailed.

  He was a young man, heir to the throne of one faction of the Turkic Qajar tribe that ruled in the northwestern part of Persia. He was ugly and cruel and unforgiving, driven by a rage that came from deep within and that painted his throne in blood. As a child he had been taken prisoner by the leader of the Zand tribe and held hostage in their court at Shiraz. He had been castrated—to ensure he would not father a son that may someday avenge him—but raised with all the esteem due a royal prisoner. Still, every day as he grew older, Agha Muhammad Khan found himself more engulfed by hatred.

  In 1789 Agha Muhammad Khan escaped the Zand court, rode back to his tribal lands, and declared himself leader of the Qajars. He waited for the Zand king to die. Then he led an army into Shiraz, blinded the heir apparent, and killed him by torture. From there he rode to conquer Persia.

  He fought regional kings and warrior tribes, rebels and thieves and ordinary men he suspected of treason. In Kerman he had his troops rape all the women, blind twenty thousand men, and build a pyramid with the skulls of the victims. In Tiflis he killed the sick and the old, carried everyone else into slavery. In Tehran he promised his brother the governorship of Esfahan, lured him in this way into the palace, then ordered his death. He imprisoned destitute peasants, threatened death, and released them for a ransom. All of Persia trembled at the mention of Agha Muhammad Khan's name.

  From a distance, Esther the Soothsayer could distinguish the Shah's Square, surrounded by rows of two-story brick shops with small balconies made of green marble. Night was falling and the square faded in darkness. Moments later a tiny light appeared where the square had been. The light flickered for an instant, then asserted itself. Another flame was ignited, and another. From every corner of the square, light bloomed until the entire structure lit up—shone— glared in the dark.

  Five thousand oil lamps were burning in a space no larger than 450 by 60 feet—five thousand tiny lamps with shades of fine crystal that Shah Abbas the Great had commissioned in Esfahan two hundred years ago. They were everywhere, hanging from the walls, the pillars, the balconies, all of them hand-painted in soft pink and red colors— the soul of Shah Abbas still alive.

  As the Shah's cavalcade approached the square, rows of well-dressed young men made deep bows before His Majesty: they had been chosen for their good looks, and put on parade at the sides of the street for the Shah to observe. Once in a while the royal carriage would stop, and the Shah would call forth one of the boys, who ran to him, terrified and honored at once, and presented himself before His Majesty.

  Past the rows of young men, the Shah was received by a group of Pishnamaz—mullahs who chanted with all their might, praying for His Majesty's health. As they sang, they sacrificed dozens of oxen and sheep, and threw the animals' bleeding heads under the feet of the Shah's horses. Dervishes also sang in prayer for the Shah. They had glass vases, filled with sugar, which they threw to the ground and broke before his carriage.

  Inside the square, street vendors and artists had spread their merchandise on display. Poets with trained voices and grand gestures recited verses from the Book of Kings. Acrobats danced among the crowd; actors re-created the Battle of Karbala, where the prophet Muhammad's third disciple, Hussein, had become a martyr:

  In mid-battle, his forces on the retreat, Hussein was trying to carry water to his wounded soldiers. He was a young man with innocent eyes and the face of an angel. His archenemy and opposing general, Yazid, was tall and large and ugly, his face painted with deep black lines that made him look evil.

  “Stop!" Yazid roared, intercepting Hussein's path. “May water never reach the lips of your dying men."

  Hussein defied Yazid and continued on his way.

  "Stop, I command thee!" Yazid raised his sword and pretended to cut off Hussein's right arm. Water spilled on the ground, mixing with blood.

  Hussein let out a scream. Then he picked up the pouch of water with his left hand and continued to walk toward his thirsty soldiers.

  Yazid's sword tore through the air again. When it came down, it took Hussein's left arm.

  This time there was no cry of pain. Hussein bent down and took the pouch between his teeth.

  The women in the audience were sobbing. The men had started flagellating themselves.

  Shocked by Hussein's courage, Yazid hesitated for a moment. Then he raised his sword a last time and in one blow beheaded the third Imam. Hussein became the first martyr in Shiite Islam: he died for belief, sacrificed his life to fight injustice.

  On the verge of the battleground, peasants sold sheep and horses, chiropractors advertised cures for rheumatism and old age, doctors sat on the ground, cross-legged on small rugs, and waited for patients. On one side of the square, women were displayed in front of tents, their keepers ready to negotiate a price. Shiite Islam allowed a man to take three lifelong wives and as many "temporary" ones as he liked. He could marry them for five minutes, or ninety-nine years.

  Someone grabbed at Esther. It was a beggar—a young woman with a child asleep at her breast. Her bare nipple was covered with bleeding scabs and hungry flies.

  On the northern corner of the square was the Shah's Mosque—tall and mighty and as vain as God himself. Directly opposite the Mosque was the Ali Ghapoo—the entrance to the Palace of Forty Pillars, a threshold considered so holy that no one, not even the Shah, would ever cross it on horseback. It was here that convicted criminals and petty thieves had taken refuge in the time of Shah Abbas the Great. No one but the Shah himself could have touched them here. They stayed, waiting for royal pardon. Even if denied, they would not be driven away from Ali Ghapoo. They would only be refused access to food or water, faced with the choice of starving in royal r
efuge or dying at the hands of pursuers outside.

  On either side of the Ali Ghapoo were platforms, three feet high and built entirely of green jade. Here sat the best of the country's jewelers and silk merchants. Lured by tales of Agha Muhammad Shah's obsession with wealth, they had spread their wares on black velvet in the hope he would inspect them on his way to the palace.

  Agha Muhammad Shah had not planned a stop. He was eager to reach the palace and rid himself of the royal clothes and the entourage. But he saw the jewels, his avarice got the best of him, and he called his caravan to a halt; he could show an interest in any or all of the precious stones, and the vendors would beg that he take them as gifts. Other kings would accept the gift and reward the vendor with gold ten times the value of his stone. Agha Muhammad Shah took what he had been offered and gave nothing in return.

  So he stopped, and his caravan dismounted. Ministers bowed and the vendors prostrated themselves and soldiers formed a ring around His Majesty's carriage to protect him from the crowd. Then at last the carriage door opened and out stepped a small man with a shriveled face and tiny eyes full of suspicion. His skin was pale, smooth, hairless. His lips were thin, rigid. He wore soldiers' clothes—a long coat, dark boots. Around his waist he had a jewel-studded belt and a royal dagger. His buttons were diamonds.

  A gasp went through the crowd. Agha Muhammad Shah acknowledged only Fath Ali Mirza—his nephew and crown prince who had accompanied him on this trip. Together they walked toward the platform full of jewels and admired each display.

  "May I be your sacrifice?"An old man with a white beard approached the Shah. It was Shaaban, once Esfahan's greatest jewelers, now bankrupt because of his opium habit. Trembling, he offered the Shah an enormous ruby that he claimed was priceless.

  "This is the greatest stone I have ever possessed," he said. "It is not worthy of your meanest servants, but I would be eternally grateful, Your Majesty, if you were to accept it as a small gift." His voice broke at every word.

  Agha Muhammad Shah saw the glow of the ruby, and his face blossomed with pleasure. He was about to accept the gift when he heard a scuffle behind him and turned.

  "Step back." A woman's cry echoed through the square. "Move, or I will damn your soul to hell."

  Esther the Soothsayer had pushed through the crowd and intercepted the ring of soldiers around the Shah. She was bald and unveiled, her scalp covered with wounds, her face streaked with blood.

  She came up to Agha Muhammad Shah, raised a finger, and told him his death:

  "Beware," she said, "of the avenging hands of slaves."

  Agha Muhammad Shah drew his sword, but it did not frighten Esther.

  "Hands shall reach across the night," she said, "into your bed cool and calm and unafraid, and when you close your eyes to dream of conquest, they shall take your life to save their own."

  Agha Muhammad Shah let out a demonic scream, and attacked Esther. He struck only a soldier, who fell, beheaded, on the ground. Where Esther the Soothsayer had stood a moment before, there was only darkness.

  For months after the incident in the Shah's Square, Agha Muhammad Shah had his soldiers search Es-fahan for the bald soothsayer with the thrashing tongue. They looked in every neighborhood and every house, even came to Juyy Bar and searched in the basements and on the roofs. They described the vision the Shah had seen.

  “It's Esther the Soothsayer," said Rabbi Yehuda the Just, proudly identifying his victim. “Don't look for her in this ghetto. She has been banned, and will never return."

  Determined to find Esther, the soldiers divided their forces and traveled to every province and town within a twenty-league radius of Juyy Bar. They looked in the caves of the Zagros Mountains, in the wineries of Shiraz. They searched the ruins of Persepolis, and the dwellings of nomadic tribes scattered across the Great Persian Desert. Everywhere, they told the story of Esther the Soothsayer and spread her name like a tale. In the end, they went trembling back to the Shah, and admitted failure. The woman in the square, they swore, was not alive. She was a ghost, an evil spirit sent by the Jews to bring the Shah bad fortune. The Crown Prince, Fath Ali Mirza, had conducted his own search for Esther the Soothsayer and met no results. Still, Agha Muhammad Shah was not satisfied. He ordered the death of all those who had failed him, then left Esfahan.

  "Until you find the soothsayer," he told Esfahan's governor, "I will deprive your city of my attention and benevolence."

  He rode to Khorasan in search of an old enemy: Sharukh, who was sixty years old and heir to the throne of a defunct dynasty. Though he had no political power, Sharukh had inherited a great treasure of jewels, which he had hidden in case of an enemy attack. Agha Muhammad Shah captured Sharukh and asked for his treasure. Sharukh denied it had ever existed. The Shah ordered torture. One by one, Sharukh surrendered the stones.

  "No more," he pleaded as hot oil was poured into his eyes. "There is no more."

  Agha Muhammad Shah was not content. He wanted the greatest jewel of them all, the famous Aurangzeb ruby, which Sharukh defended with his life.

  The Shah had Sharukh stand on his feet, placed a circle of paste around his head, and, onto the paste, poured molten lead. Sharukh gave up the ruby, then died.

  A year had passed since Esfahan. In 1797, Agha Muhammad Shah rode to Georgia, to attack his longtime enemy, Erekle. On his way one night, he was awakened by the sound of two servants quarreling. Irritated by the disturbance, he ordered that the men be hanged in the morning. Then he went back to sleep, and left the men unguarded to complete their tasks before the hour of execution.

  They crept into his tent and killed him.

  War broke out in Tehran. In the aftermath of Agha Muhammad Khan's assassination, rival cousins and heirs to the Shah each contested the vacant throne and refused to submit to the authority of the crown prince, Fath Ali Mirza. A year later, in 1798, Fath Ali Shah was at last crowned.

  He was young and handsome and vain, interested more in wealth and women than in diplomacy. He had four permanent wives, eighty-four temporaries. He had three thousand eunuchs, a hundred tailors, dozens of jewelers and biographers. He did not like the Palace of Qajars. He built another— the Palace of Roses—and filled its harem with a thousand temporary wives. He spent his days posing for portraits, listening to odes he had commissioned, designing new clothes for himself and his courtiers. He sat on his throne, surrounded by five of his favorite eunuchs, and watched the procession of virgins he had sent for across the country.

  Still, with every day that went by, Fath Ali Shah found himself more startled by the reality of his uncle's assassination, and the accuracy of the soothsayer's prophecy. Agha Muhammad Shah, Fath Ali believed, could have escaped his fate, tricked time and place, and hidden away from the Angel of Death. He had only to bring faith, but he had been too vain.

  Fath Ali Shah, by contrast, had such faith in the power of seers that he consulted astrologers about the smallest details of his life. The day was divided into opportune and evil moments, and the astrologers warned the Shah about each one. He had a watch that he carried everywhere: every entry and exit, every act and every word, had to take place at the exact time determined by the astrologers.

  The Crown Prince, Abbas Mirza, and his Vizir, Qa'im Maqam, recognized Fath Ali's obsession with the matter, and tried in vain to explain to him the absurdity of his belief. They warned him of the danger of placing his trust in the words of seers and soothsayers, but Fath Ali Shah had the last word: Abbas Mirza died before the king. His Vizir learned to bite his lips and contain his outrage. Fath Ali Shah, meanwhile, informed his advisers that the greatest question of all, the issue of His Majesty's life and death, had yet to be resolved: no one dared chance the Shah's wrath by predicting the manner and time of his end. Faced with the impotence of his own servants, Fath Ali Shah once again ordered a search for Esther the Soothsayer.

  Across Persia, messengers and troops cried her name and heard only silence. Convinced that she was a ghost, they called on every magicia
n and sorcerer and mullah, and met no results.

  "Speak our death," Fath Ali Shah beseeched, but though she heard his voice and recognized his plea, Esther the Soothsayer did not respond.

  Esther the Soothsayer traveled north, through Persia and beyond, and discovered with her eyes what she had already known in her dreams. She grew old, grew wise, and although she never found a home or a man, in the end she found peace: she had rebelled against her destiny and cast the lines of her dreams into the hearts of her children, and for this alone, she knew she had triumphed.

  She never wore a chador after Juyy Bar, never grew her hair. She stayed bald, silent. Her eyes were dark, her skin unctuous, and she looked so striking and so strange that no one dared stop her to ask her name. They saw her arrive and stood back in awe; the earth trembled where she stepped.

  It was this tremor—the sound of Esther the Soothsayer walking in freedom—that would drive Thick Pissing Isaac to madness. He heard it first a week after her punishment and thought it was real:

  “Earthquake!’' he screamed, and ran out of the teahouse, but no one followed him.

  "Earthquake!" he screamed again. “Come out or you'll be buried!”

  On the street, people were calm, staring at him in surprise. Thick Pissing Isaac was confused and embarrassed.

  "I felt something,” he tried to explain, but already the ground was trembling under his feet again. "There. There. It's shaking.” He was alone.

  He told himself it was a temporary state, a result of the upheaval of the last months, and that he would recover once his nerves had calmed and he had managed to forget Esther the Soothsayer. He closed the teahouse and confined himself to his room, where he tried to rest. But inside the house, the tremor became stronger and the sound of the world falling apart drove him to even greater fear and he became terrified of walls. He longed for the comfort of Esther the Soothsayer's bed.

  She had disappeared so fast after the punishment that people in Juyy Bar believed she had died. She had killed herself, they said—dug a hole in the desert and buried her face until she stopped breathing and her body was devoured by beasts. Or she had been taken by bandits who raped her and left her to die. Perhaps she had gone home, to Bandar 'Abbas, and thrown herself in the Gulf to drown.