A Hundred Sweet Promises

by Sepehr Haddad

  He stopped for a moment on the path, turned to her, and attempting to save face, said, “Well, now that I know the bad blood between you, I can see why the commander acted this way. He had to obey his father’s order so the envoy’s wife and children could see Margoon. But understandably, he did not want to accompany you, so he used this untruth to lure me into doing the job.”

  Nasrosoltan almost stopped there but thought to make clear his feelings on the matter. “I do not mind, and come to think of it, I am even grateful to him! Whatever his demented reason, it is me who is walking with an elegant lady on a delightful excursion, while he sits in the stifling, hot afternoon sun of the garrison.”

  When they reached the others up ahead, Madame Shamsi left Nasrosoltan’s side to join her friend to thank her for allowing them some private time. Madame de La Martinière asked if she had enjoyed her talk with Nasrosoltan, to which Madame Shamsi simply replied with a nod of her head and an affirmative wink.

  The party spent a few hours exploring the surrounding area, and after lunch beside one of the small natural pools near the falls, they made their way back to the horses to begin their return journey to Shiraz.

  Along the way back, Nasrosoltan kept hearing in his head Madame Shamsi asking him to promise to save her life if he noticed her drowning. He wondered, did they have a pact? As Nasrosoltan reflected upon their conversation, he convinced himself that they did. He could hardly believe how rewarding this adventure had been, and he fell deeper into his affection for her. He desperately wanted to be her savior.

  During the next week, back in Shiraz, Madame Shamsi sent Nasrosoltan an urgent message asking if they could meet someplace where they would have some privacy.

  Desire, opportunity, and temptation are a combination that does not happen often, but when it does, it is hard to escape. And so, an eager and titillated Nasrosoltan acted quickly and invited her to a friend’s house on a quiet, tree-shaded side street near the bazaar. He could barely contain his excitement and canceled his engagements for the whole day, and then struggled to endure the slow passage of time until their meeting.

  When it was finally time to depart to meet her, he had to stop himself from hurrying and arriving too early, so he purposely took a longer route to get there. As he traveled toward their meeting place, Nasrosoltan noticed a street-tough man he had seen earlier in the day when he had retrieved the house key from his friend. The man was quite recognizable since he had a distinctive scar running down the left side of his face, which Nasrosoltan attributed to a knife fight gone bad. This unnerved him since he thought to see the man once again, within the span of a few hours, was probably not a coincidence.

  It was not unusual for the governor or commander to have people such as criminals and political opponents followed, but he did not know why he would be. As a precaution, he realized he needed to lose the tail, in light of his rendezvous with Madame Shamsi.

  He started walking faster and headed straight into the bazaar through one of the grand doors. The man also started to increase his pace and followed him inside. Nasrosoltan finally evaded the man through the labyrinth passages of the bazaar, with time enough not to miss his appointment with Madame Shamsi.

  After they met up at the house in the early afternoon, they spent a few passion-filled hours laughing, talking about the future, and making dreamy plans of meeting one day in Europe, in either Paris or St. Petersburg.

  As evening approached, they left the house and neared the bazaar where they were to part. To Nasrosoltan’s utter surprise, Madame Shamsi did not follow etiquette protocol of how men and women were expected to act in public. Instead, upon bidding him farewell, she unexpectedly kissed him on the cheek and embraced him tightly in front of curious onlookers. This show of her intimacy toward him was welcome, but he was concerned that her outward display of affection would invite gossip when they needed to be careful and discreet.

  Nasrosoltan was enamored with her, and maybe he even liked it that she was so bold and unconventional. So, he did not waste this special moment by giving the matter another thought. After such a glorious afternoon, he was consumed with thoughts of Madame Shamsi, and he excitedly looked forward to sharing many more such afternoons with her in the days to come.

  Chapter 10

  The Sonneteer of Shiraz

  Two days later, while Nasrosoltan was still living in the fantasy world inside his head, he was awakened by someone furiously banging on his door. When he opened it, he found an agitated commander pushing Nasrosoltan back into the room while closing the door behind him.

  He angrily asked Nasrosoltan, “What have you done? The governor is terribly upset that you escorted Shamsi to Margoon and were alone with her for two nights. Just a few days ago, she was seen in public embracing you! My father is a jealous man; beware of his wrath and stay out of his way, understood?”

  Nasrosoltan, who was startled and dumbfounded, tried to catch his breath, wondering if it was the commander who had been spying on him. If so, he now worried that the commander knew about his amorous rendezvous with Madame Shamsi.

  Thinking to protect her honor, he chivalrously but defiantly replied, “You were the one who asked me to escort the guests. I did not even want to go and initially rebuffed you, as you must surely recall. You should have told the governor that your misrepresentation of the truth was why I thought I had his blessing in escorting them. What happened to your vow to never forget the favor I did for you? Think of that instead of barging in here and threatening me!”

  The commander was taken aback by Nasrosoltan’s forceful reply. He softened his tone slightly as he asked, “Do you dispute proposing to her that you both jump off together from the ship that is Shiraz, which is going nowhere? And how comical that you think in this way you would be saving her life!”

  Nasrosoltan was shocked to hear the exact same words Madame Shamsi had spoken to him at Margoon and accusingly asked the commander, “Are you spying on me?”

  The commander replied, “You know, while you sit at the piano all day and tickle the ivory, we have more important things to take care of. By now, you must realize that not much happens in Shiraz without us knowing. This is not St. Petersburg; here, secrets do not remain so! But to answer your question, no spy told us this. Shamsi told my father what you said to her, and he is furious that you were trying to steal her away!”

  Nasrosoltan was aghast and felt betrayed, just when he was about to fall on his sword for her. He found himself standing amidst the ruins of a relationship that had fallen apart before it had even begun. And this, with only a few words from the commander’s lips. What the man offered of Madame Shamsi’s revelation shook him to his core, and he became worried for his own safety.

  Hearing of her treachery, instead of defending her honor, he understood his need to protect his own and replied, “No, no, I did not say those things to her! It was she who mentioned these things. And you are telling me, she told the governor that it was I?”

  The commander may have been provincial, but he had played his hand wondrously, using Nasrosoltan to get Madame Shamsi in trouble with the governor. But just as she was a skilled backgammon player, Madame Shamsi had also upstaged the commander in his game. Her story to the governor, repeating everything she had said to Nasrosoltan as his words to her instead, made the governor jealous enough to do whatever she wanted—to stop her from sneaking away with Nasrosoltan.

  Now that Madame Shamsi had gotten what she wanted, Nasrosoltan became disposable to her. The governor saw Nasrosoltan’s action as an unpardonable insult, and for that, he wanted him gone in a disgraceful fashion.

  The frustrated commander, unsure whether to believe Nasrosoltan or Madame Shamsi, asked, “Have you gone mad? I cannot believe how naive you are! Do you not remember, I warned you about her, that you must flee her and not flirt with her. Well, in any case, I do not think it matters anymore. I believe you should leave Shiraz. If not, I am afraid my father will order the guards to remove you, which will bring you much dis
honor. I will try to buy time until you leave on your own volition before he has a chance to heap abuse on you.”

  It was then, in the depths of his despair, and emptied of his delusions of strength, that Nasrosoltan reflected with hopelessness upon all that had transpired. Recognizing that he had been played by those he thought he could trust, with a hint of surrender in his voice, Nasrosoltan told the commander, “No need to complicate matters; I will go on my own accord tomorrow morning.”

  The commander reached out to shake his hand, and Nasrosoltan wanted nothing more than to spit in it. Instead, even though the duplicity devastated him, he made the gentleman’s choice, offering his own hand in return.

  Madame Shamsi’s deception rattled Nasrosoltan, but what especially hurt him was that her last kiss on his cheek was nothing more than a Judas kiss. What he thought was a seal confirming their love turned out to be the final play of her well-executed plan and her ultimate betrayal of him.

  He could not sleep that night except for a few precious moments, when suddenly toward daybreak, a loud commotion of shouts and the firing of shots outside awakened him. A sense of lurking tumult engulfed him, and he feared it was the governor’s guards coming to remove him, as the commander had warned. When he ran outside to see what was happening, his manservant rushed to tell him the governor had been shot four times and assassinated by a supporter of the constitutionalists. Chaos ensued within the garrison, and soldiers quickly took positions to protect the commander and others in charge. Nasrosoltan was ushered back into his house, and he retreated to his bedroom to contemplate his next move.

  Qavam Al-Molk’s assassination led to much unrest and created a power vacuum in the city. Days came and went, and supporters of the shah used the occasion to wage savage attacks on civilians suspected of being a part of the assassination plot. The once calm and almost idyllic life in Shiraz suddenly turned hostile and dangerous.

  Nasrosoltan felt as if the winds of violence had followed him from St. Petersburg to Shiraz. Just a short while back, in Russia, he had witnessed the same sort of savagery against civilians demanding similar constitutional reforms.

  In the aftermath of the governor’s assassination, the commander forbade Nasrosoltan to leave Shiraz until things quieted down. Nasrosoltan had a prominent position as a recognized sympathizer of the reform movement, which suddenly had become a severe liability. His futile attempts to pay respects to the commander over his father’s assassination were rebuffed, and he was met with wary faces from even the most junior guards. They were protecting the commander, but Nasrosoltan’s rank and friendship should have allowed him some level of access, and he became alarmed at this abrupt shift in attitudes toward him. After a few weeks of feeling trapped in Shiraz, Nasrosoltan finally met with the commander and pleaded for his return to Tehran.

  The commander granted Nasrosoltan’s request to return to the capital, and when he agreed, Nasrosoltan thanked God that he had not spat in the man’s hand rather than shake it, the last time they had seen each other.

  On the day of his departure, Nasrosoltan decided to spend the few remaining hours in Shiraz at a public place for his own safety, not wanting to become another victim of the swift chaos that followed the governor’s assassination.

  He visited the poet Hafez's tomb, as many Persians did, hoping that spending time in the beautiful gardens and reading the Divan of Hafez would deliver him from his fear.

  As he walked around the gardens, listening to the soft singing of the birds, his anxiety gave way to a sense of peacefulness. He looked around, wondering how he had willingly been lured into this at first deceptively comfortable, yet unsatisfying and intrigue-filled existence in Shiraz.

  Tired of his own bad decisions, he vowed to himself at that moment, in the presence of the great poet’s spirit, to alter his trajectory and get back to his passions, wherever that may take him.

  In the Persian tradition, whenever one faced a dilemma or a difficult decision, one consulted the Divan for guidance on a course of action. This was known by the Persians as fale-Hafez, which involved fortune-telling by randomly opening a page of the Divan and then interpreting the verse in response to the person’s query.

  Nasrosoltan wondered what his future would hold with his impending return to Tehran. He opened a page, and the sonnet read:

  “Love,” I cried, “a little pity

  Show to me, a hapless stranger,

  Poor and lonely in Love's City.”

  But she answered:

  “Foolish stranger,

  Yours the fault, not mine, for losing

  Thus, your way; ’t is your own choosing

  Blame not me, O tiresome stranger.”

  Once more, O HAFIZ, dawns the morning cup,

  Another day in which to seek her face!

  Patience! The day will come, in some strange place,

  When thy strong hands her veil at last lift up.

  Nasrosoltan was disappointed to not receive the answer he was seeking, even though he did not know what answer he was looking for. However, he did know it was not this. The talk of love was the furthest thing from his mind. Love, after what Madame Shamsi had just done? Never, he said to himself, blaming all women for the sins of one.

  Nasrosoltan dismissed the sonnet and this so-called fortune-telling as another superstitious tradition and therefore reflected no further upon its meaning. Of course, this was a sign of his own youthful arrogance, since the great sonneteer, Hafez, always expressed the opposite in his poetry: that one should fight superstition. Although, there was one truth Hafez had offered him, a recognition that he had lost his way, which he now clearly realized he had.

  But patience was not the advice he wanted to hear, for what he desired was a quick return to St. Petersburg. He could not wait to reacquaint himself with what he loved most, composing music, reasoning that only music would deliver him from this inescapable yearning that he could not satisfy. He thought, At least this I know for sure; music will never betray me!

  Chapter 11

  A Letter from a Friend

  Tehran, Persia, 1908

  By June of 1908, with the ill-fated Shiraz adventure behind him, Nasrosoltan began planning his return to Russia. Tehran was now embroiled in political turmoil as Mozaffar Ad-Din Shah, who had signed the new constitution, had died, and his son, Mohammad Ali Shah, had inherited the throne.

  With the help of both the British and the Russians, Mohammad Ali Shah tried to subdue and eliminate the new parliament elected during his father’s rule. Ironically, this move was a rare show of unity between these two European powers that had divided Persia into two separate zones of influence. The young shah attempted to cut short this democratic movement with the help of the Persian Cossack Brigade—the only capable military unit available to the king at the time.

  The Cossack Brigade was the elite cavalry unit modeled after the Caucasian Cossack regiments of the Imperial Russian Army. The brigade was independent of the regular Persian army, and even though the rank and file of the squad were Persian, the troops were commanded by Russian officers.

  This did not sit well with many of the Persian recruits, who felt they had no opportunity for career advancement. Even more galling to them was that the brigade was effectively under the control of the Imperial Russian Legation in Tehran. Since it was the brigade that had kept Mohammad Ali Shah on the throne after his father’s death, the new king was considered a Russian puppet.

  In late June, under the command of Colonel Vladimir Liakhov, the brigade shelled the parliament building, directly attacking the core of Persia’s nascent democracy. And the colonel’s atrocities did not stop there, as he then ordered the execution of several leaders of the constitutionalists. Liakhov’s show of support to the shah led the king to appoint the Russian as military governor of Tehran.

  It amazed Nasrosoltan that wherever he went, from St. Petersburg to Shiraz and now back to Tehran, there was such violence being unleashed. He had no intention of staying any longer in a city
that had effectively become a military garrison, frantically trying to get his paperwork ready for a quick return to Russia.

  He wrote to his friend Rustam, with whom he had been in regular correspondence since his return to Persia, inquiring if he deemed the situation in St. Petersburg now suitable for his return. Seven weeks later, he received a reply letter from Rustam, but the contents caused him much consternation, for it bore some news Nasrosoltan was not expecting.

  21 August 1908

  My Dear and Respected Friend, Nasrollah,

  Greetings from St. Petersburg. I wonder if I should now address you as Nasrosoltan instead? I derived much pleasure reading about your prestigious title awarded by the king. I congratulate you. However, I will wait until we meet again to toast to each other's health, as you promised we would do, to see by which name you wish a friend to call you.

  In any case, I eagerly await your return to Russia, for you have already been away longer than you had initially anticipated. It will be a pleasure to see you once again. As you must be aware, much has happened here in Russia, especially in St. Petersburg, since your departure.

  Even as people go on about their business, there is much anxiety in the air, with those demanding constitutional reforms getting bolder by the day. There is the fear of another Bloody Sunday. There are strikes and political demonstrations, and the revolutionaries are causing social unrest. What is especially alarming is the political assassination of civil servants and police.

  I have read in the Petersburg Gazeta-Kopeika that your country is going through similar times. I pray that you stay safe and that these events will not further delay your return.

  For my part, I thank God that he has blessed me with good fortune concerning my business ventures. Since Russia’s loss in the war with the Japanese a few years ago, the tsar demanded that the Trans-Siberian Railway be upgraded from a single track. Many here blame the single track for supply difficulties and eventually defeat. This new directive of the tsar increased the need for iron products, and my business prospects have soared as a result. Consequently, I have also made many friends in high society in St. Petersburg, some of them with significant influence in the royal court.