My Father's Notebook

~ ~ ~

And so it went until the men of Kahaf finally sought refuge in the cave. “Grant us Thy mercy,” they said.

In that cave We covered their ears and their eyes for years.

And when the sun came up, the men saw it rise to the right of the cave. And when the sun went down, the men saw it set to the left, while they were in the space in between.

They thought they were awake, but they were asleep.

And We turned them to the right and to the left.

Some said, “There were three of them, and a fourth watched over them.”

Others, hazarding a guess, said, “There were five of them, and a sixth watched over them.”

And there were those who said, “There were seven of them.” No one knew.

We woke them, so that they might question one another.

One of them spoke: “We have been here for a day or part of a day.” Another said: “Allah alone knows how long we have been here. It would be best to send one of us to the city with this silver coin. We must be careful. If they find out who we are, they will stone us.”

Jemiliga then left the cave with the silver coin in the palm of his hand.

When he reached the city, he saw that everything had changed and that he did not understand the language.

They had slept in the cave for three hundred years and did not even know it. And some say there were nine more.

This was God’s word, God’s story. And “The Cave” was one of the stories in the Holy Book in Aga Akbar’s house.

We have started with His word before trying to decipher Aga Akbar’s secret notebook.

There are two of us, Ishmael and I. I’m the omniscient narrator. Ishmael is the son of Aga Akbar, who was a deaf-mute.

Even though I’m omniscient, I can’t read Aga Akbar’s notes, so I’m going to tell the story up to Ishmael’s birth, then leave the rest to him. But I’ll come back again at the end, because Ishmael can’t decipher the last part of his father’s notebook.

The Cave

From Amsterdam it takes a good five hours to fly to Tehran. Then you have to travel another four and a half hours by train to see the magical mountains of the city of Senejan loom up, like an age-old secret, before your eyes.

Senejan itself is not beautiful and has no history to speak of.

In the autumn an icy wind whips through the streets, and the snowy mountaintops form a never-changing backdrop.

Senejan has no special foods or products. And since the Shirpala River has dried up, the children play in the riverbed to their hearts’ content. The mothers keep a watchful eye on them throughout the day to make sure no strangers lure them into the hollows.

The city’s only poet of significance — long since dead — once wrote a poem about Senejan. It’s about the wind that carries the sand in from the desert and deposits it on the inhabitants’ heads:

Oh wind, oh wind, alas there’s sand in my eyes,

Oh my heart, oh my heart, half-filled with sand.

Alas, there’s a tiny grain of sand on her lip.

Sand in my eyes, and oh God, her rosy lips.

The rest of the poem goes on in much the same vein.

The rest of the poem goes on in much the same vein.

Whenever a poetry reading was held in one of the buildings in the old bazaar, it was bound to be attended by old men rhyming about the mountains. Their favourite topic was an ancient cuneiform relief that dated back to the time of the Sassanids.

An Anthony Quinn movie about Muhammad was once shown in Senejan. It was quite an event. Thousands of country bumpkins who didn’t know what a movie theatre was rode their mules through the mountains to stare in wonder at Muhammad, Messenger of God.

Hundreds of mules were tethered in the marketplace. The authorities were beside themselves. For three months the doors of the movie theatre were open night and day, while the mules ate hay from the municipal troughs.

Although Senejan didn’t figure prominently in the nation’s history, the surrounding villages did. They brought forth men who made history. One of these was a great poet, Qa’em Maqam Farahani, whose poetry everyone knows by heart:

Khoda-ya, rast guyand fetna az to-ast

wali az tars na-tavanam chegidan

lab-o dandan-e torkan-e Khata-ra

beh een khubi na bayad afaridan.

Though I would never dare to say it aloud, God,

The truth is that You are a mischief-maker,

Or You would not have made the lips and teeth

Of the Khata women as beautiful as they are.

The girls born in these villages make the most beautiful Persian carpets. Magic carpets you can fly on. Really fly on. This is where the famous magic carpets come from.

Aga Akbar was not born in Senejan, but in one of these villages. In Jirya. A village covered with almond blossoms in the spring and with almonds in the fall.

Aga Akbar was born a deaf-mute. The family, especially his mother, communicated with him in a simple sign language. A language that consisted of about a hundred signs. A language that worked best at home, with the family, though the neighbors also understood it to some extent. But the power of that language manifested itself most in the communication between Mother and Aga, and later between Aga and Ishmael.

Aga Akbar knew nothing of the world at large, though he did understand simple concepts. He knew that the sun shone and made him feel warm, but he didn’t know, for example, that the sun was a ball of fire. Nor did he realise that without the sun there would be no life. Or that the sun would one day go out forever, like a lamp that had run out of oil.

He didn’t understand why the moon was small, then gradually got bigger. He knew nothing about gravity, had never heard of Archimedes. He had no way of knowing that the Persian language consists of thirty-two letters: alef, beh, peh, teh, seh, jeem, cheh, heh, kheh, daal, zaal, reh, zeh, zheh, seen, sheen, sad, zad, taa, zaa, eyn, gheyn, faa, qaf, kaf, gaf, lam, meen, noon, vaav, haa, and ye. The peh as in perestow (swallow), the kheh as in khorma (date), the taa as in talebi (melon), and the eyn as in eshq (love).

His world was the world of his past, of things that had happened to him, of things he had learned, of his memories.

Weeks, months, and years were a mystery to him. When, for example, had he first seen that strange object in the sky? Time meant nothing to him.

• • •

Aga Akbar’s village was remote. Very little went on in Jirya. There wasn’t a trace of the modern world: no bicycles, no sewing machines.

One day, when Aga Akbar was a little boy, he was standing in a grassy meadow helping his brother, who was a shepherd, tend a flock of sheep. Suddenly their dog leapt onto a rock and stared upwards.

It was the first time a plane had flown over the village. It may, in fact, have been the very first plane to fly over Persian airspace.

Later those silver objects appeared above the village often. The children then raced up to the roofs and chanted in unison:

Hey, odd-looking iron bird,

come sit in our almond tree

and perch in our village square.

“What are they chanting?” young Aga Akbar asked his mother.

“They’re asking the iron bird to come sit in the tree.”

“But it can’t.”

“Yes, they know that, but they’re imagining it can.”

“What does ‘imagining’ mean?”

“Just thinking. In their minds they see the iron bird sitting in the tree.”

Aga Akbar knew that when his mother couldn’t explain something, he should stop asking questions and simply accept it.

One day, when he was six or seven, his mother hid behind a tree and pointed to a man on a horse — a nobleman with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

“That’s your father.”

“Him?”

“Yes. He’s your father.”

“Then why doesn’t he come home?”

Using their simple sign language, she placed a crown on her head, stuck out her chest, and said, “He’s an aristocrat, a man of noble birth. A scholar. He has many books and a quill pen. He writes.”

Aga Akbar’s mother, Hajar, had been a servant in the nobleman’s palace, where he lived with his wife and eleven children. He could see that Hajar was different, however, so he took her to his house on Lalehzar Mountain, where he kept his books and worked in his study.

She was the one who tidied the study, dusted the books, filled the inkpot and cleaned the quills. She cooked his lunch and made sure he had enough tobacco. She washed his coat and suit, and polished his shoes. When he had to go out, she handed him his hat and held the horse’s reins until he was in the saddle.

“Hajar!” he called one day from his desk in the study, where he was writing.

“Yes, sire?”

“Bring me a glass of tea. I’d like to have a word with you.”

She brought him a glass of tea on a silver tray. (That very same tray can still be seen on the mantel in the house of Aga Akbar’s wife.)

“Sit down, Hajar,” he said.

She continued to stand.

“Come now, Hajar, I’ve given you permission to sit, so take a seat.”

She sat on the edge of a chair.

“I have a question for you, Hajar. Is there a man in your life?”

She didn’t reply.

“Answer me. I asked you if there was a man in your life.”

“No, sire.”

“I’d like you to be my sigeh wife. Would you like that?”

It was an unexpected question.

“That’s not for me to say, sire,” she replied. “You’ll have to ask my father.”

“I’ll ask your father in due course. But first I’d like to know what you think of the idea.”

She thought for a moment, with her head bowed. Then she said clearly, “Yes, sire, I would.”

That same evening, Hajar’s father was taken to the nobleman’s study by the village imam, who recited a short sura from the Holy Book and said, “Ankahtu wa zawagtu,” declaring Hajar to be the wife of Aga Hadi Mahmud Ghaznavi Khorasani.

Next the imam explained to her that she was allowed to have children, but that they couldn’t have their father’s name. Nor would they be able to inherit anything. Hajar’s father was given an almond grove, the profits of which were to be shared with Hajar: one half for him, the other half for Hajar and any children she might bear. When her father died, the entire grove would belong to Hajar and her children.

Ten minutes later her father and the imam left. Hajar stayed.

She was wearing a blue-green dress that she’d inherited from her mother.

Early in the morning she’d gone to the village bathhouse and furtively removed her body hair. Then she’d dipped her toes in henna and her fingertips in the sap of the runas—a wild, reddish-purple flower — until it had dyed her fingers red.

“I’ll be spending the night here, Hajar,” the nobleman announced.

She made up the bed.

Then Aga Hadi Khorasani slipped into the bed beside her, and she received him.

• • •

Hajar had seven children. Aga Akbar, the youngest, was born a deaf-mute.

She noticed it before he was even a month old. Though she saw that he didn’t react normally, she didn’t want to believe it. She kept him with her at all times, allowing others to see him only briefly. This went on for six months. Everyone realised that the baby was deaf, but nobody dared to say anything. Finally Kazem Khan, Hajar’s oldest brother, decided that it was time to broach the subject. Kazem Khan, an unmarried man who rode through the mountains on horseback, was a poet. Though he lived by himself on a hill above the village, there were always women in his life. The villagers saw a succession of women silhouetted against his lighted window.

Nobody knew what he did or where he went on his horse.

When there was light in his house, people knew he was home. “The poet is at home,” they then said to each other.

Nothing else was known about him. Yet when the village needed him, he was always ready to lend a helping hand. At such moments he was the voice of the village. If a flash flood suddenly turned the dry riverbed into a raging torrent and their houses filled with water, he immediately appeared on his horse and diverted the flow. If a number of children unexpectedly died and the other mothers feared for their children’s lives, he galloped up on his horse with the doctor in tow. And all the village brides and grooms considered it an honor to have him as a guest at their wedding feast.

This same Kazem Khan rode his horse into the courtyard of Hajar’s house and stopped in the shade of an old tree. “Hajar! My sister!” he called, still in the saddle.

She opened the window.

“Welcome, brother. Why don’t you come in?”

“Could you come to my house tonight? I’d like to talk to you. Bring the baby with you.”

Hajar knew he wanted to talk to her about her son. She realised she would no longer be able to hide her baby.

As evening fell, Hajar strapped her baby to her back and climbed the hill to the house that the villagers referred to as “a gem that had fallen among the walnut trees”.

Kazem Khan smoked opium, a generally accepted practice in those days. It was even considered a sign of his poetic nobleness.

He had lit the coals in the brazier, laid his pipe in the warm ashes and put the thin slices of brownish-yellow opium on a plate. The samovar was bubbling.

“Sit down, Hajar. You can warm up your dinner in a moment. Let me hold the baby. What’s his name? Akbar? Aga Akbar?”

She reluctantly handed the baby to her brother.

“How old is he? Seven or eight months? Go ahead and eat your dinner. I’d like some time alone with him.”

Hajar felt a great weight bearing down on her. She couldn’t eat. Instead, she burst into tears.

“Come now, Hajar, there’s no need to cry. Don’t feel so sorry for yourself. If you hide the baby, if you give up on him, you’ll just make him backward. For the last six or seven months, he’s seen nothing, done nothing, had no real contact with the world. Everywhere I go in the mountains, I see children who are deaf and dumb. You have to let people talk to him. All you need is a language, a sign language that we can invent ourselves. I’ll help you. Starting tomorrow, let other people take care of him too. Let everyone try to communicate with him in his or her own way.”

Hajar carried her child into the kitchen and again burst into tears. This time tears of relief.

Later, after Kazem Khan had smoked a few opium pipes and was feeling cheerful and light, he came in and sat down beside her.

“Listen, Hajar. I don’t know why, but I have the feeling I should play a role in this child’s life. I didn’t feel this way about your other children, mostly because they were fathered by that nobleman, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him. But before you leave, we need to talk about him and about your baby’s future. It’s high time that nobleman learned that Akbar has an uncle.”

The next day Hajar took Akbar to the palace. Never before had she shown any of her children to their father. She knocked on the door of his study and entered with Akbar in her arms. She paused for a moment, then laid the baby down on the desk and said, “My child is deaf and dumb.”

“Deaf and dumb? What can I do to help you?”

A few moments went by before Hajar could look him in the eye.

“Let my child bear your name.”

“My name?” he asked, and fell silent.

“If you’ll let him have your name, I promise never to bother you again,” said Hajar.

The nobleman remained silent.

“You once said you liked me, and once or twice that you respected me. And you said I could always ask you for a favour. I’ve never asked for anything before, because I didn’t need to, but now I beg you: let my child bear your name. Only that. I’m not asking you to make him an heir. Just to have Akbar’s name recorded in an official document.”

“The baby’s crying,” he said after a while. “Give him something to eat.”

Then he stood up, opened the window, and called to his servant, “Go and get the imam. Hurry up, we haven’t got all day!”

Before long, the imam arrived. Hajar was sent off to wait in another room while the two men discussed the matter behind closed doors. The imam wrote a few lines in a book, then drew up a document and had the nobleman sign it. The whole thing took only a few minutes. The imam rode back home on his mule.

“Here, Hajar, this is the document you wanted. But remember: keep it in a safe place and tell no one of its existence. Only after my death can it be shown to other people.”

Hajar tucked the document in her clothes and tried to kiss his hand.

“There’s no need for that, Hajar. You can go home now. But come and visit me often. I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: I like you and I want to go on seeing you.”

Hajar strapped her baby to her back and left. When she came down from the mountains, she knew she was carrying a child with a venerable name: Aga Akbar Mahmud Ghaznavi Khorasani.

The document turned out to be worthless. After the nobleman died, his heirs bribed the local imam and had Aga Akbar’s name removed from the will. Since Hajar hadn’t been expecting her child to inherit anything, it hardly mattered. She was satisfied with the name alone. Aga Akbar’s parentage was known. His father had roots that could be traced back to the palace on Lalehzar Mountain.

Akbar grew up, married and had children. And even though he was a simple carpet-weaver, he remained proud of his lineage. He kept with him at all times the document with his long name.

Akbar often talked about his father. He especially wanted his son Ishmael to know that his grandfather had been an important man, a nobleman on a horse with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

The nobleman was killed by a Russian. Just who the murderer was, nobody knew. A soldier? A gendarme? A Russian thief who sneaked over the border?

• • •

The mountain range where Aga Akbar lived and where his forefathers had lived before him bordered on Russia, known in those days as the Soviet Union. The southern part of the range belonged to Iran; the northern part, with its permanent layer of snow, to Russia.

No one knew, however, what that Russian soldier, or the Russian army, had been looking for in the mountains.

All that was left of the murder was a story that lived on in Aga Akbar’s memory.

When they were home by themselves, Akbar told the story to Ishmael, who was assigned the role of the nobleman on horseback. Akbar was the Russian soldier, wearing an army coat and a cap with a bold red insignia.

Ishmael, his wooden rifle slung over his shoulder, mounted a pillow. Aga Akbar put on his coat and cap and hid behind the cupboard, which served as a makeshift boulder.

Ishmael rode his horse — not too fast, not too slow, but sedately, as a nobleman should — past the cupboard. A head peeked out. The horseman went on riding for another few yards, then the soldier suddenly leapt out with a knife in his hand, took two or three giant steps and planted his knife in the horseman, who fell off his horse and died.

No doubt this story was largely a fantasy, but the death of Aga Akbar’s mother was very real.

“How old were you when Hajar died?” Ishmael signed.

Aga Akbar had no concept of time.

“She died when a group of unknown black birds perched in our almond tree,” he signed back.

“Unknown?”

“I’d never seen them before.”

“How old were you when the black birds perched in the tree?” Ishmael signed.

“My hands were cold, the tree had no leaves and Hajar no longer spoke to me.”

“No, I mean how old? How old were you when your mother died?”

“Me, Akbar. My head came up to Hajar’s chest.”

He had been about nine, Kazem Khan explained later. Hajar had been feeling ill, so she had gone to bed. Akbar had slipped in under the blankets and held his mother in his arms.

“Your mother died in your arms?” Ishmael signed.

“Yes, but how did you know?”

“Uncle Kazem Khan told me.”

“I crawled under the blankets. When she was sick, she used to talk to me and hold my hand. But this time she stopped talking, and her hand no longer moved. I was scared, really scared, so I stayed under the blankets, not daring to come out. Then a hand reached under the blankets, grabbed me and tried to pull me out. I held on to Hajar’s body, but Kazem Khan finally dragged me away. I cried.”

The next day the oldest woman in the family wrapped Hajar in a white shroud. Then several men came with a coffin and carried her to the cemetery.

After the funeral Kazem Khan took little Akbar with him.

“I wanted him to understand what death was,” he later told his nephew Ishmael. “So I rode over the mountains with him, in search of something that would show him that dying was part of life.

“I looked around in the snow, hoping to find a dead bird or a dead fox or maybe even a dead wolf. But on that cold winter day the birds flew more energetically than ever and the wolves bounded across the rocks. I stopped, sat him down on a boulder and pointed at the plants buried be neath the snow. ‘Look! Those plants are dead, too.’ But that wasn’t a good example. I saw an old mountain goat who could barely leap from one rock to another. ‘You see that goat? He’s going to die soon.’ No, that wasn’t a good example either.

“I was hoping that a bird would stop flying in mid-air and suddenly drop dead at our feet. But no birds dropped dead that day.

“I put Akbar back on the horse and we rode on.

“After a while, I saw the nobleman’s palace in the distance. It had been empty since his death. I rode over to it.”

“Why?”

“I had no idea. I just thought, Let’s have a look. I led the horse around to the back. Aga Akbar didn’t know what I was trying to do. ‘Stand on the horse’s back,’ I gestured to him, ‘and climb up onto the stone wall!’”

“‘Why?’ he signed.

“He didn’t want to. So I went first. I climbed up onto the wall and lay there. ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘Give me your hand.’

“I grabbed him, pulled him up and then helped him climb up onto the roof. We inched our way to the courtyard stairs.

“‘Don’t look so surprised,’ I said when we reached them. He didn’t want to go down the stairs.

“‘What are we going to do?’ he signed.

“‘Nothing, just look around. Come on, this palace belongs to you, too.’

“We walked gingerly down the stairs. He briefly forgot his mother. I even noticed a smile on his face.

“We went into the courtyard. I’d never been inside the palace before. I thought the doors would be locked, but they were open. I thought the rooms would be empty, but no, the furniture was all in place. The courtyard door had been blown open by the wind and the snow had drifted halfway down the hall. We went in.

“There was dust everywhere. Even the expensive Persian carpets were covered in a fine layer of sand. We left footprints. You could see that a man and a little boy had walked through the rooms. ‘Give me your hand,’ I said to Akbar. ‘Do you see that? That’s what death is.’

“I looked for the nobleman’s study, for his library. Akbar stared in amazement at everything — the chandeliers, the mirrors, the paintings. ‘Go on, take a look,’ I said. ‘You see those portraits? Those are your ancestors. Take a good look at them. Oh, Allah, Allah, what a lot of books!’

“I had no idea there were so many books on Lalehzar Mountain. ‘Hey, Akbar, come here. You see this book? It’s been written by hand. Let me read it:

Khoda-ya, rast guyand fetna az to-ast

wali az tars na-tavanam chegidan

lab-o dandan-e torkan-e Khata-ra

beh een khubi na bayad afaridan.

“I took out a sheet of parchment on which a family tree had been drawn. ‘Do you see those names? Each one of those men has written a book. You can also write one. A book of your very own.’

“‘Write?’ signed Akbar.

“‘I’ll teach you.’ I rummaged around in the drawer in search of an empty notebook and found one. ‘Here, take it. Put it in your pocket. Now hurry up, let’s go.’”

They left the palace and rode home. Kazem Khan needed to smoke his opium pipe and drink a few cups of strong tea. “Where are you, Akbar? Come here, I’ve got a lump of sugar for you. Russia’s finest sugar. Mmm, delicious. Have a sip of tea, Akbar. Now where’s your book? Come sit by me. Opium is bad. You must never smoke opium. If I don’t smoke my pipe in time, I get the shakes. When I do smoke it, though, I think up fantastic poems. Go and get your book and write something in it.”

“I can’t write. I can’t even read,” Akbar signed.

“You don’t have to read, but you do have to write. Just scribble something in your notebook. One page every day. Or maybe just a couple of sentences. Anyway, try it. Go upstairs, write something in your book, then come and show it to me.”

When Kazem Khan had finished his pipe, he went upstairs.

“Where are you, Akbar? Haven’t you written anything yet? It doesn’t matter. I’ll teach you. You see that bed? From now on, it’s your bed. Open the window and look out at the mountains. That beautiful view is all yours. Open the cupboard. That’s yours, too. You can keep your things in it. Here, this is the key to your room.”

It was impossible to concentrate on reading or writing when you were sitting by the window in that room, Kazem Khan complained, because you would be mesmerised by the view, by nature. You had no choice but to lay down your book, put away your pen, go and get your pipe, chop up some opium, put a piece of it in your pipe, pick up a glowing coal with a pair of pincers, light the pipe, then puff, puff, puff on it, blow the smoke out of the window and stare at the view.

The first thing you saw were the walnut trees, then the pomegranate trees and, beyond that, a strip of yellow wildflowers and a field dotted with opium-coloured bushes. The yellow flowers and the brownish-yellow bushes merged at the foot of Saffron Mountain, which rose majestically into the sky.

If you could climb to the top of Saffron Mountain, stand on its craggy peak and peer through a pair of binoculars, and if there happened to be no fog that day, you would be able to make out the contours of a customs shed and a handful of soldiers, because that’s where the border is. Back when Aga Akbar and Kazem Khan were standing by the window, however, no villager could have reached that mountain peak.

Saffron Mountain is famous in Iran, not so much because of its nearly inaccessible peak, but because of its historically important cave. Saffron Mountain is a familiar name in the world of archaeology. The cave, located halfway up the mountain, is extremely difficult to reach. Back in those days, wolves slept in it during the winter and gave birth to their cubs in it during the spring.

If you scaled the wall with ropes and spikes, like a mountain climber, you’d find bits of fur everywhere, along with the bones of mountain goats devoured by the wolves.

If you came in the spring, you might see the cubs at the mouth of the cave, calling to their mothers.

Deep inside the cave, on a dark southerly wall, is an ancient stone relief. More than 3,000 years ago, the first king of Persia ordered that a cuneiform inscription be chiselled into the rock, beyond the reach of sun, wind, rain and time. It has never been deciphered.

Sometimes when you looked out of Kazem Khan’s window, you saw a cuneiform expert — an Englishman or a Frenchman or an American — riding into the cave on a mule, which meant that another attempt was being made to decipher the cuneiform.

“Come! Get the mules ready,” Kazem Khan gestured to Akbar.

“Where are we going?”

“To the cave.”

“Why?”

“To learn how to read. I’m going to teach you to read,” signed Kazem Khan.

They put on warm clothes, mounted two strong mules and headed up Saffron Mountain. There was no path going up to the cave. The mules simply sniffed the ground, followed the tracks of the mountain goats and slowly climbed higher and higher. After three or four hours, they reached the entrance to the cave.

“Wait!” Kazem Khan signed. “First we have to scare off the wolves.”

He took out his rifle and fired three shots into the air. The wolves fled.

They got down from their mules and entered the cave. Once inside, Kazem Khan lit an oil lamp. They walked deeper and deeper into the cave, with the mules trotting along behind.

“Come on, Akbar, follow me.”

“Why are you going into the darkness?” Akbar signed.

“Be patient a bit longer. Come with me. Look! Up there!” Kazem Khan said, and he held up the lamp. “Can you see it?”

“See what?” Akbar signed. “I don’t see anything.”

“Wait, I’ll go and look for a stick.”

He hunted around in the cave for a stick, but didn’t find one.

“Here, hold the reins.”

Kazem Khan sat on top of the mule and held up the lamp again.

“Can you see it now? That thing on the wall, in the wall. Go and stand over there, so you can see it better. Wait, let me get down from the mule. Look carefully, Akbar. Do you know what that is? It’s a letter. A letter written by a king. A great king.

“Back in the old days, people couldn’t read or write. Paper hadn’t been invented yet. So the king ordered that his words be chiselled into the wall of the cave. All those foreigners who come up here on mules actually want to read the king’s letter, the king’s story. Now get out your pen and notebook. I’m going to hold the mule against the wall and I want you to stand on its back. Yes, on the mule’s back. Good. Are you comfortable? Look, there’s a place for you to hang up the lamp, so you can see better. Now I want you to write down the text. Look carefully at all the symbols, at all those cuneiform words, and write them down on the paper, one by one. Go ahead! Don’t be afraid. I’ll hold the mule. Just write!”

Aga Akbar may or may not have understood what his uncle had in mind, but in any case he started copying the text. He stared at the cuneiform script and did his best to draw each character, one by one, in his notebook. Three whole pages.

“It’s finished,” he signed.

“Good. Now put it in your pocket and get down. Be careful.”

That evening, when Kazem Khan was at home again, smoking his opium, he signed to Akbar, “Go and get your book and come sit here by the brazier. Now give me your pen and listen carefully. You copied the letter written by the king. Do you know what it says?”

“No.”

“That letter is something that used to be inside the king’s head. Nobody knows what it says, but it must say something. Now you, yes you, can also write a letter. Here, on the next page of your notebook. Some other time, you can write another letter on another page. You can write down what’s inside your head, just like the king did. Go ahead and try it!”

Years later, when Ishmael, the son of Aga Akbar, was sixteen and living in the city, he went to visit his uncle in the mountains. “But Uncle Kazem Khan,” he asked him one evening at dinner, “why didn’t you teach my father the normal alphabet, so he could read and write like everyone else?”

“What do you mean ‘like everyone else’? Nowadays you have to learn to read, but you didn’t have to back then. Especially not here in the mountains. Even the village imam could barely write his name. Who could have taught the alphabet to a deaf-mute child? I wasn’t the right man for the job. I simply didn’t have the patience. I’ve never liked sitting around the house. I’m always on the go, always riding off somewhere on my horse.

“To teach a child like that, you need a capable father and a strong mother. I didn’t want to teach him how to write, but I felt — or, rather, observed — that Aga Akbar was forming sentences in his head, that he was thinking up stories. Do you understand?

“Those sentences in his head, that storytelling talent, could have destroyed him. He had headaches all the time, and I was the only one who knew why. That’s the reason I taught him to write in cuneiform. To write for the sake of writing. I didn’t know if he’d be able to do it, or even if it would help. I was simply trying to solve a problem. Anyway, no one can read the king’s cuneiform inscription. Maybe the puzzle will never be solved. But the king did write down his thoughts.

“Did I steer Akbar in the right direction or not? You’re entitled to your opinion, but I think my method worked. Your father still writes, to this day. And cuneiform is a beautiful and mysterious script. Your father has his own language, his own written language. Do you ever look in his notebook?”

“No. I see him writing in it sometimes.”

“Have you ever tried to read it?”

“I can’t read a word of it.”

“You could ask him to teach you how.”

“What about you? Can you read it?”

“No, but I know what he’s writing about. One time … God, how long ago was it? I went to his room and found him sitting at his desk, writing. I think he was about as old as you are now. Except that he was stronger. Big shoulders, dark hair, clear eyes. Anyway, I saw that he was writing. ‘Show it to me,’ I said. ‘Tell me what you’ve written.’

“In those days he had quite a bit of contact with the foreigners who went to the cave, the ones who were trying to decipher the text. I think he’d learned something from those experts — something about other reliefs, or maybe even a likely translation. ‘Explain to me what you’ve written,’ I said. At first he didn’t want to. He was embarrassed, but I kept pressuring him. I wanted to know if my method had worked.

“So he read. I can still recite his words from memory. Listen, it’s beautiful: I, I, I am the son of the horseman, the horseman from the palace, the palace on the mountain, the mountain across from the cave. In that cave is a letter, a letter from a king, a letter carved in the rock, from the time when there were no pens, only hammers and chisels.”

Later, when Aga Akbar was a young man, he became a guide. He led the cuneiform experts — the Americans, the British, the French and the Germans — up to the cave on mules. Then he stood on a mule and held up the oil lamp, so they could take pictures or copy the text for the umpteenth time.

Anyone interested in cuneiform or in decoding old inscriptions is sure to own books on the subject. And those books are sure to have a couple of pictures of the cuneiform inscription in the cave on Saffron Mountain. And one of those pictures is bound to show a youthful Aga Akbar, standing on a mule and holding up an oil lamp to illuminate the cuneiform relief.

The Train

We can’t understand Aga Akbar’s notes

without knowing about Shah Reza Khan.

We look at the background to the story,

at the details not given in the notebook.

Saffron Village was famous not only for its ancient cuneiform inscription, but also for its beautiful carpets, its genuine Persian rugs. Americans and Europeans who have a Persian carpet in the living room don’t realise that it might have been made in Saffron Village. You can tell by the pattern. If it has a strange bird with an odd-looking tail, it no doubt comes from the village where Aga Akbar grew up.

In the middle of winter, hundreds of strange birds suddenly flew in from the other side of Saffron Mountain, from the former Soviet Union. Since it was cold, the birds were hungry and thirsty. The villagers always knew when the birds were about to arrive: early in the morning, on one of the first days after the full moon had appeared to the left of the mountain peak. The women leaned their ladders against the walls in expectation.

At the first sign of the birds, the women climbed up onto the rooftops and set out bowls of warm water and bits of leftover food.

The strange birds landed on the roofs. The women and children watched from the windows and saw the birds walk across the roofs with their strange long tails, bobbing their heads in thanks. The birds rested for a few hours, then flew off. And the women, who spent the whole day, the whole month, the whole year, the whole of their lives in the village, weaving rugs, the women who never got a chance to leave Saffron Mountain, wove those birds into the patterns of the carpets.

Another motif that made its way into their carpets was the cuneiform script.

The illiterate women of Saffron Village used the secret language of the cave’s relief to weave their hopes and longings into their carpets.

Sometimes the carpets depicted a foreigner in a hat riding to the cave on a mule and holding a sheet of paper filled with cuneiform.

At the end of the 1930s the women suddenly began weaving a completely new pattern into their carpets — a train. A train trailing smoke as it snaked its way up Saffron Mountain.

Nowadays the carpets show a bomber flying over the village, dropping its deadly cargo.

Though the women didn’t realise it, the train and its trail of smoke symbolised a shift in power. In those days Reza Khan, the father of the last shah of Iran, had the country firmly in his grip. There was a centralised dictatorship. Reza Khan was a simple private who had worked his way up to general. What he lacked in education, he made up for in ambition.

In 1921 he staged a coup. Announcing that the Qajar dynasty had come to an end, he declared himself the new king of Persia. From then on, it was to be known as the Pahlavi kingdom.

Reza Shah wanted to weave the country into a new pattern. He wanted to transform the archaic kingdom of Persia into a modern nation orientated towards the West. That meant new businesses, modern schools, printing presses, theatres, steel bridges, roads, buses and taxis, not to mention radios and radio stations that would broadcast, for the first time in Persian history, the magical voice of a singer:

Yawash, yawash, yawash, yawash

amadam dar khane-tan.

Yek shakh-e gol dar dastam

sar-e rahat benshastam.

Be khoda’ yadat narawad az nazram.

Softly, softly, ever so softly,

I walked past your house and

Sat on the roadside with a flower

In my hand as you passed by.

God knows I shall never forget you.

Reza Shah wanted more. He wanted to change women’s lives overnight. From one day to the next, women were forbidden to wear chadors. Whenever they went out, they were expected to wear hats and coats instead.

He wanted everything to happen quickly, which is why he governed the country with an iron hand and stifled all opposition. On his orders, the poet Farokhi had his lips sewn shut because he’d recited a poem about women who stumbled and couldn’t walk without their chadors. During Reza Shah’s reign, many writers, intellectuals and political leaders were thrown in jail or murdered, and others simply disappeared.

According to the opposition, Reza Shah was a lackey of the British Embassy in Tehran and had been ordered to modernise the country for the benefit of the West. In the eyes of the imperialists, he was merely a soldier, a pawn to be used in the struggle against the Soviet Union.

Whether or not he was a British puppet, one thing is certain: he wanted things to change. In his own way, he was determined to radically reform the country, but he was a soldier, a brute. Everyone was terrified of him.

Reza Shah hoped that his most important projects would be finished before his son succeeded him.

The train was one of his pet projects.

During the twenty-five hundred years in which various kings, sultans and emirs had ruled the Persian Empire, no government official had ever come to the mountains to take a census of the inhabitants. Now that Reza Khan was shah, however, he wanted his subjects to carry identity cards.

Throughout the ages the imams had controlled the mountains and the countryside. Now the populace had to contend with a gendarme, a man in a military cap emblazoned with one of Reza Shah’s slogans, a man who answered to no one but His Majesty.

Reza Shah needed an army that obeyed him unquestioningly. And that army needed soldiers whose names and dates of birth were listed on identity cards. So, for the first time in history, the exact number of boys in Saffron Village was recorded. The vital statistics were entered in a book, which the gendarme kept in his cupboard.

Thanks to Reza Shah, Aga Akbar also was issued with an identity card. At last, his full name was officially on record.

• • •

To realise his great dream, Reza Shah ordered that a railway be built from the southernmost part of the country to its northeastern border. Right up to the ear of the giant Russian bear, to be exact. He knew that the Europeans had the most to gain from this route, but he also knew that the rails would be left behind long after those Europeans were gone.

The railway tracks crept through the desert, over the rivers, up the mountains, down the valleys and through the towns and villages until they finally reached Saffron Mountain.

The iron monster started to climb the mountain, but was forced to stop halfway, when it came to the historic cave with the cuneiform inscription. The building of the railway had disturbed the cave’s eternal rest. More importantly, the engineers were afraid that if they blasted through the rock with dynamite, the cave would collapse.

The cuneiform inscription, their ancient cultural heirloom, was in danger. The engineers feared it would crack. They panicked. The chief engineer didn’t know what to do. He didn’t dare take a single risk. He knew the shah would have him beheaded if anything went wrong.

With trembling hands, he sent a telegram to the capital: CANNOT PROCEED WITH RAILS. CUNEIFORM BLOCKING ROUTE.

The shah read the telegram, hopped into his jeep and had himself driven to Saffron Mountain. After a long night’s drive, the jeep stopped at the foot of the mountain. The local gendarme offered the shah a mule, but he refused. He wanted to climb the mountain himself. Early in the morning, before the sun had struck the mountain peak, Reza Shah stood at the entrance to the cave. Wearing a military tunic and carrying a field marshal’s baton under his arm, he checked on the progress of his dream.

• • •

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“Your Majesty—” the chief engineer began, trembling. He didn’t dare go any further.

“Explain it to me!”

“Th-th-th-the rails have to go past here. I’m afraid that … that … that …”

“Yes?”

“I–I-I would like Your Majesty’s permission to … to … to relocate the cuneiform relief.”

“Relocate it? Shut up, you stupid engineer! Find another solution!”

“We’ve done all the cal-cal-cal-culations, checked out all the options. No matter how we do it, the dynamite could destroy the cave.”

“Find another route!”

“We’ve explored every alternative. This is the best route. The others are virtually impossible. We could make a huge detour, but …”

“But what?”

“It’ll take longer.”

“How much longer?”

“A number of months, Your Majesty. Six or seven months.”

“We haven’t got that much time. We can’t lose a day. Or even an hour. As for you — get out of my sight, you idiot! ‘Impossible’— is that the only word you engineers know? Six or seven months? You must be joking!”

Furious, the shah marched into the dark cave. Outside, no one dared to move. After a while he came out again. He looked down at the hordes of peasants — young men who’d climbed up the mountain to catch a glimpse of Reza Shah. When they saw him emerge from the cave, they leapt onto the rocks and began to shout, “Jawid shah! Jawid shah! Jawid shah!”

The shah thrust his field marshal’s baton under his arm and slowly made his way down the mountain. Just as the gendarmes were about to chase away the peasants at the bottom, a group of elders from the surrounding villages appeared. Dressed in their most festive garments, they walked towards Reza Shah, carrying a bowl of water, a mirror and the Koran. When they were a hundred yards away, the oldest man threw the water in the direction of the shah and the other men bowed their heads.

“Salaam, sultan of Persia!” the man exclaimed. “Salaam, God’s earthly shadow!”

He knelt and kissed the ground.

“Come forward!” commanded the shah, pointing his baton at the place where he wanted the old man to stand.

“Listen, graybeard! I don’t need your prayers. Use your head and give me some advice. That idiot of an engineer doesn’t know how to route the railway track. How can I get the train past the cave without doing any permanent damage?”

The old man turned and went back to confer with the others.

After a while he came back.

“Well?”

“For centuries our fathers have built houses here on Saffron Mountain, using only a pick-axe and spikes. No one has ever damaged the mountain. They chipped away the rock only in places where it was absolutely necessary. If Your Majesty wishes, I will call together all of the young men in the village. They will clear a path for your train.”

A look of relief spread over the shah’s face. Then it clouded over again.

“No, it’ll take too long. I don’t have that much time. I want it done fast.”

“As Your Majesty wishes. In that case, I will call all of the young men on Saffron Mountain and, if necessary, all of the young men from the neighbouring mountains. We have experience, we know the mountain. Give our men the opportunity to prove themselves.”

The shah was silent.

“Give us the strongest pick-axes in the country.”

“And then?”

“Then we will clear a path, so the train can go around the cave and reach the other side of the mountain.”

That evening the muezzins from all the villages called from the roofs of their mosques, “Allahu akbar. La ilaha illa Allah. In the name of Allah, our forefathers and Reza Shah, we call on all strong men. Hurry, hurry, hurry to the mosque. Whatever you’re doing, stop right now and hurry to the mosque.”

All evening and all night young men from the neighbouring villages poured into the mosque in Saffron Village.

Early the next morning hundreds of men walked behind the village elder and stood in the designated spot at the foot of the mountain. One of those men was the seventeen-year-old Aga Akbar. He didn’t have the faintest idea who Reza Shah was or what he had in mind, much less what his plans for the country were. Like the other men, he had no idea why the railway tracks had to reach the other side of the mountain so quickly. All he knew was that a train had to go around the cave and that it was their job to save the cuneiform inscription.

Reza Shah stood high on a rock and looked down at the men. The villagers had heard the legends about the shah.

In those days the people in the towns and villages thought of him as a saviour. A powerful man. A champion of the poor. A reformer who wanted to give the country a face-lift.

But his reputation in Tehran was very different. There he was known for his brutal treatment of the opposition.

The shah had ordered that all the opium, tea and sugar be removed from the house of an important mullah, and had kept him under house arrest for three weeks. To the mullah this was tantamount to the death penalty. The shah had ordered the imams to remove their turbans and appear in public with their heads bare. His policemen went through the streets plucking chadors off the women who were still wearing them. When the imams in the holy city of Qom rose up in revolt, Reza Shah ordered that a cannon be placed at the gates of the golden mosque. Then he taunted the leader of the Shiites: “Come out of your hole, you black rat!”

A rat? A black rat? What did he mean by that? He just called our great spiritual leader a black rat! Suddenly hundreds of young imams with rifles appeared on the roof of the golden mosque.

“Fire!” the shah screamed at his officers.

Dozens of imams were killed and dozens arrested. The sacred shrine was partially destroyed. A wave of shock ran through the Islamic world. Shopkeepers turned off their lights. The bazaar closed. People wore black. But the shah wouldn’t listen to reason.

“Are there any more out there?”

No, not a soul was left on the streets and rooftops. Everyone was sitting inside, behind locked doors.

Aga Akbar knew none of these stories. He thought the shah was simply a high-ranking military officer. A general in a strange-looking tunic, with a stick under his arm.

The village elder walked over to the shah, bowed and said, “The men are prepared to sacrifice themselves to realise Your Majesty’s dream.”

Reza Shah didn’t answer. He looked at the peasants. His face was filled with doubt. Would they really be able to solve his problem?

Just then a pair of armoured cars drove up and stopped near the men. Two generals leapt out and raced over to the shah, each holding his cap in one hand and his rifle in the other.

“Everything is ready, Your Majesty!” called one of the generals.

“Unload them!” ordered the shah.

The generals hurried back to the armoured cars.

The soldiers threw open the doors and unloaded hundreds of English pick-axes.

“You!” the shah yelled at the village elder standing before him. “Here are the pick-axes you asked for! If any of your men are lazy, I’ll put a bullet through your head!”

He wheeled around. “Don’t just stand there,” he said to the chief engineer. “Get started!”

The shah headed for his jeep. Suddenly he stopped, as if he’d forgotten something. He returned to his elevated position on the rock and beckoned one of the generals with his baton. In turn, the general beckoned seven soldiers, who were lined up with seven bulging bags in their arms. The soldiers marched over to the shah, deposited the bags on the ground in front of him and snapped back to attention.

“Open them!” he commanded one of the soldiers.

The soldier opened the bags, one by one. The shah took out a handful of brand-new bills.

He turned to the peasants. “Start smashing those rocks!” he ordered. “This money will be your reward. I’ll be back next week!”

“Jawid shah … Long live the shah!” the men shouted three times.

The shah climbed down again and went over to his jeep.

The engineer quickly led the peasants, each equipped with a pick-axe, to the place where the work on the tracks had come to a halt. The peasants made jokes, flexed their muscles and swore they would reduce even the hardest rocks on Saffron Mountain to rubble. They had no idea what was in store.

Years later, a faded black-and-white photograph proudly displayed on Aga Akbar’s mantle showed him with a pick-axe resting on his right shoulder and a spike — as thick as a tent stake — between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

Akbar is turned at a slight angle. The photographer had focused on the pick-axe and spike, but the young Aga Akbar had flexed his muscles, so that your eye is drawn to his bulging biceps rather than to the tools.

When Ishmael was little, Aga Akbar told him a long story about the picture. A story that was actually about his biceps and about the money — the large sum of money — he had earned.

“Come here!” he gestured to his son. “Tell me! Who’s the man in the picture?”

And he launched into a story. “I, Akbar, was very strong. I — and only I — could break that rock with the pick-axe. Can you see the rock? There, in the background. No, you can’t see it, the picture’s no good, it’s old. But there, behind me. Sure you can’t see it? Never mind. That rock had to go, all the rocks had to go. They couldn’t use those exploding things. They were bad for the cuneiform inscription.

“One day I’ll take you to the cave. Wait a minute. Don’t you have a … where’s your schoolbook? Have you ever seen a picture in your schoolbook of an officer, a man in a military tunic with a crown on his head? Isn’t there one in your schoolbook? … Seven, yes, seven potato sacks full of money. And that money was for us. Because of the train.”

Did Ishmael understand what his father was talking about in his rudimentary sign language?

One thing little Ishmael did know was that his life was interwoven with that of his father. Everyone — his mother, his uncles, his aunts, the village imam, the neighbours, the children— made him sit, stand and walk beside his father. His job was to be his father’s mouthpiece.

Later the missing bits of information would be supplied by his aunts and uncles, or by the old men of Saffron Mountain. Or he himself would look up the facts in history books and novels.

More often, however, he would go and visit his father’s elderly uncle. He would sit down by Kazem Khan and listen as he filled in the missing parts of the stories. “Your father was strong. I told him that a railway track was being built. Personally, I’ve never cared for aristocrats and generals and shahs, but I’d heard a lot about Reza Shah. Though I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the man, I didn’t see him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I was stubborn. I rode over there on my horse, but the gendarmes wouldn’t let me through.”

“Why not?”

“Because people weren’t allowed to approach the shah on horseback. You were supposed to go on foot, to grovel on your hands and knees. I refused to do that. I turned around and went home, but I came back the next day, because I wanted to see what the men of Saffron Mountain were doing.”

“Did you go on foot or on horseback?”

“Nobody’s ever seen me go anywhere on foot. I looked at the men from a distance. They were working in shifts, around the clock, smashing the rocks and clearing a road for the train.”

“Did the men manage all right with the pick-axes? I mean, did they finish the road on time?”

“Oh, no. Or, actually, they did. At first everything was going fine. They were banging away with all their might, and you could see the road taking shape. Then, just below the southern wall of the cave, they ran into a rock that was unusually hard. The men pounded at it — first one shift, then another — but hardly made a dent. The work had gone well the first two weeks. After that, their strength was gone. The men were thin and worn, exhausted, barely recognisable. The engineers were so terrified of the shah that they hadn’t realised the men were broken. They panicked. Reza Shah would be arriving soon and the men would still be banging away at that one rock.

“The shah wasn’t an educated man, nor did he come from a family of book readers, but he was smart, especially when it came to ordinary people. He took one look at the workers and knew what the problem was. He fired the chief engineer. ‘Go and pack your bags, bookworm. You don’t know what work is. All you can do is read, read, read.’

“Reza Shah ordered ten big kettles to be brought from the army barracks. He knew that a worker needed more than bread and goat cheese if he was to smash rocks for weeks at a time. So ten fat cooks came running up with ten big kettles. The soldiers were ordered to shoot five mountain goats and hand them over to the cooks.

“Work was suspended for the day. All that the men had to do was eat, drink, smoke and rest.

“That same evening the shah returned with a new engineer. He was determined not to go back to Tehran until the railway tracks had reached the other side of the cave.

“Early the next morning, even before the sun was up, the shah climbed up to the cave. A soldier, carrying a bag of money, trotted along behind.

“The men were lined up with their pick-axes resting on their shoulders. They waited for the shah to reveal his new plan.

“The shah took off his tunic, grabbed a handful of money and positioned himself on top of a rock. He pointed his baton at one of the men.

“‘You!’

“The man stepped forward.

“‘And you—’

“‘No, not you, the man next to you.’

“The other man stepped forward. It was your father. Of course, he hadn’t heard the shah, but his fellow workers had tapped him on the shoulder.

“The shah selected eleven strong men.

“‘Listen!’ the shah said. ‘After today, I don’t want to see this rock ever again. Every time you chip off a piece, I’ll give you one of these bills. Who wants to go first?’

“Of course, your father didn’t know what the shah was saying, so he couldn’t be first. But the first man brought the pick-axe down with all his might and chipped off a piece. ‘Here’s your money,’ the shah said. ‘Now you!’ He pointed at your father. Only then did your father understand what was going on. He slammed his pick-axe down so hard that a huge chunk of rock flew off. The shah smiled.

“‘Here, young man, I’m giving you two bills. Next!’

“And so it went. The rock was smashed to pieces, and those eleven men went home utterly broken and exhausted. But that night, everyone in the village knew that Reza Shah had tucked a wad of bills into your father’s pocket. And that Aga Akbar had then collapsed.

“There was a newspaper photographer, whose job it was to record the work on the railway. The shah pointed at your father, lying there on the ground. The moment he saw the shah point, your father grabbed his pick-axe and leapt to his feet.

“‘Put the pick-axe on your shoulder,’ the photographer instructed him. ‘Hold up one of those spikes. Right, that’s good. Now don’t move.’ But your father turned and angled himself slightly so that his biceps showed up better in the picture.

“The whole village was talking about it and laughing that night. Everyone in Saffron Village was proud of having a picture in the newspaper.

“Those eleven men became the richest men on Saffron Mountain. They built new houses out of stone, just like the houses in the city. Everyone wanted to give their daughters to those men. They married the most beautiful girls in the village.

“But we couldn’t find a girl, a suitable girl, for your father. Not then, at any rate. Life is like that, my boy, though it’s also full of surprises.”

“You know, Uncle, I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Reza Shah. The building of the railway has been heavily criticised. What do you think?”

“Listen, my boy, didn’t I just finish saying that I don’t know anything about politics? Don’t ask me. I’ve never been much of a one for reading newspapers, either, especially not back then. I only read my own books, or old books, poetry, history. I know nothing about criticism. What I do know is that Saffron Mountain is no ordinary mountain. It’s not simply a pile of rocks, it’s our country’s spiritual legacy. Our roots can be found in its boulders and crevices. And I’m not just referring to the cave, because there’s more on Saffron Mountain. The sacred well, for example. The mountain lives and breathes. Go into the cave and stand still. You’ll hear it. Kneel down by the sacred well and listen. You’ll hear Saffron Mountain’s heart beating. And to think they suddenly started blasting our mountain with dynamite and pounding it with English pick-axes.”

“Why did you send my father off to work there?”

“I didn’t. I simply explained what was happening. Besides, he never listened to what I said. He always did whatever the other boys his age were doing.

“Looking back on it, though, I see that things have worked out all right. I was afraid that the mountain wouldn’t survive. Now, after so many years, I can see that the mountain has recovered. Bushes and flowers have sprung up on the slopes and covered up the scars. Mountain goats graze between the rails and the baby goats leap from one railway sleeper to another. The mountain has accepted the railway and assimilated it. You can hardly see the traces.

“The train will be here soon. It doesn’t make much noise, and that’s good. Our ancient Saffron Mountain has acquired something new, something modern. A train with little red cars that chug up the mountain. Life is like that, my boy. That’s just the way things are.”

A Wife

We suspect that Aga Akbar wrote

about his friends in this section.

And about his wife.

All the birds had started making their nests, all except Aga Akbar. He had no mate. No wife.

By then the other strong men, who had also built stone houses, already had children. Aga Akbar’s house, however, was still empty.

In those days he came into frequent contact with prostitutes. That was because of his work: he called on customers and mended their carpets.

Back when Aga Akbar was twelve, Kazem Khan had taken him to see an old friend in another village. Uwsa Gholam had a small business up in the mountains. He made natural dyes out of the roots and flowers of plants that grew on Saffron Mountain. People came to him from all over the country to match the original colours in their carpets.

In fact, Uwsa Gholam made a living out of mending carpets. Old and expensive carpets were always getting damaged. If the hole or tear wasn’t mended, the rest of the weave would gradually come unravelled, too. Not everyone, though, can mend a carpet. In unskilled hands, a mend will forever be a fresh wound in the old weave. Uwsa Gholam was one of the best carpet-menders in the country, but he was getting old. His eyes weren’t as good as they used to be. He could no longer do his work.

Kazem Khan knew that Aga Akbar would make a poor farmer. He wasn’t suited to a life of ploughing fields or tending sheep. He needed to do work that required him to use both his hands and his head. That’s why Kazem Khan had brought him to Uwsa Gholam.

“Salaam aleikum, Uwsa! Here’s the boy I’ve been telling you about. Akbar, shake Uwsa’s hand.”

The old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a single purple thread from an old carpet. “Akbar, go find some flowers that match the colour of this thread!”

This is how Aga Akbar got started in his career, in the work that he continued to do until the day he died.

For three years he went to Uwsa’s early every morning and rode home again at dusk. Then Uwsa died, but by that time Akbar had learned enough to mend carpets and produce natural dyes on his own.

Though no one could take Uwsa’s place, Akbar had already made a name for himself in the region. The villagers liked him. They trusted him and would rather have him than a stranger in their homes. And so he rode his horse from one village to another. It was during this period that he came into contact with prostitutes.

• • •

Kazem Khan was very choosy when it came to finding a wife for Aga Akbar. He didn’t want a woman with only one eye, or a farm girl who wove carpets. No, he wanted a strong woman with a good head on her shoulders, a woman who could organise things, a woman who understood the man whose children she would bear.

“No, not just any woman,” he used to say. “I’ll wait, I want him to have just the right one. He can hold out for a few more years. It won’t kill him.”

But the other men in the family said to him, “You shouldn’t compare him to yourself, Kazem Khan. You have women all over Saffron Mountain, but that boy doesn’t. If you don’t let him marry, he’s bound to go astray.”

“He can get married tomorrow if he likes, but not to a woman who’s deaf, lame or blind.”

Unfortunately, there were no strong, healthy, intelligent women on Saffron Mountain who would agree to marry Akbar.

So he turned to prostitutes for warmth and they provided it willingly. “Hello, Aga Akbar, come in. Take a look at my carpet. Do you think you can mend it? Come sit by me. You’re tired, your arms ache, your back aches. Here, have a cup of tea. There’s no need to stare, I’ll come sit beside you. Let me hold your hand. Now doesn’t that feel nice?”

If you want to hear the story of Aga Akbar’s relationships with prostitutes, you should ask his childhood friend Sayyid Shoja.

Shoja was blind. He’d been blind from birth, yet he was famous for his keen sense of hearing — he could hear as well as a dog. He had a sharp tongue, which he didn’t hesitate to use. The men tried to stay out of his way, since they knew he heard everything they said.

Sayyid Shoja knew all of the prostitutes on Saffron Mountain and called them by their first names. He also knew which men went to see them. He recognised them instantly by their footsteps. “Hey, little man, you’re tiptoeing past. Are you trying to avoid me? What for? Have you been doing naughty things again with that poker in your trousers? Come on, shake my hand, say hello, you don’t need to be afraid. Your secret is safe with me.”

As evening fell, he used to sit by the side of the road and lean against the old tree. The girls came back from the spring with their jugs of water, and he always recognised the footsteps of the girl he loved. “Salaam aleikum, my little moon. Let me carry your bucket for you.”

The girls laughed at him and he teased them.

“You there,” he’d say. “Yes, you with the big butt. Don’t sit on the ground, you’ll leave a hole in the dirt!”

He didn’t have any money, but he didn’t need any, because Aga Akbar paid his bills.

The men who didn’t like him and feared his sharp tongue sometimes chided him: “You’re a leech, Shoja, sucking Akbar dry.”

The sayyid was too high-minded to worry about such unimportant things.

There was another man who shared his secrets with Akbar and Shoja: Jafar the Spider.

Jafar was crippled. He couldn’t walk or stand upright. He was skinny and had a tiny head. The way he scuttled over the ground with his muscular arms and legs made you think of a spider. Yet he owed his nickname not so much to his spidery crawl, but to the fact that he climbed trees like a real spider. People would see him in places a normal person couldn’t go. Suddenly he’d be hanging from a branch or crawling up the dome of a mosque. One of his favourite pastimes was peeking through the window of the bathhouse and spying on the naked women.

Jafar saw what the blind Shoja couldn’t see.

And since Jafar was Shoja’s friend, he was Aga Akbar’s friend, too. They formed a tight-knit threesome, and they could do many things together that they were unable to do alone.

They even went to the prostitutes together. That was the agreement. Jafar would crawl onto the back of the blind Shoja, who would then take hold of Aga Akbar’s arm, and in this way the three of them would make their way up Saffron Mountain.

They needed Jafar because he was the expert. They never went straight into the prostitute’s house. They let Jafar check it out first. He was the one who had to give the OK. Jafar would point his finger at Akbar and say, “Never go in there without me! You might catch a disease! Then you won’t be able to pee, and it’ll hurt like hell!”

That’s how they did things and it had always gone well.

Then, one night, Jafar climbed up on the roof of the outhouse and heard a strange noise. He put his ear to the hole, so he could hear better. He knew instantly what Aga Akbar’s problem was. He hurried back to Sayyid Shoja. “Shoja,” he said, “help me!”

“What’s wrong? How can I help you?”

“That idiot’s sitting in the outhouse, crying his eyes out.”

“What? Who’s crying?”

“Akbar. He can’t pee.”

The two of them went over and stood by the outhouse door.

“You hear that? He’s crying.”

“I’ll be damned, he is. But maybe he’s crying about something else.”

“Of course not. You don’t go to an outhouse to cry about something else.”

“Give me a minute to think about it.”

“There’s nothing to think about, man. It’s clear as a bell. We have to look at Akbar’s thingy. Then we’ll know for sure. We’ve got to nab him as soon as he comes out.”

They hid behind a wall and waited for Akbar.

He came out and Jafar beckoned to him.

Though it was dark, Akbar knew immediately what his friends were up to. His first impulse was to flee, but Jafar was too quick, hurling himself in front of Akbar and grabbing his foot so that he tripped and fell. Shoja rushed over and pinned him to the ground. “Don’t run away, asshole! Come with us.”

They dragged him into the barn.

“Hold him!” Jafar yelled.

He shimmied up a pole and lit an oil lamp.

Then he pulled down Akbar’s trousers and inspected his penis. “Let the bastard go. He’s sick.”

Early the next morning they went to the city in search of a doctor.

Several months later, after Aga Akbar had been cured, Shoja and Jafar had a little talk. Akbar was gradually distancing himself from them and they knew why. As true friends, they felt obliged to inform his uncle. So, one evening, Jafar picked up a lantern and climbed up on Shoja’s back.

They went to Kazem Khan’s house.

“Good evening,” Shoja said. “May we come in?”

“Of course, Sayyid Shoja. You two are always welcome. Have a seat. Can I get you some tea?”

“No, thanks. We don’t want to be here when Akbar gets home. We’ve come here to tell you something. We’re Akbar’s best friends, but some secrets need to be brought out into the open. We’ve come here to say that we’re worried about him.”

“Why?”

“You know that the three of us go out together sometimes. Strange things happen every once in a while, though it usually turns out all right. But this time it’s different. This time Akbar has gone too far.”

“What do you mean, ‘too far’? What’s he done now?”

“I may be blind, but I do have two good ears. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with Jafar’s sight. Maybe I better let Jafar tell you what he’s seen.”

“Tell me, Jafar. What have you seen?”

“How shall I put it? It’s like this: Akbar goes out sometimes … well, almost every night, to sleep with a prostitute. I–I-I think he’s in love with her. That isn’t necessarily bad. She’s … well, she’s young and … very friendly. I get the impression that she’s fond of Akbar.

“But we think he’s gone too far this time. Right, Shoja? Anyway, that’s what we wanted to tell you. There’s nothing wrong with the woman. She’s young and healthy. But we thought you ought to know. Right, Shoja?”

“Right,” Shoja said. “Well, that’s it. Come on, let’s go before Akbar gets home.”

Kazem Khan knew that he had to do something for Akbar and that there wasn’t much time. If he didn’t act soon, no one would want their daughter to marry Akbar.

He had to admit that he’d failed to find the ideal wife for his nephew. So he turned the job over to the old women in the family.

The women rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Before long, however, their enthusiasm dwindled. None of the prospects they came up with fitted into the family. One had a father who was a beggar, another had brothers who were thieves, the third had no breasts, the fourth was so shy she didn’t dare show herself.

No, the women of the family weren’t able to find a wife for Aga Akbar, either.

Only one more door was open to them. The door to the house of Zeinab Khatun, Saffron Mountain’s aging matchmaker. She always had a ready supply of brides.

Zeinab would be sure to find a good one for Akbar, because she was an opium addict. The women in the family merely had to take her a roll of Kazem Khan’s yellow opium and she would arrange the whole thing.

Zeinab lived outside the village, in a house at the foot of the mountain. Her customers were usually single men in search of a wife. “Zeinab Khatun, have you got a girl for me? A virtuous woman who can bear me healthy children?”

“No, I don’t have a girl — or a woman — for you, virtuous or otherwise. I know you — you’re a wife-beater. I still haven’t forgotten the last one. Get out of here, go ask your mother to find you a wife.”

“Why don’t we step inside? I’ve brought you half a roll of yellow opium. Now what do you have to say?”

“Come right in. You need to smile more often and remember to shave. With that stubble of yours and those awful yellow teeth, I’ll never be able to find you a wife.”

Sometimes an elderly mother knocked on her door. “I’m old now, Zeinab Khatun, and I don’t have any grandchildren. Do something for my son. I’ll give you a pretty chador, a real one from Mecca.”

“People promise me all kinds of things, but as soon as their sons have a wife, they disappear. Bring me the chador first. In the meantime, I’ll think it over. It won’t be easy, you know. Few women want to marry a man who drools. But I’ll find someone for your son. If I die tonight, I’d hate to be carried to my grave in my old, worn-out chador. So go and get it. I’ll wait.”

The men of the family were opposed to the plan. But the women stuck a roll of opium into the bag of an elderly aunt, put on their chadors and went to Zeinab’s house.

The men thought it was beneath the family’s dignity to ask the matchmaker for a bride. Of course, they wanted Akbar to have a wife. But what they really wanted for him was a son. An Ishmael who would bear Akbar’s burden.

Since they didn’t want the child’s mother to be a prostitute, they resigned themselves to letting the women use a matchmaker.

Giggling, the women knocked on Zeinab’s door.

“Welcome! Please sit down.”

While they were still in the hall, the elderly aunt awkwardly pressed the opium into Zeinab’s hands. “I don’t know the first thing about this,” she said. “It’s from Kazem Khan.”

She was impatient. “I won’t beat around the bush, Zeinab Khatun. We’re looking for a good girl, a sensible woman, for our Akbar. That’s all there is to it. Do you have one for us or not?”

The women laughed. They got a kick out of the elderly aunt.

“Do I have one?” said the experienced Zeinab Khatun. “I’ll find one for you, even if I have to scour this entire mountain. If I can’t find a bride for Aga Akbar, who can I find one for? Sit down. Let’s drink some tea first.”

She brought in a tray with glasses and a teapot. “Let me think. A good girl, a sensible woman. Yes, I know of one. She’s very pretty, but—”

Auntie cut her off. “No buts! I don’t want half a woman for my nephew. I want a whole one, with all her working parts in order.”

“Allah, Allah, why don’t you let me finish? God will be angry to hear us talking about one of His creations with such disrespect. The woman I’m referring to is beautiful and in perfect health. It’s just that one leg is shorter than the other.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter, as long as she can walk,” the women said.

“Walk? Can she walk? She leaps like a gazelle. But all right, I can’t ask God why He made one leg shorter than the other. He must have had His reasons. Still, I have another woman, but she’s slightly deaf.”

“No, we don’t want a deaf woman for Akbar,” said the elderly aunt.

“She’s not deaf, just a little hard of hearing. She’s good and she’s also beautiful, trust me. Come to think of it, this one’s even better than the other one. Aga Akbar needs a wife who can walk, who can stand firmly on her own two feet. It doesn’t matter if she’s deaf. Aga Akbar won’t be talking to her anyway.”

“No, Akbar won’t, but their children will.”

“Good heavens, what am I hearing tonight! How can you say such things when you have a deaf-mute in your home? God will be angry. All right, I have another woman. She has a beautiful face, beautiful arms, a neck the colour of milk, a broad pelvis and firm buttocks. Take this woman. God will be pleased with your choice.”

The next day the women went to admire Aga Akbar’s future bride. She lived in another village on Saffron Mountain. It was a short visit. Zeinab Khatun was right — the girl was beautiful. But she looked a bit ill.

“A bit ill?” said the matchmaker. “Maybe she had a slight cold. Or maybe it’s that time of the month, you know what I mean, don’t you, ladies? Don’t worry, s he’ll be as right as rain by the time the wedding rolls around.”

She dazzled them with her words and sent them home happy.

A week later, as twilight fell, the men escorted the bridegroom from the village bathhouse to his home.

Aga Akbar looked strong and healthy in his suit. The blind Sayyid Shoja was his best man. He sat on a horse with Jafar the Spider in front of him, holding the reins. They climbed the hill to the house, where the women were to bring the bride and seven mules.

Everyone stood around outside, waiting and watching for the procession.

Before long, seven mules came into sight. The women let out cries of joy and a group of local musicians began to play. Aga Akbar helped his bride to dismount. He offered her his arm and escorted her, as tradition dictated, to the courtyard. Then he shut the door.

The only person who knows exactly what took place behind those closed doors was the old woman who was hiding in the bridal chamber so she could later testify that the marriage had been consummated.

As soon as the groom disappeared with his bride, the guests left. The old men sat around Kazem Khan’s and smoked until the old woman came and announced, “It’s over. He did it!”

The men all shouted in chorus, “Allahom salla ’ala Mohammad wa ahl-e Mohammad [Peace be upon Muhammad and all of his descendants].”

Since Ishmael was Aga Akbar’s son, he was allowed to hear the story in greater detail. By then, several older family members, including Kazem Khan, had died. On one of his visits to Saffron Mountain, his elderly aunt invited him in.

How old had he been? Fifteen? Sixteen? At that time, he’d been making frequent visits to his father’s village. He’d spent the entire summer there, in his family’s summerhouse. He wanted to know more about his father’s past.

“Ishmael, my boy,” his elderly aunt said as he stepped into the hall, “give me your hand. Come in, my boy.”

She squeezed his hand and stared at him with unseeing eyes, as she expressed her admiration for her nephew’s son by uttering God’s words, “Fa tabaraka Allah al-husn al-khaleqan [And God was pleased with the beauty of the one he had created].” (According to the Holy Book, God fell in love with his own creation.)

Ishmael was not just a son, but the son the whole family had been waiting for. They’d prayed that he would be big and healthy enough for his father to lean on. He’d been a godsend, exactly what everyone had been hoping for. Surely it had been Allah’s will.

Auntie took Ishmael into the courtyard.

“Before I die, I have something to tell you about your father’s wedding. Come, let’s and go and sit over there. I’ve spread out a carpet in the shade of the old walnut tree.”

She leaned back against the trunk and said, “What happened is this, my boy. I stuck a roll of yellow opium in my bag and went off to the matchmaker’s with the other women to find a wife for your father. That was wrong. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?”

“We failed to carry out the job properly, which is why we were punished by God.”

“Punished! Why?”

“Because we forgot that God was watching over your father. We insisted that he get married. We were behaving as if we didn’t believe in God, as if we didn’t trust Him, as if He had forsaken your father. And we were punished for that reason.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“The women escorted the bride and her seven mules from the village of Saruq to your father’s house. I placed her hand in your father’s hand and led them to the bedroom. I was the woman who was hiding behind the curtains.”

“Hiding behind the curtains?”

“It was the custom back then. I was supposed to watch in secret and see if everything went all right. To see if the woman … Oh, never mind, my boy. If only someone else had stood behind those curtains instead of me!

“I listened and sensed that something was wrong. Though I didn’t know what the problem was, I had the feeling that God was somehow displeased.

“Your father went to bed with his bride. He was strong, he had such broad shoulders. I could hear him, but not her. No movement, no words, not even a sigh, a moan, a cry of pain, nothing, absolutely nothing.

“But the marriage had been consummated, so I tiptoed out and went over to the other house, where I signalled to Kazem Khan that the celebration could begin.

“Everyone cheered, everyone smoked and ate, and we celebrated for seven days. But we knew that God was displeased with us. And that was my fault.

“I was the oldest, I should have known better. I should have kept my eyes open and bided my time. I should have told everyone not to be in such a hurry.”

“How come?”

“I was worried. I don’t know why. I hadn’t seen any sign of the bride. After all, she’s supposed to show herself. To stand by the window or smile or open the curtains. But no, she didn’t do a thing.”

“Why are you telling me all of this? Are you talking about my mother?”

“No, my boy. Let me finish. On the seventh night, your father went to bed with his bride as usual. I was asleep in another room, since I was supposed to stay near them for the first seven nights. In the middle of the night, I heard loud footsteps. Your father burst into the room. It was dark, so I couldn’t see his face. He uttered a few choked sounds. I didn’t know what he was trying to say, but I knew it was serious. I got out of bed and led your father into the courtyard, into the moonlight. What’s happening? ‘Cold,’ he gestured. ‘The bride is cold.’ I raced into the bedroom and held up the oil lamp so I could see her face. She was as cold as marble, my boy. She was dead.”

“Really?” Ishmael said in surprise. “So my mother wasn’t Father’s first wife?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this?”

“I’m telling you now, my boy. There was no point in telling you before.”

Years later, Ishmael came home one night from Tehran and said to his father, “Come! I want to show you something.” He took a picture of a young woman out of his bag and handed it to Aga Akbar.

“Who is she?” his father signed.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Ishmael said, “but I might marry her some day.”

Aga Akbar studied the picture. He smiled and gestured: “Very pretty. But be careful! Check her out. Listen to her lungs. Make sure they’re working all right, make sure she breathes properly. I, I can’t hear, but you can, you have good ears. Healthy lungs are important.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve listened. She has healthy lungs.”

“And her chest? Does she have pain in her chest?”

“No, her chest is fine, there’s no pain.”

“Her arms?”

“Fine.”

His father smiled. “Check out her stomach, too.”

That evening was the first time Aga Akbar had ever talked to Ishmael about his first wife. He told him that the bride had had aches and pains all over. She’d had some kind of disease in her chest, in her lungs. He still didn’t know exactly what. “A woman’s breasts should feel warm, my boy, not cold. No, they should never feel cold.”

The Well

Persians are always waiting for someone.

In Persian songs, they sing about the Messiah,

the one who will come and set them free.

They wait in their poetry. They wait in their stories.

But in this chapter, the one they wait for is in a well.

If you face the cave, you can see Saffron Mountain’s peak to the right and a long range of brownish-yellow mountains to the left. There’s also an odd-looking spot that immediately catches your eye. Particularly if this is the first time you’ve climbed Saffron Mountain, you’ll notice it the moment you look in that direction.

It’s almost impossible to reach this spot. If you’re standing beneath it, the sun is so bright that all you can see is a craggy rock face. Rain, snow and frost have given it a miraculous shape. “Miraculous” and “sacred” are the words you automatically associate with this spot. At the bottom of this mysterious rock face is a natural well, a deep depression probably created by an erupting volcano.

This well is of special significance to Muslims.

For centuries, Shiite Muslims have been waiting for a Messiah, for the Mahdi, since he is a naji, a liberator. On this point, the Shiites differ greatly from the Sunnis. The Shiites believe that the Prophet Muhammad was followed by twelve imams. The twelfth successor — and, according to the Shiites, the last of the pure ones — was called Mahdi. To be precise, he was called Mahdi ibn Hassan Askari.

Mahdi was the son of Hassan, and Hassan was the son of Hadi, and Hadi the son of Taqi, Taqi the son of Reza, Reza the son of Kazem, Kazem the son of Sadeq, Sadeq the son of Baqir, Baqir the son of Zayn al-’Abidin, Zayn al-’Abidin the son of Hussein, Hussein the brother of Hassan, and Hassan the son of Ali. And Ali was the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad.

Fourteen centuries ago, Muhammad called his followers together after a great victory. According to tradition, Muhammad stood on a camel, lifted his son-in-law Ali by the belt and cried, “Whoever loves me, must also love Ali. Ali is my soul, my spirit and my successor.”

The Sunnis think the Persians made this story up. That’s why the Persians and the Arabs are always squabbling and why there’s constant war and bloodshed.

Ali himself was killed with a sword while praying in the mosque.

His son and successor Hassan was kept under house arrest for the rest of his life. Hussein, the third successor, was beheaded. His head was stuck on a pole and displayed on the town gate. Zayn al-’Abidin, the fourth successor, lived a life of seclusion. Baqir recorded large numbers of traditions. Sadeq had his freedom severely curtailed: he wasn’t allowed to show himself in public during the day, or to walk past a mosque. Kazem died in prison. Reza was poisoned by purple grapes. His grave has become one of the holiest places in Iran.

Little is known about Hassan, the eleventh successor. But Mahdi, the twelfth and last successor, escaped an attempt on his life and sought refuge in Persia.

Since then Mahdi has occupied a special place in the hearts, as well as in the literature and religion, of the Persians.

The following story cannot be found in the Holy Book, or in any other book, and yet the villagers on Saffron Mountain believe it and tell it to their children:

The night the Arabs tried to kill Mahdi, he fled to our country, where the majority of his followers lived.

He sought refuge in the east, which is where we live.

He climbed up our mountain — first on horseback, then on a mule and finally on foot — until he reached the cave. There he spent several nights.

If you take an oil lamp and go into the cave, all the way to the very back, you will still see, even today, the ashes of his fire.

Mahdi wanted to stay in the cave even longer, but the Arabs fol lowing him had managed to track him down.

So he climbed even higher, until he reached that miraculous rock face. There he realised that he was going to be Muhammad’s last successor and that he had to hide in the well and wait until he was called.

Many centuries have gone by since then. He’s still waiting in the well. In the well of Mahdi ibn Hassan Askari.

Thus it became a sacred place.

Every year thousands of pilgrims climbed up Saffron Mountain. They rode mules halfway up the mountain, to about 8,000 feet. There they spread their carpets out on the rocks and sat down, drank some tea, cooked some food and talked until deep into the night. The moment the moon went down behind the mountain peak, they all fell silent. In that great silence, they stared at the sacred well until a wondrous light struck the rock face, a light that seemed to come from a lamp inside the well. It shone briefly, then disappeared. The watching pilgrims all knelt in prayer.

The pilgrims believed the story and told each other that the light was the reflection of the oil lamp by which Mahdi read his book.

Yes, the Messiah sat in the well, reading and waiting for the day when he would be allowed to leave.

The well itself was inaccessible to ordinary mortals. It was also off-limits to foreigners, especially those who wanted to climb up to it with ropes and spikes.

Some of the villagers were able to reach it by jumping from ledge to ledge on the narrow mountain paths like nimble-footed mountain goats. Only a handful of the men in Saffron Village had ever accomplished this feat. Aga Akbar was one of them.

When Aga Akbar was little, his mother often talked about Mahdi.

“Does he really live in the well?” he asked her.

“Yes, he really does. God is in the sky and the holy man is in the well.”

“Have you seen him in there?”

“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 onto 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 he 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.

In one of those stores there was a well-known carpet-mender named Behzad ibn Shamsololama. He had pure magic in his fingers. He also happened to be the man waiting for Aga Akbar at the station in Isfahan.

After twenty-three hours the train finally reached its destination.

Aga Akbar got out.

“When you get off the train,” his uncle had told him, “don’t go anywhere. Wait right there until an old man with glasses and a cane comes to get you.”

And that’s what must have happened, because years later a black-and-white photograph of a bespectacled man with a cane stood on the mantel in Aga Akbar’s living room. If you examined the picture closely, you could see faint traces of the word “Isfahan” on the wall behind him.

Aga Akbar lived in Isfahan for a year and a half. He worked from sunrise to sunset in the workshop at the rear of the store. When the store closed, he went to his sleeping place on the roof.

Isfahan made a lasting impression on him. In the years that followed he never missed an opportunity to broach the subject. If he happened to see an Isfahan carpet, he would say, “Look, this carpet comes from Isfahan. Have you ever been there?”

Or he would talk about the mosques. He would point up at the sky to describe the blue tiles of the Sheikh Lotfallah Mosque. A dome located defiantly opposite the dome of the universe.

To express his admiration for the ancient Jomah Mosque, he would pick up a brick, then drop it. This was his way of saying that the tiles used in the mosque had come from heaven.

When he talked about the bazaar, he would put his hand over his mouth and look around in astonishment. What he meant was that the magic carpets unfurled by the shopkeepers made your jaw drop in amazement.

But how could he explain Isfahan in his simple sign language? Nobody understood what he was trying to say. He needed a son, an Ishmael, to turn his words into a language people could understand.

“What else did you do in Isfahan? I mean, in the evenings and on the Fridays you had off? Tell me what you did when you weren’t mending rugs.”

“On Fridays I went to the mosque to pray. There were lots of people.”

“And afterwards?”

“I stayed there until it got dark.”

“And then?”

“And then I went up to the roof to look at the sky.”

“What else did you do?”

“When?”

“On the other nights? What did you do on the other nights?”

“I looked.”

“What do you mean? Did you spend every evening on the roof looking at the sky?”

“You see, here in my chest, on the left side, I felt something. I don’t know what, a kind of pain. No, not a pain. Something else. A feeling … how can I explain it? I wanted to go home.”

And at last he was allowed to go home.

“I got sick. I couldn’t mend carpets anymore. My head hurt. I used the wrong threads. Green instead of blue. That was bad. I went to the old man, laid my forehead on the back of his hand and wept.”

The old man brought Akbar to the station and sent him home. After a long trip the train stopped in the middle of the night at the station on Saffron Mountain. The conductor tapped Akbar’s shoulder to let him know he’d reached his stop. He got out and climbed up the mountain to begin a new life.

He started to go home, then suddenly took another path. After an hour of walking up steep mountains and down into deep valleys, he arrived at the house of the prostitute.

He knocked on her door. She didn’t open it. She was afraid it might be a drunk. He knocked again. Still she wouldn’t open the door. He called to her, “Aayaa yayayaya aaayaya ya ya aya aya ya.”

“Is that you, Akbar?” she called from above. She opened the door, threw her arms around him and led him inside. He spent the night with her and all of the next day. Only when evening came did he finally go home.

The next morning Aga Akbar stood in the town square and talked to the men about Isfahan. They stared at his fingers. The dyes that had discoloured his fingertips were very different from the ones they used. Isfahan’s blue had taken on the colour of its sky, its yellow had been borrowed from its ancient stones and its green was not at all like the grassy green of Saffron Mountain. Everyone realised that Akbar had learned new techniques, that he’d picked up Isfahan’s styles.

Later he applied these techniques to his business. People now welcomed him into their homes more than ever.

Had an ember fallen on your rug? No problem, Aga Akbar will mend it, he’ll work his magic and make the hole disappear. Had a rat gnawed its way through the bride’s dowry carpet? Don’t worry, don’t cry, we’ll go and get Aga Akbar!

People received him in their homes as if he were an aristocrat. He behaved like a true craftsman, a man who was proud of his work. He never went anywhere without his leather satchel, the one he’d brought with him from Isfahan. He rode with it slung over his shoulder. When he went into someone’s house, he tucked it under his arm, exactly as old Shamsololama had always done, threw back his shoulders and gestured, “Where’s the carpet?”

One time Ishmael asked Kazem Khan, “Why did you make my father learn that particular craft?”

“You see, my boy, carpet-weaving wasn’t actually a suitable occupation for us. Even the women in our household didn’t weave. It was the kind of thing that ordinary villagers did, farmers who had nothing else to do on long winter nights. I thought it would be the right job for him, but I soon realised it would make him miserable. He had to be free, he had to be able to get away. He wasn’t the kind of man who could spend years working on a single rug. He needed a job that could be done in a few hours, so that he could just get up and leave. That’s how I hit upon the idea of having him become a carpet-mender. It’s not boring work. In fact, it’s quite interesting. You have to use your head. You have to be an artist. Do you know what I mean? And I knew that your father had an artistic mind.”

“An artistic mind?”

“Yes, that of an artist, or a designer, or a … How can I explain it? People didn’t think in such terms in those days. You were supposed to work, weave, mow, plough, earn a living. What would you have done if you’d been in my position? Carpet-mending, my boy, that was the best kind of work he could do. There’s always a damaged carpet somewhere. He got to travel all over the place. It allowed him to earn a living and to express himself as an artist: to weave, dye, embellish and design. He could work his thoughts into the carpet.

“Your father was an illiterate, deaf-mute poet. I’ve told you that before. He needed to channel his thoughts into something, whether it was a cuneiform notebook or a hole in a carpet.”

• • •

And so, with his notebook in his pocket and his satchel on his back, Akbar rode from one village to another.

No one knew when he wrote in his notebook, or what he wrote about. He and his notebook were inseparable. It had become part of him, like his heart, which went on beating though no one paid any attention to that, either. Only Ishmael knew when his father was writing in his notebook. He knew that his father needed to write about the things he didn’t understand or wasn’t able to explain in sign language. Inaccessible, incomprehensible, intangible things that suddenly struck him and caused him to stare helplessly, or to stand transfixed, or to sit down and ponder. Death, for example, or the moon, or the rain, or the sacred well, or love, that indescribable process going on in your heart. Or else incidents that had marked him for life. One of these incidents had taken place when he rode into the village of Sawoj-Bolagh.

Aga Akbar often told the story to Ishmael, who had a vague idea of what it was about. But he still couldn’t figure out exactly what had happened.

One time, when he was about ten or twelve, his father took him along on one of his walks.

“Where are we going?”

“Hurry up,” his father signed. “A friend of mine lives up there. He can tell you the story. He knows all about it.”

“Which story?”

“The story about my military service. You know the one I mean. Hurry up, the faster you walk the sooner we’ll get there.”

To tell you the truth, Ishmael didn’t really want to climb the mountain. After an hour and a half, they reached a village, but Akbar kept going. Darkness was falling and the villagers were starting to light their lanterns.

“Now where are we going?” Ishmael moaned.

“Hurry up. We’re going to that farm. Can you see it? Over there, where that light is.”

Akbar hadn’t realised that the climb might be too difficult for Ishmael. That a city boy might not be as good a hiker as a village boy.

“Hurry up! We’re nearly there!”

After walking uphill for another half an hour, they finally reached the farm, which was guarded by a big, black, barking dog.

A farmer came to meet them with an oil lamp in his hand.

“Who’s there?”

Aga Akbar began shouting in his deaf-mute voice: “Aka, Aka, Akba, Akba, Is, Isma, Isma.”

“Is that you, Akbar? Salaam aleikum! Hello, young man, what’s your name? Come this way. Stop barking, dog, shoo! Come in.”

The dog disappeared into the darkness. They went inside.

“So, you’re Aga Akbar’s son, Ishmael. Allah, Allah, that’s good. I knew Aga Akbar had a son, but I didn’t know he had such a bright, decent-looking boy. It’s an honour to welcome you to my humble farm. Come on in, my boy. Yes, this is a real honour.”

He called to his wife, “Where are you? Come and look who’s here!”

The farmer’s wife came in. She looked in surprise at Aga Akbar, who had thrown his arm around Ishmael’s shoulder.

“So, that’s your son?” she signed. “Allah, Allah, who could have imagined that Aga Akbar would have such a fine son?”

She planted a kiss on Ishmael’s forehead.

“Welcome, my boy. We never had children, so you’re like a son. Welcome to our humble abode. Make yourself at home. We’re friends of your father. Go on into the living room and sit down on that rug over there.”

A while later the farmer’s wife came in with a big brass tray of food on her head.

They ate and talked about the past. Ishmael didn’t need to interpret, since the three adults all understood each other. Then it was time for Ishmael to ask the farmer about his father’s story.

“Haven’t you heard that one before, my boy? Oh, of course not, how could you if I never told it to you?”

Aga Akbar kept his eyes on the farmer’s mouth and followed every word of the story, as if he could actually hear it being told. “Do you know who Reza Khan is?” the farmer began. “Reza Shah? Have you ever heard of him? Or read anything about him?”

“Of course. There’s a picture of him in our schoolbook. A man in a military tunic with a field marshal’s baton under his arm.”

“That’s the one! Allah, today’s children. They know everything! Yes, he was the father of our present shah. Before Reza Khan, we didn’t have compulsory military service. When he became shah, he ordered all young men to serve in the military for two years. But we didn’t want to go. Who would work the soil and plough the fields and mow the hay? After two years, we wouldn’t have a farm to come home to. So, whenever we saw a gendarme, we ran and hid on a roof or in a haystack.

“Sometimes, though, dozens of gendarmes swept down on the village and seized all the young men.

“Can you believe that, my boy? They just grabbed you, pushed you into a truck and took you away. And two years went by before you saw your family again. He was hard as nails, that Reza Shah.”

“Did you get picked up by the gendarmes?”

“Yes, they found me and beat me up. One day a truck pulled into the village and gendarmes hopped out. The young men made a run for it, scattering in all directions. They hid up on the roofs, down in the wells, up in the trees, you name it. Soon there wasn’t a single young man to be seen in the entire village. The gendarmes started shooting in the air. Just then your father rode into the town square on his horse, on his way to a customer.”

“Where were you? I thought you said you were hiding.”

“Clever boy! You’re a good listener. I was lying on the roof of the mosque and watching the whole thing from there.”

Aga Akbar laughed.

“Do you remember?” the farmer signed to him. “Akbar, do you remember when the gendarmes starting shooting in the air and … no, of course not, you couldn’t hear the shots.”

“No, I didn’t hear the shots,” Aga Akbar signed to Ishmael.

“Anyway, he rode into the square, sitting straight and tall in the saddle. Then he noticed a couple of gendarmes with rifles. He stopped and looked at them for a moment, then calmly rode on. ‘Stop!’ yelled one of the gendarmes. But Akbar didn’t hear him. ‘Stop, I said!’ There was no one in the square to tell the gendarme that Aga Akbar was a deaf-mute. ‘Stop!’ the gendarme yelled for the third time. ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot.’ Allah, what a moment. I lay on the roof and watched.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, I had a tough decision to make. Actually, it wasn’t all that tough. All I had to do was stand up and say, ‘Stop! Don’t shoot.’”

“And did you?”

“Of course I did. I stood up then and there, put my hands in the air and shouted, ‘He’s deaf! Don’t shoot, he’s deaf!’”

“And then?”

“The gendarme pointed his gun at me and yelled, ‘Get down here!’”

“And my father?”

“He hadn’t heard a thing. He didn’t realise what was happening, so he just went on.”

“Now the gendarme was after me. ‘Jump!’ he yelled. And I had to jump down from that high roof. Did you happen to notice the mosque in our town square?”

“No, we didn’t come through your village.”

“Well, it has a high roof. I jumped from it. The heel of my right foot still acts up from time to time. Anyway, the gendarmes tied my hands together with a rope and shoved me into the truck. Then they went after your father. They didn’t believe he was a deaf-mute.”

“Why not?”

“They just didn’t. Your father was sitting up so straight and tall in the saddle and riding with such self-confidence that they had a hard time believing he couldn’t hear or talk.”

“And so they arrested him?”

“Yes. They grabbed the horse’s reins and beat your father up. Then they tied his hands behind his back and threw him into the truck next to me. And that’s how I wound up spending two years in the military.”

“And my father?”

“It’s a long story. Let’s have some tea first.”

The farmer’s wife came in with a cup of tea for Aga Akbar and her husband, and some hot cinnamon rolls for Ishmael.

“Haven’t you heard this story before?” she asked.

“Not really. My father’s tried to tell it to me many times, but I had no idea it went like this.”

“I must have heard it a hundred times. Your father used to visit us often, and the moment those two men sat down, they started in again on the gendarmes and the military service.”

The farmer drank his tea and continued his story.

“I swore up and down that Akbar was a deaf-mute. But the gendarmes wouldn’t listen. They took us to the army barracks in the city. The thing was, all kinds of people were trying to avoid the draft by pretending to be deaf and dumb, or blind. Some of the draftees even chopped off their forefingers so they couldn’t shoot a rifle. The gendarmes thought your father was faking it, so they locked him up.”

“In a prison cell?”

“Yes.”

“What’d my father do?”

“I don’t know. He probably didn’t have the faintest idea what was happening.”

“Why not? He must have been able to work it out. Didn’t he know what military service was?”

“I don’t think so. I wasn’t really sure myself. The whole idea scared me, it scared us all. The girls in the village wept when we left. They thought we’d never come back.”

“Why’d they put him in a cell?”

“They always locked up the men pretending to be deafmutes. They didn’t give them anything to eat or drink. After a while the men opened their mouths and begged, ‘Water, water! Please, I’m thirsty! Can you hear me? I’m not a deafmute. Water, please!’

“I was afraid that Akbar would get dehydrated. I had to do something.”

“Couldn’t you have reported it to the general or one of the officers?” Ishmael asked.

“No, they wouldn’t talk to the likes of me. Besides, I wouldn’t have dared. I’d never lived anywhere but in our village. I’d never been to the city before. I’d never even seen an officer or a general.

“Then things went from bad to worse. They found a book, a strange little book, in the pocket of your father’s coat.”

“What kind of book?” Ishmael asked.

“How would I know? I didn’t even know your father had a book. Anyway, the gendarmes got together to discuss it: What is it? How did this man get hold of a book written in cuneiform?

“Things were looking bad. I was called into the office. The chief gendarme asked me, ‘Do you know anything about this book?’

“‘Me? No.’

“I looked at it. I didn’t know how to read, but I flipped through it and saw that it wasn’t an ordinary book. It was written in a funny kind of writing. Hundreds of little wedges and spikes that looked like they’d been drawn by a child.

“They brought your father into the office. He’d lost a lot of weight. He was nothing but skin and bones. ‘What’s this?’ they asked.

“‘It’s mine,’ he signed.

“‘How did you get hold of it?’

“Me, Akbar, I wrote it,’” he signed.

“‘You? You wrote this book?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘What did you write about?’

“‘The things in my head,’ he signed.

“The gendarmes didn’t understand him and they certainly didn’t believe him.”

“And you? Did you believe him?”

“I knew your father, but I didn’t always understand him, either. To be honest, I had my doubts. I was afraid he’d stolen the book from one of those foreigners, one of those cuneiform experts.

“‘My uncle,’ Akbar suddenly gestured. ‘My uncle knows all about it. He told me to write down the things in my head.’

“‘Come with me,’ the gendarme gestured. ‘We’ll go and see the general!’

“So, they took us to see the general. The gendarme put the book on the general’s desk.

“‘A book? In cuneiform?’ the general exclaimed. ‘Where did you get this?’

“‘I found it in his pocket,’ the gendarme replied. ‘He claims he’s deaf and dumb.’

“Only God could help him now.

“‘Mine. It’s mine,’ Aga Akbar gestured. ‘Uncle. My uncle knows about it. I think, then I write in the book.’

“‘Do you know this man?’ the general asked me.

“‘Yes, he’s a friend, uh, I mean an acquaintance. He’s a craftsman, the best carpet-mender in the whole region. He lives with his uncle in Saffron Village.’

“‘Do you know how he got hold of this book?’

“‘No.’

“‘OK, you’re dismissed.’

“I had no idea what they were going to do with him.

“An hour later I heard someone shout, ‘Look, it’s Aga Akbar!’ I went out to see what was going on. The gendarmes had taken off his clothes and thrown him into a freezing pond.”

Ishmael looked at his father in surprise. Aga Akbar, who was following every word of the story, nodded and smiled.

The farmer’s wife sat down next to Ishmael and put her arm around his shoulder. “Now, thank God, Aga Akbar has a son to help him.”

The farmer continued. “I couldn’t be sure that Akbar was telling the truth. It was hard to believe he’d written those things. But I was the only one who could do anything and after a while I couldn’t bear to watch any longer. I ran over to the general, who was standing by the pond. I knelt at his feet and said that Akbar was telling the truth, that he was a good man and that they should send for his uncle Kazem Khan.”

“Did that help?” Ishmael asked.

“It did, thank God. They hauled him out of the pond, draped a blanket over his shoulders and took him back inside. Do you remember, Akbar?”

Aga Akbar nodded. “Yes, I remember. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Three days later Kazem Khan turned up at the army barracks with the imam from Saffron Village. The imam placed the Holy Book on top of the general’s desk and swore that Akbar’s book was nothing more than a deaf-mute’s attempt to imitate cuneiform writing, that they were just Aga Akbar’s meaningless scribbles.”

• • •

Many years later, after Aga Akbar’s death, the mail-carrier handed Ishmael a package.

By then Ishmael was the same age his father had been when captured by the gendarmes. He opened the package. It was a book. The notebook with Aga Akbar’s scribbles.

Ishmael sat down at his desk, thumbed through the pages and thought: How will I ever discover the secrets contained in these pages? How can I let the book tell its own story? How can I translate it into a readable language?

A New Wife

We’ve talked quite a bit about Ishmael,

though we haven’t yet described his birth.

Soon we’ll encounter a woman in the snow.

Kazem Khan will pick up the tale from here.

Sometimes you have to be patient. If whatever it is you’re doing doesn’t seem to be working out, leave it for a while. That way you give life a chance to sort itself out.

Kazem Khan was away on a trip. He couldn’t go home because the snow was nearly three feet deep. It would take a few days to clear the road.

So he rode around in search of a fellow opium smoker. Just as it was getting dark, he came to the village of Khomein.

“Good evening!” he called to an old man clearing the road.

“Good evening, stranger. Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for the hunter.”

“Which one? Everyone in this village is a hunter.”

“Er … the one who hunts mountain goats.”

“Ah, yes, I know who you mean. He used to hunt mountain goats, but he’d be lucky to hit a farm goat these days. Anyway, go down the road I’ve just cleared until you see an old oak tree. Take the path to your left and keep going up the hill through the snow. In the distance you’ll see a house with a long stone wall and a large pair of goat horns above the gate. That’s where your hunter lives.”

Kazem Khan rode up the hill through the snow to the house, but it looked deserted. From his horse, he called out, “Hello, is anyone home?”

No answer.

He knocked on the door with his riding crop. “Hunter! Are you there?”

“Hold on!” came the voice of a young woman, “I have to clear the snow.”

Had the voice come from the courtyard or the roof? He couldn’t tell.

“Salaam, stranger!” the woman called.

Kazem Khan looked over his shoulder.

“Here, I’m up here. Who do you want to talk to?”

“Oh, up there! Hello. I’m looking for the hunter.”

“He’s asleep.”

“So early?”

“Yes,” she said and vanished.

Kazem Khan needed a place to sit down and smoke his pipe. It was his usual time and he was already beginning to get the shakes. So he called out again, “Yoo-hoo, young lady, where are you?”

Again no answer.

“What on earth are you doing up there?”

“Clearing the snow, so the roof won’t fall down on the head of your hunter.”

“Come on down. This is urgent. I need—”

“I know what you need,” she said. “But you won’t get it here. Goodbye.”

“Please wake up the hunter and say that Kazem Khan is here. Did you hear me? Kazem Khan.”

“No, I won’t wake him up. I refuse to have any more strangers in the house. Goodnight, sir!”

“I’m not a stranger, I’m Kazem Khan.”

“I don’t care who you are, you aren’t getting anything from me. No opium, no fire, no tea. Pleasant journey!”

“God, what a difficult woman! Listen to me! I need to smoke my pipe this instant. If I don’t, I’ll drop dead here on your doorstep.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“This is different.”

“Your name means nothing to me, so go ahead and drop dead on my doorstep. But smoke a pipe? No, not in my house, not any more. Who do you think will have to make the fire? Me. And who will have to make the tea? Me! Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m never going to do those things for anyone ever again!”

“Then go and get the hunter!”

“The hunter is dead. Now are you happy?”

“Do you want me to beg? Do you want this old man to go down on his knees? Look at me, I’m practically falling off my horse.”

She ignored his pleas.

He thought about it, then tried another tack.

“I understand what you’re saying. You’re absolutely right. But I’m not your average opium smoker. I’m the most famous man on Saffron Mountain. I read books and I know hundreds of poems by heart. I also write them. If you open the door, I’ll write a poem especially for you.”

No answer.

“Who are you anyway?” he called angrily. “His new wife?”

“Me? The hunter’s wife? Don’t be ridiculous! After that remark, you can be sure I won’t open the door.”

Discouraged, he rode off.

“Stranger! Wait a moment,” she called and came downstairs.

She opened the gate. Kazem Khan rode inside.

Just then he was struck by an idea: maybe she was the woman they’d been looking for. But the idea disappeared as quickly as it had come.

He got down from his horse. The woman led him into the opium room, where the hunter, his pipe in his hand, had fallen asleep beside the cold brazier.

She lit a few dry almond twigs and got a fire going. Then she transferred the glowing twigs into a clean brass brazier, placed a few chunks of pure yellow opium on a porcelain plate and fetched a bowl of fresh dates. “Here, these are for you,” she said and disappeared.

Kazem Khan was speechless. He’d been smoking opium since he was a young man, but in all that time no one had ever presented him with such a clean opium kit.

“What’s your name?”

“Tina,” she said from the adjoining room.

“What?”

“Tina.”

“Is that a Persian name? Or is it a name from the other side of the mountains, from Russia?”

She didn’t know. Kazem Khan smoked and thought: no, it probably wouldn’t work. Even if he promised her a mountain of gold, she wouldn’t agree to marry Akbar.

He smoked and blew the smoke out through the shutters and into the cold night air. Something will eventually unfold, he thought. Life, a miracle, a secret. Or maybe it won’t, maybe I’m mistaken.

“Tina,” he called again. “Where are you? Your name is Tina, isn’t it? Come here, I have something for you.”

She appeared with a fresh pot of tea and a bowl of brown sugar, which had come from far, far away.

“Is this the hunter’s house or is it paradise? Thank you. I have a turquoise ring for you. I have no children — no sons or daughters — but you could be my daughter. Go ahead, put it on your finger. Why don’t you come and sit by me?”

Tina warily sat down across from him and tried on the ring, which had a beautiful turquoise stone. Then, apparently having decided that the old man wasn’t serious, she started to get up.

“Please don’t go. You’re the hunter’s daughter, aren’t you? Good, may I ask you a question? Do you live here with your father, or are you just visiting?”

He saw the sudden fear in her eyes. She handed him back the ring and ran out of the room.

Just then the hunter woke up.

“My God, look who’s here! Is this a dream, or are you real?”

“It’s a dream,” Kazem Khan said. “As for me, I’m in paradise. Your daughter let me in. Come sit over here. The fire is as red as a ruby. That Tina of yours is worth her weight in gold.”

“I’m at your service. It’s an honour to have Kazem Khan as my guest,” the hunter replied. “Tina,” he called, “prepare a meal for this gentleman.”

Kazem Khan took out his wallet and tucked a few bills under the carpet on which the hunter was sitting.

“Heavens, no. You’re my guest. You’re welcome in my house.”

“I insist, hunter, but thank you. Anyway, you’re lucky to have such a nice daughter.”

“Nice? She’s a shrew.”

“A shrew?”

Kazem Khan passed him the pipe. After the hunter had taken a few puffs and relaxed, he continued. “She sits up on the roof like a tiger and won’t let anyone through the gate.”

“Does she live here with you? I mean, is she married?”

“Married? She’s been married three times. She hates men. If you even mention the subject, she screams, and the women in the neighbouring houses go running up to their roofs and shake their brooms. They think I’m trying to sell her to some old opium addict. Hey, Tina, where are you?”

While millions of stars twinkled in the sky, Tina served the aging poet a delicious meal. She treated him with such extraordinary kindness that her father was amazed.

When the hunter fell asleep again, Kazem Khan called to her.

“Tina? Please sit down. Here, take the ring, it’s yours. I’d like to talk to you. I have a problem and you may be the only person who can help me.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Listen, child. I’m going to ask you a few questions. You can answer or not, as you please. I’m going to spend the night here, then go back home in the morning. Who knows? Maybe it was fate that brought me to this house. Maybe you’re the one we’ve been looking for. I have a son … well, actually he’s my nephew. A strong, handsome young man from a good family. But we have a problem.”

“What’s the problem?”

“He’s a deaf-mute. And we still haven’t found him a wife. We’re looking for an intelligent woman. Do you understand me?”

They talked until deep in the night.

The next morning, as soon as the sun’s first rays hit the snow, Kazem Khan mounted his horse. Though it still wasn’t safe to travel, he rode through the snow to Saffron Village.

“Where’s Akbar?”

He went from house to house in search of his nephew, and finally found him at a customer’s.

“Come with me, Akbar! No, leave that. I want you to go to the bathhouse, then put on your Isfahan suit and comb your hair with brilliantine. Here, take the fastest horse. Don’t forget to put some dried rose petals in your pockets. Hurry, Akbar! Now ride with me. Here’s a necklace. As soon as she opens the door, throw back your shoulders and hold your head high! Then take the necklace out of your pocket and give it to her.”

They reached the hunter’s house at nightfall. Kazem Khan knocked on the door. Tina opened it.

“Here he is,” Kazem Khan said aloud and he pointed at Aga Akbar, dressed in his good black suit and looking down at Tina from his horse. Neither of them knew what to do next. Even the experienced Kazem Khan was at a loss for words.

“Come in,” Tina said. She turned to Aga Akbar and welcomed him with a gesture.

Kazem Khan’s eyes filled with tears.

“Excellent. You’re an excellent woman. Come, Akbar, get down from your horse. Stop staring. We’re going into the house. But first, Tina, my daughter, I have something to say to you. Tomorrow our family will be coming to pick you up and soon you’ll be our bride. We’ll take you home and give you a hearth of your own. But I warn you that your life may be hard. Or maybe it won’t be. There’s no way of knowing in advance. I do know, however, that it won’t be easy, especially not in the beginning. Now you’ve seen your future husband. Take your time, you can still change your mind. Go stroll by the cedars and think it over. I’ll wait for you.”

But Tina didn’t need to take a stroll. She walked up to Aga Akbar and gestured, “Go inside. My father will be here shortly.”

“Oh, my God, oh, merciful God, what a moment, what a wonderful woman! Where are you, hunter? Roll out the carpets and stoke up the fire.”

The horses arrived the following day. The family brought gold, silver, clothes, cloth, walnuts, bread, meat, sheep, chickens, eggs and honey. All for the hunter. They dressed Tina in a flowery white chador and helped her mount the horse. No party, no songs, no guests — just a bride on a horse. It was as if they were afraid to celebrate, to express their feelings.

Don’t say a word, just go, you read in their eyes. Nevertheless, the imam recited a short melodious sura: “ Ar-rahman, alam al-Qur’an, Khalaqa al-insan,’ allamahu al-bayan. Ash-shams wa al-qamaru be-husbanin, wa as-sama’a rafa ’ha wa waza’a al-mizan.”

The bride was taken to Akbar’s house. “Here’s your home, your husband, your bed.”

This time there was no old woman behind the curtains. “Here’s the frying pan, the bread, the tea, the cheese. We’ll leave you to it, Tina,” they said and left.

They let matters take their own course.

It had been ordained by fate, by life itself. And Tina became pregnant.

One cold night in November, Tina lay under the blankets by the tiled stove, a special stove that people slept beside during particularly cold winters. She pressed her foot against Akbar’s back and woke him up. He knew the baby was due, so he leapt out of bed and lit the oil lamp.

“Are you in pain?”

“Hurry,” Tina signed, “go and get the midwife.”

The men of the family arrived even before the women did. Someone brought a large samovar. Someone else a large brazier. Kazem Khan brought his yellow opium. Who knew? Maybe they’d have something to celebrate.

Kazem Khan was sure they would, since he had consulted the Koran. The answer had come in the sura of Mary:

Wa azkur fi al-kitab maryam eze antabazat min ahleha makanan sharqyan …

When Mary went away from her family to an Eastern-looking place and took a veil to hide herself from their eyes, Allah sent her his Spirit in the form of a perfect man. She said: “I seek my refuge in Allah. Leave me.” He said: “I am only a messenger of the Lord. You are to bear a son.”

The men sat in a circle in the guest room and waited in silence. It took so long that the fire almost went out. The men all looked at Kazem Khan, who had lit the brazier so he’d be able to reach for his pipe the moment the baby was born. There was an ominous silence, then suddenly they heard the wail of an infant from the next room.

According to family tradition, no one was allowed to break the silence yet. So the midwife gestured: “A son.”

Kazem Khan smiled so broadly that his gold tooth gleamed. A while later the oldest woman in the house took Ishmael in her arms and took him into the guest room. No one spoke, because the first word, the first sentence to reach the baby’s unspoiled mind had to be a poem — an ancient melodic verse. Not a word uttered by a midwife or an aunt’s joyful cry, not an everyday word from the mouth of a neighbour, but a poem by Hafez, the medieval master of Persian poetry.

Kazem Khan stood up, took the volume of Hafez, closed his eyes and opened the book. At the top of the page, on the right-hand side, was the proper poem to be chanted into the child’s ear. Kazem Khan brought his opium-scented mouth to Ishmael’s ear and whispered:

Bolboli barg-e gol-i khosh-rang dar menqar dasht

wa andar-an barg o nava khush nalaha-ye zar dasht.

Goftam-ash, “dar ’ayn-e wasl in nala o faryad chist?”

Goft, “mar-ra jilva-ye ma’shuq dar in kar dasht.”

A nightingale once sat with a bright petal in its beak,

But this memento of its loved one merely made it weep.

“Why bewail this token of your heart’s desire?” I cried.

“It makes me long for her all the more,” the songbird sighed.

The first words to reach Ishmael’s brain were about love, sadness and the longing for a loved one.

Then Kazem Khan handed the child to Aga Akbar. “Here, your son!”

The women uttered a cry of joy.

Kazem Khan’s voice was the first voice Ishmael heard. Or so he thought. Years later, when he was trying to decipher his father’s notebook, he discovered that things hadn’t happened quite that way.

Ishmael had always had trouble with his left ear. His father knew why. He’d tried to tell his son something about the midwife and the book and the ear and the stupidity of a new father, but Ishmael hadn’t understood.

What actually happened (according to Aga Akbar’s notes) was this:

I was sitting with the men. I didn’t know if the baby had been born

yet. Suddenly I saw Kazem Khan’s gold tooth gleam. I knew then that the baby had been born. My aunt came in with the baby in her arms. I was afraid the baby would be a deaf-mute like me, and I wanted to see if he was deaf. I know it was wrong, but suddenly I stood up, ran over to my aunt, took the baby from her, put mymouth to his ear and spoke into it. The baby screamed and turned blue. Kazem Khan snatched him from me and shoved me out of the house. I went and stood at the window. Everyone frowned at me. I had shouted into the baby’s ear. Everyone said it would be damaged for good. It was stupid of me, stupid. Akbar is stupid.

Damaged? No, not really, but whenever Ishmael was sick, or under stress, or feeling discouraged, whenever he fell down and had to stand up again, a voice shouted in his ear. His father’s voice. Aga Akbar was always inside him.