The King

13. The Russians

The shah often went on cross-country journeys, and he always took a group of his wives with him. During these journeys he gave his subjects the opportunity to admire him, and he also received local officials. He invariably paid visits to the army barracks.

He looked forward to receiving delegates from the various trades, which happened every now and then. He also had regular visits from clergymen, with whom such contacts were useful. He invited the imams with royal connections to come round on holy feast days, such as the birthdays of the Prophet Muhammad and the holy imam Ali, and the anniversaries of their deaths.

When the clergymen came the chamberlain had to make them wait for the shah in the golden hall for a long time. While they waited they were treated to tea and refreshments. When the shah came in the clergymen all bowed, and one by one they kissed his hand. The shah then gave a brief speech, chatted with some of them, asked them to pray for him and for the kingdom, pressed special gold coins bearing his image into their hands and withdrew once again. Then he would whisper in Sharmin’s ear, ‘A pack of fools. They all smell of goat droppings.’

Sometimes the shah didn’t want to be shah any more. He envied those who were free to walk in the street and go to the bazaar, or to work on their land as farmers. He found life in the palace boring most of the time because one day was no different from the next. He read, he wrote, he studied the documents the vizier showed him, he ate, and sometimes he spent the evening in the harem. He went for long walks and visited his mother. Occasionally he looked in on his daughter to see if she was studying hard.

Today he strolled into the courtyard and went to the elegant structure that was set off by itself behind the tall trees and was known as ‘Tableau Noir’. It was a single pleasant room decorated with French furniture and very fine paintings by the famous Persian artist Kamal-ol-Molk. Mounted on the wall was a blackboard, tableau noir in French. There were also a few chairs for the pupils, all of them children the shah had begotten by women of his own tribe.

The schoolroom had been built by order of the shah’s father. When the crown prince was a boy he had learned French and mathematics there from an old French lady. The teachers had always been French: the wife of one of the staff members at the French embassy or a lady brought in from France for this special purpose.

Now Taj Olsultan was being taught by such a French lady. She was new. The vizier had arranged for her employment through the embassy. She lived in the French residence and spent a few hours every day giving lessons to Taj.

Looking through the window the shah could see the French woman standing at the blackboard. She was new and shy. The shah was not sure whether he should go in or not, but his cat sprang from his arms and boldly sidled up to Taj.

The teacher walked to the door. She greeted the shah and made a little curtsy. Then she stepped aside to let the shah enter. But he stayed where he was.

‘Is everything to your liking?’ he asked in French.

‘Yes, indeed,’ she replied politely.

‘Excellent,’ said the shah. ‘Is Taj a good pupil?’

‘Of course. She is clever and sharp-witted. A real princess.’

‘You make us happy. If you need anything, please let us know.’

The shah called Sharmin and walked back through the garden.

Sometimes he painted to dispel the boredom. Kamal-ol-Molk had been his instructor. For one whole year the painter had come to the palace to paint a portrait of the shah in the hall of mirrors. Working on a large canvas Kamal-ol-Molk had brought to life the room’s ceiling and walls, with their thousands of little mirrors. The heavy, dark green curtain behind which the shah always vanished and reappeared, the dark blue and red carpets with their hundreds of figures — all were realistically depicted. Finally the painter added the shah, seated in his royal chair.

By studying the paintings the shah learned several techniques that he himself applied as best he could. Sharmin was his first model and the painting that resulted was quite good. He was happy with it and hung it immediately in his study.

Another time he tried to immortalise Taj Olsultan, but was unsuccessful.

‘It is a hopeless task. The shah has two challenges that cannot be conquered,’ Kamal-ol-Molk told him. ‘Firstly your daughter is breathtakingly beautiful. Secondly she has no wrinkles. I propose that the shah paint his mother. She is a dream model. Her beauty is emphasised by her royal wrinkles, she radiates power and her choice of clothing is perfect.’

‘That is impossible,’ the shah shot back. ‘Our mother cannot sit still. She cannot be silent for even one minute. She is always looking for an opportunity to reproach us about something. She in a chair and we with a brush in our hand: we can see it all now. It would be war.’

The shah limited himself to painting his cat and still lifes. He secretly tried to make a copy of Napoleon’s horse, but it didn’t look like anything.

‘It’s not a horse but a donkey,’ he said to himself. ‘Even so, the attempt has given us pleasure.’

He would never be an impressive painter, but the shah was indeed a true poet. He committed his thoughts to paper, but he had trouble making the words rhyme. When he was satisfied with the result and each letter was in place, he would set aside an evening and summon his chronicler and his lantern-bearer to make an official copy. One of the poems was the following:

I dreamt that the body of my grandfather had dissolved and turned into dust

Except the eyes.

Which were revolving in their orbits

And looking about.

The sages interpreted my dream:

‘He is still looking amazed

how his kingdom belongs to others.’

He is thinking of Herat.

After the last word the chronicler sat with bowed head. He was always the first to hear the shah’s poems. Anxiously the shah awaited his reaction.

The chronicler broke the silence and said, ‘A regal poem. I am moved, Your Majesty.’

A smile appeared on the shah’s face and he tossed the chronicler a couple of gold coins.

The vizier, who also loved poetry, had given the shah a beautiful, gold-tooled volume of poems by the medieval Persian poet Abu Abdollah Rudaki. The shah read the classics and knew many poems by heart. Poetry was his salvation during the long boring nights in the palace. He read the magnificent collection attentively, and on one occasion he happened to stumble on one of the most beautiful of all Persian poems:

Buye juye muliyan ayad hami

Yad-e yar mehreban ayad hami

The shah was deeply impressed and made a detailed entry about it in his diary: ‘Herat will not let us rest. No matter what we do, the city keeps occupying our thoughts. Today Herat skilfully revealed itself in a poem by Rudaki. The poem was about his favourite river, the Amu. Reading it brought tears to our eyes, and today we hummed it all day long:

“The wind carries the fragrance

of my homeland’s river

and memories of the beloved.

Though the River Amu has a rocky bed, I still long for home.

Then the river will feel like down beneath my feet.

The shah is the moon.

Home is heaven

where the moon is bound to go.”’

Winter came, and after a while the shah no longer knew how he was going to get through the long winter nights. He was pleasantly surprised by an invitation from the Russians.

The vizier had commissioned the Russians to construct roads between the cities, and they had been working day and night on the project for two years. The roads could have been made by the local population too, but the Russians had what the Persians lacked: discipline and perseverance. Russia’s violent past and countless wars had created a people who no longer dared to believe in the future.

Before the severe cold set in the Russians wanted to please the shah with a special present. There was a shrine outside Tehran where Abdoldawood lay buried, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. For much of the year this shrine received thousands of visitors from Tehran, and it was the shah’s favourite spot. He went there when he felt most desolate, kneeling at the grave of the saint to complain about life.

The Russians knew from the vizier how important the grave was for the shah’s spiritual well-being. But in the winter the road to the shrine was impassable, rocky and dangerous, and no one dared attempt it by coach or on horseback. So the Russians had built a road for the shah that would always be passable: a track that snaked past the big rocks.

The riverbed had been bridged at twelve different places. Thousands of strong-armed peasants had levelled all the pits and dangerous slopes with earth and stones. Tea houses, eating establishments and houses of prayer had been built along the way.

The colder it got the harder the Russians worked. They built big fires and worked along with the peasants without interruption. When the road was finished it was covered by a thick layer of snow.

The vizier had arranged for the shah to receive the Russian road-builders on the first hill outside the city. He accompanied Shah Naser on horseback, and as they rode he reported on the work the Russians were doing throughout the country.

‘We have already heard that they are hard-working people,’ the shah remarked.

‘We leave everything to God,’ said the vizier. ‘We ourselves do nothing.’

The shah thought the vizier was referring to his king’s way of life and changed the subject.

‘What are we doing here in the snow?’

‘The engineers would like to give the shah a tour of the road they have built,’ the vizier explained.

‘And must that happen today?’ complained the shah.

As soon as the Russian engineers saw the shah coming they formed a semicircle. The shah remained at a suitable distance, his stick in his hand, and the vizier introduced the Russian engineers to him. The chief engineer bowed his head slightly, rode up to the shah and asked if he might show him round. The road to the shrine lay under the snow and the shah did not understand what the engineer was suggesting. He cast an indifferent glance at the snow-covered hill and turned to the vizier for an explanation.

‘If Your Majesty agrees, we will take him to the grave,’ said the engineer.

‘Where?’ asked the shah with suspicion.

‘To the shrine,’ repeated the Russian coolly.

‘Which shrine?’

‘To the grave of the holy Abdoldawood.’

‘In this snow? To Abdoldawood?’ asked the shah incredulously.

‘I assume Your Majesty’s horse is able to gallop in the snow?’

‘Our horse is strong, but it’s late and soon darkness will fall.’

‘Your Majesty will be back in the palace before dark.’

The shah looked distrustful.

‘Is the vizier aware of this arrangement?’ asked the shah, turning to the vizier.

Mirza Kabir nodded.

Shah Naser stared silently into the distance. Suddenly he turned to the Russian and said, ‘Take the lead! Surprise us!’

The chief engineer spurred his horse to a gallop and raced down the snow-covered road. The shah followed the Russian past the great rocks, taking the turns with ease. He rode down the slopes without hesitation and passed a few tea houses. It seemed unthinkable that they could ride with such confidence down that unseen, snow-covered road.

After a short time the shah’s eye fell on the golden cupola of the temple in the distance. It was no less than a miracle. In the past it would have taken a whole day to reach the shrine, even in the summer. Now it took them less than half an hour.

Just outside the shrine of Abdoldawood the Russian slackened his pace and brought his horse to a halt. The shah galloped past him and rode into the shrine.