The King

3. The Harem

The new king had inherited a ponderous legacy from his father. The country was in dire straits: the treasury was empty, the army was poorly equipped, and the population was largely illiterate and living in poverty and uncertainty. And always there was a threat of war on the border with India, where the British were in control.

These were the issues the shah would have to deal with during his reign, but he didn’t know where to begin and he preferred to leave it all to his vizier. Mirza Kabir did have a plan. It was a grand plan for which he needed the shah’s consent. But as long as the shah was busy with his own affairs, the vizier was free to make whatever preparations had to be made in order to implement his reforms and set the country on the road to growth.

The king’s first concern was the housing of his wives. His father had kept more than twelve hundred wives in his harem, but Shah Naser had only 230. They had already been travelling for two weeks to get from the Russian border city of Tabriz to Tehran.

The shah received Khwajeh Bashi, his harem’s overseer. This man’s father had been a faithful servant of the deceased king, and when his son was still a child he’d had him castrated to enable him to work in the harem as a eunuch later on. Once the boy was grown the old king sent him to Tabriz to serve in the harem of the crown prince. His loyalty later earned him the title ‘Khwajeh’, a high royal distinction for a eunuch.

Khwajeh Bashi received his instructions directly from the shah. After the shah he was second in command in the harem, where his word was law. He took care of all the women’s needs, and knew all there was to know about their bodies and their secrets. None of the women were allowed to take a single step outside the harem without his permission. It was Khwajeh Bashi himself who guarded the entrance. The shah was able to get to his bedroom from the harem by means of a special passageway.

Khwajeh Bashi had now been summoned by the shah to report on the new accommodations. The shah was standing in the middle of the hall of mirrors when his chamberlain, a taciturn man in a long, tight-fitting black coat, asked permission to admit the harem overseer. The shah nodded.

Khwajeh Bashi had an ugly, sallow, hairless face as a result of the castration. The fact that he plucked his eyebrows did not improve his looks. He wore a filthy, dark blue coat, from which he was inseparable, and a white, unwashed scarf. The shah accepted his stench and distasteful appearance because it was the only way to keep the women away from him. Under his arm he carried a stick for keeping impertinent women in line. The shah allowed him to keep hold of the stick while standing in the royal presence.

Dangling from Khwajeh Bashi’s thick leather belt was a ring with dozens of keys. Anyone within earshot who heard the jingling keys knew that Khwajeh was approaching.

Once inside, Khwajeh Bashi took off his cap, bowed and remained standing at the door.

‘Tell us, Khwajeh Bashi, where are the women?’ cried Shah Naser.

‘They are just outside Tehran. I expect them to reach the palace by midday.’

‘It was a long journey,’ said the shah. ‘They must be very tired.’

‘They have been travelling for seventeen days now. It was difficult having the children with them, but they were able to get plenty of rest in the tents along the way.’

‘See that they are lavishly entertained now that we have ascended the throne,’ said the shah.

‘Everything has been arranged, Your Majesty. A great feast will be held as soon as they arrive. They are not tired. They spent the evening in a spacious caravanserai outside Tehran and the harem’s large hamam has been made ready.’

The journey had been unforgettable for the women. Usually the only outings they were permitted were brief pilgrimages. The rest of their lives were spent within the harem’s four walls. Now they had traversed a vast section of the country on horseback, wrapped in black chadors and blue niqabs. Their children were transported in coaches and the servants rode behind them on mules. A column of armed soldiers escorted the procession. As this extraordinary caravan approached the great gate of Tehran, the local police cleared the way. One of the horsemen blew his bugle and cried, ‘Best behaviour, everyone! The shah’s harem is riding into the city.’

A large group of musicians with drums was standing at the ready. Curious bystanders pressed forward on both sides of the road. Boys climbed the trees and men searched for higher elevation. Some of the women stood on the roofs to get a better view.

Riding at the head of the procession were the soldiers, followed by the veiled wives of the shah. They passed the spectators in an endless column, and no one knew how to react. A silence had fallen; all you could hear were the sounds of the horses’ hooves and the wheels of the coaches and carts on the paving stones. Every now and then a laugh rang out from a boy sitting somewhere in a tree. It was quite a spectacle, the wives of the shah in their blue niqabs, silhouetted against the colourful fabrics that adorned the horses.

You could tell from these decorations just how important each woman was. The first horses had silken cloths draped over their heads that glittered with a profusion of beads. Special ornaments covered their legs and beads were woven into their tails. The women on these horses were from the same tribe as the shah.

Bringing up the rear was a group of young eunuchs who worked in the harem as servants. These men acted like women. When they passed the silence was broken and everyone began to laugh and point at them.

The women were received in the palace with great fanfare. Female musicians accompanied female harem singers, who sang joyous songs of welcome. Now that there were no longer any strange men about, the women were able to take off their niqabs and chadors. They talked with one another, laughed and shook the dust from their clothing. They were curious about their new home.

The shah appeared unannounced at the top of the stairs with the royal crown on his head. As soon as the women saw him they began to scream with delight. Relieved and happy that his wives had all arrived in good health the king came down the stairs to greet them.

The children ran up to their father, who opened his arms but did not embrace them, motioning instead to Khwajeh Bashi to take them away and indulge them with sweets.

The women gathered round the shah, congratulating him and admiring his golden crown. It was said to be the same crown that had been worn by Cyrus, the king of kings. The shah enjoyed the attention of the country’s most beautiful women, who laughed and then complained to him about their long journey. He caressed them, stroked their cheeks and necks, and after a while he retired.

The disappointed women let out a cacophony of screams until the harem overseer shouted, ‘Ladies!’ They immediately fell silent, for when Khwajeh Bashi spoke, he spoke the words of the shah. ‘Ladies! You have seen how happy His Majesty is that you all arrived in good health. Everything has been properly arranged for you to his satisfaction. For my part I expect you to comply with the rules. Here in Tehran, and especially in this harem, nothing is as it was in Tabriz. This palace is the most prestigious and most beautiful in the land. And your harem is the most imposing. His Majesty is no longer the crown prince. He is king now — the king. This means that my words are the words of the king. And the words of the king are the words of God. So I am asking you to behave yourselves and to listen closely to whatever I say. Not a single mosquito leaves the harem without my permission, and not a single mosquito enters the harem without my permission. I will talk about the rest later on. Your rooms are ready, the beds are made and the hamam is warm. Take your time and get some rest.’

He asked all the mothers to stand with their sons and daughters, and he let them enter the harem first. Then he sent the women without children in one by one, where they were met by servants who took them to their rooms.

The women gazed in amazement at their new accommodation. It was a gigantic oval-shaped building three storeys high, with more than a hundred rooms. There were countless passageways leading from one part of the building to another, with many covered courtyards onto which dozens of rooms opened out. There were tea rooms, resting rooms, reading rooms, medical treatment rooms, dining rooms, music rooms, massage rooms, hookah rooms, storytelling rooms, a hairdresser’s and a very large hamam where more than a hundred women could bathe at once. There were more rooms than women, so everyone had plenty of space. It was easy for newcomers to lose their way in this vast maze of a building during their first weeks until they learned to find their rooms almost by instinct.

Behind the building was a large garden with fruit trees, long avenues lined with fragrant flowers, and benches for sitting and lying in the leafy shade. In the middle of the garden was a large pond filled with colourful fish and surrounded by wooden divans. Majestic carpets were scattered everywhere, and everything was decorated in fine, colourful silk.

The women with children were given spacious apartments at the back of the building, and the young women who had recently joined the harem had rooms off the long corridor on the first floor. So if the shah wanted to sleep with any one of them he never had far to go.

Most of the women in the harem came from the countryside. The shah had noticed them among the spectators during his travels and had taken them along with him. At first the women were very happy that the shah had chosen them; they felt as if luck had come to perch on their shoulders like an eagle. Once they arrived in the harem, however, the shah would spend only a few nights playing with them. He fondled them, bit them, pinched them in the neck, in the breasts and in the thighs, and then brutally took them by force. After that he usually never returned. These young, illiterate women found themselves in an intricate labyrinth of religion, superstition, disease, gossip, power games, female deception, spying and shady political intrigue. They were kept prisoner day and night, and killed time by putting on make-up, smoking hookahs, eating and quarrelling with each other.

Once the women had fixed up their rooms Khwajeh Bashi took his place at the entrance to the harem. To his delight the move had occurred without incident. A young servant brought him a hookah. The overseer leaned back on a cushion and looked at the women, who were getting themselves ready for the evening meal.

Slowly darkness fell. The servants lit the candles in the lanterns. A hint of sadness hung over the harem. A cat, the shah’s cat, crept inside and jumped up on a ledge. She too watched the women in the twilight.