My Uncle Napoleon

by Iraj Pezeshkzad

  It was almost noon when I went despondently and wretchedly back to the garden. I caught sight of Mash Qasem. We greeted one another warmly and then I asked him what information he had.

  “Well m’dear, the Master’s thinkin’ of goin’ this evenin’ to Qom for two or three days . . . the lucky devil, and no matter how much I asked him if he’d take me along so as I could make a little stop at Ghiasabad, he wasn’t havin’ it. Well, what can I do, the blessed Masumeh didn’t want me, it was the Master she wanted . . .”

  “Mash Qasem, how’s he going? By train or car?”

  “Well now, why should I lie? It’s like he’s goin’ by car . . . because I heard him telephonin’ Mr. Dabir Khaqan and sayin’ how he should send his car and his driver Mamad over here . . .”

  There could be no further doubt that Dear Uncle’s decision to take this trip was completely serious.

  O God, show me what to do! If I couldn’t stop this trip of Dear Uncle’s, Layli would go, too. How could I live without Layli? O God, wasn’t there anyone who could help me? Just a minute . . . maybe . . . perhaps . . . a light flashed through my mind: Asadollah Mirza. He was the one person I could at least explain my troubles to. His warm, kind glances were so reassuring. Running as fast as I could, I set off for Asadollah Mirza’s house. I still didn’t know what I wanted to say to him, but it seemed to me that a hopeful path was opening up.

  His excellency lived near us, in an old-fashioned house, with an ancient maidservant. When I asked her for him she said he was still asleep. But I saw his head poking out of a window, and it was clear he had just got up. As soon as he caught sight of me in the yard he said, “Moment, moment, what are you doing here, lad?”

  “Good morning, Uncle Asadollah. There’s something very important I want to talk to you about, I’m sorry.”

  “You needn’t be sorry, come on up.”

  He was sitting on the edge of his bed, wrapped in a flowered silk dressing-gown.

  “What’s the matter? You look upset!”

  It took a while before I was able to tell him I was in love with Layli.

  He gave a great guffaw of laughter. “Is that what you’ve come about? Well congratulations, lad! Now let’s see, have we got to San Francisco yet or not?”

  From the warmth I felt in my face I realized that I had turned crimson to the tips of my ears. For all the affection I felt for Asadollah, for a moment I hated him that he could talk in this disrespectful way, soiling our celestial love like this. He interpreted my silence badly. “So now I suppose you’re looking for one of those doctors who do abortions? Don’t you worry about it, I know a good dozen of them.”

  I shouted, “No, Uncle Asadollah, it’s nothing like that.”

  “So there hasn’t been any San Francisco? Answer . . . quick, now immediately, at the double; there hasn’t been any?”

  “No, no, no.”

  “So you’ve fallen in love so you can sit and play marbles with each other? It doesn’t do for a grown up man to be shy.”

  With my head bowed I said, “Later, when we’re older, we want to get married.”

  He laughed again and said, “If it was me, I wouldn’t be able to wait . . . and by the time you’ve got round to it that girl’ll have had three kids . . . if you want her to wait for you, you’ve got to take another line.”

  “What line should I take?”

  “Off to San Francisco for a moment and back again!”

  In the course of his joking and fooling I managed, with a lot of difficulty, to tell him about Dear Uncle’s flight in Dabir Khaqan’s car, and to ask him to do something so that Dear Uncle would change his mind about the trip.

  Asadollah Mirza thought for a moment and said, “But if Churchill himself came and swore by a hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets that he wasn’t interested in a warrant officer in charge of a motley crew of Cossacks, this Dear Uncle of yours wouldn’t believe him. He’s convinced that the English will forgive Hitler’s sins but they won’t forgive his. Let’s see, you said he wants to set off as if for Qom and then go to Nayshapur?”

  “Yes, but only I and my father know this.”

  Once again Asadollah Mirza thought for a moment. Suddenly his face lit up and he murmured, “Moment, moment, if the English also realize that he wants to go to Nayshapur, he’ll certainly change his mind about going! We must do something so that the English realize he wants to run off to Nayshapur and that he realizes that the English have realized this.”

  And then in a teasing voice he said, “We’ll save those poor English devils too, because otherwise they’ll have to send a special bomber from London so that it can bomb Dabir Khaqan’s car somewhere in all the twists and turns of that road of a thousand valleys and then there’s a major danger threatening the plane and its pilot. Suddenly the Master, who’s a champion shot, lets off his double-barreled shotgun and there goes the pilot’s noble member.”

  While he was hurriedly getting dressed he was shouting at my stupefied and anxious face, “Forward to the English to save a great hero! . . . Stop press . . . collaboration of the secret service with a secret opponent and all for love! On the command, about turn! Quick march!”

  I had no idea what kind of a plan he had in mind but his contented, happy face restored my confidence.

  In the street, as he was slipping his arm into mine, he said, “Well now, let’s see, tell me, lad, does Layli like you too, or not?”

  In a modest tone I answered, “Yes, Uncle Asadollah, Layli likes me, too. But you must promise me you won’t talk about this to anyone.”

  “You needn’t worry about that, but tell me how long is it since you fell in love?”

  Without any hesitation I answered, “From the thirteenth of August last year.”

  Laughing, he said, “I bet you know the hour and the minute too!”

  “Yes, at a quarter to three . . .”

  His shrieks of laughter rose into the sky so loudly that I burst out laughing too. When his laughter quieted down he placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “But I have to give you a few bits of advice, lad. First, don’t show her too much that you like her . . . second, if you see that she’s getting away from you, don’t forget San Francisco.”

  Once again I blushed with embarrassment and didn’t answer. Suddenly Asadollah Mirza stopped in his tracks and said, “Now I’m going to manage things so that they won’t separate this child from you, but what are you going to do about that blabbermouth? As soon as Puri’s military service is over, he and Layli are supposed to get engaged.”

  At the thought of this my whole body began trembling violently. He was right, if something like that happened there was nothing I could do. When Asadollah Mirza saw my anguished, unhappy face he laughed again and said, “Moment, don’t be too worried. God’s on the side of lovers.”

  We had almost reached the garden. He looked this way and that and when he saw there was no one in the alleyway he knocked at the door of the Indian’s house. I didn’t have a chance to ask him what he meant by this because a moment later the English wife of the brigadier opened the door. Asadollah Mirza’s eyes glittered. In English he said, “Good morning, my lady.”

  With my two or three years of high school English I could see that Asadollah Mirza didn’t know English well, but he spilled the words out one after another in such a way that it made you not so sure. With glances and gestures he engaged the English woman in conversation, and he managed things so that even though she didn’t want to invite him into the house she was left with no alternative. She said that her husband had gone out but that he would be back soon. Faced with his lordship’s warm ingratiating words she had to invite us to sit and wait for her husband’s return. A moment later Asadollah Mirza and I were ensconced in Brigadier Maharat Khan’s sitting room. The English woman offered him a glass of wine. When, in response to our host�
�s offer of a glass of wine, I said that I didn’t drink wine, Asadollah Mirza frowned and said, “Moment, moment, you fall in love but you don’t drink wine? If you’re a child you’ve no right to fall in love, and if you’re an adult you’ve no right not to drink wine . . . take a glass.”

  And when I had no choice but to take a glass, he said quietly, “You should remember this, too, that from the hand of a pretty woman you shouldn’t refuse even deadly poison.”

  And immediately he busied himself in conversation with the brigadier’s wife, or the “lady,” as he called her; my presence there was no hindrance to him and he frequently interrupted his broken English phrases with expressions (in Persian) of undying devotion, “Good wine . . . my God, what I wouldn’t do for you . . . very good wine . . .”

  The English woman started to laugh at his gestures and glances and sometimes she would ask the meaning of the Persian phrases that flowed from his lips.

  A few minutes hadn’t gone by before the Indian gentleman returned. At first he was surprised, and perhaps somewhat upset, to see Asadollah Mirza in his house, but his lordship very quickly cheered him up. The brigadier knew Persian but he spoke it in an idiosyncratic way and with an accent. After a few minutes in which the conversation drifted this way and that, and touched especially on news of the war, Asadollah Mirza brought the conversation round to the point of his visit and said that Dear Uncle Napoleon was thinking of going on a trip to Qom and that he—meaning Asadollah Mirza—as a friendly gesture, wanted the Indian gentleman to be there when Dear Uncle was getting into the car, in order to bid him goodbye, and for him during the course of the conversation to mention, casually and naturally as it were, the name of the town Nayshapur.

  With some surprise the brigadier asked why. Asadollah Mirza said that there was a joke involved and then he so livened up the chat with laughter and fooling that the Indian made no further objections. He only asked how he was to know when Dear Uncle was setting off so that he could come out of his house to say goodbye.

  “Well now, what do you mean, brigadier! It’s not as if our alleyway were the main square of the city with a thousand cars going through it every day. When you see a car has come and parked outside the garden you’ll realize that’s the moment the master’s setting off.”

  “Sahib, it so happens that I am thinking of something that is extremely natural for saying Nayshapur . . .”

  “I’m eternally grateful . . . you are really being too kind, oh yes indeed.”

  “Sahib, how many days is the Master being in Qom?”

  “Well, I don’t rightly know, I think he’ll stay seven, eight, perhaps ten days.”

  “Sahib, how can the Master put up with the being away from his family?”

  Asadollah guffawed with laughter and said, “Well, these days the master’s natural vitality’s bahot wilted.”

  This was an expression which Asadollah Mirza seemed to have learned from the Indian, and from the situations he used it in, and the people to whom he applied it, it was clear that the phrase was used to indicate the condition of someone who could not perform his conjugal duties.

  Laughing as he did so, Asadollah Mirza repeated the phrase, “When women are sure that the natural vitality’s bahot wilted, they don’t raise any objection to their husbands’ going on trips, oh no, indeed not.”

  Asadollah Mirza’s laughter set the Indian laughing, too, and the meeting came to an end in an atmosphere of happiness and pleasantries. We left the Indian’s house with Asadollah Mirza’s eyes still glued to the tall form of Lady Maharat Khan. Naturally, before we left, Asadollah Mirza put his head out to be sure there was no one in the alleyway.

  I accompanied him a few steps of the way toward his house. With a cheerful look on his face he said, “Rest assured, as things are now, Dear Uncle won’t be going anywhere, at least he won’t be going to Nayshapur, and your little Layli will stay with you, and you for your part should give some thought to San Francisco.”

  “Uncle Asadollah, please don’t say those things!”

  Asadollah Mirza raised his eyebrows and said, “Then it’s possible that your vitality’s bahot wilted too, and in the flower of your youth at that.”

  I returned home with a heart filled with hope. Whichever way I looked I saw no sign of my father; I asked our servant where he was and he said that he had gone with the Master into the room with French windows. I had to know everything that Dear Uncle was doing and saying. Layli’s departure, and a dangerous separation for both of us, all hung on a hair and I couldn’t leave anything to chance. Once again I got myself into the storehouse behind the sitting room. Dear Uncle was standing sad-faced in front of my father and quietly spelling out his final instructions, “I’ll send a telegram in the name of Mr. Mortazavi . . . of course I won’t mention the children. When I say send on the baggage you’re to take it as meaning my wife and children. I especially need your help even more now, because I’ve decided to take Mash Qasem along with me, too.”

  “Why have you suddenly changed your mind?”

  “I thought that my going without Mash Qasem, as he’s from Qom, might arouse suspicion. Outwardly we have to do things in such a way that their agents don’t get suspicious. In particular I’m asking you to say to the driver, when the car’s about to set off, that as the road to Qom’s very busy these days he’s to drive carefully.”

  “Have no worries on that score.”

  Like a Roman general going off to war, Dear Uncle gathered the skirts of his cloak and draped them over his left shoulder as if he were wearing a toga; placing his right hand on my father’s shoulder, he said, “I hand over command of the rear guard to you; in my absence you are my representative.”

  Then he drew himself up to his full height and left the room.

  An hour later Dabir Khaqan’s car was waiting outside the garden door. The members of the family had all gathered in the garden to say goodbye to Dear Uncle. Naneh Bilqis had a tray with a mirror and a copy of the Quran on it, for the goodbye ceremony.

  Poor little Layli had no idea of her father’s real destination, but although I tried to be calm, my heart was filled with confused emotions and an untoward anxiety. Even though Asadollah Mirza had convinced me that, given how he had arranged things, it was impossible that Dear Uncle would be going to Nayshapur, or if he did go that he would stay there, I was still extremely worried. Every now and then I glanced over to where Asadollah was busy laughing and joking in the midst of the family group, and he would answer me with a meaningful, reassuring look.

  Dear Uncle came into the garden dressed in his travelling clothes, but before kissing everyone goodbye he began looking for Mash Qasem, and became annoyed that he wasn’t there. In an angry tone he said to Naneh Bilqis, “Put that tray down and go and see where that idiot Mash Qasem has got to at a time like this.”

  But Naneh Bilqis hadn’t even left the garden before Mash Qasem entered it and made straight for Dear Uncle. Before Dear Uncle had a chance to say anything to him he said, “Sir, you know best but please forget about this here trip. Just now in the bazaar they were sayin’ as how the English are six miles outside Qom . . . they’re sayin’ how they’ve got rifles and field-guns that can shoot nine miles . . .”

  Dear Uncle threw him a contemptuous look and said, “So now they’re trying to frighten me with the English ! ” And with his eyes fixed on the highest branches of the walnut tree he recited:

  “We’ve no complaint against the will of God—

  The lion does not disdain the raging flood.”

  But Mash Qasem went on trying, “You know me, sir, I’m not afraid of these things, but why should a man make trouble for himself when there’s no need? . . . the blessed Masumeh herself, who’s shrine’s there in Qom, doesn’t want us to fall into the hands of them there English . . .”

  “If you’re so afraid, stay here and hide in the cellar l
ike an old woman!”

  It seemed as if he were really annoyed with Mash Qasem since he tucked his bundle of bedding under his arm and said, “I’m not afraid of the English nor of all their ancestors either!” And he set off for the garden door.

  At this moment the preacher Seyed Abolqasem entered, panting for breath. “I’ve heard you’re going on a pilgrimage to the shrine. God willing it’ll go well and bring you good fortune.”

  Whenever my father happened to bump into this preacher he tried to stay calm, but I always saw hatred and a longing for revenge flash in his eyes. It was clear that the pain of his pharmacy’s failure was still fresh in his heart.

  That day when he saw the preacher he said with an artificial laugh, “Your excellency, sir, how is your son doing?”

  “You are always in his thoughts.”

  “Does he still have those same feelings for Shir Ali the butcher’s wife or has he forgotten about her?’

  The preacher glanced uneasily around and said, “I must ask you not to make such jokes . . . we’re hoping to get him engaged to a very nice girl in a day or two . . . the daughter of Haji Alikhan Ma’mar Bashi . . .”

  Asadollah Mirza jumped into the conversation. “Wonderful, wonderful, congratulations! She’s a really, really nice girl! And what a fine family! What a beautiful and sensible girl! Apart from the fact that she had a husband, Shir Ali’s wife wasn’t at all fit to join your family. But Ma’mar Bashi’s daughter’s a very nice girl, I’ve seen her a couple of times at my sister’s house . . .”

  Dear Uncle was ready to leave. “Well, farewell to you all, I’m on my way.”

  And he started kissing everyone present. At this moment Mash Qasem ran back into the garden from the street. He took Dear Uncle aside and whispered something to him in his ear. The color drained perceptibly from Dear Uncle’s face, but a moment later he puffed out his chest and in a rather loud voice said, “So what if he’s there?”

  I guessed that Mash Qasem had told Dear Uncle that the Indian gentleman was out by the car. As he was going toward the garden door Dear Uncle told the children in a loud voice that he would bring them back a present of sohan, the local candy made in Qom, and to the adults he said that he would pray for them at the shrine.