My Uncle Napoleon

by Iraj Pezeshkzad

  Asadollah Mirza gave her an angry look. Trying to maintain an outward calm, he said, “No, the Master’s upset about poor Mansur al-Saltaneh . . . you know, that uncle of Dustali’s . . .”

  “But what’s happened to Dustali’s uncle?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard, ma’am? . . . God rest his soul, he suffered so much . . .”

  Farrokh Laqa suddenly smelt the possibility of another funeral ceremony and her eyes shone. “God strike me dead! Then why haven’t I heard about it? When did this happen? Where’s the funeral ceremony?”

  “Oh, it’s not clear yet where they’ll hold the ceremony, because it only happened today . . .”

  “Well, see me in the grave, but I never heard about it!”

  “Moment, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to go and drop in on Dustali.”

  “It’s a pity it’s so late, otherwise . . .”

  Asadollah Mirza interrupted her, “No, it’s not so late . . . as it happens when I was on my way here I saw Dustali was just going home.”

  Mrs. Farrokh Laqa was of two minds. Asadollah Mirza continued, “What with the relationship your mother had with them, I’d imagine that it’ll be you yourself who binds up the late lamented’s jaw.”

  Farrokh Laqa stood up and said, “You’re right, this is terrible. I’ll go now and pay Dustali Khan and Aziz al-Saltaneh a visit . . .”

  When Farrokh Laqa had gone, everyone present who understood why Asadollah Mirza had invented this piece of news breathed a sigh of relief. Asadollah Mirza turned to uncle colonel. “The important thing was to get that old owl to go back to the ruin where she belongs . . . now, please tell us how the Master is.”

  Uncle colonel said with a gloomy face, “My brother threw me out, very angrily. He said he wanted to be alone.”

  An hour later only Asadollah Mirza, uncle colonel and my father were still there. And I was sitting hunched in a corner listening to their conversation.

  My father said, “To be honest, I’m afraid that—God forbid—the Master will do himself an injury . . . do you remember that day he was talking about when Napoleon took poison after the defeat inflicted by the Allied armies?”

  Asadollah Mirza took a sip of wine and said, “I’m not worried about that. If you remember the first time that Napoleon had to surrender he took poison, but after Waterloo he waited until they came and took him off to St. Helena.”

  “But, after all, we shouldn’t expect him to follow exactly in Napoleon’s footsteps . . .”

  Uncle colonel, who had been deep in thought, said, “Asadollah Mirza, I’ve had an idea. How would it be if I personally had a talk with the Indian, Brigadier Maharat Khan?”

  “You want to talk about the Master with Brigadier Maharat Khan? But the Brigadier . . .”

  “No, about myself . . . about the rug that rotten little charlatan of an Indian walked off with without so much as a by-your-leave . . . I mean just think of it . . . there never was such a shameless thief . . .”

  “God keep you, colonel, your brother’s slipping away and you’re still thinking about your rug?”

  “No, I’m not worried about my older brother . . . he’s not a willow tree to tremble in a wind like this . . . A man who’s spent his whole existence fighting and struggling knows how to put up with the ups and downs of life.”

  Asadollah Mirza gave my father a hopeless look and said, “Then in that case, I’m going to go and have a good sleep, too. Charity begins at home, they say.”

  As I was returning home along with my father and Asadollah Mirza, I heard Asadollah Mirza ask my father quietly and sarcastically, “Can you guess who told Farrokh Laqa about the English rounding people up and sending them off to Arak?”

  My father stopped in his tracks and took him by the arm. “Now, your excellency, are you implying . . . ?”

  “Moment, moment, I’m not implying anything; just asking.”

  “No, no, it seemed to me your were hinting at something . . . If you’re thinking I had anything to do with this, you’re mistaken. I swear on my father’s soul I had nothing to do with the matter.”

  It wasn’t just that I doubted him because I knew my father swore things very easily on the soul of his father, but it was clear that Asadollah Mirza too had gathered what he wanted to know because as I was accompanying him to the door after we’d got home he said, “No, there’s no doubt at all, that filthy Dustali Khan has been gossiping to your father.”

  “What do you think we should do now, Uncle Asadollah?”

  “Well, I can’t think of anything else . . . I’m a local doctor, and when someone’s caught a cold or feels under the weather I can prescribe a herb tea or an aspirin, but when it’s a serious illness and it takes root, they have to call in a professional . . . on the first day I prescribed a touch of San Francisco, because I’m only a specialist in San Francisco. The patient didn’t act on my prescription . . . and now things have gone way beyond San Francisco and Los Angeles and such like matters, so they’d better take this patient’s family to a professional who’ll prescribe another city for them!”

  “You mean you want to give up on us?”

  “No, lad, but for now there’s nothing I can do . . . we’ll have to wait and see first what happens about sending Dear Uncle off to Saint Helena, then we’ll think again . . .”

  By this time we had reached the alleyway. Suddenly I saw someone in the distance running toward us. It was the shoeshine man. After the customary greetings he said to Asadollah Mirza, “Sir, I need you to do something for me.”

  “Moment, I have to do something for you, too? . . . It’s very strange that I can’t manage my own affairs but at the same time I’ve turned into the area’s general problem-solver . . . What’s going on now? What’s happened?”

  “Well, two or three days ago the Master started pestering me to pack up the tools of my trade and leave. Till now Mash Qasem’s brought me three or four messages that the Master doesn’t want me to have my stall here.”

  “What did you say?”

  “But sir, just consider. I’ve been here so long now I’ve found a nice group of customers, and where am I to go? You can’t run a business gadding about from one place to another.”

  “No. I want to know, when Mash Qasem brought the message, what exactly did you say?”

  “I said ‘Tell the master that I’m stopping here . . . I mean, I can’t go anywhere else.’”

  Asadollah Mirza ground his teeth together and muttered, “You gave the worst possible answer! Now you’ll really have to go!”

  Then he started advising the shoeshine man that he shouldn’t be too stubborn and said that it would be best to listen to what he was told and to set his stall up a couple of streets further down. But the shoeshine man begged and pleaded with him to speak on his behalf.

  “Moment, moment, God forbid it’s not true what people are saying, is it? That you’ve got yourself mixed up with one of the women around here?”

  After the shoeshine man had spent some time swearing that nothing like that was going on, Asadollah Mirza promised that he would do what he could for him, and when the shoeshine man had left, he burst out with a great guffaw of laughter. “It’s just one damn thing after another . . . as if we didn’t have enough troubles, here’s another . . . On the one side, this fellow’s got himself mixed up with Shir Ali’s wife and doesn’t want to go; on the other side, your Dear Uncle’s waiting for the English officers to turn up to take him off to Arak, and he doesn’t want this fellow to be here in case, God forbid, he scares them off . . . this is turning into a real madhouse.”

  “Uncle Asadollah, do you mean you think Dear Uncle still believes this shoeshine man is working for the Germans?”

  “Perhaps he’s no longer so sure, but there’s still a doubt in his heart . . . and however things stand, he wants to
smooth the way of the English into this neighborhood.”

  “Uncle Asadollah, I’ve made so many problems for you I’m embarrassed to talk anymore about . . .”

  With a laugh Asadollah Mirza interrupted what I was saying, “No, don’t be embarrassed, say on . . . but instead I’ll read your thoughts. You want to say that now Dear Uncle is really waiting for the English to come, that means your and Layli’s situation is in danger . . . It’s not all unlikely, but don’t ask me any more questions, give me till the morning to think and see what occurs to me.”

  Once again, I passed one of the worst nights of my life. During the short time sleep did close my eyes I had nightmares in which all my surroundings were muddled together:

  Wearing a wedding dress, Layli was going toward the door to a castle; she was arm-in-arm with her husband and walking between two rows of English soldiers who were holding their swords above the couple’s heads; Layli’s husband was none other than Shir Ali the butcher. The commander of the English troops was Mash Qasem, and he was wearing a Scottish military uniform that included a kilt instead of trousers. I was shouting. Puri was walking behind the bridal couple, looking at me with that equine face of his, and cackling in a terrifying manner.

  Carrying a rug, uncle colonel came after the bride and groom. Wearing a doorman’s uniform and a blond wig, and with a thick staff in his hand, Cadet Officer Ghiasabadi was announcing, “The bride and groom!” Dr. Naser al-Hokama was playing the saxophone. My father and Asadollah Mirza had linked hands and were circling around me singing a folksong from the American west, in which the name San Francisco came again and again, and the repetitions rang in my ears . . . San Francisco . . . San Francisco . . . Once again I’d started to shout and to run; Mash Qasem came toward me in his Scottish soldier’s uniform and said, speaking Persian but with an English accent, “Lad, get out of here, it’s all over with you.” And I was shouting, “Mash Qasem, do something! Weren’t you my friend?” And he was answering in that same English accent, “Well lad, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . It’s not my fault, ask that gentleman there.” And I looked to where his outstretched finger was pointing: Dear Uncle Napoleon was wearing the hat and uniform of Napoleon and was seated on a white horse; he had a leg of mutton in his hand and was shouting out “Attack! Forward!” and his cavalry trampled me beneath their horses’ hooves . . . and Farrokh Laqa, dressed in black from head to toe, was saying the prayers for the dying over me.

  When I wanted to get up in the morning I was unable to. My whole body ached. I lay there so weak that the time to go to school came and went. When my mother came to find me she struck herself on the head and chest. I was burning with a high fever. When I tried to get up, my head began to turn and I fell back motionless into the bedclothes.

  I realized that I was ill more from my mother’s and father’s concern and from their constant coming and going, than from how I actually felt. They brought Dr. Naser al-Hokama. In among his whispered words I heard the word “typhoid.” Although my brain wasn’t functioning properly because of my high fever and my illness, I was certain that it was the terrible night I had passed that had caused my fever and that the doctor was mistaken. I passed the whole day in this wretched state. Then I realized that I’d been delirious a few times. Toward evening I began to get a little better. I recognized Asadollah Mirza’s smiling face. But I couldn’t speak.

  On the following morning I had another reason to be sure of Dr. Naser al-Hokama’s ignorance and lack of knowledge of the nature of things. My fever had quite gone and I was almost back to health again but I felt extremely weak. When I wanted to get up my mother noisily protested, but I assured her that I was well and made my way to the garden.

  Mash Qasem was busy watering the flowers. But unusually he had on the clothes he wore for going out; he had rolled the legs of his trousers up above his knees, and he was handling his watering-can very carefully so as not to wet his clothes.

  Without raising his head he said, “Thank God your feelin’ poorly wasn’t anythin’ serious, lad. I was really worried. Yesterday I came to ask about you, in the afternoon . . . you was delirious . . . I wish that doctor could see you today . . . The heathen was sayin’ yesterday how you’d surely got typhoid . . . that crowd don’t know a buffalo from a fiddle, and that’s God’s truth!”

  “Mash Qasem, praise God, I’m all right now. But why are you wearing your clothes for going out? Are you going anywhere?”

  Mash Qasem gave me a sorrowful look and answered, “Well lad, why should I lie? To the grave it’s ah . . . ah . . . We’ll be leavin’ today or tomorrow. Maybe this is the last time I’ll be waterin’ the flowers; likely enough the English are on their way right now. Whatever bad or good you’ve seen from me, forgive me!”

  “Mash Qasem, what’s Dear Uncle doing?”

  “Eh, eh, don’t ask, lad. May God put no Moslem through what he’s been through! From the night before last to now you’d think the Master’d aged twenty years . . . The night before last he didn’t sleep till mornin’. Poor feller, it’s like he was writin’ his will.”

  “How is he today?”

  “Today, thanks be to God, you could say he was calm . . . All his wildness went yesterday.”

  “Mash Qasem, has Layli gone to school or is she still in the house? . . . I want to have a word with her.”

  “Eh, where’ve you been, lad? Crack of dawn this mornin’ the Master sent all the children with the colonel to Abali, to where the colonel’s orchard is . . . And he’s right, too. When the English come he doesn’t want the children to see ’em shackle the Master and take him off . . . And maybe they’d be doin’ somethin’ terrible to the children. Whatever you can say about the English is true . . .”

  “How long will they stay there, Mash Qasem?”

  “Well lad, till the English come and take us.”

  “And if they don’t come, what then?”

  Mash Qasem sneered, “You’re such a child, lad, you don’t know the English yet . . . since the night before last me and the Master haven’t taken our clothes off. Twice we’ve packed up the saucepans so’s we wouldn’t die of hunger on the way to Arak . . . because the English only give their prisoners stew made with brick dust and snake oil. There was a man in our town once who fell into the hands of the English . . .”

  It was impossible to get anything out of Mash Qasem. I decided to go and find Asadollah Mirza, but he turned up before I’d left the house. He had come to ask how I was doing. When he saw me on my feet he was extremely pleased. “Just think of it . . . that stupid Naser al-Hokama was quite sure it was typhoid . . . at least we can be thankful he didn’t say the child had caught syphilis . . . !”

  I tried to get a moment alone with him, but I guessed that he was very preoccupied with something, or perhaps, with all the family problems that were going on, he didn’t have the patience to listen to my lovesick moanings.

  He was soon busy talking to my father. “What’s new, then? Has General Wellington come to take the Master yet?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen him yet, but this morning I asked Mash Qasem and he said that after he’d sent the family off he seemed to calm down . . . mind you, last night he slept in his clothes again.”

  “Shall we go and ask him how he’s getting on?”

  My father and Asadollah Mirza set off for Dear Uncle’s house. Without thinking, I followed them. Dear Uncle didn’t even glance at me. It seemed that either he hadn’t heard or hadn’t understood that I’d been ill. He was wearing a dark suit. Mohammad Ali Shah’s insignia was on the lapel. What frightened me was his extreme pallor, and his sunken eyes. He was sitting calmly on the sofa. He wanted to get up to greet my father and Asadollah Mirza but was unable to. Asadollah Mirza was about to begin joking and laughing, but confronted by Dear Uncle’s shattered face, he became silent.

  However mentally calm Dear Uncle ap
peared to be, physically he was wasting away.

  My father said, “You’re a little pale. It seems you didn’t sleep well. You’d better lie down.”

  Dear Uncle said in a calm voice, “I have rested. Now is the time for vigilance.”

  I looked out at the yard and the rooms that gave on to it. The house was completely empty and forlorn. Apart from Dear Uncle and Mash Qasem, there was no one there. Big padlocks were visible on the doors to most of the rooms.

  Asadollah Mirza was worried about the state Dear Uncle was in and said, “I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to rest a little, and then if it happened . . .”

  Dear Uncle suddenly became angry. “Asadollah, fatigue may have made me weak, but I want them to know that a warrior is still a warrior at the moment he is taken prisoner . . . they must not see my weakness.”

  “Moment, moment, you mean a warrior can’t lie down? We read about it thousands of times in history; when he was waiting for the representatives to come from the allied armies, even Napoleon slept and rested as usual.”

  “Asadollah, what they want is for me to be worn down, to be broken, and then to arrest me, so that tomorrow they can besmirch my name in the history books.”

  “But sir . . .”

  Asadollah had no chance to finish his sentence because the noise of some kind of uproar came in from the alleyway. Dear Uncle Napoleon’s eyes stared fixedly at the door. His voice filled with emotion, he said, “What’s happening? It seems they’ve come.”

  Asadollah Mirza stood up to go out, but Mash Qasem entered.“What was that noise, Mash Qasem?”

  “Well sir, Shir Ali’s havin’ a word with that shoeshine feller.”

  Dear Uncle had leaned forward; he fell back again and asked mildly, “What happened finally? Has the shoeshine man gone or not?”

  “What d’you mean, gone? As soon as Shir Ali lifted the leg of mutton in his hand, the poor feller flew off . . . he left his tools and stall and took off.”

  Calmly, Dear Uncle turned his face toward Asadollah Mirza.“Nothing important. A young lout who carried on his business here and at the same time had designs on people’s wives and daughters.”