by Kurban Said
Jahja Kuli, the eunuch, stood silently behind me and followed my strange game most interestedly. It seemed to him, that all this moving around of little flags on coloured paper must be some dark and strange magic of a mighty sorcerer. Maybe he mistook cause and effect and thought that all I had to do to free my home from the unbelievers was to ensure help of unearthly powers by sticking little green flags into the red spot that was Baku. He did not want to disturb me in this secret work, but only made his report, as bound in duty, in a monotonous serious voice: ‘Oh Khan, when I tried to dye her nails with henna she overthrew the bowl and scratched me, even though I had bought the most expensive henna. Early in the morning I led her to the window, took her head very gently into my hands and asked her to open her mouth. Surely it is my duty, Khan, to look after her teeth. But she drew back harshly, raised her right hand and beat me on my left cheek. It did not hurt very much, but I lost face. Forgive your slave, Khan, but I dare not remove the hair on her body. She is a strange woman. She will not wear any amulets, and does not take any precautions to safeguard her child. Be not angry with me, Khan, if it is a girl, be angry with Nino Hanum. She must be possessed by an evil spirit, for she trembles when I touch her. I know an old woman who lives near the Mosque Abdul-Asim. She is an expert in exorcising evil spirits. Maybe it would be a good idea if I asked her to come here. Just think Khan, in the morning she washes her face in cold water, to spoil her skin. She brushes her teeth with hard brushes, that make the gums bleed, instead of cleaning them with the right forefinger, dipped into scented salve, like everybody else. Only an evil spirit can have given her these ideas.’
I did not really listen. Nearly every day he came to my room to give me these monotonous reports. He was really troubled, for he was an honest person and wanted to do his duty, and he felt responsible for my future child. Nino had a running battle with him, playful but tenacious. She threw cushions at him, walked on the wide top of the wall of the house without wearing a veil, threw his amulets out of the window, and covered the walls with photos of her Georgian cousins—male cousins! He reported all this to me, sad and frightened, and every evening Nino sat with me on the divan and made her plans for the battle of next day. ‘What do you think Ali Khan,’ she said, and rubbed her chin thoughtfully, ‘shall I pour water on his face at night from a thin hose, or throw a cat at him during the day? No, I know. I’ll do exercises every day in the garden by the fountain. And I’ll make him do them too, he’s getting too fat. Or even better: I’ll tickle him till he dies. I’ve heard you can kill people by tickling them, and he’s awfully ticklish.’ She was sunk in dark plans of revenge, till she fell asleep, and the next day the eunuch reported horrified: ‘Ali Khan, Nino Hanum is standing by the fountain, making very strange movements with her arms and legs. I’m afraid, O Lord. She bends her body backwards and forwards, as if she had no bones. Maybe she is praying to an unknown god. She wants me to copy her movements. But I am a devout Muslim, Khan, and I only throw myself into the dust before Allah. I am greatly afraid for her bones and for the welfare of my soul.’
To dismiss the eunuch would not solve anything. Another would have to come in his place, for a household without a eunuch is unthinkable. No one else can supervise the women who do the housework, no one else can do the accounts, keep the money and check the expenses. Only the eunuch can do that, he who has no desires and cannot be bribed. Therefore I did not say anything, but looked at the green line of little flags around Baku. The eunuch cleared his throat, eager to do his duty. ‘Shall I ask the old woman from the Mosque of Abdul-Asim to come?’
‘What for, Jahja Kuli?’
‘To exorcise the evil spirits from Nino Hanum’s body.’ I sighed, for I did not think it possible that the wise woman from the Mosque Abdul-Asim could be a match for the spirits of Europe.
‘I don’t think that is necessary, Jahja Kuli. I myself know how to ban spirits. I will arrange everything in my own good time. But just now my force must be concentrated on these little flags.’ Curiosity and fear shone in the eunuch’s eyes.
‘When the green flags have crowded out the red ones, then your hometown is free? Is that so, Khan?’
‘That is so, Jahja Kuli.’
‘Then why do you not just put the green flags where they should be?’
‘That I cannot do, Jahja Kuli, my force is not strong enough.’
He looked at me with concern: ‘You should pray to God to give you strength. Next week begins the festival of Moharram. If you offer your prayer to God during Moharram he will certainly give you strength.’ I folded up the map, and was bewildered and sad. Listening to the eunuch’s chatter was beginning to get on my nerves. Nino was not at home. Her parents had come to Teheran, and Nino spent long hours in the little villa the illustrious family had rented. There she met other Europeans, and tried to keep this a secret. But of course I heard about it, and as I felt very sorry for her, I pretended to know nothing. The eunuch stood motionless, waiting for my orders. I thought of Seyd Mustafa, my friend, who had come to Teheran for a few days. I saw him but seldom, for he spent his days in mosques, saints’ graves and having wise discussions with tattered dervishes. ‘Jahja Kuli,’ I said at last, ‘go to Seyd Mustafa. He lives next to the Mosque of Sepahlesar. Ask him to honour me with his visit.’ The eunuch went, and I was alone. Indeed my strength was not enough, to bring the green flags to Baku. Somewhere in the steppes of my homeland the Turkish battalions were fighting, and with them our Volunteer Troops assembled under New Azerbeidshan’s banner. I knew the banner, I knew the number of troops and the battles they fought. Iljas Beg was with them, and I longed to be on the battlefield with him in the cool of the morning. But the road to the front was closed to me. English and Russian troops were guarding the borders. The broad bridge across the river Araxes, which joined Iran to the theatre of war was now barricaded with barbed wire, machine-guns and soldiers. The country of the Shah retreated into its calm like a snail into its shell. No man, no mouse, not even a fly was allowed to cross into the pestilential area where only disgusting fighting and shooting was going on, but hardly any poetry was recited. Many refugees came from Baku, amongst them Arslan Aga, the chatterbox. He was rushing from one tea house to another and writing articles in which he likened the Turk’s victories to those of Alexander the Great. One of these articles was banned, because the censor had the nasty suspicion that in glorifying Alexander, Persia, once vanquished by Alexander, was secretly being run down. Since that day Arslan Aga referred to himself as a martyr of his convictions. He came to see me, and told me in great detail all the heroic deeds I was supposed to have done during the defence of Baku. In his mind’s eye he saw legions of enemies marching past my machine-gun, with the sole purpose of being mowed down by me. He himself had spent the time of battle in the cellar of a printing office, where he had been busy writing rousing patriotic speeches, which had never been delivered. He read them to me, and asked me to describe to him a hero’s feelings in a hand-to-hand fight. I choked him with sweets and saw him to the door. He left behind the smell of printers’ ink, and a fat new copy book in which I was supposed to enter the hero’s feelings. I looked at the white pages, thought of Nino’s sad absent looks, of my entangled life and took up the pen. Not to describe the hero’s feelings, but to record on paper the road that had led us, Nino and me, to the fragrant garden of Shimran, where she had lost her smile.
There I sat, writing with the Persian pen of slit bamboo. I put the loose leaves in the order that I had started when I was still at school, and the past rose up again, until Seyd Mustafa came into the room, and pressed his pock-marked face against my shoulder. ‘Seyd,’ I said, ‘my life has become a tangle. The road to the front is barred, Nino has forgotten how to laugh, and I shed ink instead of blood. What shall I do, Seyd Mustafa?’ My friend looked at me quietly and searchingly. His robe was black, his face had become thin. His slender body seemed bowed under the weight of a mystery. He sat down and said:
‘With your hands you cannot do
anything, Ali Khan. But man has more than just hands. Look at my robe, and you’ll know what I mean. Man is ruled by the Unseen. Brush against the Mystery, and its might will descend on you.’
‘I cannot understand you, Seyd Mustafa. My soul is in pain, and I search for a road out of the darkness.’
‘You are turned towards the world, Ali Khan, and you forget the Unseen, who rules the world. In 680, the Year of the Flight, Hussein, the Prophet’s grandson, fell near Kerbela, pursued by enemies. He was the Saviour and the Mystery. With his blood the All-Mighty marked the rising and the setting sun. Twelve Imams reigned over the community of Shia, over us Shiites: the first one was Hussein, and the Last One is the Imam of the Last Day, the Invisible One, who even today is secretly leading the people of Shia. Visible in his work, and yet unassailable is the Hidden Imam. I see him in the rising sun, in the miracle of the seed, in the stormy sea. I hear his voice in the rattling of a machine-gun, a woman’s sigh, in the blowing of the wind. And the Unseen ordains: mourning be Shia’s fate! Mourning for Hussein’s blood, shed in the desert sands of Kerbela. One month of the year is dedicated to mourning: the month of Moharram. Whoever is suffering—let him cry in the month of Mourning. On the tenth day of Moharram the fate of Shia fulfils itself, for this is the day of the martyr’s death. This suffering, that the young Hussein took upon his shoulders, this suffering must be taken on their shoulders by his devout followers. Whoever takes upon himself a part of this suffering will be blessed with part of the blessing. Therefore the devout man chastises himself in the month of Moharram, and in the self-inflicted pain the man entangled in the problems of this world is shown the road to grace, and the joy of salvation. This is the secret of Moharram.’
‘Seyd,’ I said, tired and irritable, ‘I asked you how I can bring back happiness to my house, for I feel full of dim terror, and you feed me with wise tales from religious instructions we learned at school. Should I then run to the mosques and flay my back with iron chains? I am devout and fulfill our religious duties. I believe in the Mystery of the Unseen, but I do not believe the road to my happiness goes through the martyrdom of the Holy Hussein.’
‘But I believe that, Ali Khan. You ask me for the road, and I show it to you. I do not know of any other. Iljas Beg sheds his blood on the front at Gandsha. You cannot go to Gandsha. Therefore you should dedicate your blood to the Unseen, who asks you for it on the tenth day of Moharram. Do not say the Holy Sacrifice does not make sense—there is nothing in this vale of tears that does not make sense. Do battle for the home-land during Moharram, as Iljas Beg does at Gandsha.’ I was silent. The coach drove into the courtyard, and Nino’s face was a blur through the crystal windows. The door of the harem opened, and Seyd Mustafa was suddenly eager to go. ‘Come tomorrow to the Mosque Sepahlesar. We will talk again.’
26
We were lying on the divan, between us the Nardy board, inlaid with mother of pearl, covered with ivory pieces. Ever since I had taught Nino this Persian game we had been throwing dice for tomans, earrings, kisses and names of our future children. Nino lost, paid her debts and threw the dice again. Her eyes shone with excitement, her fingers touched the ivory pieces as if they were precious jewels. ‘You’ll be the ruin of me, Ali,’ she sighed, sliding towards me the eight tomans I had just won. She pushed the board away, put her head on my knees, looked thoughtfully up to the ceiling and sank into a dream.
It was a wonderful day, for Nino was happy with the deep content of fulfilled revenge. This is what had happened: Early in the morning the house reverberated with moaning and groaning. Her enemy, Jahja Kuli, came into the room, his cheek swollen, his face contorted. ‘Toothache,’ he said, with a face as if on the brink of suicide. Triumph and joy shone in Nino’s eyes. She led him to the window, looked into his mouth, and raised her eyebrows. Then she shook her head, as if worried, got a strong piece of string and wound it round Jahja Kuli’s hollow tooth. She then fastened the other end of the string to the handle of the open door. ‘Now,’ she said, rushed to the door and banged it closed. A terrific howl—the eunuch fell to the ground, frightened to death, and stared at his tooth flying towards the door in an elegant arc. ‘Tell him, Ali Khan, that’s what comes from cleaning one’s teeth with the forefinger of the right hand!’ I translated word for word, and Jahja Kuli picked his tooth up from the floor. But Nino’s thirst for revenge was not settled yet. ‘Tell him Ali Khan, that he is not cured yet, not by a long way. He must go to bed and for six hours he must put a hot poultice on his cheek. And on no account must he eat sweets for at least a week.’ Jahja Kuli went away, relieved but shattered. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Nino,’ I said, ‘taking away the last thing this poor soul can enjoy.’ ‘Serves him right,’ said Nino heartlessly, and fetched the Nardy board. She lost the game, and the balance of justice was restored.
Now she looked up and her fingers caressed my chin: ‘When will Baku be liberated, Ali?’
‘I would say in about two weeks’ time.’
‘Fourteen days,’ she sighed. ‘You know, I just can’t wait for Baku and the Turks. Everything has turned out so differently. You like it here, but I am dishonoured every day.’
‘What do you mean, dishonoured?’
‘Everybody treats me like a very expensive and fragile thing. I don’t know how expensive I am, but I am neither fragile nor a thing. Remember Daghestan? There it was quite different. No, I don’t like it here at all. If Baku is not liberated very soon we must go somewhere else. I don’t know anything about all these poets this country is so proud of, but I do know that on the feast of Hussein men scratch their breasts, beat their heads with daggers and whip their backs with iron chains. Many Europeans have left town today, because they don’t want to see these things. The whole thing makes me sick. I feel that here I am exposed to a malignant force, impervious to reason, that can attack me any time.’ Her tender face looked up at me. Her eyes were deep and dark as never before, the pupils were big and her glance seemed directed inwards. Only Nino’s eyes gave away the secret of her pregnancy.
‘Are you afraid, Nino?’
‘What of?’ her voice sounded genuinely astonished.
‘Some women are.’
‘No,’ she said seriously, ‘I am not afraid. I’m afraid of mice, of crocodiles, exams and eunuchs. But not of that. I might as well be afraid of a cold in the head in winter.’
I kissed her cool eyelids. She stood up and brushed her hair back. ‘I’ll go to see my parents, Ali Khan.’ I nodded, though I knew only too well that in the Kipiani’s villa all the harem rules were disregarded. The Prince received Georgian friends and European diplomats. Nino drank tea, ate English biscuits and talked to the Dutch Consul about Rembrandt and the problem of Oriental Women. She went, and I saw the coach with the crystal windows leave the courtyard.
I was alone, thinking about the little green flags, and the few inches of coloured paper that separated me from my home. Slowly the room became darker and darker. The faint fragrance of Nino’s scent still lingered in the soft cushions of the divan. I slid to the floor, my hand searching for the rosary. The Silver Lion, holding the sword in his left paw, shone on the wall. I looked up to him, and a sudden feeling of weakness and hopelessness overwhelmed me. It was shameful to sit here in the shade of the Silver Lion, while my people were bleeding to death in the steppes of Gandsha. I too was just a thing. An expensive, sheltered thing, looked after and cared for, a Shirvanshir, whose fate it was to receive some sort of splendid title sooner or later, and to express elegant feelings in elegant classical sentences. I was helpless, and the Silver Lion grinned at me from the wall. The border-bridge over the Araxes was closed, and no road led from the land of Iran to Nino’s soul. I fingered the rosary. The thread snapped, the amber beads rolled to the floor.
From far off the dull beats of a tambourine came through the twilight, calling and threatening, like a warning of the Unseen. I went to the window. The dusty road lay glowing in the last rays of the sun. I became aware of drumbea
ts, coming closer, their rhythm accompanied by staccato shouts, repeated over and over again, thousands of times: ‘Shah—ssé … Wah—ssé—Shah Hussein … Woe Hussein!’ Round the corner erupted the procession. Three immense standards, embroidered in heavy gold, swayed above the crowd, carried by strong hands. On one of them was written ‘Ali’ in gold letters—the name of the Prophet’s friend on earth. On the second flag of black velvet were the broad outlines of a left palm, blessing and rejecting, the Hand of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter. And on the third flag, with letters that seemed to cover the sky, was one word only: ‘Hussein’—the Prophet’s grandson, martyr and inheritor. Slowly the crowd passed along the street. First came the devout penitents, with naked backs, wearing black mourning robes, carrying heavy iron chains, and the chains hit their bleeding red shoulders. Behind them came a wide half circle of broad-shouldered men, taking two steps forward and one step back. Huskily their cry sounded along the road: ‘Shah—ssé … Wah—ssé …’ and with each cry their fists beat hard and hollow on their naked hairy breasts. The Prophet’s descendants followed, wearing the green belt of their rank, their heads bent. And behind them the Martyrs of Moharram in the white robes of death, their faces dark and mute, carrying daggers in their hands. ‘Shah-ssé … Wah-ssé …’ The daggers blinked and came down on the shorn heads. The Martyrs’ robes were covered with blood. One of them stumbled and was carried away by friends, a beatific smile on his lips.
