by Amin Maalouf
‘You have to forget litres, kilos, ounces and pints,’ he told me. ‘Here they speak of jaw, miskal, syr and kharvar, which is the load of an ass.’
He tried to teach me.
‘The basic unit is the jaw, which is a medium sized grain of barley which still has its husk but which has had the little tuft of hair at each end cut off.’
‘That’s quite tortuous,’ I guffawed.
My teacher threw his student a look of rebuke. To make amends I thought I had better prove that I had been taking it in.
‘So the jaw is the smallest unit of measure.’
‘Not at all.’ said Howard indignantly.
Unruffled, he referred to his notes:
‘The weight of a grain of barley equals that of seventy grains of seneveh, or if you like, six hairs of a mule’s tail.’
In comparison, my own mission was light! Given my complete ignorance of the local dialect, my only job was to keep in contact with the foreign nationals in order to reassure them of Fazel’s intentions and to watch over their safety.
It should be mentioned that Tabriz, until the construction of the Trans-Caucasian Railway twenty years earlier, had been the gateway to Persia, the entrance point for all travellers, goods and ideas. Several European establishments had branches there, such as the German company of MMO Mossig and Schünemann, or the Eastern Trading Company, an important Austrian firm. There were also consulates, the American Presbyterian Mission and various other institutions, and I am happy to say that at no moment during the long and difficult months of the siege did the foreign nationals become targets.
Not only were they in no danger, but there was some moving fraternization. I do not wish to speak of Baskerville, myself nor of Panoff, who quickly joined the movement, but I wish to salute other people, such as Mr Moore, the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, who, not hesitating to take up arms at the side of Fazel, was wounded in combat, or Captain Anginieur, who helped us to resolve numerous logistical problems and who, through his articles in l’Asie française, helped produce the surge of solidarity in Paris and throughout the world, which saved Tabriz from the dreadful fate threatening it. For some of the city’s clergy, the active presence of the foreigners was, I quote, ‘a motley crowd of Europeans, Armenians, Babis and infidels of all sorts’. However the population remained impervious to this propaganda and showered us with grateful affection. Every man was a brother for us and every woman a sister or a mother.
I hardly need to point out that it was the Persians themselves who gave the Resistance the most spontaneous and enormous help from the first day. First the free inhabitants of Tabriz and then the refugees who had had to flee their towns and villages for their beliefs and seek protection in the last bastion of the constitution. This was the case with hundreds of sons of Adam who had rushed from all corners of the Empire and who asked nothing more than that they be allowed to bear arms. This was also the case with several deputies, ministers and journalists from Teheran who had managed to escape the dragnet ordered by Colonel Liakhov and who often arrived in small groups, exhausted, haggard and distraught.
However the most precious recruit beyond a shadow of a doubt was Shireen who had defied the curfew to leave the capital by car without the Cossacks daring to impede her. Her landaulet was greeted enthusiastically by the populace, the more so as her chauffeur came from Tabriz and was one of the rare Persians to drive such a vehicle.
The Princess set up home in an abandoned palace which had been built by her grandfather, the old Shah who had been assassinated. He had envisaged spending a month there every year, but after the first night, as legend goes, he felt faint and his astrologers advised him never to set foot again in a place of such ill omen. For thirty years no one had lived there. It was referred to, not without a little fear, as the Empty Palace.
Shireen did not hesitate to defy bad luck and her residence became the heart of the city. Resistance leaders liked to meet in her vast gardens, which were a cool oasis during those summer nights and I was often in their company.
The Princess always seemed happy to see me. Our correspondence had caused a bond to spring up between us to which no one could become privy. Of course we were never alone, there being dozens of other people present whenever we met or dined. We debated indefatigably and sometimes we just joked but not excessively. Familiarity is never tolerated in Persia and one must be punctilious and flamboyant about being polite. In Persian there is often the tendency to say ‘I am the slave of the shadow of the greatness’ of the individual to whom one is talking and when it is a matter of mainly female highnesses, one starts if not actually kissing the ground at least doing so in the import of the most grandiose phrases.
Then came that disturbing Thursday evening. 17 September to be exact. How could I ever forget it.
For a hundred different reasons our companions had all left the palace and I was among the last to leave. Just as I went through the outer gate of the property, I realized that I had left next to my chair a briefcase into which I had the habit of placing some important papers. So I retraced my steps, but not all with the intention of seeing the princess; I was under the impression that she had retired after seeing off the last of her visitors.
Not so. She was still sitting alone in the middle of twenty empty chairs. She seemed worried and distant. Never taking my gaze from her, I picked up the briefcase as slowly as I could. Shireen was still sitting with her profile toward me, motionless and deaf to my presence. I sat down in contemplative silence and watched her for a little while. Imagining that it was twelve years earlier, I could see the two of us in Jamaladin’s sitting room in Constantinople. She looked just the same then, sitting in profile, with a blue scarf crowning her hair and trailing down to the leg of the chair. How old had she been? Seventeen? Eighteen? Today at thirty she was a mature, regal and serene woman, and just as slender as on that first day. She obviously had been able to resist the temptation of women of her rank who lay around eating and lazed their lives away on an opulent divan. Had she married? Was she a divorcee or a widow? We had never spoken of it.
I wanted to say in an unquavering voice: ‘I have loved you ever since Constantinople.’ My lips trembled and tightened but without emitting the slightest sound.
However Shireen had turned gently toward me. She observed me without surprise, as if I had neither left nor returned. Her look wavered and she spoke to me with familiarity:
‘What are you thinking about?’
The answer shot from my lips:
‘Of you. From Constantinople to Tabriz.’
A smile, which was perhaps one of embarrassment, but which resolutely did not wish to be a barrier, spread over her face. As for me, I could no more than quote her own phrase which had become almost a code between us:
‘You never know, our paths might meet!’
We were both taken up by a few seconds of silent memories. Then Shireen said:
‘I did not leave Teheran without the book.’
‘The Samarkand Manuscript?’
‘It is always on the chest of drawers near my bed. I never tire of reading it. I know the Rubaiyaat and the chronicle written in the margin by heart.’
‘I would willingly give a decade of my life for one night with that book.’
‘I would willingly give a night of my life.’
Within an instant I was bent over Shireen’s face, our eyes were shut and the only thing that existed around us was the monotony of the cicadas’ song amplified in our numbed minds and our lips touched in a long ardent kiss which transcended and broke down the barriers of years.
Lest other visitors arrive or the servants should come, we rose and I followed her down a covered path, through a small hidden door and up a broken staircase into the former Shah’s apartment which his granddaughter had taken over. Shireen closed two heavy shutters with a huge bolt and we were alone, together. Tabriz was no longer a city isolated from the world – it was the world which languished isolated from Tabriz.
/> By dawn I had still not opened the manuscript. I could see it on the chest of drawers on the other side of the bed, but Shireen was sleeping naked with her head on my neck and her breasts falling against my ribs and nothing in the world would have made me move. I was breathing in her breath, her smells and her night, and contemplating her eyelashes, trying desperately to guess what dream of happiness or anguish was making them quiver. When she awoke the first sounds of the city were already to be heard. I had to slip away quickly and promised myself that I would dedicate my next night of love to Khayyam’s book.
CHAPTER 40
When I came out of the palace I walked along with my shoulders hunched – dawn in Tabriz is never warm – and in this manner I made my way toward the caravansary without trying to take any short cuts. I was not in a hurry to get there. I needed some time to think things over as I had not calmed down from the exhilaration of the night and my mind was still full of images, gestures and whispered words, I could no longer tell whether I was happy. In a way I felt complete, but this feeling was tinged with the inevitable guilt which comes with clandestine affairs. Thoughts kept on coming back to me, as haunting as thoughts can be during sleepless nights. ‘After I left, did she go back to sleep with a smile? Does she have any regret? When I see her again and if we are not alone will she treat me as an accomplice or a stranger? I shall return tonight and try and look for some faith in her eyes.’
Suddenly a cannon shot rang out. I stopped and listened. Was it our brave and solitary de Bange? It was followed by a silence, then a prolonged fusillade and finally a lull. I ventured a few more steps and kept my ears peeled. There was a new roar immediately followed by a third. By this time I was starting to be worried; a single cannon cannot fire at that rate, there had to be two or even more. Two shells exploded a few streets away from me and I started to run toward the citadel.
Fazel quickly confirmed the news which I feared; the first of the Shah’s forces had arrived during the night. They had taken up position in the districts held by the religious chiefs. Other troops were on their way and were converging from all directions. The siege of Tabriz had begun.
The tirade given by Colonel Liakhov, the military governor of Teheran and the architect of the coup d’état, before his troops set off for Tabriz went along the following lines:
‘Brave Cossacks! The Shah is in danger. The people of Tabriz have rejected his authority and have declared war in an attempt to force him to recognize the constitution. The constitution would abolish your privileges and dissolve your brigade. If it triumphs, it is your women and children who will go hungry. The constitution is your worst enemy and you must fight like the furies against it. The way you destroyed the parliament has aroused the greatest admiration throughout the world. Follow this salutary action by crushing the rebel city and, on behalf of the sovereigns of Russia and Persia, I promise you money and honours. All the riches of Tabriz are yours, you only have to help yourselves!’
The command which was shouted out in Teheran and St Petersburg and murmured in London was the same: Tabriz must be destroyed, it deserves the most exemplary punishment. If it is defeated no one will dare speak of a constitution, parliament or democracy; once again the Orient will be able to sink comfortably into death.
That is how the whole world came to witness a strange and heartrending race over the following months: while the example set by Tabriz started to revive the flame of resistance in various corners of Persia, the city itself was undergoing a more and more rigorous siege. Would the Constitutionalists have enough time to pick themselves up, organize and take up arms before their bastion gave out?
In January they won their first big success: in answer to an appeal by the Bakhtiari chiefs who were Shireen’s maternal uncles, Isfahan, the former capital, rebelled and affirmed its attachment to the constitution and its solidarity with Tabriz. When the news reached the besieged city an explosion of joy erupted on the spot. The whole night long people chanted indefatigably: ‘Tabriz-Isfahan, the country is waking up!’ However, the very next day a massive attack forced the defenders to abandon several positions in the south and west. There was only one road left connecting Tabriz to the outside world and that was the one which led north, toward the Russian border.
Three weeks later the city of Rashd rebelled in turn. Like Isfahan, it rejected the tutelage of the Shah and extolled the constitution and Fazel’s resistance. There was a new eruption of joy in Tabriz, but immediately the besieging troops launched a new attack and the last road was cut: Tabriz was completely surrounded. The post could no longer get through, and nor could any food. They had to organize very strict rationing to be able to keep on feeding the two hundred thousand or so inhabitants of the city.
In February and March 1909 more towns rallied. The territory of the constitution now extended to Shiraz, Hamadan, Meshed, Astarabad, Bandar-Abbas and Bushir. In Paris the Committee for the Defence of Tabriz was formed, headed by a certain Monsieur Dieulafoy who was a distinguished orientalist; there was the same drive in London, under the presidency of Lord Lamington, and more important still, the principal Shiite clergymen who were based in Karbala in Ottoman Iraq pronounced themselves solemnly and unambiguously in favour of the constitution and disavowed the backward-looking mullahs.
Tabriz was triumphant. But it was also dying.
Unable to confront so many rebellions and so much disaffection, the Shah became utterly single-minded: Tabriz, the source of the evil, had to be brought down. When it fell the others would yield. Since he had failed to take it by assault, he decided to starve it into submission.
In spite of rationing, bread was rare. By the end of March there were already several deaths, mostly among the old and very young.
The press in London, Paris and St Petersburg was shocked and started to criticize the Powers, who, it was stated, still had in the besieged city many of their nationals whose lives were now in danger. Echoes of this stance reached us by way of telegraph.
Fazel summoned me one day to tell me:
‘The Russians and the English are going to evacuate their nationals soon so that Tabriz can be crushed without it provoking too much commotion in the rest of the world. That will be a hard blow for us, but I want you to know that I will not oppose the evacuation. I shall not hold anyone here against his will.’
He charged me to inform the people involved that everything would be done to facilitate their departure. Then the most extraordinary event of all came to pass. Having been there as a privileged witness allows me to overlook much human pettiness.
I had started my round, intending my first visit to be to the Presbyterian Mission where I felt some trepidation about seeing the Reverend Director again and having to suffer his reprimands. He who had been counting on me to reason with Howard, was he not going to reproach me for having taken an identical path? Indeed, he was quite distant with me and showed the minimum of courtesy.
However, when I had explained the reason for my visit he responded without a moment’s hesitation:
‘I shall not leave. If they can organize a convoy to evacuate the foreigners, they can just as well organize similar convoys to bring supplies to the hungry city.’
I thanked him for his viewpoint which seemed to me to conform to the religious and humanitarian ideal which drove him. Then I went off to visit three businesses which were in the vicinity and to my great surprise their response was identical. The businessmen did not wish to leave any more than the pastor. As one of them, an Italian, explained to me:
‘If I left Tabriz at this difficult moment, I would be ashamed to return later and carry on my business here. So I shall stay. Perhaps my presence will help make my government act.’
Everywhere it was as if word had gone round. I received the same immediate, clear and irrevocable reply. Mr Wratislaw, the British consul, and the staff of the Russian Consulate, with the notable exception of the consul, Mr Pokhitanoff, all gave the same reply to me and to their shattered governments: ‘We will not leave!
’
In the city, the foreigner’s admirable solidarity lifted people’s spirits, but the situation was still precarious. On 18 April Wratislaw telegraphed London: ‘Bread is hard to find today, tomorrow it will be even harder.’ On the nineteenth he sent a new message: ‘The situation is desperate, there is talk here of a last attempt to break the strangle-hold.’
In fact a meeting was being held that day at the citadel at which Fazel announced that constitutionalist troops were advancing from Rashd toward Teheran, that the authorities there were on the verge of collapse and that it would not take much to make them fall and our cause triumph. But Howard spoke after him to mention that the bazaars were at present devoid of all foodstuffs.
‘People have already slaughtered domestic animals and street cats. Whole families wander around the streets, night and day, in search of a shrivelled pomegranate or a piece of Barbary bread dropped in a gutter. Soon we run the risk of seeing people turn to cannibalism.’
‘Two weeks. We only need to hold out two weeks!’
Fazel’s voice was pleading. But Howard could do nothing about it:
‘Our reserves have allowed us to survive up until now. But there is no longer anything left to distribute. Nothing. In two weeks the population will have been decimated and Tabriz will be a ghost town. In recent days there have been eight hundred deaths – from starvation and the numerous diseases which go with it.’
‘Two weeks. Just two weeks!’ Fazel repeated. ‘Even if we have to fast!’
‘We have all been fasting for several days!’
‘What else can we do? Capitulate? Let go of the huge wave of support that we have so patiently built up? Is there no means of lasting out?’
Last out. Last out. These twelve men were haggard and dizzy with hunger and exhaustion, but also drunk on the thought that victory was within grasp. They had no thought in mind other than holding out.
