Kader Abdolah - The King

Some of the factories were now in operation. Now the vizier could proudly gaze on the manufactured products with his own eyes and hold them in his hands. He wanted to share the results with the shah, so he invited him to inspect the army.

It was a beautiful day. The shah was being led round by a group of officers. When they reached the top of the highest hill they stopped. From there they had a view of the entire plain, and the king was startled by what he saw: a large army in perfect formation. It looked every bit like the kind of French army he had seen in the French history books. He took his binoculars in hand to study some of the soldiers up close, and his open mouth betrayed his astonishment. He studied their berets, coats, gleaming boots and rifles. You could see the word ‘unbelievable’ forming on his lips. His eyes then fell on a row of brand-new cannons glittering in the autumn sun.

The vizier rode down the hill alone. A gentle breeze played with the shah’s coat. As soon as the vizier reached the army, one of the French officers shouted, ‘Ready!’

The soldiers raised their new rifles and steadied them against their shoulders. The shah searched for the vizier’s face through his binoculars and saw his smile.

‘Fire!’ shouted the vizier, sitting astride his horse and pointing into the distance. Shots were fired. The shah’s horse whinnied and reared up. The shah struck him lightly on the flank and urged him to calm down.

At the vizier’s signal a group of sergeants sped to the cannons and turned the barrels to the horizon.

‘Fire!’ shouted the vizier once more.

Seven successive shots were fired. The shah had to pull firmly on the reins to keep his horse under control. Then he went down the hill to join the troops.

The French officers saluted and were ordered to begin the parade. The columns of soldiers marched past the shah, who kept touching his hand to his hat. He was clearly impressed. The vizier had done good work, but the shah refused to compliment him.

‘Has the entire army been reformed this way?’ he asked.

‘No, not the whole army, Your Majesty! We’re not quite ready yet. It will be a while before we’ve reached that point.’

The impressive parade made the shah think of the discipline of the Russian troops during the last war, when he had fought side by side with his father. Clearly the vizier had enormous influence over the army. He seemed more like the commander-in-chief than the shah himself. A plan began to ripen in his mind. With these armed forces he would be able to free Herat from the hands of the British and the Afghans.

The vizier had the officers step forward and he gave a short speech in French, describing the activities they had completed. Then he introduced them to the shah one by one. The shah put his hand in his coat pocket and handed each officer a large gold coin on which his own image was depicted.

The British spies were busier than ever gathering information on the Persian cooperation with the French and the Russians. There wasn’t a single influential aristocrat who hadn’t been bribed by the British. And anyone with a bit of political ambition knew he wouldn’t be able to achieve anything without British support. Over the past fifty years England had also forged ties with the imams in the mosques and with tribal leaders in every corner of the country. Very little escaped the British.

The vizier also had his own information network. He knew, for example, that Mahdolia was planning a secret chat with the shah within the confines of the harem. He suspected that the meeting had to do with a sensitive issue. The informant who had passed that message on to the vizier was an old woman whose job it was to remove unwanted hair from the faces of the women of the harem by using a fine thread. She had seen the shah’s mother, fully veiled like one of the women of the harem, go into a room in the back of the building. The woman had hidden behind a cupboard to see what would happen next. Quite unexpectedly the shah came into the room. The old woman was so shocked she couldn’t remember what had been said. The vizier had to find out for himself, and he didn’t do that until it was too late — for him and for the country. Otherwise he would have learned that the conversation had unfolded like this:

‘What did you want to tell me?’ the shah asked his mother.

‘The Russian embassy has a message for you.’

‘From whom?’ asked the shah.

‘No names were named, but it’s probably from the tsar.’

‘What do they want to talk about?’

‘The content of the message is still unknown.’

‘Who is going to bring the message?’ he asked.

‘If the shah agrees, a highly placed Russian politician disguised as a merchant will come to Tehran with a group of tradesmen. He will want to speak to the shah on behalf of the tsar. Under no circumstances must the British get wind of this.’

‘What’s it all about?’ the shah asked again.

‘I have my suspicions, but it’s better to be patient and to hear the message from them first-hand,’ said Mahdolia.

‘Where can we receive them?’ asked the shah.

‘The best place for the meeting is the country house of Sheikh Aqasi. He is the most trustworthy person we know. I think we can gather in his albaloo garden. If the shah takes his harem along it will be seen as an ordinary outing.’

The shah was silent. The idea appealed to him.

‘May I arrange the meeting?’ asked Mahdolia.

‘Fine,’ said the shah.

Mahdolia took the shah’s hand and pressed it to her breast.

When Mahdolia was gone the shah walked back to the hall of mirrors and called for a hookah. He sat down amongst his cushions, and as he smoked he thought about what had happened.

His mother never let herself be used as a messenger unless it was a matter of the utmost importance. The shah decided to wait and not to inform the vizier.

An albaloo is a cherry, but it is somewhat redder, more delicate and more flavourful than other cherry varieties. The tastiest albaloos in the world can be found in the outdoor gardens of Tehran near the Alborz Mountains. In other cities the albaloos ripen in late June, but the cherries of Tehran are not fully developed until late summer and early autumn. There nature takes her time to make something outstanding.

Albaloos were very popular among the young lovers of Persia. The girls and young women would hang albaloos over their ears and the young men would long to pluck them. The albaloo was the shah’s favourite fruit. Everyone near him knew this, and the rich merchants in the bazaar, who had large albaloo gardens at their country houses, were aware of it as well. They sometimes invited the shah and his harem to spend a day among the cherries. Like the aristocratic families they had built castles in the surrounding villages where they would spend the summer. These were outposts of paradise, constructed according to the conventions of Persian landscape architecture.

Sheikh Aqasi had one of the finest gardens in Tehran. He had made all the necessary preparations for the secret meeting to be held there between the shah and the Russians.

The evening before the meeting the shah lay in bed. He missed Sharmin. Only much later did the cat finally come into the bedroom, rush onto the bed and lie down. The shah felt her restlessness.

‘Where were you, Sharmin?’

The cat crept up to her master. As he stroked her head he felt a piece of paper hanging from a cord round her neck.

‘What’s this?’

In the candlelight he saw that it was indeed a slip of paper. Two words were written on it that were barely legible: ‘Beware! Tomorrow!’