Kader Abdolah - The King

The women clapped their hands over their mouths to suppress their cries of alarm. This was a highly unusual occurrence. No one was ever to see the shah without his hat. The women immediately averted their eyes, but in that flash they had seen that the shah had become a little bald and a little grey. He put his hat back on and cast an angry glance at the women. The festive mood had been spoilt. Still hanging high in the tree was the fat treacherous albaloo. The shah plucked it roughly with his hand and played with it for a moment between his fingers. Would he crush it and throw it to the ground, or pop it in his mouth? He popped it in his mouth and bit down. The taste alleviated everything.

‘Wicked! Extraordinary!’ exclaimed the shah.

The baker had done his work with consummate skill. There was no stopping the shah now. Forgetting the purpose of his visit he ate so much in so short a time that his stomach began to ache and he had to lie down on the couches.

‘Bring me hot tea with rock candy,’ he groaned.

Indeed that was the only effective remedy for stomach ache caused by eating too many albaloos. Once he had drunk the sweet tea and his stomach began to feel better, he looked up from his couch at the women plucking albaloos.

‘No, not by hand. Pluck them with your mouth,’ he kept shouting.

The women put their hands behind their backs and stood under the branches. The shah laughed at the sight of their lips, which the oozing juice of the albaloos had stained a deep red. It aroused him. He called one of the women over and sucked on her lips. He plucked a couple of cherries, squeezed them and let the red juice flow over the women’s faces, necks and breasts. They enjoyed all the attention. It was one of the rare moments when they actually loved the shah. Now he belonged to all of them, and he kissed all the lips that came near.

Back in the palace they would talk about what they had experienced and how much they had enjoyed it. It would provoke jealousy among those who had not been kissed or touched by the shah in years. Discord lay in wait, ready to pounce.

The shah drank a few more glasses of tea and stretched out on one of the couches. He closed his eyes to take a nap.

Silence descended on the garden. The women sat on the big garden benches smoking hookahs. The shah slept restlessly, tossing and turning. Then all at once he stood up, left the women and withdrew into the building where he was to receive the Russian delegation.

‘Does the shah wish to rest any more?’ asked Sheikh Aqasi, and he accompanied him to a special room.

The shah picked up a book that was lying on a table, sat down in a chair, put his feet up on another chair and began leafing through the book.

‘Does Your Majesty require anything else, perhaps?’

The shah said no, after which the sheikh gently closed the door.

Within the hour the sheikh returned, tapped gently on the door and brought in a cup of tea, with the shah’s approval. The sheikh then led him to another part of the building where he was to receive the Russian guests unobserved. They could arrive any minute now, but apparently they had been delayed.

The shah waited in this guest room and Sheikh Aqasi waited at the back door, but there was no sign of the Russians. The shah looked out through a slit in the curtains at the fields along which the delegation would have to pass. For a meeting at this level an unreported delay was unusual. The shah paced up and down the room and took another peek outside. Sheikh Aqasi stood rigid at the door, as if he had turned to stone. He dared not approach the shah.

Finally the shah turned to him. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

‘No, not that I know of. Everything was meticulously arranged with your mother.’

‘Perhaps they’ve lost their way?’ said the shah.

‘The Russian ambassador himself stopped in yesterday to go over the route,’ he answered.

With his hands behind his back the shah returned to the guest room. Soon Sheikh Aqasi came to bring him another glass of tea.

‘How much more tea do we have to drink?’ said the shah, and waved him away with his hand.

The sheikh withdrew, afraid the shah was about to fly into a rage. His nerves were stretched to the limit.

The shah could take it no longer. He bounded down the hall and cast his eyes on the women resting in the shadow of the trees. Then he thrust his hand into his coat pocket and felt a scrap of paper. He had forgotten it, the paper hanging round his cat’s neck. ‘Beware! Tomorrow!’

He was stunned. Could this warning have to do with the failure of the Russians to appear? He turned back to the guest room, pulled the curtain aside and grabbed his binoculars. There was no one to be seen. A serene silence reigned.

Suddenly he heard a shot in the distance. Could he be mistaken? Had Sheikh Aqasi heard it too? He opened the window and strained his ears. Then he heard another shot, far in the distance.

‘Sheikh Aqasi!’ he cried.

The sheikh was at his side immediately.

‘Did you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘The shots. We heard two shots.’

Sheikh Aqasi, clearly shaken, went over to the window. Another shot was heard.

The shah didn’t hesitate. ‘Get ready!’ he ordered his wives. ‘Back to the palace!’ Chaos ensued. The women put on their niqabs and hastened to their horses. Surrounded by his regular guards the shah raced back to Tehran. The other guards escorted his wives to the palace by way of a shortcut. After a ride of unprecedented speed the shah and his guards reached the city. He noticed the agitation immediately. Everyone was indoors, looking out at the empty streets from behind closed windows.

The shah was told that there had been shooting and that a few people had been killed, but no one knew exactly what was going on. He wanted to ride to the centre of the city, but the guards held him back and brought him to the palace despite his protestations. There he summoned the head of the guards and had him call for the vizier. The messenger returned and reported that the vizier had gone to the bazaar square, where a serious incident had taken place that required the vizier’s personal attention. He was not able to come to the palace.

‘What kind of serious incident?’ cried the shah.

‘I don’t have the exact details,’ answered the messenger, ‘but I heard that many have been killed.’

‘How many?’

‘More than twenty, maybe thirty.’

‘Thirty killed? Who fired the shots? Who died?’

‘What I am telling you is based on rumour,’ said the man cautiously.

‘Tell us the rumours then!’ cried the shah in a rage.

‘According to the rumours more than twenty Russians were killed.’

‘What? Russians? What makes you think they were Russians?’

‘I’m only passing on the rumours,’ repeated the messenger.

‘Go then, and come back quickly with the facts,’ ordered the shah.

No one in the palace knew what had happened on the bazaar square. And if anyone did know he didn’t dare open his mouth for fear of the shah’s explosive fury.

If the rumour was true and the incident had something to do with the Russians, then the special Russian envoy himself could be dead. Russia would hold the shah responsible for this attack. He didn’t know what to do next. He was prepared to crawl to the temple of the holy Abdoldawood on his knees to rectify the situation.

The messenger was probably too terrified to return. Doubtless the matter was a complicated one or the vizier would have come to him immediately to fill him in. There was no question of his mother having anything to do with this plot. His appointment with the Russians had been violently sabotaged. The shah, his mother and the Russians had walked into a trap. What if the Russian envoy indeed had been killed? What was he to do?