Kader Abdolah - The King

With more feeling this time, Amir began to declaim:

‘Said one among them — “Surely not in vain

“My substance of the common Earth was ta’en

“And to this Figure moulded, to be broke,

“Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again.”’

‘Excellent,’ said the shah, ‘but our eyes must grow accustomed to these letters. It’s not like reading a book.’ He pointed to an article that was printed beneath his poem and said, ‘Read this!’

It was an article about telegraphy that Amir himself had written. He began reading with deep conviction: ‘“At one time the world’s fastest communication system was a work of our own devising. The great King Darius had built an enormous network of roads, with couriers who rode ceaselessly day and night to bring reports to the palace with the utmost speed from every corner of the world. They even used echoes, gestures and mirrors to convey the messages across rivers and over mountains. Back then we were proud of our inventions, but now we have become dependent on the Russians to build donkey trails for us …”’

The vizier saw the look of unease on the shah’s face. Amir hesitated a moment but continued, ‘“Telegraphy is the sending of a message by cable. It works as follows. The sender hands his message to the postal clerk, who sends it to its destination at exactly the same moment …”’

‘Go on, go on,’ said the shah impatiently.

‘“England used to be dependent on ships. It took months for a message from London to reach the Far East, and it took even more months for an answer to be sent back. But now England sends …”’

‘Yes, yes?’ urged the shah.

‘“The vizier has informed this newspaper that we won’t have to wait for decades for telegraphy to come to us, if that is our desire. And if the vizier says this, we must believe that we too will soon be able to send our messages from one city to another in the blink of an eye, but— ”’

The shah snatched the newspaper from Amir’s hands, rolled it up and kept walking through the print shop. He inspected the cables, the ink pots and the lead letters, tossed the workers a few coins and walked out.

Once outside the vizier shed some light on the newspaper article. ‘The information in the newspaper is not new to Your Majesty, of course, but we think our fellow countrymen also ought to be informed of these big changes. The articles in the newspaper will cover developments in our own land. The British have told us informally that they are thinking about running a telegraph line to India via our country. Not so very long ago they laid cables along the bottom of the sea, a difficult and expensive method that takes a very long time. Now they have approached us, since the cheapest and shortest way for them to run their cable to India is through our country. It has also been drawn to our attention that they are considering a railway line that would run straight through our country and on to India. We have not had any official discussions with them, but we expect that very soon they will come knocking on our door.’

The shah listened in silence and thought about the tsar’s message with regard to the invasion of Herat. He wanted to talk this over with the vizier, but decided not to. ‘Keep us informed,’ said the shah.

That night the shah awoke with a start, his heart pounding in his chest. Sharmin rubbed up against him. Sitting up in bed he thought about his visit to the square and the print shop. Only now did he realise that wherever the vizier went he was followed by a group of young men. These were the ones who had studied abroad. They looked different, they had a different way of sitting on their horses, and the way they walked was different from that of the merchants and princes. Together they represented the face of a land that the shah had never seen before.

‘Perhaps our mother is right,’ said the shah to the cat. ‘You weren’t there in the print shop, or you too would have seen how those young men are brimming with ambition. This won’t be the last we hear from them.’

The shah, his mother and Sheikh Aqasi were the only ones who knew what had been discussed with the Kremlin. To prevent informers from discovering their secret they had formed a triumvirate. They never employed a messenger and never took notes. The shah had decided to become more actively involved in affairs of state. He attended important military meetings more often and kept the vizier outside the decision-making process whenever he could. To the vizier’s great irritation the shah had relieved him of some of his military responsibilities, arguing that the vizier would need to have his hands free in order to carry out his reforms. In the meantime the shah had appointed Sheikh Aqasi as his official advisor.

The sheikh was now serving as a messenger between the shah and the Russians in the negotiations on the invasion of Herat. Ultimately the shah intended to transfer some of the power from the vizier to the sheikh. The sheikh advised the shah to make sure his subjects could see that he was ruling the land and not the vizier. He also tried to keep the shah from getting bored. He was constantly making plans for him and sending him to various cities on working visits. This change did the shah good; it cheered him up.

Sheikh Aqasi knew that if he could enter into a stable agreement with the Russians, and if the shah could take Herat, he would undoubtedly become the country’s next vizier.

It did not escape Grand Vizier Mirza Kabir’s notice that Sheikh Aqasi was meeting with the Russians more and more frequently. He had warned the shah countless times about the sheikh: he was sly, superstitious and easily influenced. A man like that could pose a danger to the country.

‘I would suggest that everyone mind their own business,’ responded the shah sharply.

The vizier was forced to sit by and watch as his faithful warlords disappeared from the highest ranks of the army. The shah was the army’s commander-in-chief, but the decisions he made revealed the influence of the vizier’s adversaries. The vizier could do nothing to oppose them. The shah would not hesitate to use force to brush him aside.

Whenever the shah made an appearance Sheikh Aqasi was at his side. He also made it his business to be with the king whenever the vizier came to the palace for meetings.

It was late in the afternoon. The last page of the document that would seal the alliance with the tsar lay before him on his desk. Once he pressed his signet ring into the ink-pad and made his mark at the bottom of the page, the path to Herat would be thrown open. He walked around the room with the signet ring in his hand, looking at himself in the mirror. He would do what his father had not been able to accomplish.

‘Sharmin!’ he called, but Sharmin did not come. The shah looked out of the window towards the gate, where two guards were marching. He took off his hat, scratched his head and stood there with his hat in his hands. Resolutely he put his hat back on his head, walked to his desk, pressed his signet ring first into the ink-pad and then, with force, beneath his name. He rang his bell and asked the chamberlain to fetch Sheikh Aqasi.

The shah handed the agreement to the sheikh and sent him away without a word. Now that he had made this decision he felt the need to speak with the vizier.

‘Sharmin!’ he called again.

The cat remained hidden.

The shah was about to go into the courtyard, but halfway down the stairs he turned back and entered the harem unannounced. Khwajeh Bashi quickly put on his slippers and followed the shah, who walked further into the harem and then changed his mind. He turned to Khwajeh Bashi and said, ‘Fetch the vizier!’