Kader Abdolah - The King

Khwajeh Bashi did not understand why the shah wanted to bring the vizier to the harem.

‘Why are you standing there? Fetch the vizier!’ shouted the shah.

Evening had just fallen when the vizier rode into the palace. He handed the reins to the guard and had the chamberlain inform the shah of his arrival. Once the vizier was inside the shah took him to his conference room.

‘Have a seat,’ he said, contrary to custom, but the vizier preferred to stand.

‘Please, sit down,’ repeated the shah in a friendly tone.

The vizier sat down. The shah walked over to the window. Standing with his back to the vizier he told him in general terms about the decisions he had made, about Herat and about the Russian ships in the Caspian Sea. After having said all this he felt as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

The vizier sat silently, his head bent low, lost in reflection.

‘What does the vizier think?’ asked the shah.

‘What the shah has done is irreparable,’ said the vizier, and he stood up.

‘Irreparable?’

‘Opening the Caspian Sea to Russian ships is surrender, pure and simple. And as for Herat, the shah knows we will never be able to win a war with the British. The shah and his advisors are steering us into troubled waters.’

‘We’ve made airtight agreements with the Russians,’ said the shah in his own defence.

‘No one is capable of making airtight agreements with the Russians. The generations before us have had plenty of experience in that regard.’

‘Times have changed,’ answered the shah unsteadily.

‘For the Russians times will never change,’ insisted the vizier.

‘But what have we got to lose if we don’t win the battle for Herat?’ asked the shah, feeling his way.

‘We’ll lose a great deal, but exactly what is impossible to predict.’

‘I wish the vizier would not speak with us in guarded terms. Let’s have some examples. Give us an example,’ said the shah emphatically.

‘The tsar is taking a chance. The tsar has nothing to lose. But the shah must be very careful where he puts his feet. We may end up so deep in the morass that we won’t be able to climb out.’

‘I asked for a concrete example, but the vizier is speaking in riddles.’

‘The gravity of the situation exceeds all examples,’ answered the vizier. ‘The war will bring unrest and uncertainty. We must reach a compromise with the British and not walk into the tsar’s trap. The reforms—’

‘Reforms, reforms. What good are all these changes if we are no longer in control of our own country later on? Compromise? What compromise? The vizier knows better than anyone that the British don’t understand the word “compromise”. Only a cannonball can put them in their place. The decision has been taken. Soon we will invade Herat. You have been sufficiently informed,’ said the shah, whose lower lip was trembling with agitation.

The vizier hazarded one last attempt: ‘Excuse me, Your Majesty, but it is my duty to tell you that this is the most impetuous decision you ever could have made. I am against it. You are allowing yourself to be led by a group of greedy, deranged advisors. I am opposed to this war in every possible way. Tear up the documents. Don’t jeopardise your crown. Don’t endanger the nation!’

In his youth, when the vizier was his tutor, the shah had often been forced to endure his harsh scoldings, but those days were over now. The shah opened one of his desk drawers, took out a stack of papers and thrust it under the vizier’s nose. There was no need for the shah to utter a word. It was a chapter of a translation of the French constitution that the vizier had been working on for quite some time. What it contained undermined the shah’s power.

‘Out of my sight!’ he shouted, slamming the door behind the vizier with all his might.

Deeply offended, the vizier left the palace. He rode through the dark streets to the hill outside the city, talking to himself: ‘A pack of wolves is pursuing me in the dark. Why so many wolves? There’s hardly enough meat on me to feed three wild beasts.’

He needed to talk to someone. He rode, he galloped and he talked out loud. Finally tears began running down his cheeks. Would he have to retire as vizier and spend the rest of his life at his family estate in Farahan, writing? Of course stepping down would be out of the question: that would play right into the hands of the corrupt elite, the politicians and the foreign powers.

He saw his plans crumble into bits. His dream of a railway line that would run from the deep south to the far east. Telegraph cables criss-crossing the entire country. He wanted to build bridges and hospitals, to send children to school and deliver women from their misery. So studying the French Revolution and reading the documents on the Assemblée nationale, the flight of Louis XVI and the French constitution had all been for naught. It seemed like an impossible wish, but he was already visualising a Persian Assemblée as the country’s legislative power. It was his conviction that the legislative, executive and judicial powers would have to be separated. He understood that history could be shaped and moulded, and that man was the author of his own happiness.

The vizier had never been permitted to talk about these things in the presence of the shah. He spent his scant free time translating the French constitution into Persian. He thought no one knew, but his enemies had proven to be formidable opponents. Sheikh Aqasi had somehow managed to get hold of a chapter of the translation, the very chapter that dealt with limiting the shah’s power. The sheikh had waited for just the right moment to pass it on to the shah.

The vizier rode to the home of his aged father, who had retired from public life and was living in a castle in a village outside Tehran. His name was Isa Khan. Having worked for the father of the shah as first vizier, Isa Khan was an experienced manager who had lived through many wars and political assassinations.

The small village lay at the foot of Mount Tochal. The villagers had no large pieces of land, but they farmed on small plots that lay on the slopes of the mountain. Because there wasn’t enough room the villagers had built their homes in step fashion, so that the roofs of the lower houses formed the courtyards of the houses above them. For strangers it was always peculiar to see cows and sheep standing among the roofs.

The vizier’s family had built the castle centuries ago. Now the vizier’s father lived there, and some day the vizier himself might spend his last days there as well.

Advancing with caution his horse climbed to the village in the dark. At a certain point the vizier dismounted and made his way to the castle on foot. The gate was wide open as usual. An old woman who had worked in the house for years as a servant saw the vizier and wanted to warn Isa Khan immediately, but the vizier let her know this would not be necessary, that he wanted to surprise his father.

Isa Khan was in his room, sitting on a carpet at a small table and reading a book with a magnifying glass. The vizier stood there for a few minutes watching him, aware that this might well be his last visit with his father. He saw the decline in the way he sat, and that his hair and beard were completely grey. He couldn’t believe this was the same man who had once fought the Russians at the front, who had held lengthy talks with the tsar in order to establish the country’s borders with Russia — the same man who had also been forced to undergo the humiliation of signing a treaty in which the Persians were made to cede the state of Yerevan and the northern part of Azerbaijan to the Russians.