Kader Abdolah - The King

Isa Khan sat bent over a book as the yellow light from a lantern illuminated half his face.

‘What is Isa Khan reading?’

The old man straightened his back, looked in the direction of the voice and said, ‘I hear the vizier.’ He tried to stand up. The vizier rushed up to him, held his two hands, kissed them and knelt down beside him.

‘The vizier is sad. What is it?’ asked Isa Khan.

‘The country, the country, the country,’ sighed the vizier, and he rested his face in the weathered hands of his father.

‘I see you are troubled, my son.’

‘I’m afraid they will kill me.’

‘The men of our house have never been afraid of death,’ answered Isa Khan.

‘I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid they will kill me before I am able to finish my work.’

‘You cannot set the course of history alone, and man is not capable of completing his work in its entirety, yet you must try.’

‘I am doing that. I have always done that. But I fear that history will forget what I was trying to do,’ said the vizier.

‘Your words sound familiar,’ answered his father with a smile. ‘Don’t worry. History has seen you.’

‘But what if they kill me halfway through my mission?’

‘Then that too is the course of history,’ said Isa Khan.

The vizier smiled. He was relieved.

‘I have never feared death,’ said Isa Khan. ‘Nor did my father, nor my father’s father. These were men who served their country, just as you are doing. They did their work exceedingly well. Now it’s your turn.’

The vizier went back to shut the door, then sat down even closer to his father.

‘Father,’ he whispered, ‘the shah is running the country into the ground, and his mother is even worse, if that’s possible. His counsellors are deceivers and the shah wants to be deceived. He’s letting himself be led around by a pack of charlatans.’

‘That’s nothing new,’ answered Isa Khan placidly. ‘Didn’t I go through the same thing with the father of this shah?’

The vizier walked back to the door to see if anyone was listening. ‘Father, you served the weak father of this shah. Your father served the weak father of the father of the shah. Now I serve this shah. They cannot manage without us,’ said the vizier.

‘Unburden your heart, my son,’ said Isa Khan.

‘Father, we live in a time of electricity and trains. There is a need for new leaders. I think the shah should step aside, and I’m not the only one,’ said the vizier.

The old man looked into the eyes of his son. ‘Dismiss these ideas from your mind,’ he said calmly. ‘If you depose the shah the whole country will become entangled in tribal wars, something the foreign powers are just waiting to happen. This land is an ancient labyrinth of hidden power struggles, ancient resentments, convoluted religious currents, poisonous politicians, vindictive princes, stupid clerics and powerful women who pull the strings behind closed doors. Son, no matter what it is you want to do, you’ll have to do it with this shah.’

‘But the shah is a fool. Everyone is urging him to kill me, and he will do it without batting an eyelid.’

Isa Khan paused to reflect.

‘I envy your ambition, my son,’ he said calmly. ‘I will not stand in your way. Perhaps you are right, perhaps someone should save the country by rising up like this. But because I am your father I am not the right advisor in this matter. You are clever and you don’t need my advice. One thing should be clear, however: don’t turn back. Use whatever strength you have and do your duty.’

The vizier was encouraged by his father’s answer. The desire to live flashed in his eyes. He stood up and swung the door wide open.

When King Darius the Great first announced that he wanted to send his vast army to the West by way of Athens, his counsellors studied the stars well ahead of time and provided Darius with wise advice.

But the country no longer had any wise astronomers, and all the high towers from which they had once gazed at the heavens had been destroyed by the enemy during the wars. Now it was mainly magicians who predicted the future.

Sheikh Aqasi was the last man of that tradition. He claimed that he could make contact with supernatural forces. The shah had instructed him to put his talents to work so that he, the shah, could feel certain about Herat.

Sheikh Aqasi climbed Mount Tochal to shut himself up in his cave. This had been his practice whenever the last king had asked him for advice. It was a place where magicians and fortune-tellers once came to pore over ancient texts and busy themselves with strange herbs, perfumes, dried animal paws, human skulls, snakes and other reptiles.

The opening to the cave was a narrow crack between two great rocks. Sheikh Aqasi had brought along a few pieces of dry bread, a sack of dried dates and a jug of water. He squeezed himself into the cave and crept down a narrow passage until he came to a space where he could not stand completely upright. He lit a candle and walked further. It was an oppressive, fearful place, but not for Sheikh Aqasi. He hummed a verse from a holy text to chase the poisonous creatures away: ‘ Ya rabb, ar-rabbok, en ma’ rabbok, en inna rabbok, en allaha rabbok, en Muhammad-on rabbok, wa ‘Ali-on rabbok en mahdi-on rabbok. ’

The walls of the cave were black with candle smoke, and hanging from them were dried herbs, plants, wolf paws, skulls, snake teeth and talismans. The sheikh sat down, and after he had taken a nap and was completely rested he began to concentrate on Herat. He always sat in the same place when making contact with the supernatural forces, as he had when preparing the mother of the king for her journey to Russia. On the opposite wall he had seen Mahdolia ride into the palace of the Russian tsar in a coach. He had seen scenes from the future long before the queen had left for Moscow.

After three days and two nights the sheikh had not received a single sign from above concerning Herat. It wasn’t until the end of the third evening that he began to hear the voices and see the faces of the inhabitants of a Herat of the future. Soon scenes from the war began to appear on the wall. He saw the Indian soldiers marching near the gate of Herat under the leadership of British officers, and British flags fluttering above the gate. A strapping British commander, who was in control of the city, came up so close that his face imprinted itself on Sheikh Aqasi’s memory. He heard the Persian cannons shooting over the city walls and saw the British flags fall. He saw the Indian soldiers take to their heels and the Persian warriors pursue them on horseback.

In another scene he saw the shah, alive and well, riding through the gate of Herat and into the city. It was so vivid that he could hear the horses breathing. The shah was still mounted on his horse when a severed human head was tossed to the ground in front of him.

Sheikh Aqasi recognised the big head immediately as that of the British commander. The message from above was clear. The sheikh went down from the mountain to pass the favourable prophecy on to the shah.

Herat was once called Aria. It was the first city of the Aryans, the founders of the Persian Empire. The ancient Greeks called the city Artacoana.

Alexander the Great once invaded the city on his way to India. He built a fortress there as a base of operations so he could rob India of its gold. He called the city Alexandria Ariana. A few centuries later the Arabs forced the population to accept the Quran, after which Genghis Khan arrived and razed the city to the ground. Many came and went in the years that followed. Now the shah of Persia was next in line to lay claim to this jewel of a city.