Kader Abdolah - The King

The wife of the undertaker’s man promptly told an old servant in the hamam, and the story made its way from the hamam to the harem.

One week after the vizier had been killed a cleaning woman from the palace found a crushed cylindrical hat in the hall of mirrors. It lay on the floor behind a curtain in front of the window. The cleaning woman immediately recognised it as the vizier’s hat from the ornament decorating it. Her hands began to tremble. She dared not tell anyone about her find. She concealed the object under her clothing and took it back home with her, scared to death. Once she was home she wrapped the hat in a black cloth and hid it under the beams in the dark cellar of her house.

For three weeks she was as silent as the grave, but she had the constant urge to tell someone about it. One night, when she couldn’t sleep, she went to see her old mother. She hid her face in her apron and began to weep. ‘I have a hat in my house,’ she said through her tears. ‘I found the crushed hat of the vizier in the hall of mirrors. It was lying on the floor behind the curtain, but his jewel glittered in the light.’

Although the only person she told was her mother, it finally came to the attention of the shah’s wives.

There was only one more thing the women needed to know to get to the whole truth.

The palace liveryman could no longer keep his mouth shut, and one evening he unburdened himself to his daughter: ‘The vizier’s horse has been in the palace stable for quite some time. This means that the vizier came to the palace on his own horse that night, but he did not leave on his own horse. I don’t dare show the animal to anyone, so I’ve hidden it in the stable. The horse is becoming very restless, but I can’t let it out. You’re not to tell anyone about this.’

This report also made its way to the harem.

The shah’s wives lined up all three of these facts and came to one conclusion: ‘The vizier was killed in the hall of mirrors!’

The next Friday morning the shah’s wives put on black clothing and sat together on the veranda of the harem. The smoked their hookahs and drank tea. On the floor in front of them was a large dish of black dates, a sign of mourning. They looked sorrowful, but no one cried and no one talked about the vizier. It was appallingly silent.

The country seemed unruffled, but just the opposite was true. The vizier’s opponents said his death and the arrest of his supporters had saved the country from misfortune. But they had no idea what the vizier’s death had unleashed. A wave of resistance slowly spread across the land.

It was at this time that Sharmin went missing. The shah looked everywhere for her, but she seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. He suspected that the women had stolen his cat to avenge the death of the vizier, so he asked the overseer of the harem to search all the rooms. But not a trace of Sharmin was found. Could Sharmin have left the palace herself? Had she not felt safe? Had she been afraid of the women of the harem, or was she afraid of the shah? Perhaps Sharmin had joined the wild cats.

The shah had a feeling she would never come back. It caused him pain, but there was nothing he could do.

A few months had passed since the death of the vizier. The shah often thought of him, but he threw himself into his poetry as a distraction. It didn’t work. His latest poems were all about the vizier.

Take up a pickaxe, break down the wall

and flee this prison.

Escape, and surrender to the light.

Just like those who are gone

And are never coming back.

No matter what he did, the remorse he felt at doing away with the vizier grew stronger and stronger. No one had been permitted to mourn his disappearance, but the shah mourned him in silence. He consoled himself with the thought that other kings in his position had done the same thing. Someone had to hold the country together. Now that the vizier was no longer there he would have to go out into the country and show his face.

He asked Sheikh Aqasi to arrange a journey for him to the city of Sultanabad. The road to Sultanabad ran through the holy city of Qom, where the holy Masuma, a second cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, lay buried. Her tomb was one of the most important religious sites in the country.

Sheikh Aqasi advised the shah to spend a few days in Qom and to pay a visit to the shrine as a way of strengthening his ties with the great clerics of the city. The journey would take almost two weeks, and the shah and his wives would stay in the homes of the city’s richest merchants.

Qom was a passionately religious city on the edge of the desert. Its inhabitants were mainly clerics and their relatives. The country’s most important ayatollahs lived in Qom. The status of ayatollah was the highest that an ordinary imam could achieve. Those who held that position were usually of advanced years. The ayatollahs were powerful. They had thousands of followers. They lived simple lives among the people and their words were widely heeded. The mosque was the centre of their power. There were hundreds of imams throughout the country who kept them informed about what was going on at the grass roots. The shah hated that city, but he had to maintain good relations with the ayatollahs.

The shah spent his days in Qom in a castle just outside the city in a very special place among the old date palms, where it was pleasantly warm during the day and pleasantly cool at night. The shah was not really interested in visiting the holy tomb, but he had to let the ayatollahs see that he was the one with a firm grip on the reins of power.

Accompanied by a group of leading clerics the shah paid a visit to the holy Masuma and kissed the golden bars of the grave, as required by tradition. From there he visited a madrassah where students were training to become imams, and then withdrew to the castle so he would no longer have to have anything to do with saints, turbans and beards.

The next morning he rose early and continued his journey to Sultanabad. After a day of riding he and his retinue spent the night at a caravanserai, where a tent was set up for the shah. The thirty women accompanying him were put up in the travellers’ lodgings.

Sultanabad was a provincial town and of little consequence in and of itself. The Farahan district, however, which contained a few hundred small villages, was a different matter. It was the native region of the murdered vizier, and for centuries the descendants of the vizier’s family had lived there. The inhabitants of the region were proud of the family and were especially proud of the murdered vizier.

When the shah rode into the city the next day as evening fell, all the men he saw looked like the vizier. He may have been mistaken, but they all seemed to be wearing the same beards and the same hats. Tears sprang to his eyes.

The shah wanted to go to the city’s old bazaar. The vizier had loved shoes, especially tall leather boots, and every time he went travelling he came back with a new pair. Once the shah had remarked on this practice: ‘I see you had enough time to purchase a pair of boots.’

And the vizier had answered, ‘No matter what I buy it never gives me as much pleasure as when my father bought me my first pair of boots at the Sultanabad bazaar.’

Everyone was surprised by the shah’s visit. The shopkeepers didn’t know how to react, for they had heard of the role the shah had played in the disappearance of the vizier. The chief of police cried, ‘ Javid shah !’ and the officers responded, ‘ Javid shah !’

At the spice stands the shah stopped and inhaled the spicy fragrances. At a carpet shop he pointed to one carpet and asked, ‘Where was that carpet woven?’ And without waiting for the answer he walked on. He passed a number of jewellers and went into a shoe shop. He picked up a light brown boot, smelled the leather and put it back. After inspecting the other boots he walked out and left the bazaar by way of a side street. His guards never lost sight of him.