Kader Abdolah - The King

The shah wanted to visit the large carpet workshop just behind the bazaar. One of the vizier’s big plans had been to promote the export of Persian carpets, and a proposal had been made to build a large number of carpet factories in various cities. The factory in Sultanabad had been erected as a pilot.

Much to the shock and joy of the carpet weavers the shah entered the factory with a train of guards and attendants. The shah was moved. Here he was, in one of the vizier’s own dreams. An operation like this was unprecedented in Persia. There was a beautiful gate leading to a classical enclosed garden with several ponds, around which were rooms where the workers wove carpets.

The shah stopped at the entrance to one of the workrooms. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Inside were hundreds of girls and young women, sitting side by side, knotting carpets on looms. Up until then the carpets had been made by women in their own homes out in the villages, but it had never occurred to anyone to gather the women together. The shah had the urge to reach into his pocket and toss out a handful of coins, but he realised this custom would be out of place here.

At first the women didn’t know he was the shah, but even so, having a strange man among them was quite unusual. And he must be a very important man to have such a retinue. Suddenly someone whispered his name. A tense silence fell. The women didn’t dare look up. They remained seated and stared at the carpets in front of them. The shah walked past the unfinished carpets and glanced at the women. A lump rose in this throat and his eyes began to burn. Then suddenly he turned and went outside.

The next day the shah decided to go deer hunting in the mountains with his guards. The mountains of Farahan were the habitat of mighty wild stags who were no easy prey. Their colouration was the same as the stones’, and they hid behind the rocks as soon as they heard a strange sound.

The hunters had spent half the day climbing around Mount Marzejaran and hadn’t encountered a single stag. They’d probably have to content themselves with a couple of pheasants and a few wild ducks. The shah was a good shot. He brought down two large pheasants, which increased his desire to climb further and to reach the top of the mountain. After seven pheasants and nine wild ducks the group returned, fully satisfied, to enjoy a delicious kebab of fresh meat.

On the way back they spied a solitary stag. The shah motioned to his guards not to stir. He kept a close eye on the animal with his binoculars. Moving cautiously he picked up his gun and took aim. The stag stood with his ears cocked in the direction of the hunting party as the shah pulled the trigger. The stag started and momentarily lost his balance, so it looked as if he had been hit. But he recovered immediately, turned and bounded away. The shah released two more shots at the stag and set out in pursuit. The stag changed direction and ran into the woods.

The shah galloped to the spot where he had seen the stag disappear, and his fellow hunters heard one last shot. The shah could go no further on horseback. He dismounted and ran among the trees, the horse’s reins in his hand. There was the stag, a short distance away, looking to see if the shah was still coming after him. Impatiently the shah shot, but he missed again. Refusing to let himself be beaten by such a beast, he jumped on his horse and rode to the rocks in order to head him off. Sweating and out of breath he reached the foot of the mountain, but there was no trace of the stag.

The shah was superstitious, and he was convinced that he had not crossed paths with this stag by accident. He had shot and missed five times, which seldom happened. In the old Persian tales, deer, stags and gazelles led the kings on mysterious adventures, but this stag was serving a higher purpose.

Because he was covered in sweat he wanted to keep moving. He was thirsty, and in the distance he saw a village. As he rode past the trees he heard a child crying in the bushes. He brought his horse to a halt and peered in. There he saw a dirty little boy, about seven years of age, standing in the bushes with bare feet.

‘What’s wrong? Why are you crying?’

The scantily clad boy couldn’t see very well, or so it seemed. His eyes were oddly placed, too close together. His ears were larger than normal, and he was clutching a little bird to his chest with both hands.

The shah smiled and got off his horse. The little boy stopped crying and looked over the shah’s head with his strange eyes.

‘What are you doing here? Do you live in that house?’ asked the shah, nodding towards a simple mud hut further down the road.

The boy didn’t answer.

‘What’s your name?’

He didn’t respond to this question either. Did he not understand the shah’s language, or was he deaf?

‘That’s a lovely little bird you have there. What’s his name?’

‘Malijek,’ said the boy.

‘What did you say?’

‘Malijek,’ he said again.

The shah laughed heartily, for the boy had taken the dialect word for wild sparrow — ‘ malij ’ — and turned it into a diminutive: ‘ Malijek ’.

‘Splendid! You’ve come up with a delightful new word. We’ll have to include it in one of our poems. Malijek, lovely, very good.’

He took a sugar cube from his trouser pocket and put it in the boy’s mouth. Sucking on the sweet the boy grabbed the shah by the hand. It moved the shah, evoking a familiar feeling within him, and he gently stroked the boy’s hair. The boy pressed his head against his leg, as Sharmin had always done.

‘You’re a sweet little boy,’ said the shah. ‘It’s going to be dark soon. You have to go home, and we have to leave as well.’

As he began walking back to his horse the boy followed him. ‘No, Malijek, don’t follow me. Go home.’

But the boy said, ‘Malijek, Malijek, Malijek!’

The shah looked at him and smiled. ‘We like you. Come, we’ll take you home with us.’ He picked the boy up and put him on his saddle.

At that moment a girl’s voice cried out, ‘Give me my brother back!’

The bushes moved and out stepped a young woman with large, wild, black eyes and tangled hair. The shah took a step towards her, but she turned and ran away.

‘Girl! Come here, and take your brother with you!’

Her long green skirt covered with red flowers, her bare feet in the wild grass, the fear in her eyes and her undaunted voice: all this intrigued the shah. He put the boy down in front of the mud hut. ‘Go inside and ask your sister to bring us a bowl of water.’ But the boy wouldn’t move.

The shah mounted his horse resolutely. The hunting party had found him by this time and were riding towards him. The little boy began to cry. An older man came out of the hut. Seeing the horsemen at the door, he suspected that this was an important person. He bowed subserviently and pulled the boy away.

The girl walked up to the shah with a bowl of water. He took the water and looked into the bowl with surprise. ‘What is this? Why is the water so filthy?’

‘It’s not filthy. I put broken sugar cane in it.’

‘Why didn’t you take the cane out?’

‘You’re all sweaty and the water is cold. You’re thirsty. If you drink the water all at once you’ll get sick. You must drink slowly.’

The shah drank the sweetened water, looking at the girl as he did so. Then he slid a gold coin into the bowl.

‘Let’s go!’ he said, and he set the horse in motion. The little boy came running after him, screaming. The shah stopped and the boy grabbed his boot and clung to it. Then it occurred to him: he was in Farahan, the region of the vizier. A stag had led him here, to this mud hut. All this had meaning. He called for one of his guards to come and stand beside him. ‘We’re taking this boy with us. The girl, too.’