Kader Abdolah - The King

The guard rode back to the house, dismounted, talked with the peasant, pressed a sack of gold coins into his hands and was given permission to take his daughter and son back to the palace. The peasant spoke quietly with his wife, who looked at the shah with astonishment and bowed. She walked up to her daughter, talked to her, and kissed her on the forehead and on the eyes. A mule was fetched from the stable for the girl and her brother to ride on as part of the shah’s retinue.

Five days later, back in the palace, the shah sent the girl to the harem. He replaced the ‘e’ in Malijek with an ‘a’ so the name would sound better. Then the shah instructed the chamberlain to give the boy a bath.

‘He’s filling the empty place left by Sharmin, and his name is Malijak.’

Malijak became the shah’s pet. His sister cared for the boy and was given a separate room with the servants, which she shared with her brother. During meals Malijak was allowed to sit on the floor next to the shah, just where Sharmin used to sit. At first the women took pity on Malijak and treated him kindly. But before a year had passed the child became troublesome. He hit the other children and pestered the women of the harem. No one dared say anything, and the shah let Malijak do whatever he liked. He poured out his heart to the boy.

Malijak ate more than was good for him and soon became big and fat. The undernourished child had disappeared. The servants kept out of his way, and the women of the harem popped sugar cubes in his mouth whenever he unexpectedly made an appearance. The boy always wore exactly the same clothes as the shah: the same jacket, the same boots and the same hat. In the evening Malijak played in the shah’s company until it was time for him to go to bed.

The stories about Malijak spread across the land. You never knew what was true and what was false. It was said that whenever Malijak began to cry because he missed his mother and father, the shah would get down on all fours like a donkey and give the boy a ride around the hall of mirrors.

No one ever saw the shah without his tall cylindrical hat, but it was said that Malijak was allowed to grab the shah’s hat and play with it. The child was always dirty and he stank. He was afraid of water and never let anyone wash him.

‘The shah washes him himself in a big tub,’ people said. ‘And he cuts his hair with a pair of scissors, since Malijak doesn’t even let his own sister touch his hair.’

It was said that the shah didn’t want Malijak to learn to read and write. Education was unnecessary because he regarded the boy as a pet. The only thing the shah taught him was to play a good game of chess so he could keep the shah amused.

Malijak also liked to play tricks on Sheikh Aqasi. The shah enjoyed it whenever anyone teased the sheikh, and Malijak quickly caught on. As soon as the sheikh came into the room Malijak would run up to him, hang on his clothes and search his pockets for sweets. He loosened the scarf that Sheikh Aqasi used as a belt and ran through the room with it. The poor man would have to chase him to get his scarf back — but carefully, so his trousers wouldn’t fall down. The shah enjoyed this immensely and laughed out loud, and his pleasure egged Malijak on.

The shah felt good when Sheikh Aqasi was around. By getting rid of the vizier he had the freedom to be himself again. He had always felt inferior to the vizier, and the words of his mother echoed in his head: ‘You act like the vizier’s errand boy.’

With Sheikh Aqasi the roles were reversed. Now Sheikh Aqasi was the errand boy, and that gave the shah a tremendous sense of satisfaction. He could make decisions on his own.

There was only one thing that kept the shah from being fully himself: his mother. With her he was powerless. After all, you can’t send your mother home, you can’t sack her and you can’t kill her. With his mother the shah would just have to be patient.

Now that Sheikh Aqasi was vizier, England had more room to manoeuvre, although he was not an easy man to work with. He was not a trustworthy partner. To maintain firmer control over developments in the country, London decided to replace its ambassador in Tehran with the gifted politician Sir John Malcolm. He was fascinated by Persian history and he spoke reasonably good Persian. He knew that the country’s coffers were empty and that the shah’s personal expenses were inordinately high.

At his official introduction to the shah Sir John made a good impression from the minute he walked in. He presented the shah with a hunting rifle, and the shah in turn invited him to go hunting.

Both men had a feel for language, and both loved poetry. During one of Sir John’s tea visits to the palace the shah entrusted the ambassador with one of his poems:

O wretched heart, I hear thy piteous groan,

Since thou must pay for what the eyes have done,

For had mine eyes not gazed on love’s sweet face

How could love by an innocent heart be known?

‘It is a most regal poem,’ Sir John had remarked.

One of the first things Sir John arranged for the shah was to cancel the construction of the domestic telegraph system. London had resisted the plan from the beginning, and Sir John promised the shah a monthly bonus in exchange for dropping it.

To avoid any appearance of bribery he replaced the word ‘bonus’ with ‘tax’, thereby obliging England to pay a monthly telegraph tax to the shah. The shah beamed with happiness. He was being given a large sum of money, right out of the blue. It was as if God were rewarding him for his deeds.

Sir John Malcolm realised that without the cooperation of the elite, England would not be able to maintain its position. So he invited the influential princes to the embassy and asked them for their support. He gave them all positions in the national telegraph scheme, which existed only on paper, and arranged monthly salaries for them.

This enabled England to make more headway with the activities arising from the plans it had agreed on with the vizier concerning the telegraph line to India. Several thousand men from the countryside were put to work chopping down trees, and hundreds of young men from Tehran learned how to install telegraph poles and cables. Experienced masons from throughout the land were called on to build scores of telegraph offices along the India line.

The shah had hoped that by scrapping the national telegraph system his subjects would be cut off from news of the latest developments. But this was far too simplistic. The merchants who travelled abroad kept coming back with impressive tales of new products, companies, cities, squares, bridges and newspapers. Wherever the shah went he heard people talking about these things. Even the royal circles were all abuzz.

The princes tried to add prestige and panache to their conversations by peppering them with the latest English and French terminology. Everyone was trying to give others the impression that they had seen or heard something new.

While travelling to Isfahan for a working visit the shah happened upon a group of Persian men in blue work clothes who were installing cables and insulators on telegraph poles. He saw policemen at the Isfahan gate walking about in uniforms that were unfamiliar to him. He was not aware of the existence of these officers, which surprised him. Upon enquiring he was told they weren’t policemen at all but guards for the telegraph offices then under construction.

Curious, he spent some time visiting a company where the cables were cut to measure and insulators were fixed to iron bars. The country was changing before his very eyes. It distressed him, and he remembered how often the murdered vizier had told him he ought to go to France or England to see the industrial developments there first-hand. He had always dismissed the idea. How could he have travelled with an easy mind when the fate of Herat was hanging in the balance, and when people were lying in wait, ready to seize power from him?