Kader Abdolah - The King

‘We’re hungry. Call the cook.’

The cook came with a large, round tray. He looked at the shah and waited for him to give his permission to test the food.

‘Was there anyone with you in the kitchen this morning?’

‘No, Your Majesty,’ answered the cook.

‘No one?’

‘No, Your Majesty. Only the chamberlain.’

‘Was anyone in the kitchen last night?’

The cook panicked. ‘No, I … I don’t know, Your Majesty,’ he stuttered.

‘Then take it all away!’

When the cook was gone the shah walked to the door through which the chamberlain always entered and went into the back room. The chamberlain was sitting at the table having his breakfast. He had not expected to see the shah, and he jumped up with a start.

‘You’ve got the day off today. Go home. We’ll let you know when you can come back.’

The chamberlain hesitated a moment.

‘Go home,’ said the shah firmly.

The chamberlain took his coat off the hook, bowed and left. The shah put the chamberlain’s fresh bread, cheese and pot of hot tea on a tray and took it with him to the hall of mirrors.

A little while later the head of the guards came to report that a messenger from the army was waiting at the gates.

‘Disarm him and send him in,’ said the shah.

The messenger announced that the ayatollahs had called on the soldiers to lay down their arms and defect to the other side. The shah wanted to ask him whether the soldiers had complied with the call, but he held back and said nothing.

‘Was that all?’ asked the shah.

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ The messenger left the room.

The shah went over to the window again. His guards were making their normal rounds and the soldiers were standing on the walls keeping watch. The deadline would be reached in only a few hours. He waited for the vizier, but his patience ran out. He felt the need to pray. He washed his hands and face and turned towards Mecca. When he was finished he picked up the Quran and read the surah called ‘The Opening Up’, a surah in which God speaks with his Prophet:

Muhammad!

Have we not opened up your breast?

And removed your burden

Which had left you devoid of hope,

And exalted your fame?

Surely with hardship there is ease.

With hardship indeed there is ease.

The shah could not hold back his tears.

Now the vizier’s messenger presented himself. He too had a spoken message. The man whispered, ‘I am conferring with the opposition. The negotiations are tedious and they take time. I cannot come.’

Jamal Khan and his comrades held an emergency meeting to discuss the consequences of capturing the palace. If they were to take the shah prisoner and topple him from his throne the reaction of the people and the ayatollahs would be impossible to predict. They all agreed that this would have to be their last resort. They needed the signature and the seal of the shah on their list of demands, but how could they get the shah to agree without bloodshed?

Although they had started by putting enormous pressure on the vizier, now their strategy was to give him more room to manoeuvre so he could actually function as a mediator.

Nor was England eager for chaos. An orderly system of government was to their benefit. They feared that the fall of the shah would give the Russians licence to attack the country from the north. For these reasons the British ambassador supported the strategy of Jamal Khan.

Reading the Quran had calmed the shah’s nerves. Now he strolled through the garden, repeating a surah under his breath to stiffen his resolve: ‘“Muhammad! Have patience! Have patience! Suffer whatever they say to you!’”

The shah sensed that the guards and the soldiers were only there to keep an eye on him, so he deliberately focused all his attention on the plants growing beside the pond. The guards must be made to think that he was completely relaxed. From behind the servant’s quarters he went up to the roof without being seen in order to observe the square with his binoculars. The barricades were still there, but to his horror he noticed that they were not all manned. He suspected that some of the soldiers had defected to the side of the ayatollahs. What surprised him was the great silence on the square and in the surrounding streets. You would almost think the demonstrators had given up.

The shah went to the roof of the kitchen. From there he could clearly see that there were people standing behind the sandbags. They seemed to be waiting for an order.

He looked at the harem. It was quiet there too. No one was on the front porch.

The shah felt cornered. He was a good chess player who was better than his opponents at thinking several moves ahead. He had seldom lost to his father. The old vizier was the only one whose superiority he had often been forced to acknowledge. But in real life he was less skilled at overseeing the field. Now the king was in danger of being put into checkmate. He was about to lose the use of his pawns. His horses, his vizier, his elephants and his chariots had all been eliminated. Then his eye fell on his own cannon, which stood idle in the courtyard. He thought of his treasury, of the emergency exit, of the horse that stood ready in the stable.

‘When the king is surrounded on the chessboard he has to stall for time,’ he said to himself. ‘This we have done. Our vizier is talking to the opponents and we have called in the Russians. Now I must act like a true king and have patience.’

Gradually the sun rose in the sky until it stood above the palace. The deadline for the ultimatum had almost passed. Should he wait downstairs and look on as the people stormed the palace, or disappear into the cellar like a faint-hearted lion? He stayed on the roof, which gave him the feeling that he still had some control over events.

His gaze was drawn to the back garden of the palace. He watched as Malijak’s sister helped him leave his room and go outside. The incident in the bazaar had left Malijak with a broken left leg and a couple of fractured ribs. Since then he had stayed on his back and had grown even heavier as a result. The shah dropped in every evening to see him. Malijak’s sister had placed a chair next to the bed for the shah so he could talk to Malijak if he wanted to. Malijak crept through the doorway on his hands and knees. The shah barely recognised him.

The muezzin of the Jameh mosque called out, ‘ Allah-o-akbar, hay ‘ali as-salat : hurry to prayer.’

The shah started. The time had come: the deadline had expired. He expected to feel agitation, perhaps even despair, but to his own astonishment the muezzin brought him calm. An end had come to the uncertainty. The thing he had been so afraid of was now going to happen. He had done all he could to prevent it.

‘Hay ‘ali as-salat,’ repeated the muezzin.

Now everyone was expected to lay down their guns and turn to Mecca for prayer. This was the most peaceful of moments. No one would attack him. No one would kill him.

When the muezzin was finished silence fell once again. The shah saw that indeed all the people had turned their backs on the palace and were praying towards Mecca.

A crow flew over the square, and its cry broke the silence. The prayer was over. Agitation spread through the crowd. The shah made sure that nothing escaped his notice. The crowd parted to make room as the vizier, two ayatollahs, seven gentlemen in suits and two foreigners passed through the barricades and walked to the square in front of the palace. There they stopped, talking among themselves.

The shah recognized Ayatollah Tabatabai. The other ayatollah was Behbahani, the old cleric who had been the first to sit on the roof of the house opposite the embassy. The shah also recognised the British ambassador. The second foreigner was Edward Granville Browne, but the shah had never seen him before. He suspected that the other men were the merchants from the bazaar.