The Sonneteer of Shiraz
Two days later, while Nasrosoltan was still living in the fantasy world inside his head, he was awakened by someone furiously banging on his door. When he opened it, he found an agitated commander pushing Nasrosoltan back into the room while closing the door behind him.
He angrily asked Nasrosoltan, “What have you done? The governor is terribly upset that you escorted Shamsi to Margoon and were alone with her for two nights. Just a few days ago, she was seen in public embracing you! My father is a jealous man; beware of his wrath and stay out of his way, understood?”
Nasrosoltan, who was startled and dumbfounded, tried to catch his breath, wondering if it was the commander who had been spying on him. If so, he now worried that the commander knew about his amorous rendezvous with Madame Shamsi.
Thinking to protect her honor, he chivalrously but defiantly replied, “You were the one who asked me to escort the guests. I did not even want to go and initially rebuffed you, as you must surely recall. You should have told the governor that your misrepresentation of the truth was why I thought I had his blessing in escorting them. What happened to your vow to never forget the favor I did for you? Think of that instead of barging in here and threatening me!”
The commander was taken aback by Nasrosoltan’s forceful reply. He softened his tone slightly as he asked, “Do you dispute proposing to her that you both jump off together from the ship that is Shiraz, which is going nowhere? And how comical that you think in this way you would be saving her life!”
Nasrosoltan was shocked to hear the exact same words Madame Shamsi had spoken to him at Margoon and accusingly asked the commander, “Are you spying on me?”
The commander replied, “You know, while you sit at the piano all day and tickle the ivory, we have more important things to take care of. By now, you must realize that not much happens in Shiraz without us knowing. This is not St. Petersburg; here, secrets do not remain so! But to answer your question, no spy told us this. Shamsi told my father what you said to her, and he is furious that you were trying to steal her away!”
Nasrosoltan was aghast and felt betrayed, just when he was about to fall on his sword for her. He found himself standing amidst the ruins of a relationship that had fallen apart before it had even begun. And this, with only a few words from the commander’s lips. What the man offered of Madame Shamsi’s revelation shook him to his core, and he became worried for his own safety.
Hearing of her treachery, instead of defending her honor, he understood his need to protect his own and replied, “No, no, I did not say those things to her! It was she who mentioned these things. And you are telling me, she told the governor that it was I?”
The commander may have been provincial, but he had played his hand wondrously, using Nasrosoltan to get Madame Shamsi in trouble with the governor. But just as she was a skilled backgammon player, Madame Shamsi had also upstaged the commander in his game. Her story to the governor, repeating everything she had said to Nasrosoltan as his words to her instead, made the governor jealous enough to do whatever she wanted—to stop her from sneaking away with Nasrosoltan.
Now that Madame Shamsi had gotten what she wanted, Nasrosoltan became disposable to her. The governor saw Nasrosoltan’s action as an unpardonable insult, and for that, he wanted him gone in a disgraceful fashion.
The frustrated commander, unsure whether to believe Nasrosoltan or Madame Shamsi, asked, “Have you gone mad? I cannot believe how naive you are! Do you not remember, I warned you about her, that you must flee her and not flirt with her. Well, in any case, I do not think it matters anymore. I believe you should leave Shiraz. If not, I am afraid my father will order the guards to remove you, which will bring you much dishonor. I will try to buy time until you leave on your own volition before he has a chance to heap abuse on you.”
It was then, in the depths of his despair, and emptied of his delusions of strength, that Nasrosoltan reflected with hopelessness upon all that had transpired. Recognizing that he had been played by those he thought he could trust, with a hint of surrender in his voice, Nasrosoltan told the commander, “No need to complicate matters; I will go on my own accord tomorrow morning.”
The commander reached out to shake his hand, and Nasrosoltan wanted nothing more than to spit in it. Instead, even though the duplicity devastated him, he made the gentleman’s choice, offering his own hand in return.
Madame Shamsi’s deception rattled Nasrosoltan, but what especially hurt him was that her last kiss on his cheek was nothing more than a Judas kiss. What he thought was a seal confirming their love turned out to be the final play of her well-executed plan and her ultimate betrayal of him.
He could not sleep that night except for a few precious moments, when suddenly toward daybreak, a loud commotion of shouts and the firing of shots outside awakened him. A sense of lurking tumult engulfed him, and he feared it was the governor’s guards coming to remove him, as the commander had warned. When he ran outside to see what was happening, his manservant rushed to tell him the governor had been shot four times and assassinated by a supporter of the constitutionalists. Chaos ensued within the garrison, and soldiers quickly took positions to protect the commander and others in charge. Nasrosoltan was ushered back into his house, and he retreated to his bedroom to contemplate his next move.
Qavam Al-Molk’s assassination led to much unrest and created a power vacuum in the city. Days came and went, and supporters of the shah used the occasion to wage savage attacks on civilians suspected of being a part of the assassination plot. The once calm and almost idyllic life in Shiraz suddenly turned hostile and dangerous.
Nasrosoltan felt as if the winds of violence had followed him from St. Petersburg to Shiraz. Just a short while back, in Russia, he had witnessed the same sort of savagery against civilians demanding similar constitutional reforms.
In the aftermath of the governor’s assassination, the commander forbade Nasrosoltan to leave Shiraz until things quieted down. Nasrosoltan had a prominent position as a recognized sympathizer of the reform movement, which suddenly had become a severe liability. His futile attempts to pay respects to the commander over his father’s assassination were rebuffed, and he was met with wary faces from even the most junior guards. They were protecting the commander, but Nasrosoltan’s rank and friendship should have allowed him some level of access, and he became alarmed at this abrupt shift in attitudes toward him. After a few weeks of feeling trapped in Shiraz, Nasrosoltan finally met with the commander and pleaded for his return to Tehran.
The commander granted Nasrosoltan’s request to return to the capital, and when he agreed, Nasrosoltan thanked God that he had not spat in the man’s hand rather than shake it, the last time they had seen each other.
On the day of his departure, Nasrosoltan decided to spend the few remaining hours in Shiraz at a public place for his own safety, not wanting to become another victim of the swift chaos that followed the governor’s assassination.
He visited the poet Hafez's tomb, as many Persians did, hoping that spending time in the beautiful gardens and reading the Divan of Hafez would deliver him from his fear.
As he walked around the gardens, listening to the soft singing of the birds, his anxiety gave way to a sense of peacefulness. He looked around, wondering how he had willingly been lured into this at first deceptively comfortable, yet unsatisfying and intrigue-filled existence in Shiraz.
Tired of his own bad decisions, he vowed to himself at that moment, in the presence of the great poet’s spirit, to alter his trajectory and get back to his passions, wherever that may take him.
In the Persian tradition, whenever one faced a dilemma or a difficult decision, one consulted the Divan for guidance on a course of action. This was known by the Persians as fale-Hafez, which involved fortune-telling by randomly opening a page of the Divan and then interpreting the verse in response to the person’s query.
Nasrosoltan wondered what his future would hold with his impending return to Tehran. He opened a page, and the sonnet read:
“Love,” I cried, “a little pity
Show to me, a hapless stranger,
Poor and lonely in Love's City.”
But she answered:
“Foolish stranger,
Yours the fault, not mine, for losing
Thus, your way; ’t is your own choosing
Blame not me, O tiresome stranger.”
Once more, O HAFIZ, dawns the morning cup,
Another day in which to seek her face!
Patience! The day will come, in some strange place,
When thy strong hands her veil at last lift up.
Nasrosoltan was disappointed to not receive the answer he was seeking, even though he did not know what answer he was looking for. However, he did know it was not this. The talk of love was the furthest thing from his mind. Love, after what Madame Shamsi had just done? Never, he said to himself, blaming all women for the sins of one.
Nasrosoltan dismissed the sonnet and this so-called fortune-telling as another superstitious tradition and therefore reflected no further upon its meaning. Of course, this was a sign of his own youthful arrogance, since the great sonneteer, Hafez, always expressed the opposite in his poetry: that one should fight superstition. Although, there was one truth Hafez had offered him, a recognition that he had lost his way, which he now clearly realized he had.
But patience was not the advice he wanted to hear, for what he desired was a quick return to St. Petersburg. He could not wait to reacquaint himself with what he loved most, composing music, reasoning that only music would deliver him from this inescapable yearning that he could not satisfy. He thought, At least this I know for sure; music will never betray me!