They say about Persia
That she is rich.
No, she is not rich,
she is cursed.
▶ Soldiers’ song
1
She is not rich, and she is not cursed.
White roads, blue fields of tired old stubble, red mountains, and streams that gurgle by night: hr-hr-hr.
An Asian land, as bare as the palm of an old man’s hand, with mountains like waves, like callouses, like traces of long hard labor—the work of a zel-zele, an earthquake.
Snakes in Mugan, bugs in Mian, which bite only foreigners. The ferocity of those bugs was grossly exaggerated by the travelers of the 1820s and debunked by those of the 1840s.
Asian idleness, comfort, is to be closer to the floor, to gaze through the multicolored glass of the windows, shattered here and there. Persian luxury is pomp, tashahhus, and a childlike love of kaleidoscopes. In Persia, windows face the courtyard and windowless walls face the streets, like a man who turns his back against a dusty wind.
Rugs, hard-won on the looms—the Persian equivalent of furniture, but our Western chairs and benches are also hard-won by the carpenter’s plane.
Persia is an ancient country that does not feel its age because its people are mainly young.
In 1829, it looked like the Russia of the time of Ivan III or of Alexei Mikhailovich, as if there had been no Peter the Great, or it had failed to notice him. The rivalry between the two cities, the older one and the younger one, Tabriz and Tehran, was just like the rivalry between Moscow and Petersburg, even though Tabriz had existed as early as the eighth century and Tehran since the time of Tamerlane.
Eunuch Agha Mohammad, the first Qajar, the founder of the Qajar dynasty, made Tehran his capital.
The Qajars were not Persians. They used to live in Mazandaran, among the deciduous forests. They were Turks. They were few, and the Persians used the word Qajar as a curse, but in the eighteenth century, they succeeded the tired Safavid dynasty, admirers of elegance.
The Qajars became a Persian dynasty in the same way that the Germans were a Russian dynasty, the French a Swedish dynasty, the Swedes a Polish dynasty, and the Hanoverians an English dynasty.
Eunuch Agha-Mohammad-shah spent his life like Napoleon, waging wars.
Once, when he had conquered a town, the eunuch ordered scales to be set up by the city gates.
The scales were for weighing gouged eyes: he had ordered the gouging-out of the eyes of all the men in the city. In the town of Astrabad, he took into his court his young nephew, Fat’h-Ali.
When Fat’h-Ali grew up, the shah made him the ruler of Fars and declared Tehran the new capital. In 1796, when at last the eunuch entered Shusha to conquer Georgia, two of his servants quarreled. Agha Mohammad ordered both to be executed. But they did not want to die. In the middle of the night, they stole into his bedroom and stabbed him with their daggers.
Having taken the opportunity to murder his brother, Fat’h-Ali-shah, whom his eunuch uncle had affectionately nicknamed Baba-Khan, took over the Persian throne.
The shah’s elder son, Muhammad-Vali-Mirza, was not of pure blood—his mother was a Christian. Ermolov sent an envoy to him and promised his support: Muhammad-Vali-Mirza died in 1820.
The shah’s third son, Abbas Mirza, who had conquered Azerbaijan and had his seat in the capital city of Tabriz, was declared heir, shah-zade, veliagd, even though the second son, Hussein-Ali-mirza, the governor of Shiraz, a lecher and a loafer, was still alive.
This is how the war with Russia started.
2
How did the war with Russia start?
Over the thrones, Persian and Russian.
In 1817, when the Gulistan Treaty was being concluded, Ermolov denied Abbas Mirza the status of heir. Emperor Alexander I, who was privy to the circumstances of his own father’s death and distrustful of his brothers, knew the essence of the matter. He had no desire to take part in Persian slaughter on behalf of any prince, although the ulterior considerations kept nagging him—that in the ensuing shambles, “certain Persian territories, essential to Russia, could be unobtrusively annexed.”
Alexander waited for the old Fat’h-Ali to die; Fat’h-Ali waited for his “uncle, the sublime Alexander” to die. Alexander died first. Fat’h-Ali had absolutely no intention of dying.
Shah-zade Abbas Mirza learned that Shah-zade Constantine’s troops were fighting the troops of Shah-zade Nicholas.
And when, after Nicholas succeeded to the throne, Abbas Mirza was informed that Shah-zade Constantine had assembled his troops in Warsaw and that an internecine struggle was taking place in Russia, he made up his mind. Abbas Mirza immediately sent a courier to Tehran and ordered the army to be ready to mobilize.
But what could have made him decide on war?
3
There is always a third party, silently jubilant.
England did not deny Abbas his status of heir. Alexander, the juggler of Europe, perfectly aware of all the moves of the balancing act, wrote in his brief to Ermolov as early as 1817: “England will naturally wish the aims and intentions of the Persian government to be concentrated entirely on her northern neighbor, and she will foment suspicions against us so as to distract the Persians’ attention from what is happening south of her borders.”
England was thinking not of Persia, but of India. Alexander was not thinking of Persia, but of the Caucasus. Persia in itself was a tattered scrap of paper, but that scrap of paper was a banknote.
Alexander wrote: “It is imperative to curb the ascendancy of English influence in Persia, to weaken it covertly and finally to put an end to it altogether.” The emperor was fond of and good at “putting an end to things covertly.” He declined the English mediation at the conclusion of the Treaty of Gulistan. But the English, who were not present at its signing, had “actively participated in it,” as even Nesselrode observed.
And when the Turkmenchai Treaty was being concluded—in Russia’s favor—Paskevich and Griboedov could not do without the mediation of the English, and Colonel Macdonald, as an old friend, used his own authority to ensure Persia’s timely payment to Russia of her indemnity.
Alexander’s “inconspicuous” actions were, in essence, extremely conspicuous.
England did not even have its own mission: there was only a humble legation of the East India Company.
Colonel Macdonald’s base was in Tabriz, close to Abbas, and Dr. McNeill was placed in Tehran.
In 1826, the Russian chargé d’affaires Mazarovich reported to Ermolov in passing, among other things: “The only English produce available at the Persian bazaars are: fabrics, sugar, and various goods from India.”
When Abbas Mirza introduced his Peter the Great–style reforms—regular sarbazes, infantry—it just so happened that at his disposal, there turned out to be Major Monteith, who was in the British service; Captain Hart, who was given command of the entire infantry; the English Lieutenant Shea, who for reasons unknown had been expelled from Petersburg after December 14; and Lieutenant George Willock, the brother of the former ambassador to Persia. As early as 1809, the English ousted from Tabriz Napoleon’s General Gardane and his officers—Abbas Mirza’s first military instructors. France was now represented only by the gunner Bernardi, a lieutenant who had become an officer during the Hundred Days before fleeing France, and the freebooter Semino.
Russia was represented by Samson.
Only the English served their homeland.
Mazarovich wrote about them: “They are here what Greek captains were for the satraps of Asia Minor in the days of Pausanias.”1
Ermolov put it himself more harshly: “all these mercenary bastards.” He had a good nose—and a meaty one at that—for what was going on.
Long before the campaign, he had written: “England will use her strong influence to incite a war, in order to divert Persia’s attention from the unrest in India. England’s greatest fear is that our friendly ties with Persia would make her turn her attention to the actions of the English.”
And more than ten years before the war, he visited Persia and took a close, mistrustful look at the mechanism of English politics. He wrote that by setting up a regular army in Persia, the English presented themselves as its only saviors. “And the Persians are too stupid to see that this is done not for their protection, but in order to have the means of selling them the poorest-quality fabrics and substandard weapons at a favorable price. And while setting up foundries and building fortresses, the English do whatever they can to prevent the Persians from establishing their own textile, silk, and paper factories. They allow them no opportunities to refine sugar, which they import in abundance from India every year for a million chervon. In other words, they have a complete stranglehold on the trade, and, while presenting their actions in an honorable light, base all their actions on the rule of usury; that is, on the laws of honor characteristic of mercantile nations.” And he took particular delight in reporting how, in order to please the heir Abbas, the English wore sheepskin hats and “made no use of chairs,” sitting instead on rugs with their legs crossed, and they entered his chambers with no boots on, wearing only socks; and he concluded: “Consequently, the gentlemen merchants have flung in their honor along with the interest rate, certainly a profitable one. I am not sure they won’t also include corporal punishment.”
And on the eve of the war, it was reported to Ermolov:
“England has undertaken to pay Persia annually 200 thousand tumen, on condition she wages war against Russia.”
And when the war was already under way, Madatov reported:
“Up to 200 loads of English weapons have been brought to Isfahan for the troops of Abbas Mirza, and the shah’s son-in-law, Qasim-Khan, has traveled through Isfahan to the English in the guise of an envoy.”
Old Ermolov’s marginal comment on the message was: “Very likely.”
Very likely, it was not about Shah-zade Abbas, nor even Shah-zade Constantine, but rather the big game was taking place, and the stakes were high.
4
When Napoleon, wearing a bearskin coat, fled through Poland, he danced mazurkas with Polish ladies and, having learned that the Poles liked him, gave a whistle and said: “The war is not yet over.”
Abbas Mirza is a black-bearded, forty-year-old man with a light dancing gait. He has ruined Persia through his unfortunate war. The European courts are informed that he has exhausted himself to the point of making himself ill and, a little later, that his illness is caused by his amorous affairs and he has made a full recovery.
The light and tripping walk displays the elegance with which the Persians face adversity.
He has not inherited many character traits from the ferocious eunuch.
A light movement of the tender hand, a smile to his wives, a smile to the English, a smile to the Russians.
And that wild, time-honored fury on the battlefield that is called courage.
And generosity to those dark, lily-white, and pink-skinned wives, of whom his recollections are somewhat blurred, but who remain in his body for the rest of the day. The heir apparent is the father to thirty children.
And sudden rages when his thin nostrils widen at the mere mention of his brothers.
Persia has surrendered, but Abbas does not. He has secret plans; each day is different with him. He loses heart in a flash and recovers just as quickly.
It is hot in Tabriz, and the shah-zade has moved to a country residence, Bagi shumal—the Northern Garden. The northerly name itself evokes coolness.
A rectangle of swimming pool is in front of the house, and paths lead away from it.
The walls of the chamber are decorated with the fragments of a mirror, and a Persian brush has portrayed women not entirely according to the law of Allah.
A portrait of Napoleon above the door.
And the Persian equivalent of furniture—rugs.
“Has the artist brought the portrait of the Russian tsar yet?”
“Pearl of the shah’s sea, he is daubing it.”
“I’ll have it hung over the door to the anderun. Right opposite Napoleon. Has Mirza Taghi arrived?”
“He is waiting.”
A conversation with Mirza Taghi begins, not at all about what Mirza Taghi has come for but about slaughtered goats, rugs, robes, and rings. Mirza Taghi has brought them as a gift to Abbas.
And Abbas is yearning to feel them; he is yearning to put one of the rings on his finger and to sit down on a new rug.
But he is silent, observing the etiquette, tashahhus.
And then he says in passing:
“Mirza Taghi, I forget what price you sell my grain at?”
“An abbas for a batman.”
“You sell it too cheaply. Two abbas for a batman. I was told that this is the right price.”
He was told nothing of the sort. But he is in dire need of money. Abbas trades in grain: he sells it to the hungry populace.
Mirza Taghi retreats from the shah-zade with his back to the door.
He is silent; such is tashahhus.
The women on the windows are so shapely. Napoleon’s picture is less of a success. Abbas sends for the eunuch.
A short and self-important eunuch who looks like a granny.
“How does Amie-Begium feel today?”
“Happy enough.”
“Get Fakhr-Djan-Khanum and Maryam-Khanum ready for me.”
“They’ll be immaculate, Shadow of the Shah, but Maryam-Khanum is still unwell.”
“Has Dr. McNeill arrived?”
“He is expected any day now.”
“Hakim-bashi should treat her better. Call the scribe and come later, after he’s gone.”
The scribe writes a note in French to Colonel Macdonald.
Would it be possible for Colonel Macdonald and his spouse to share their furniture and quarters with the arriving Russian minister, since, unfortunately, the palace that had been prepared for him is practically bare? The colonel may wish to consider this a huge personal favor to Abbas.
Abbas signs the note:
Ma reconnaissance et ma sincère amitié vous sont acquises à jamais.2
And attaches a diamond stamp with the Persian words:
Pearl of the Shah’s sea, Abbas.
The Pearl of the Shah’s Sea knows perfectly well what he is doing. He has been informed that lately, his brother, the governor of Shiraz, has been very friendly with the Indian authorities. Abbas needs to express his own trust and friendship as clearly as possible before the Russian minister arrives. Since the governor of Shiraz is the second son and Abbas is only the third. The Persian throne, which is still occupied by Fat’h-Ali-shah, may become vacant any day now. Fat’h-Ali is getting on.
And then, when the Russian minister arrives, it may even be useful to have the lion and the bear share the same furniture.
They can get to know one another, talk to each other, and friends always chat away between themselves about what both of them know best. What one of them is unaware of will remain unknown to the other.
One of them is bound to slip up. And then Abbas will have to talk only to one of them. But he will talk; he will talk with both until he drops. Besides, “the palace is bare” will suggest to the Russian: there is no furniture, no money, no nothing—lower the price.
To the eunuch:
“You will take the earrings out of my wives’ ears—issue them with the proper receipts and give them to me.”
The granny pouts but does not move.
“Oh, Shadow of the Shah, they still haven’t forgiven me for taking away their diamonds.”
Abbas’s nostrils flare. The eunuch’s belly heaves anxiously. Abbas smiles.
“Good. Off you go.”
And the day continues. He has dinner and then reads a French novel about robbers. Then he says a prayer, rather cursorily.
He dictates letters. He reads Abu’l-Qasim-Khan’s report: Griboedov is delayed in Tiflis, either by love or by design. The Russian ambassador let slip that he might wait in Tiflis for the repayment of the kurors in order to arrive both in good spirits and certain of the sincerity of Abbas’s intentions.
Abbas recalls Griboedov.
Tall, bespectacled, calm.
Beware of a lean man, Sa’di once said; beware of a lean stallion.
“Parbleu!”3 said Abbas, looking at Napoleon’s portrait.
… But, writes Abu’l-Qasim-Khan, all is not lost: rumor has it that Petersburg insists on the ambassador’s speedy departure.
Abbas pulls a European-style handkerchief from under his belt and blows his nose.
“Petersburg, Petersburg—there is more than one will there too. They say one thing in Petersburg, they say another one in the Caucasus. And yet Allah be praised for this too.”
And in the evening, he comes to the harem-hane and the motley chicken coop, after the singing, smoking, and squabbling quietens down.
He approaches his forty-year-old wife, the oldest; she lowers her eyes, and the wives’ jaws drop: that hasn’t happened for a very long time.
Abbas pulls the earrings carefully out of her ears.
Only on the fifteenth wife, the thirtieth earring, do the wives start to worry.
And they burst into tears, begin to whine in thin voices, hugging Abbas’s legs.
Abbas laughs.
He touches the thirty-first ear, tickly, delicate, and swarthy.
The eunuch turns up:
“O, Shadow of the Shah, Nazar-Ali-Khan has arrived. The Russian ambassador is in Nakhchivan and is fast approaching Tabriz.”
Abbas pauses on the thirty-first ear and puts the earring back.
“It’s a joke, my sweeties, it’s a joke. Take your earrings back. Bring in the rings and rugs that I have bought for them today.”
5
Colonel Macdonald has an excellent house in Tabriz, not far from either the Miermilar or the Tadjil gates. It is close to the outskirts with their green gardens. Tabriz in Persian means “pouring heat.” The Asian scholars, however, derive it from tab-riz, “curing fever.” There is a watered lawn and a flowerbed in front of the house. Lady Macdonald looks after both and complains that the flowers wither and perish in the dusty wind. The trees are unable to protect them.
Colonel Macdonald is having his evening tea with two visitors, both French merchants.
The gray-mustachioed colonel tells them about India, where he lived for a long time.
“Here, elephants take part in the parades. In India, they work. Do you care for a hookah?”
The valet brings three hookahs: one for each of them.
“They are sent to the woods to fell trees, and they do it with amazing agility.”
The Frenchman says that this rings a bell.
“Oh, yes, white elephants.”
“Not at all, quite common gray ones. A glass of wine?”
Wine is brought in and served with English biscuits, as white as snow, as hard as stone, and with no taste whatsoever. But they have been brought from England; they have traveled a long way, and the colonel crunches them slowly with his firm teeth.
“An elephant approaches a tree, leans on it with its shoulder, and then, if the tree gives way at once, moves on to the next one. If the tree stands firm, the elephant trumpets, and his mates come to his assistance.”
Everyone but the French has heard it many times, but they enjoy the story. Lady Macdonald smiles quietly.
“This is what I call making animals work for you. Quod erat probandum.”4
The French have brought some fashion news. The elderly Frenchman is having a laugh at the hats à la Carbonari. Mademoiselle George has aged and has set off on a tour.
They leave the table without ceremony. Play billiards. Go home.
At night, the colonel knocks on his lady’s door. This is his night.
“Have you made arrangements about the rooms for the Russians, dear?”
“I think they’ll be comfortable downstairs. It’s not too hot there.”
“On the contrary, I believe the front rooms would be better. Upstairs.”
“They say he is a poet and an eccentric? A sort of Byron?”
“Nonsense. He is very courteous, a gentleman through and through. His wife’s ancestors are Georgian royalty. You’ll have good company. Have you received the magazines?”
“I have. They seem so boring.”
“Why don’t you enjoy yourself, my dear? Horseback riding is such fun.”
And only in bed does the colonel manage to forget the Duke of Wellington’s cyphered cable: “Not pleased with guarantees you are offering. Use them and any other circumstance to persuade shah and prince to enter into alliance with Turkey.”
6
The Qajars are adorned with silver.
But their horses are covered in gold.
▶ Avar folk song
From the outside, they look like gigantic pots turned upside down.
On the inside, they are hollow—and piled up with night soil. These are the Tehrani city wall towers. If they were made not out of clay but out of flagstone, they would look like the wall towers of the Russian city of Pskov, which repelled the attacks of Stephen Báthory. But these walls are made of earth, and Fat’h-Ali-shah, also known as Baba-Khan, sits on a golden throne in godforsaken, earthy Tehran.
He is of short stature, once with the same lively eyes as Abbas but now dull and inflamed, an elderly handsome man with a fleshy, Turkic nose.
The best thing about him is his beard, considered to be the longest in all of Persia, the beard that goes down in two Assyrian columns to “the lower regions of the stomach,” as a decorous traveler once wrote, the beard that by now crawled up to his eyes and covered his ears.
Had Baba-Khan lived in old Russia, court sycophants would have called him “the quietest one,” and behind his back would have referred to him as “Chernomor.”5
Baba-Khan, who took no part in state affairs, was intelligent, probably no less intelligent than his son Abbas, who dealt with such matters.
He knew the taste of destitution and remembered the murder of the military leader—the eunuch.
In his youth, he had lived in great poverty. His mother would cook meager pilaf using rice bought with money borrowed from neighbors.
When he was very young, the life of his uncle, the famous eunuch, the founder of the Qajars, served as a warning to him.
Nothing good came out of that famous life.
His uncle was a eunuch. According to the reports of Prince Menshikov of 1826, the shah, Baba-Khan, had:
Sons 68
Older grandsons 124
---------------
Total: 192
Married daughters 53
Their sons 135
---------------
Total: 188
“As for the shah’s wives,” wrote Menshikov, “it is difficult to calculate their exact number since in the harem, they come and go so quickly. The number is estimated as 800 women, two-thirds of whom can be considered the shah’s actual wives.” In the 1830s, travelers estimated the number to be up to “a thousand souls of the female gender (!)” By the eightieth year of his life, the number of his descendants (sons, daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren) was calculated to be 935, which was a sizable portion of the population of Tehran, where Fat’h-Ali-shah lived.
His uncle had spent his life waging wars. Appreciating that one cannot live without a war in this world, Baba-Khan had left this side of things to his son.
And what was left?
Wives, money, possessions, and his beloved tranquillity.
These were the foundations of Baba-Khan’s politics.
All in all, he had gained everything without losing anything at all.
He had given over the management of the provinces to his sons. These sons, the governors, who delivered the money on time and in sufficient quantity, were good governors, but the son who was in charge of Fars, who was too eager for his father’s imminent demise, did not pay the tribute, and owed six thousand tumen, was a bad governor.
How did the governors rule?
Very simply.
Baron Korff, a Russian official in the 1830s, who was probably familiar with Emperor Nicholas’s court and who might have had a few friends who were Russian governors and mayors, wrote about the Persian state as follows: “The ruling princes, mostly burdened by huge families and used to the luxury of the shah’s court in which they had been brought up, spend far more than they can afford. How to make up the balance—where to take it from?—Certainly from their deputies. And where would they take the money from?—From the khans. And the khans?—From the beks. And the beks?—From the people.—This is how the people became paupers. The calculation was quick, simple, and foolproof.”
But it has to be said, to the credit of that simple and open arrangement, that Fat’h-Ali-shah did not fence himself off from the common folk. He was not unapproachable.
Ordinary Persian peasants come to this bare earth courtyard and bring, according to the official “Note on Tehrani News of 1822,” “six chickens, 100 eggs, and a small pot of oil each, for which their requests are almost always granted.”
The very same reliable source described a falcon hunt of the quietest Baba-Khan: “The shah, when he intends to profit from his courtiers or ministers, invites them to witness his bowmanship. He has with him a treasurer carrying money, though it’s not for distribution. As soon as the shah hits the target, the one willing to demonstrate his loyalty to His Majesty takes 50, 100, or 200 tumen from the treasurer and proffers it to the shah who, having noticed such a pleasant turn of events, stretches out both of his hands to accept the gift. The donor kisses His Majesty’s hands, and His Majesty expresses his gratitude.”
As with Louis XIV, Baba-Khan knew no misses as either an archer or a rifleman or a spearsman: for such occurrences, his servants brought along enough “game killed in advance.”
And so? His uncle, the eunuch, had on occasion slept on the ground or on a piece of felt. Baba-Khan slept in a bed that is described in historical literature. The bed was made of crystal. It was presented to him by Emperor Nicholas when he ascended to the throne. Nicholas seems to have quietly invited the shah to luxuriate in bed instead of starting wars. Persian poets elaborated on the subject. According to one poem, “It sparkles like 1,001 suns.”
Baba-Khan was also a poet, but he did not extol his bed, though his themes were inspired by the very same celebrated bed. Here is an example of his poetry, compiled in a sizable collection, a divan:
Your tresses are like the flowers of paradise,
Your eyes torture souls with their arrows.
The jasper of your lips pours strength into a dying man.
Your glance offers immortality both to old and young.
The jasper of your lips sucks out the soul, traded for kisses.
O my sweet! take my soul and grant me a kiss.
The poem was not bad at all, but the luxury of the court was generally greatly exaggerated. Most of the country’s revenue was consumed by the harem.
7
Harem.
Let’s look beyond the words associated with it: cushions, hookahs, shalwar, breasts, and eyes.
It comprised a thousand cushions, three or four thousand hookahs, a thousand shalwar, and two thousand eyes.
The harem was not only a harem, it was an official institution; a military camp; an army of females, with their leaders and staff; an accountancy department of fabrics and kisses; a timetable of menstrual periods and an audit of pregnancies, together with bedside intrigues.
And just as in wartime, a soldier of the defeated army would be body-searched by his victors before interrogation, so a woman would appear before the shah, already three times searched and completely naked.
Promotions and demotions were possible—a constant internal war was raging in this army.
So, the favorite wife, Baba-Khan’s eldest daughter, used to be a dancer, the daughter of a kebabchi, who traded in roast meat at the bazaar; her name was Tadji-Doulet—the jewel in the crown of the kingdom. But her rival was the daughter of Karabakh khan; a long consultation took place to debate the issue, and the khan’s daughter triumphed over the kebabchi’s. The name of the winner was Aga-Begium-Aga.
But the older wife had an adolescent daughter—her daughter with the shah. And when she attained puberty and became even more beautiful than her mother had once been, she became the shah’s wife. And the khan’s daughter humbled herself before her because the shah’s new wife was also the shah’s daughter. She had her own numerous court and the whole detachment of ghulam-pishkhedmet—Kammerjunkers.
Instead of furniture in her room, the floor was covered with porcelain or glass decanters, washbasins, tumblers, wineglasses, milk jugs, and sauce boats. They stood randomly and in such quantities that only narrow passages were left free.
She had two sons—and since they were both the shah’s sons and grandsons, they were sickly.
They were treated by an experienced doctor, Dr. McNeill.
He made them open their mouths, felt their tummies, and gave them purgatives in the presence of the shah himself and his chief eunuchs. Dr. McNeill checked the children’s pulses, but his interests clearly lay elsewhere. He might have talked to the shah about a lot more than catarrhs and rashes.
Who could lead this army, who could be entrusted with it?
Neither woman nor man could cope.
That’s why the ones in charge were the eunuchs who were attached to the harem as watches in the same way as castratos used to be with the Russian money changers. There were three chief eunuchs: Manouchehr-Khan, born Enikolopov; Khosrow-Khan, born Ghaytmazeants; and Khoja-Mirza Yakub, born Markarian.
Any notion that these eunuchs were pathetic and even comic figures like the eunuchs in all those comedies about the Orient should be discarded at once.
The title of mirza is bestowed in Persia on men who are good with the pen, the title of khan to the men of power.
The men presiding over the thousand-strong army of women were in a powerful position; they were powerful people.
Manouchehr-Khan, the brother of a Russian colonel, was the shah’s chief eunuch. He had the right to report to the shah personally on any matter and as he saw fit. And naturally, he met the shah often. Abbas Mirza, the Pearl of the Shah’s Sea, sought the patronage of this powerful eunuch, but he refused to grant it. The eunuch was the keeper of the shah’s entire fortune—of wives and coffers.
And Khoja-Mirza-Yakub was the most experienced accountant of the state, hardheaded in the double-entry bookkeeping system. He drew annual reports for the shah; he was the first in Persia to replace the age-old Persian numerals, confusing and accessible only to the metofs, with the Indian numbers that in Europe are known as Arabic. And the metofs of the country, the old scholars, were his enemies.
Manouchehr-Khan, Khozrow-Khan, and Khoja-Mirza-Yakub formed a commercial partnership.
They set the prices for the goods and jewelry required by the harem, purchased them, and then resold them to the women.
After the shah, they were the wealthiest men in the country.
The news of Dr. McNeill’s arrival was of interest to the wife-daughter of the shah and to Fat’h-Ali himself: the boys were sick again.
The news of Vazir-Mukhtar’s arrival was of little interest: that was Abbas Mirza’s business.
But having learned of Griboedov’s arrival, one of the eunuchs fell deep in thought.
The pensive one was Khoja-Mirza-Yakub.
8
A narrow street very similar to a provincial Russian lane separated the shah’s palace from Samson-Khan’s house.
Samson woke up early as usual. He looked at his sleeping wife, thrust his bare feet into his shoes, pulled on his blue uniform trousers, and threw on a robe. Quietly, so as not to wake up his wife.
He stood over her, looking at the tangled black hair, at the mouth half-ajar, and at the breasts, golden and ample, stuck his pipe in a bottomless pocket, and went out onto the balcony.
His wife was a Chaldean.
He had killed his first wife, an Armenian, for infidelity, and then built with his own money a mosque and a school attached to it to atone for his sin. His second wife was the illegitimate daughter of a Georgian tsarevich, Alexander. Through her, Samson had dealings with the tsarevich, but he did not love her. She died.
Dragging his shoes, he shuffled along the corridor. His legs were those of a cavalryman, as bandy as the letter O.
His daughters were already chattering in the female half of the house, though it was still early, and a female head with a black fringe down to the eyes stuck itself through the door.
This was Samson’s favorite daughter, from his first wife, the Armenian.
The daughter immediately darted out into the corridor.
A tight-fitting arhaluk had slid down her shoulders and drawn them back, and the bracelets adorning her arms had scraps of paper on them, inscribed with verses from the Quran. Wide silk trousers, as wide as two crinolines, barely held up on her narrow hips, and her belly was bare.
With her bare feet decorated with dark-orange, almost black dye, she darted toward Samson. His daughter was a slave of fashion.
“Chirping cricket jumping high, squeaky booties in the sky,” said Samson to her in Russian. “Go to bed, it’s still early,” he told her in Persian and pecked her on the forehead.
The dark-eyed daughter reached out toward Samson’s brow, stroked it, and slipped back into the female half of the house.
This was how they greeted each other every morning.
Samson washed his face in lukewarm, turbid water from a crystal washbasin, and with his hair still wet, went to the edge of the balcony to sit for a while.
His salt-and-pepper hair was worn long. Zulfa—the long hair—showed that he belonged to the military estate. Samson had his hair cut evenly all round his head, like religious schismatics. From the balcony, he could see a lane and a rectangular inner courtyard.
Cypresses thick with dust and a few trimmed plane trees grew in the yard, but the flowerbeds had withered.
An old man wearing a white shirt was sweeping the yard.
“Morning, Samson,” he said and nodded.
He was an old schismatic who had fled to Persia before Samson. Samson employed him as a janitor.
The khan filled and lit his pipe.
“Too much work brings an early death, old man,” he said impassively.
The old man answered grumpily:
“I’ll see you out if you are not too careful.”
Samson chuckled into his beard.
Two of his soldiers, bahaderan, sat at the shah’s harem-hane, across the lane, sleeping peacefully.
Samson took a puff at his pipe, observing them. At that early hour, the sun was not yet scorching and the sentries were having a sweet sleep.
An officer wearing a conical hat came out of the battalion barracks—a long, red, one-story building on the other side of the palace. He approached Samson’s house and the sentries. His gait was quick and measured. He was young.
Samson hailed him from above:
“Coming off duty, Astafy Vasilich?”
This was Naib-serheng Skryplev, a recently escaped ensign. He drew himself up to attention before the khan and saluted him.
“Have a look at these dashing fellows guarding the shah, will you? Are they from your unit?”
Skryplev approached the sleeping soldiers.
“Up,” he said harshly. “Are you on duty or in bed with floosies?”
The sentries got up.
“Two extra guard duties,” said Skryplev. One of the sentries, an old soldier, knitted his brow. But he was groggy and said nothing. Having noticed Samson, they stood at attention. Samson beckoned Skryplev with his finger.
“Good,” he said quietly. “Come up here, will you?”
He continued to smoke while watching the young officer.
“It’s no good. The other soldiers are gone, so these ones are green with envy and down in the dumps.”
In summertime, Samson would temporarily disband his battalion. The battalion owned some land not far from Tehran. The bachelors stayed in town.
“You are too young, Astafy Vasilich. Don’t drag it out. Give them a good but short scolding. That way, they take it easier.”
“Yes, sir, Your Excellency.”
The ensign felt slightly affronted.
“And forget this ‘Excellency’ nonsense. It’s true that I am Excellency and you are lieutenant colonel. So, I am sartip-evvel and you must be naib-serheng. I am only a sergeant-major, and you are an ensign. Over here, Excellencies don’t matter. How are the young ones doing?”
“Not bad, Samson Yakovlich. Colonel Enikolopov is quite pleased with them.”
Serheng Enikolopov was the brother of the eunuch—Manouchehr-Khan, a fugitive Russian lieutenant. The young ones were the deserters’ children. Samson had sent them to an Armenian school, and upon leaving school, they were given a choice: to join the battalion or to learn a trade.
“Is the kharaj all right?”
“Not bad.”
“That’s good.”
“Samson Yakovlich,” said naib-serheng respectfully, “the men are uneasy.”
“About what?” said Samson, blowing out smoke.
“The other day, somebody said that a Russian ambassador is arriving and that apparently he has orders to take the battalion out of here. And apparently His Royal Highness has sent you an order to comply.”
Samson kept smoking.
“Bring that somebody to me, will you? I’ll have a word with him. And when you get the chance, explain to your men how things really stand.
“Yes, sir.”
“It is true that an ambassador is coming. Mr. Griboedov, an old acquaintance of mine. That’s true. And I have received an order from the shah-zade. So it would seem that somebody is right.”
“Yes, sir,” said Skryplev, gaping.
“What is wrong is that it’s a different kind of an order. I have received a firman from Abbas. Since I was military adviser in his campaign and distinguished myself, he is granting my men lands of their choice not far from Tabriz. The land is better over there. This is what the order is about. And as far as extraditing us from here—that somebody has dreamed it all up.”
Skryplev smiled.
Small vendors darted about the street, and two traders came sauntering by. A unit of idle-looking, poorly dressed sarbazes appeared from around the corner. The little boys ran around, whistling.
“See Alaiar-Khan today. Remind him from me about the girah. He knows what I mean. They are holding it back. When you are done, come and have dinner with us. The girls keep asking why you have stopped calling.”
And the ensign in the conical hat with the tassel—the little boys were afraid of them and called them “donkey tails”—stood at attention before the khan’s gown.
Samson tapped the pipe out and hung his head. He had not told Skryplev the whole truth. Abbas Mirza’s firman, which he had received the previous night, did indeed grant land in Azerbaijan to the Russian bahaderans. But part of Abu’l-Qasim-Khan’s report also mentioned that Vazir-Mukhtar had secret orders to extradite all Russians from Persia, including Samson himself. He sat there silently, looking at his feet.
“It’s that fool Nazar who had spilled the beans. I’ll hang him for his old woman’s tongue. Kharab.”
Kharab has many meanings—“a poor road”; “a desolate, ruined town”; and “a stupid or sick man.”
“Kharab,” murmured Samson, and he suddenly remembered Griboedov’s nose and mouth. And his spectacles. The mouth was thin, pursed.
Samson grimaced and cursed under his breath.
Then he spat and went unhurriedly into the anderun.
Alaiar-Khan, to whom Samson had sent Skryplev, had the title of Asaf-ud-Daula.
This title deserves particular attention.
In 1826, in a report to Nesselrode, Prince Menshikov conjectured that Alaiar-Khan called himself “Asaf” mainly because that was the title of one of the ministers of Solomon, king of Israel.
A traveler in the 1820s translated the title erroneously as “the state Solomon.” What is the remit of the “state Solomon”? This title is as dubious as that of vice chancellor, chancellor, or minister without portfolio. The absence of a ministerial portfolio is always an ominous sign.
All officials are attached to a certain branch of government, finance or some other, and only one person is empty-handed. The hands of such a “state Solomon” are not only empty, they are untied.
He meddles in the finances and whatnot. He can resolve the question of the girah, the horses’ feed, and leave some people extremely disgruntled.
Alaiar-Khan was Fat’h-Ali-shah’s first minister, and a minister without portfolio. Additionally, he was a sadrasam, and, on top of all that, for some reason, he was subordinate to the eunuch Manouchehr-Khan.
Alaiar-Khan wasn’t a Qajar. His immobile black eyes were like those of a man deep in thought.
He despised Fat’h-Ali-shah and obeyed him silently and reluctantly. He had the fate of the dynasty on his mind. He had never forgotten how, upon conquering Tabriz, the shah had ordered his heels to be caned, intending not just to punish him and not so much to shame him—caning was not considered a disgrace—as to point the finger of blame. It was he who had stood behind the curtain in Abbas’s tent when the latter negotiated the peace treaty with the kafir in spectacles. Alaiar-Khan stood behind the curtain listening, and tears as large as hailstones fell onto his beard. Now he stood behind the curtain again, stood and thought behind the curtain of his anderun.
Who was to blame?
In the Eastern countries, when the head of the family dies, the question at issue is: who is to blame? And the person to blame turns out to be either the doctor or the daughter-in-law who had failed to bring him a drink at the right moment, not the stomach ulcer from which the sick man died.
Persia was dying from an ulcer. The bazaars had been growing poorer; taxes had been increasing. Crowds of beggars wandered about Tehran, scrounging. Loose women and thieves, lots, had proliferated to such a degree that the outskirts were lively at night. So far, they were merely wandering aimlessly. They hadn’t yet begun to think. But Alaiar-Khan had already had a good think.
The Qajars were to blame.
Alaiar-Khan, who had spoken in favor of the war, and who had built a new palace in its aftermath, was not to blame.
Abbas Mirza was to blame, and he had to be dethroned. If he were deposed, Alaiar-Khan would pick up his old Persian knife. And the Qajars’ throne would be passed on to a Persian.
So far, they were harmless wanderers, the lots and destitute kebabchi, the cobblers who had abandoned their hammers, the joiners who had sold their axes. The shah was oblivious to them. But Alaiar-Khan was not.
The crowds were beginning to think but still hadn’t thought it all through.
“Who is to blame?”
Abbas Mirza was to blame.
Alaiar-Khan was expecting Dr. McNeill and that lanky, narrow-boned kafir, the “infidel”, who had mocked him during the negotiations.
He did not cheer up even when two new captive women were brought into his harem-hane, a German and an Armenian. He was replete. He told his eunuch to treat them well and forgot about them.