1
Aghengher the blacksmith, who lived not far from the Imam-Zume Mosque, had been fasting for two weeks, and for two weeks he hadn’t touched his wife. He was always like that before the Muharrаm days, but this year, his son had perished in the war, along with many horses, and there were none to shoe. The fast gave him none of the usual relief, though he lost some weight. He was hungry, night-dreaming of a woman—not his wife, a different one; he tortured her, twisted her arms, and nothing was enough. He slept soundly, but at six o’clock in the morning, he woke up with a start and, having thrown on his clothes, ran out onto the roof. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at the other roofs, flat and desolate, and his heart pounded. He thought that he had slept in. Then his neighbor, the cobbler, showed up on the opposite roof across a narrow lane and looked at him apprehensively. Without saying a word, they ran downstairs, each to his workshop. Aghengher grabbed his heavy sledgehammer. It appeared too heavy, so he dropped it and picked up a knife wrapped in a cloth from the floor, out of a pile of junk. The knife was light enough. He stuck it into his belt, grabbed the hammer, and dragged it with him, running up onto the roof again. The adjacent rooftops were stirring with people: women craned their necks looking in the direction of the Imam-Zume Mosque. Men ran nimbly along the lane, one after another. The air was stagnant. Suddenly the blacksmith jumped off the roof onto the wide, low stone fence, hopped down, and loped toward the mosque. He could see its white back wall, and there was no one there.
A clear sound, a sigh, was vibrating like a light human breeze:
“Ya-Ali …”
And when the blacksmith, like a boy, hopping along with his sledgehammer hitting the ground, leaped into the thousand-strong crowd, Mullah-Msekh had finished the prayer, and the blacksmith was just in time to yelp, looking into the mouth of the man next to him:
“Ya-Ali-Salavat!”
2
Dr. Adelung usually woke up early, between six and seven. He went to bed no later than nine. He was convinced that the discipline of sleep and food was more important for a human being than the climate he lived in, or his body temperature. At half past seven, he was at his desk wearing an old dressing gown and recording the events of the previous day in his diary, information that he had had no time to enter the previous night owing to the lateness of the hour.
He wrote:
January 30.
Monsieur Maltzoff behaves with extravagance inappropriate to the current circumstances, as one should not display private wealth in times of general austerity. A. S. G. finds it unpalatable. Maltsov has bought so many fabrics, it’s as if he has a harem at home. And he is a bachelor. He is boastful about his Lion and Sun and flaunts it on his chest. He remains with us at the embassy to help us carry on with affairs. Tomorrow, we are presenting the gifts to the shah. The day after tomorrow, we’ll be on the road again.
Words with the eunuch. As it turns out, the shah’s harem customs are not all that pure. A wife’s adultery. (Women’s clothes contribute to it; with the chador on, even a husband is unable to see whether it is his wife.) NB. Impunity since the shah cannot afford to admit publicly to such an occurrence, and rumor spreads fast over here. He also told me that in order to pay the eighth kuror, the shah intends to produce something from the treasure house: a diamond generally known under the name of Nader Shah. Have convinced Yakub to start writing it all down in his Notes.
The doctor listened carefully. He heard a distant noise, unclear, monolithic. He thought a little and scribbled again:
Compared to Tabriz, Tehran is much noisier. Not a single day passes without a fight at the bazaar. NB. Tell Senkovsky about musical instruments.
Maltsov dashed in without knocking. The doctor glanced at him irritably. Maltsov had on a tailcoat over his nightgown.
“What brings you here, my dear Ivan Sergeyevich, at such an early hour?”
Maltsov grabbed his hand.
“Doctor, doctor, for God’s sake, let’s run for it … Can’t you hear?”
The noise was certainly increasing. It was becoming more distinct.
Ya-A-li rippled somewhere in the distance.
The doctor rose, his eyes bulging.
“And so, what about it?”
Maltsov burst into tears. He sounded wretched.
“Dear doctor, can’t you see?”
The doctor considered for a second.
“Do you think this is …”
“Let’s run—let’s not lose a moment.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know where.”
Maltsov scurried about, weeping.
The doctor bristled. His dressing gown flew wide open.
“You’ve lost your mind! Go to Alexander Sergeyevich and wake him up at once!”
Maltsov flapped his hands at him, each of his fingers flickering separately. Not hearing, he dashed from the room. The doctor drank some water and listened to the noise. Suddenly he put down the glass.
It was coming from far off:
“Jih-h-h-ad …”
He stood for another second, holding the glass again, swiftly threw off his dressing gown, and put on his uniform. He looked around and fastened on his foil, as short as a mouse’s tail, donned his cap, and suddenly threw it back on the desk. With astonishing speed, he shoved a few sheets of paper into the desk drawer and left the room. And in the courtyard, he flared his nostrils like a dog drawing in the air.
There was no smell of burning.
The noise was coming from the neighboring streets and heading straight for the gates. He turned round abruptly and strode into the backyard. The Cossack guards were fast asleep. He did not wake them.
3
“Avv-a-vv-a-vva.” That was Sashka.
His teeth were chattering while he was shaking Griboedov.
“Avva-a-vva, Alexander Sergeyevich.”
Griboedov was asleep.
At last, he sat up in bed and gave Sashka a distant look. He put on his spectacles and came to.
The old Dadashyants stood behind Sashka’s back, the one who had brought the gifts for the shah the previous night.
Griboedov lowered his bare feet to the floor. He was cold.
“What do you want?” he asked angrily.
“Your Excellency,” the old man said hoarsely and doffed his round hat, “the mob is on the rampage. Yakub must be sent away.”
Griboedov was staring at the thin, sweaty hair, usually covered.
“And who are you?”
“I am Dadashyants,” the old man said plaintively, and moved backward behind Sashka.
“Well, if you are Dadashyants, I forbid you to meddle in affairs that do not concern you. What liberties you are taking! Off you go.
“And you, Sasha? What are you doing here? I’ll lie down for a little longer. Bring my clothes in ten minutes’ time.”
And Sashka calmed down.
Exactly ten minutes later, Griboedov got dressed. He put on his gold-embroidered uniform and cocked hat as if off to a parade, and went out into the courtyards to give instructions. He heard the noise, which sounded like the howling of the spectators in the gods of a theater, applauding Katya Teleshova as he had once heard it from the theater buffet. And suddenly the howling stopped, as if Katya were giving an encore.
4
Maltsov ran out of Dr. Adelung’s room.
“O-o-o-u …”
He was clamoring as he ran.
“Oh, my dears, my precious friends,” he said, his feet drumming like a capricious child’s.
He dashed into his apartment, on the balakhane, rushed toward the little chest, and stuck the tiny key into the keyhole.
Banknotes, receipts, gold. He crumpled the receipts and shoved the banknotes into his side pocket.
Gold. He filled his pockets.
“I’ve got to get out of here.”
And where to, you fool? Where would you run to, idiot? he asked himself, disgusted, self-mocking, and burst into tears again.
And he stumbled back down into the courtyard, where he ran into two Persian soldiers from the Yakub-sultan guard. They were leaving.
“Yakub-sultan?” he yelped at them. “Where is Yakub-sultan?”
They passed him without a word.
The wind carried the sounds:
“Ya-a-a.”
He took a few steps after them, running on his already wobbly legs. Then he fell behind and tripped. He realized that Yakub-sultan was gone—and turned back.
He found himself right outside Nazar Ali Khan’s apartment.
The Persians stood guard. The ferrashi looked him up and down.
“Ya-a-ali,” was growing louder and was not going away.
“I need to see Nazar Ali Khan at once,” he said, explaining himself, his teeth chattering and pointing with his finger at the door.
One of them said in broken Russian:
“Nazar Ali Khan left yesterday.”
Maltsov stared at him and realized that he was the interpreter.
“… Salavat …”
He grabbed the interpreter’s hand. Beckoned him. Stuck his hand into his pocket. Clasped the gold: five, ten coins, a fistful. Shoved it into his hand.
“Could you hide me,” he said, “in here, eh? At Nazar Ali Khan’s? Eh? He is gone, isn’t he? Eh?”
The interpreter glanced at the palm of his hand.
“Too little.”
Maltsov went back into his pocket. His trousers were not buttoned properly, and he rearranged them.
“For each of us.”
“Agreed, cash in hand for each man, just as you say,” said Maltsov, and raised the palm of his hand.
The interpreter went up to the ferrashi, had a word, and came back.
“Where is it?” he said roughly.
Maltsov poured the gold into his hands. The interpreter beckoned two more ferrashi. The gold disappeared into their pockets. A small amount was left at the bottom of his left pocket. The ferrashi lingered, looking at Maltsov. Now they would probably tell him to get lost.
“My dear fellows, my precious friends,” he babbled. The interpreter unlocked the door, let Maltsov in, watched him go in, and locked the door on him.
Maltsov lay face down on the carpet. His nostrils took in the scent of dust. He shut his eyes, but this was even more unnerving, and he fixed his eye on a twirl of orange color in the shape of a question mark.
Then, a minute, or half an hour later, came the roaring.
He clasped the rim of the carpet with both hands, dropped his head, and stared at the question mark.
5
When they were leaving the enclosure of the Imam-Zume Mosque, there were five or six hundred of them. When they approached the accursed gates, there were ten thousand.
The mullahs and sayyids, who led the mob, did not look back. But they could feel behind them the growing intensity of breath, of steps, of screams. Smiths, fruit sellers, artisans, kebabchis—sellers of roast meats—all on the move. The mob converged with others from the lanes in dozens, and from the streets in hundreds. Sarbazes with rifles. One-handed men in ragged kulidjas picked up stones from the road, each with his remaining left hand. The one-handed ones were the lots. Daggers, staves, hammers, rocks, rifles were arriving from the lanes. They were handed over by the old men, who had not joined the mob. Axes.
Bloodshot eyes and oily black pupils glared in the thousands.
The shops were shut down to avoid the inevitable pillaging along the way.
But when they approached the accursed gates, bolted tightly shut against them, they stopped dead in their tracks.
A standstill. Hands clutching hammers, rocks, rifles, gates fast barred, and a silent house.
The baying ceased.
The Russian flag fluttered lightly on the flagpole.
6
“Listen to my orders,” Griboedov said. “Secure the main gates. Sergeant Kuzmichev, take twenty men and position yourselves by the gates. Sergeant Ivanov and Chibisov, take fifteen men and take up a position on the roof. Keep your rifles at the ready.”
He ran up the narrow staircase to his place.
7
Yakub Markarian craned his neck, peeped from behind the door, and retreated into his room. He sat down on the floor in the middle of his room on his crossed legs. He thought he had begun to lose that habit. He heard the din drawing nearer. Then it all went silent, and suddenly a shrill voice somewhere nearby shrieked out his name.
And at once:
“Allah. Allah.”
And silence.
Yakub Markarian bared his teeth. He was laughing. The gates were strong.
8
Standing in the reception room adjoining his bedroom Griboedov said:
“Why don’t you bring the wine in here, Sasha? Bring a crate, or even two. And the supplies.”
Sashka called the coachman, and they went for a rummage in the food store.
Dressed in his uniform, Dr. Adelung puffed on his cigar. Rustem-Bek and Dadash-Bek, half-dressed, were also there. The room did not have a lived-in look, not a touch of humanity.
“Open this bottle for us and take the rest onto the roof to the Cossacks, will you? They haven’t had breakfast yet. Your health, doctor. This is sparkling.”
Dr. Adelung nodded gloomily and gave Griboedov’s glass a somber clink.
9
And only when the mob saw the Cossacks having breakfast and drinking wine on the rooftop did they come to life. A blond man wearing a caftan thrown over his underwear was taking a break from dragging a heavy basket onto the roof.
The gates shuddered slightly.
The fair-haired one in the caftan bent over and ran along the roof, back into the inner court.
That was the point when the first shot was fired into the heart of the mob. That was the first shot, and everyone heard it.
The blond man kept running, ducking.
And a scream from the mob: a boy wearing a kulidja fell down. There was blood on his face. Everyone saw the blood. He was dragged aside by the blacksmith and the cobbler. He was dying.
The falconet cannons began to speak. Rocks flew back at the roof and at the Cossacks.
The front line of the mob struck the gates. Even without a running start, the hundreds of bodies were knocked senseless and thrown back. The Cossacks hastily finished their wine.
A man on horseback showed up down below. He yelled something and waved his arms. The Cossacks saw him being pulled off the horse and hauled toward the fallen boy. Clubs rose in the air, and the man disappeared beneath them.
The Cossacks on the rooftops wiped their mouths, kneeled, and took aim.
So perished Solomon Melikyants, who had dashed to the Russian legation like a moth to flame.
The blood on the ground, the gates with the bodies hurled against them, a tall, blond man running along the roof, three or four Cossacks suddenly spread out up there—it all happened at once. That was the moment when they saw that the roof of the stables was wider on the left than on the right, where the Cossacks were.
So ten or fifteen men clambered up onto the roof of the stables. The first three were taken out by the Cossacks’ bullets.
“Jihad!”
“Death to the dogs!”
Hundreds had already scaled the roof of the first courtyard.
The Cossacks retreated into the narrow passage.
10
At half past seven, Zil-li Sultan received a message that the mob had gathered at the Russian legation. The message was brought by the ghulam-pishkhedmet, who had come to assist him in dressing.
Zil-li Sultan was dressing at leisure. A basin was brought for him to wash his face. He washed with gurgling and snorting sounds.
Afterward, he performed the traditional morning prayer.
After the prayer, breakfast was served.
11
The Cossacks kept firing. Men leaped down from the roof, one after another, in the dozens. The courtyard was already full of them.
They scattered in all directions. Nazar-Ali Khan’s lodgings were on the right. Maltsov’s apartment was on the left, on the balakhane, and the doctor’s apartment was downstairs. The Cossacks were straight ahead through the narrow passage. The mob had no idea who was where, and they ran around like blind men. They were looking for the khoja, the eunuch.
Three of Yakub-Sultan’s sarbazes directed them to the second courtyard. Hundreds of men with hammers and daggers stood by Nazar-Ali Khan’s door. The house in which the doctor had been writing in his diary half an hour ago was now being battered like a living being. Sheets of paper flew through the air like eiderdown.
Yakub Markarian saw ten heads thrust through his door at once. They were crammed in the opening and were jammed there fast. Blinded by daylight, they could hardly see in the dimness of the room, and their eyes glared past him.
Khoja Yakub rose from the carpet slowly, solemnly. Then he advanced toward the door, and the men retreated. Armed with knives and sledgehammers, they fell back: none of them had ever seen Khoja-Mirza-Yakub. He was tall in stature, white-faced; his eyebrows were black and seemed to be drawn with kohl.
Khoja-Mirza-Yakub stared at the men, whom he was seeing for the first time in his life. Then he bared his teeth; the eunuch was either smiling or grimacing.
“Have you come for me?” he said in his contralto voice. “Have you come to get me?” And took another step forward.
“I am unarmed, take a blow—bzanid!”
A hammer-man slowly swung his sledgehammer and hurled it at him from a distance, staying where he stood. The sledgehammer struck him in the chest. The eunuch reeled.
Only then did they leap into the room; only then did their hands grab at his gown. Took a tight hold of him. The clubs beat him on the head as if the head were a drum, all together.
“Bzanid!” the eunuch shrieked ecstatically.
Aghengher stabbed him in the belly with a knife and punched him in the teeth with his fist. Then he was hit again in the side, and he still shrieked in his fluting voice:
“Bzanid, hit me!” and spat out his teeth.
He was dragged out into the courtyard, where he fell. A boy of about fifteen pulled out a long blade like a butcher’s cleaver and hacked at his neck. An old man stamped brutally on the blunt side of the hatchet. The head rolled to the gateway, like a ball past the goal. They caught it on the other side. Then they also caught an arm with the close-fitting, light blue sleeve on it, and a leg. Those who caught them held them tight and raised them aloft, and immediately their chests were wetted red.
“Ya-Ali-Salavat …”
The thunderous din of the second courtyard being wrecked. They stood on the roofs, ripping off lath and plaster. The axes swung, the rafters shattered; the men fell through, clambered up again, and, two at a time, hurled the lumber into the third courtyard. The bare, dusty poplar tree quivered like a dog.
13
Griboedov yelled:
“Alexander, get back, Alexander!”
He stood on a narrow staircase leading to his chamber. Adelung was behind him; Rustem-Bek and Dadash-Bek peeped from behind Adelung. Fifteen Cossacks knelt downstairs, turning their heads all ways and shooting at the rooftops and the stone fence.
Sashka couldn’t hear him. He couldn’t make out what he was seeing. It was foggy with stucco and dust. The second courtyard rang with the sounds of shouts and crashes.
Sashka gaped and listened silently. It was unclear what he was looking at. He went beyond the circle of Cossacks and stood there watching.
Griboedov yelled again:
“Alexander!”
Sashka turned around and looked at Griboedov.
At that moment, the Cossacks fired a volley: ten ragged Persians stood on the flat top of the surrounding stone wall. Two of them dropped and rolled down into the courtyard like sacks of flour. A third one shot at random.
Looking at Griboedov with his clear eyes, Sashka knitted his eyebrows whimsically, twisted his mouth disapprovingly, bent sideways as if stung by a wasp, and fell.
Griboedov spoke to himself.
“They’ve killed Alexander.”
One of the dead Cossacks lay next to Sashka, clasping a rifle. Griboedov quickly ran downstairs and knelt down. He unclasped the dead hands and took the rifle. Then he sprang upstairs.
And began to take aim and to shoot, accurately and rapidly.
Shrieking filled the narrow, dark courtyard. It was crammed with men.
The shots hit their targets.
The crowd retreated. The little courtyard was cleared. Now only those along the walls remained. Sporadic shots were coming from the walls. Then they started to hurl down the beams. One of the beams fell on four Cossacks. They writhed beneath it.
Dr. Adelung touched Griboedov’s shoulder. Griboedov turned around.
“They’ve killed Alexander,” he said to the doctor, and his lip quivered.
“We need to retreat inside,” said Dr. Adelung.
Two more Cossacks had been killed.
14
The first room inside was his bedroom. The bed was still undone—Sashka had never made it.
Ten Cossacks crouched at the windows.
Griboedov peered out.
There were huge numbers of the mob in the little courtyards. In the half-darkness of the little courtyard, they were white with stucco dust. He stepped back from the window and paced the room, kicking the trunk aside with his foot to make more space.
The mob did not know who lived in the third courtyard and were howling:
“Where is the kafir? Where is Vazir-Mukhtar?”
Everyone lined up along the side walls. A small stone hit Griboedov in the head. He did not register the pain. He ran his fingers through his hair, felt something wet, and saw the blood.
Rustem-Bek said hoarsely:
“Fat’h-Ali-shah will send reinforcements. Another ten minutes …”
Griboedov regarded his red, sticky hand with disgust.
“Fuck your … Fat’h-Ali-shah.”
The stones were less frequent.
“We need to retreat into the living-room,” said Dr. Adelung.
He cocked his ears, his eyes raised to the ceiling, thinking he heard some footsteps on the roof. Suddenly the ceiling cracked under a hundred feet. They heard the sharp blows of axes on the roof. They moved to the parlor.
15
The doctor drew his head into his shoulders and looked ahead at the parlor door. His face was like a bulldog’s muzzle. He was quite unruffled. They were stomping around on the roof like dancers. The cracking was the stripping-away of the lath.
“They are taking over the staircase,” he said, peering closely.
The door from the courtyard to the bedroom was thickly crammed with men, hundreds of them trying to get through at once, none succeeding.
Without looking at anyone, Dr. Adelung took one step backward and pulled his tiny little foil out of its sheath.
Griboedov paced the room, his arms crossed determinedly on his chest. The doctor ran to the bedroom, his foil in his hand.
Griboedov looked at him.
He saw the doctor reach the door, at which he made a sudden lunge. He immediately fell back. Something had happened there. The doorway was clear—they had retreated.
“Well done.”
The doctor was ripping the curtain from the bedroom window. His left arm was missing—there was only a stump. He bandaged it quickly with a strip of fabric. Then he sprang onto the windowsill and leaped out. Griboedov saw a fleeting movement: Dr. Adelung launching his offensive, his little sword in the air.
“Bravely done,” said Griboedov. “What a man!”
Now there was neither Sashka nor Dr. Adelung.
The stucco rained onto his head. The beams gave way—he had just enough time to leap out of the way. The mob was jumping down from above. A sarbaz struck him in the chest with a scimitar once, twice. He also heard Rustem-Bek shrieking as he was being carved up close by.
16
A unit of sarbazes showed up at the legation gate. There were a hundred of them, under the command of Major Hajji-Bek; they had been sent by Zil-li Sultan. The sarbazes stood for a while, took a look around, and mingled with the mob. Three hours had passed since the mob first appeared. The street was now much wider than before, on account of the ruins. As their order was to influence the mob by verbal persuasion, the sarbazes had come unarmed.
17
The floor and the walls shook; time stood still.
Gradually he began to interpret the character of the various crashes and noises: the barking of the falconet cannons, the sharp, bright clatter of the torn-off lath, the deep, musical din of the hurled beams.
The human noises were the most menacing. The design on the carpet, from which he did not lift himself, measured the sounds like a metronome. As soon as he raised his head from the carpet, he felt faint.
He pressed himself so tightly to the carpet that he could feel the banknotes that he had stuffed into his chest pocket. The banknotes were the one thing he could rely on among everything else that was left in the courtyard or in the room.
MALTSOV’S PRAYER
It’s not my fault, Dear Lord, it’s not my fault! He is to blame. I am young. If I am to die, don’t let me suffer, no suffering, please! Oh, I am being dishonest with you; I am deceiving you, Dear Lord, don’t listen to me: I want to live. They are howling again. Are they approaching my door? Let everything perish, if necessary, Lord, let everybody perish. Just save, protect, and have mercy on me. My whole life is ahead of me. I’ll go away to Petersburg, I will never come back here again, I promise, Dear Lord! I’ll do anything to get out of here. I’ll give my fortune to the poor, only deliver me from here, I beg you!
There were moments of silence in the thunder—and then the din ceased at last. And he heard the strangest sounds.
Objects, unidentifiable, were being dragged along past the window. There were curious slumping noises, and he heard the regular shouts of men seemingly at work, like those the Persians made when they were unloading goods. They heaved, hollered, hurled, and then came those strange slumping sounds again. The swooshing noises came right up close to the window. Was it light planks that were falling? But when they were being laid down, they did not clatter, but rather made that soft thumping sound, and then again the heaving sounds came from behind the window, very close by.
He dragged himself toward the window, swept the curtain aside, and wondered if they could see him from the courtyard. But he couldn’t get these sounds out of his mind. He dragged himself a little closer to the window and peered out with one eye.
The black beams hung loose up above. He stared for quite a long time: the loose beams came from the roof where Adelung’s and his apartment used to be, from the opposite side of the courtyard, not too close and on the second floor level. The soft sounds right at his ear did not stop, but he could see nothing but the beams. He raised himself a little higher on his arms.
A Persian was running with thick bundles of files in his arms, sheets of paper were whirling in the wind, a huge mirror was being dragged away, a little boy was running with a heap of uniforms, and the white sleeve of a shirt was conspicuous in the heap. The boy stopped and peered down: something had fallen out of the clothes.
Maltsov squinted, stared for a moment, and dropped noiselessly, like a sack, onto the floor.
All of them were naked. A yellowish back lay at the level of his feet. It was a high pyramid of naked corpses. An old man with a knife, very close to him, busied himself over the dead. Three sarbazes were beating the heap of corpses with planks of wood, leveling the pile.
The dead men lay with their arms around each other, almost obscenely.
The man now without kith or kin lay on the carpet for an hour, for two hours, three. He was not really asleep, but not awake either. He was like a somnolent fish.
Then, he had no notion when, there was some commotion by the door, it was unlocked, and somebody spoke in the adjoining room. Maltsov got up at once, like an automaton. He felt for the banknotes once again.
An unfamiliar serheng entered the room without noticing him. Then he saw him and stepped back.
Maltsov realized at once: it was good that he had got up. The serheng wouldn’t have seen him lying down. A man on the ground could accidentally be hit on the head with a broadsword.
He said to the serheng in French:
“I demand to be immediately …”
The serheng stood there listening.
Then Maltsov turned his parched tongue in his mouth and yelped with all his might:
“I demand that you should immediately inform His Highness Prince Zil-li Sultan …”
His voice was hoarse and barely audible. He was whispering instead of yelling.
The serheng locked the door on him and left. Night fell.
Maltsov heard marching: soldiers.
The same serheng entered the room with a bundle in his hands. He threw it to Maltsov:
“Get dressed.”
And left.
In the bundle, there were the old, threadbare clothes of a sarbaz. Maltsov changed and stuck the banknotes into the deep side pockets of the wide trousers. A few sarbazes came into the room and surrounded him. They took him away. The ground was battered. The air was ample and fresh.