Cry of the Peacock: A Novel (19 page)

He sat down to talk about Peacock's future.

"It's all over for you," he started every day, and his words sent Sabrina into a shiver. "Solomon the Man is going to divorce you—there is no question about that. What baffles me is why the man is still alive, why Zil-el-Sultan hasn't killed him yet. But that's Solomon for you. Things just don't
happen
to him as they do to others."

Peacock barely heard his voice. She ate the food Joseph brought, rocked Arash—crying and feverish—till her arms were numb and her legs had caved in.

"There's no
question
he'll divorce you."

Three weeks went by. Joseph the Winemaker went to Solomon's house to beg that he take back Peacock and the children. He wanted to remind Solomon of his oath of marriage, of his duty as a father. He wanted to explain to Tala her relationship with Peacock, send a word for Hannah and plead on Peacock's behalf. But every time Joseph the Winemaker knocked at Solomon's door, no one came to answer, and as much as he stood guard, no one ever left the house.

He imagined that Solomon was dead—buried in his bedroom by Zil-el-Sultan's soldiers just as he was embracing Tala. In the end, Joseph the Winemaker forced the lock on the door, and entered the house.

He stood in the courtyard, overwhelmed by the quiet, then walked to the stairs that led up to Solomon's bedroom.

"Solomon Khan," he called, but his voice was barely audible.

"Solomon Khan," he tried again, without success. He grasped the wooden railing and climbed a few steps. He called again, waited for an answer, then climbed closer to the bedroom.

He knocked on the door. "Solomon Khan, it is I, your servant."

The handle was cold in his hand. He pushed it down and walked in.

Solomon the Man stood in his bed, naked to the waist, circling with the tip of his tongue the nipples of a girl with golden hair and white skin. When Joseph the Winemaker walked in, he turned around, surprised, but his eyes were clouded and he looked as if he did not recognize Joseph at all.

"Solomon Khan," Joseph the Winemaker stuttered. Then the girl with the golden hair came up, still naked, and forced Joseph out.

Zil-el-Sultan
had lost his luck.

Tala had defied him, Solomon the Man had betrayed him, and Zil-el-Sultan avenged himself by divorcing Hannah. But the moment he sent her away to jail, he ran out of luck, and lost a kingdom.

He was the most capable of Nasser-ed-Din Shah's sons, by far the most popular among the people and inside the ruling circles. He had ruled southern Persia with success, proven his ability to reign. But his very popularity had made the Shah resent him. When the time came to name a successor, Nasser-ed-Din Shah bypassed Zil-el-Sultan and named his brother, Muzaffar-ed-Din Khan, Crown Prince. Wounded, the Zil plotted against Muzaffar-ed-Din's life. But his plan was unveiled. Nasser-ed-Din Shah stripped Zil-el-Sultan of all his power, and took away the rule of southern Persia. He left to the Zil only the rule of Esfahan, but even this was punishment: inside Esfahan the Zil was still governor. If he crossed the city's borders, he would be killed by his father.

Devastated, Zil-el-Sultan called his seers and asked for the cause of his downfall. They conferred for an entire day, extracted from the prince every promise of immunity for themselves and their families should he not be pleased with their answer. In the end they were unanimous: His Highness the Prince Shadow of the King, had recently distanced himself from a woman with a lucky face. Bring her back, and he would regain his luck.

Zil-el-Sultan called his Minister of Court.

“Release Taj-Banoo," he ordered. “Send my carriage to bring her back."

Hannah returned to the palace in full glory: she was twenty-five years old, a startling woman, strong and confident and aware of her own power now that Zil-el-Sultan believed she controlled his fate. She married him again, regained her title, her wealth in Esfahan, her power within the harem. He swore he would give her anything she wished. She asked that he forgive Tala, and let her leave Esfahan with Solomon the Man. It never occurred to her that she should protect Peacock: she had been sent to Zil-el-Sultan at the age of nine, left alone among strangers with only the mission to keep alive and protect herself. She had been told to deny her past, her family, her longings. Peacock, like Leyla and Joseph the Winemaker, was only a shadow Hannah saw in the dark and often did not recognize.

She sent Tala's nursemaid to Juyy Bar.

“Go to Tehran," the old woman relayed Hannah's message. "Nasser-ed-Din Shah is your father's enemy. He will take you into his court if only to spite the Zil."

The nursemaid came back with news from Juyy Bar. Tala was pregnant, she said, and from the shape of her stomach and the width of her steps when she walked, the nursemaid swore she would have a boy. Solomon the Man had divorced his Jewish wife, and was about to sell his house in Juyy Bar. He had forgotten his three children from Peacock. He had forgotten their mother. He was devoted to Tala and only to Tala, and he would take her to Tehran, he had promised, as soon as his child was born and Tala could travel.

Joseph the Winemaker
was desperate to keep Solomon from leaving. He had heard news of Tala's pregnancy, and of Solomon's plan to go to Tehran. He had gone to Solomon's house a dozen times after the day Tala threw him out. He had begged to see Solomon, asked that he stay in Juyy Bar, take Peacock back, save his children. Tala met him at the door every time, and refused to let him in.

"My lady of ladies." Joseph the Winemaker bowed to his grandchild, who did not know him. He saw Hannah in Tala's face, saw Leyla in her expressions. "My lady of ladies, you don't know our pain. Solomon the Man is the light of all our lives. When he came here, he brought rain. If he leaves, we will all be lost. My daughter will be shamed. Her children will starve. My lady of ladies, Solomon the Man has a heart of gold. He won't spare us his mercy."

But Tala was impossible. She had taken over Solomon's life, his mind, his heart. She had made him forget his every loyalty, made him bury even his love for his daughters. Joseph the Winemaker thought the situation through, and realized that Tala must have charmed Solomon with a sophisticated spell. He shared his theory with Raab Yahya, who laughed at Joseph's simplicity and offered a much easier one:

“The man wanted Love. He found Love."

Joseph the Winemaker cursed Raab Yahya and every other rabbi in the world. He went home and gathered his life's savings, then went to call on Malekshah the Devil Catcher.

Malekshah the Devil Catcher commanded powers greater than those of any other witch or sorcerer in Persia. He had spent his youth meditating in the ruins of the ancient city of Rei, capital of the old Persian Empire, seat of the throne of Cyrus the Great, home of Spirit-Princes and Jinn-Kings. As a result of his meditations, Malekshah the Devil Catcher had gained enormous spiritual powers, and once managed to capture the king of a tribe of jinns who inhabited the ruins of Rei. He had released the Jinn-King, but his very act of mercy had placed Malekshah in command of the entire tribe. Now he worked out of a shop overlooking the Shah's Square in Esfahan. For the price of a cow, or the head of a Jew, he ordered the jinns in his service to perform tasks impossible for mortal men. Joseph the Winemaker was terrified of Malekshah, and resentful of the price he exacted for his services. Nevertheless, he went to see him, painfully uttering his wish as he extended to the Devil Catcher a bag full of silver coins.

"My life's blood," he said as Malekshah's fingers closed around the neck of the bag. "You have here the money I put away to buy myself a shroud."

Malekshah the Devil Catcher weighed the bag in his hand and sniffed in disapproval.

"I can't guarantee results," he said casually. "There is only enough here to employ jinns of light. Jinns of darkness are more accurate, but also more expensive."

The jinns of darkness, Joseph knew, acted quickly and aimed for direct results. They inhabited the night, invisible but strong, and unless summoned to perform a task, they were largely harmless; they only strangled anyone who accidentally stepped on their tails, or walked over their children sleeping on open roads. The jinns of light, by contrast, were playful and mischievous—and therefore less reliable. They amused themselves by leading unsuspecting humans into traps from which escape was impossible. Along the way, they tended to lose sight of their original goal, and often left their tasks half-done.

Joseph the Winemaker dreaded the thought of having his wish distorted and changed. In his younger days he would have bargained with Malekshah, sworn poverty, pleaded mercy. Today he resigned himself to getting only what his money could buy.

"Return Solomon the Man to my daughter and my ghetto," he told Malekshah, and watched the bag of coins disappear into a chained coffer.

Solomon the Man dreamt of his children. He slept in Tala's arms the night of Joseph the Winemaker's meeting with the Devil Catcher, and all night long he saw Heshmat and Sabrina running toward him across a sun-bleached courtyard, with their arms outstretched and their feet bare. They were small and beautiful, their eyes golden, their hair light, their skin perfect. They rushed into his arms and when he picked them up, he felt the sun in his heart.

He woke up and told Tala he wanted his children back.

"Impossible," she bristled. "You must leave me first."

They fought for the first time in four months. Tala wanted Solomon for herself. She resented him for loving others, resented every day and hour he had ever lived without her, despised everyone he had ever loved besides her. She was not jealous of Peacock; Solomon never spoke of her. She was jealous of the children.

Now, as he stood in the alley outside Solomon's house every day, Joseph the Winemaker heard Tala scream at Solomon in frustration:

"For
you,”
she said, "I had my mother go to jail. I broke my father's pride, left the Palace of Forty Pillars to live here among
Jews.
For
you
I gave up my home and my title."

Joseph the Winemaker thought his money was well spent with the Devil Catcher.

"Any day now," he announced to Peacock, "your husband will come back to you and his children."

Solomon the Man
walked toward his children one early dawn, and the sound of his footsteps awakened Peacock from her nightmares. She went to the door, opened it, and walked out into the cold

"Solomon," she whispered, and he emerged like a wish. She saw herself in his eyes.

"Solomon."

She stood unveiled, her hair, soft and dark and lustrous, long to her waist, her skin the color of the night, her eyes radiant. She raised her hands to him and he touched her, awed by her beauty, as if to prove she was real. She was crying, he realized, and he wanted to touch her face, but he was afraid.

"Forgive me."

She did not answer him. She had not understood.

She took his hand and led him into the basement. He saw his children uncovered on the ground, huddling close to each other for warmth, trembling in their sleep. He fell to his knees and cried.

Tala had agreed to take only one child: she wanted Ar-ash, because he was a boy, she said, and carried his father's name—because, Solomon the Man knew, though he never dared admit it openly, Arash was the one Solomon had wanted least, the one he had barely known, the one in whom Peacock had placed her greatest hope. She would take Arash and only Arash, and if Solomon insisted on taking the girls, she would leave him and go back where he would never find her again.

He looked up at Peacock. She read his mind.

"No," her eyes flared.

Her voice shocked Solomon. He was terrified that his daughters would wake up to see him take Arash and leave them.

"I will send money for you/' he begged Peacock. "I will come back and see you.”

She knew she could not stop Solomon; a father owned his children even in death. She watched him take Arash. Then he walked out and left the girls. On the floor, Sabrina was dreaming of her father who would come—she was certain—to save her from Peacock.

Joseph the Winemaker
fell ill the day Solomon left Juyy Bar. He stayed in bed, heartsick and dismayed, and lost his appetite completely. Every day he became thinner and more disappointed. After a while he lost his sight, his voice, his hearing. His spine curved and his skin stretched so tightly over his body that he looked inhuman, and so, when he grew a layer of soft hair, like a new kitten, he knew he had come to the end.

"I have grown the Devil's hair,” he mumbled to Peacock, who could not understand him. "I am going to die and go to hell.”

Joseph the Winemaker died like a starved child—like his bride of half a century ago, Khatoun, who had been seven years old the night of her wedding. Peacock buried him in 1890, and lived for a while on the revenues from the sale of his winery. Just as she ran out of money, a messenger came from Tehran, bringing food and gold and greetings from Solomon the Man.

"From Solomon,” he said as he unloaded the sacks of rice and flour in front of Mullah Mirza's basement. Sabrina and Heshmat were dancing around the messenger's horse, touching the bags of food and uttering their father's name as if it were holy. The messenger put down the last sack, then extended a pouch full of gold coins at Peacock.

''There will be more,” he promised, pleased with himself and his mission. Peacock saw his smile and felt a storm of resentment erupt in her.

"Damn him!” she screamed, so loudly the girls froze in their place. She took the pouch from the messenger and threw it back at him.

"Damn him, and damn you if you ever come back."

She pushed the man with her fists, kicked his horse, screamed at her daughters that they were not allowed to touch the food. She opened the top of the coal stove in the yard and, before the terrified eyes of her children, threw one bag of flour after another into the fire.

"Tell Solomon the Man we don't want his charity."

Only later, when the rage had calmed and she could see through her pain into her children's faces, did Peacock realize the extent of devastation she had brought upon them. For days they sat by the stove, inconsolable, and pleaded to the flames for the food their mother had burned.