Cry of the Peacock: A Novel (25 page)

Arash the Rebel remembered standing in a strange courtyard on the day of their arrival and pulling at his starched shirt as if to release the heat he could not escape. He remembered lying in a cool, windowless room in the King's
andaroun
—a basement with brick walls, and in the middle, a pool of fresh water supplied by a well. He stayed there for days, perhaps weeks. He was running a high fever, and he refused to eat. Two maids watched him. Once a day, Solomon the Man came to see him.

But the fever had not stopped, and after two weeks the basement had taken on a foul smell—like things decaying before their time. The night maid swore she had seen a child, a boy like Arash but with icy skin and frosted hair, sitting in a corner of the basement, staring at the sickbed.

“It's Jebreel," announced the court doctor, Hakim Bashi. "It's the angel who watches over the deaths of children."

Hakim Bashi ruled that Arash was dying of heartache— for his mother, no doubt—and demanded that Peacock be brought to him immediately. He was told that Peacock was in Esfahan, that it would be weeks before she could be reached and brought to the capital.

"Well, then," Hakim Bashi, declared, "let the boy's father carry the burden of his death."

That night, Solomon the Man came to the cooling room, and showed Arash a picture of himself with Zil-el-Sultan and Peacock: there was Zil-el-Sultan, tall and wide-chested and dressed in a jewel-clad gown. Next to him stood Solomon, and then a girl, dark and thin and terrified, staring ahead of her as if to pierce the cardboard with her eyes.

"Your mother," Solomon the Man told Arash, wondering if he would understand.

Arash the Rebel gaped at the image in the cardboard rectangle, and for the first time in his young life, he spoke Peacock's name. Slowly the foul smell left the basement, the frosted angel stopped visiting, and Hakim Bashi declared a miracle.

Later, Arash remembered getting lost in Nasser-ed-Din Shah's palace—the expansive rooms and endless corridors that stretched before him like a treacherous maze, leading to bejeweled halls with mirrored ceilings, where walls made of miniature pieces of glass multiplied a single image into a thousand, and where hundreds of chandeliers cried infinite tears of cut crystal.

He lived in the Palace of Roses until he was five, then moved to the Palace of the Sun. He rarely saw his father or Tala; they lived in another mansion, and Tala had been pregnant every year since she came to Tehran.

In the Palace of the Sun, Arash was assigned his own quarters and servants: he had outgrown the
andaroun,
he was told. He was a man and could no longer live with females.

He slept alone in a vast room furnished with every luxury, in a bed so immense that Arash always thought it would swallow him in his sleep. He studied with a tutor every morning and afternoon, learned Persian, French, and Arabic, calligraphy, art, and mathematics, riding, polo, and marksmanship. Once a year he went hunting with the Royal Urdu.

It was the most exciting event of the year, the one time all of the Shah's family traveled together. They went north, to the jungles of Mazandaran, to chase boars. Arash the Rebel stayed in a tent with Solomon the Man. Tala was assigned to the women's camp, but she hunted with the men, and refused to sleep except with her husband. Arash the Rebel watched Tala ride away every dawn on her black horse. She galloped behind a dozen hound dogs, a rifle in her hand and a storm of golden hair on her shoulders, and returned tired but elated, her face scratched and bruised by the branches of trees, her skin glowing with the sweat of excitement as she dragged behind her the day's prize. She was always the last to return to camp. She stumbled off her horse, found Solomon the Man in his tent, and threw herself at him, making love—Arash knew as he stood outside the tent—with such urgency that she would tremble for hours after, and her legs would be unsteady, and every time Solomon the Man raised his eyes to smile at her, Tala the Qajar would blush with pleasure and lower her eyes to hide her love.

Slowly, through the years of his childhood, Arash the Rebel learned to overcome his longing for his mother. He made peace with his own surroundings, and accepted Solomon the Man as the distant relative who sometimes loved him. He kept the picture of Peacock hidden in his private chest, but looked at it less often, and her image began to fade from his mind. When he was seven years old, his tutors enrolled him in the youth division of the Persian Cossack Brigade. Arash the Rebel studied Turki and Russian, and received military training from an older youth named Reza Khan the Maxim. He still lived in the palace, but he spent all his days at the House of Cossacks next to the drill ground in Tehran, and for the first time in his young life he began to make friends and to feel at home in his surroundings. Away from the palace he could forget his life, lose himself in uniform anonymity, and escape the feeling of estrangement he suffered every time he saw Tala and her children with Solomon the Man. He worked hard, embraced the military discipline imposed fiercely by Reza, and at the end of the first year he earned the distinction of graduating first in his class. When the minister of court demanded a Cossack youth to serve as the Shah's escort during the anniversary jubilee, Arash the Rebel was awarded the honor. He was exulted, so proud he rode alone to Solomon the Man's house and shouted the news as he ran through the hallways. Even Tala was pleased. She lifted Arash in her arms and smiled at him with all her resplendence, and for the first time ever, Arash the Rebel thought he would forgive Tala, find his father in Solomon the Man, and let go of the cardboard woman with the green eyes that beckoned him every moment of his life.

Four days before
his fiftieth-anniversary jubilee, Nasser-ed-Din Shah made a pilgrimage to the holy Shrine of Shah Abdol-Azzim, near Tehran. It was to be a historic visit, the Shah had promised, for immediately after the pilgrimage he intended to renounce his prerogative as despot, and proclaim himself “the Majestic Authority of all the Persians." In that spirit he had allowed the city authority to relax its watch over the citizens, to stop keeping a record of the strangers who flocked into the caravansaries, and to allow everyone to participate in the pilgrimage with the Shah.

The pilgrimage was scheduled for one and a half hours past noon. Arash the Rebel, part of the royal escort, rode to Shah Abdol-Azzim ahead of the cavalcade. He was accompanied by his
Laleh
—Master of the Menservants—and his Master of the Bridles. All the way from Tehran to the shrine, the road was jammed with men and women, walking or riding mules and donkeys, who were traveling to Shah Abdol-Azzim just to see the Shah. The town itself was so crowded that Arash could not find a place to leave his horse. The shrine was packed with pilgrims who had wanted to visit the holy man before their King arrived.

Arash the Rebel left his horse with his Master of the Bridles, and went to join the welcoming party. A company of eunuchs, dressed in their most colorful and extravagant clothes, stood at formation in front of the shrine. Behind them was a regiment of the royal army, and then, closest to the shrine itself, a line of young Cossacks.

At exactly half past one, a horseman galloped toward the shrine and announced to the Cossack leader that His Majesty's cavalcade was near. The Cossack leader sent Arash and another boy to clear the shrine of all pilgrims.

His mission accomplished, Arash returned to take his place in the welcoming line. He saw the Shah's cavalcade.

A dozen warriors rode in front, leading twelve eunuchs on Arabian chargers with painted saddles and gold and silver harnesses.

There was a single horseman on a white horse, who cried, ''Stand back," as his charge danced in the air and reared. "Stand back and take heed."

There came a pair of white horses—covered with gold embroidery, wearing bejeweled harnesses with high aigrettes of red plumage. The horses advanced slowly, leading another pair, then a third. Behind them was the royal coach.

The Shah's coachmen were dressed in purple clothes, with gold strings hanging from their shoulders and wrists. The coach was gold, lined with purple velvet. The runners who walked alongside it wore purple crowns, white breeches, and red shoes.

Five hundred mounted men brought up the rear of the procession.

Outside the Shrine of Shah Abdol-Azzim, Nasser-ed-Din Shah's Prime Minister, Atabak Amin-al Sultan, ran forward to open the carriage door. Two high officials held His Majesty's hand and helped him alight. Arash the Rebel heard the crowd gasp and moan in excitement as they laid eyes on the Shah.

Nasser-ed-Din Shah was a big man with a round face, superior eyes, and a strong mustache. He wore a coat of gray and orange brocade, a Western collar, and a black tie over a white shirt. He had a purple shawl, a leather belt studded with enormous diamonds, black trousers, military boots. His lambskin hat, tilted to one side, was adorned with a single diamond as large as an egg. In the heat of summer, he wore a long coat lined with Russian sable.

He greeted his Prime Minister and acknowledged the officials, then turned toward the shrine.

"We shall proceed," he ordered, and quickly the Prime Minister led the way. They were accompanied only by a royal guard, Arash the Rebel, and another young Cossack.

Shah Abdol-Azzim was small and dark and full of echoes. There were narrow, airless corridors where the heat was trapped and dust rose with every step. There was a small room with a low ceiling where the holy man was buried. The Shah went through the shrine, came up to the mausoleum, and touched his forehead against the silver rail surrounding the grave. He was murmuring a prayer when Arash the Rebel looked around and saw a stranger approach.

It was a man—a pallid creature with an unshaking hand. He came up to Arash and held out a letter, indicating he wanted to give it to the Shah. Atabak Amin-al Sultan tried to interfere—to take the letter from the man and deliver it to His Majesty without letting the stranger come close. Nasser-ed-Din Shah waved him away; he was in a generous mood, and he wanted to receive his subject himself. The man came up to the Shah. Instead of the letter, he extended a gun. Arash the Rebel heard the world explode.

In the tumult and the panic that followed the shooting, Arash saw Nasser-ed-Din Shah spread on the ground, his Russian sable coat splattered with blood. The Cossack leader and the royal guards charged the attacker, took away his gun, and tied his hands. The man never resisted even for a moment.

Atabak Amin-al Sultan came up to the Shah, shaking violently, and pressed an ear to His Majesty's chest. All he heard was the sound of the crowd outside the mausoleum— the people, having heard the gunshot, bursting into a frenzy of cries and questions as they wondered about the monarch's fate. Atabak Amin-al Sultan decided that the Shah's death could not be revealed. He stood up above the corpse, his face crimson, and suddenly recognized the assassin: he was

Mirza Reza of Kerman, a man with close ties to the clergy, who had spent his life opposing Nasser-ed-Din Shah. For years he had been in jail, tortured and abused but always released under pressure from one mullah or another. He had complained of the Qajars' injustice—of Nasser-ed-Din Shah killing half a dozen men only because they had approached his caravan at a time when he did not wish to receive anyone; of the Shah's son performing scientific experiments on helpless peasants, ordering a gardener to put his face into a pot of boiling rosewater just to observe the effects of a severe burn on a man's eyes and lips. The last time he had been released from jail, Mirza Reza of Kerman had gone to see a mullah.

"The Shah is unjust," Mirza Reza had said.

"Then you must create your own justice," the mullah had advised.

Atabak Amin-al Sultan ordered the guards to keep Mirza Reza inside the shrine. He went out to face the crowd:

"Praise God," he announced with unwavering conviction, "His Majesty the King of Kings is alive and unharmed."

Inside the shrine again, he ordered that the assassin be taken away. Mirza Reza was placed in an open carriage, his hands still tied, but as he rode toward Tehran and death, he looked at the people and smiled with dignity.

Atabak Amin-al Sultan called for the royal chair. He picked up the Shah's corpse, and arranged it on the chair so it was sitting straight, the eyes still open. With Arash's help, he held the corpse in place and waited for it to harden. Arash stood in the shrine for hours, suffocating as sweat poured down his face and into his clothes and boots, wondering about a future without Nasser-ed-Din Shah. Then, at last, Atabak announced that it was time.

"Hold His Majesty's hand," he commanded. "Talk to him as you walk."

Through the crowd of spectators outside Shah Abdol-Azzim, and all during the ride back to Tehran, Arash the

Rebel spoke to the corpse of Nasser-ed-Din Shah. He had set out on the mission still a child. He returned a man.

At midnight the next day, Nasser-ed-Din Shah's heir, Muzaffar-ed-Din Khan Qajar, was sworn to the throne. Only then did Atabak allow news of the assassination to spread to the people. Soon afterward, Mirza Reza Kermani would be hanged before the entire city. Standing on the gallows, he would face his executioner and say:

“I have done what was right.”

Salman the Coal Seller
had worked since he was three years old. He was always black—like the actors who performed on the streetcorners in Tehran, and who painted their faces and hands with coal— and he coughed so badly everyone knew him by the sound of his lungs. He wore a long, soot-covered coat, carried the coal in an enormous bag the size of his own body, and which he dragged across his shoulder. Even in his youth, before he had ever married, Salman the Coal Seller knew he would die of consumption.

He was born into a family of scholars, but he never learned how to read. His father, a Talmudic instructor, had escaped a massacre in a Russian ghetto only to find himself in Juyy Bar. He was young when he arrived, but he had come with great expectations, and the very shock of reality had made him weak and disappointed. He knew nothing of the Persian language, and seemed unable to learn. He could not teach, could find no other work, and above all, he could not accept Juyy Bar as his new home; he had risked his life and abandoned his ancestors' graves in order to escape oppression. In Juyy Bar he was victim not only to the mullahs, but also to the Jews, who treated him as an outsider and refused him kindness. His wife, the only educated woman of her time, was forced to work as a maid in the