My Father's Notebook (4 page)

A rat? A black rat? What did he mean by that? He just called our great spiritual leader a black rat! Suddenly hundreds of young imams with rifles appeared on the roof of the golden mosque.

“Fire!” the shah screamed at his officers.

Dozens of imams were killed and dozens arrested. The sacred shrine was partially destroyed. A wave of shock ran through the Islamic world. Shopkeepers turned off their lights. The bazaar closed. People wore black. But the shah wouldn’t listen to reason.

“Are there any more out there?”

No, not a soul was left on the streets and rooftops. Everyone was sitting inside, behind locked doors.

Aga Akbar knew none of these stories. He thought the shah was simply a high-ranking military officer. A general in a strange-looking tunic, with a stick under his arm.

The village elder walked over to the shah, bowed and said, “The men are prepared to sacrifice themselves to realise Your Majesty’s dream.”

Reza Shah didn’t answer. He looked at the peasants. His face was filled with doubt. Would they really be able to solve his problem?

Just then a pair of armoured cars drove up and stopped
near the men. Two generals leapt out and raced over to the shah, each holding his cap in one hand and his rifle in the other.

“Everything is ready, Your Majesty!” called one of the generals.

“Unload them!” ordered the shah.

The generals hurried back to the armoured cars.

The soldiers threw open the doors and unloaded hundreds of English pick-axes.

“You!” the shah yelled at the village elder standing before him. “Here are the pick-axes you asked for! If any of your men are lazy, I’ll put a bullet through your head!”

He wheeled around. “Don’t just stand there,” he said to the chief engineer. “Get started!”

The shah headed for his jeep. Suddenly he stopped, as if he’d forgotten something. He returned to his elevated position on the rock and beckoned one of the generals with his baton. In turn, the general beckoned seven soldiers, who were lined up with seven bulging bags in their arms. The soldiers marched over to the shah, deposited the bags on the ground in front of him and snapped back to attention.

“Open them!” he commanded one of the soldiers.

The soldier opened the bags, one by one. The shah took out a handful of brand-new bills.

He turned to the peasants. “Start smashing those rocks!” he ordered. “This money will be your reward. I’ll be back next week!”

“
Jawid shah
… Long live the shah!” the men shouted three times.

The shah climbed down again and went over to his jeep.

The engineer quickly led the peasants, each equipped with a pick-axe, to the place where the work on the tracks had come to a halt. The peasants made jokes, flexed their muscles and
swore they would reduce even the hardest rocks on Saffron Mountain to rubble. They had no idea what was in store.

Years later, a faded black-and-white photograph proudly displayed on Aga Akbar’s mantle showed him with a pick-axe resting on his right shoulder and a spike—as thick as a tent stake—between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

Akbar is turned at a slight angle. The photographer had focused on the pick-axe and spike, but the young Aga Akbar had flexed his muscles, so that your eye is drawn to his bulging biceps rather than to the tools.

When Ishmael was little, Aga Akbar told him a long story about the picture. A story that was actually about his biceps and about the money—the large sum of money—he had earned.

“Come here!” he gestured to his son. “Tell me! Who’s the man in the picture?”

And he launched into a story. “I, Akbar, was very strong. I—and only I—could break that rock with the pick-axe. Can you see the rock? There, in the background. No, you can’t see it, the picture’s no good, it’s old. But there, behind me. Sure you can’t see it? Never mind. That rock had to go, all the rocks had to go. They couldn’t use those exploding things. They were bad for the cuneiform inscription.

“One day I’ll take you to the cave. Wait a minute. Don’t you have a … where’s your schoolbook? Have you ever seen a picture in your schoolbook of an officer, a man in a military tunic with a crown on his head? Isn’t there one in your schoolbook? … Seven, yes, seven potato sacks full of money. And that money was for us. Because of the train.”

Did Ishmael understand what his father was talking about in his rudimentary sign language?

One thing little Ishmael did know was that his life was interwoven
with that of his father. Everyone—his mother, his uncles, his aunts, the village imam, the neighbours, the children— made him sit, stand and walk beside his father. His job was to be his father’s mouthpiece.

Later the missing bits of information would be supplied by his aunts and uncles, or by the old men of Saffron Mountain. Or he himself would look up the facts in history books and novels.

More often, however, he would go and visit his father’s elderly uncle. He would sit down by Kazem Khan and listen as he filled in the missing parts of the stories. “Your father was strong. I told him that a railway track was being built. Personally, I’ve never cared for aristocrats and generals and shahs, but I’d heard a lot about Reza Shah. Though I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the man, I didn’t see him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I was stubborn. I rode over there on my horse, but the gendarmes wouldn’t let me through.”

“Why not?”

“Because people weren’t allowed to approach the shah on horseback. You were supposed to go on foot, to grovel on your hands and knees. I refused to do that. I turned around and went home, but I came back the next day, because I wanted to see what the men of Saffron Mountain were doing.”

“Did you go on foot or on horseback?”

“Nobody’s ever seen me go anywhere on foot. I looked at the men from a distance. They were working in shifts, around the clock, smashing the rocks and clearing a road for the train.”

“Did the men manage all right with the pick-axes? I mean, did they finish the road on time?”

“Oh, no. Or, actually, they did. At first everything was going fine. They were banging away with all their might, and you could see the road taking shape. Then, just below the southern
wall of the cave, they ran into a rock that was unusually hard. The men pounded at it—first one shift, then another—but hardly made a dent. The work had gone well the first two weeks. After that, their strength was gone. The men were thin and worn, exhausted, barely recognisable. The engineers were so terrified of the shah that they hadn’t realised the men were broken. They panicked. Reza Shah would be arriving soon and the men would still be banging away at that one rock.

“The shah wasn’t an educated man, nor did he come from a family of book readers, but he was smart, especially when it came to ordinary people. He took one look at the workers and knew what the problem was. He fired the chief engineer. ‘Go and pack your bags, bookworm. You don’t know what work is. All you can do is read, read, read.’

“Reza Shah ordered ten big kettles to be brought from the army barracks. He knew that a worker needed more than bread and goat cheese if he was to smash rocks for weeks at a time. So ten fat cooks came running up with ten big kettles. The soldiers were ordered to shoot five mountain goats and hand them over to the cooks.

“Work was suspended for the day. All that the men had to do was eat, drink, smoke and rest.

“That same evening the shah returned with a new engineer. He was determined not to go back to Tehran until the railway tracks had reached the other side of the cave.

“Early the next morning, even before the sun was up, the shah climbed up to the cave. A soldier, carrying a bag of money, trotted along behind.

“The men were lined up with their pick-axes resting on their shoulders. They waited for the shah to reveal his new plan.

“The shah took off his tunic, grabbed a handful of money and positioned himself on top of a rock. He pointed his baton at one of the men.

“‘You!’

“The man stepped forward.

“‘And you—’

“‘No, not you, the man next to you.’

“The other man stepped forward. It was your father. Of course, he hadn’t heard the shah, but his fellow workers had tapped him on the shoulder.

“The shah selected eleven strong men.

“‘Listen!’ the shah said. ‘After today, I don’t want to see this rock ever again. Every time you chip off a piece, I’ll give you one of these bills. Who wants to go first?’

“Of course, your father didn’t know what the shah was saying, so he couldn’t be first. But the first man brought the pick-axe down with all his might and chipped off a piece. ‘Here’s your money,’ the shah said. ‘Now you!’ He pointed at your father. Only then did your father understand what was going on. He slammed his pick-axe down so hard that a huge chunk of rock flew off. The shah smiled.

“‘Here, young man, I’m giving you two bills. Next!’

“And so it went. The rock was smashed to pieces, and those eleven men went home utterly broken and exhausted. But that night, everyone in the village knew that Reza Shah had tucked a wad of bills into your father’s pocket. And that Aga Akbar had then collapsed.

“There was a newspaper photographer, whose job it was to record the work on the railway. The shah pointed at your father, lying there on the ground. The moment he saw the shah point, your father grabbed his pick-axe and leapt to his feet.

“‘Put the pick-axe on your shoulder,’ the photographer instructed him. ‘Hold up one of those spikes. Right, that’s good. Now don’t move.’ But your father turned and angled himself slightly so that his biceps showed up better in the picture.

“The whole village was talking about it and laughing that
night. Everyone in Saffron Village was proud of having a picture in the newspaper.

“Those eleven men became the richest men on Saffron Mountain. They built new houses out of stone, just like the houses in the city. Everyone wanted to give their daughters to those men. They married the most beautiful girls in the village.

“But we couldn’t find a girl, a suitable girl, for your father. Not then, at any rate. Life is like that, my boy, though it’s also full of surprises.”

“You know, Uncle, I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Reza Shah. The building of the railway has been heavily criticised. What do you think?”

“Listen, my boy, didn’t I just finish saying that I don’t know anything about politics? Don’t ask me. I’ve never been much of a one for reading newspapers, either, especially not back then. I only read my own books, or old books, poetry, history. I know nothing about criticism. What I do know is that Saffron Mountain is no ordinary mountain. It’s not simply a pile of rocks, it’s our country’s spiritual legacy. Our roots can be found in its boulders and crevices. And I’m not just referring to the cave, because there’s more on Saffron Mountain. The sacred well, for example. The mountain lives and breathes. Go into the cave and stand still. You’ll hear it. Kneel down by the sacred well and listen. You’ll hear Saffron Mountain’s heart beating. And to think they suddenly started blasting our mountain with dynamite and pounding it with English pick-axes.”

“Why did you send my father off to work there?”

“I didn’t. I simply explained what was happening. Besides, he never listened to what I said. He always did whatever the other boys his age were doing.

“Looking back on it, though, I see that things have worked out all right. I was afraid that the mountain wouldn’t survive. Now, after so many years, I can see that the mountain has recovered.
Bushes and flowers have sprung up on the slopes and covered up the scars. Mountain goats graze between the rails and the baby goats leap from one railway sleeper to another. The mountain has accepted the railway and assimilated it. You can hardly see the traces.

“The train will be here soon. It doesn’t make much noise, and that’s good. Our ancient Saffron Mountain has acquired something new, something modern. A train with little red cars that chug up the mountain. Life is like that, my boy. That’s just the way things are.”

 

All the birds had started making their nests, all except Aga Akbar. He had no mate. No wife.

By then the other strong men, who had also built stone houses, already had children. Aga Akbar’s house, however, was still empty.

In those days he came into frequent contact with prostitutes. That was because of his work: he called on customers and mended their carpets.

Back when Aga Akbar was twelve, Kazem Khan had taken him to see an old friend in another village. Uwsa Gholam had a small business up in the mountains. He made natural dyes out of the roots and flowers of plants that grew on Saffron
Mountain. People came to him from all over the country to match the original colours in their carpets.

In fact, Uwsa Gholam made a living out of mending carpets. Old and expensive carpets were always getting damaged. If the hole or tear wasn’t mended, the rest of the weave would gradually come unravelled, too. Not everyone, though, can mend a carpet. In unskilled hands, a mend will forever be a fresh wound in the old weave. Uwsa Gholam was one of the best carpet-menders in the country, but he was getting old. His eyes weren’t as good as they used to be. He could no longer do his work.

Kazem Khan knew that Aga Akbar would make a poor farmer. He wasn’t suited to a life of ploughing fields or tending sheep. He needed to do work that required him to use both his hands and his head. That’s why Kazem Khan had brought him to Uwsa Gholam.

“Salaam aleikum, Uwsa! Here’s the boy I’ve been telling you about. Akbar, shake Uwsa’s hand.”

The old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a single purple thread from an old carpet. “Akbar, go find some flowers that match the colour of this thread!”

This is how Aga Akbar got started in his career, in the work that he continued to do until the day he died.

For three years he went to Uwsa’s early every morning and rode home again at dusk. Then Uwsa died, but by that time Akbar had learned enough to mend carpets and produce natural dyes on his own.

Though no one could take Uwsa’s place, Akbar had already made a name for himself in the region. The villagers liked him. They trusted him and would rather have him than a stranger in their homes. And so he rode his horse from one village to another. It was during this period that he came into contact with prostitutes.

Kazem Khan was very choosy when it came to finding a wife for Aga Akbar. He didn’t want a woman with only one eye, or a farm girl who wove carpets. No, he wanted a strong woman with a good head on her shoulders, a woman who could organise things, a woman who understood the man whose children she would bear.

“No, not just any woman,” he used to say. “I’ll wait, I want him to have just the right one. He can hold out for a few more years. It won’t kill him.”

But the other men in the family said to him, “You shouldn’t compare him to yourself, Kazem Khan. You have women all over Saffron Mountain, but that boy doesn’t. If you don’t let him marry, he’s bound to go astray.”

“He can get married tomorrow if he likes, but not to a woman who’s deaf, lame or blind.”

Unfortunately, there were no strong, healthy, intelligent women on Saffron Mountain who would agree to marry Akbar.

So he turned to prostitutes for warmth and they provided it willingly. “Hello, Aga Akbar, come in. Take a look at my carpet. Do you think you can mend it? Come sit by me. You’re tired, your arms ache, your back aches. Here, have a cup of tea. There’s no need to stare, I’ll come sit beside you. Let me hold your hand. Now doesn’t that feel nice?”

If you want to hear the story of Aga Akbar’s relationships with prostitutes, you should ask his childhood friend Sayyid Shoja.

Shoja was blind. He’d been blind from birth, yet he was famous for his keen sense of hearing—he could hear as well as a dog. He had a sharp tongue, which he didn’t hesitate to use. The men tried to stay out of his way, since they knew he heard everything they said.

Sayyid Shoja knew all of the prostitutes on Saffron Mountain and called them by their first names. He also knew which
men went to see them. He recognised them instantly by their footsteps. “Hey, little man, you’re tiptoeing past. Are you trying to avoid me? What for? Have you been doing naughty things again with that poker in your trousers? Come on, shake my hand, say hello, you don’t need to be afraid. Your secret is safe with me.”

As evening fell, he used to sit by the side of the road and lean against the old tree. The girls came back from the spring with their jugs of water, and he always recognised the footsteps of the girl he loved. “
Salaam aleikum
, my little moon. Let me carry your bucket for you.”

The girls laughed at him and he teased them.

“You there,” he’d say. “Yes, you with the big butt. Don’t sit on the ground, you’ll leave a hole in the dirt!”

He didn’t have any money, but he didn’t need any, because Aga Akbar paid his bills.

The men who didn’t like him and feared his sharp tongue sometimes chided him: “You’re a leech, Shoja, sucking Akbar dry.”

The
sayyid
was too high-minded to worry about such unimportant things.

There was another man who shared his secrets with Akbar and Shoja: Jafar the Spider.

Jafar was crippled. He couldn’t walk or stand upright. He was skinny and had a tiny head. The way he scuttled over the ground with his muscular arms and legs made you think of a spider. Yet he owed his nickname not so much to his spidery crawl, but to the fact that he climbed trees like a real spider. People would see him in places a normal person couldn’t go. Suddenly he’d be hanging from a branch or crawling up the dome of a mosque. One of his favourite pastimes was peeking through the window of the bathhouse and spying on the naked women.

Jafar saw what the blind Shoja couldn’t see.

And since Jafar was Shoja’s friend, he was Aga Akbar’s friend, too. They formed a tight-knit threesome, and they could do many things together that they were unable to do alone.

They even went to the prostitutes together. That was the agreement. Jafar would crawl onto the back of the blind Shoja, who would then take hold of Aga Akbar’s arm, and in this way the three of them would make their way up Saffron Mountain.

They needed Jafar because he was the expert. They never went straight into the prostitute’s house. They let Jafar check it out first. He was the one who had to give the OK. Jafar would point his finger at Akbar and say, “Never go in there without me! You might catch a disease! Then you won’t be able to pee, and it’ll hurt like hell!”

That’s how they did things and it had always gone well.

Then, one night, Jafar climbed up on the roof of the outhouse and heard a strange noise. He put his ear to the hole, so he could hear better. He knew instantly what Aga Akbar’s problem was. He hurried back to Sayyid Shoja. “Shoja,” he said, “help me!”

“What’s wrong? How can I help you?”

“That idiot’s sitting in the outhouse, crying his eyes out.”

“What? Who’s crying?”

“Akbar. He can’t pee.”

The two of them went over and stood by the outhouse door.

“You hear that? He’s crying.”

“I’ll be damned, he is. But maybe he’s crying about something else.”

“Of course not. You don’t go to an outhouse to cry about something else.”

“Give me a minute to think about it.”

“There’s nothing to think about, man. It’s clear as a bell. We have to look at Akbar’s thingy. Then we’ll know for sure. We’ve got to nab him as soon as he comes out.”

They hid behind a wall and waited for Akbar.

He came out and Jafar beckoned to him.

Though it was dark, Akbar knew immediately what his friends were up to. His first impulse was to flee, but Jafar was too quick, hurling himself in front of Akbar and grabbing his foot so that he tripped and fell. Shoja rushed over and pinned him to the ground. “Don’t run away, asshole! Come with us.”

They dragged him into the barn.

“Hold him!” Jafar yelled.

He shimmied up a pole and lit an oil lamp.

Then he pulled down Akbar’s trousers and inspected his penis. “Let the bastard go. He’s sick.”

Early the next morning they went to the city in search of a doctor.

Several months later, after Aga Akbar had been cured, Shoja and Jafar had a little talk. Akbar was gradually distancing himself from them and they knew why. As true friends, they felt obliged to inform his uncle. So, one evening, Jafar picked up a lantern and climbed up on Shoja’s back.

They went to Kazem Khan’s house.

“Good evening,” Shoja said. “May we come in?”

“Of course, Sayyid Shoja. You two are always welcome. Have a seat. Can I get you some tea?”

“No, thanks. We don’t want to be here when Akbar gets home. We’ve come here to tell you something. We’re Akbar’s best friends, but some secrets need to be brought out into the open. We’ve come here to say that we’re worried about him.”

“Why?”

“You know that the three of us go out together sometimes.
Strange things happen every once in a while, though it usually turns out all right. But this time it’s different. This time Akbar has gone too far.”

“What do you mean, ‘too far’? What’s he done now?”

“I may be blind, but I do have two good ears. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with Jafar’s sight. Maybe I better let Jafar tell you what he’s seen.”

“Tell me, Jafar. What have you seen?”

“How shall I put it? It’s like this: Akbar goes out sometimes … well, almost every night, to sleep with a prostitute. I-I-I think he’s in love with her. That isn’t necessarily bad. She’s … well, she’s young and … very friendly. I get the impression that she’s fond of Akbar.

“But we think he’s gone too far this time. Right, Shoja? Anyway, that’s what we wanted to tell you. There’s nothing wrong with the woman. She’s young and healthy. But we thought you ought to know. Right, Shoja?”

“Right,” Shoja said. “Well, that’s it. Come on, let’s go before Akbar gets home.”

Kazem Khan knew that he had to do something for Akbar and that there wasn’t much time. If he didn’t act soon, no one would want their daughter to marry Akbar.

He had to admit that he’d failed to find the ideal wife for his nephew. So he turned the job over to the old women in the family.

The women rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Before long, however, their enthusiasm dwindled. None of the prospects they came up with fitted into the family. One had a father who was a beggar, another had brothers who were thieves, the third had no breasts, the fourth was so shy she didn’t dare show herself.

No, the women of the family weren’t able to find a wife for Aga Akbar, either.

Only one more door was open to them. The door to the house of Zeinab Khatun, Saffron Mountain’s aging matchmaker. She always had a ready supply of brides.

Zeinab would be sure to find a good one for Akbar, because she was an opium addict. The women in the family merely had to take her a roll of Kazem Khan’s yellow opium and she would arrange the whole thing.

Zeinab lived outside the village, in a house at the foot of the mountain. Her customers were usually single men in search of a wife. “Zeinab Khatun, have you got a girl for me? A virtuous woman who can bear me healthy children?”

“No, I don’t have a girl—or a woman—for you, virtuous or otherwise. I know you—you’re a wife-beater. I still haven’t forgotten the last one. Get out of here, go ask your mother to find you a wife.”

“Why don’t we step inside? I’ve brought you half a roll of yellow opium. Now what do you have to say?”

“Come right in. You need to smile more often and remember to shave. With that stubble of yours and those awful yellow teeth, I’ll never be able to find you a wife.”

Sometimes an elderly mother knocked on her door. “I’m old now, Zeinab Khatun, and I don’t have any grandchildren. Do something for my son. I’ll give you a pretty chador, a real one from Mecca.”

“People promise me all kinds of things, but as soon as their sons have a wife, they disappear. Bring me the chador first. In the meantime, I’ll think it over. It won’t be easy, you know. Few women want to marry a man who drools. But I’ll find someone for your son. If I die tonight, I’d hate to be carried to my grave in my old, worn-out chador. So go and get it. I’ll wait.”

The men of the family were opposed to the plan. But the women stuck a roll of opium into the bag of an elderly aunt, put on their chadors and went to Zeinab’s house.

The men thought it was beneath the family’s dignity to ask the matchmaker for a bride. Of course, they wanted Akbar to have a wife. But what they really wanted for him was a son. An Ishmael who would bear Akbar’s burden.

Since they didn’t want the child’s mother to be a prostitute, they resigned themselves to letting the women use a matchmaker.

Giggling, the women knocked on Zeinab’s door.