‘Your Majesty, this is not the time for such a discussion.’
‘The ayatollahs are nothing but British puppets!’ shouted the shah. ‘But we have faced far greater enemies than England. All right, we authorise our vizier to discuss this subject with them.’
The shah went straight to his study, took up his pen and wrote a short note. He folded the paper, put it in an envelope and sealed it with wax. A messenger took the note to the Russian embassy.
Soon the messenger returned, accompanied by another horseman. It was a Russian official with whom the shah had exchanged ideas on many occasions. They strolled together through the garden, and after a brief discussion the shah arranged for the official to be taken back to the Russian embassy.
That night, armed with his binoculars, the shah studied the surrounding area from the watchtower. He couldn’t see the demonstrators but he could hear the clamour in the streets. There was a great deal of commotion in the harem as well. The women were standing in two groups, quarrelling and hurling abuse at each other.
‘There’s never been a time in all of history when women could be trusted,’ he said under his breath. ‘They’re the first ones to leave their bedroom doors ajar for the enemy.’
Then a royal coach rode onto the square, which the shah recognised as his mother’s. The coach passed through the gate and stopped at the palace steps. Mahdolia got out, with the head of the guards holding a torch aloft so she could see where she was going.
‘Mother, what are you doing here in this madness in the middle of the night?’ cried the shah.
‘History is repeating itself, my son. This isn’t the first time I’ve rushed to your side to lend you my support.’
‘You’re right, Mother. History has indeed repeated itself.’
‘Except for one thing,’ Mahdolia answered. ‘The last time I could climb these steps under my own steam.’
‘You could have called for me if you had need of me,’ said the shah as he helped her into a chair and sat down beside her.
‘How could the shah have come to me with all those barricades in front of the palace? Anyway, I wanted to ride past the people to show them we aren’t afraid. As soon as they saw me they started shouting, “Qanun, qanun, qanun.” But what do these people know about a qanun? They all stink. I had to cover my nose with a handkerchief as I rode past. I still don’t understand how they come up with such ideas. Who has put such words in their mouths?’
‘We have done it ourselves. We are the cause. The boys who went to Europe to study are now my enemies. We have bred a race of vipers in our own nest.’
‘My son, I forbid you to display weakness in the presence of this riffraff.’
‘You can see we have not shown any weakness, yet they have presented us with an ultimatum.’
‘What kind of ultimatum?’
‘They want us to meet their demands tomorrow by the first afternoon prayer.’
‘They have gone too far! Clearly they’re being given outside help or they never would be hounding us with such demands,’ cried Mahdolia, and she produced a document from inside her clothing. She put the document in the shah’s hands and said, ‘This is the agreement your father and I signed with the Russians. Everything is here in black and white. The Russians are duty bound to help you in time of need. Just ask them for help!’
The shah thumbed through the document, glanced at the various sections and said, ‘We are already in contact with the Russians. They know what’s going on. But they can’t just drop everything and come to our aid.’
‘I understand that. We’ve got to think of something else right now to buy time.’
‘Don’t worry, Mother, we’ve taken care of everything,’ said the shah.
‘Exactly what have you done? What agreements have you made with the Russians?’
Abruptly the shah stood up. He needed the distance in order to speak to her. Mahdolia saw by his bearing that he wanted to say, Mother, I am the king. I make the decisions and I have dealt with the matter. I do not need your opinion.
Yet she repeated her question, ‘What have you and the Russians decided?’
‘It is taken care of, Mother. We have taken care of it. You don’t have to worry about it any more. You need to rest. I will not burden you any further.’
Mahdolia understood that the shah had a secret plan, and that for the first time he did not want to share it with her. What he was saying between the lines was, ‘Your time is over.’
Mahdolia was right: the shah did have a plan, and he wanted to keep it to himself. Did he no longer trust his mother and the people around her, or did he want to show her that there were secrets only the shah should know about?
Hurt but proud, Mahdolia stood up, and with tears in her eyes she said, ‘The shah is very perceptive: I have grown old and you no longer need me. You are powerful enough to continue on your own. As a mother I am proud of you. I am leaving.’
The shah ate almost nothing the whole day. He was gripped by an insidious fear. He had pushed the old vizier aside with violence, and now, in a more subtle way, he had done the same to his mother. The shah was shouldering all the responsibility – at least that’s the way he saw it. But in fact he was now quite alone.
He tried to behave like a real king and not to fear the tremendous events that were taking place in the country. And in this he succeeded. But now that his subjects were armed and standing behind sandbags outside his palace, he did feel afraid. Perhaps the great kings had also been struck by fear in their more solitary moments.
‘Taj, my grandson,’ he murmured. Why had he not thought of them before? Where was his chamberlain? For the first time in his life he called the man by name: ‘Aga Moshir!’
There was no response.
‘Aga Moshir!’ called the shah again.
The chamberlain was probably not in the building. The shah summoned the head of the guards. The man came running in at once.
‘Get your horse! And bring me Sheikh Aqasi.’
The shah went to his study, took a sheet of paper and began to write. He signed the letter and then looked out the window towards the gate to see if Sheikh Aqasi was coming.
Finally the head of the guards appeared with Sheikh Aqasi. The shah took the sheikh to the small conference room.
‘We have neglected something important and it concerns Taj Olsultan and her child, our crown prince. We should have brought them to safety much sooner,’ he said.
The shah thrust the letter into the sheikh’s hands. ‘This is for the Russian embassy. There are two things you must do. First deliver the letter personally to the Russian ambassador. To him and him only. Then tomorrow morning quietly take Taj Olsultan and her child to your country house. Stay with them during this period of unrest. If the situation in Tehran gets out of hand all three of you are to go to Tabriz. If anything should happen to us flee with them to Russia, to Moscow. I have written the rest in the letter to the ambassador.’
Nothing else needed to be said. Sheikh Aqasi kissed the shah’s hand in gratitude for his total trust.
Relieved, the shah drank a glass of water. Now he was no longer afraid of the people outside. He was more afraid of betrayal – that people from his own circle would choose this very night to murder him. It was an old fear that he had been carrying with him since childhood.
After having mounted a raid in India his grandfather had been lying asleep in a tent on a hillside in Afghanistan. He was being watched over by his loyal bodyguards. But his most faithful bodyguard stabbed him to death in his sleep with a knife. In the shah’s tribe this murder was always spoken of as a lesson. As a child the shah had lived in constant fear that someone would kill him in his sleep.
Tonight the fear was stronger than ever. Perhaps tonight he would be murdered by his obedient chamberlain. Who was this chamberlain, anyway – the man who never spoke? Who did the man have contact with outside the palace? Who had introduced him in the first place? Indeed, who was this mysterious man who materialised li
ke a ghost every time the shah rang his little bell?
To avoid any unnecessary risks the shah decided to spend the night before the ultimatum in the treasury beneath the palace. Should an emergency arise he could always escape.
59. On the Chessboard
Early the next morning the shah carefully unbolted his bedroom door, put his hand to his ear and listened. It was quiet in the palace. He walked to the hall of mirrors, still wearing his military uniform. The guards marched undisturbed and the soldiers were standing at their post. The chamberlain appeared.
‘We’re hungry. Call the cook.’
The cook came with a large, round tray. He looked at the shah and waited for him to give his permission to test the food.
‘Was there anyone with you in the kitchen this morning?’
‘No, Your Majesty,’ answered the cook.
‘No one?’
‘No, Your Majesty. Only the chamberlain.’
‘Was anyone in the kitchen last night?’
The cook panicked. ‘No, I … I don’t know, Your Majesty,’ he stuttered.
‘Then take it all away!’
When the cook was gone the shah walked to the door through which the chamberlain always entered and went into the back room. The chamberlain was sitting at the table having his breakfast. He had not expected to see the shah, and he jumped up with a start.
‘You’ve got the day off today. Go home. We’ll let you know when you can come back.’
The chamberlain hesitated a moment.
‘Go home,’ said the shah firmly.
The chamberlain took his coat off the hook, bowed and left. The shah put the chamberlain’s fresh bread, cheese and pot of hot tea on a tray and took it with him to the hall of mirrors.
A little while later the head of the guards came to report that a messenger from the army was waiting at the gates.
‘Disarm him and send him in,’ said the shah.
The messenger announced that the ayatollahs had called on the soldiers to lay down their arms and defect to the other side. The shah wanted to ask him whether the soldiers had complied with the call, but he held back and said nothing.
‘Was that all?’ asked the shah.
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ The messenger left the room.
The shah went over to the window again. His guards were making their normal rounds and the soldiers were standing on the walls keeping watch. The deadline would be reached in only a few hours. He waited for the vizier, but his patience ran out. He felt the need to pray. He washed his hands and face and turned towards Mecca. When he was finished he picked up the Quran and read the surah called ‘The Opening Up’, a surah in which God speaks with his Prophet:
Muhammad!
Have we not opened up your breast?
And removed your burden
Which had left you devoid of hope,
And exalted your fame?
Surely with hardship there is ease.
With hardship indeed there is ease.
The shah could not hold back his tears.
Now the vizier’s messenger presented himself. He too had a spoken message. The man whispered, ‘I am conferring with the opposition. The negotiations are tedious and they take time. I cannot come.’
Jamal Khan and his comrades held an emergency meeting to discuss the consequences of capturing the palace. If they were to take the shah prisoner and topple him from his throne the reaction of the people and the ayatollahs would be impossible to predict. They all agreed that this would have to be their last resort. They needed the signature and the seal of the shah on their list of demands, but how could they get the shah to agree without bloodshed?
Although they had started by putting enormous pressure on the vizier, now their strategy was to give him more room to manoeuvre so he could actually function as a mediator.
Nor was England eager for chaos. An orderly system of government was to their benefit. They feared that the fall of the shah would give the Russians licence to attack the country from the north. For these reasons the British ambassador supported the strategy of Jamal Khan.
Reading the Quran had calmed the shah’s nerves. Now he strolled through the garden, repeating a surah under his breath to stiffen his resolve: ‘“Muhammad! Have patience! Have patience! Suffer whatever they say to you!’”
The shah sensed that the guards and the soldiers were only there to keep an eye on him, so he deliberately focused all his attention on the plants growing beside the pond. The guards must be made to think that he was completely relaxed. From behind the servant’s quarters he went up to the roof without being seen in order to observe the square with his binoculars. The barricades were still there, but to his horror he noticed that they were not all manned. He suspected that some of the soldiers had defected to the side of the ayatollahs. What surprised him was the great silence on the square and in the surrounding streets. You would almost think the demonstrators had given up.
The shah went to the roof of the kitchen. From there he could clearly see that there were people standing behind the sandbags. They seemed to be waiting for an order.
He looked at the harem. It was quiet there too. No one was on the front porch.
The shah felt cornered. He was a good chess player who was better than his opponents at thinking several moves ahead. He had seldom lost to his father. The old vizier was the only one whose superiority he had often been forced to acknowledge. But in real life he was less skilled at overseeing the field. Now the king was in danger of being put into checkmate. He was about to lose the use of his pawns. His horses, his vizier, his elephants and his chariots had all been eliminated. Then his eye fell on his own cannon, which stood idle in the courtyard. He thought of his treasury, of the emergency exit, of the horse that stood ready in the stable.
‘When the king is surrounded on the chessboard he has to stall for time,’ he said to himself. ‘This we have done. Our vizier is talking to the opponents and we have called in the Russians. Now I must act like a true king and have patience.’
Gradually the sun rose in the sky until it stood above the palace. The deadline for the ultimatum had almost passed. Should he wait downstairs and look on as the people stormed the palace, or disappear into the cellar like a faint-hearted lion? He stayed on the roof, which gave him the feeling that he still had some control over events.
His gaze was drawn to the back garden of the palace. He watched as Malijak’s sister helped him leave his room and go outside. The incident in the bazaar had left Malijak with a broken left leg and a couple of fractured ribs. Since then he had stayed on his back and had grown even heavier as a result. The shah dropped in every evening to see him. Malijak’s sister had placed a chair next to the bed for the shah so he could talk to Malijak if he wanted to. Malijak crept through the doorway on his hands and knees. The shah barely recognised him.
The muezzin of the Jameh mosque called out, ‘Allah-o-akbar, hay ‘ali as-salat: hurry to prayer.’
The shah started. The time had come: the deadline had expired. He expected to feel agitation, perhaps even despair, but to his own astonishment the muezzin brought him calm. An end had come to the uncertainty. The thing he had been so afraid of was now going to happen. He had done all he could to prevent it.
‘Hay ‘ali as-salat,’ repeated the muezzin.
Now everyone was expected to lay down their guns and turn to Mecca for prayer. This was the most peaceful of moments. No one would attack him. No one would kill him.
When the muezzin was finished silence fell once again. The shah saw that indeed all the people had turned their backs on the palace and were praying towards Mecca.
A crow flew over the square, and its cry broke the silence. The prayer was over. Agitation spread through the crowd. The shah made sure that nothing escaped his notice. The crowd parted to make room as the vizier, two ayatollahs, seven gentlemen in suits and two foreigners passed through the barricades and walked to the square in front of the palace. There they stopped, talking among
themselves.
The shah recognized Ayatollah Tabatabai. The other ayatollah was Behbahani, the old cleric who had been the first to sit on the roof of the house opposite the embassy. The shah also recognised the British ambassador. The second foreigner was Edward Granville Browne, but the shah had never seen him before. He suspected that the other men were the merchants from the bazaar.
He put away his binoculars. As if he himself had summoned the delegation for an audience, the shah went to the hall of mirrors in expectation of the visit. He straightened his tall cylindrical hat in the mirror. Then he went to the window. The vizier was in conversation with the head of the guards, who left to notify the shah.
‘Come in!’ called the shah calmly in response to the knock on the door.
The man saluted and said, ‘The ambassador of the Kingdom of Great Britain, accompanied by a delegation, is waiting at the gate. He asks whether Your Majesty will receive them? The vizier too would like to pay his respects.’
The shah had not yet been put into checkmate. The game was still on.
‘Lead them in.’
Vizier Mostovi Almamalek was the first to enter. He took his place behind the shah and whispered something in his ear.
As the guests entered the hall of mirrors the shah positioned himself beside the chair of the great Persian kings.
‘Salam, O king!’ said Behbahani simply.
‘Salam!’ responded the shah.
The rest of the delegation greeted the shah as well.
The vizier introduced everyone and returned to his place behind the shah. The British stood off to the side. The merchants took off their hats. Their place was behind the ayatollahs.
With a royal gesture the shah pointed to a row of chairs that were lined up beneath the great mirror. But because Ayatollah Behbahani remained standing the others did the same.
The British ambassador took the initiative. He took one step forward and said in English, ‘Your Majesty, I will spare you my poor Persian. England does not wish to become involved in your domestic affairs. We have been drawn in against our will, but we want you to know that England stands behind the shah. A powerful king is of great importance to us. The role of the British embassy in recent events has probably led to many misunderstandings, but I can assure the shah that England has always taken a passive attitude. Today I speak to you as a mediator. Edward Granville Browne will act as interpreter, to avoid any ambiguities.’