With the passage of time, I see my stay with those women as a moment of privilege without which my attachment to the Orient would have remained short-lived or superficial. It is to them I owe the immense steps I made in understanding and speaking idiomatic Persian. Although my hostesses had made the praiseworthy effort to put together some words in French on the first day, all our conversations were henceforth carried on in the country’s vernacular. Our conversations might be animated or casual, subtle or crude, often even flirtatious, since in my capacity as elder brother anything was allowed as long as I stayed beyond the bounds of incest. Anything that was playful was permitted, including the most theatrical shows of affection.
Would the experience have kept its allure had it gone on for longer? I shall never know. I do not wish to know. An event which was unfortunately only too foreseeable put an end to all that. It was a visit, a routine visit, by the grandparents.
Ordinarily I stayed far away from the entrance gates, the birouni gate, which led to the men’s abode and was the main doorway, and the garden gate through which I had entered. At the first sound I would slip away. This time through recklessness or over-confidence, I did not hear the old couple arrive. I was sitting cross-legged in the women’s room and for the last two hours had been peacefully smoking a kalyan pipe prepared by my ‘sisters’ and had fallen asleep there with the pipe still in my mouth and my head leaning against the wall, when a man’s cough woke me up with a start.
CHAPTER 31
For my adoptive mother, who arrived a few seconds too late, the presence of a European male in the interior of her apartments had to be promptly explained. Rather than tarnish her reputation or that of her daughters, she chose to tell the truth in the most patriotic and triumphant way she could. Who was this stranger? None less than the farangi the police were looking for, the accomplice of the man who had cut down the tyrant and avenged her martyred husband!
There was a moment of indecision and then the verdict came. They congratulated me and praised my courage as well as that of my protectress. It is true that confronted with such an incongruous situation her explanation was the only plausible one. Even though the fact that I had been slumped out right in the middle of the andaroun was somewhat compromising, she could easily have explained it away by speaking of the necessity of shielding me from sight.
Honour had been safeguarded, but it was now clear that I had to leave. There were two paths open to me. The most obvious was to leave disguised as a woman and to walk over to the American legation; in short, to complete the interrupted walk of a few weeks earlier. However, my ‘mother’ dissuaded me. Having carried out a scouting expedition she had discerned that all the alleys leading to the legation were being watched. Moreover, being rather tall at just over six feet, my disguise as a Persian woman would not fool even the most unobservant soldier.
The other solution was, following Jamaladin’s advice, to send a distress message to Princess Shireen. I spoke of her to my ‘mother’ who gave her approval; she had heard of the assassinated Shah’s grand-daughter who was said to be sensitive to the suffering of the poor and she offered to carry a letter to her. The problem was finding the words with which to address her — words which, while being sufficiently explicit, would not give me away were they to fall into other hands. I could not mention my name, nor that of the Master. I made do with writing on a sheet of paper the only phrase she had ever said to me: ‘You never know, our paths might meet!’
My ‘mother’ had decided to go up to the princess at the ceremonies on the fortieth day of the death of the old Shah, the last stage of the funeral ceremonies. In the inevitable general confusion of the onlookers and the professional weepers smeared with soot, she had no difficulty in slipping the paper from her hand into the princess’s, who then read it and with dread looked about her for the man who had written it. The messenger whispered to her: ‘He is at my house!’ Immediately Shireen left the ceremony, summoned her coachman and placed my ‘mother’ at her side. In order not to attract any suspicion, the coach with the royal insignia stopped in front of the hotel Prévost from which spot the two heavily veiled and anonymous women continued their route on foot.
Our second meeting was hardly more wordy than our first. The princess looked me up and down with a smile on the corner her lips. Suddenly she gave an order:
‘Tomorrow at dawn my coachman will come to fetch you. Be ready. Wear a veil and walk with your head down!’
‘I was convinced that she was going to drive me to my legation. It was at the moment when her carriage went out through the city gate that I realised my mistake. She explained:
‘I could easily have taken you to the American minister’s. You would have been safe, but no one would have had any trouble guessing how you got there. Even if I do have some influence, being a member of the Qajar family, I cannot use it to protect the apparent accomplice to the assassination of the Shah. I would have been placed in an awkward predicament and then they would have found the brave women who looked after you. Your legation, moreover, would not have been too delighted to have to protect a man accused of such a crime. Believe me, it is better for everyone if you leave Persia. I will take you to one of my maternal uncles, one of the Bakhtiari chiefs. He has come down with his tribe’s warriors for the fortieth day ceremonies. I have told him who you are and stated your innocence, but his men know nothing. He has undertaken to escort you to the Ottoman frontier by routes unknown to the caravans. He is waiting for us in Shah Abdul-Azim’s village. Do you have any money?’
‘Yes. I gave two hundred tomans to the women who saved me, but I still have almost four hundred.’
‘That is not enough. You must distribute half of what you have to the men accompanying you and keep a decent amount behind for the rest of the trip. Here are some Turkish coins, they will not be too much. Here also is a text which I would like the Master to have. You will be passing through Constantinople?’
It was difficult to say no. She continued, as she slipped some folded papers into the slit of my cloak:
‘They contain a transcript of Mirza Reza’s first cross-examination. I spent the night writing it out. You can read it, in fact you should read it. You will learn a lot. Besides, it will keep you busy during the long trip. But do not let anyone else see it.’
We were already on the outskirts of the village. The police were everywhere and searching everything down to the packs on the mules, but who would have dared hold up a royal convoy? We followed our route as far as the courtyard of a hugh saffron-coloured building. In its centre was an immense and ancient oak-tree around which warriors, with two bandoliers crossed across their chests, were bustling. The Princess could only look with disdain upon these virile ornaments which complemented their thick moustaches.
‘I am leaving you in good hands, as you see; they will protect you better than the weak women who have looked after you so far.’
‘I doubt it.’
My eyes worriedly followed the rifle barrels which were pointing in all directions.
‘I doubt it too,’ she laughed. ‘But all the same they will take you over to Turkey.’
As the moment came to say goodbye, I decided not to: