I wanted to say in an unquavering voice: ‘I have loved you ever since Constantinople.’ My lips trembled and tightened but without emitting the slightest sound.
However Shireen had turned gently toward me. She observed me without surprise, as if I had neither left nor returned. Her look wavered and she spoke to me with familiarity:
‘What are you thinking about?’
The answer shot from my lips:
‘Of you. From Constantinople to Tabriz.’
A smile, which was perhaps one of embarrassment, but which resolutely did not wish to be a barrier, spread over her face. As for me, I could no more than quote her own phrase which had become almost a code between us:
‘You never know, our paths might meet!’
We were both taken up by a few seconds of silent memories. Then Shireen said:
‘I did not leave Teheran without the book.’
‘The Samarkand Manuscript?’
‘It is always on the chest of drawers near my bed. I never tire of reading it. I know the Rubaiyaat and the chronicle written in the margin by heart.’
‘I would willingly give a decade of my life for one night with that book.’
‘I would willingly give a night of my life.’
Within an instant I was bent over Shireen’s face, our eyes were shut and the only thing that existed around us was the monotony of the cicadas’ song amplified in our numbed minds and our lips touched in a long ardent kiss which transcended and broke down the barriers of years.
Lest other visitors arrive or the servants should come, we rose and I followed her down a covered path, through a small hidden door and up a broken staircase into the former Shah’s apartment which his granddaughter had taken over. Shireen closed two heavy shutters with a huge bolt and we were alone, together. Tabriz was no longer a city isolated from the world — it was the world which languished isolated from Tabriz.
By dawn I had still not opened the manuscript. I could see it on the chest of drawers on the other side of the bed, but Shireen was sleeping naked with her head on my neck and her breasts falling against my ribs and nothing in the world would have made me move. I was breathing in her breath, her smells and her night, and contemplating her eyelashes, trying desperately to guess what dream of happiness or anguish was making them quiver. When she awoke the first sounds of the city were already to be heard. I had to slip away quickly and promised myself that I would dedicate my next night of love to Khayyam’s book.
CHAPTER 40
When I came out of the palace I walked along with my shoulders hunched — dawn in Tabriz is never warm — and in this manner I made my way toward the caravansary without trying to take any short cuts. I was not in a hurry to get there. I needed some time to think things over as I had not calmed down from the exhilaration of the night and my mind was still full of images, gestures and whispered words, I could no longer tell whether I was happy. In a way I felt complete, but this feeling was tinged with the inevitable guilt which comes with clandestine affairs. Thoughts kept on coming back to me, as haunting as thoughts can be during sleepless nights. ‘After I left, did she go back to sleep with a smile? Does she have any regret? When I see her again and if we are not alone will she treat me as an accomplice or a stranger? I shall return tonight and try and look for some faith in her eyes.’
Suddenly a cannon shot rang out. I stopped and listened. Was it our brave and solitary de Bange? It was followed by a silence, then a prolonged fusillade and finally a lull. I ventured a few more steps and kept my ears peeled. There was a new roar immediately followed by a third. By this time I was starting to be worried; a single cannon cannot fire at that rate, there had to be two or even more. Two shells exploded a few streets away from me and I started to run toward the citadel.
Fazel quickly confirmed the news which I feared; the first of the Shah’s forces had arrived during the night. They had taken up position in the districts held by the religious chiefs. Other troops were on their way and were converging from all directions. The siege of Tabriz had begun.
The tirade given by Colonel Liakhov, the military governor of Teheran and the architect of the coup d’état, before his troops set off for Tabriz went along the following lines:
‘Brave Cossacks! The Shah is in danger. The people of Tabriz have rejected his authority and have declared war in an attempt to force him to recognize the constitution. The constitution would abolish your privileges and dissolve your brigade. If it triumphs, it is your women and children who will go hungry. The constitution is your worst enemy and you must fight like the furies against it. The way you destroyed the parliament has aroused the greatest admiration throughout the world. Follow this salutary action by crushing the rebel city and, on behalf of the sovereigns of Russia and Persia, I promise you money and honours. All the riches of Tabriz are yours, you only have to help yourselves!’
The command which was shouted out in Teheran and St Petersburg and murmured in London was the same: Tabriz must be destroyed, it deserves the most exemplary punishment. If it is defeated no one will dare speak of a constitution, parliament or democracy; once again the Orient will be able to sink comfortably into death.
That is how the whole world came to witness a strange and heartrending race over the following months: while the example set by Tabriz started to revive the flame of resistance in various corners of Persia, the city itself was undergoing a more and more rigorous siege. Would the Constitutionalists have enough time to pick themselves up, organize and take up arms before their bastion gave out?
In January they won their first big success: in answer to an appeal by the Bakhtiari chiefs who were Shireen’s maternal uncles, Isfahan, the former capital, rebelled and affirmed its attachment to the constitution and its solidarity with Tabriz. When the news reached the besieged city an explosion of joy erupted on the spot. The whole night long people chanted indefatigably: ‘Tabriz-Isfahan, the country is waking up!’ However, the very next day a massive attack forced the defenders to abandon several positions in the south and west. There was only one road left connecting Tabriz to the outside world and that was the one which led north, toward the Russian border.
Three weeks later the city of Rashd rebelled in turn. Like Isfahan, it rejected the tutelage of the Shah and extolled the constitution and Fazel’s resistance. There was a new eruption of joy in Tabriz, but immediately the besieging troops launched a new attack and the last road was cut: Tabriz was completely surrounded. The post could no longer get through, and nor could any food. They had to organize very strict rationing to be able to keep on feeding the two hundred thousand or so inhabitants of the city.
In February and March 1909 more towns rallied. The territory of the constitution now extended to Shiraz, Hamadan, Meshed, Astarabad, Bandar-Abbas and Bushir. In Paris the Committee for the Defence of Tabriz was formed, headed by a certain Monsieur Dieulafoy who was a distinguished orientalist; there was the same drive in London, under the presidency of Lord Lamington, and more important still, the principal Shiite clergymen who were based in Karbala in Ottoman Iraq pronounced themselves solemnly and unambiguously in favour of the constitution and disavowed the backward-looking mullahs.
Tabriz was triumphant. But it was also dying.
Unable to confront so many rebellions and so much disaffection, the Shah became utterly single-minded: Tabriz, the source of the evil, had to be brought down. When it fell the others would yield. Since he had failed to take it by assault, he decided to starve it into submission.