My Father's Notebook (3 page)

“Back in the old days, people couldn’t read or write. Paper hadn’t been invented yet. So the king ordered that his words be chiselled into the wall of the cave. All those foreigners who come up here on mules actually want to read the king’s letter, the king’s story. Now get out your pen and notebook. I’m going to hold the mule against the wall and I want you to stand on its back. Yes, on the mule’s back. Good. Are you comfortable? Look, there’s a place for you to hang up the lamp, so you can see better. Now I want you to write down the text. Look carefully at all the symbols, at all those cuneiform words, and write them down on the paper, one by one. Go ahead! Don’t be afraid. I’ll hold the mule. Just write!”

Aga Akbar may or may not have understood what his uncle had in mind, but in any case he started copying the text. He stared at the cuneiform script and did his best to draw each character, one by one, in his notebook. Three whole pages.

“It’s finished,” he signed.

“Good. Now put it in your pocket and get down. Be careful.”

That evening, when Kazem Khan was at home again, smoking his opium, he signed to Akbar, “Go and get your book and come sit here by the brazier. Now give me your pen and listen carefully. You copied the letter written by the king. Do you know what it says?”

“No.”

“That letter is something that used to be inside the king’s head. Nobody knows what it says, but it must say something. Now you, yes
you
, can also write a letter. Here, on the next page of your notebook. Some other time, you can write another letter on another page. You can write down what’s inside your head, just like the king did. Go ahead and try it!”

Years later, when Ishmael, the son of Aga Akbar, was sixteen and living in the city, he went to visit his uncle in the mountains. “But Uncle Kazem Khan,” he asked him one evening at dinner, “why didn’t you teach my father the normal alphabet, so he could read and write like everyone else?”

“What do you mean ‘like everyone else’? Nowadays you have to learn to read, but you didn’t have to back then. Especially not here in the mountains. Even the village imam could barely write his name. Who could have taught the alphabet to a deaf-mute child? I wasn’t the right man for the job. I simply didn’t have the patience. I’ve never liked sitting around the house. I’m always on the go, always riding off somewhere on my horse.

“To teach a child like that, you need a capable father and a
strong mother. I didn’t want to teach him how to write, but I felt—or, rather, observed—that Aga Akbar was forming sentences in his head, that he was thinking up stories. Do you understand?

“Those sentences in his head, that storytelling talent, could have destroyed him. He had headaches all the time, and I was the only one who knew why. That’s the reason I taught him to write in cuneiform. To write for the sake of writing. I didn’t know if he’d be able to do it, or even if it would help. I was simply trying to solve a problem. Anyway, no one can read the king’s cuneiform inscription. Maybe the puzzle will never be solved. But the king did write down his thoughts.

“Did I steer Akbar in the right direction or not? You’re entitled to your opinion, but I think my method worked. Your father still writes, to this day. And cuneiform is a beautiful and mysterious script. Your father has his own language, his own written language. Do you ever look in his notebook?”

“No. I see him writing in it sometimes.”

“Have you ever tried to read it?”

“I can’t read a word of it.”

“You could ask him to teach you how.”

“What about you? Can you read it?”

“No, but I know what he’s writing about. One time … God, how long ago was it? I went to his room and found him sitting at his desk, writing. I think he was about as old as you are now. Except that he was stronger. Big shoulders, dark hair, clear eyes. Anyway, I saw that he was writing. ‘Show it to me,’ I said. ‘Tell me what you’ve written.’

“In those days he had quite a bit of contact with the foreigners who went to the cave, the ones who were trying to decipher the text. I think he’d learned something from those experts—something about other reliefs, or maybe even a likely translation. ‘Explain to me what you’ve written,’ I said.
At first he didn’t want to. He was embarrassed, but I kept pressuring him. I wanted to know if my method had worked.

“So he read. I can still recite his words from memory. Listen, it’s beautiful:
I, I, I am the son of the horseman, the
horseman from the palace, the palace on the mountain, the
mountain across from the cave. In that cave is a letter, a letter
from a king, a letter carved in the rock, from the time
when there were no pens, only hammers and chisels
.”

Later, when Aga Akbar was a young man, he became a guide. He led the cuneiform experts—the Americans, the British, the French and the Germans—up to the cave on mules. Then he stood on a mule and held up the oil lamp, so they could take pictures or copy the text for the umpteenth time.

Anyone interested in cuneiform or in decoding old inscriptions is sure to own books on the subject. And those books are sure to have a couple of pictures of the cuneiform inscription in the cave on Saffron Mountain. And one of those pictures is bound to show a youthful Aga Akbar, standing on a mule and holding up an oil lamp to illuminate the cuneiform relief.

Saffron Village was famous not only for its ancient cuneiform inscription, but also for its beautiful carpets, its genuine Persian rugs. Americans and Europeans who have a Persian carpet in the living room don’t realise that it might have been made in Saffron Village. You can tell by the pattern. If it has a strange bird with an odd-looking tail, it no doubt comes from the village where Aga Akbar grew up.

In the middle of winter, hundreds of strange birds suddenly flew in from the other side of Saffron Mountain, from the former Soviet Union. Since it was cold, the birds were hungry and thirsty. The villagers always knew when the birds were about to arrive: early in the morning, on one of the first
days after the full moon had appeared to the left of the mountain peak. The women leaned their ladders against the walls in expectation.

At the first sign of the birds, the women climbed up onto the rooftops and set out bowls of warm water and bits of leftover food.

The strange birds landed on the roofs. The women and children watched from the windows and saw the birds walk across the roofs with their strange long tails, bobbing their heads in thanks. The birds rested for a few hours, then flew off. And the women, who spent the whole day, the whole month, the whole year, the whole of their lives in the village, weaving rugs, the women who never got a chance to leave Saffron Mountain, wove those birds into the patterns of the carpets.

Another motif that made its way into their carpets was the cuneiform script.

The illiterate women of Saffron Village used the secret language of the cave’s relief to weave their hopes and longings into their carpets.

Sometimes the carpets depicted a foreigner in a hat riding to the cave on a mule and holding a sheet of paper filled with cuneiform.

At the end of the 1930s the women suddenly began weaving a completely new pattern into their carpets—a train. A train trailing smoke as it snaked its way up Saffron Mountain.

Nowadays the carpets show a bomber flying over the village, dropping its deadly cargo.

Though the women didn’t realise it, the train and its trail of smoke symbolised a shift in power. In those days Reza Khan, the father of the last shah of Iran, had the country firmly in his grip. There was a centralised dictatorship. Reza Khan was
a simple private who had worked his way up to general. What he lacked in education, he made up for in ambition.

In 1921 he staged a coup. Announcing that the Qajar dynasty had come to an end, he declared himself the new king of Persia. From then on, it was to be known as the Pahlavi kingdom.

Reza Shah wanted to weave the country into a new pattern. He wanted to transform the archaic kingdom of Persia into a modern nation orientated towards the West. That meant new businesses, modern schools, printing presses, theatres, steel bridges, roads, buses and taxis, not to mention radios and radio stations that would broadcast, for the first time in Persian history, the magical voice of a singer:

Reza Shah wanted more. He wanted to change women’s lives overnight. From one day to the next, women were forbidden to wear chadors. Whenever they went out, they were expected to wear hats and coats instead.

He wanted everything to happen quickly, which is why he governed the country with an iron hand and stifled all opposition. On his orders, the poet Farokhi had his lips sewn shut because he’d recited a poem about women who stumbled and couldn’t walk without their chadors. During Reza Shah’s
reign, many writers, intellectuals and political leaders were thrown in jail or murdered, and others simply disappeared.

According to the opposition, Reza Shah was a lackey of the British Embassy in Tehran and had been ordered to modernise the country for the benefit of the West. In the eyes of the imperialists, he was merely a soldier, a pawn to be used in the struggle against the Soviet Union.

Whether or not he was a British puppet, one thing is certain: he wanted things to change. In his own way, he was determined to radically reform the country, but he was a soldier, a brute. Everyone was terrified of him.

Reza Shah hoped that his most important projects would be finished before his son succeeded him.

The train was one of his pet projects.

During the twenty-five hundred years in which various kings, sultans and emirs had ruled the Persian Empire, no government official had ever come to the mountains to take a census of the inhabitants. Now that Reza Khan was shah, however, he wanted his subjects to carry identity cards.

Throughout the ages the imams had controlled the mountains and the countryside. Now the populace had to contend with a gendarme, a man in a military cap emblazoned with one of Reza Shah’s slogans, a man who answered to no one but His Majesty.

Reza Shah needed an army that obeyed him unquestioningly. And that army needed soldiers whose names and dates of birth were listed on identity cards. So, for the first time in history, the exact number of boys in Saffron Village was recorded. The vital statistics were entered in a book, which the gendarme kept in his cupboard.

Thanks to Reza Shah, Aga Akbar also was issued with an identity card. At last, his full name was officially on record.

To realise his great dream, Reza Shah ordered that a railway be built from the southernmost part of the country to its northeastern border. Right up to the ear of the giant Russian bear, to be exact. He knew that the Europeans had the most to gain from this route, but he also knew that the rails would be left behind long after those Europeans were gone.

The railway tracks crept through the desert, over the rivers, up the mountains, down the valleys and through the towns and villages until they finally reached Saffron Mountain.

The iron monster started to climb the mountain, but was forced to stop halfway, when it came to the historic cave with the cuneiform inscription. The building of the railway had disturbed the cave’s eternal rest. More importantly, the engineers were afraid that if they blasted through the rock with dynamite, the cave would collapse.

The cuneiform inscription, their ancient cultural heirloom, was in danger. The engineers feared it would crack. They panicked. The chief engineer didn’t know what to do. He didn’t dare take a single risk. He knew the shah would have him beheaded if anything went wrong.

With trembling hands, he sent a telegram to the capital:
CANNOT PROCEED WITH RAILS. CUNEIFORM BLOCKING ROUTE
.

The shah read the telegram, hopped into his jeep and had himself driven to Saffron Mountain. After a long night’s drive, the jeep stopped at the foot of the mountain. The local gendarme offered the shah a mule, but he refused. He wanted to climb the mountain himself. Early in the morning, before the sun had struck the mountain peak, Reza Shah stood at the entrance to the cave. Wearing a military tunic and carrying a field marshal’s baton under his arm, he checked on the progress of his dream.

“What’s the problem?” he asked.

“Your Majesty—” the chief engineer began, trembling. He didn’t dare go any further.

“Explain it to me!”

“Th-th-th-the rails have to go past here. I’m afraid that … that … that …”

“Yes?”

“I-I-I would like Your Majesty’s permission to … to … to relocate the cuneiform relief.”

“Relocate it? Shut up, you stupid engineer! Find another solution!”

“We’ve done all the cal-cal-cal-culations, checked out all the options. No matter how we do it, the dynamite could destroy the cave.”

“Find another route!”

“We’ve explored every alternative. This is the best route. The others are virtually impossible. We could make a huge detour, but …”

“But what?”

“It’ll take longer.”

“How much longer?”

“A number of months, Your Majesty. Six or seven months.”

“We haven’t got that much time. We can’t lose a day. Or even an hour. As for you—get out of my sight, you idiot! ‘Impossible’— is that the only word you engineers know? Six or seven months? You must be joking!”

Furious, the shah marched into the dark cave. Outside, no one dared to move. After a while he came out again. He looked down at the hordes of peasants—young men who’d climbed up the mountain to catch a glimpse of Reza Shah. When they saw him emerge from the cave, they leapt onto the rocks and began to shout, “Jawid shah! Jawid shah! Jawid shah!”

The shah thrust his field marshal’s baton under his arm and slowly made his way down the mountain. Just as the gendarmes were about to chase away the peasants at the bottom, a group of elders from the surrounding villages appeared. Dressed in their most festive garments, they walked towards Reza Shah, carrying a bowl of water, a mirror and the Koran. When they were a hundred yards away, the oldest man threw the water in the direction of the shah and the other men bowed their heads.

“Salaam, sultan of Persia!” the man exclaimed. “
Salaam
, God’s earthly shadow!”

He knelt and kissed the ground.

“Come forward!” commanded the shah, pointing his baton at the place where he wanted the old man to stand.

“Listen, graybeard! I don’t need your prayers. Use your head and give me some advice. That idiot of an engineer doesn’t know how to route the railway track. How can I get the train past the cave without doing any permanent damage?”

The old man turned and went back to confer with the others.

After a while he came back.

“Well?”

“For centuries our fathers have built houses here on Saffron Mountain, using only a pick-axe and spikes. No one has ever damaged the mountain. They chipped away the rock only in places where it was absolutely necessary. If Your Majesty wishes, I will call together all of the young men in the village. They will clear a path for your train.”

A look of relief spread over the shah’s face. Then it clouded over again.

“No, it’ll take too long. I don’t have that much time. I want it done fast.”

“As Your Majesty wishes. In that case, I will call all of the
young men on Saffron Mountain and, if necessary, all of the young men from the neighbouring mountains. We have experience, we know the mountain. Give our men the opportunity to prove themselves.”

The shah was silent.

“Give us the strongest pick-axes in the country.”

“And then?”

“Then we will clear a path, so the train can go around the cave and reach the other side of the mountain.”

That evening the muezzins from all the villages called from the roofs of their mosques, “Allahu akbar.
La ilaha illa Allah.
In the name of Allah, our forefathers and Reza Shah, we call on all strong men. Hurry, hurry, hurry to the mosque. Whatever you’re doing, stop right now and hurry to the mosque.”

All evening and all night young men from the neighbouring villages poured into the mosque in Saffron Village.

Early the next morning hundreds of men walked behind the village elder and stood in the designated spot at the foot of the mountain. One of those men was the seventeen-year-old Aga Akbar. He didn’t have the faintest idea who Reza Shah was or what he had in mind, much less what his plans for the country were. Like the other men, he had no idea why the railway tracks had to reach the other side of the mountain so quickly. All he knew was that a train had to go around the cave and that it was their job to save the cuneiform inscription.

Reza Shah stood high on a rock and looked down at the men. The villagers had heard the legends about the shah.

In those days the people in the towns and villages thought of him as a saviour. A powerful man. A champion of the poor. A reformer who wanted to give the country a face-lift.

But his reputation in Tehran was very different. There he was known for his brutal treatment of the opposition.

The shah had ordered that all the opium, tea and sugar be removed from the house of an important mullah, and had kept him under house arrest for three weeks. To the mullah this was tantamount to the death penalty. The shah had ordered the imams to remove their turbans and appear in public with their heads bare. His policemen went through the streets plucking chadors off the women who were still wearing them. When the imams in the holy city of Qom rose up in revolt, Reza Shah ordered that a cannon be placed at the gates of the golden mosque. Then he taunted the leader of the Shiites: “Come out of your hole, you black rat!”