Chapter One
We were a very mixed lot,
we forty schoolboys who were having a Geography lesson one hot afternoon
in the Imperial Russian Humanistic High School of Baku, Transcaucasia:
thirty Mohammedans, four Armenians, two Poles, three Sectarians, and one
Russian.
So far we
had not given much thought to the extraordinary geographical position
of our town, but now Professor Sanin was telling us in his flat and uninspired
way: `The natural borders of Europe consist in the north of the North
Polar Sea, in the west of the Atlantic Ocean, and in the south of the
Mediterranean. The eastern border of Europe goes through the Russian Empire,
along the Ural mountains, through the Caspian Sea, and through Transcaucasia.
Some scholars look on the area south of the Caucasian mountains as belonging
to Asia, while others, in view of Transcaucasia's cultural evolution,
believe that this country should be considered part of Europe. It can
therefore be said, my children, that it is partly your responsibility
as to whether our town should belong to progressive Europe or to reactionary
Asia.'
The professor
had a self-satisfied smile on his lips.
We sat silent
for a little while, overwhelmed by such mountains of wisdom, and the load
of responsibility so suddenly laid upon our shoulders.
Then Mehmed
Haidar, who sat on the back bench, raised his hand and said: `Please,
sir, we should rather stay in Asia.'
A burst
of laughter. This was Mehmed Haidar's second year in the third form. And
it looked as if he might stay there for another year, if Baku kept belonging
to Asia. For a ministerial decree allows the natives of Asiatic Russia
to stay in any form as long as they like.
Professor
Sanin, who was wearing the gold-embroidered uniform of a Russian High
School teacher, frowned: `So, Mehmed Haidar, you want to remain an Asiatic?
Can you give any reason for this decision?'
Mehmed Haidar
stepped forward, blushed, but said nothing. His mouth was open, his brow
furrowed, his eyes vacant. And while four Armenians, two Poles, three
Sectarians and one Russian were highly delighted by his stupidity, I raised
my hand and said: `Sir, I too would rather stay in Asia.'
'Ali Khan
Shirvanshir! You too! All right, step forward.'
Professor
Sanin pushed his lower lip out and silently cursed the fate that had banished
him to the shores of the Caspian Sea. Then he cleared his throat and said
pompously: `You at least can give us a reason?'
`Yes. I
rather like Asia.'
`Oh you
do, do you? Well, have you ever been in really backward countries, in
Teheran, for instance?'
`Oh yes,
last summer.'
`There you
are. And have you found there any of the great aquisitions of European
culture, for instance motor-cars?'
`Oh yes,
very great ones indeed. Holding thirty and more people. They don't go
through the town, only from one place in the country to the other.'
`These are
called autobuses, and they are in use because there are no railways. This
is reactionary. Sit down, Shirvanshir.'
I knew the
thirty Asiatics were jubilant, they showed it by the way they looked at
me. Professor Sanin kept angrily silent. He was supposed to make his pupils
into good Europeans. Suddenly he asked: `Well—have any of you been
to Berlin for instance?' It was not his day—the Sectarian Maikov
raised his hand and said he had been to Berlin when he was a small boy.
He remembered vividly a musty spooky Underground, a noisy railway and
a ham sandwich his mother had prepared for him. We thirty Mohammedans
were deeply indignant. Seyd Mustafa even asked to be allowed to leave
the room, as the word `ham' made him sick. And that was the end of our
discussion about Baku and its geographical situation.
The bell
rang. Relieved, Professor Sanin left the room. Forty pupils rushed out.
It was the big break, and there were three things one could do: run into
the courtyard and start a fight with the pupils of the adjoining school,
because they wore gold cockades and buttons on their school uniforms,
while we had to be content with silver ones, or talk amongst ourselves
in a loud voice in Tartar, because the Russians could not understand it
and it was therefore strictly forbidden—or cross the street quickly
and slip into the Girls' Lyceum of the Holy Queen Tamar. This I decided
to do. The girls strolled about in the garden, wearing chaste blue dress-uniforms
and white aprons. My cousin Aishe waved to me. She was walking hand in
hand with Nino Kipiani, and Nino Kipiani was the most beautiful girl in
the world. When I told the girls of my geographical battle the most beautiful
girl in the world looked down the most beautiful nose in the world and
said: `Ali Khan, you are stupid. Thank God we are in Europe. If we were
in Asia they would have made me wear the veil ages ago, and you couldn't
see me.' I gave in. Baku's undecided geographical situation allowed me
to go on looking into the most beautiful eyes in the world. I left the
girls and dejectedly played truant for the rest of the day. I looked at
the camels, at the sea, thought of Europe and Asia, of Nino's lovely eyes
and was sad. A beggar approached me, his face and hands rotten with disease.
I gave him money, he made to kiss my hand, but I was frightened and snatched
it away. Ten minutes later it occurred to me that this had been an insult,
and for two hours I ran around looking for him, so I could put it right.
But I could not find him, and went home with a bad conscience. All this
had been five years ago.
During these
years many things had happened. A new headmaster had arrived, who liked
to grab our collars and shake us, because it was strictly forbidden to
box the pupils' ears. Our religious instructor explained at great length
how merciful Allah had been to let us be born into the Mohammedan faith.
Two Armenians and one Russian joined, and two Mohammedans were not with
us any more: one because he, in his sixteenth year, had married, the other
because during the holidays he had been killed in a blood-feud. I, Ali
Khan Shirvanshir, had been three times to Daghestan, twice to Tiflis,
once in Kislovodsk, once in Persia to stay with my uncle, and I was nearly
kept down for another year because I did not know the difference between
the Gerundium and the Gerundivium. My father went for advice to the Mullah
at the mosque, who declared that all this Latin was just vain delusion.
So my father put on all his Turkish, Persian and Russian decorations,
went to see the headmaster, donated some chemical equipment or other and
I passed. A notice had been put up in the school stating that pupils were
strictly forbidden to enter school premises with loaded revolvers, telephones
were installed in town, and Nino Kipiani was still the most beautiful
girl in the world.
Now all
this was coming to an end, the final exam was only one week away, and
I sat at home and pondered on the futility of Latin tuition on the coast
of the Caspian Sea. I loved my room on the second floor of our house.
Dark carpets from Buchara, Ispahan and Koshan covered the walls. The patterns
represented gardens and lakes, woods and rivers, as the carpet weaver
had seen them with his inner eye, unrecognisable to the layman, breathtakingly
beautiful to the connoisseur. Nomad women in far away deserts collected
the herbs for these colours from wild thorny bushes, Long slender fingers
squeezed out the juice. The secret of blending these delicate colours
is hundreds of years old. Often it takes more than a decade for the weaver
to finish his work of art. Then it hangs on the wall, full of secret symbols,
allusions, hunting scenes, knights fighting, with one of Firdausi's verses,
or a quotation from the works of Sa'adi in ornamental script running at
the sides. Because of these many rugs and carpets the room looks dark.
There is a low divan, two small stools, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, many
soft cushions, and among all this, very disturbing and very unnecessary,
books of Western knowledge: chemistry, physics, trigonometry—foolish
stuff, invented by barbarians, to create the impression that they are
civilised. I closed the books and went up to the flat roof of the house.
From there I could see my world, the massive wall of the town's fortress
and the ruins of the palace, Arab inscriptions at the gate. Through the
labyrinth of streets camels were walking, their ankles so delicate that
I wanted to caress them. In front of me rose the squat Maiden's Tower,
surrounded by legends and tourist guides. And behind the tower the sea
began, utterly faceless, leaden, unfathomable Caspian Sea, and beyond,
the desert—jagged rocks and scrub: still, mute, unconquerable, the
most beautiful landscape in the world. I sat quietly on the roof. What
was it to me that there were other towns, other roofs and other landscapes.
I loved the flat sea, the flat desert and the old town between them. The
noisy crowd who come looking for oil, find it, get rich and leave again
are not the real people of Baku. They don't love the desert.
The servant
brought tea. I drank it and thought of the exam. It did not worry me.
Surely I would pass. But even if not, it would not really matter. The
farmers of our estates would say that I could not tear myself away from
the House of Wisdom. And indeed it would be a pity to leave school. The
grey uniform with its silver buttons, epaulettes and cockade was very
smart. I would feel degraded in civilian clothes. Not that I should wear
them for long. Only for one summer and then—then I would go to Moscow
to the Lazarev Institute for Oriental Languages. I had decided this myself,
for there I will be miles ahead of the Russians. It will be very difficult
indeed for them to learn all the things that are second nature to me.
And the uniform of the Lazarev Institute is the best of all: red coat,
gold collar, a slender gilt sword, and kid gloves even on weekdays. A
man has to wear uniform, or the Russians despise him. And if the Russians
despise me Nino will not take me for her husband. But I must marry Nino,
even though she is a Christian. Georgian women are the most beautiful
in the world. And if she refuses? Well, then I'll get some gallant men,
throw her across my saddle, and off we go over the Persian border to Teheran.
There she will give in, what else can she do? Life was beautiful and simple,
seen from the roof of our house in Baku.
Kerim, the
servant, touched my shoulder. `It is time,' he said. I rose. On the horizon,
beyond the Island of Nargin, a steamboat appeared. If one could trust
a printed slip of paper, delivered by the Christian telegraph messenger,
then my uncle was on that boat with his three wives and two eunuchs. I
was to meet him. I ran down the stairs to the waiting carriage. Quickly
we drove to the noisy port.
My uncle
was a person of distinction. Shah Nasr-ed-Din had graciously bestowed
upon him the title Assad-ed-Dawleh—`Lion of the Empire', and now
no one was allowed to address him in any other form. He had three wives,
many servants, a palace in Teheran and big estates in Mazendaran. He came
to Baku because one of his wives, little Zeinab, was ill. She was only
eighteen, and my uncle loved her more than his other wives. But she could
not have any children, and just from her my uncle wanted an heir. Neither
the amulets given to her by the dervishes of Kerbela, nor the magic words
of the wise men of Meshed, nor the old women of Teheran, experienced as
they might be in the arts of love had helped her. She had even made the
journey to Hamadan. There stands, hewn from the red stone, the giant statue
of a lion, staring forever across the vast desert with strange, mysterious
eyes. It was erected by old, half-forgotten kings. For many centuries
women have made the pilgrimage to this lion, kissed his mighty member
and hoped for motherhood and the blessing of children. Poor Zeinab had
not been helped by the lion.
Now she
was coming to Baku, seeking the skill of Western doctors. Poor uncle!
He had to take along the two other wives, old and unloved as they were.
For thus custom decrees: `You may have one, two, three or four wives,
if you treat them equally.' Treating them equally means giving the same
to all, for instance a journey to Baku.
But really
all this had nothing to do with me. The women's place is in the anderun,
in the inner part of the house. A well brought up man does not talk of
them, nor does he enquire after them or ask to give them his regards.
They are a man's shadow, even if the man only feels happy in the shadow.
This is good and wise. We have a proverb in our country: `A woman has
no more sense than an egg has hairs'. Creatures without sense must be
watched, lest they bring disaster on themselves and others. I think this
is a wise rule.
The little
steamboat came to the landing stage. Hairy-chested broadly-built sailors
put up the accommodation ladder. Passengers hurried out: Russians, Armenians,
Jews, quickly, hastily, as if it were important not to lose a single minute.
My uncle did not show himself. `Haste comes from the devil,' he would
say. Only after all other travellers had left did the neat figure of the
`Lion of the Empire' appear on deck. He wore a coat with silk lapels,
a small black fur cap, and slippers. His broad beard and his nails were
tinted with henna, in memory of the Martyr Hussein's blood shed a thousand
years ago for the true faith. His eyes were small and tired and his movements
slow. Behind him, visibly agitated, walked three figures, sheathed in
black veils: the wives. Then came the eunuchs: one with a face like a
wise dried-up lizard, the other small, bloated and proud because he was
the guardian of His Excellency's honour. Slowly my uncle descended. I
embraced him, reverently kissing his left shoulder, though strictly speaking
this was not necessary in a public place. I did not waste a glance on
the wives. We stepped into the carriage. Wives and eunuchs followed in
covered equipages. Our entourage was such an impressive sight, that I
ordered the driver to make a detour along the Esplanade, so the town might
admire my uncle's splendour.
Nino stood
on the Esplanade and looked at me with laughing eyes. My uncle stroked
his patrician beard and asked for news in town. `There is nothing much,'
I said, for I knew my duty was to start off with unimportant things, and
only later to pass on to what really mattered. `Dadash Beg has stabbed
Achund Sadé to death last week, because Achund Sadé came back
to town although he knew the danger, having kidnapped Dadash Beg's wife
eight years ago. He was stabbed on the day he came. Now the police are
looking for Dadash Beg. But they won't find him, although everybody knows
that he is in the village of Mardakjany. Wise men say Dadash Beg has done
well.' Uncle nodded, he agreed. Was there any other news? `Yes. The Russians
have found much new oil in Bibi-Eibat. The great firm of Nobel has brought
a big German machine into the country, to fill up part of the sea, and
drill for oil.' Uncle was very surprised. `Allah, Allah', he said, and
pursed his lips in a worried frown. `... at home everything is all right,
and God willing I shall leave the House of Learning in a week's time.'
I went on
talking, and the old man listened attentively. Only when the carriage
drew near our house I looked to the side and said indifferently: `A famous
doctor from Russia has arrived in town. People say his knowledge is great,
that he sees past and present in people's faces, and that from this he
can predict the future.' Uncle's eyes were closed in noble boredom. Quite
detachedly he asked for the wise man's name, and I saw that he was very
satisfied with me. For all this was what we called Good Manners and Aristocratic
Upbringing.
Excerpted from Ali and Nino © Copyright 2008 by Kurban Said. Reprinted with permission by Vintage. All rights reserved.
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