Читать книгу My Father's Notebook - Kader Abdolah - Страница 8

Persians are always waiting for someone.

In Persian songs, they sing about the Messiah,

the one who will come and set them free.

They wait in their poetry. They wait in their stories.

But in this chapter, the one they wait for is in a well.

If you face the cave, you can see Saffron Mountain’s peak to the right and a long range of brownish-yellow mountains to the left. There’s also an odd-looking spot that immediately catches your eye. Particularly if this is the first time you’ve climbed Saffron Mountain, you’ll notice it the moment you look in that direction.

It’s almost impossible to reach this spot. If you’re standing beneath it, the sun is so bright that all you can see is a craggy rock face. Rain, snow and frost have given it a miraculous shape. “Miraculous” and “sacred” are the words you automatically associate with this spot. At the bottom of this mysterious rock face is a natural well, a deep depression probably created by an erupting volcano.

This well is of special significance to Muslims.

For centuries, Shiite Muslims have been waiting for a Messiah, for the Mahdi, since he is a naji, a liberator. On this point, the Shiites differ greatly from the Sunnis. The Shiites believe that the Prophet Muhammad was followed by twelve imams. The twelfth successor—and, according to the Shiites, the last of the pure ones—was called Mahdi. To be precise, he was called Mahdi ibn Hassan Askari.

Mahdi was the son of Hassan, and Hassan was the son of Hadi, and Hadi the son of Taqi, Taqi the son of Reza, Reza the son of Kazem, Kazem the son of Sadeq, Sadeq the son of Baqir, Baqir the son of Zayn al-’Abidin, Zayn al-’Abidin the son of Hussein, Hussein the brother of Hassan, and Hassan the son of Ali. And Ali was the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad.

Fourteen centuries ago, Muhammad called his followers together after a great victory. According to tradition, Muhammad stood on a camel, lifted his son-in-law Ali by the belt and cried, “Whoever loves me, must also love Ali. Ali is my soul, my spirit and my successor.”

The Sunnis think the Persians made this story up. That’s why the Persians and the Arabs are always squabbling and why there’s constant war and bloodshed.

Ali himself was killed with a sword while praying in the mosque.

His son and successor Hassan was kept under house arrest for the rest of his life. Hussein, the third successor, was beheaded. His head was stuck on a pole and displayed on the town gate. Zayn al-’Abidin, the fourth successor, lived a life of seclusion. Baqir recorded large numbers of traditions. Sadeq had his freedom severely curtailed: he wasn’t allowed to show himself in public during the day, or to walk past a mosque. Kazem died in prison. Reza was poisoned by purple grapes. His grave has become one of the holiest places in Iran.

Little is known about Hassan, the eleventh successor. But Mahdi, the twelfth and last successor, escaped an attempt on his life and sought refuge in Persia.

Since then Mahdi has occupied a special place in the hearts, as well as in the literature and religion, of the Persians.

The following story cannot be found in the Holy Book, or in any other book, and yet the villagers on Saffron Mountain believe it and tell it to their children:

The night the Arabs tried to kill Mahdi, he fled to our country, where the majority of his followers lived.

He sought refuge in the east, which is where we live.

He climbed up our mountain—first on horseback, then on a mule and finally on foot—until he reached the cave. There he spent several nights.

If you take an oil lamp and go into the cave, all the way to the very back, you will still see, even today, the ashes of his fire.

Mahdi wanted to stay in the cave even longer, but the Arabs fol lowing him had managed to track him down.

So he climbed even higher, until he reached that miraculous rock face. There he realised that he was going to be Muhammad’s last successor and that he had to hide in the well and wait until he was called.

Many centuries have gone by since then. He’s still waiting in the well. In the well of Mahdi ibn Hassan Askari.

Thus it became a sacred place.

Every year thousands of pilgrims climbed up Saffron Mountain. They rode mules halfway up the mountain, to about 8,000 feet. There they spread their carpets out on the rocks and sat down, drank some tea, cooked some food and talked until deep into the night. The moment the moon went down behind the mountain peak, they all fell silent. In that great silence, they stared at the sacred well until a wondrous light struck the rock face, a light that seemed to come from a lamp inside the well. It shone briefly, then disappeared. The watching pilgrims all knelt in prayer.

The pilgrims believed the story and told each other that the light was the reflection of the oil lamp by which Mahdi read his book.

Yes, the Messiah sat in the well, reading and waiting for the day when he would be allowed to leave.

The well itself was inaccessible to ordinary mortals. It was also off-limits to foreigners, especially those who wanted to climb up to it with ropes and spikes.

Some of the villagers were able to reach it by jumping from ledge to ledge on the narrow mountain paths like nimble-footed mountain goats. Only a handful of the men in Saffron Village had ever accomplished this feat. Aga Akbar was one of them.

When Aga Akbar was little, his mother often talked about Mahdi.

“Does he really live in the well?” he asked her.

“Yes, he really does. God is in the sky and the holy man is in the well.”

“Have you seen him in there?”

“Me? Heavens, no, I can’t climb up there. Only a few men have ever reached the well. They looked into it and saw the holy man.”

“Who? Which men?”

“The men who wear a green scarf around their necks. Haven’t you ever noticed? They walk through the village with their heads held high.”

“Will I be able to climb up to the well some day?”

“You have to have strong legs. But you also have to be clever and daring.”

He’d attempted the climb a few times, but had always turned back halfway. At a certain point the narrow paths were so unsafe that you didn’t dare take another step. Perhaps the paths could be crossed only once, perhaps they’d collapse behind you. How would you get back if there was no path?

You couldn’t think about that as you climbed, or you’d never reach the well. How could anyone dare to go to a place from which he might never return?

That was the secret. It wasn’t just a matter of strong legs and quick wits, but also of necessity. You had to be prepared to leave your life behind, to say goodbye, to bid your life farewell. Only then could you reach the well.

Aga Akbar was prepared. After his wife’s death, he’d reached a point where he wanted to go to the well and never come back again. He needed the holy man. He needed to kneel at the well and admit that he was afraid, that he no longer dared to live.

Just when his bride was being placed in her coffin so she could be carried to her grave, he slipped out through the back door. He started up the mountain in order to forget life.

People looked all over for him. The entire village was waiting at the cemetery, wondering where he could have gone.

Kazem Khan decided to go look for him in the mountains. He thought he knew where his nephew was headed, but he was afraid that Akbar wouldn’t be able to reach the well, that he’d fall and no one would be able to rescue him.

He saddled up his mule, grabbed his binoculars and climbed the mountain. He rode until the animal refused, or perhaps didn’t dare, to go any farther. He stood on a rock and peered at the sacred spot through his binoculars. No Akbar in sight.

He looked again to see if … Wait a minute, someone was kneeling down, touching his forehead to the ground, or, rather, looking into the well. No, he was sitting on his knees and writing.

“What a clever boy!” Kazem Khan said and laughed aloud. Akbar had reached the well!

What could he do to help him? Nothing, no one could do a thing.

Kazem Khan laughed again. The mountain echoed his laughter. “He’s reached the well!” he shouted. “My Akbar! Hurrah! Hurrah for him! Hurrah for me! Let him weep! Let him write! Ha, ha, ha. I wish I had my pipe. Oh, God, I wish I’d brought my opium. Then I’d sit on this rock and watch him and quietly smoke my pipe.”

How would Akbar get back down the mountain? Don’t worry. Anyone who could make it up to the well ought to be able to get back down. Clever mountain goats always find their way home again.

What should he do? Wait for Aga Akbar here or go home?

He retraced his steps, for now he had a reason to celebrate, a reason to sit on his pipe-smoker’s carpet. Maybe it wasn’t quite the thing to do, he thought, given that Akbar’s wife had just been buried, but her family should have mentioned their daughter’s illness. We’re not going to mourn, we’re going to celebrate! We have to help Akbar get over her death. We’ll hold a party, first thing in the morning. No, we’ll hold it now, tonight, in the dark. I’m going to say to everyone I see, “Hurry! Hurry! Go up onto your roof! Salute my nephew! He’s reached the well!”

Kazem Khan went straight to the house of his oldest sister. “Where are you? Go and get a green scarf for Akbar! What a man! Our Akbar has reached the sacred spot. At this very moment, he’s standing at the edge of the well! Here, take the binoculars! Hurry! Go up onto the roof! Look! He’s still standing there!”

Then he rode over to the mosque, where people were mourning the bride. He got down from his mule and raced inside. “Men! Allah! Allah! Look, a green scarf! Here, take my binoculars! Go up onto the roof and look before it gets dark! Akbar has reached the well!”

In the middle of the night, when everyone had begun to fear that he’d never be seen again, a dark figure strode into the town square. Akbar.

Kazem Khan wrapped a green scarf around his neck and wept.

Back before the railway had been built, in the days before the train, the area around the well had been shrouded in mystery. It was said that even the birds muffled their wing beats and bowed their heads when they flew over the well.

The train changed all that. The well used to be synonymous with inaccessibility, but that was no longer true. It was hard to know whether the railway had desecrated the site or made it even holier.

For the first two years after the train began running past the cave, the sacred well was still inaccessible.

The mountain-dwellers took no notice of the train. It was as though that newfangled thing snaking its way up to the border had nothing to do with them. After all, it was Reza Shah’s train, not theirs. Gradually, however, they got used to the steel tracks cutting through the rock to the top of Saffron Mountain.

As time went by, more and more pilgrims climbed the mountain by walking up the rails.

“Look! A road! A divine road, ready and waiting!”

Why take the treacherous mountain paths when there was a railway track? It even brought you a bit closer to the sacred well. (Did Aga Akbar use this route? It’s impossible to tell from his notes.)

Now that people had discovered this holy path, they wanted to teach the mules to climb up the railway track. But the mules refused. They were frightened by the rails, which reeked of oil, and didn’t dare place their hooves between the wooden sleepers. The older and more experienced mules, in particular, were terrified. They fled.

So, they tried younger mules. People spent days, even weeks, teaching young mules to step between the railway sleepers.

And so, an entire generation of mules growing up on Saffron Mountain went and stood on the tracks the moment you smeared a bit of oil on their muzzles. Then the pilgrims mounted the mules and the animals gingerly made their way up the mountain, one railway sleeper at a time.

The pilgrims, especially the older ones, were hesitant at first. But before long, you saw even little old ladies in chadors, giggling as their mules climbed up the tracks.

The stream of pilgrims quickly swelled. Men came to Saffron Mountain from all over the country, carrying sick children, crazed wives and ailing mothers and fathers on their backs. They hired mules to take them up the mountain.

The boom didn’t last long. On Friday evenings, when the train tooted its horn, the animals panicked. They shook off their mounts and raced back to the village and their stables. One of the mules invariably broke its leg, or even its neck. Others got their hooves caught between the rails. An old woman was sure to snag her chador on a railway bolt.

Then, one day, a couple of trucks drove up. They were loaded with fencing materials and barbed wire. Dozens of labourers from the city fenced-off the tracks and strung barbed wire over the top. Not even a snake could crawl onto the rails now.

But people discovered another route, another way to reach the sacred well. Not everyone was cut out for it. You had to be young, clever and strong.

In the past only a handful of men had been able to reach the well. In the meantime their numbers had grown. Young men and boys now risked everything to obtain the coveted green scarf. It was a great challenge. A supreme test. Perhaps the most difficult test they would ever face.

They climbed up the mountain to the place where the barbed wire came to an end. Then they waited in the dark for the train and jumped on its roof as it went by.

That part was fairly easy. It could be accomplished by almost anyone who dared to jump on top of a moving train. The decisive moment came after about fifteen minutes, when the train made a sharp turn. You had to run across the roof as fast as you could, then leap onto a rock.

To land on exactly the right rock, you needed perfect timing, agility and courage. If you missed it, your broken or dead body would be loaded on a mule the next day.

Anyone who managed to land the jump and keep his balance, gripping the rock with his toes, like a tiger, was supposed to signal his success to the villagers down below, who were watching anxiously from their rooftops. The moment someone waved from the rock, an archer would light a torch and fire it into the air.

The rest of the trip was relatively easy. To reach the sacred well, all you had to do was scale seven tricky mountain walls. Almost everyone could manage that.

Early the next morning, when you made your way back down the mountain, girls and boys and old men climbed up part of the way to greet you. They all wanted to embrace you and to touch your eyes, because you had seen the well and the holy man in the well, reading his book by the light of an oil lamp.

The situation had got out of control. As we have seen, Reza Shah was determined to modernise the country. After he banned the use of chadors in public, his agents began snatching veiled women off the streets of Tehran and throwing them in prison. He had thousands of hats sent from Paris.

His dream had been realised: the Trans-Iranian Railway now stretched from one end of the country to the other, from north to south and from east to west. Reza Shah had no doubt. The time had finally come to do away with the imams, with all that superstitious nonsense, with all those holy men in wells reading books.

“Get rid of the well!” he ordered. “Cover it up! Fill it in and send the pilgrims packing!”

Who would dare to do such a thing? To destroy the sacred well and send the pilgrims home? No one. If you so much as lifted a finger against the pilgrims, someone would set your house on fire.

But the shah insisted. No pilgrim would be allowed to climb the mountain ever again.

The pilgrims didn’t listen. They kept coming, carrying the sick and the lame to the sacred spot, where they prayed.

Then, one day, a couple of armoured cars drove up. Dozens of gendarmes leapt out with their rifles cocked.

“Go home!” they ordered.

No one moved.

“If even one mule starts up that path, I’m going to shoot. Go home!” screamed a gendarme.

An old man began to climb. The gendarme aimed his rifle at him and fired over his head.

“La ilaha illa Allah,” someone shouted.

“La ilaha illa Allah,” hundreds of pilgrims shouted in response. Then they set off towards the well.

The gendarme fired a few more shots into the air.

The pilgrims kept climbing. Finally, another gendarme dared to fire on the crowd. Two men fell to the ground. At that point the crowd turned on the gendarmes and the terrified men raced back to their armoured cars and roared off.

The next day the holy city of Qom was in an uproar. The ayatollahs who had been thrown in jail ordered the Muslims to close the bazaars and go on strike.

Reza Shah was furious.

“Plug up that well with cement!” he ordered.

Who would dare to carry out his orders?

No one.

“Then I’ll do it myself!” he said.

Early in the morning the whistle of a special railway carriage rang out over Saffron Mountain. Everyone knew immediately that something unusual was happening. No one had ever seen such an odd-looking train before. They all went up to the rooftops to see what was going on. The funny little train slowly wound its way up the mountain and stopped at the familiar curve where the young men always jumped off the train. Reza Shah got out and, with some assistance, climbed up to the sacred well. Five trained mountain climbers plodded up after him, carrying shovels, water and cement. He took off his army muffler, laid it down on a rock and went and stood with his boots planted firmly on the edge of the well. In the thirteen centuries since Mahdi had hidden in the well, no one had ever done such a thing.

“Bring me that big stone!” he said. “Set it down right here!”

The five climbers picked up the stone and, with trembling hands, laid it over the opening of the well.

Then they plugged it up with cement.

The shah declared the area a military zone. From then on, only the royal mountain goats would be allowed in.

That same evening he flew to the holy city of Qom, arriving in the middle of the night. The striking shopkeepers had gathered in the golden mosque, where a young imam was delivering a speech against the shah. When the shah heard his inflammatory words, he issued an order: “Arrest that man.”

Everyone was arrested. Everyone, that is, except the clever young imam, who was named Khomeini. He managed to escape over the roof.

At that moment, not even the devil himself could have suspected that, fifty years later, that very same imam would destroy Reza Shah’s kingdom.

During the second World War, the Allies forced Reza Shah to leave the country. He was sent to Cairo and there he died.

Then those same Western governments helped his son (who would later be known as the shah of Iran) onto the throne.

While all this was going on, Aga Akbar was living in Saffron Village. Several years had gone by since the death of his young bride, but no one had been able to find him a suitable wife. He went back to sleeping with the young prostitute. Kazem Khan didn’t like it, but he couldn’t stop him. Then he came up with the idea of sending Aga Akbar to Isfahan.