Samarkand (24 page)

In mentioning this man Jamaladin seemed to be suffering.

‘I was moved but embarrassed. I am a roving philosopher, I have neither house nor homeland and have avoided marrying in order
that I would have no one in my charge. I did not want this man to
follow me as if I were the Messiah or the Redeemer, the Mahdi. To dissuade him I said: “Is it really worth leaving everything,
your business and your family, over a wretched question of money?” His face closed up, he did not respond, but went out.’

‘He returned only six months later. From an inside pocket he took out a small golden box, inlaid with precious stones, which
he held out to me, open.’

‘Look at this manuscript. How much do you think it could be worth?’

‘I leafed through it, then discovered its contents as I trembled with emotion.’

‘The authentic text of Khayyam; those pictures, the embellishment! It is priceless!’

‘More than eleven hundred
tomans?’

‘Infinitely more!’

‘I give it to you. Keep it. It was to remind you that Mirza Reza did not come to you to recover his money, but to regain his
pride.’

‘That was how,’ Jamaladin continues, ‘the manuscript fell into my possession and that I could not be separated from it. It
came with me to the United States, England, France, Germany, Russian and then to Persia. I had it with me when I withdrew
into the sanctuary of Shah Abdul-Azim. That is where I lost it.’

‘Do you know where it could be at this moment?’

‘I told you, when I was apprehended only one man dared to stand up to the Shah’s soldiers and that was Mirza Reza. He stood
up, shouted, cried and called the soldiers and all present cowards. He was arrested and tortured and spent more than four
years in the dungeons. When he was released he came to see me in Constantinople. He was so ill that I made him go the French
hospital in town where he stayed until last November. I tried to keep him longer, lest he be detained again on his return,
but he refused. He said he wanted to retrieve the Khayyam
Manuscript
and that nothing else interested him. There are some people who drift from one obsession to the next.’

‘What is your feeling? Does the
Manuscript
still exist?’

‘Only Mirza Reza can give you that information. He believes he can find that soldier who spirited it away when I was arrested.
He
hoped to take it back from him. In any case, he was determined to go and see him and spoke of buying it back with God knows
what money.’

‘If it is a question of retrieving the
Manuscript
, money is no problem!’

I had spoken with fervour. Jamaladin stared at me and frowned. He leant toward me as if he were about to listen to my heart.

‘I have the impression that you are no less fixated on this
Manuscript
than the unfortunate Mirza. In that case, there is only one path for you to follow. Go to Teheran! I cannot guarantee that
you will uncover the book there, but, if you know how to look, perhaps you will find other traces of Khayyam.’

My spontaneous response seemed to confirm his diagnosis:

‘If I obtain a visa, I’ll be ready to go tomorrow.’

‘That is not an obstacle. I shall give you a note for the Persian consul in Baku. He will look after all the necessary formalities
and even provide you with transport as far as Enzeli.’

My expression must have betrayed some worry. Jamaladin was amused by that.

‘Doubtless you are wondering: How can I give a recommendation from an outlaw to a representative of the Persian government?
You should know that I have disciples everywhere, in every town, in all circles, even in the monarch’s close entourage. Four
years ago, when I was in London, I and an American friend published a newspaper which was sent off to Persia in discreet little
bundles. The Shah was alarmed by that. He summoned the Minister of Post and ordered him to put an end to this newspaper’s
circulation, no matter what it took. The minister ordered the customs officers to intercept all the subversive packages at
the frontier and send them on to his house.

He drew on his cigar and the smoke was scattered by a burst of laughter.

‘What the Shah did not know,’ Jamaladin continued, ‘was that his Minister of Post was one of my most faithful disciples and
that I had entrusted him with distributing the newspaper as best he could.’

Jamaladin was chuckling as three visitors sporting blood-red felt
fezzes arrived. He arose, greeted and kissed them and invited them to be seated and exchanged a few words with them in Arabic.
I
guessed that he was explaining to them who I was, and begging their forgiveness for a few moments more. He came back toward
me.

‘If you are determined to set off for Teheran, I will give you some letters of introduction. Come tomorrow, they will be ready.
Above all do not be afraid. No one will think of searching an American.’

The next day three brown envelopes were waiting for me. He laid them in my hand, open. The first was for the consul in Baku
and the second for Mirza Reza. As he gave me that one, he made a comment:

‘I must warn you that this man is unbalanced and obsessive. Do not spend more time with him than you must. I have much affection
for him, he is more sincere, more faithful and doubtless purer than all my disciples, but he is capable of the worst blunders.’

He sighed and dug his hand into the pocket of the wide pantaloons he was wearing under his white tunic.

‘Here are ten gold pounds. Give them to him from me; he no longer has anything and perhaps he is hungry, but he is too proud
to beg.’

‘Where will I find him?’

‘I have not the slightest idea. He no longer has a house or a family and he roams from place to place. That is why I am giving
you this third letter addressed to another quite different young man. He is the son of the richest trader in Teheran, and
although he is only twenty and burns with the same fire as we all do, he is still even-tempered and ready to debate the most
revolutionary ideas with the smile of a satisfied child. I sometimes reproach him for not being very oriental. You will see,
beneath his Persian clothing there is English cool, French ideas and a more anti-clerical spirit than that of Monsieur Clemenceau.
His name is Fazel. It is he who will take you to Mirza Reza. I have charged Fazel with keeping an eye on him, as much as possible.
I do not think that he can stop him committing his acts of folly, but he will know where to find him.’

I stood up to leave. He bad me a fond farewell and kept hold of my hand in his own.

‘Rochefort tells me in his letter that you are called Benjamin Omar. In Persia only use the name Benjamin. Never say the word
Omar.’

‘But it is Khayyam’s name!’

‘Since the sixteenth century, when Persia converted to Shiism, that name has been banned. It could cause you much trouble.
If you try to identify with the Orient, you could find yourself caught up in its quarrels.’

I made an expression of regret and consolation, a sign of impotence. I thanked him for his advice and made to leave, but he
caught hold of me:

‘One last thing. Yesterday you met a young person here as she was getting ready to leave. Did you speak to her?’

‘No. I had no occasion to.’

‘She is the Shah’s grand-daughter, Princess Shireen. If, for whatever reason, you find all the doors shut, get a message to
her and remind her that you saw her here. One word from her will be enough to overcome many obstacles.’

On board a ship to Trebizond, the Black Sea was calm, too calm. The wind blew only lightly and for hours on end one could
contemplate only the same piece of coast, the same rock or the same Anatolian copse. It would have been wrong of me to complain,
I needed some peace and quiet given the arduous task that I had to accomplish: to memorise the whole book of Persian-French
dialogue written by Monsieur Nicolas, Khayyam’s translator. I had resolved to speak to my hosts in their own language. I was
not unaware of the fact that in Persia, as in Turkey, many of the intellectuals, the merchants and the high officials spoke
French. Some even knew English. However, if one wanted to move outside the restricted circle of the palaces and the legations,
and travel outside the main cities or in their seedier districts, it had to be done in Persian.

The challenge stimulated and amused me. I delighted in discovering affinities with my own language, as well as with various
Romance languages. Father, mother, brother, daughter in Persian were
‘pedar’, ‘madar’ ‘baradar’
and
‘dokhtar’
, and the common Indo-european roots can hardly be better illustrated. Even in naming God, the Muslims of Persia say
‘Khoda’
, a term much closer to the English ‘God’ or the German
‘Gott’
than to
‘Allah’
. In spite of this example, the predominate influence is that of Arabic which is exercised in a curious way: many Persian
words can be replaced
arbitrarily by their Arabic equivalent. It is even a form of cultural snobbery, much appreciated by intellectuals, to pepper
their speech with terms, or with whole phrases, in Arabic – a practice of which Jamaladin was particularly fond.

I resolved myself to apply myself to Arabic later, but for the moment I had enough on my plate trying to understand Monsieur
Nicholas’ texts, which apart from a knowledge of Persian was providing me with useful information about the country. It was
full of conversations such as:

‘Which products could one export from Persia?’

‘Shawls from Kirman, fine pearls, turquoise, carpets, tobacco from Shiraz, silks from Mazanderan, leeches and cherrywood pipes.’

‘When travelling, should a cook be taken along?’

‘Yes, in Persia one cannot move without a cook, a bed, carpets and servants.’

‘What foreign coins are used in Persia?’

‘Russian Imperials, Dutch
carbovans
and ducats, English and French coins are very rare.’

‘What is the current king called?’

‘Nasser ed-din Shah.’

‘It is said that he is an excellent king.’

‘Yes. He is extremely benevolent to foreigners and extremely generous. He is highly educated, with a knowledge of history,
geography and drawing; he speaks French and is fluent in the oriental languages – Arabic, Turkish and Persian.’

Once at Trebizond I took a room in the Hotel d’ltalie, the only hotel in town, which was comfortable if one could but forget
the swarms of flies which transformed every meal into an uninterrupted and exasperating gesticulation. I resigned myself to
imitating the other visitors by employing for a few meagre coins a young adolescent whose job was to fan me and keep the insects
away. The most difficult thing was convincing him to get them away from my table without squashing them before my eyes, in
between the dolmas and the kebabs. He obeyed me for some time, but as soon as he
saw a fly within reach of his fearsome instrument, the temptation was too great and he would swat.

On the fourth day I found a place on board a freight steamer running the Marseille-Constantinople-Trebizond line. It look
me as far as Batum, the Russian port on the east of the Black Sea, where I took the Transcaucasian Railway to Baku on the
Caspian Sea. The Persian consul there received me so warmly that I hesitated to show him Jamaladin’s letter. Would it not
be better to remain an anonymous traveller and not arouse any suspicions? However, I was beset by some scruples. Perhaps the
letter contained a message concerning something other than myself and I therefore did not have the right to keep it to myself.
Abruptly I thus resolved to say, in any enigmatic way:

‘We have perhaps a friend in common.’

I took out the envelope. The consul opened it carefully; he had taken his gold-rimmed glasses from his desk and was reading
when I suddenly noticed that his fingers were trembling. He stood up, went over to lock the door to the room, placed his lips
to the paper and remained so for a few seconds as if in contemplation. Then he came over to me and held me as if I were a
brother who had survived a shipwreck.

As soon as he had managed to recompose his expression, he called his servants and ordered them to fetch my trunk, to show
me to the best room and prepare a feast for the evening. He kept me there for two days, neglecting all his work in order to
stay with me and question me ceaselessly about the Master, his health, his mood and particularly what he was saying about
the situation in Persia. When it was time for me to leave, he rented a cabin for me on a steamer of the Russian Caucaset-Mercure
Line. Then he entrusted me with his coachman to whom he gave the task of accompanying me to Kazvin and to stay at my side
as long as I had need of his services.

The coachman immediately proved to be extremely resourceful, and often even irreplaceable. It was not I who would have know
to slip some coins into the hand of that proudly moustached customs officer so that he would deign to leave his
kalyan
pipe for a moment to come and inspect my huge Wolseley. It was the coachman again who negotiated with the Roads Administration
for the immediate
provision of a four-horse carriage, although the official was imperiously inviting us to come back the next day and a seedy
innkeeper, who was most apparently his accomplice, was offering us his services.

I consoled myself for all these difficulties of the route by thinking of the suffering of the travellers who had preceded
me. Thirteen years earlier, the only way to Persia had been the old caravan route which started at Trebizond and led toward
Tabriz through Erzerum, with its forty staging points taking six exhausting and expensive weeks and which was sometimes truly
dangerous owing to the incessant tribal warfare. The Transcaucasian had revolutionized matters. It had opened Persia to the
world and one could reach that empire with neither risk nor major discomfort by taking a steamer from Baku to the port of
Enzeli, then it only took one more a week, on a road suitable for motor vehicles, to reach Teheran.