Ollie's Cloud (3 page)

Chapter 3

The large door to the caravanserai is open, there being no immediate threat to security. Jalal and Sadiq lead the weary caravan of the dead through the gate and into the bright courtyard where they are greeted by Omar, the
dalandar
or entrance-keeper, who is a cousin of Jalal’s mother.

“Jalal!” Omar says with smiling eyes. “I have not seen you in quite a while. You bring us business?”

“My friends are looking for the finest caravanserai. Do you have any recommendations?”

“Well, since we are the only caravanserai within forty pharsangs, I suggest they rest their weary bones here.”

“Very wise and unbiased counsel. Omar, this is Sadiq, the charvadar.”

The men greet each other. Omar takes Sadiq aside to negotiate for provisions.

The courtyard is surrounded by austere rooms—barren cells with straw-covered floors—elevated a few feet upon a ledge. The rooms have no doors and are built in the form of Saracenic arches. Behind the rooms lie the stables.

As Omar and Sadiq negotiate, Jalal watches the men of the caravan slowly walk their mules into a tight knot with Kujiri at its center, as if protecting him. Seated high upon his Arabian stallion, Jalal can see Kujiri’s back. The protectors’ eyes are darting back and forth, searching for spying eyes.

In a horrifying move, Kujiri suddenly plunges his arm into one of the mummies, the one secured on the right side of his mule. The arm easily slides up to its elbow through a fold in the muslin wrap. Jalal imagines the arm wriggling through the rotting entrails of the corpse. And then Kujiri quickly removes his arm. It is not dripping with the slimy stuff of death. Instead, his unsullied hand is grasping a small leather coin pouch that looks quite full.

Kujiri turns and looks around guiltily. He catches the eye of Jalal and immediately knows that his secret has been discovered. Kujiri raises his index finger to his lips.
Shussshhh! Don’t tell.

Jalal nods.
I will not tell anyone.

Omar and Sadiq have finished their bargaining for provisions. Kujiri approaches them and the three men quietly discuss something. Jalal cannot hear them, but it looks like Omar and Sadiq are explaining the deal they struck. Kujiri nods politely and then removes some coins from the leather pouch, placing them into Omar’s outstretched hand.

The boy climbs off his horse and tethers it. “I thought that was your wife,” Jalal says to Kujiri, referring to the corpse.

“My wife is on the left side. On the right is everything else that I possess converted into tumans.”

“The Turkoman—they never searched…?”

“Of course not. Who would interrupt the sleep of the dead?”

Jalal hands the coin back to Kujiri, who says: “It is not enough?”

“It is too much. Neither my silence nor my friendship has a price.”

Kujiri is touched. “Jalal,” he says, “may your face one day look upon the Promised One, who indeed is very near.” Kujiri kisses the boy on both cheeks.

The old man goes back to his mule and begins to remove some of his belongings from a sack of coarse haircloth. As the boy watches, Kujiri climbs to a room and spreads out several carpets on the floor. He hangs a curtain in the open doorway and vanishes behind it.

Glancing across the courtyard, Jalal sees Omar in a heated discussion with an Englishman, Gordon Cranston, a Christian missionary who passes through Bushruyih to administer medical aid and give English instruction to the privileged ones including Ali’s mother. The mullas tolerate this tall blonde man because he does not try to propagate his religion; if he did, he might be put to death.

Omar whispers conspiratorially to Gordon. “The vizier is in Bushruyih meeting with the kelauntar as we speak. This must mean that they are about to consummate their bargain.”

“Then the exchange could take place as early as tomorrow.”

“They’ve been seen at the tea house. My nephew works there. He has very large ears.”

Gordon hands Omar some coins. “I need confirmation of when the exchange will take place. Do you understand?”

Omar takes the coins and smiles. “If it can be learned, it will be, I assure you.”

“Assuming the worst, I need to be ready tonight. Is that possible?”

“Of course. But I will need to pay for some things in advance.”

Gordon understands. He will pay whatever it takes to guarantee that the arrangements are satisfactorily made. Secretively, he hands more money to Omar. The men shake hands English-style, then kiss each other on both cheeks. Gordon marches out of the courtyard.

Chapter 4

The cloth dyer’s shop opens onto the street that approaches the caravanserai. It is always stuffed full of brightly-hued fabrics neatly folded into soft piles or draped over dowels like rainbows of light to attract the eye. Now, during the heat of the day, the shop is free of customers.

Haji Mulla ‘Abdu’llah, father of Jalal, sits on a large Persian rug fanning himself in the oppressive heat. Daggers of memory prick him with the unfulfilled desire of his youth. His body tingles, as it did twenty-five years ago, with the yearning to become a great religious scholar, a renowned doctor of Islamic law.

As if blown away by a faint whistle of wind through the dye shop, the fading remembrance of the boy vanishes completely. ‘Abdu’llah drinks in a lungful of hot, dry air. To a desert creature, the warmth is comforting. He knows that the course of his life is established; it makes no sense to wish it were not. But the future of Jalal—ah, that’s different. ‘Abdu’llah sets his mind on planning the journey he will soon make with his son. In one week they will leave for Mashhad, the most prestigious religious center in Persia. There Jalal will attend the finest
madrisih
, a religious seminary. One day Jalal will be a great religious scholar, a renowned doctor of Islamic law. Perhaps he will return to Bushruyih and replace that bigoted buffoon, Mulla Ibrahim, as mujtahid.

There are still no customers in the shop. ‘Abdu’llah decides that this will be a good time to visit Jaffir the blacksmith, who is creating a very special gift for Jalal.

As ‘Abdu’llah stands and straightens his garments, his eyes are drawn to a flurry of activity outside the shop. An agitated group of white-turbaned mullas is marching down the street. The loud threats of these holy men offend ‘Abdu’llah, who finds violence abhorrent. Though designated an honorary mulla, due to his teaching activities and calls to prayer at the mosque, ‘Abdu’llah finds many of the mujtahid’s teachings illogical and radical. While Mulla Ibrahim for years has ranted against women’s education, ‘Abdu’llah married a literate woman and encouraged her to continue education. His wife, Nadja, is a celebrated poet—celebrated everywhere, that is, but in Bushruyih, where her works are unknown.

‘Abdu’llah watches the band of mullas charge past the shop. What frightens him most is the glint of steel; the clerics are marching with swords and knives drawn. Blood will flow! ‘Abdu’llah steps from his shop and falls into the swelling throng that trails the mullas. Some of these people, too, are now cursing the evil that has entered the village. No one knows what that evil is, but everyone is certain that it will be excised by the clerics.

And then ‘Abdu’llah hears words that darken his heart.
In the name of Ali Qasim!
Has some harm come to his son’s friend?

‘Abdu’llah quickens his pace. He begins to look for his son, Jalal. Weren’t the two boys together this morning? If harm has befallen Ali, what of Jalal? The emotion of the crowd begins to excite ‘Abdu’llah. Fear overtakes him. Obviously some great peril has been unleashed. He imagines the worst—murder, abduction, an accident. Who would harm a youngster?
Please, Allah, if it be Your will, allow Jalal to be safe.
Soon he finds himself shouting with the crowd. Without understanding why, but with great intensity, he shouts:
In the name of Ali Qasim!

Chapter 5

Mirza Hasan Qasim, pear-shaped and thick-bearded, will be thirty-five years old tomorrow. He is the nephew of Fath Ali Shah, Persia’s Qajar ruler. Even though he is only a capillary in the dynasty’s bloodline, Qajar nepotism has rewarded him with a major position in a village that is but a flyspeck on the shah’s map. As
kelauntar
of Bushruyih, he oversees village security, civic governance, and tax collections, making sure the shah’s due is quickly forwarded.

An ever-shrinking government salary stimulates Hasan’s creativity in financial management. Tax overages and bribes of every kind find their way into his bottomless purse, allowing for a lifestyle far above the other local desert dwellers. The lifestyle has grown more expensive, however, and the normal spoils of the office have recently fallen short of his obligations. For six months he has short-changed the shah—a dangerous game, but in such an obscure little hamlet who would notice?

Unfortunately, the vizier—who pays attention to such matters for the governor of the province—has an eye for detail and a nose for felony. And like so many in the government, the vizier also has no detectable code of ethics. This is what has brought the vizier to Bushruyih where he sits in the back corner of a teahouse with the kelauntar and discusses the financial dilemma over the steaming brew.

The kelauntar is a bitter man. For seven years he has lived in a wilderness that even Allah surely has forgotten. He sees his appointment as a life sentence in hell and curses his father’s name. If his father, the shah’s brother, had not jealously competed for the throne, Fath Ali Shah may have shown mercy on his wretched sibling and given his nephew a job in some bearable place.

The kelauntar does not understand moderation. The Qu’ran allows a man four wives, and he has the maximum, plus six concubines. Though alcohol is strictly forbidden for Muslims, the kelauntar surreptitiously imports cartloads of fine Shirazí wine and drinks it alone by the bottle.

He has one other passion: his son, Ali Qasim. His only son. Three wives have born him seven daughters, but only Anisa, a slave-girl purchased from the Turkoman, has given him a son. Anisa is a fair-skinned angel with sandy hair and blue eyes. The kelauntar had been immediately mesmerized by her spotless beauty. She had been thirteen when he bought her and returned to his father’s house in Mashhad, the holy city near the Bokhara frontier. She then became his first wife.

The Turkoman had claimed that Anisa was English, that her missionary parents were killed in a Turkoman attack when she was seven. They’d said she was greatly prized for her beauty but was considered stupid because she could not speak any of the languages or dialects of the region. She had been bought and sold, worked hard, used often by the men for their pleasures; and then she’d developed a maddening streak of independence. She had grown less submissive, more aggressive. This wisp of a girl had begun acting like one of the men, making demands and giving orders. Her owner, a shaggy one-eyed Afghani, had wanted to kill her but his brother suggested that the girl’s beauty might fetch a fine price. Within a month she had become the property of Hasan Qasim and the Turkoman had acquired a handsome profit.

Besides having given the kelauntar a son, Anisa provides a target for his anger and frustration. Fueled by wine, his fury often erupts in violence. He pummels the poor woman with his fists, calling her vile names and accusing her of unspeakable things, often with his slaves and other wives looking on. He blames Anisa for his wretched existence, his father’s sins, his own jealousy. He tries to defile her incandescent beauty, so often the cause of his suspicions. He threatens to kill her, maim her, sell her back to the slave traders. But always he falls asleep in tears before carrying out these threats, awakening in his own vomit. And then he leaves, never with an apology, sometimes for a week or more.

The kelauntar fears that someday his fiscal infidelity will be discovered; many other embezzling princes and officials had been found out and punished. But what could they do to him? Assign him to a lower hell? Here, in a dark corner of this rancid-smelling café, seated on a wooden platform opposite the vizier, he is about to settle his account in a most painful manner.

An enormous striped turban like a monstrous weight seems to drive the vizier’s head down into a pudding of jowls, plumping them out into exaggerated pouches bristling with beard. “I presume the details are taken care of,” he whispers. “And that I can take possession tomorrow morning.”

A server pours more hot tea.

“Of course. Just as we agreed,” the kelauntar replies sadly. “And I presume you are prepared to fulfill your end of the bargain.”

“Naturally. I am an honorable man,” the vizier lies. “May I see the marriage contract?”

The kelauntar passes a document to the vizier, who quickly scans it.

“You are clever,” the vizier says. “In the event of divorce, her dowry is almost nothing.”

“She was my legal slave when I married her.”

“She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

“She is a scorpion—with a fierce sting in her tail.”

“Tomorrow morning, after you divorce her, you will sell her to me for the amount of her dowry. No money will change hands. She will become my slave. And then I will marry her so you have no further claim on her.”

Persia is truly and gloriously a man’s world. The kelauntar’s mind races through the simple process of divorce. Three times he will repeat to his wife the words “you are divorced” and it will be done. And yet, as the vizier knows, the kelauntar can recall her twice without further ceremony. But if he divorces her three times, or if she remarries, he cannot take her back. So by marrying Ali’s mother immediately, the vizier severs all claims of recall by the kelauntar. The vizier possesses her as slave and wife. It is complete ownership.

“But the boy stays with me,” the kelauntar emphasizes.

“It is the woman I want, not her pup.”

A year earlier, the vizier had paid a visit to the kelauntar’s compound. Violating all Persian custom, the kelauntar had brought the fatted official to the anderun and asked for his wife, his prize possession, to be unveiled before him as if she were a magnificent sculpture. Most women would have swooned in shame, but Anisa had stood proudly, even arrogantly, as the head eunuch removed her veil and exposed her exquisite English features. Covetousness immediately had overwhelmed the vizier and he had pledged to possess this woman. For months he could scarcely think of anything but the magnificent creature that had been revealed to him. Knowing that most village officials were corrupt, he had conspired to find the kelauntar’s crime. It was surprisingly easy—and cheap—to obtain the damning records. And then had come the extortion.

“When you have your new wife,” the kelauntar says, “you will sign an official statement that my stewardship of the shah’s finances is without peer.”

“Yes, you’ll be free of me. You are a lucky man to have such an astonishing wife to save you from disgrace and punishment.”

The kelauntar’s mood is sour. He was a fool to have left uncovered the evidence of his graft. He was even more of a fool to have boastfully exposed his wife to the lustful vizier. But what of it? The woman is a scorpion. Her venom is the obsession she incites in men made unattainable by her arrogance. Ali will be heartbroken, but the kelauntar will think of some compensation to give him. Something to ease the pain.

The kelauntar sips the last drop of his tea and stands. “Tomorrow morning, then. At the mosque,” he says.

“You have no idea how I am looking forward to it.”

The kelauntar steps into the street and begins walking. Like a serpent’s tail, his retinue follows in an undulating wave. The local people nod respectfully as they pass, but not kindly. He does not care. He is thinking about going home. He is dreaming about the bubbling
kalyan
—the water pipe—and the opium he has brought from Isfahan. He is dreaming about the bottles of ruby wine that await him. He is dreaming about a few hours of blessed oblivion.

A sound intrudes. There is shouting and cursing. He can hear footsteps, many of them, scuffling over the stony street. He turns to see a group of sneering mullas striding toward him with a swagger, blades drawn. A crowd follows, urging them on. What could this be about? The shouts grow louder, and then the kelauntar hears the words.
In the name of Ali Qasim!

He is chilled. What does this mean?
What has the boy gotten himself into now?
The kelauntar squints into the sun, shades his eyes, and watches the crowd turn a corner. They are headed toward the caravanserai.
This is a religious matter, I’m sure,
the kelauntar tells himself. The mullas take care of religious business and he takes care of Qajar and civil business. But he is worried. They are shouting the name of his son. Swords are drawn.

The kelauntar begins to trail the crowd, staying a few steps behind so he doesn’t look like part of the mob. He feels a tug on his arm and looks down. Beside him is Ali, red-faced and breathing hard.

“I’ve been trying to find you!” Ali says.

“What is going on? Why are they chanting your name?”

“They’re going to kill a Shaykhi at the caravanserai. It’s my fault. You must stop them!” The boy is crying.

The kelauntar comes to a halt. Mulla Ibrahim and he had never before crossed swords. There was an implicit understanding between them, a line drawn in the warm Bushruyih sand. The Qajars have power, yes, but at the local level the clergy have the people behind them. The kelauntar is not anxious to test this delicate balance of power.

“What do you mean it’s your fault?” the kelauntar says to Ali.

“I told the mullas about a Shaykhi coming to the caravanserai. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t think they would want to kill him.”

The kelauntar understands the dilemma. He can step in and protect his son from these haunting feelings of guilt, or he can do nothing and preserve the balance of power. As for the Shaykhi, who cares?

“Come with me.” Hasan puts his hand behind Ali’s back, rubs it gently, then pushes the boy forward. They begin to follow the crowd toward the caravanserai. The kelauntar has no idea what he’s going to do.

“The Shaykhi is with Jalal,” Ali says.

The kelauntar dreams of the kalyan.