Equal of the Sun A Novel - By Anita Amirrezvani Page 0,12
down beside her and whispered, “Lieutenant of my life, is there any service I can provide to you right now?”
“Watch them all in the main room,” she replied, “and when this terrible day is through report everything you have seen.”
The women in that room had not moved except to keen. But behind them, servants were whispering to one another as if bursting with news, and Balamani was talking to a slave; he had a disturbed look in his eye.
As the reciter’s voice rose high and sharp, the women filled the air with terrible moans, and the space grew hot and thick with the smell of rose water and sweat.
When Balamani stopped talking to the slave, I walked toward him softly. He didn’t notice, so I tugged his robe to get his attention. He jumped like a cat about to pounce, his big belly bouncing.
“It is me,” I said soothingly, “your doctor.”
The gray skin under his eyes looked darker than usual. He smiled slightly and said, “If only you could cure me this time.”
“I can see that something new ails you,” I replied.
“Ah, friend of mine, if only you knew what I know.”
I felt a twinge of disappointment that he had won this skirmish.
“What is it?”
“The succession.”
“Who will it be, then?”
“That is just it,” Balamani whispered, an edge of terror in his voice. “No one knows how to proceed.”
“What does the chief of protocol say?”
“Saleem Khan? He says nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He leaned closer to my ear. “There is nothing to say, because there is no will.”
A loud expostulation escaped my lips, and I bent my head and pretended to be overcome by a fit of coughing. No will? Who would tame the Shah’s ferocious sons, each of whom probably dreamed of being ruler, not to mention the sons of the Shah’s brother Bahram? My vertigo returned for a moment.
“May God save us all! How will the heir be decided?”
“If all goes well, the nobles will agree on the new shah, and the other Safavi sons will accept him.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“They will ally behind different men and throw the land into chaos.”
“What do you expect?”
“The worst.”
I resumed my post and watched every gesture like a hawk in search of prey. A few of the women were reading from copies of the Qur’an, but most were so involved in their grieving that they were not moving or talking much. From time to time they drank from vessels of melon sharbat served on large trays, or nibbled at halva to keep themselves strong. They would need to be strong.
The reciter had begun recounting stories of the blessed Prophet’s family. Her voice surged high with pain as she described baby Ali-Asghar, whose throat was struck by an enemy arrow and who drowned in his own blood. Pinpricks stung my eyes. I remembered the dirt falling onto my father’s body, the screams of my mother and sister, and my own anguish. Now was a respectable moment to vent my grief, for my father, for the fate of my mother and sister, for the dead Shah, for Pari, and for the future of us all. Pari’s eyes caught mine, and I saw sympathy there. For a few hours, there was nothing but unity in the room as we recalled and relived the sorrows we had known on this earth.
It was late afternoon before the Shah’s eldest female relation, Fatemeh Beygom, made her ceremonial appearance at the proceedings, dressed in proper court attire.
“Good women,” she said to the crowd, “you have mourned with your hearts full and shed all the water in your body in the form of tears. Now it is time to halt this river of suffering and return to your private grief. To God above we give our trust, from God above we beg for protection.”
The room became very quiet. The women began wiping away their tears, smoothing their hair, and gathering their things, all rather slowly, as if they were reluctant to leave the safety of shared mourning.
As the royal women began to say their goodbyes, a group gathered around Sultanam. Even the tallest among them looked like frail reeds near her broad body. One of the first to leave was a consort of the Shah’s who had two young sons and could be expected to throw her weight behind one of the adult contenders. I watched Sultanam kiss her with gratitude. No doubt she would rally the support of her allies behind Isma‘il.
Women were also lingering around Sultan-Zadeh, Haydar’s mother, ostensibly to console her.