Cry of the Peacock: A Novel by Gina nahai Read Free Book Online

Long ago it had been black, then gray, white, silver—until it had finally turned yellow and stayed that color. His eyebrows, thick and bushy and long, had refused to follow the pattern of the beard. They had stayed dark, creating a shocking contrast with the rest of his face. Underneath them his eyes were cunning and sharp, full of boundless greed and the ambition that had been the Mirza's driving force in life and that became more furious the closer he felt himself to the grave. He had three yellow teeth in his mouth—two on top and one on the bottom—rheumatism in his legs, and a bad twitch that made his head and neck jerk to the right whenever he got excited. His fingers, gnarled with age and yellow from the tobacco he smoked incessantly, were nevertheless strong and steady. He was always feeling the objects around him restlessly, as if driven by a compulsion to discover their secrets, or to possess them.
    People said that in his youth Mullah Mirza had set out to become a scientist. His father, a small-time doctor in Juyy Bar, had one day brought home an enormous volume written partly in Persian and partly in Arabic. He attributed the book to the great Persian scientist Zakarayah Razi.
    "In it," he had told his son, "beyond the reach of ordinary men, lies the secret of infinite wealth and everlasting power."
    Poet, philosopher, mathematician, and chemist at once, Razi had devoted his life to the pursuit of alchemy and in the process discovered alcohol instead. Never satisfied with his discovery, he had always felt himself one step away from the formula that would turn any ordinary metal into gold. He had died blinded and impoverished, leaving behind volume after volume made of deerskin, in which he had registered the results of his experiments.
    Mullah Mirza was fascinated by Razi's story. He had opened the book and run his hand over the symbols he could not decipher.
    “My God," he had whispered, “to possess all that gold."
    The next day he had announced that he was going to become literate in Persian and Arabic. His father had laughed.
    “Jews don't learn anything but Hebrew," he had said. "Arabic is the language of the Qoran. The mullahs say that if we study it, we will defile their holy book. Persian is the language of Persians. They say we are not Persians unless we become Muslim. If you want to learn how to read, you have to go to the Rabbi's Torah class."
    Mullah Mirza had no interest in the Torah. He wanted to discover Razi's secrets.
    "I want to be a scientist," he had declared, "become rich, respected, immortal."
    For a while he had entertained the idea of converting to Islam so he would be allowed to study Persian. Then he found a better way.
    He went to the Muslim scribe who sat on a broken stool outside the Shah's caravansary in Esfahan. In return for a small fee, the scribe wrote letters that people dictated to him. At the end of each day he collected his pay and went to Juyy Bar to buy wine.
    The Jews of Persia had a monopoly on the manufacturing of wine. Islam forbade its followers to drink alcoholic beverages. Muslims who could not resist the temptation of drunkenness, therefore, went to the ghetto to buy wine. The sin, they consoled themselves, lay with the person who manufactured the evil brew—not with the one who drank it. In times of hardship, the mullahs often called their people to cleanse the world of "winemaking infidels," and sent mobs to the ghetto to break into every home and burn every basement where Jews had stored wine.
    "I will bring you a jug of five-year-old wine every week if you teach me how to read,” Mullah Mirza offered the scribe.
    "I will never tell of our agreement. If anyone finds out I know how to read, I will accuse another scribe of having taught me. If you take my wine and then betray me, I will poison you.”
    The scribe did not refuse.
    Three years after he had first seen Razi's book, Mullah Mirza had learned to read Persian and Arabic. He moved out of his father's