The Shadow of God

Iran, 16 September 1941. British armies came up from the south, Soviet armies came down from the north, and the army your father spent sixteen years building ceased to exist in three days. This morning he signed away his throne. Nothing says you get it. You are Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, twenty-one years old, educated in Switzerland, and Crown Prince of a country that no longer controls its own roads. In the British legation they are weighing a Qajar restoration; some of them would rather have a republic. Soviet armour sits at Qazvin. The parliament your father hand-picked has begun asking who owns the land he seized. The tribes are digging up their rifles. Downstairs, trunks are being carried to the cars. Your father leaves within the hour, and nobody in this house has said the word exile out loud. In the corridor, an old man in a frock coat is waiting with a set of civilian clothes, a borrowed Chrysler, and a plan to get you into the parliament building through the service entrance before either legation can object. You have four hours to become Shah of Iran. After that, you have thirty-eight years to become a king — through patronage, oil, the officer corps, the clergy, and the rivalry between the powers occupying your country. Or to lose it all the way your father just did. Everything up to this morning is history. Everything after it is yours.