To Keep the Sun Alive

by Rabeah Ghaffari

  He could not tell if hours or days passed. The only thing that broke the silence and sameness were the guards bringing him his meals. After sleeping through the first of these, he set his mind on separating the days from nights by the food that was shoved into his cell. But every meal was breakfast. The first was the porridge, then some stale bread and moldy cheese, then some milk with dried bread, then porridge again. His frustration grew. He decided to address the guard upon his next visit.

  As he heard the hall door open, he scampered up to the bars and waited. The plate came rattling in and he called out to the guard but the guard was already gone. He looked at the plate. It was porridge. He threw it against the wall and yelled out.

  He used his blood-caked pinkie to clean his other nails, then used some of his drinking water to wash his face. He unrolled his blanket and hung it over the horizontal bar in the middle of his door to dry it out. The air was damp and the blanket remained so as well. Slowly, he paced about the cell and began to recite poems, mathematical equations, and school assignments from memory. He sang songs. He even danced. He told himself jokes and laughed at their punch lines. He sat in the corner, out of the spotlight, and touched himself as he tried to recall every single part of Nasreen’s face and body, but he could not get erect and so he tried to remember her taste, how she felt to his touch, her movements, and even imagined her bent over naked—but to no avail. He began to feel sick to his stomach and gave up. He recited entire conversations he had had with people throughout his life. Some he re-edited to his liking. He stopped and changed words or inflections, then, once satisfied, moved on to the next scene.

  Finally a cockroach arrived in his cell, and with elation he greeted it, cornering it on the wall. He cupped it in his hands and brought it over to his nook, buttressing the hapless vermin with his blanket. He scraped a bit of old porridge off the wall and left it at the insect’s feet. “Go ahead,” he said. “It’s all yours.”

  The bug simply wavered its antennae. Then it climbed the lump of porridge and began to feed. Madjid was elated. He jumped up, his eyes filled with tears, and said, “Yes, my friend! Feast to your heart’s content!”

  He named the bug Abdi, laughing each time he said the name out loud. Abdi was the name of a school friend with whom he had spent hours discussing various types of engineering, from environmental and structural to the mysterious, as yet unstudied female.

  Every day and night, for hours, he spoke to Abdi the cockroach about his ordeal inside the university: how he missed his new friends and wished he was in their cell, how he missed his life back home. He described, in great detail, the beauty and warmth of his wife-to-be. He told Abdi some of the jokes at which he had laughed alone and asked it rhetorical questions such as “I wonder if bugs have ears?” and “I wonder if you see me as I am or am I a prism?” knowing all the time that it was a cockroach he was talking to, ending each monologue with the phrase “I may be desperate, Abdi, but I am not mad.”

  Madjid woke with a start. Abdi was gone. He scoured every inch of the cell but eventually it was clear: he was alone again. He began to weep for the loss of his only friend. He recalled their time together, remembering each conversation with Abdi, re-editing it in his head more to his liking. He chastised himself for not saying things he now realized he should have said, but each thought was one he’d already had and he began to panic that his thinking was over, he had no new thoughts and would never have any more again, and went back to the beginning and felt like a fool for rethinking used thoughts and somehow ended up back on his last final thought and finally surrendered to a kind of frantic blackout he knew was madness.

  Again, he woke with a start. Two guards lifted him by his arms and dragged him out of the cell and down the hall. Doors flew open and sunlight burned across his face. He squinted to try to adjust his eyes. He was in a courtyard, a vast concrete enclosure without a roof. He clocked the cardinal direction by the sun. From the shadows it cast he knew that it was close to noon. He was elated. He knew the time.

  The guards dragged him to the far side of the courtyard and held him up against the wall next to a wooden post.

  A few moments later the doors opened again and several more guards came out, dragging a man, his head slumped, his legs dragging. They dropped the almost lifeless body beside Madjid. The man had been beaten and badly scarred. He lifted up his head and Madjid saw it was the doctor. He smiled at the young man and asked, “How is your shoulder?”

  Madjid was taken aback. “Are you all right?” he said.

  “I’ve seen better days,” the doctor said. And laughed.

  The guards lifted the doctor, held him up against the post, and tied his hands behind it.

  The door opened again and the interrogator walked leisurely toward the scene, his taps echoing across the concrete of the courtyard. He was shorter than Madjid had imagined him. Taps had given him heft. Perhaps that was why he wore them. He put his arm on Madjid’s shoulder, the one he had dislocated, and walked him around the perimeter. Madjid’s eye twitched at every tap of his shoe.

  “Tell me something, young man,” the interrogator began, “how old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Aaah, I remember that age. All I could think about was girls! It’s a good age. Do you have a girl?”

  “No.”

  “Come, now. There must be at least one girl, no?”

  “No,” Madjid said. He was terrified that the man could read his thoughts and tried to erase Nasreen from them. “No. No one. I swear.”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay. You can relax. You’ll be all right. Nothing will happen to you or your girl. You have my word. Nothing will happen to you and your girl. I promise. On my honor, I do.” He spoke emphatically with one hand on his heart and then immediately asked, “Would you like to go home to her?”

  Before Madjid could think, he said, “Yes.”

  “Aaah, so you do have a girl! I knew it. What’s her name?”

  Madjid was now panicking and on the verge of tears as he said, “Please, sir.”

  “Come, now. Tell me her name.”

  He squeezed Madjid’s shoulder. Madjid closed his eyes in despair and said, “Nasreen.”

  “Aaah, beautiful Nasreen. She is beautiful, I assume? Yes, yes, of course she is. Nasreen, the wild rose. Beautiful name. Beautiful Nasreen.”

  They had walked the whole perimeter of the courtyard and were now back where they started. The doctor looked haggard, almost as though he was about to collapse. The interrogator nodded to one of the guards, who took his gun out of the holster, turning away to inspect it, then walked over to Madjid and held it out to him. The young man looked at him in disbelief as the interrogator leaned into him and said, “I want you to take that gun and shoot that man.”

  Madjid looked at the doctor in shock and said, “No, no. I will do no such thing.”

  The interrogator turned Madjid to face him and said, “You will take that gun and you will shoot that man. And if you don’t, I will shoot you then I will pay a visit to your beautiful Nasreen.”

  “No, please. If you want to kill him or me, you do it. Please, I can’t.”

  “It’s him or your girl. You choose.”

  Madjid stared at the doctor, who smiled at him and said, “It’s okay. Do it. I am dead already. It’s okay.”

  Madjid was shaking as he said, “I can’t.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” the doctor continued, “they are going to kill me anyway. Don’t sacrifice your life and a young woman’s. Please don’t put that on my head. I beg you.”

  The interrogator took the gun from the guard and put it in Madjid’s hand. He had never held a gun before. It was heavier than he had imagined. He stared at it. The interrogator cocked the hammer for him and held up his arm, aiming at the doctor. Madjid felt tears running down his face as he stared at the doctor and said, “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  The doctor smiled and said, ‘It’s okay, young man. It’s okay.”

&nbs
p; Madjid shook his head and said, “I can’t. I can’t”

  “Do it!” the interrogator screamed. Madjid looked into the doctor’s eyes, smiled, and turned the gun on himself, pushing its muzzle under his own chin and looking up to the cloudless sky above. He let out a breath and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing.

  It was a blank. Everyone started to laugh except Madjid and the doctor. The interrogator laughed the loudest, the taps of his shoes echoing through the courtyard. He slapped Madjid on the back, then said, “You can’t even manage to kill yourself!”

  The guard then grabbed the gun from Madjid’s hand and reloaded it with bullets from his pocket. The interrogator grabbed his collar, the laughter on his face vanishing as if it had been turned off with a switch. “Listen to me, boy,” he said. “I have been doing this long enough to know what men are made of. Your godless ideas are nothing more than woman talk. When it comes down to the bone, you break. They all break.”

  He looked to the guards and nodded. They dragged Madjid toward the door. The guard who had reloaded his gun held it up to the doctor’s head. There was the sound of a shot, darkness, then nothing.

  WOMEN

  Shazdehpoor sat with Akbar-Agha in his room. Akbar-Agha looked up from a letter in his hand. “When did you receive this last one?” he said.

  “Three days ago,” Shazdehpoor said. “I have been to the train station every day and asked the attendants if they had seen him and no one has.”

  “Was the last letter about the carpet tampered with?”

  “I did notice the envelope had been taped. None of the others were that way. I’m not sure what the carpet business is about.”

  “He’s speaking in code. He knew he was being watched and the letter was read before it reached you. They have probably arrested him.”

  Shazdehpoor put his head in his hands and wept. Akbar-Agha touched his shoulder. “Do not worry,” he said. “I will make some calls and get him home. Though you must, please, say nothing of it. As far as anyone knows, he’s in the capital staying with friends at the university.”

  The family lunch was quiet and tense. Shazdehpoor and Akbar-Agha repeatedly reassured everyone that Madjid was safe, but they all felt something was amiss. Bibi-Khanoom stood silently at the kitchen counter with Nasreen. The girl burst into tears. “Don’t worry,” Bibi-Khanoom said. “He is fine. He will be home soon.”

  She was reassuring herself as much as the girl. Nasreen pulled herself together and dished the food onto platters, while Bibi-Khanoom made a plate for the midwife and covered it with a linen cloth. Today’s main stew was khoreshteh bamieh, a stew made of lamb with okra and a tomato base. She had made a tahdig with yogurt and saffron, the bottom burned evenly almost brownish red, from the saffron caked to it. She called out to Jafar, who was already in the doorway, smelling what was to come. He was holding his chicken, Mina. “Please take this plate to the midwife,” said Bibi-Khanoom. “Do not eat her food. There is plenty here for you. And leave that chicken in the coop where it belongs.”

  He returned Mina to her coop with a sour look on his face. Bibi-Khanoom handed him the plate and shoved a loghmeh in his mouth. He stood there chewing, his face brightening from the flavors. Only then did he walk the orchard path to the entrance, setting down the plate to open the doors slightly, carefully picking it back up and slipping through to the dirt road. He walked along the adobe walls, the rich scent of the food wafting toward his face. Past the orchard, on the open road, the wind kicked in, helping him resist the temptation to peel back a corner of the cloth and break off a piece of tahdig.

  Jafar liked food very much. He enjoyed anticipating what was to be served, consuming it, and even memories of it. The rice pudding his mother made just for him, drizzled with grape syrup. The khoreshteh fesenjoon she made in the dead of winter. The scent of pomegranate syrup and walnuts spreading through the house and making his mouth water.

  Past the sand dunes, there was a row of rough shacks. He climbed the three steps to the midwife’s door. Holding the plate, he knocked and waited. There was no answer. After a minute, he put his head to the door to listen, but there was no sound of movement. He knocked a little louder. The midwife did not answer. He walked over to the window and looked in. The lace curtains were drawn but he could see that she was lying in bed. He stared at her, knocking on the window. She did not stir. He walked back to the door and tried the knob. The door opened and he stood on the threshold with the plate. He did not know whether to enter. He had been told to never enter a room without permission.

  He looked to see if anyone was on the street. There was no one. He stood for a while longer staring into the house. It was a small room with a tanoor oven. Stacks of freshly baked taftoon lay on the counter. He closed his eyes and inhaled the cardamom-and-saffron scent of the buttery bread. There was not much to see inside but what was there was meticulously placed. A table in the center was covered with hand-knitted doilies and a small bowl bearing fruit. A single chair faced the one, small window. He did not know what gave him the courage to move his legs but he headed straight for the chair and sat on it, holding the plate in his lap and looking out the window, not once looking in the midwife’s direction. Across the street was a one-story mud house like the midwife’s, with a woman tidying up inside. Behind it lay the wind-rippled sand, and beyond them, the old city, staid and golden under the sun, and beyond that the open desert plains that framed the whole city. The sky looked huge to him, vast and impossible, most of his life having been enclosed by the four orchard walls.

  He turned and looked at the midwife. She had been lying there the whole time watching him. When their eyes met, she smiled. He brought the plate over to her. She waved it away and he placed it on the table, looking at it longingly. She motioned for him to sit beside her. He plopped down, his legs dangling from the chair, T-shirt stretched tightly around his belly. He couldn’t help but look at the stacks of bread. The midwife watched him, her smile never waning. She had brought him into this world and watched him grow for ten years. In all of that time, she had never heard him speak nor seen him waver from the simple pleasures of life: his love of food, his adoration for chickens, and his ability to drift away from those around him—happy but distant. She had thought, many times, to tell him who his mother was, but always, in the end, decided against it for fear of leaving him with that burden. What good would come of it? Over and over, she convinced herself that she had done the right thing but never felt better. She motioned to the bread. “Take a piece. It’s still warm.”

  He bounced out of the chair and returned gnawing on a soft, steaming loaf. His cheeks dimpled as he chewed. “You love to eat,” she said.

  He nodded yes and took another bite.

  “I have never cared for food. I always ate it because I had to.” The midwife turned her head slightly away and looked through her window. “It’s quite a view, no?” Jafar nodded as the midwife continued, “The things that are closest to you are the things that you cannot see.” She lifted herself up and said, “Will you help me? I would like to sit by my window.”

  With great effort, she lifted the covers from her legs and put her feet on the floor, slipping into her house shoes as she struggled to breathe. The boy supported her as she stumbled forward, her arms around his neck. He grabbed her chair with his free hand and held her while she slowly sank into it. He took a knitted afghan from her bed and laid it on her lap. She reached up and touched his face and smiled. “Perhaps you should go and get your mother,” she said. “And please take the food and a loaf of bread to the lady in the house across the way. Just leave it by the door. Don’t let her speak to you. Then take the rest of the bread to your mother.”

  With the plate and stack of bread, Jafar crossed the street to the shack and peeked through the window. The lady was still there. She was gaunt but wrapped in a colorful chador. He watched her quick, fidgety movements for a few moments, then placed the plate with a loaf by the door, knocked, and walked away. As he ran off, h
e could hear her opening the door and picking up the plate.

  The midwife watched the prostitute set the plate on her table and use her scissors on the bread, cutting small squares and wrapping them in cloth. She kept a few pieces, saving the others to eat when there was no other food.

  Ever since the day she had delivered Jafar, the midwife had shared all her meals with the prostitute, but had never engaged her in conversation. She left loaves at her door. She made sure the prostitute was unharmed after a man had visited. She even taught the prostitute how to bake bread in the tanoor and instructed her to take over the oven after her death so that she could sell the bread in the town square and make an honest living. Moved, the prostitute had tried, on many occasions, to thank her or discuss the weather or the windstorms, but the midwife would cut her short, returning to whatever necessary business was at hand. They had fallen into a rhythm together, two women alone, existing in close proximity in the middle of nowhere, worlds apart.

  Jafar stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Bibi-Khanoom spoon pickled vegetables into a bowl for the family lunch. She felt eyes on her. “What is it?” she said.

  He handed her the loaves.

  She set them on the counter, then asked, “How is she doing?”

  He shook his head and she immediately wiped her hands, wrapped her chador over her head, and went out of the kitchen.

  Her family was gathered around the sofreh waiting to eat. “Ghamar,” said Bibi-Khanoom. “Let’s go. Akbar-Agha, please start lunch. We might not even be back for dinner. Mirza, please come with us. Bring your doctor’s bag.”

  Ghamar pushed herself up and followed, calling out to Nasreen, who came scurrying out from behind a row of trees, wiping her face. “Where are we going?” she said.

  “The midwife,” said Bibi-Khanoom.

  Ghamar looked at her daughter. “Have you been crying?”