by Atiq Rahimi
The room, the house, the garden, all of it, buried in fog, disappears beneath that sad gray mantle.
Nothing happens. Nothing moves, except the spider, which for a while now has been living in the rotting ceiling beams. It is slow. Slothful. After a brief tour of the wall, it returns to its web.
Outside:
They shoot a while.
Pray a while.
Are silent a while.
At dusk, someone knocks on the door to the passage.
No voice invites him in.
He knocks again.
No hand opens the door to him.
He leaves.
Night comes, and goes again. Taking the clouds and the fog with it.
The sun is back. Its rays of light return the woman to the room.
After glancing around the space she pulls a new drip bag and a new bottle of eyedrops from her bag. Goes straight over to the green curtain and draws it aside so she can see her man. His eyes are half-open. She pulls the tube out of his mouth, takes a cushion from under his head, and inserts the drops into his eyes. One, two; one, two. Then, she leaves the room and returns with the plastic basin full of water, a towel, and some clothes. She washes her man, changes his clothes, and settles him back into his spot.
Carefully she rolls up his sleeve and wipes the crook of his arm. Inserts the tube, fills the dropper correctly, and then leaves, carrying everything she must remove from the room.
We hear her doing the washing. She hangs it out in the sun. Returns with a broom. Brushes off the kilim, the mattresses …
She hasn’t yet finished her task when someone knocks at the door. She walks to the window in a cloud of dust. “Who is it?” Again the silent shape of the boy, wrapped in his patou. The woman’s arms fall wearily to her sides. “What do you want now?” The boy holds out a few notes. The woman doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word. The boy heads for the passage. The woman comes out to meet him. They murmur a few inaudible words to each other and slip into one of the rooms.
To start with, there is only silence, then gradually some whispering … and eventually a few muffled groans. Then once again silence. For quite a while. Then a door opening. And footsteps rushing outside.
As for the woman, she goes into the toilet, washes herself, and returns shyly to the room. Finishes her cleaning, and leaves.
Her footsteps ring out on the tiled floor of the kitchen, accompanied after a while by the hum of gas, spreading its sonic layer around the house.
Once she has made her lunch, she comes to eat it in the room, straight out of the pan.
She is soft and serene.
After the first mouthful, she suddenly says, “I feel sorry for that boy! But that isn’t why I let him in … Anyway, I hurt his feelings today, and almost drove the poor thing away! I got the giggles, and he thought I was laughing at him … which of course I was, in a way … But it was my fiendish aunt’s fault! She said something awful last night. I’d been telling her about this stammering boy, and how he comes so quickly. And …” She laughs, a very private, silent laugh. “And she said I should tell him …” The laugh, noisy this time, interrupts her again. “… Tell him to fuck with his tongue and talk with his dick!” She guffaws, wiping away tears. “It was terrible of me to think of that right then … but what could I do? As soon as he started stammering, my aunt’s words flashed into my mind. And I laughed! He panicked … I tried to control myself … but I couldn’t. It just got worse … but luckily,” she pauses, “or unluckily, my thoughts suddenly took a different turn …” She pauses again. “I thought of you … and suddenly stopped laughing. Otherwise it could have been a disaster … one mustn’t hurt young men … mustn’t take the piss out of their thing … They associate their virility with a long, hard dick, with how long they can hold back, but …” She bypasses that thought. Her cheeks are all red. She takes a deep breath. “Anyway, it’s over … but that was a narrow escape … again.”
She finishes her lunch.
After taking her pan back to the kitchen, she returns and stretches out on the mattress. Hides her eyes in the crook of her arm and lets a long, thoughtful moment of silence go by before confessing some more: “So yes, that boy made me think of you again. And once again I can confirm that he’s just as clumsy as you. Except that he’s a beginner, and a quick learner! Whereas you never changed. At least with him I can tell him what to do and how to do it. If I’d asked all that of you … my God! I’d have gotten a broken nose! And yet it’s not difficult … you just have to listen to your body. But you never listened to it. You guys listen to your souls, and nothing else.” She sits up and shouts fiercely at the green curtain: “And look where your soul has got you! You’re a living corpse!” She moves closer to the hiding place: “It’s your blasted soul that’s pinning you to the ground, my sang-e saboor!” She takes a deep breath: “And it’s not your stupid soul that’s protecting me now, that’s for sure. It’s not your soul that’s feeding the kids.” She pulls the curtain aside. “Do you know the state of your soul right now? Where it is? It’s right there, hanging above you.” She gestures at the drip bag. “Yes, it’s there, in that sugar-salt solution, and nowhere else.” She puffs out her chest: “My soul feeds my honor; my honor protects my soul. Bullshit! Look, your honor has been screwed by a sixteen-year-old kid! Your honor is screwing your soul!” She grabs his hand, lifts it up. “Now, it’s your body’s turn to judge you,” she says. “It is judging your soul. That’s why you’re not in physical pain. Because it’s your soul that’s suffering. That suspended soul, which sees everything, and hears everything, and cannot react at all, because it no longer controls your body.” She lets go of the hand and it falls back onto the mattress with a thud. A stifled laugh pushes her toward the wall. She doesn’t move. “Your honor is nothing more than a piece of meat now! You used to use that word yourself. When you wanted me to cover up, you’d shout, Hide your meat! I was a piece of meat, into which you could stuff your dirty dick. Just to rip it apart, to make it bleed!” She falls silent, out of breath.
Then suddenly she stands up. Leaves the room. She can be heard pacing up and down the passage, saying, “What’s the matter with me now? What am I saying? Why? Why? It’s not normal, not normal at all …” She comes back in. “This isn’t me. No, it isn’t me talking … it’s someone else, talking through me … with my tongue. Someone has entered my body … I am possessed. I really do have a demon inside me. It’s she who’s speaking. She who makes love with that boy … she who takes his trembling hand and puts it on my breasts, on my belly, between my thighs … all of that is her! Not me! I need to get rid of her! I should go and seek counsel from the hakim, or the mullah, and tell them everything. So they can drive away this demon lurking inside me! … My father was right. That cat has come to haunt me. It was the cat that made me open the door to the quail’s cage. I am possessed, and have been for years!” She flings herself into the man’s hiding place, sobbing. “This is not me talking! … I am under the demon’s spell … this isn’t me … where is the Koran?” Panicked. “The demon has even stolen the Koran! The demon did it! … And the damned feather … she took that too.”
She rummages around under the mattresses. Finds the black prayer beads. “Allah, you’re the only one who can banish this demon, Al-Mu’akhkhir, Al-Mu’akhkhir …” She tells the prayer beads, “Al-Mu’akhkhir …,” picks up her veil, “Al-Mu’akhkhir …,” leaves the room, “Al-Mu’akhkhir …,” leaves the house, “Al-Mu’akhkhir …”
She can no longer be heard.
She does not return.
As twilight falls, somebody walks into the courtyard and knocks on the door to the passage. No one replies; no one opens. But, this time, the intruder seems to stay in the garden. The sound of cracking wood, and of stones being bashed together, floods through the walls of the house. He must be taking something. Or destroying. Or building. The woman will find out tomorrow, when she returns along with the first rays of sunlight shining through the holes in the yellow a
nd blue sky of the curtains.
Night falls.
The garden goes dark. The intruder goes off.
Day breaks. The woman returns.
Very pale, she opens the door to the room and pauses a moment to check for the slightest sign of a visit. Nothing. Distraught, she walks into the room and up to the green curtain. Pulls it slowly aside. The man is still there. Eyes open. The same rhythm to his breathing. The drip bag is half empty. The drops are falling, as before, to the rhythm of the breath, or of the black prayer beads passing through the woman’s fingers.
She lets herself fall onto the mattress. “Did somebody repair the door onto the street?” She is asking the walls. In vain. As always.
She picks herself up, walks out of the room, and, still bewildered, checks the other rooms, and the cellar. She comes back up the stairs. Into the room. Confounded. “But no one has been here!” She collapses onto the mattress, in the grip of a growing weariness.
No more words.
No more movement, except the telling of the prayer beads. Three cycles. Two hundred and ninety-seven beads. Two hundred and ninety-seven breaths. No mention of any of the names of God.
Before embarking on a fourth cycle, she suddenly starts talking. “This morning, my father came to see me again … but this time to accuse me of having stolen the peacock feather he used as a bookmark in his Koran. I was horrified. He was furious. I was scared.” The fear is still visible in her gaze as it seeks shelter in the corners of the room. “But that was a long time ago …” Her body sways. Her voice becomes definite: “It was a long time ago that I stole it.” She stands up suddenly. “I’m raving!” she murmurs to herself, calmly at first, then fast, nervously. “I’m raving. I’ve got to calm down. Got to stop talking.” She can’t stay in one place. Keeps moving around, chewing on her thumb. Her eyes dart around frenetically. “Yes, that fucking business with the feather … that’s what it is. That’s what is driving me crazy. That bloody peacock feather! It was only a dream, to start with. Yes, a dream, but such a strange one. That dream haunted me every night when I was pregnant with my first child … I had the same nightmare every night. I saw myself giving birth to a boy, a boy who had teeth and could already speak … He looked just like my grandfather … That dream terrorized me, it tortured me … The child used to tell me that he knew one of my biggest secrets.” She stops moving. “Yes, one of my biggest secrets! And if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he would tell that secret to everyone. The first night, he asked for my breasts. I didn’t want to give them to him because of his teeth … so he started screaming.” She covers her ears with trembling hands. “I can still hear his screams today. And he began to tell the start of my secret. I ended up capitulating. I gave him my breasts. He was sucking, and biting on them with his teeth … I was crying out … I was sobbing in my sleep …”
She stands by the window, with her back to her man. “You must remember. Because you kicked me out of bed that night too. I spent it in the kitchen.” She sits at the foot of the curtains patterned with migrating birds. “Another night, I dreamt of the boy again … This time, he was asking me to bring him my father’s peacock feather … but …” Someone knocks at the door. The woman emerges from her dreams, from her secrets, to lift up the curtain. It’s the young boy again. “No, not today!” the woman says firmly. “I am …” The boy interrupts her with his jerky words: “I … m-m-mended th-the d-d-door.” The woman’s body relaxes. “Oh, so it was you! Thank you.” The boy is waiting for her to invite him in. She doesn’t say anything. “C-c-can … c-c-can I …” “I told you, not today …” the woman says wearily. The boy comes closer. “N-n-not … n-n-not to …” The woman shakes her head and adds, “I’m waiting for someone else …” The boy takes another step closer. “I … I d-d-don’t w-w-want …” The woman cuts him off, impatient: “You’re a sweet boy, but I’ve got to work, you know …” The boy tries hard to speak quickly, but his stammer just gets worse: “N-n-not … n-n-not … w-w-wo … rk!” He gives up. Moves away to sit at the foot of a wall, sulking like a hurt young child. Helpless, the woman leaves the room so that she can speak to him from the doorway at the end of the passage. “Listen! Come this afternoon, or tomorrow … but not now …” Calmer now, the boy tries again: “I … want t-t-to … s-s-speak … t-t-to you …” In the end, the woman gives in.
They go inside and ensconce themselves in one of the rooms.
Their whispers are the only voices echoing through and underlining the gloomy atmosphere engulfing the house, the garden, the street, and even the city …
At a certain point, the whispering stops and a long silence ensues. Then suddenly, the violent slamming of a door. And the boy’s sobs departing down the passage, across the courtyard, and finally fading into the street. Then the woman’s furious footsteps as she marches into the room yelling, “Son of a bitch! Bastard!” She stomps around the room several times before sitting down. Very pale. “To think that son of a bitch dared spit in my face when I told him I was a whore!” she continues with rage. She stands up. Voice and body stiff with contempt. Walks toward the green curtain. “You know that guy who came here the other day with that poor boy, and called me every name under the sun? Well, guess what he does himself?” She kneels down in front of the curtain. “He keeps that poor little boy for his own pleasure! He kidnapped him when he was still a small child. An orphan, left to cope on his own on the streets. Kidnapped him and put a Kalashnikov in his hands, and bells on his feet in the evenings. He makes him dance. Son of a bitch!” She withdraws to the foot of the wall. Takes a few deep breaths of this air heavy with the smell of gunpowder and smoke. “The boy’s body is black and blue! He has burn scars all over—on his thighs, his buttocks … It’s an outrage! That guy burns him with the barrel of his gun!” Her tears tumble onto her cheeks, flow down the lines that surround her lips when she cries, and stream over her chin, down her neck and onto her chest, the source of her howls. “The wretches! The scoundrels!”
She leaves.
Without saying anything.
Without looking at anything.
Without touching anything.
She doesn’t come back until the next day.
Nothing new.
The man—her man—is still breathing.
She refreshes the drip.
Administers the eyedrops: one, two; one, two.
And that’s all.
She sits down cross-legged on the mattress. Takes a piece of fabric, two small blouses, and a sewing kit out of a plastic bag. Rummages in the kit for a pair of scissors. Cuts up bits of fabric to patch the blouses.
From time to time, she glances surreptitiously at the green curtain, but more often her eyes turn anxiously toward the curtains with the pattern of migrating birds, which have been pulled open a crack to make the courtyard visible. The slightest noise draws her attention. She looks up to check whether or not someone is arriving.
And no, nobody comes.
As every day at noon, the mullah makes the call to prayer. Today, he preaches the revelation: “Recite in the name of your Lord who created, created man from clots of blood. Recite! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, who by the pen taught man what he did not know. My brothers, these are the first verses of the Koran, the first revelation given to the Prophet by the angel Gabriel …” The woman pauses and listens carefully to the rest: “… at the time Allah’s messenger withdrew to meditate and pray in the cave of Learning, deep in the mountain of Light, our Prophet was unable to read or to write. But with the aid of these verses, he learned! Our Lord has this to say about his messenger: He has revealed to you the Book with the Truth, confirming the scriptures which preceded it; for He has already revealed the Torah and the Gospel for the guidance of mankind …” The woman goes back to her sewing. The mullah continues: “Muhammad is no more than an apostle; other apostles have passed away before him …” Once again, the woman stops her patching and concentrates on the words of the Koran: “Muhammad, our prophet, says this, I hav
e not the power to acquire benefits or to avert evil from myself, except by the will of God. Had I possessed knowledge of what is hidden, I would have availed myself of much that is good and no harm would have touched me…” The woman doesn’t hear the rest. Her gaze wanders among the folds of the blouses. After a long moment, she lifts her head and says dreamily, “I have heard those words before, from your father. He always used to recite that passage to me, it amused him hugely. His eyes would shine with mischief. His beard would tremble. And his voice would flood that sweaty little room. He would tell me this: One day, after meditating, Muhammad, peace be upon him, leaves the mountain and goes to his wife Khadija to tell her, ‘Khadija, I am about to lose my mind.’ ‘But why?’ his wife asks. And he replies, ‘Because I observe in myself the symptoms of the insane. When I walk down the street I hear voices emanating from every stone, every wall. And during the night, a massive being appears to me. He is tall. So tall. He stands on the ground but his head touches the sky. I do not know him. And each time, he comes toward me as if to grab me.’ Khadija comforts him, and asks him to tell her the next time the being appears. One day, in the house with Khadija, Muhammad cries, ‘Khadija, the being has appeared. I can see him!’ Khadija comes to him, sits down, clasps him to her breast and asks, ‘Do you see him now?’ Muhammad says, ‘Yes, I see him still.’ So Khadija uncovers her head and her hair and asks again, ‘Do you see him now?’ Muhammad replies, ‘No, Khadija, I don’t see him anymore.’ And his wife tells him, ‘Be happy, Muhammad, this is not a giant djinn, a diw, it’s an angel. If it was a diw, it would not have shown the slightest respect for my hair and so would not have disappeared.’ And to this, your father added that the story revealed Khadija’s mission: to show Muhammad the meaning of his prophecy, to disenchant him, tear him from the illusion of devilish ghosts and shams … She herself should have been the messenger, the Prophet.”