A Curse on Dostoevsky

by Atiq Rahimi

  That’s too much! Where do you think you’re going, you infidel? You’ve no right to that money, or those jewels. They belong to Rassoul. Stop right there!

  The woman speeds up and disappears down a lane. Rassoul ignores the pain in his ankle to rush after her. He catches up with her by an unlit entrance to a building, where he is suddenly stopped in his tracks by running footsteps and the cries of teenagers. Again, he tries to hide by flattening himself against the wall. Despite her haste, the woman also stands aside to let them pass. Rassoul’s eyes meet hers through the gauze of her chador as he bends to rub his sore ankle. Then she is off again, in the teenagers’ wake, even more hurried and distressed than before.

  Rassoul resumes his pursuit, limping and out of breath. At a crossroads the woman takes a new, wider, busier street. Rassoul stops dead, horrified by the dozens of women in blue chadors walking briskly along the road. Which one to follow?

  He pushes desperately through the mass of veiled faces, searching for the slightest clue—a bloodstained hem, a box hidden under one arm, a suspicious haste—but there is nothing. He feels suddenly dizzy, and has to make an effort not to pass out. Once again, he is terribly nauseous. Sweating, he moves into the shade of a wall and doubles up to vomit more yellowish bile.

  Feet pass in front of his dazed eyes. He is exhausted, becoming less and less aware of the surrounding noise. Everything goes quiet: the coming and going of the people, their talk, the cries of the street hawkers, the beeping of the cars, the traffic …

  The woman has disappeared. Lost among all the others, faceless.

  But how could she have run off, leaving Nana Alia—surely one of her relatives—in such a state? All she did was scream. She didn’t even call for help. How cunningly she must have assessed the situation, made a decision, and gone off with the loot. Without even committing murder. The bitch!

  Without committing murder, perhaps, but she is a traitor. She has betrayed her own family. Betrayal is worse than murder.

  This isn’t the moment to work up a theory, Rassoul. Look, someone is trying to give you money, fifty afghanis.

  Who does he think I am?

  A beggar. Squatting wretchedly on the pavement in your dirty, ragged clothes, unshaven, with your sunken eyes and filthy hair, you look more like a beggar than a murderer. A beggar who won’t even take what’s given.

  The man can’t believe it. He insists, shaking the note in front of Rassoul’s distraught eyes. Nothing. So he shoves the note into Rassoul’s bony fist and walks away. Rassoul looks down at the money.

  The booty from your murder!

  A bitter smile plays on his bloodless lips. He closes his fist and is about to stand when a terrifying blast of noise glues him to the spot.

  A rocket explodes.

  The earth shakes.

  People throw themselves to the ground; others run around screaming.

  A second rocket, closer and more terrifying. Rassoul joins those on the ground. All around him is chaos and noise. A great fire is giving off black smoke that spreads through this entire central Kabul neighborhood at the foot of the Asmai mountain.

  Some minutes later a few heads, looking like dusty mushrooms, begin to poke up in the oppressive silence. Shouts ring out:

  “They hit the petrol station!”

  “No, it was the Ministry of Education.”

  “No, the petrol station …”

  Just to the right of Rassoul, a prostrate old man is desperately searching for something on the ground while grumbling into his beard: “Fuck you and your petrol pump, and your ministry … Where are my teeth? Dear God, what’s the matter with these marauders of Gog and Magog? My teeth …” He rummages around in the earth beneath him. “Have you seen my false teeth?” he asks Rassoul, who is staring at him curiously, wondering if he has lost his mind. “They fell out of my mouth. I’ve lost them …”

  “Come on, baba, is a set of false teeth really so important in these times of war and starvation?” sniggers a bearded man lying nearby.

  “Why ever not?” retorts the old man haughtily, indignant at such a thought.

  “What vanity!” snorts the bearded man, standing up and brushing himself off. He walks away with his hands in his pockets, watched suspiciously by the old man, who mutters, “Kos-madar, that son of a bitch stole my teeth … I’m sure of it.” He turns back to Rassoul. “I had five gold teeth in that set. Five!” With a quick glance at the bearded man, he continues in a regretful voice, “My wife was always nagging me to sell them to cover the household costs. I pawned them more than once. Every time my son sent a bit of money from overseas, I would get them back. I only retrieved them from the pawnbroker today at lunchtime. What a shitty day!” He stands up and slips into the crowd, searching for the man, perhaps.

  Rassoul appreciated the bearded man’s irony, not out of cynicism but because he hates gold false teeth, an external manifestation of greed in all its ugliness. Nana Alia had two herself. If he had had time, he wouldn’t have minded pulling them out!

  He had had the time, but not the wits; otherwise he wouldn’t be here, wretched, with this fifty-afghani note in his hand.

  He stands up among the people who are once again bustling about, running here and there, doing their best to get on with things while covering their mouths and noses so as not to suffocate in the dust and smoke. Most of them are heading toward the blaze. The flames are burning higher and higher. Rassoul approaches too. The burning corpses make him step back, but then a man shouts to him through the smoke for help. He is trying to carry an injured girl on his back. “I’m all alone. This poor young girl is still alive.” Rassoul goes to help, takes the girl in his arms and carries her away from the flames before handing her back. “We need to get out of here. The tank is about to explode!” shouts the man, spreading a gust of panic among all those trying to put out the flames.

  Rassoul resumes his journey toward the mountain. He stares wearily at the dark, narrow lanes that weave up the slopes, forming a veritable labyrinth, a sprawl of about a thousand houses, all made of earth, built right on top of each other all the way up to the top of the mountain that divides the city of Kabul geographically, politically, and morally, in both its dreams and its nightmares. It looks like a belly about to burst.

  From below, he can see the roof of Nana Alia’s house. A big house with green walls and white windows.

  Now that the woman has left, he can go back, just to have a look around, that’s all.

  He makes his painful way back up the steep street. He has just reached a building entrance when three armed and raging men burst out of a small side alley. Rassoul bends down to hide his face, so he can only hear their shouts.

  “The bastards, now they’re blowing up our petrol station …”

  “Two rockets! Well, we’ll hit their station with eight. Their neighborhood will be destroyed, it’ll be running with blood!”

  They disappear.

  Rassoul continues on his way. Before reaching his victim’s street he pauses for a moment. His legs are trembling. He is breathing hard. Along with the petrol and explosives, there is a smell of rotting. The air has become even heavier and harder to breathe. There is also another smell: flesh, burnt flesh. Horrific. Rassoul blocks his nose, and takes a step. The second step is hesitant, interrupted by an image of Nana Alia’s corpse surging into his disordered mind. There’s no way he can go back and look at the corpse he killed with his own hands—these hands that are fluttering, trembling, sweating. Everything must be abandoned. Everything.

  He turns on his heel. But a morbid, almost pathological curiosity stops him again. There must be police in the house, relatives, neighbors, tears, wailing …

  Certain of what he will see, he approaches once more. Even closer. Still nothing. He walks cautiously into the smoky silence of the street, and up to the house. Not a soul. Except that idle dog who no longer even stands up to bark.

  Stunned, Rassoul walks up to the front gate. It is shut. He pushes but it won’t op
en. Someone must have locked it from the inside. But then why is everything so quiet, so still?

  It doesn’t bode well.

  Go home, Rassoul!

  HE DOESN’T go home. He wanders the city. He’s been walking for almost three hours now. Not rushing. Not bothered by his injured ankle, which has already been forgotten. He stops only when he reaches the banks of the Kabul River. The smell of sludge, the fetid stink rising from the riverbed in this late summer, brings him back to himself. As he pauses, the pain returns and stops him from wandering any further. He grabs the guardrail and rubs his ankle.

  The air is becoming more and more impossible to breathe. Rassoul coughs. A tickly, noiseless cough.

  His throat is dry.

  His voice makes no cry.

  Not a drop of hope in his mouth, the river, or the sky.

  Obscured by a veil of dust and smoke, the old sun goes sadly off to sleep behind the mountains … the sun, going to sleep? What an absurd metaphor! The sun never goes to sleep. It travels to the other side of the earth, to shine on happier lands. Take me with you, Rassoul hears himself cry, deep inside. He screws up his eyes, stares at the sun, takes a few steps, and then stops. Shading his eyes with his hand, he looks around anxiously as if to check whether anyone has noticed his silent insanity. Don’t worry, dear Rassoul, the world has more important things on its mind than watching a poor madman!

  Go back home. And sleep!

  Sleep? Is that possible?

  Of course. You’re going to do just what Raskolnikov did—after murdering the moneylender he went back home and fell into a feverish sleep on his couch. You don’t have a couch, I know, but you do have a filthy mattress, waiting compassionately for you on the floor.

  And then?

  Nothing. You sleep.

  No, I faint.

  OK then, faint, if you prefer—it doesn’t matter, as long as you do it till morning. When you wake up tomorrow, you will realize that this was all a bad dream.

  No way, I can’t just forget it all like that.

  You can. Look, you’re not carrying anything to remind you of the murder. No money, no jewels, no ax, no …

  Blood!

  He stops suddenly. Checks his hands in a panic. Nothing. His sleeves: nothing. His jacket: nothing. But then, on the hem of his shirt, a great stain! Why there? No, it isn’t Nana Alia’s blood. It’s the blood of that young girl you saved.

  The uncertainty disturbs him. He reexamines himself. No other trace of blood. No trace of the murder. How can that be possible?

  You probably didn’t do it. It was all in your wretched imagination. Your naive identification with a fictional character. Just something stupid like that! Now you can quietly go home. You can even forget that yesterday you promised your fiancée, Sophia, that you’d spend this evening with her. You can’t see anyone in this state.

  Yes, I won’t go. But I’m hungry.

  Well, you’ve got fifty afghanis, so you can buy yourself some bread and fruit. It’s been several days since you’ve eaten.

  And so his empty belly draws him to Joy Shir Square. The bakery is closed. An old stallholder is shutting up at the other end of the square. After a moment’s hesitation Rassoul starts making his way over to him. He has barely taken three steps when a cry stops him in his tracks. “No, no, don’t buy anything!” A veiled woman bursts out of one of the lanes, running and shouting like a maniac. “… It’s flesh … the flesh of …” In the middle of the square she stops suddenly, surprised to find it so empty and quiet. She flops to the ground, moaning: “The flesh of young girls … the day before yesterday they were handing it out at the mausoleum …” Only Rassoul is there, so she spills her tears on him: “I’m not lying, brother, I swear to you. I saw …,” she drags herself over, “… the offering they gave me,” she lowers her voice, “… was a young girl’s breasts!”, she takes her hand out of her chador—“I swear to you, brother … it was the same men who were giving out offerings here today …”—she pulls off her veil—“the same men … the other day … outside the mausoleum …”; then finally, she is quiet. Wiping her tears with a corner of her chador, she asks weakly, “Brother, do you have any money? I’ve three children to feed.”

  Without a word, Rassoul pulls out the fifty-afghani note and hands it to her. She throws herself at his feet. “Thank you, my brother … may Allah have mercy on you!”

  He walks away, weary of the woman’s shouting but proud in his soul.

  What a gesture! As if it were that easy to redeem yourself.

  No. I am in no way attempting to redeem myself.

  So why this act of charity? You’re not telling me it was a matter of compassion? No one will believe that. It was simply to convince yourself that you have a good heart, in spite of everything. You may be capable of killing a loathsome creature but you can stop a poor family from dying of hunger. Intention is what counts …

  Yes! That is what counts for me …

  He stubs his foot on a large stone. The pain in his ankle makes him grimace. He stops, for a moment. Not just walking, but also going over Raskolnikov’s words in his head. Praise be to God (or the stone)!

  It isn’t far to the house where he lives. He can walk there, slowly and gently.

  When he reaches the gate he pauses for a moment, checking one last time—as well as he can in the fading light of dusk—for any more traces of blood. The same stain remains; a stain that could be either proof of a murder or testament to virtue.

  He takes a deep breath before entering the courtyard, which rings with the cries of the landlord’s two daughters, swinging on a rope attached to a branch of the single, dead tree. Rassoul creeps over to the other side of the courtyard, to the stairs that lead up to his little room. Just as he reaches the top step, the girls cry out:

  “Salam, Kaka Rassoul!”

  As he opens the door another voice, harsh and threatening, prevents him from going in. “Hey, Rassoul, how long do you think you can keep running off?” It is his landlord, Yarmohamad. Rassoul turns, silently cursing the daughters. Yarmohamad is standing by his window in his prayer cap. “So where’s my rent? Huh?”

  Annoyed, Rassoul limps painfully back down the stairs, and stands under the window to tell Yarmohamad that he has tried to get his money back, as he promised he would yesterday. But it hasn’t worked out—the woman who owed it to him has disappeared. He’s been looking for her all day …

  But he feels a strange emptiness in his throat. No sound comes out. He coughs. A dry, empty cough. Noiseless, without substance. He takes a deep breath and coughs again. Nothing. He anxiously tries to cry out, a simple cry, anything will do. But still nothing emerges, just a pathetic stifled breath.

  What’s the matter with me?

  “Well?” asks Yarmohamad crossly.

  Why won’t he just wait! Something serious is happening. Rassoul has lost his voice.

  He tries again, taking another deep breath of air, collecting all his strength in his chest to push the words out of his lips. Nothing.

  “So did you find this person who owes you money?” asks Yarmohamad sarcastically. “Give me her name, then! You’ll have your cash by tomorrow. Come on, give me her name …”

  If you knew, Yarmohamad, you’d never dare talk to Rassoul like that. He has killed her. And he’ll kill you, too, if you upset him. Look at all the blood on him!

  Rassoul smoothes down his bloodstained shirt, putting a stop to Yarmohamad’s tirade. The landlord withdraws nervously into his room, still grumbling, “What bullshit! Always the same lies …” Let him grumble, Rassoul. You know the rest: he’ll come back to the window to tell you once more that the only reason he’s put up with you for two years is out of respect for your cousin Razmodin; that if it weren’t for Razmodin, he’d already have thrown you out; that this is it, he no longer gives a shit about you, or about your cousin, etc.

  Turn a deaf ear, and go into your room. Don’t look around to see if his wife Rona is there.

  She is there, of co
urse, behind another window. Watching Rassoul with a sorry expression on her face, as if trying to find an excuse for him. She loves him. Rassoul is suspicious of her. It’s not that he doesn’t find her attractive. He often thinks of her as he masturbates. It’s just that he doesn’t yet know exactly what she feels for him—passion, or compassion. If it’s compassion then he hates her. And if it’s passion, that will cause even more problems in his relationship with Yarmohamad. So what’s the point of even thinking about it? Better to go to his room. Better to rest, so he can get his breath back, and his voice.

  THE DRY creaking of the door disturbs a whole army of flies, who had entered in the hope of finding something to eat. There is nothing here. Just scattered books, a filthy mattress, a few shapeless garments hanging from hooks on the wall, and a clay jug in the corner. That’s all.

  Rassoul picks his way in, kicking aside the books lying around his mattress. He collapses on the bed without taking off his shoes. He needs a moment’s respite.

  He closes his eyes. Takes slow, gentle, regular breaths.

  His tongue is nothing but a piece of old wood.

  He stands up.

  Drinks.

  Lies back down.

  His throat is still dry and void, void of sound.

  He takes a deep breath, and puffs it out nervously.

  Still not the slightest sound.

  In a fit of anguish, he sits up and thumps himself on the chest. Nothing. He hits again, harder.

  Calm down! There’s no need to worry. It’s just a throat bug, or some kind of chest infection. That’s all. You need to sleep. If it’s still there in the morning, you can go and see a doctor.