A Curse on Dostoevsky

by Atiq Rahimi

  “In our regiment there was a mujahideen by the name of Shirdel. A brave man and a good Muslim, but with a soft spot for the boys! So we nicknamed him Kirdel—lover of cock.” At this, everybody fell about laughing. “When our troop silently and carefully attacked the weapons depot, our bradar Shirdel came across a young Russian soldier taking a shit!” Their loud laughter silences everyone in the tearoom. They start listening, too. Jano is laughing so hard there are tears streaming down his face. Momène continues: “Imagine our Shirdel in such a situation! His heart was beating a hundred miles an hour; he didn’t know what to do; he was trembling with fear that a mujahideen would shoot this dreamy creature with the smooth white buttocks! Anyway, he captured him and, once the operation had been carried out successfully, took him to Commandant Nawroz, who ordered that he be given to Commandant Parwaiz. But who was he telling! Shirdel immediately handcuffed himself to the pretty boy and swallowed the key!”

  They all roar with laughter. Rassoul does too, but deep inside. When the laughter quiets down, Jano continues: “Commandant Parwaiz took them both. He talked to Shirdel at great length, but he wouldn’t listen. He had changed. It was all over for him—jihad, prayer … They walked around together from morning till night, hand in hand. Shirdel sang for him, taught him our language … And then one night, they disappeared.” He turns to Momène. “You never saw them again?”

  “No, never,” replies Momène, wiping away his tears. “What a time!”

  “Exactly, what a time! We may not have seen eye to eye, but against the Russians we were united!”

  “We were!”

  “And now look, these days we’re fighting each other. Why?”

  “Ask Commandant Nawroz!”

  “And you, ask your Commandant Parwaiz!”

  The laughter stops.

  A silent hatred invades the chai-khana.

  Rassoul stands up, gestures quietly at Jano—who waves goodbye—and makes a speedy exit.

  He has barely reached the end of the road when he is startled by two gunshots, fired not far behind.

  In the chai-khana?

  Perhaps.

  He stops, turns around.

  Let them kill each other!

  He continues on his way to Sophia’s house.

  HE KNOCKS at the gate and waits. The fearful voice of Sophia’s mother: “Who is it?” Hearing no response, she repeats her question. “It’s Rassoul!” cries Sophia’s brother, Dawoud, who is perched on the roof of the house.

  The mother opens the gate, sees Rassoul’s cut face, and shivers. “What happened to you?” Nothing, I just cut myself shaving, that’s all, he would have liked to reply, not bothering to elaborate on the blade of destiny. But he just mimes what happened and comes inside, as the mother complains: “You were supposed to come yesterday evening. I didn’t get a wink of sleep.” He nods as if to say that he knows. Too bad if he can’t apologize.

  The mother peers into the empty lane for someone else and, stunned to see Rassoul alone, demands: “Where is Sophia?”—Didn’t she come home? Rassoul asks with his eyes. “Isn’t she with you?” No. Rassoul’s shaking head makes her still more anxious. She glances into the lane, then turns back toward him, leaving the gate open in the hope her daughter will suddenly appear. “She wanted you to go with her to Nana Alia’s, to do her books …” To Nana Alia’s! He leans against the wall to stop himself staggering. “She told me that you’d asked her to break ties with the old woman. Then two days ago, her daughter Nazigol came here to tell me that if Sophia no longer wanted to work for her, she would first have to pay the outstanding rent. We waited for you all yesterday, to discuss it. When you didn’t come, she went, but …” She too went there yesterday? “… Nana Alia wasn’t there.” She wasn’t there? What about her body? “Sophia wanted to go back today. I asked her to take you with her.” Take me? “Weren’t you at home?”

  I was. So why didn’t she say anything? Look at the state you’re in, Rassoul. No one would dare ask you for anything these days. Your unexplained and incomprehensible silence gives the impression that everyone upsets you.

  “I worry so much for Sophia, Rassoul. Take care of her. Don’t leave us like this, all alone and without news of you. In these times, young girls are disappearing. The warlords raid the city to take them for their wives.” Her voice is broken by a sob. But Rassoul is no longer listening. His legs wobble. It seems as if the floor is giving way, collapsing beneath his feet. He leans on the wall and lets himself slide to the ground. The mother continues: “And that blasted Nana Alia is worse than the warlords. I’m afraid she will hurt Sophia.” She sits down facing Rassoul. “My late husband placed us in your hands; aside from you we have no one. And you …”

  But he is walled in by silence, gripped by the continuing mystery surrounding the murder of blasted Nana Alia, lost in his suspicions about the woman in the sky-blue chador who, in his fantasies, can only be Sophia. He must find her!

  He stands up and leaves. On the way,

  He catches no eye,

  Hears no voice,

  Smells no aroma,

  Feels no pain.

  He runs.

  Runs as if his ankle no longer hurt.

  But his foot has not forgotten. It twists, and stops him in his tracks. Stops him not far from Nana Alia’s house, on the corner of her street, where the same black dog is still lying in the shadow of the wall. This time, the idle dog is more alert and stands up, rushes at him, chases him away. Rassoul cannot enter that house as if nothing had happened there.

  Nothing did happen. Look! Listen! This silence, this stillness gives no indication of mourning.

  So, perhaps the stroke of the ax was not fatal. She escaped alive. She must be in the hospital by now. She can’t be conscious yet, or I would be behind bars.

  He is sweating, the sweat of fear. He must leave this place, return to Sophia’s house and wait for her there. But his legs are heavy, bogged down in the ground, as if they want him to stay here and settle this.

  Yes, it must be settled.

  Sooner or later, Nana Alia will tell.

  Sooner or later, you will pay.

  So why not today, right here and now, at the scene of the crime?

  He walks up to the half-open gate, pushes it gently, and peers into the courtyard. The house is completely calm and quiet. Just a few hens pecking and clucking. He walks up to the house and to the terrace steps. The air is heavy, the silence dense, his footsteps uncertain. He stops to peek through the windows. Not a soul behind the curtains. He is trembling with curiosity and fear. Sweat hangs on his forehead, and he has to hold on to the wall to make it up the steps. On reaching the terrace he jumps—a silhouette has appeared, finally, in the darkness of the corridor. “Rassoul? Is that you?” asks Sophia’s voice. Rassoul panics and tries to speak, forgetting his muteness; his lips move in vain to explain that he has come to find her, that her mother is very worried. It makes Sophia laugh. “What’s the matter with you? I couldn’t hear a word,” she says, moving closer. Rassoul freezes as he sees another silhouette emerge from the corridor behind Sophia. It is Nazigol.

  “Nana Alia disappeared yesterday. No one knows where she is …” exclaims Sophia.

  Rassoul stares at Nazigol, not knowing what to do, or think, or say. Nana Alia is no longer here. That’s the only thing they know. How should he receive this news? Should he be glad? Or suspicious?

  Nazigol takes a step closer. “When I came yesterday evening, no one was in. My mother never goes out without leaving someone here, especially in the evening.” Rassoul stares at the two girls, increasingly stunned and increasingly secretive.

  Nazigol turns to Sophia. “When I found the house empty, I was afraid to stay here alone. I closed all the doors and left …” Her voice tapers off. All sound fades. Rassoul can no longer hear anything, or see anything. There is just a hole, a black hole, the corridor, silent and morbid, a deep, endless abyss with no way out.

  He staggers dumbly into the house, and Nana Alia
’s fat body appears on the stairs at the end of the corridor. He says hello. She asks him what he wants. The smoke from her cigarette, caught in a ray of light, obscures her face. Rassoul walks along the passage and holds out a watch that he promised her the other day. She says she has no more money to pawn it. He begs her, swearing that he will only leave it for a day or two. It is a precious watch, full of jewel bearings. He bought it in Leningrad. He only wants two thousand afghanis. Nana Alia takes a step back, suspicious. She can’t understand why Rassoul is wearing a patou in this heat. She asks him. He says that he is ill, feverish. She takes the watch and looks at it. The hands say nine minutes past six—it doesn’t work.

  It does normally work, but the battery has died. Rassoul would have replaced it if he had the cash.

  Nonsense! This is an old wind-up watch. It doesn’t use batteries! She tries to give it back. He won’t take it. He begs her again, just two thousand afghanis. The watch contains twelve precious jewels. Look—it says so on the back.

  No, she doesn’t want it. Rassoul insists. The watch is Russian, an excellent brand. She can give him whatever she wants, damn it! But the old lady is increasingly suspicious of Rassoul, who is now trembling. He grabs her hand and puts it to his forehead so she can feel how feverish and exhausted he is. He hasn’t eaten for two days. She pulls back her hand, hesitates, then agrees to take the watch but on one condition: that he lets his fiancée return to work; otherwise, she will retrieve her money the very next day, and what’s more she will kick out his fiancée and her whole family. Rassoul agrees. As soon as he leaves here, he’ll go to Sophia and ask her to return to work.

  The old lady is about to go, but turns back to tell Rassoul something: from now on it will be she, and she alone, who decides what time Sophia leaves work. He nods.

  Then she instructs him to wait in the passage, and heads for the stairs. As soon as she’s upstairs Rassoul is on the move—stealthy, anxious and upset. The ax he has hidden beneath his patou is becoming more and more burdensome; his arms, weak; his legs, stiff. He struggles to climb the stairs, to reach the upstairs corridor where he sees Nana Alia opening a little door. After a short hesitation she enters the room and closes the door behind her. Rassoul staggers up to the door. He puts an ear to it and listens to the sound of cupboards being opened and shut. He takes a deep breath, kicks down the door and rushes at Nana Alia, who is counting a wad of notes by the window. The moment Rassoul lifts the ax to bring it down on the old woman’s head, the thought of Crime and Punishment flashes into his mind. It strikes him to the very core. His arms shake; his legs tremble. And the ax slips from his hands. It splits open the old woman’s head, and sinks into her skull. She collapses without a sound on the red and black rug. Her apple-blossom-patterned headscarf floats in the air, before landing on her large, flabby body. She convulses. Another breath; perhaps two. Her staring eyes fix on Rassoul standing in the middle of the room, not breathing, whiter than a corpse. His patou falls from his bony shoulders. His terrified gaze is lost in the pool of blood, blood that streams from the old woman’s skull, merges with the red of the rug, obscuring its black pattern, then trickles toward the woman’s fleshy hand, which still grips a wad of notes. The money will be bloodstained.

  Move, Rassoul, move!

  “RASSOUL?”

  He returns to his senses and turns, panic-stricken, toward the voice. Sophia and Nazigol are standing in the doorway, looking at him in shock. “What’s happening to you, Rassoul?” asks Sophia, taking a step toward him. He paces the room, distraught, peering anxiously into every nook and cranny. No trace of his crime.

  “Have you been in this room before?” asks Nazigol curiously. “My mother always used to lock it. No one apart from me and her were ever allowed to set foot in here.” She turns toward Sophia. “When did you last clean this room?”

  “Never. She always cleaned it herself.”

  Rassoul looks at the window he used to escape. It is closed. He is so shaken that he almost faints. Water! He turns toward Sophia, miming drink. “Yes, wait!” she says, murmuring to Nazigol as she runs out the door, “he’s very unwell just now.”

  Rassoul stares at Nana Alia’s daughter as she rummages through the cupboards. More and more curious, she wonders aloud: “Could she have taken all her jewelry with her?” Then she leaves the room to look next door. Sophia comes back with a glass of water and gives it to Rassoul. He drinks. Slowly, not so much for the refreshment as to give himself time to think before Nazigol returns.

  How to explain or justify entering the room?

  If you could, you’d say that a long time ago, when Nazigol’s father was still alive—for this must have been his room—you’d brought him documents from the National Archives belonging to Sophia’s father, etc.

  Come back, blasted voice!

  “Surely she didn’t take all her money with her?” wonders Nazigol, looking suspiciously at Rassoul and Sophia. After a moment’s heavy silence, Rassoul rushes into the corridor, followed by Sophia. “What’s the matter, Rassoul?” Nothing … nothing! He waves his hands about as he runs down the stairs. “What’s happening to you? Are you OK? You seem so strange,” she insists. He stops dead, thinking how to make her understand that he has no voice to tell her what’s going on. But Nazigol is following them, she’s there, behind Sophia, asking them: “What should I do? Where should I go? I don’t know if my mother will come back this evening or not.”

  “Come on, we’ll go to my house.”

  “No chance, Mother will curse me if she comes back and finds the house deserted. But where on earth has she gone? I’d better go to my uncle’s place, and find out if he knows anything …” She suddenly looks at Rassoul. “Can you stay here till I get back?”

  “OK. Go on, then …” replies Sophia, sending Rassoul into a panic. There’s no way he can stay here, no way! His eyes say no, confirmed by his hands. But Nazigol begs, and Sophia decides, saying “Go on, go!” and then to Rassoul, “Let her go, that’s not nice.”

  And why are you resisting, Rassoul? Let her go. It will give you time to rummage through the house, and find a clue to help you solve the mystery.

  It is Nazigol who is the mystery. She is no innocent in all this. I’m sure of it.

  Let her go, then!

  Nazigol leaves.

  Sophia gazes at Rassoul lovingly, but his mind is elsewhere. He waits for Nazigol’s footsteps to fade away down the street. “Where are you going?” cries Sophia, following Rassoul back into the room. “What on earth are you doing?” Rassoul is searching the room. “Don’t rummage through their house. That’s not nice. If they come back …” He gestures at her to go downstairs. More and more upset, she remains at the door. “No, Rassoul, you’ve no right to do this. Tell me what you’re looking for!”

  You must respond, Rassoul. You can’t get out of this so easily. You’ve got to tell her everything.

  But how? This isn’t the time.

  She’s finding you more and more weird, abstruse …

  So much the better!

  What if it that woman in the sky-blue chador really was her?

  He stops scouring the room and glares suspiciously at Sophia for a long time, almost aggressively.

  “What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that? Why won’t you tell me anything?”

  Silence. Staring. Suspicions …

  She leaves the room, exasperated. He goes back to his rummaging—inside the cupboards, under the table, in the drawers, beneath the sofa … No trace of the things he left behind yesterday: no jewelry box, no money, no ax, no patou. Nothing. He sits on the rug and runs his hand over the spot where the corpse lay. It is clean and dry. Is this the same rug? Who could have arranged such quick, efficient cleaning? It all seems the work of a professional, not two young girls like Nazigol and Sophia!

  Disconcerted, he stands up and is about to leave the room when his gaze falls on a box on top of the wardrobe. He opens it, but finds only six packs of Marlboro cigarettes. He takes one a
nd returns the box. But what about the other five, who is he leaving them for? He takes the lot.

  As he passes the half-open door to the kitchen, he spots a plate of food on the table. He walks in, starving, picks up a big handful of sticky rice, and stuffs it into his mouth. It isn’t good. He spits it out on the plate. Then he carefully inspects the room. He still doesn’t find anything to give him any kind of clue as to what has happened. He grabs the matches that are on the table and leaves. He lights a cigarette, and takes a long drag. Outside, he finds Sophia sitting on the terrace steps, staring at the front gate. Still frightened and furious, she asks: “What’s going on? Why won’t you say anything?” Rassoul, waving at the air with his hands, tries to express how weary he is of the question. “Lost your tongue, have you?” Yes, he nods, knowing Sophia won’t take him seriously. “What were you looking for up there?” He exhales smoke in her direction. “Cigarettes?” He looks at her and sits down, preoccupied. A thousand questions run through his mind. What time did she come here, yesterday? Did she see anyone? It couldn’t have been before the murder; otherwise, Nana Alia would have told him she’d come.

  No, she can’t be the woman in the blue chador. If she was, she would never have agreed to stay in the house.

  But she didn’t stay to protect the house, or for your sake. She wanted to be alone with you. You’ve never had that opportunity—a lovers’ tête-à-tête! She has a thousand things to tell you. A thousand things she’d like to hear from you …