A Curse on Dostoevsky

by Atiq Rahimi

  Rassoul is about to leave when a woman approaches and says that if he needs to see the doctor urgently she will sell him her number for fifty afghanis. It is number ninety-six, tenth in the queue, “and you’ll see, it goes quick! Fifty afghanis would buy milk and medicine for my child.” Rassoul hesitates, then accepts and waits in the passage for his turn. As he waits he sees the woman sell three more numbers!

  As luck would have it, the doctor is very old, and can barely see! This means that despite his hugely thick glasses he has trouble writing out the prescriptions. He tells his patients to speak up. Distraught, Rassoul scribbles “I’ve lost my voice” on a prescription form and holds it out to the doctor, who yells at him to read out what he’s written, then suddenly understands. “Since when?” Three days, he indicates on his fingers. “What caused it?” Silence. “A physical trauma?”

  “…”

  “Emotional?” Yes, nods Rassoul, after a moment’s pause. “There’s nothing I can give you for that,” says the doctor maddeningly, drumming his fingers on piles of prewritten prescriptions for all kinds of complaints. “The only way to get your voice back is to relive the situation, the emotion. That’ll be one hundred afghanis for the consultation, please.” Then he calls out, “Next!” Before the next patient arrives, Rassoul pays with all the money he has left, and leaves the clinic in a rage to wander again through the unsettled city until nightfall. Then he goes home and sleeps. No nightmares.

  THE NIGHTMARE is his life. Grace is but a dream. That’s probably why he has no desire to open his eyes, to leave his bed, to greet the black sun, to smell the sulphur of war, to find his lost voice, or to think about the murder. He huddles deeper under his sheet. Eyes shut. Door shut. For a long time nothing drags him from this torpor. Not the flies flitting about his head; not the two rockets that land on Asmai; not the desperate footsteps of Razmodin as he climbs the stairs, waits behind the closed door, and goes away again; not the joyful cries of Yarmohamad’s children playing in the courtyard … As long as the sun doesn’t set, Rassoul doesn’t rise.

  But he does rise to the wicked woman in the sky-blue chador slipping slowly into his sleepy bed. Still veiled, she begins caressing Rassoul, who attempts to pull off her chador. She resists but Rassoul is stubborn. He tugs at the great expanse of fabric but it continues to slip through his fingers. The woman laughs. She holds out a casket. There is no jewelry inside, just a little ball, translucent and alive. “It’s your Adam’s apple,” she says. “Do you want it?”

  Rassoul throws the casket to the floor. He wants to see her face. He tries once more to pull off the chador; in vain. He finds himself enveloped too. He lacks the strength to rip the veil. He is suffocating.

  He struggles.

  Opens his eyes.

  The sheet is what’s suffocating him. The room is totally still, even the flies.

  With a great sigh he sits up, clambers out of bed and leaves the house, to lose himself once more in the fog of the city.

  He wanders until he finds himself at Joy Shir Square, where his pace is slowed by the smell of bread. He stops and waits for a charitable hand to give him some halwa. Among the crowd gathered in front of the bakery is a limping man using a too-big crutch. He looks like one of the two men who were with Sophia’s father at the saqi-khana.

  After buying his bread the man walks past Rassoul. There are poems engraved on the wooden crutch, as there were on the one belonging to Moharamollah. It’s the same crutch!

  So?

  So he must have snatched it while his friend was dying in the rubble. He didn’t have one, so he stole it to aid his escape. This crutch is too big for him. Dirty traitor!

  Rassoul follows him—first with his eyes, then with his feet.

  The man walks off down a busy lane with his crutch under one arm and the bread under the other. Halfway along, he stops to adjust the bread and notices Rassoul, who has stopped too. Disturbed by the intense eye contact the man sets off again and then takes a new lane, this one empty. Now he knows that Rassoul is following him. Frightened, he increases his pace. Rassoul does likewise, catching him up and blocking his way. The man clutches the bread under his arm, out of breath and terrified. “I’ve six mouths to feed and only one loaf of bread,” he begs.

  You see, Rassoul, the poor man has no idea who you are.

  No, he doesn’t. I shall introduce myself. I shall refresh his rotten memory.

  Why won’t he look at me!

  The limping man looks at him, terrorized, waiting for a shout, a slap, a knife, a pistol … but there is nothing except Rassoul’s raging, terrifying stare. “What do you want from me?” asks the man. “Who are you?” That is the question. Rassoul mouths the name MO-HA-RA-MOL-LAH. The man tries to follow his lips. “Mohammad? Oh, Kazeem’s son? I thought you’d been killed. How come you’re here?!” Now you’re mixing up the dead and the living. Look properly. My name is RA-SSOUUUULLLL, relative of MO-HA-RA-MOL-LAH.

  Rassoul grabs his arm, pulls him to the ground, and uses his finger to spell out Moharamollah’s name on the dirt road. “Which Moharamollah?” Rassoul points at the crutch, hoping the man will associate it with the name. Hopeless. The man still doesn’t understand what Rassoul wants from him. “You want my crutch?” No! “What do you want, then?” Rassoul points with his finger at the name on the ground. Panicking, the man reads it out again. “Are you Moharamollah? I don’t know you.” He stands up, and Rassoul follows. The man tries to step past him and continue home. Rassoul is quicker; he blocks the way, and stares into the man’s terrified face.

  Is it really him?

  No doubt whatsoever. I’m going to help him remember all the times he spent with Moharamollah in the smoking den, and the day a rocket set fire to it. The only way he’ll remember his betrayal is by re-experiencing the threat of death.

  Rassoul snatches at the crutch, which the man grips in terror as he begs: “In the name of Allah!” Rassoul pretends not to hear. He secures the crutch and goes to strike the man with it. “Save me from this madman, Allah!” cries the man as he falls to the ground, clutching his bread. Rassoul crouches down and writes in the dirt: “I am a traitor.” The man can barely make out the letters amid the pebbles and footprints. He forces himself to read. He is in such a state that he struggles to understand the meaning of the sentence, asking Rassoul: “You’re a traitor?” No, you! gestures Rassoul as he points to the man’s chest. “Me, a traitor! Why?” he exclaims. Rassoul brandishes the crutch above the horrified man as he stares at him in a fury. The man can barely breathe.

  “You stole this from him,” he writes next to the name Moharamollah. “I did not! That crutch is mine. I bought it. I swear to you …” But the crutch bashes his diseased leg, giving rise to a tortured scream. “Help!” Rassoul grabs him by the hair and holds his head to the ground so he will read aloud, “I am a traitor,” but the man doesn’t read, just yells even louder: “Help! Save me! Please help!” This time, the crutch lands on his head, quieting him. In tears, he begs: “My brother, are you not a Muslim? I’ve six children. Allah have mercy! I have no money. I swear to you, I have no money.” Poor man. He doesn’t know that if this was about money, his skull would have been cracked by now.

  Let him go, Rassoul! He will never understand what you want from him, or why.

  I want him to admit that he’s a traitor. To shout it loud for everyone to hear.

  The crutch is raised again and the man cries: “Don’t strike! I give in. Don’t strike!” The crutch is suspended in mid-air. “I betrayed … betrayed! Forgive me! Allah, I beg your forgiveness …” The crutch bashes his head once more; he screams in pain and fear. “Don’t strike! I betrayed.” Now he is shouting again, “I betrayed,” louder, “I betrayed,” louder still. May everyone hear you. Shout! “I am a traitor! A murderer!” No, you are not a murderer. YOU ARE A TRAITOR!

  You belong in the Aliabad madhouse, Rassoul. How can you expect this poor man to understand your obsessions? They are yours, not his. To him betrayal and murde
r are the same crime, of equal severity.

  No. Of course he can tell them apart. He is from here, from this country where betrayal is worse than murder. You can kill, rape, steal … the important thing is not to betray. Not to betray Allah, your clan, your family, your country, your friend … Which is exactly what he’s done!

  No need for a pretext. Nothing justifies your savagery toward this man, nothing, unless you’re trying to commit another murder in order to re-experience the same situation, the same trauma, the same emotion that made you mute. All this just to recover your voice?

  Let the man live. Your voice or even the voice of a prophet is not worth a single life.

  White as a sheet, Rassoul bashes the crutch against the wall so hard that it shatters. He sits down. The man is weeping.

  Once he’s got his breath back, Rassoul lights a cigarette and glances at the limping man, who is groaning as he attempts to stand. He lights another and gives it to him.

  And he leaves.

  Goes to the saqi-khana.

  Kaka Sarwar and his crew aren’t there but the den is packed. Everyone is staring at a madman with long hair and an unkempt beard. Each person gives him something: a glass of tea, a five hundred afghani note, a bullet. The madman takes the money first, then the bullet, which he puts into his mouth and swallows, and finally the glass of tea, which he gulps down in one. The man who gave the money turns to the others, stunned. “That’s five bullets! Did you see? That’s the fifth bullet he has swallowed.”

  The madman pays no mind to the general astonishment; he stands up, and with a hoarse cry—“Ya-hoo”—leaves the smoking den, a few men in his wake.

  Rassoul exchanges two Marlboro for a long drag of hashish, and holds it in his lungs. He shuts his eyes. The world disappears, like the bullets into the man’s mouth.

  In the early hours he hears Kaka Sarwar’s voice upstairs, in the chai-khana. He joins the crew, who offer to share their breakfast with him. Then he accompanies them back down to the saqi-khana.

  By the time he leaves the smoking den he is high as a kite.

  He is afraid to return home. He feels as if the ghosts from his nightmares have invaded his room: the woman in the sky-blue chador, Yarmohamad brandishing a knife, Razmodin and his moral lectures, and even Dostoevsky with his Crime and Punishment …

  His unsteady feet take him toward Sophia’s house.

  What are you looking for from her?

  I need her, and no one else. I need her to take me into the purity of her tears, the candor of her smile, the space between her breaths … until I die in her innocence.

  In other words you hope to absolve yourself with her naivety, her fragility. That’s what it is! Leave her in peace. Don’t drag her into your abyss.

  He stops.

  I will write it all down in her notebook, and give it to her. I will give her back her life.

  He hurries. Limping. Stoned.

  HE STRUGGLES to climb the stairs, make it to the door, and slip into his room. When he finally does, he is surprised to find his home tidy and clean. His clothes have been folded, his books piled up in one corner, and there is no broken glass on the floor.

  Who has taken all this trouble? Yarmohamad’s wife Rona, of course, as she used to before.

  He walks to the window and glances at Yarmohamad’s house. The courtyard is empty. No shadows behind the windows. An inner ecstasy takes hold of him, overcoming both his astonishment at his orderly room, and his tormented desire to write everything down for Sophia.

  But what has made him so happy? His victory over Yarmohamad, who hasn’t been able to prevent his wife from cleaning up after him?

  What arrogance!

  This vile, infantile joy shatters as his gaze falls on the infamous notebook, placed carefully on the window ledge. He falls on it. Did Rona open it, did she read his intimate poems and thoughts about Sophia? What about the final sentence, “Today, I killed Nana Alia”?

  The notebook trembles in his hands. He opens it at the final page and reads, “Today, I killed Nana Alia.” He sits down on the mattress. Then, after great deliberation, he takes his pen and adds “I killed her for you, Sophia.”

  For her? Why?

  I will tell her, in writing. But first I want to write about her, her fragile innocence, all that I never knew how to describe in straightforward, precise words. “Sophia, I have never kissed you. Do you know why?” The words in his pen are suspended by the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs. Someone knocks at the door. A soft, feminine voice whispers: “Rassoul-djan, it’s Rona.” He leaps up to open the door. “Hello,” she says shyly. She is carrying a tray, covered with a white napkin. He steps back to let her in and looks at her furtively, trying to gauge how she will react to the notebook in his hand. “Rassoul-djan, I have come to beg forgiveness for Yarmohamad. He is not in his right mind these days. He’s a bundle of nerves. He’s afraid … You know him. And what’s more, he has no work. He is just worried …” She holds out the tray: “Look, here is kishmish-panir, homemade raw cheese, the kind you like, and raisins.”

  Embarrassed, Rassoul takes the tray and thanks her with a vague gesture, as if to say that she mustn’t worry, it’s all over with now. Then, to express his gratitude for the cleaning, he bows low and gestures with the hand holding the notebook at the corner where all his books are neatly stacked. “I did it like I used to. Back when …”

  He is no longer listening. Reassured that there is no suspicion or anxiety in her gaze, he is fascinated, as usual, by her plump shining lips and hazel, almond-shaped eyes. She is aware of her allure—always has been—and she teases him, biting the edge of her veil to hide her lips. That turns him on even more. Rassoul is sure that the real reason Yarmohamad has it in for him is his soft spot for Rona. Surely he suspects the attraction.

  “Right, I’m off …” She makes up her mind to leave. Rassoul follows, embarrassed not to have heard what she said from behind her veil. He stands in the doorway, watching her until she disappears into the darkness of her own front door. He looks for Yarmohamad behind the windows. No sign. He must have gone out; that’s why Rona dared to visit.

  If Rassoul weren’t so distracted, if he didn’t have so many worries, if Sophia’s notebook weren’t in his hand, he would lie down on his mattress and surrender to his fantasies. His hand would slip into his trousers to stroke himself, and as he did so he would imagine Rona in two or three different scenes. Today, he would go for the one where she’s completely naked, sitting on her daughters’ swing, head tilted slightly back, a sly smile on her lips. She is staring straight into Rassoul’s eyes. Legs spread, swing ropes curled around her arms, hands on her pubis, touching herself … But this just isn’t the time. He’d have to be really sick—obsessed, an escapee from the Aliabad loony bin—to think of that now!

  Put down the tray, close the door, and get back to your writing.

  He opens the notebook.

  Sophia, I have never kissed you. Do you know why? What next? Because I would have needed such strength to kiss your innocence … What the hell is that? Why can’t your thoughts be clearer, your words more direct? Kiss your innocence! What does that mean? If you write that she’ll tease you, saying: “Smash my innocence! Kiss me! And I’ll give you strength.”

  Drained, Rassoul closes the notebook, chucks it on top of the books and flops on his bed. He shuts his eyes to find in the silence and darkness the words that he seeks. But footsteps on the stairs drag him back out of bed. Heavy footsteps, this time. “Rassoul! It’s Razmodin.” He is not alone, someone is whispering. Rassoul doesn’t move. “Rassoul?” repeats Razmodin, knocking at the door. After a short pause, he calls out to Yarmohamad’s daughters. “Hello, girls! Has Rassoul left?”

  “No, he’s in his room. Perhaps he’s sleeping,” they reply together. Go to hell! bellows Rassoul to himself. He stands up.

  “Rassoul!” calls Razmodin again, rattling the door, which is locked from the inside. He knocks harder. Give me a moment, mutters Rassoul
silently. He opens the door.

  “Ah, there you are, finally! We’ve been looking for you for two days,” exclaims Razmodin as he enters; behind him is a thin little man, wearing a white turban. “Rassoul, Commandant Rostam has been kind enough to come and visit you and …” The Commandant walks toward Rassoul, “My dear Rassoul,” and embraces him, “how good to meet you at last!” Rassoul steps back, cold and unwelcoming. Rostam remains on the threshold, waiting to be invited in. Razmodin takes the initiative, rushing into the room and gesturing a welcome. Rostam enters and launches into a ceremonious speech: “My dear Rassoul, I have come on behalf of your venerable mother. I don’t know where to begin. I carry two pieces of news from your family. One, sadly, unfavorable and most sad; the other good and full of hope. I must tell you, with great sorrow, that your father, who was a good and pure Muslim, has bravely given up his soul to Allah the Merciful. He died a martyr. I offer you all my condolences. May he dwell in heaven. And I pray to Allah the Merciful to accord the family that survives him much fortitude, and a long and prosperous life …” He lifts his hands to pray, “Ina-ellahe wa ina-ellaïhe radi′oun.” After this he is quiet, waiting for Rassoul to speak. Rassoul stares at him impassively. More embarrassed than shocked, Rostam glances discreetly at Razmodin and then, without waiting to be asked, takes off his shoes and sits on the mattress. Razmodin follows suit. The two of them stare at Rassoul, who sits down impassively a little way off.

  Silence.

  A gloomy silence that Rostam tries to break by offering a cigarette to Rassoul—who refuses—and then to Razmodin; after that he continues with his speech: “Of course, your dear mother told me that she had informed you of these regrettable events by post … but I can see that her letter has not reached you …” The commandant is made even more uncomfortable by Rassoul nodding his head and scrunching his eyebrows to convey that he certainly did receive the letter. Rostam looks on helplessly as Rassoul starts rummaging through his books to find his mother’s letter and wave it under the dazed eyes of his guests; then he returns to his spot and nonchalantly picks up a plastic swatter to chase away the flies swarming around the tray of kishmish-panir.