A Curse on Dostoevsky

by Atiq Rahimi

  “That’s why I’ve come to hand myself over to the law. I want to give my crime some meaning.”

  “And have you given your life meaning, before you try to give some to your crime?”

  “That’s exactly what I was trying to do with this murder.”

  “Like all those who kill in the name of Allah so as to forget their sins! That’s nonsense, young man, nonsense! Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Rassoul nods before asking the clerk: “Have you read Dostoevsky?”

  “No. Is he Russian?”

  “Yes, he’s a Russian author, but not a communist. Anyway, that isn’t the point. He said that if God didn’t exist …”

  “Tobah na’ouzobellah! May Allah protect you from this deviance! Drive out that devilish thought!”

  “Yes, may Allah forgive me! This Russian said—Tobah na’ouzobellah—that if God didn’t exist … everything would be permitted.” After a thoughtful silence, the clerk says: “He wasn’t wrong!” and murmurs into Rassoul’s ear: “So, how would your precious Russian explain the fact that here, today, in your dear country, everyone believes in Allah the Merciful yet all atrocities are permitted?”

  “You’re saying that these people …” interrupts Farzan, bewildered by the turn of the conversation.

  “You, boy, go and fetch the water!” instructs the clerk expediently, before continuing: “You know, we say that if sin exists, it is because God exists.”

  “Yes, but these days it seems to me that it’s the other way round. May Allah forgive me! If he exists, it is not to prevent sins, but to justify them.”

  “Well, yes, sadly. We are always using him, and History, and Conscience, and ideologies to justify our crimes and our betrayals. Rare are those who, like you, commit a crime and then feel remorse.”

  “Oh, no! I don’t feel remorse.”

  “OK then, not remorse. But you are aware of your crime. Take a look around: Who isn’t killing? And how many criminals have arrived at your level of awareness? Not one.”

  “Exactly. It is my awareness that creates my guilt.”

  “In that case why do you need a trial or a sentence? Legal proceedings—in an ideal world—are for those who don’t recognize their crime or guilt. And in any case, who could judge you, now? There is no one here, no judge and no public prosecutor. Everyone is at war. Everyone is chasing after power. They have neither the time nor the inclination to come and administer your trial. They are even afraid of trials. The trial of one person can lead to that of others. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Rassoul is confused. The clerk continues: “What do you want? To be imprisoned? Your soul is imprisoned in your body, and your body in this city.”

  “So, it makes no difference whether I’m in here or outside.”

  “It makes no difference.”

  “In that case, I’m staying here.”

  The clerk has had enough. He picks up the file and throws it on the floor. “But there’s no one here. I can’t deal with you,” he cries, “there’s no more prison, no more ‘surveillance’ department … nothing. There is nothing here anymore! Not even the law. They are busy altering the penal code. It will all be based on fiqh, on sharia.” He stares furiously at Rassoul for a long time, in oppressive silence. Then, before picking up the file lying at Rassoul’s feet, he holds out his hand: “Delighted to have met you, young man. It’s time for my prayers. Good day!” He puts the file back on the desk, and withdraws into another room.

  Rassoul is staggered—wordless, voiceless, more mute than before.

  Where am I?

  In Nakodja abad, nowhere land!

  Farzan returns. “So you’re staying? Good decision. It’s great, here. It’s a safe haven … Mr Clerk Sir lives here with his whole family. It’s nice and cool. His wife is lovely. She’s very pretty, too, and a good cook …”

  “The woman who came in just before I did? A woman in a sky-blue chador?”

  “Oh, no! She never goes out. She’s afraid of the bombs. She’s afraid of being alone. She’s a bit …”

  So she isn’t that wretched woman. In that case, why is the clerk so keen for me to leave?

  “Brother!” A deep voice, followed by footsteps finding their way in the dark, interrupts Rassoul’s suspicious thoughts. Farzan dashes into the next-door room, signaling for Rassoul to follow, but he doesn’t. Four armed men appear.

  “Isn’t the clerk here?”

  “He is praying,” replies Rassoul.

  “And you, what are you doing here?” asks one.

  “My name is Rassoul, and I have come to hand myself over to the law.”

  “What are you doing?” asks the same man. “Are you working here?” continues another. “No, I have come to hand myself over to the law,” repeats Rassoul, dazed by these four men who keep exchanging suspicious glances. One of them says, “We’re not hiring, you know!”

  “I haven’t come to work. I’ve come to be tried.” One of the men strokes his beard and stares at Rassoul. “You want to be tried? For what?”

  “I’ve killed someone.”

  They look at each other again. Uneasy. They don’t know what to say. In the end, one of them walks up to Rassoul and says: “We’ll have to check this out with Qhazi sahib. Come with us!”

  As they are leaving the building, the clerk comes up with Farzan in tow. “You were looking for me?”

  “Yes, Qhazi sahib wants to know if you have his list of shahids.”

  “Not yet!”

  “Go back to work, then, and bring it to us as soon as you do!” But the clerk just stands there, aghast at Rassoul’s idiocy.

  They enter a partially destroyed building, and then an imposing room furnished with a large desk. The judge is sitting behind it, paying them absolutely no mind and eating a large slice of watermelon. A white cap covers his great shaved head; a long beard lengthens his fleshy face. They wait for him to finish. Finally, he puts the rind down on a tray, takes out a large handkerchief, and wipes his mouth, beard, and hands. With a stomach-settling belch, he motions to an old man to take away the tray. Then he picks up his prayer beads, glances at Rassoul, and asks the others: “What’s the problem?”

  “We have brought you a murderer.” The Qhazi’s gaze moves from Rassoul to his men with no expression except for a silent “So?”

  “Where did you arrest him?”

  “We didn’t arrest him. He turned himself in.” Now the judge is surprised. He looks back at Rassoul. “Who did he kill?” No response. One of the men murmurs in Rassoul’s ear: “Who did you kill?”

  “A woman.”

  Another family case, and thus of no interest. The judge has a watermelon pip stuck between his teeth, and is trying to dislodge it with the tip of his tongue. No luck. He continues, in a detached voice: “And the motive?” Silence, again. Again, the guard passes the question to Rassoul, who shrugs his shoulders to indicate that he doesn’t know. “Was she his wife?”

  “Was she your wife?”

  “No,” replies Rassoul at last, weary of these indirect questions and contemptuous stares. The judge pauses, not to think but to focus on the watermelon pip, the blasted pip. A new approach, with the index finger this time. Impossible. He gives up. “Who was it, then?”

  “A woman called Nana Alia, from Dehafghanan,” replies Rassoul before the guard can repeat the question.

  “To steal from her?” asks the judge.

  “No.”

  “Rape her?”

  “No.”

  Again the interrogation pauses while the Qhazi has another go at the pip. He sticks his thumb and index finger into his mouth. There’s no way he’s going to do it. Rassoul would like to help him; his index finger is slim and bony, with a hard, tough nail. He has it down to a fine art: you have to push the pip with the end of your nail and suck it at the same time.

  “Where are the witnesses?”

  “There are no witnesses.”

  More and more enraged by the damned watermelon pip, the judge nervously t
ears the corner of a piece of paper from one of his files. He folds it and slips it between his teeth. Hopeless. As soon as it’s wet the paper becomes floppy. The judge loses his temper, throws the paper down on the desk and asks, “Doesn’t anyone have a match?” Rassoul immediately hands over his box. The judge takes one, removes the sulphur, sharpens it with his nails, and gets down to picking out the blasted pip. Success at last. Relieved, he stares at this aggravating speck, and then instructs the guards: “Let him go! I don’t have the time to deal with this sort of thing.”

  “Come on!” One of the guards grabs Rassoul by the arm. But he remains standing in front of the Qhazi’s desk. He will not move, he won’t! He will rush at the judge, grab him by the beard, and shout: “Look at yourself, in me! I’m a murderer like you! So why don’t you suffer?” He takes a step forward, but the guard’s hold on him prevents further movement. “Qhazi sahib, you must judge me,” he demands suddenly. The judge pensively strokes his own forehead for a moment and then says, spelling out the words to the rhythm of the prayer beads moving between his fingers: “Your case is a matter of qisas. Find the woman’s family, and pay the price of the blood. That’s all. Now, leave my office.”

  “That’s all?”

  Yes, Rassoul, that’s all. You knew it would be, the clerk told you as much.

  YES, YOU told me as much,” admits Rassoul, sitting in front of the clerk’s desk as he extracts the names of all the shahids executed in the communist prisons from a file. “But I thought I’d be able to persuade him to institute proceedings against me … and then against others, against all the war criminals.” The clerk glances up at Rassoul ironically. “Where do you think you are?”

  “Not anywhere, now.”

  “Welcome!” bids the clerk, returning to his task.

  “And that exhausts me, too. This inability to make myself understood, or to understand the world.”

  “Do you even understand yourself?”

  “No. I feel lost.” A pause, long enough to travel far into a desert night. “I feel as if I have become lost in a desert night where there is only one landmark: a dead tree. Wherever I go, I see myself constantly returning to the same place, at the foot of this tree. I am weary of pathetically traveling down this same interminable path, over and over again.”

  “Young man, I once had a brother. He was an actor at the Kabul Nendaray theatre. He was always happy, and liked the good things in life. He taught me an important lesson: to approach life as if it were a play. Treat every performance like it’s the first time you are performing that role. This is the way to give all your actions new meaning.”

  “But I’m tired of playing the part I’m supposed to play. I want a new part.”

  “Changing the part won’t change your life. You will still be on the same stage, in the same play, telling the same story. Imagine that this trial were a stage—which is exactly what it is, in fact; and what a stage! I could tell you some stories about that … Anyway, on this stage, at each performance you have to play a different part: first the accused; then the witness; then the judge … deep down, there is no difference. You know all the parts. You …”

  “But when you play the judge’s part, you can change the outcome of the trial.”

  “No, you are condemned to respect the rules of the game, to say the same things another judge has said before you …”

  “In that case we need to change the play, the stage, the story …”

  “You would be sacked!” The clerk raises his voice: “ ‘’Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days / Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:/ Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, / And one by one back in the Closet lays.’ That’s not mine, it’s Khayyam. Think on it!” Before Rassoul can get him back to the theater of the law, the clerk pushes the imposing file of shahids toward him. “It’s your turn to help me out, now. Dictate those names to me!”

  “I can’t bear shahids!” This statement troubles the clerk. He looks at Rassoul for a long time, before reaching out to take back the file. Rassoul stops him: “But I will help you.” He reads out the names. He has gone through barely a dozen when the Qhazi’s guards reappear.

  “Look, he’s still here!” says one, pointing at Rassoul. “We were looking for you in the next world. You’re coming with us!”

  And they take Rassoul back to the Qhazi, who asks to be left alone with him. He is still behind his desk, prayer beads and handkerchief scattered among the papers. Apropos of nothing, he asks: “Do you know Amer Salam?”

  “Amer Salam? I think so.”

  “Have you met him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “At Nana Alia’s house, I think.”

  “When was that?” asks the judge, leaning across his desk in anticipation of a secret.

  “The day after the murder.”

  “What the hell were you doing there?”

  “My fiancée used to work for Nana Alia. Amer Salam came …”

  “Where are the jewels you stole from her?”

  At last, things are taking shape; at last they’re interested.

  Yes, that’s true, but what the judge is most interested in is the jewels, not the murder, or your conscience, or your guilt, or your trial …

  That doesn’t matter, as long as I can use the jewels to force open the door of the law. Anyway, implicating Amer Salam in the case might be a way of tracking down the woman in the sky-blue chador.

  “Have you gone deaf or what?” The judge’s vehemence dislodges Rassoul from his train of thought.

  “I told you. I didn’t steal anything. I just killed her.”

  “You’re lying! Amer Salam had pawned several pieces of jewelry with her. Give them back to him! Or he’ll choke them out of you! You don’t know what kind of man he is.”

  “I’m telling you that I didn’t steal anything.”

  The Qhazi takes off his cap and uses his handkerchief to wipe away the beads of sweat gathering on his shaved head. “Come on, spit it out! I don’t have time to waste on this case.”

  “But, Qhazi sahib, I swear to you that I wasn’t able to steal them.”

  “So what happened to the jewels?”

  “That is the great mystery …”

  “Don’t take me for an idiot! Give me back the jewels, and then go to your house and stay there!”

  “You must listen to me. I didn’t come to hand myself over to the law for nothing …”

  “Well, why are you handing yourself over to the law?” asks the judge, finally realizing the absurdity of this enigmatic surrender. “Where the hell are you from?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your story. Tell me what faction you’re from!”

  “None.”

  “None!” The Qhazi is stunned. For such a man to take such a position in this war-torn land makes absolutely no sense, of course.

  “Are you Muslim?”

  “I was born Muslim.”

  “Who was your father?”

  “He was a soldier. He was killed.”

  “He was a communist.” That’s it, here we go again. Always and forever the same questions, the same suspicions, the same judgments. I’ve had enough!

  You wanted to tell him your story, didn’t you—your life story? Well then, play the game. See it through.

  “Your father was a communist, huh?” Is that a question, or a judgment? “Huh?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your father, was he a communist?”

  “Oh, that was a question.”

  The enraged judge loses his temper. “You too, you were a communist!”

  “Qhazi sahib, I have come here to confess a murder: I murdered a woman. That is my only crime.”

  “No. There is something shady about all this. You must be guilty of more than that …”

  “Qhazi sahib, is there a crime more serious than the killing of another human being?”

  The question causes the handkerchief to fal
l from the judge’s hand. “I’m the one who asks the questions! What were you doing in the communist era?”

  “I worked at the Pohantoun library.”

  “So, you must have done your military service under the Russian flag.” The judge picks up his prayer beads. “Tell me, how many Muslims did you kill?” It’s a good job he doesn’t know that you were in the USSR, or that would be the end of everything.

  “I didn’t do my military service.”

  “Then you must have been in the communist youth league.”

  “No, never!”

  “You weren’t a communist, you didn’t do your military service, and you’re still alive.” Rassoul is silent. The only sound is that of the prayer beads slipping between the Qhazi’s fingers. Suddenly he becomes angry again. “You’re lying! You ungodly communist!” The beads stop moving, and in a black rage the judge calls for the guards. “Get this pig out of here! Shut him in solitary confinement! Tomorrow, blacken his face before punishing him in public: cut off his right hand for the theft, and then hang him! Whip his filthy corpse as a lesson to others: this is the punishment for survivors of the former regime who spread evil and corruption!”

  The two armed men throw themselves on Rassoul and grab him. He is dumbfounded.

  He does not breathe.

  His heart heaves.

  The room crumbles.

  The prayer beads once again begin slipping through the Qhazi’s fingers, one at a time.

  Cries of fury invade the room.

  Clanking chains excruciate the ear.

  WHERE DOES the clanking come from?

  From your feet, your hands.

  He moves. His feet and hands are heavy.

  Heavy too are his opening eyelids.

  Everything is dark. He is lying on a mat in a tiny room. Gradually, he becomes aware of the sky, far away, purple, framed by a small window covered in wire mesh at the very top of the wall. He sits up. The clanking of the chains echoes through the room, out the door, and into the deserted corridor. Rassoul moves toward the door and tries to open it with his bound hands. No handle. He pushes but it doesn’t open. He bangs. He shouts. No response. Just these chains clanking in the silence of the night. He stops, defeated. Is it already over?