A Curse on Dostoevsky

by Atiq Rahimi

  “For what reason?”

  “Qhazi sahib, we asked Imam Ali if the penalty of amputation was applicable to the theft of animals belonging to nobody, from a public place, and the holy man replied in the negative.”

  “Are you trying to give me a lesson in sharia?”

  “Astaghfirullah! It was just a reminder, most venerable Qhazi sahib.”

  “In that case I too will remind you of something: I am the Qhazi here. And I decree that this man’s hands be cut off.” The clerk passes a sheet of paper and a pen to the judge. “In that case I ask you, Qhazi sahib, to be so good as to write this down in your own hand.”

  “You too are disobeying me? And, what is more, treating me without respect?”

  “Far be it from me to have the slightest disrespectful thought, most venerable Qhazi sahib. I merely fear that, the day when you are no longer here—may Allah keep you safe and sound in this world—I could possibly be accused of having written a decree that goes against sharia.”

  “Goes against sharia? My decree goes against sharia? Get out! Gather your things and get the hell out of here, as quick as a bullet!”

  The clerk wishes to speak, but the judge signals the guard to throw him out. The old man takes the opportunity to sink to his knees and beg the Qhazi, who immediately interrupts him: “Shut up, shut up! It is not recommended to make judgments in anger.” Then, to one of the guards: “Put him back in prison, and bring him here tomorrow!”

  The guard takes the old man out, and the caretaker follows. Rassoul remains where he is.

  “Have you brought the jewels?” asks the judge. Rassoul approaches slowly and says, “No.”

  “What do you mean, no! Why did you leave prison, then?”

  “Because they told me that there was nothing here for me anymore.”

  “Who?” yells the judge, before calling the guard and ordering him to return Rassoul to prison. “Solitary confinement! And tomorrow, send him for amputation, and then hanging!”

  BEHIND THE bars, daybreak appears, silent and uncertain. As the muezzins call the faithful to prayer, as the guns of vengeance awake, as Sophia lies in bed embracing her innocence, as Razmodin saves the family honor at Mazar-e Sharif … Rassoul forgets the world that has abandoned him. He is sitting in a corner of his cell. Waiting for no one. Nothing. He decides he will be mute again, and also deaf.

  Yes. I no longer hear. I no longer speak.

  We are not capable of speech,

  If we could only listen!

  Everything must be said!

  Everything must be heard!

  And yet

  Our ears are sealed

  Our lips are sealed

  Our hearts are sealed.

  He must write this poem down here, in this cell, on this wall. He searches the floor for a pebble or a scrap of wood. There is nothing. He’ll have to use his nails, then. He starts scratching the words onto the flaking paint. It is hard. It hurts. He presses down. He bleeds. He keeps writing. He writes until footsteps approach and then stop outside his cell, until keys jangle in the corridor, until the door opens, and a harsh voice shouts: “Out!” At that point he stops writing and stands still, impassive, his eyes glued to the words.

  Two armed men enter his cell, grab him by the arms and lift him up. They drag him silently to the courtroom. A great hubbub can be heard from behind the door: “Murderer,” “communist,” “money,” “vengeance” … The same words he has heard a thousand times; words that used to frighten or amuse him, but today simply make him deaf. He no longer hears them.

  The door is opened.

  Rassoul walks in.

  The room falls quiet.

  Everyone is there, sitting on wooden chairs, filling up the room. All bearded, all wearing black or white turbans or charmah, qaraqol and pakol caps. All looking at Rassoul. He is calm. His gaze sweeps the room and comes to rest on Farzan, serving tea with his usual sad smile. Parwaiz is there, too, sitting alone in a corner, his expression gloomy, anxious, and upset, his eyes glued to the ground. Amer Salam sits next to the Qhazi, his chest puffed out. His fleshy hands rest on a stick as he recites his prayer beads. He stares down at Rassoul and waggles his head—impossible to tell whether he is saying “Here we are at last!” or praying.

  The Qhazi gulps his tea; the other men copy him, noisily. Farzan leaves the room with a final, even more tragic glance at Rassoul. The Qhazi puts down his glass and signals to a new clerk sitting beside him that the trial may begin. The clerk stands up, closes his eyes, and recites a sura from the Koran. Once the sura is finished, the Qhazi asks Rassoul to move up to the bar.

  “Introduce yourself!” Rassoul glances anxiously at Parwaiz and remains silent. The judge grows impatient: “I’m telling you to introduce yourself!” Silence. Parwaiz stands up.

  “The boy is sick … he has lost his voice.”

  The Qhazi grows annoyed: “What do you mean, lost his voice? He was fine yesterday. And today he cannot speak!” Addressing the courtroom, “Muslim brothers, thanks to our jihad we overcame communism.” Everyone immediately intones “Allah-o Akbar” three times. The Qhazi continues, “But survivors from that regime, ungodly people, are still active among our Muslim population today, committing crimes and disseminating evil. The individual you see before you is one such. Just a few days ago he savagely murdered a defenseless widow in order to steal her money and her jewels. Fortunately, he was arrested by those in charge of security for our mujahideen government, under the orders of our brother Commandant Parwaiz, here today.”

  Parwaiz is surprised; he tries anxiously to meet Rassoul’s eye, but Rassoul keeps staring stubbornly at the ground. Just as Parwaiz moves forward to speak, the Qhazi signals the clerk to recite another sura from the Koran. Everyone falls silent. At the end of the recital, the Qhazi continues: “Did the accused understand the meaning of this thirty-third verse of the sura?” Rassoul stares at him without replying. “Instead of learning Russian you should have learnt the language of Allah, you irreligious man! God said: Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and spread corruption on earth is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land.”

  The men shout themselves hoarse chanting “Allah-o Akbar!” three more times. The judge takes a gulp of tea. “Rassoul, son of … What was your father’s name?” He waits in vain, then: “Never mind. Rassoul, son of—, of adult age and sound mind, admits to having murdered a widow on 16 assad 1372 of the solar Hejri, and stolen her money and her jewels. The court thus finds him guilty of theft and murder, and according to Islamic sharia accords him the supreme punishment, namely amputation followed by hanging …”

  As the men once again shout three times, “Allah-o Akbar!” a single voice protests: “This is not right!” In response, other cries fill the room: “It is right!”; “It is sharia!”; “It is deserved, deserved!”; “Therefore it is right!” … The protester tries to make himself heard: “Cutting off his hands is right, yes …” He recites a verse of the Koran, which quiets the room, and then continues: “Qhazi sahib, today, as you have said, thanks to Allah …”—the room intones: “Allah-o Akbar …”—the man continues … “our country is ruled according to sharia law, which is the very essence of our Islamic State. You would like us to follow that law? In that case, everything must be strictly based on fiqh. To start with, this man has lost his voice …”

  “But this fitna does have a voice, he is just pretending,” says the Qhazi, before saying to the guards: “Yesterday, this fitna was speaking. You were there.”

  “Yes, Qhazi sahib. We bear witness that this fitna was speaking perfectly.”

  The Qhazi turns toward the man and instructs him: “So beware of falling prey to his tricks. Continue!”

  “OK, forget his muteness. As the victim is a woman murdered by a man, according to our sacred law the murderer must not be hanged, as the price of the blood of a woman is half tha
t of a man.” Another man stands up to protest: “That is impossible.”

  “It is possible to execute the murderer if the victim’s family pay the other half of the price to the family of the accused.”

  “Or else the murderer is absolved, if he gives a girl to the victim’s family …”

  More people start shouting: “Where are the victim’s relations?”

  “She must be avenged!”

  “If she is not avenged, the spilled blood will weigh upon us.”

  “An eye for an eye!”

  “One moment, please!” demands the Qhazi, reciting his prayer beads as he speaks: “There are other, more serious accusations against this man. A few days ago a Muslim, caretaker of the Shah-e do Shamshira Wali mausoleum, revealed in front of the accused and witnesses that this fitna took a prostitute to the sacred site. What is more, he threatened the caretaker with a gun, in order to steal the alms money. The murderer admitted in front of witnesses that he wished to kill this caretaker.”

  “The man deserves to be hanged,” cries one of the men. “He threatened an innocent?!” exclaims another. “That is a sin!” confirms the room. “Kill the caretaker of Shah-e do Shamshira Wali? Lahawlobellah!”

  “That is a crime!”

  “An affront to Allah and the saints!”

  Amid all the racket, Rassoul feels nothing. He is impervious. He merely glances briefly at Parwaiz, who is watching the courtroom in silence. The shouts of the judge finally succeed in quieting the room. “There was a reason, at the beginning of this trial, that I told you the murderer was a survivor of the previous regime. This man confessed to me, of his own accord, that he has turned his back on the Holy Religion.”

  The shouts become frenetic: “The Devil!”

  “Ungodly man!”

  “Renegade!”

  “He deserves to be hanged!”

  The piercing voice of the judge again quiets the room: “Yes, brothers, you see before you a man who, according to the Koran, is fitna, the incarnation of Evil on Earth. This requires the punishment reserved by sharia for thieves guilty of murder and for renegades. Therefore, on Friday morning, after the call to prayers, in public at Zarnegar Park, this man will have his right hand and left foot amputated, with the limbs stuck on pikes for everyone to see. Then, this fitna will be hanged and displayed for three days as a lesson to the people. The prostitute who accompanied him to tarnish the tomb of Shah-e do Shamshira Wali will be stoned. In this way we will eradicate evil from our peaceful city …”

  “Allah-o Akbar!” three times.

  So this is your trial, Rassoul. Satisfied?

  I haven’t heard a word. What are they saying?

  Nothing.

  Sad and bitter, Parwaiz approaches Rassoul and addresses the courtroom. “Brother Muslims, I do admit that Qhazi sahib’s words are most pertinent and convincing. But I will allow myself a few comments. Neither I nor the forces of order arrested this man. He came of his own accord to hand himself in.”

  “Why did he come of his own accord? There must be a reason!” exclaims the Qhazi, arrogantly thrusting out his chest.

  “Yes, Qhazi sahib, there is a reason. I will explain it to you,” continues Parwaiz. “I have met this young man several times. The first was when my men brought him to my office. His landlord had denounced him for nonpayment of rent. That evening, he really had lost his voice. It was clear to see. And the last time I saw him was when he had regained his voice, and came to confess that he had killed a woman. He killed a madam to save his fiancée from her filthy clutches. Given the person in question it seemed to me necessary to carry out an investigation; an investigation that revealed no body, no witnesses, and no proof of this murder. No trace of it at all.”

  “Like all murderers, this vicious man has destroyed all the proof,” says the Qhazi. Parwaiz walks back toward Rassoul. “If that were what he meant to do, he would never have come here of his own accord, Qhazi sahib! Given all the murders committed in our city these days, even a child could have wiped out the traces of his crime. Have we been able to arrest the killer of our young girls? Have we been able to track down the murderer who has been pitilessly poisoning our wives and children?” He falls silent to give people time to think, and to become aware of the ghastliness in which they live. Are they capable of understanding what Parwaiz is saying?

  “Now, let us suppose that there was a victim. It is not for me to tell you that, according to our fiqh, homicide occurs when the victim is ma’sum ad-dam, innocent and protected. In this instance, that was not the case. The victim was a madam, and therefore liable to punishment by stoning.” No protest. “The conduct of this young man, who handed himself over to the law in order to be sentenced within the context of a public trial, seems to me exemplary. It is a dazzling lesson. If we all decided, today, on the example of this young man, to put our own activities on trial, we could conquer the fratricidal chaos that is currently reigning in our country.”

  “What exactly are you trying to say?”

  “Are you comparing this fitna to the mujahideen?”

  “You too, Parwaiz?”

  “Who are you? A mujahideen, a liberator, a leader of your people, or a lawyer for this turncoat murderer?”

  “Go to hell, Satan!”

  “A curse upon you, Parwaiz!”

  Parwaiz stands in the middle of the room. “There was no murder. Listen to me: this is an imaginary murder, the illusion of a murder, simply to put our own behavior into question!”

  “He’s a madman?”

  “No, my dear brothers—not only is he not insane, he is absolutely lucid, and quite aware of his illusions. It is we who are mad, we who have no awareness of the crimes we commit!” Everyone stands up, yelling. “Listen to me! This young man is asking to be tried for an illusion …” The louder Parwaiz shouts, the more excited the men become. In the end they rush at him and surround him. It is chaos.

  Rassoul is laughing.

  Do not laugh. They will put you in the Aliabad asylum, with the madmen.

  And where am I now?

  IN HIS cell, the darkness is profound.

  A fly lands on his hand. He blows on it; it stirs and flies away.

  Filth!

  Why such hatred and fury for this tiny creature?

  Because it just bursts into this world.

  It does not burst into anything. It lives in its world, because it belongs to its world. It is you who come from elsewhere. You who are bursting into a world that is no longer your own. Look at this fly; see how lightly it lives in its world.

  Because it is not conscious.

  It isn’t conscious because it doesn’t need to be. It just lives its lightness, its death … as simple as that.

  And then it lands on his hand again. He tries to shake it off but his arm won’t move. Is it the chain that stops him lifting his hand, or the fly? The fly, for sure. It is paralyzing him. Taking over his world.

  He stretches his neck toward the fly so he can blow it away again. Impossible. His body is as stiff and as heavy as stone. They look at each other. It seems to him that the fly wants to tell him something, in its incomprehensible language. Rhythmic words, almost a song: Tat, tat, tat … tvam, tvam … asi … Then it moves, flying off and landing on the wall. And suddenly Rassoul can lift his hand; it has become light. The chains have come undone without a sound. He stands up to catch the fly. On the wall he can see only its image, like a fresco. He touches it. The wall seems liquid, permeable. His hand passes into it. He doesn’t resist. The wall swallows his hand. Now his whole body moves into it. Once inside, Rassoul freezes. An image on the surface, just like the fly whose song slices through the silence of the wall. Tat, tat, tat … tvam, tvam … asi …

  “Allah-o Akbar!” The call to prayer startles Rassoul, pulling him from the wall of his sleep. Here he is, on the ground, his hands and feet bound in chains.

  The hoarse voice of the muezzin fades away and everything drowns in the silence. Except the song of the fly, which i
s still playing peacefully and religiously inside Rassoul’s head, Tat, tat, tat … tvam, tvam … asi …

  It no longer disturbs him.

  Nothing disturbs him anymore, not even the sound of footsteps stomping up the passage and stopping outside his door; not even the door that will never again open for anyone except death.

  They open the spy hole only. The guard says, “Stand up, you have a visitor.” Rassoul doesn’t move.

  “Rassoul!” It is Razmodin. Rassoul stands up slowly and looks through the hole at his cousin’s horrified eyes. He walks up to the door. “What have you done now?” Rassoul shrugs his shoulders, as if to say nothing serious. But Razmodin is waiting for a word, a voice. As usual, there is nothing. His cousin loses his temper. “Say something, damn it!” His words ring out in the corridor. “Hey, calm down!” exclaims the guard. “I was in Mazar,” says Razmodin. “I brought Donia and your mother back here. We went straight to your house. You weren’t there. I took them to a hotel. I’ve been combing the city for you. No one knew where you were, not Sophia, not Yarmohamad … Everyone is worrying. In the end, some of Parwaiz’s guys told me where to find you …” He stops, hoping to hear Rassoul say something for once. In vain. He continues: “Why make up this crazy story? Have you lost your mind?” Rassoul is impassive. “Do something before it’s too late, for the sake of your mother, your sister, for Sophia …” He moves away from the door to speak to the guard. “Let me into the cell, brother.”