by Ali Hosseini
Suddenly a sharp voice echoes in the well.
“Come up, Behruz. Come up! Are you crazy, going down the well?”
I look up and see Musa, a dark figure against the soft blue circle of the sky.
“Come up, Behruz,” Musa calls again. “This man is crazy. He will …”
Amid Kemal’s laughter and the splashing of water, I don’t hear the rest of what Musa is saying. I let go of the wall and start to sink. In the cool water I feel light and free. I stay under for as long as I can hold my breath. The water pushes against my eyelids and I hear a muffled sound that seems to be coming from the depths of the earth. I want to stay under forever and be a part of the imprisoned water. At the same time I wish the water would push up to the top of the well and run uncontrolled through the fields like a mad, pre-historical flood, uprooting whatever is in its way—the village, Musa and his herds, Kemal, the dead lemon grove, everything—washing away everything and quenching this old land.
I bring my head out of the water and look up. The sky looks far away and I see hands moving. It’s Musa, gesturing.
“Come up, Behruz. Come up right now.”
I struggle to breathe in the damp, heavy air. Fearful, I start to kick to reach the other side of the well. Finally I grab the rope. My body feels like a stone and there is no strength in my arms. I hang on for a moment, trying to pull myself up, but have barely gotten above the water when I fall and go under. Struggling, I try to keep my head above water.
“What’s the matter, Behruz?” Kemal says. “Calm down. Hey, calm down.”
“What are you doing? Let him come up,” Musa calls.
“I’m not doing anything,” Kemal yells back.
Their shouts echo and when I look up, it seems that the circular mouth of the well is narrowing and the well is going to collapse over me.
Kemal moves closer. “Let me help you,” he says. “Here, hold on.” He hands me the rope.
I take the rope. After a moment I put my feet in the slimy hole where Kemal points and I manage to pull myself up a little. He puts his hands under me and pushes me out of the water. With my feet against the wall and my hands holding the rope, I hang there. I hear the steady stream of water dripping from me and don’t dare look up or down. I put my forehead against the wet wall. The smell of dampness and stagnant water is overwhelming. The old man’s voice comes down on my head, sharper than ever.
“Come up!”
Kemal tries to push me up. “Go, man. Move your foot. Put it higher.” The water raining down from me echoes in the well. I hate myself, hate my clumsiness, my fear, my not knowing what to do. Carefully I take one foot off the wall and put it higher, then move one hand higher up the rope, grabbing it tight. Little by little, I manage to move up. When I reach the top of the well, a wave of heat hits my face. I grab Musa’s outstretched hand and pull myself up, sit down on the wall of the well to catch my breath. The old man goes on talking.
“Have you lost your mind, going down the well? And following him? He’s crazy.”
My chest and thighs are covered with mud. The wetness quickly evaporates from my skin and I start to feel the sun on my shoulders. I get up, walk to the platform, and sit in the shade of the building. I’m looking at the mouth of the well when Kemal’s head pops up. He stays there awhile, staring at me as if he were aware of the reason I went down the well. Then he climbs out. Standing there naked, he pulls up the rope, takes a few bottles out of the bucket, and brings them to the shade near where I’m sitting.
“What happened to you, Behruz? Did you see jinnis in the well?” He laughs. “I thought you were braver than that.”
I don’t have any patience for him.
“It was great, wasn’t it? So cool down there.” He points to the bottles of homemade vodka that he had brought up from the well. “They are for you. I got them a few days ago and put them in the well. It’s the best place to hide them. They stay cool there underwater, away from the eyes of busybodies. It’s good stuff, much better than what we had last week. Just wait until you taste it. It’s very difficult to find anything good these days and it’s getting more dangerous, you know? But I have my ways.” He laughs. “And if we are ever caught by the Komiteh guards, I hope you can stand the whipping!”
I stare at him, hating his playfulness. He turns to Musa, who has gone back to smoking his water pipe.
“Musa, can you go get the sack from the rack of my motorcycle? I brought something for all of us.”
When Kemal turns around, I see dark reddish stripes angling down from his shoulders to his hips, obviously the marks of lashes. I wonder what he did and when and where he was whipped—was it by the religious militia in the middle of a square in Shiraz? I’m sure Musa must know about it and yet hasn’t mentioned it.
Inside the sack that Musa brings are bread and cheese, some grapes, and a radio. Kemal turns on the radio. The harsh voice of the announcer pushes the quietness away. He is talking about the war and the new offensive against the Iraqis. “With the help of the Almighty,” the announcer goes on with a defining voice, “our brave Bassigies have pushed back the Baathist infidels, killing thousands of them, and are heading west to capture Basra, and Allah willing we are not going to stop until we free Jerusalem.”
“I brought the radio to leave it here, so you won’t be lonely,” Kemal says.
I don’t pay any attention, but Musa seems very pleased. “Excellent, Kemal,” he says. “Now I can listen to the Farsi BBC broadcasting again. I used to do that until four months ago. Something has gone wrong with my old radio and needs fixing. Maybe you can take it to the city on one your trips.”
“No problem,” Kemal says. “Maybe I can fix it myself. If not, I’ll take it to my friend in the city. He has a radio shop there and sold me this Toshiba radio for a very good price.”
I feel restless and disappointed with myself. I get up and walk to the well and lower the bucket down. My palms smart as I pull the rope up. I wash the mud off my body, put my clothes on, and walk to the Naranjestan. I want to be alone, to be away from all this confusion. The voices on the radio are sharp and sound unnatural and invading. The trees and a few lemons and oranges hanging from some of them are covered with dust blown in from the desert. I can sense their fragrance in the hot afternoon air and wonder how they can ever ripen without being irrigated. By this time of the summer the branches should start to be weighed down with fruit, but many of them are bare. The insistent sound of cicadas makes me feel dizzy. I stop to urinate and feel a sharp burning as each drop slowly drips out of me. I go to my usual spot under the willow tree and sit down facing the horizon. The sun looks like a huge copper tray and the golden color of the sky is joining the yellow of the desert and slowly turning to red.
Kemal calls me, but I don’t want to move. He calls again. Musa calls too. After a while I get up and go to them. A tablecloth is spread out on the sitting platform, the same one, old and worn, that Musa brought from home. Kemal opens one of the bottles and fills two small cups. He puts one in front of me, says, “Be salaamati,” and dumps the other one down his throat. He closes his eyes and pushes his lips together, tasting the liquid.
Musa shakes his head. “This is poison,” he says. “No one should drink homemade arak.”
“Homemade?” Kemal snaps back. “This is good stuff. Genuine. It’s smuggled into the country from Iraqi Kurdistan—I have my sources.” He turns to me.
“Let me tell you a story. I heard it the last time I was in Shiraz. You know that more and more Russians are coming into our country these days. Americans are out, Russians are in! Behruz, did you know I used to work with American engineers? I was a mechanic working in the refinery on the way to Shiraz. When the revolution came, they left and the project stopped. I lost my job. Well, these Russians, a group of them, seven of them, in a house in the holy city of Mashhad, where no one should be drinking”—he emphasizes these words—“drank homemade vodka made from figs and all went blind. Ha, ha, ha.” He laughs loudly. “Imagin
e that. Seven Russians, blind and drunk, in the streets of the holy city of Mashhad.”
“All the more reason you shouldn’t drink this,” Musa says.
Kemal, ignoring him, signals to me. “Drink, man! You won’t go blind.”
I don’t want to drink but think if I have a few shots, I might get the courage to confront him. I empty the cup into my mouth and feel a sting in my throat. Tears come to my eyes and I start to cough.
Musa grumbles. “Don’t, don’t drink. Your insides are still bruised. It’s worse than poison for you.” Angrily, he turns to Kemal. “Are you planning to kill him?”
Kemal looks first at me, then at Musa. “I’m not holding a gun to his head, am I?”
“I’m afraid you may do that too,” Musa says, staring at him with his one eye.
“Old man,” Kemal says, “can you let us sit here in peace or are you going to start all your nonsense again?”
He winks at me and downs another shot. I chew a piece of bread to take away the burning in my mouth. “It’s all about the war these days,” he says, switching off the radio. After a while he gets up and goes inside the farmhouse, and we hear the sound of things being pushed and shoved around.
“He went to get his smoking things,” Musa says. “He hides them in there.”
Kemal comes back with a plastic sack and addresses Musa. “Go get the propane burner. I have something I know you’re dying to have.”
Musa leaves his water pipe beside the wall and gets up in a hurry as if he’s been waiting for this order.
I wonder what he has to offer that Musa will be interested in, but I don’t pay any attention and at the moment am dazzled by the glowing red and purple of the approaching sunset.
Musa comes back with a burner and lights it. It hisses and burns with a bluish flame. From the sack Kemal takes out a thin piece of wire about a foot long, a couple of plastic straws, and something small wrapped in a piece of paper. He places everything neatly in front of him on the tablecloth. Then he fills up the cups with vodka and, raising his, pours it down his throat in one motion and then makes a loud clicking sound with his tongue. He picks up the other cup and holds it out to me. I push his hand away.
“Behruz, tell me what’s the matter. You don’t want to drink with me? Have I done something wrong?” He puts the cup down in front of me and picks up a piece of cheese that he wraps in some bread and leaves beside my cup. “What is so bad about a little vodka that they’ve made it illegal to drink?”
He turns to Musa. “You tell me, old man. Did Muhammad the prophet ever say anything about bottled drinks? No, he just said don’t drink, and he must have meant the drinks that were kept in jars or animal skins or whatever they used to have in those days. Certainly there were no bottles like this. If you ask me, he didn’t say anything about bottled drinks! So why are these mullahs against it, then?” He laughs and turns to me. “Don’t look at Musa sitting there smoking his pipe. He doesn’t believe in anything. In his youth he did it all. I’ve heard how he used to go to the city and stay there for weeks.”
Musa acts as if he hasn’t heard a thing. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he says, getting up. “I need to check on the animals down by the Naranjestan.”
When he’s gone, I point to my eye and gesture to Kemal to tell me what has happened to Musa’s eye.
“Well, man,” he says, “why don’t you ever say a word? What’s the matter with you? What are you trying to prove?”
He pauses and then begins to explain. “His eye … I don’t exactly know. I heard he was bitten by an insect after falling asleep in the desert. I’ve never asked him. But you know what I think? I think he got in trouble on one of his trips to the city a few years ago. I’ve heard many stories about him—about his father too.”
Hearing Musa’s footsteps, he stops talking and busies himself unwrapping the piece of paper. Inside is a chunk of opium that he places on a saucer and cuts into bits using a small knife. With one hand he holds the tip of the wire to the burner’s flame and with the other picks up one of the plastic straws and puts it between his lips. When the wire glows red, he holds it on top of the opium, barely touching it. Then he bends closer, putting the end of the straw above the burning opium. The coil of silvery smoke has a smooth, enticing smell. It rushes into the straw as Kemal draws on it. He does all this so quickly and skillfully that not a bit of smoke gets away. The sequence is repeated until the little piece of opium is all gone. Then he drinks the sweet tea that Musa puts in front of him.
“I bet you’ve never seen anything like this, Behruz.”
I shake my head.
“That’s what I thought. They don’t have this in America, do they?”
I shake my head again.
“Yes, this is called sikh-o-sang—wire and stone. It’s becoming popular all around the country. It’s more efficient than the old way, smoking with an opium pipe. We’ve modernized.” He points to the propane burner and laughs. “Opium is very popular nowadays. It pours in from Afghanistan like water into the desert, and we Iranians are drinking it dry to the last drop.”
Musa nods in agreement. I want to say, you’re not telling me something I don’t know, but stay quiet.
Kemal drinks his tea and winks at me. “Come closer, Behruz. It’s your turn.”
Temptation fills me, along with suspicion. I look at Musa, who has moved closer and has his eye on the opium. To my surprise, he doesn’t object. He probably thinks that it will be good for me, that it will relax me. Kemal hands me the straw and holds the hot wire over the opium. As I suck on the straw, the smoke warms my throat and chest and I start to cough.
“Slow and smooth—don’t rush it,” say Musa and Kemal at the same time. I take a deep breath and suck on the straw again. I see Musa’s excitement, as if he were participating in a ritual act. He hands me a cup of tea. “Drink,” he says, “it will take away the bitterness.”
“Here.” Kemal hands Musa a small piece of opium. “You’re killing me with that pathetic look of yours.”
Musa gazes at the piece on the tip of his finger, his head cocked.
“What’s this? A beggar would be disappointed too.”
“Don’t be so greedy, old man,” says Kemal. “After you smoke this, you’ll fall asleep for a week!” I notice as Kemal stretches out on the kilim that his runaway eyes have quieted down.
“Me, greedy? Not at all.” Musa, shaking his head, holds the opium between his fingers. “This stuff is the friend of old age and the enemy of youth. It’s good for a person like me. It takes the pain out of old bones. I’m not greedy—and let me tell you, nothing is greedier than opium itself and the opium pipe with its tiny hole.”
I’m not paying any attention to them, captivated by the huge sun on the horizon.
“Listen to me,” Musa says in a calm voice. “It’s been said that the eye of an opium pipe can suck in a caravan of camels, fields of crops, entire buildings, and life, and youth. All can vanish right through its tiny opening as small as the eye of a needle.” He stares at me. “Do you know what I’m talking about? Have you seen the opium pipe? Opium should be smoked with a pipe as in the old days, not like this.”
He stops talking and draws on the straw. “Well … Do you know the origin of the opium plant? The plant we call khashkhash? The plant with its beautiful flowers, princess of all the flowers? Who knows when it all started. It was probably at the beginning of time.” He closes his eye as if letting the smoke awaken the images in his mind. After a moment he begins to speak in a softened voice.
“Yeki bood, yeki nabood—once there was, once there was not … Yes … at this time of no time, there was a king who had a beautiful daughter called Khashkhash.”
Ah, Khashkhash—so the opium poppy was named for a princess. I never know, though, whether the old man makes up stories based on the situation or just adds something to the folkloric stories he knows. I remember a few days ago his telling me about Zainolabedin, a man in the village who had an old book that he used t
o find the answers to people’s questions about the future. Many people believed it didn’t exist, although some said it had been in Zainolabedin’s family for generations. Musa said he would love to have a book like that. Although I think he doesn’t need any book to spark his imagination.
Musa takes in the smoke, holding his breath for what seems a long time, and then goes on with his story. “Yes, Khashkhash the princess was as beautiful as a flower. She was nearing the age of marriage when she gradually began to grow weak and pale. Doctors were called in from all over the regions under the king’s rule. But none of them was able to discover the problem with the princess. Then one day out of nowhere, an old Chinese wise man, a man as old as China herself, walked into the palace. He had a long white beard and was wearing a yellow silk robe and carrying a beautifully carved walking stick. As soon as he saw the princess and looked into her eyes, he became excited and asked to talk to the king in private. He told the king that he had been searching for someone like the princess for years. He explained that through the centuries physicians had been looking for a person with the same symptoms as those of the princess. The king nervously watched the wise man, whose eyes shone with excitement. The Chinese wise man reassured the king, telling him not to worry, because the outcome of all this was going to be wonderful and would be useful to humanity for a long time to come. But there was a price to be paid.
“The king grew agitated. ‘Whatever it is’ he said, ‘tell me, I’ll pay. I’ll do whatever will save my Khashkhash.’ The wise man hesitated at first, and then explained to the king that someone must be sacrificed to cure the princess.”
Musa pauses, looking at me and Kemal, then turns his face toward the fields as if trying to remember the rest of the story.