He writes: “It’s nighttime, no one dares leave his hut. On this hot and humid night, everyone has scurried into a hole. From afar, the dog’s wails circle Guraab, the wail of a wounded larynx that is still in the tight squeeze of the rope. My stomach is churning and I must sleep, but I am not sleepy and the minute I shut my eyes it’s as though my nose and ears also close up, and then they come: the smells, scenes, sounds, the sound of a dog’s paws running over rocky ground, the sound of a metal chisel carving stone, the roar of fire, the groan of a woman whose husband has bent her over like a dog, the sound of all the dreams in the world. I want to sleep but my head won’t let me There’s more. Despite his dreadful state he has written more: “He woke me up with a start. It was him. I heard his paws on the window and the rasp of his constricted throat. I went to the window but he was gone. I saw his shadow going down the alleyway. This was the second night he had come to Guraab. Perhaps he was hungry. He stopped behind the door of a hut and rubbed his snout on the door. As though he wanted to chew on the rotting wood. Somewhere a woman screamed. Everyone put out their lanterns quickly. Now they know that it is safer in the dark. There was the sound of a shot and then the dog’s howl. In the morning there were only a few drops of blood in front of the door of Farvardin’s hut, nothing else. Farvardin says he aimed at the back of the dog’s head with his loaded gun, point blank. But I’m sure he hasn’t died. He will come again tonight. Even Farvadin stands in the middle of the road and yells, I will kill him a thousand times, if he comes back a thousand times, I will kill him . . . Still he will come . . . Why won’t he go away? What does he want to prove by staying in Guraab?” No, he seems to be writing much of this to himself or for others after him, for others . . . not for me.
“It is finally over. Today was the second day after he lost his sixth life and escaped. I saw him when I left my room this morning. He was standing there under that same tree, panting and wagging his tail for me. Last night, when he was howling under the window, I wished I had a gun to kill him myself, so that I and the others would be rid of him, but someone yelled in the alleyway and again there was the sound of a gunshot and then there was silence, without a drop of blood on the earth . . . What did this animal want from me, standing there as though nothing had happened. He was staring at me, and I could see Sabz-Ali armed with a shovel, tiptoeing toward him from behind. I saw him one step away from the dog and he raised his shovel and the dog still stared at me. The shovel slid along his side and tore the skin off his backbone. He leaped toward me and ran into the alley. There, someone blocked his way and hit him with a club. He was foaming at the mouth. I am sure of this, and he no longer wailed. Wherever he went, someone appeared in front of him and then he attacked. He wouldn’t have attacked if they had left him alone. The villagers had all poured out of their huts. Everyone was carrying something to beat the animal with. They pounded on his teeth. All I have written is merely the howls never uttered by that dog, and now I am at peace because I know that I am not real, and they are the ones that exist and I only observed them, all of them and the dog was evading their kicks and escaping to the hidden corners of the village. Froth and blood and pandemonium. The dog’s eyes were searching for me. There was something in the gaze of the people as they screamed obscenities and chased him and beat him with their shovels and clubs with all their might, and there was something about their frothing mouths, and just then, out of fear, I lost consciousness. The secret of the carved image in the cavern was being revealed to me and I could see that the bare teeth on the stone were a sign of these same frothed teeth, and the man is the ancient spirit of this same rabid fury that I see and I ran back toward the cavern and amid the dust and the screams and the howling of the wind, the dog, lame and butchered, was still struggling to find an opening in the wall of flesh and blind blows. Just before reaching the hill top, I fell, and there I turned around and looked at Guraab.
“The helpless animal was lying on the ground, he had covered his eyes with his paws and the circle of flesh around him was getting tighter. Sabz-Ali approached him from the middle of the crowd and poured something on him. The animal did not move. Perhaps they thought he was dead and someone lit a match. Did that resounding wail not reach your ears? Consider that perhaps you heard it in the folds of the city’s clamor, if you were sitting in the garden of your house that I once liked so much, and if the fountain in the reflecting pool was on and the water bubbles were popping and the green leaves of the orange tree shone on the water; perhaps you heard the dog’s cry as he went up in flames and leaped up and broke the circle of people and ran. Ablaze and blind he ran into a wall, he stretched his neck back toward the flame around his middle and tried to bite at it and leaving smoke and smell in his wake he ran toward the wheat fields. I rolled down the stairs of the cavern and lit a match. This was it, this was why it persistently dragged me to its side, to keep me captivated. The magic of the carving is not in the images alone, it is also in its survival, and the man had plunged his dagger in the animal’s head in such a way that it seems he had no other choice and his face was turned toward me and he was looking at me and from between his clenched stone teeth he roared something. His eyes, which were chipped at the corners and had taken on a beseeching look, said the same thing, ‘Strike.’ And I picked up a stone and struck it against his teeth, just what he had yearned for, for a thousand years. ‘Shatter.’ And I struck and struck again, stone against stone and the stone cracked and crumbled and then there was darkness and the terrifying sound of water.
“When I left the cellar, the world was also dark. Black smoke had enveloped Guraab and the plain. At the far end of the wheat fields, a few flames still rose amid the smoke. The people of Guraab, blackened, with singed hair and burned clothes, were on their knees here and there staring at the black earth and sky. No one wept, no one moved. Rostam had gathered a small stack of wheat where he had first shown me his thirteen seeds. He had cut them with his bare hands from in front of the fire and a woman held up her skirt, filled with stalks of wheat. . . seeds for next year. No one saw me coming toward my hut. Now I feel weak. It is night and the smell of smoke bothers me. When I look out the window, out in the dark plain ashes still glow. It is good fertilizer for the soil and I am thinking how am I going to seal this envelope, my mouth is so dry
It must be morning. He hasn’t written anything else. This was it, the end of his last letter. I don’t know, no one has any news of him. Early one morning someone left his few belongings behind our door . . . I no longer have much sleep or appetite. Just a few nights ago, when everyone was asleep, I went and turned on a water faucet so that water slowly dripped from it, and then I lay down. The sound of the water got louder and louder, and little by little I thought I was hearing other sounds . . . Sometimes I think, what if that dog, in that cellar, dug its teeth into his flesh. Then I say no, the dog was not rabid, an animal that docile could not have turned wild without reason . . . But why did he not want to understand that I was the one who was really there for him? After all that I have read to you, do you think I should wait for him? Do you think he will come one day, like he used to, or no ... he has gone for good . . .
— Translated by Sara Khalili
Footnotes
1 Skilled and literate conscripts are sent to remote villages to promote development and to aid villagers with health, education, and modern agricultural techniques.
2 The Persian text refers to “mountains of Zarneekh.” Zarneekh is a mineral compound of arsenic and sulfur, streaks of which run through the mountain.
Ghazi Rabihavi
Ghazi Rabihavi was born in 1956 in Abadan. After studying Persian literature there, he began writing short stories, novels, and plays. His publications include a novel, Maryam’s Smile (1997), and a collection of short stories, The Iranian Four Seasons. His play Look Europe!’ (1997) is based on the abduction and imprisonment of the Iranian journalist and writer Faraj Sarkuhi. It was staged in London with Harold Pinter playing one of the characters. His othe
r plays include Voices, Fly, and The Stoning. He has lived in London since 1995.
Rabihavi is among the younger group of writers who experiment with new narrative techniques. He often writes without familiar punctuation, and is creative with his use of time, place, and dialogue. His characters are often people who have been marginalized by official society, such as intellectuals in trouble, restless youth, prostitutes, and homosexuals. “White Rock,” which is about the execution of a homosexual, was published in Index on Censorship in 1996, after Rabihavi had moved abroad. Founded in 1972 by Stephen Spender, the journal Index on Censorship focuses on censorship issues and charts free speech violations through the world.
WHITE ROCK
The photographer jumped down over the gallows and his three cameras flapped around with him. We were worried something might happen to them. The gallows were still lying on the back of the pickup truck. He dusted off his trousers and said, “Are you kids from around here?”
We looked at each other and one of us said, “Are you going to take pictures of us or the dead man?”
The photographer blinked nervously and asked, “Is he dead?” and ran, complete with his solid-looking black cameras, to the patrol car. It had arrived with three revolutionary guards carrying G-3 guns about an hour earlier. And one of us said, “I bet those guns aren’t loaded.”
Two of the officers threw their guns onto the backseat of the car and walked over to the pickup. And one of us said then, “I bet those guns are loaded.”
They began to help take out the gallows posts from the truck and to set them up on either side of the white rock, where they had already dug two shallow holes to support them. Before they found the rock, one of the revolutionary guards had asked us, “Hey, you. Can any of you get us a stool?”
And one of us said, “He’s going to be hanged, isn’t he? Because you have to hang him.”
But the other guy said, “Don’t bother with a stool, this white rock will do.”
A few local men were coming our way from different parts of the town. It was a good Friday morning for a hanging, only it would have been even better if it hadn’t started to snow, or if we’d had gloves. They said if it snowed they wouldn’t hang him. It wasn’t snowing when they brought the dead man. When they brought him he was alive.
He came out of the ambulance and sniffed the air. He had pulled up the zipper of his gray and green jumper — or someone had done it up for him because his hands were strapped behind his back. The first snowflakes settled on his hair. A group of locals ran toward him. The photographer was checking his cameras. The headlights of the ambulance had been left on. The snowflakes were light and soft. They melted even before they touched the lights. One of us said, “Pity. I wasn’t even born when they executed the Shah’s guard.”
One of us answered, “My brother was born then; my dad sat him up on his shoulders so could see the guy being executed. Bang! Bang!”
The truck driver said, “I’d love to stay and watch. It’d mean a blessing for me. But I’ve got to go to deliver this food for the troops.”
The fat guard scratched his beard with the gun barrel and said, “Good luck.”
The truck driver ran to the pickup, cursing the snow.
The prisoner was pacing up and down in the snow without any idea that he was moving closer and closer to the gallows. Sometimes he just stood there, with his long, thin legs, turning his head this way and that, sniffing the air. He wrinkled his nose and waggled his eyebrows, trying to shift the blindfold to find out where he was. But the blindfold was too tight. One of us said, “Shout out his name so he knows where he is.”
Another said, “When I used to know his name he was a different person.”
A couple of people were still working, trying to get the gallows firmly in the ground.
Only men and children could come to watch. One of the men, who had been given a leg up on the cupped hands of another, jumped down and said, “Where’s the other one?” The prisoner turned his head and said, “Yeah. Where is he?”
We didn’t know the other guy; he wasn’t from our town. We only saw him once — no, twice — on the same night. It was the beginning of autumn. The sun was just setting when we saw him entering the gates. He had a long turtleneck sweater pulled down over his trousers. His clothes were black, like his hair. The officer at the gate was eating meat and rice. The stranger was carrying a bouquet of pink roses, and he was trying to hide a black plastic bag underneath it. He didn’t like us watching him. But we did anyway and figured out that there were two bottles in the bag. He had the address of the prisoner but didn’t know which way to go. So we showed him. At first we thought he was a rather tall boxer. He ran his fingers through his hair and lifted his head. Then he lowered his eyes. His eyebrows were shaved across his nose, where they should have run together, and he smiled at us. The sun trembling through the plane tree splashed his face with light and shade. He smiled and turned in the direction we had pointed. The security guy was washing his plate under the tap and asked us, “Who was that?” And we told him. He looked over at the prisoner’s house.
People were moving closer to the gallows, gathering in front of it. The photographer was sitting in the ambulance having a smoke. The prisoner, walking toward the gallows, was still unaware of where he was. One of the guards took his arm and pulled him over to the rock. The photographer grabbed his cameras and jumped out of the ambulance. He was wearing one of those safari vests with lots of pockets. From one of them, he pulled out a wire contraption and hooked it onto the shoulder tabs. Then he got out some white cloth and stretched it over the frame he had made. Now the snow wouldn’t bother him. With the umbrella that had just sprouted from his shoulder, he ran across the gallows.
None of the spectators was related to the prisoner; we didn’t know if he had any relations. He was a loner; he built the wooden bodies for stringed instruments and twice a week went out of town. People said he had a wife and children somewhere whom he had abandoned. The grocer had said to him, “Give it another chance. You’re only forty-five. It’s actually the right time to get married.”
The prisoner smiled and said, “Ah yes, the right time.”
The guy holding the prisoner’s arm was still looking at the hanging rope. Then he told the prisoner, “Stand on top of this stone, will you, pal. Just to test everything’s okay.”
The prisoner’s feet searched for the stone. Found it. If we could have seen his eyes, we could have told if he was frightened or not. That midnight, in the autumn, when the guards attacked his house and arrested both of them, he pressed his face against the rear window of the car, his eyes searching everywhere for his lover. Then, his voice trembling, he yelled from behind the glass, “Leave him alone!” The car drove off; a crushed pink rose was still sticking to the back tire.
The prisoner asked, “Is it time?”
The revolutionary guard said, “No. The haji hasn’t arrived yet.1 We can’t start without him.”
He said, “Then what?”
The officer said, “Take your shoes off. This is only a trial run.”
The prisoner removed his feet from the loose-fitting canvas shoes and stood on them. His long, thin toes were red with cold. The guards had upended the white rock and were holding it in position; the slightest kick would topple it, leaving his feet dangling in space. The guard said, “Now climb up.” He put one foot on the rock. It shifted, swayed, nearly fell over. The guard jumped forward and set it straight again.
“What’s with you?” he said. “Are you in a hurry?”
Then he got up and, one by one, carefully placed the prisoner’s feet on the stone. The prisoner stood on the stone and was raised up above the crowd. His shoes were left below, on the ground, and everything around him was white: the sky, the snow. The rest of the officers and the driver were standing under a big umbrella, like you have on a beach, next to the patrol car. It was a long way from the gallows. The photographer said, “What are you doing? The haji isn’t here yet.”<
br />
The guard said, “No, he isn’t.”
The photographer said, “Then come over here and have some saffron dates.”
The guard said, “Only if you let me stand under your umbrella,” and burst out laughing. The photographer looked up at his umbrella and said, “It’s for the cameras,” and walked toward the patrol car.
The spectators were not saying anything. They were just standing there, silent, looking at the prisoner. Hanging on to one side of the gallows, the guard pulled himself up next to him. If he hadn’t been wearing boots, there would have been enough room for another pair of feet. The stone wobbled again, but didn’t fall over. The guard grabbed the hanging rope and struggled to loop it around the prisoner’s neck. The prisoner was trying to help, but couldn’t see what the guard was doing. Then he jumped down and the rock stayed firm. He said, “Now you see how steady it is?”
Strange Times, My Dear Page 43