A Curse on Dostoevsky (19 page)

“Rassoul-
djan
, you read too much. That’s fine. But there’s one thing you should know: your fate is written in one book and one book only: the
Lawh Mahfuz
, the ‘Preserved Tablet,’ written by …” he points up at the ceiling, where a few flies are buzzing around. “Other books cannot change anything, in the world or in a person’s life. Listen: Was Dostoevsky able to change anything in his country? Was he able to influence Stalin, for instance?”

“No. But if he hadn’t written that book he might have murdered someone himself. And he gave me this conscience, this ability to judge myself, and to judge Stalin. That in itself is huge, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it is huge,” agrees Parwaiz, before retreating into a long silence. Then he says: “That is why I congratulate you on your conscience and your act!” He smiles. “You managed to wipe out a loathsome element of our
society. The death of this woman must have been a great relief to many people. In fact, that explains the disappearance of her body—it was probably her own family. And if you hadn’t murdered her, someone else would have; Allah would have; a rocket would’ve fallen on her … who knows! So you must see that you have helped several people …”

“And what about me?”

“What about you?”

“What good has it done me?”

“You must see that you have done something important: you have restored justice.”

“Justice! But what justice? Who I am to decide if someone lives or dies? To kill is a crime, the most horrible crime a human being can commit.”

“
Watandar
, murder is a crime when the victim is innocent. This woman needed to be punished. She had done wrong to your family, your
namouss
. She had dishonored you. What you did is called vengeance. No one has the right to judge you as a murderer. The end.”

“Commandant, my problem is not with how others judge me; my problem is with myself. This suffering which gnaws away at me from the inside, like a wound, a festering wound that will not heal.”

“In that case, there are only two solutions: either you amputate the injured limb, or you grow accustomed to the pain.” He takes off his
pakol
, turns his head, and points to the back of his skull. “Look at that.”

Rassoul bends forward to look.

“Touch it.”

Rassoul brings his hand up, nervously; his fingers brush the commandant’s skull. “Can you feel anything?” Rassoul hesitates to reply, then suddenly pulls away his hand.

“Do you know what that is?” Parwaiz replaces his
pakol
. “A piece of shrapnel. It’s been in my skull for years. It was during the jihad. I had come home to see my wife and son. The Russians had heard we’d come to the village, and they bombed it. Our house was hit by a rocket. A large fragment martyred my family, and a small fragment lodged itself in my skull. I never wanted to have it taken out. I wanted to live with it, so the pain would constantly remind me of my family’s death. Throughout the jihad this piece of shrapnel gave me strength, and hope. A French doctor told me that unless I had it removed, I wouldn’t live for more than ten years. But I don’t want to live for more than ten years.” A loud laugh to lighten his bitter words. “You too have a piece of shrapnel—an internal one, an internal wound, a wound that has given you strength.”

“What kind of strength?”

“The strength to live, and to create justice.”

A young man brings them breakfast. The commandant asks him for news of Jano. “No news. We still haven’t found him.”

“What do you mean? He hasn’t just disappeared into thin air! Search everywhere!”

“I bumped into him four or five days ago,” interrupts Rassoul.

“Where?”

“He invited me to drink tea with him in the Sufi
chai-khana
. Inside, he met some mujahideen with whom you carried out a joint operation during the jihad, against a Russian military base.”

“Can you remember their names?”

“They had served under Commandant … Nawroz, I think it was.” Parwaiz is looking more and more distressed. He tells the young man to go to the
chai-khana
and see what he can discover. After a moment’s thought, he continues: “Take the case of Jano. He is my adopted son. The Russians destroyed his village and massacred his family. But he has a lion’s will to survive, which stems precisely from his desire for vengeance.” He falls quiet, to give Rassoul a chance to ponder his words.

“Your wounds are wounds inflicted by others. But I inflicted my own wound. Instead of increasing my strength, it is smothering me, leading me nowhere. Sometimes, I think I wanted to murder that old woman just to find out if I was capable of killing, like everyone else …” He lowers his head. Parwaiz pours more tea and Rassoul continues, as if talking to himself: “I saw that I wasn’t cut out for it. The other day I wanted to kill someone else, and I didn’t …”

“Perhaps that person was innocent?”

“Innocent? I don’t know. But he had insulted my
fiancée, chased her out of the Shah-e do Shamshira Wali mosque.”

“Is that all?” He puts the tea in front of Rassoul. “You can’t kill without a reason.”

“Perhaps I wanted to kill him in order to deal with my botched murder.”

“But that murder would have been botched, too, because you had done it for no reason.”

“I think that’s what happens. You return to a job in the hope of forgetting the previous one that you think you botched … And that is how crimes continue, in a vicious circle. That’s why I handed myself over to the law, so they could try me and put an end to all this.”

“
Watandar
, you know that a trial only makes sense if there is a legal system to ensure that rights are respected. And what has become of the law and the government these days?”

“Are you, too, looking for vengeance?”

“Perhaps.”

“Gandhi used to say, ‘An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.’ ”

“He was right. But vengeance is deeply rooted in us, whatever we do. Everything is vengeance, even a trial.”

“So the war will never end.”

“Yes, it will. It will end when one camp decides to accept the sacrifice, and stop demanding vengeance. Which is why it is so important to yield, to come to terms with one’s acts, crimes, and vengeances … until
one reconciles oneself with the sacrifice. But who can do that? Nobody. Not even me.”

Parwaiz understands everything. He is capable of anything. Don’t let him out of your sight. It is your job to shake him up, to return him to his mission. All he needs is a sacrifice, an accomplice. You will be that sacrifice.

“I want a legal trial. I want to be sacrificed.”

Silence, again. It is the look on Parwaiz’s face that condemns Rassoul to silence. An admiring, questioning look. Rassoul continues: “This trial will bring an end to my suffering. It will give me the opportunity to expose my soul to all those who, like me, have committed murders …”

“Stop thinking you are that Dostoevsky character, please. His act only made sense within the context of his society, his religion.”

“But what woke up the West was a sense of responsibility, deriving from a sense of guilt.”

“Mash’Allah!”
Parwaiz waves his hand around, knocking over his tea. “Bless the Lord for giving them that sense of guilt, or else what would the world be!” He bursts into sarcastic laughter. “You really do want to sacrifice yourself to your fantasies.”

“I’d prefer to sacrifice myself to my fantasies than to sacrifice others. I want my death to …”

He is interrupted by a burst of gunfire, not far from the Wellayat. Parwaiz pours more tea as he waits for Rassoul to continue.

“I want my death to be a sacrifice …”

“This country doesn’t need any more deaths, any more
shahids
 …”

“But I’ve no interest in being a
shahid
!”

Stop right there, Rassoul! You’ve already taken this too far.

I still have things to say to him.

Things you have said a thousand times before!

Yes, but not to him. He will be able to understand me. He knows that the existence of Allah has no need for witnesses, or martyrs.

If he knows that, there’s no point telling him. Finish your sermon: “I want my trial and my sentence to bear witness to these times of injustice, lying, and hypocrisy …”

“In that case,
watandar
, the whole nation must be tried.”

“Why not? My trial will be on behalf of all war criminals: communists, warlords, mercenaries …”

There is a long silence. Parwaiz has stopped drinking his tea. He is elsewhere, his gaze lost in space. A long way away, beyond even the sun that beckons at the window. Suddenly, he stands up. “Go back to your life,
watandar
, and your family. Get out of here! In Afghanistan this filthy war, like all wars, has its own laws and its own rules.” Rassoul stands up too: “But you are in a position to change those rules.”

Parwaiz stares at him for a long while, then holds out his hand. “When that happens I’ll let you know.
Ba amané Khoda
. Now go home!”

H
E DOESN
’
T
dare enter his room, on account of the little shouts and laughs emanating from it. He doesn’t dare smash the joy filling his home. Silently, he inches open the door. Yarmohamad’s daughters and two other children are playing, piling up his books to build houses. Their innocent hands waltz dolls from one story to another: “
Khala, Khala
, give me a light!”

“I don’t have one, go upstairs!”

“
Khala, Khala
, give me a light!”

“I don’t have one, go upstairs!”

“
Khala, Khala
 …”

Rassoul remains on the threshold, warmed by the children’s gaiety, unwilling to destroy this world where no one has a light. He leaves them to act out their dreams.

He goes back down the stairs. No sign of Yarmohamad, or Rona. He finds himself back in the street, where there isn’t a soul in sight. The insolent sun penetrates his skin, boils his blood, gives rise to strange emotions, strange feelings of inner desolation.

All bodies are a burdensome ruin.

All bodies need ether.

Need hemp, now and forever.

There is no one in the
saqi-khana
except Mustapha, curled up in a corner next to an unlit chillum. Rassoul greets him: “Salam!” Mustapha sits up drowsily, nods his head in response, and asks, as if in homage to his friend Jalal: “Has the war begun?” “No,” says Rassoul. Mustapha invites him to sit down. “Do you have a
tali
of hashish?”

“I wouldn’t have come if I did.”

Mustapha struggles to his feet and staggers over to the far end of the den, saying, “When Kaka Sarwar died, everyone left …”

“He died?”

“Yes, they killed him. One day, when he was really flying, he went to the mosque, strode up to the pulpit, seized the loudspeaker, and recited verse 18 from the Koran. You know, the one he was always quoting, the story of Gog and Magog.” Mustapha prizes a loose brick from the wall and continues. “We were here. We could hear him. We heard the shots they fired at him.” He rummages around in the hole and then with a stifled groan pulls out a scorpion by the tail. He drops it into the chillum. “This is all we have left to smoke,” he sniggers sadly. He strikes a match and sets fire to the creature. Eyes closed, he inhales the smoke and holds it in his lungs for a long time. Then he passes the chillum to Rassoul, and curls back up in his corner. Rassoul takes
a brief, hesitant drag, then another longer one. It burns as if he had swallowed both the scorpion and its venom. His throat seizes up. His veins pulse like small, injured serpents trying to surge out of his skin. He drops the chillum, leans against the wall, and pushes himself to his feet. The room is spinning. Everything goes black. The door is only two steps away, but it takes forever to reach.

Outside, the sky continues to beat down on his nerves, hard and sharp. Rassoul starts walking, more and more wasted on the scorpion smoke.

He needs shade.

He needs softness.

He needs Sophia.

You only ever think of her when you’re high.

No, in my poetic abyss.

Or in your monstrous agonies. That’s when you love her.

He arrives at her house. He wants to knock, but his hand just hangs in mid-air, like his thoughts.

What do you want from her?

Nothing.

Go back.

I just want to talk to her.

What more do you have to say? What have you said so far? Nothing. With or without your voice you have nothing to say, nothing to do, except brood on your distorted ideas.

No, I’m not going to go on about them now, I promise. I’ll take her to the vineyards at Baghebala hill, like I used to, so our love can look out over Kabul. I’ll tell her how beautiful she is. She will blush. I will fall at her feet and finally tell her that I prostrate myself before not only her innocent beauty, but also her suffering. And she will tell me that it is a long time since I’ve spoken to her so tenderly. I will tell her that I’ve had a great deal to say to her, but that the war hasn’t given us time. And I will kiss her. She will reach out and grab my hand. I will ask her to come away with me. Far, far away. To a beautiful valley where no one has yet acquired the power of speech, or else they have never experienced evil. A valley called the
Valley of Infans Regained
.

The sound of footsteps in Sophia’s courtyard drives Rassoul from the gate. Two women emerge, cloaked in their chadors; they pay him no mind and disappear down another lane. Who were they?

Sophia and her mother?

They didn’t see me. Or else didn’t recognize me. I don’t exist. I am nothing anymore.

“Sophia!” His cry does not emerge, lost in his vocal cords like before. He leans on the wall and lets himself crumple to the ground. He hugs his knees and rests his head on them. Shuts his eyes. Remains like that for a few moments, an eternity.

Here, he will stay.

Here, he will die.

Here.

And it has been years and years, an eternity even, that he has been here, at the foot of the wall.

It has been years and years, an eternity even, that he has been waiting for Sophia.