A Curse on Dostoevsky (15 page)

“No, now! Come on!” they all protested. Kaka Sarwar turned toward Hakim: “But I’m hungry.”

“We’ll buy you a kebab and some tea. Who has money?”

Nobody moved except Rassoul, who took a high-value note out of his pocket and gave it to Hakim.

“You will never be bankrupt!” Kaka Sarwar blessed him. “So I will tell the rest of the story to you. But first, the chillum!” They gave it to him; he smoked and passed it to Rassoul. “This woman, the head of the village, was the descendant of a great sage among sages, who lived a long time ago in a faraway kingdom. He was blind, but able to read manuscripts simply by caressing the letters with the tip of his finger. Misfortune hit him one day when people noticed that, as he read, the words were slowly being erased from the book.” He stops and stares at the enthralled faces around him. After a deep breath, he takes the chillum once more. The smoke muffles his voice: “Poets, holy men, judges … all were
panicking. They hid their manuscripts for fear that they would be read by this blind sage. And they forced the king to banish him from the kingdom. The sage and his whole family went into exile against their will. He settled in the valley I was telling you about. He built a city where everyone learned everything by heart. They didn’t have a single book, nothing was written down. Because they knew it all. Books are made for idiots!” He bursts out laughing, then smokes, coughs, and continues: “They invented a new language, one impossible to forget. From then on storytellers, poets, and holy men flocked to this valley from all over the world so that the people would translate their work, bring it to life in their voices, and immortalize it in their memories. It is said that in this place even stories that had been forgotten—true and false, known and unknown—came back to people’s minds, took shape once more, reconnected to the voices of the storytellers … And this was, of course, threatening to the history distorters, the tale forgers, the falsifiers of secrets, the science imposters, the shady politicians … One day, they all descended upon the village. Invaded and destroyed it. They destroyed everything! They deafened the children and cut out the adults’ tongues. But …” a pause, a long drag on the chillum, “but what they didn’t realize was that in this valley there were not only human beings. The houses, the trees, the rocks, the water, the wind, the air, the birds, the snakes … everything in this valley could remember the people, its history, its wisdom, and
also the barbarism of the tyrants!” His voice gathers pace, trembles. “Yes, everything can be destroyed, but never memory, or memories. Never!” He falls silent and withdraws from the circle to lean against the wall.

“What happened then?” asks Mustapha, seemingly bewitched.

“What do you mean, then?”

“To you?”

“To me? Oh, yes!” exclaims Kaka Sarwar, moving away from the wall. Serene once more, he continues: “My guide finished the story about his leader just as we entered the neighboring village. He left me at a hidden shrine where I could spend the night. As I gave him back his storm lamp, as I shook his hand and thanked him, I noticed that he was blind!”

“You’re kidding!” cries Mustapha, astounded. Another young man objects: “Kaka Sarwar, you invented this story. It never happened. It isn’t true!”

“But now it is—as a holy man among holy men from the land of the setting sun used to say—
because I have told it to you,”
retorts Kaka Sarwar with a mischievous smile.

“Where do you get all these stories, Kaka Sarwar?”

“From the Valley of Lost Words, my son.”

“So it really does exist, then!” exclaims Mustapha.

Another few drags: the dry tongue, the hacking cough setting fire to the chest, the blood freezing in the veins, the heart beating slowly, and the whole body flying.

*   *  *

At that point Rassoul stands up, steadies himself against the wall and leaves the smoking den.

Outside, the city is a furnace. Everything is rippling in the heat: the mountain, the houses, the stones, the trees, the sun … Everything is quaking with fear. Except Rassoul. He is light, soothed. He walks the streets like the last man on earth, unable to catch a single eye, caress a single soul, or hear a single word. He feels like crying out that he is the last man, that the others are all dead, dead to him; and then to start running, and laughing … all the way to the Larzanak bridge.

The bridge shakes with the explosion of a rocket not far away. But Rassoul doesn’t move. He does not drop to the floor. He just stands there, as if daring the gunmen to launch their rockets at him. Go on, fire! I am here. And I’ll remain here, in front of you. You—so deaf, so blind, so mute!

Dust envelops the river, the bridge, the body, the gaze, the voice …

He continues on his way, passing in front of the Hotel Metropole. It is chaos in there, too. Foreign journalists, hotel employees, and armed bearded men are all running around in a frenzy. Perhaps Razmodin is back. Rassoul enters the lobby.

A young employee—the one who came to find Rassoul in the
saqi-khana
—is busy transporting a wounded foreign journalist. When he sees Rassoul he stops and removes the couple of dollars clenched between his teeth: “Razmodin is not here. He has disappeared. He left yesterday, we haven’t seen him since. Everyone is getting out. There’s going to be …” A violent explosion just opposite rocks the building. The wounded journalist is crying. He gives another dollar to the young man, who quickly carries him down to the basement.

Outside, everyone is shooting, without knowing at whom or what for.

Shooting.

Shooting …

The bullet will find its target.

R
ASSOUL DRAGS
himself outside, with no particular destination in mind and indifferent to the chaos of the city. He has no desire to return to Sophia’s house, or to visit his aunt in search of Razmodin—who must be in Mazar anyway, with Donia. He walks toward the Ministry of Information and Culture. From behind a barricade someone shouts: “Watch out,
khar-koss
!”

Rassoul heads for the voice. A man grabs him and pulls him to safety, scolding: “You fucking idiot! If you’ve had enough of this life, go and die somewhere else; we don’t have time to dispose of your body. Where the hell are you going?” It is Jano’s friend, the one who beat him up in his room. “If you’re looking for Commandant Parwaiz, he’s not here. He’s gone to look for Jano, who’s disappeared.”

Jano disappeared? He must have fled. He must have had enough of the war.

Rassoul stands up and moves away from the barricade. He wanders through the shouting, the shooting, the tanks … and nothing hits him. He makes it to Zarnegar Park. Smoke hangs amid the trees. He stretches out on the grass in a corner of the park. He smokes,
nonchalantly adding his cigarette smoke to that of the gunfire. He closes his eyes and lies there for a good long while. Gradually the noise fades into a prolonged and profound silence.

Suddenly, there is the sound of footsteps approaching, skimming his head, gently penetrating his lifeless state. He opens his eyes. A woman draped in a sky-blue chador is passing right by him. At the sight of her he sits up.

Sophia.

He gets to his feet and begins hesitantly to follow her.

When the woman notices she is being shadowed she slows down, stops, and turns fearfully toward Rassoul. She moves aside to let him pass. But he stops walking too. Disconcerted, she sets off again.

Leave her alone, Rassoul. It isn’t Sophia.

But who is it, then?

Just a woman, one of so many.

But what is she doing here? Why has she come to the park, especially now, when everyone is running to safety?

Like you, she is taking refuge in the park, protecting herself among the trees.

No, she has come to see me. I’m sure of it.

The woman reaches the edge of the park and takes the main road toward Malekazghar junction.

Rassoul speeds up, overtakes her and bars her way.

She stops, afraid. She looks around wildly but there’s
no one in sight. Increasingly terrified, she edges past Rassoul to continue silently on her way. Rassoul follows her. Now that she is close, he tries to see if she’s the same size as Sophia. No. What about Nana Alia’s daughter? Hard to tell. So why are you following her?

I don’t know. It’s strange that she came here. She must be looking for someone.

But not you!

Who knows?

They reach the junction. She crosses it quickly.

Look at her. Is she behaving like someone who has come to find you? It seems more as if she’s running away.

Disappointed, he gives up the chase and lights a cigarette.

But once she reaches the other side of the junction, the woman stops and turns to look at Rassoul.

She’s playing with me. She is expecting me to follow her.

And he sets off to catch her up. She rushes away again.

“Stop!”

Rassoul stops.

Where did that voice come from?

From you!

“Stop!”—yes, it came out of my mouth!

He cries: “Stop!” It is definitely his voice, fragile, damaged, muffled, but audible. “Stop!” He breaks into a run. The woman runs too. “Stop!” He catches her up, breathless. “Stop! I … I’ve got my voice back!” He tries to make out the woman’s face through the grille of her
chador. “I can speak!” He moves a step closer. “I want to speak to you.” She is listening. He searches for the right words.

“Who are you?” She says nothing. “Who sent you?”

His hand, more shaky even than his voice, reaches out to lift her veil. The woman steps back, frightened. “Whoever you are, you must know me. You came to find me. You came to make me speak. Didn’t you?” The woman looks away. “In my dream, it was you who brought me my Adam’s apple.” He touches her. She shivers, and backs away.

“I know you. I was looking for you. You’re the woman in the sky-blue chador. I recognized your walk. It was you who saw Nana Alia’s body, and made it disappear. You left with her jewelry box and her money. You did a good job. You are shrewd, and clever. Well done!” She starts to cross the street, on to the other pavement. “You need to know something: I could have killed you, as well, but I chose not to. You owe me your life, did you know that?” She totters—from fear, or exhaustion—steadies herself, and rushes off. “Listen to me! Wait a minute. I’ve so much to say to you.” She steps off the pavement and stands in the middle of the road, hoping to see something arrive—a car, a tank—but there is nothing. Nobody. Rassoul is chasing after her.

“Don’t run away. I won’t hurt you. I couldn’t.” He grabs at her chador, which slips between his fingers. “You can’t run away from me anymore. It’s over. We have found each other. We share a life, a destiny.
We are the same. The two of us have dirtied our hands with the same crime. I killed; you stole. I’m a murderer; you’re a traitor …” The woman stops, turns around to stare at him, and rushes off again. Surprised by this unexpected pause, Rassoul continues more calmly: “And yet this crime that we share weighs on my conscience only. It’s not fair that I’m the only one to suffer. I who committed the murder in order to free my fiancée from that whore, and use her money to save both our families. If only I had the money and the jewels; instead, I’m haunted by remorse. Help me! Only you can help me. We could join forces, keep this secret until the end of our days, and be happy.” The woman slows down once more—thinking, deliberating, or just resting—and then continues on her way toward Kabul Wellayat, the governor’s office. “Tell me what you’ve done with the jewels and the money. They belong to me. I must have them. They would ensure the happiness of two families—or even three, if we include yours. Who cares if they arrest me, who cares if they hang me; at least I will be relieved of my crime. I will be finished with all this suffering.” The woman, still silent, walks along the outside of the Kabul Wellayat. Rassoul dares go no further. He stares at the woman. “Take me with you, or I will tell the police at the governor’s office. Do you hear me, you deaf, dumb creature?” Still silence. “At least tell me who you are. Tell me if my crime has made you happy.” The woman reaches the gate of the Wellayat, stops, and turns toward Rassoul as if to invite him inside. He sidles
hesitantly along the wall. “No, you can’t be happy without me. You need me, like I need you. We are like Adam and Eve. Two sides of the same coin. Both of us driven out to live on this cursed earth. We can’t live without each other. We are condemned to share our crime, and our punishment. We will create a family. Travel far, far away, to the remotest of valleys. We will build a city that we will call … the ‘Valley of Lost Sins.’ We will invent our own laws, our own morality. And we will have children—not like Cain and Abel, or else I will kill Cain. Yes, I will kill him because I know his potential. I will kill him the moment he is born!” The woman opens the gate and, after a final glance at Rassoul, enters the courtyard. He stands there astounded. He looks around; the street is still deserted; the silence is deeper than ever; the sky, low and heavy. He walks right up to the gate of the Wellayat. Through the grill, he can see only the ruins, and no trace of the woman.

Who was she?

W
HO
’
S THERE
?” A high-pitched voice stops Rassoul in his tracks. Where did it come from? He calls out, in his fragile, feeble voice: “Is anyone there?”

“Yes, djinns!” resounds another voice, prompting sarcastic laughter from a stone sentry box by the Kabul Wellayat gate. Peering inside, Rassoul can just discern two bodies stretched out on the ground. “Did you see a woman go in?”

“A woman? Here? If only!” The two bodies shake with laughter.

“Is there anyone at the Wellayat?”

“Who do you want?”

“The public prosecutor.”

“Which djinn is that?’ And then, to his mate, “Do you know it?”

“No. Ask him for a cigarette.”

Rassoul takes two cigarettes and holds them out. “Throw them in!” He obeys, insisting: “There must be someone there, though? A governor, a judge, or …”

“Go and see for yourself! Why ask us?”

* * *