The Colonel (13 page)

One rainy evening, at dusk, Amir's sister Farzaneh had come to see him, bringing modelling clay and plaster and other bits and pieces for his sculpting. the colonel was standing at the window of his room, smoking and staring out at the rain. He could catch the odd word of what they were saying.
I don't think Amir had asked her for any materials
. As far as the colonel knew, Amir did not work in the traditional materials that most sculptors used. No, this solicitous gesture must have been Farzaneh's idea,
probably some excuse to come and see the brother she's closest to and have a chat with him…

This time Farzaneh had behaved quite sensibly. For once, she wasn't crying, and she had not brought her children with her. And the way Amir spoke to her gave her no opportunity to lapse into her usual gloom.

“You've really gone from us, sis. As for me… well, I'm lost.
Those who try to find their true role in life are always hit the hardest. Take our father, for instance; in his effort to be true to himself and keep up his standards, he communed with the photograph of The Colonel until his hair went white. And the only reason I'm working on this bust is to get involved with something permanent. I'm in a bad way, little sister. I'm a stranger in my own home! The tragedy of our whole country is the same: we are all alienated, strangers in our own land. It's tragic. The odd thing is that we have never got used to it. Yet, woe betide us if we do. The irony is that, if you really want to be seen as a good Iranian, and especially if you aspire to high office in this country, you first have to be a foreigner, someone who wasn't born here at all. On the other hand, if you were born and bred here and try to remain true to yourself, your country and your people, then alienation is the most lenient punishment you can expect. It's only through being a mouthpiece of foreigners and becoming a foreigner yourself that you'll be accepted as a native and be honoured and respected. My little sister, I wanted to speak up for my country. I love my country more than anything, but since I no longer speak with the voice of my party I've become a non-person, a stranger in my own land. That's the whole wretched story of our country. I have not been true to myself, my sister, so I am corrupted. That's why I am thinking of ending it all. But… but not in the way that others have said we shall all end. No, I won't allow myself to be killed by one of my brothers, although I could certainly bring myself to have their blood on my hands. I already have. No, I shall kill myself and, by doing so, will bequeath them a handicap like a horn on their heads. This may be absurd, but it is the only independent act I am capable of, since we are all done for, or soon will be.”

“Oh yes, we'd just begun to find our feet when they came
down on us like a ton of bricks – oh, they really made us pay dearly for that. They kept trying to convince us that our real problem was the enemy within, the snakes in our bosoms, they called them. ‘Kill them, wipe them out,' they said – ‘they could be your children, your brothers, your neighbours, your friends. Exterminate them. Exterminate them all. Kill your offspring, stamp out life, stamp out resistance. Can't you see they're dangerous?' This wave of vengeance just makes one want to weep. I know that my sister will die, I know that they will cast my brother's corpse at my feet, and that my father will finally lose his mind. And you will end up being ground up between the yellow, stinking teeth of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. And I know that I shall kill myself, for I have read every line in the book of death, but I shall not weep. I'm not prepared to play the court jester any more, either, putting on a mask of scornful jollity and cracking jokes about the impending catastrophe. No, silence is the only answer… It is with the white blade of silence that I can purify a world that accepts the ruin of an entire people and does nothing. What a price we have to pay, sister, what a terrible retribution!”

the colonel could not hear Farzaneh's reply. Or had she been struck dumb by surprise and disbelief at her brother's outburst? But what could she possibly have said in response anyway? Nothing. With her brother in that state, all she could do was shed tears of silent misery.

About an hour passed before he heard her coming up the basement stairs. When she emerged, the colonel was still standing by the window. He saw her sit down by the pond in the yard to wash away her tears. the colonel turned away from the window and paced up and down the room. Expecting Farzaneh to come in and see him, he turned on the light,
sat on the chair by the desk and lit another cigarette. He knew that his daughter would not leave without seeing him, however upset she might be by what Amir had said. He also knew that she could expect a stream of abuse, insults and mudslinging from Qorbani Hajjaj, that husband of hers, whenever she went to see her father, but that she took it all in her stride. And he knew that she would probably have brought some tranquillisers for him. the colonel, of course, just threw them away in the pond. But not when she was there – there was no point in upsetting his own daughter.

The mortuary was a bit over to the right from where the colonel was heading. Earlier, it had struck the colonel as a chamber of horrors, worse than the graveyard. The thought of entering it, especially at night, made his hair stand on end. One often heard of people wandering into a mortuary in the middle of the night and being literally frightened to death.

How come, then, that I now feel not the slightest twinge of fear?
It was more likely, the colonel thought, that the two young men he had left behind would be far more unnerved than he was by being surrounded by dead bodies all that time. It is only professional body washers who have no fear of bodies and the darkness of the mortuary. The minds of these young men had been unsettled by the daily toll of blood, bodies and slaughter
on the streets. The fact was, the colonel thought, that however much the youth of today had got used to blood and guts in the street, they still had a long way to go before they attained the detachment of a real body washer. The young still had white teeth. Their teeth had not gone yellow, wolf-like, grotesque and misshapen,
like I imagine old fashioned body washers' teeth get from a lifetime of bone cracking
. Even wolves would be frightened by darkness, corpses and mortuaries, though perhaps they would not show it.

He could hear them now. As he got closer, he could see them walking up and down. Without taking his eyes off the mortuary, he leaned against the wet trunk of a leafless tree to take another breather. All the while, he was watching the young policemen, their faces in the shadow, as they tramped nervously back and forth, shoulder to shoulder. They did not even appear to be talking to each other, just pacing incessantly this way and that, trying to kill time.

Yet, judging by the anxious and aimless way they were roaming around, they were not much given to thoughtful reflection. They did not appear to be smokers, otherwise they could have found a sheltered corner under the mortuary eaves and, like most old prison warders, have had a cigarette or two to pass the night away.

I could really do with a smoke now, if only this wretched rain
would let up.
No, he had to go and finish the night's work. He could light up after that, just as he had after Mohammad-Taqi's funeral, when the cup of coffee and cheap Homa cigarette he had had when he got home had really hit the spot. It had tasted as wonderful as his very first cigarette. That day was the first time he had really noticed Amir's squint, and the way his eyes stared at a point in the middle distance. And it was on that day that the thought had flashed across his mind: ‘My children… oh, how I wish I had never had you!'

A short distance away, The Colonel was standing on a gravestone, which made him look a lot taller. His black field boots were dazzling, unsullied by the mud, rain and dirt of the graveyard.
Thank goodness they can't see him, otherwise his terrifying appearance would give them heart attacks on the spot. I must not look at The Colonel, or these young fellows are going to think that the old man is off his rocker.
the colonel walked up to the policemen, propped his pick and shovel against the wall of the mortuary and wiped the sweat and rain off his face. He greeted the young men briefly and apologised to them for his lateness:

“I'm so sorry, gentlemen, but you can see what one has to cope with.”

the colonel's wife was standing by the door of the mortuary awaiting his return, as if she had already heard that Qorbani would not allow Farzaneh to go and wash her sister, as if to say that it would be grossly unfair and offend her deeply if the colonel blocked her way and stopped her doing her job. She had come to lay out her daughter, but before starting she wanted to be sure that the colonel would not stand in her way. He certainly ought not to prevent his wife from doing this
good deed; it would be very heavy-handed of him not to let Forouz wash her own daughter's body. Such meanness, particularly in the presence of The Colonel, would seem impertinent,
and on no account would I want any impertinence on my part to upset The Colonel
. So, as if nothing had ever happened between them, he showed his wife into the mortuary.

Forouz's face was shining like a moonbeam, her hair was all white and her lips were as white as the cotton shroud she was wearing. Only her eyes, caught in the light of a tallow lamp that stood on a plaster column in the mortuary, glowed red, like two bowls of blood. Apart from her red eyes, in her long white shroud she looked like a silken wing, floating gracefully over the earth. She did not speak or glance around. As at the most submissive moment of her life –
this was indeed a rare event –
she kept her head dutifully bowed and, walking in step with her husband, glided towards the slab where Parvaneh lay. Her demeanour was so calm and pure.
She must want my blessing, that her soul might be purified
.
What a way to get her own back on me!

“I'll kill her. I'll kill her before I go off on this sordid posting!”

the colonel had risen from his chair, and Amir was staring at him in astonishment. He could not believe it of the colonel, of his father, that he could murder his mother and, what is more, announce his intention for all to hear.
He might have wanted to give me a helping hand, but how… No, he couldn't alter my decision.
Nor could Amir help him, other than by standing aside and looking on as his father sorted his own mess out.
I started crying again and I broke down.
This might
have given Amir some brief hope that the colonel would change his mind about murdering his mother but,
to put a stop to any such hope
, the colonel stood up, threw off his army cap, strode bare-headed out of the room, crossed the courtyard and went out of the front gate to stand in the rain and wait for his wife to return.