Earth and Ashes - Atiq Rahimi [17]
You wind around the side of the first hill. You want naswar. You have none. Maybe the box of naswar is already in Murad’s hands.
You slow your pace. You stop. You bend down. You take a pinch of gray earth between your fingertips and place it under your tongue. Then you continue on … Your hands are clasped behind your back, holding tightly the bundle you tied from the apple-blossom scarf.
The author and publisher would like to thank Sabrina Nouri for her editorial advice.
TRANSLATED FROM DARI BY
SARAH MAGUIRE AND YAMA YARI
I can feel hands stroking my head. They are warm and tender. They are nervous; they tremble.
“Mother, is that you?”
A lock of my mother’s hair caresses my face. So soft and gentle.
“Brother, are you awake?”
That’s not my mother. Who is it?
Despite all the pain, I force my eyes open. I can’t tell whether the blackness I see is her hair or the night. I move my head a fraction. Beneath the dark hair is a woman I do not know. To one side of her, I can make out the face of a child, who says, “Father!”
His hand is stroking my hair.
“Father! You woke up! You came back! Get up!”
Are these the same voices I heard before, the same faces? No, I’m still asleep. I’d better close my eyes again. I close them.
“Stop!”
I stopped. No, I didn’t just stop, I froze to the spot. I froze at the sight of a soldier aiming his Kalashnikov right at my head. The soldier was standing in front of a jeep. Its headlights shone straight in my eyes. I put up my hand to stop myself being blinded.
“Stop! Hands behind your head!”
I froze to the spot while the soldier, the gun, and the jeep spun round and round in front of my eyes. Then, at the sound of a gun being cocked, everything suddenly lurched to a halt and I turned to stone. Another soldier came around the side of the jeep. His Kalashnikov ready, he walked right up to me and said:
“Password?”
And I said:
“No idea.”
“What’s the password?” the soldier behind him shouted.
“But what time is it?” I asked, trying to catch a glimpse of my watch.
“Don’t move!”
I felt the butt of a Kalashnikov ram into my guts. My mouth filled with blood and I spat out the words:
“The password for the curfew? Sorry, no, I’ve forgotten.”
I tried to lean close to the soldier so I could tell him I’d been drinking, that I was too drunk to remember the password. But the terror of being picked up by the soldiers and then whacked in the stomach by a Kalashnikov was too much for me. Everything went black.
“Down on your knees!”
Those hands that stroked my forehead, that hair brushing against my face, that child who called me “Father,” were they really real? Strange how, when you’re dreaming, the dream-reality always seems to be more real than reality itself. This is what we are like: our dreams seem more plausible than our lives. But if they didn’t, all those revolutions, those wars, those religions and ideologies, could never have been dreamed up …
“Brother, can you stand?”
Even though I’m terrified, I open my eyes. Nothing has changed. The same woman, the same child …
Morning never comes. Night is an eternity. That woman is here. I am dead. The woman—or angel—is dragging me away. Where is she taking me? To the abyss? How far to the bottom?
My breath stinks of booze, my mouth tastes disgusting. I have sinned. I can feel the wounds to my body that were given to me by Nakir and Munkar as punishment for my sins.
“Dear angel, pardon me! Oh God, have mercy! Save me!”
Which one of hell’s doors are we going through?
Why do the djinn close the door behind us?
“Let go of me, Angel …”
The angel lets go of me. I float in midair. I tumble to the ground. I hear nothing but silence.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM OTHER PRESS
ATIQ RAHIMI’S PRIX-GONCOURT WINNING NOVEL,
the patience stone
translated by Polly McLean
with an introduction by Khaled Hosseini
“In spare, unflinching prose, Atiq Rahimi gives us Afghanistan’s terrible legacy in the story of one woman’s suffering. Anyone seeking to understand why Afghanistan is difficult and what