Atiq Rahimi - A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear

My mother wept to herself, lonelier than ever before. Walking back home from the shrine, she concealed her terrified face beneath her veil. More anonymous than ever before. More insignificant than ever before. Unable to confide to a soul, “My oldest son, the man of my house, has become a fugitive!”

And no one replied, “Mother, may his absence be filled with patience and grace.”

Shrouded in her veil, crazy with grief, my mother shed her tears in the backstreets of the ignorant city before finally reaching our home. She wrapped up her distress in the veil and gave it back to the laundry-woman. She squirreled herself away in the safety of her kitchen to rewash the clean dishes. When the laundry-woman left, she took all the clean linen off the clothesline and washed it all again.

She hasn’t said a word to Parwaneh or Farid about my escape. She’ll tell them tomorrow. My mother always hangs on to bad news. She lives with it for a while, she weeps, she curses … and then, the next day, during breakfast, she’ll announce, “Children, Farhad has gone to Pakistan.”

Parwaneh rushes next door to take out her fury by sinking her teeth into her pristine school veil. Farid, with tears in his eyes, stays close to my mother. His childhood is over. His chest swells. Now he is the man of the house. He takes the worn-out hands of my mother in his own small grasp and presses them tenderly. Tomorrow they will move the green kilim from my room and lay it on the floor of the front room.

The car comes to a halt next to a small mud compound. The trafficker unloads the atmosphere of our house, rolled up in our carpet, and, along with his two wives, takes it into the compound.

I stay behind with two earless dogs that appear from nowhere to sniff around the car, a car that is emptied of memories and filled with fear.

In a corner of the mosque a man lies asleep next to me, his head resting on a brick for a pillow. A dervish. A long white beard covers his face. A cloak is spread out over his curled-up body. He’s sound asleep. So soundly even the call to prayer hasn’t broken into his dreams. He’s been left in peace, as if he didn’t exist.

Four groups of men sit around four oil-lamps: young and old, faces concealed by lengthy beards. Here, everyone is armed. Alone and unarmed in my corner, I sit with my back propped against the wall of the mosque.

Yahya has sprinkled water on the floor of the terrace, and the smell of dust and worn Hessian matting drifts across the small front yard. Mahnaz has brought Moheb out onto the terrace. Seated around the lantern, the three of them eat together. They eat in silence. What are they thinking about? Are they thinking about me?

“Has Father gone back to the city of Pul-e-Charkhi?” Yahya will ask.

Will Mahnaz tell him that I’m not his father? Perhaps, like me, she won’t want to shatter his dreams.

She has hung my freshly washed clothes out to dry on the washing line by the terrace. Mahnaz is thinking of me.

Clouds of hashish smoke permeate the mosque with their pungent smell.

No, Mahnaz won’t be thinking of me. She’ll do everything in her power to forget all about me. She’ll expunge from her life every last sign of me. Once she’s washed my clothes, she’ll donate them to the poor. I only wish that Mahnaz could know that someone is thinking about her at this very minute — someone who’s fallen hopelessly in love with the troublesome lock of hair that insists on hiding one side of her face; someone who’s in love with the persistence of her two slim fingers that repeatedly grant asylum to that strand of hair as, once again, they carefully rescue it and tuck it behind her ear …

The five bearded young men sitting in the circle closest to me pass their spliff from hand to hand. One of them offers me a drag. But the guy sitting next to him says, without looking at me, “He’s from Kabul. He drinks vodka.”

The scornful laughter of the little group echoes through the smoke-filled mosque.

I’ve never once smoked a cigarette in my life, let alone had a spliff.

But what will they think of me if I don’t smoke with them? Perhaps they’re just testing me. No one’s allowed to smoke in a mosque in the first place!

“Just ignore us,” says the guy with the black beard who offered me the spliff. “We merely smoke the humble herb of the ignorant poor!”

Hash fumes and mocking laughter spiral above my head. Someone in another group calls out, “From the ranks encircled of noble men: he who resists …”

The others cry together:

“Cannot persist!”

The cacophony in the mosque wakes up the old man who’s been sleeping on a brick. Perhaps he’s been awake the whole time with his eyes shut. He casts a glance at me. Light from a lantern hanging on a wooden pillar shines in his eyes. He smiles at me — why, I have no idea. Without thinking, I stretch my hand out to take the spliff and put it between my chapped lips. I try to inhale as much smoke as I can. An agonizing fit of coughing tears my chest apart.

“Vodka has mashed up your liver. Hash will mash up your lungs!”

My head rings with their sneering laughter. My limbs feel heavy. My mouth is dry. The mosque is thick with smoke.

What on earth made me smoke hash? Am I mad? I feel as though the blood has drained from my veins. My heart is pounding! I need to sit up.

Another group passes their spliff over to me:

“This is a Shah-Jahani, try it!”

I take the proffered spliff. Once more I draw the smoke deep into my lungs. Once more I’m wracked with a coughing fit, making my ribs feel as though they’re being dislocated one by one with every explosion.

The dervish raises his head. His eyes are bloodshot. His eyebrows look like two arches tacked to his wrinkled forehead. His jowls have caved in, as though he’s sucked his cheeks behind his teeth. He looks both stern and kindly. He moves his lips. He murmurs something under his breath that only he can understand. He throws back the cloak that has covered his wizened frame.

The door of the mosque swings wide open. A man with a white beard appears; he strides inside, bringing with him the absolute silence and weight of the night. Everyone stands up at once and salutes him.

I’m in no fit state to stand up. My head is spinning. I force myself to sit upright by levering my back against the wall.

The man’s right eye is hidden under a fold of his black turban. He stands at the front of the mosque. A few of the young men go over to sit by him. The man pulls out an old book from under his arm. He first recites a verse from the Koran himself and then he orders a young man to recite the sura of Joseph.

Is it me shaking or the wall of the mosque? I shut my eyes.

“… Joseph said to his father: O Father, I dreamt that the sun, the moon, and eleven stars prostrated themselves before me.”

“Praise be to Allah!”

My head is spinning wildly. I finally manage to stand up by hanging on to one of the wooden pillars that’s holding up the roof. I leave Joseph with his father and walk toward the door of the mosque.

“… In the tale of Joseph and his brothers can be found many signs of divine wisdom to aid those in search of truth …”

Where have my shoes gone? I step outside in bare feet. It’s freezing. The poisonous envy of Joseph’s brothers echoes from the mosque and is taken up by the wind. I find myself standing by a stream. The gentle babbling of the water washes the clamor of Jacob’s flock from my mind. The sky is clouded over. The moon and the stars lie prostrated at Joseph’s feet. I plunge my face into the starless water. The stream cleanses the thick fumes of hash from my lungs and my brain. I drink some water, then walk over to a big tree to have a piss.