Atiq Rahimi - A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear

“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.

“Brother, would you like some water?”

I shift my gaze from the face of the new moon to the face of the woman who haunts my nightmare. Here she is, standing above me, a glass of water in her outstretched hand. I lie flat out like a corpse. Wracked with agony. I move my head. I am outside on a terrace. The yellow light of an oil-lamp, shining through the window of a room indoors, illuminates this woman against the backcloth of the night.

No, I am not dreaming. I am not trapped in a nightmare. I am not lost in Barzakh. I am alive and I am awake! Look, I can take the glass from the woman and drink this water … I can feel the water coursing through my body. I can feel my burning throat, my aching bones … No. This is not a dream. I can clearly make out the slim face of this woman, the dark hair veiling her profile …

“Brother, would you like some more water?”

I can understand her too. And I can even reply to her question:

“Thank you!”

Yet the pain prevents me from asking where I am. Or how I got here …

The woman disappears down a dark corridor. Then the child emerges from the gloom with a big pillow in his arms.

“Here, Father, put it under your head!”

Why on earth does this child keep calling me “Father”?

The child props the pillow against the wall under the window of the room where the yellow light is shining. I heave myself onto it and collapse. A shadow crosses the terrace. I look behind me. In the lamplight I can make out someone shuffling across the room. He holds his arms away from his sides stiffly, as though they were two withered branches. Then he vanishes into the darkness beyond the door.

Anxiously, I examine the child sitting in front of me who, in turn, is staring at me with a tender smile on his lips. I lie back on the pillow. I close my eyes. I no longer want to think about all these ghosts and dreams.

I succumb to the nightmare.

“Father!”

No, I will never open my eyes again. I believe in my nightmare. I am a prisoner of dreams. I have recited the names of God to no avail.

The nightmare has proved stronger than my faith. My soul is now lost to me.

My grandfather used to say that, according to Da Mullah Saed Mustafa, if your soul ever ventures beyond your control, you should say the name Al-Mumit and then cross your hands on your chest.

I can feel the child’s small hand on my forehead.

Al-Mumit. Al-Mumit …

“Father, are you better?”

I am tired of all these nightmares. Let me have peace. Peace, are you listening?

The child strokes my forehead. I can see him. He’s smiling at me. And suddenly, I want to laugh too — laugh at how helpless I am, laugh at the angels … at the djinn …

“Yahya, come inside!”

That’s Yahya’s mother, calling him from down the dark corridor.

“Mother, Father is better; he’s smiling.”

“I said come inside! It’s time for bed!”

The child comes close, and with a look full of tenderness, gives me a kiss on my forehead. Then he scampers off down the corridor in the direction of his mother’s voice.

What is going on? What could possibly explain this confusion? Why does this night never come to an end? Who were those soldiers and why did they stop and question me? How did I end up here, with this woman and child? Why does she call me “Brother” and he call me “Father?”

Why haven’t they taken me home to my mother?

“Father, drink some juice!”

The child has come back with a glass of juice. With an unsteady hand and a mind brimming with questions, I take the glass from the child and bring it to my lips. The juice stings my mouth, burning my tongue and gums; I feel it swill down my gullet. I can’t drink any more; I hand back the glass to the child. I try to move my bruised and battered bones a little, and I ask Yahya to come here. The child, excitedly, sits down next to me. Where do I start? With asking where I am? Or how I got here? Or why he calls me “Father?”

“Father, where have you been?”

But the child’s own question throws me completely. Where on earth have I been?

“Yahya, I said go to bed!”

At the sound of his mother’s voice, the child jumps up and runs down the corridor, heading for the light.

Where have I been? Perhaps I’ve lost my memory! It’s not unknown for someone to suffer from amnesia after an accident and to have no idea of who he is or where he comes from. To completely forget his wife, his children, and his home … his mind a blank sheet, wiped clean of any familiar names or identifying details …

But, no, I do know who I am! My name is Farhad. Mirdad’s son. Born in 1337 [1958] … My grandfather was a devotee of Da Mullah Saed Mustafa. No one else apart from him was ever allowed to visit Da Mullah Saed Mustafa. Not my grandmother, not my mother. Only my grandfather knew him. Every Friday, after returning from the mosque, my grandfather would call his grandchildren around him, and from under his embroidered cushion he would bring out the Book of the Dead by Imam Ghazali, and then he would begin to read us stories about the afterlife that awaits us when we die. These tales would scare us so much that we’d cry with fear, prostrating ourselves before him, begging to be saved …

But these are the very things I was thinking about when I was having that nightmare! And that means, I’m simply repeating my dreams. My mind has gone completely blank and I am taking my nightmare for reality …

Ah, but in fact, there are other things I can remember! My mother’s name is Humaira. She has three children. My sister Parwaneh and I, and my brother Farid. Two years ago my father took a second wife, younger than my mother. Then, after the coup, he fled to Pakistan. He never divorced my mother, he simply abandoned her … Today’s date is 24 Mirzan 1358 [October 16, 1979]. Not long ago, Hafizullah Amin, that faithful student of Taraki, murdered his own dear teacher and put himself in power … What else?

No, my memory is intact! I’ve never been married, nor had any children. So far — other than in my intense fantasies when I masturbate — I’ve yet to experience the delight of a woman’s tender embrace …

So, I’ve got no reason to think I’ve lost my memory! Nor to question my identity or doubt my history. No. Something has happened. Probably a mistake. Well, we’ll see. Maybe I drank too much again — so much that it’s poisoned my mind and made everything seem like a very vivid nightmare.

“Brother, you must be hungry. Would you like something to eat?”

The woman stands in the doorway holding an oil-lamp. The lamplight throws the pleats of her skirt into sharp relief, but her face is concealed by the darkness of the corridor.

Yes, I am hungry. But I can’t face eating any food. I’m hungry to know where I am and how I got here.

“No, thank you, Sister … but …”

Suddenly, the ghost whose shadow I saw a few minutes ago, walking across the room, emerges from the darkness behind her, moaning. At the sight of his two bowed arms, like withered branches attached to his body, my question dies in my mouth. The woman, unmoved by his arrival, takes the strange phantom’s hand and leads him back down the corridor.

Once again I’m left alone with a hundred-and-one unanswered questions, helpless in the house of a stranger.

My best friend, Enayat, and I decided to pay a visit to Moalem’s shop. There, as always, we found the old man with his misshapen figure and his long, flowing hair wedged behind a counter laden with potatoes and chickpeas. And, as always, he winked at us, shooing off the two children who were haggling over a sack of beans. Then his smile broadened into a grin, his eyes twinkled with mischief and he announced in a quavering voice that echoed all around his humble little shop, “The Daughters of the Vine await your command!”