Kader Abdolah - My Father's Notebook

“Salaam aleikum, Uwsa! Here’s the boy I’ve been telling you about. Akbar, shake Uwsa’s hand.”

The old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a single purple thread from an old carpet. “Akbar, go find some flowers that match the colour of this thread!”

This is how Aga Akbar got started in his career, in the work that he continued to do until the day he died.

For three years he went to Uwsa’s early every morning and rode home again at dusk. Then Uwsa died, but by that time Akbar had learned enough to mend carpets and produce natural dyes on his own.

Though no one could take Uwsa’s place, Akbar had already made a name for himself in the region. The villagers liked him. They trusted him and would rather have him than a stranger in their homes. And so he rode his horse from one village to another. It was during this period that he came into contact with prostitutes.

• • •

Kazem Khan was very choosy when it came to finding a wife for Aga Akbar. He didn’t want a woman with only one eye, or a farm girl who wove carpets. No, he wanted a strong woman with a good head on her shoulders, a woman who could organise things, a woman who understood the man whose children she would bear.

“No, not just any woman,” he used to say. “I’ll wait, I want him to have just the right one. He can hold out for a few more years. It won’t kill him.”

But the other men in the family said to him, “You shouldn’t compare him to yourself, Kazem Khan. You have women all over Saffron Mountain, but that boy doesn’t. If you don’t let him marry, he’s bound to go astray.”

“He can get married tomorrow if he likes, but not to a woman who’s deaf, lame or blind.”

Unfortunately, there were no strong, healthy, intelligent women on Saffron Mountain who would agree to marry Akbar.

So he turned to prostitutes for warmth and they provided it willingly. “Hello, Aga Akbar, come in. Take a look at my carpet. Do you think you can mend it? Come sit by me. You’re tired, your arms ache, your back aches. Here, have a cup of tea. There’s no need to stare, I’ll come sit beside you. Let me hold your hand. Now doesn’t that feel nice?”

If you want to hear the story of Aga Akbar’s relationships with prostitutes, you should ask his childhood friend Sayyid Shoja.

Shoja was blind. He’d been blind from birth, yet he was famous for his keen sense of hearing — he could hear as well as a dog. He had a sharp tongue, which he didn’t hesitate to use. The men tried to stay out of his way, since they knew he heard everything they said.

Sayyid Shoja knew all of the prostitutes on Saffron Mountain and called them by their first names. He also knew which men went to see them. He recognised them instantly by their footsteps. “Hey, little man, you’re tiptoeing past. Are you trying to avoid me? What for? Have you been doing naughty things again with that poker in your trousers? Come on, shake my hand, say hello, you don’t need to be afraid. Your secret is safe with me.”

As evening fell, he used to sit by the side of the road and lean against the old tree. The girls came back from the spring with their jugs of water, and he always recognised the footsteps of the girl he loved. “ Salaam aleikum , my little moon. Let me carry your bucket for you.”

The girls laughed at him and he teased them.

“You there,” he’d say. “Yes, you with the big butt. Don’t sit on the ground, you’ll leave a hole in the dirt!”

He didn’t have any money, but he didn’t need any, because Aga Akbar paid his bills.

The men who didn’t like him and feared his sharp tongue sometimes chided him: “You’re a leech, Shoja, sucking Akbar dry.”

The sayyid was too high-minded to worry about such unimportant things.

There was another man who shared his secrets with Akbar and Shoja: Jafar the Spider.

Jafar was crippled. He couldn’t walk or stand upright. He was skinny and had a tiny head. The way he scuttled over the ground with his muscular arms and legs made you think of a spider. Yet he owed his nickname not so much to his spidery crawl, but to the fact that he climbed trees like a real spider. People would see him in places a normal person couldn’t go. Suddenly he’d be hanging from a branch or crawling up the dome of a mosque. One of his favourite pastimes was peeking through the window of the bathhouse and spying on the naked women.

Jafar saw what the blind Shoja couldn’t see.

And since Jafar was Shoja’s friend, he was Aga Akbar’s friend, too. They formed a tight-knit threesome, and they could do many things together that they were unable to do alone.

They even went to the prostitutes together. That was the agreement. Jafar would crawl onto the back of the blind Shoja, who would then take hold of Aga Akbar’s arm, and in this way the three of them would make their way up Saffron Mountain.

They needed Jafar because he was the expert. They never went straight into the prostitute’s house. They let Jafar check it out first. He was the one who had to give the OK. Jafar would point his finger at Akbar and say, “Never go in there without me! You might catch a disease! Then you won’t be able to pee, and it’ll hurt like hell!”

That’s how they did things and it had always gone well.

Then, one night, Jafar climbed up on the roof of the outhouse and heard a strange noise. He put his ear to the hole, so he could hear better. He knew instantly what Aga Akbar’s problem was. He hurried back to Sayyid Shoja. “Shoja,” he said, “help me!”

“What’s wrong? How can I help you?”

“That idiot’s sitting in the outhouse, crying his eyes out.”

“What? Who’s crying?”

“Akbar. He can’t pee.”

The two of them went over and stood by the outhouse door.

“You hear that? He’s crying.”

“I’ll be damned, he is. But maybe he’s crying about something else.”

“Of course not. You don’t go to an outhouse to cry about something else.”

“Give me a minute to think about it.”

“There’s nothing to think about, man. It’s clear as a bell. We have to look at Akbar’s thingy. Then we’ll know for sure. We’ve got to nab him as soon as he comes out.”

They hid behind a wall and waited for Akbar.

He came out and Jafar beckoned to him.

Though it was dark, Akbar knew immediately what his friends were up to. His first impulse was to flee, but Jafar was too quick, hurling himself in front of Akbar and grabbing his foot so that he tripped and fell. Shoja rushed over and pinned him to the ground. “Don’t run away, asshole! Come with us.”

They dragged him into the barn.

“Hold him!” Jafar yelled.

He shimmied up a pole and lit an oil lamp.

Then he pulled down Akbar’s trousers and inspected his penis. “Let the bastard go. He’s sick.”

Early the next morning they went to the city in search of a doctor.

Several months later, after Aga Akbar had been cured, Shoja and Jafar had a little talk. Akbar was gradually distancing himself from them and they knew why. As true friends, they felt obliged to inform his uncle. So, one evening, Jafar picked up a lantern and climbed up on Shoja’s back.

They went to Kazem Khan’s house.

“Good evening,” Shoja said. “May we come in?”

“Of course, Sayyid Shoja. You two are always welcome. Have a seat. Can I get you some tea?”

“No, thanks. We don’t want to be here when Akbar gets home. We’ve come here to tell you something. We’re Akbar’s best friends, but some secrets need to be brought out into the open. We’ve come here to say that we’re worried about him.”

“Why?”

“You know that the three of us go out together sometimes. Strange things happen every once in a while, though it usually turns out all right. But this time it’s different. This time Akbar has gone too far.”