Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Thirst

* Refers to a poem by the 17th-century Persian poet, Saib Tabrizi. The first two lines of the poem translate to: ‘when a person who is smitten by words is given a pen, he will not stop writing even if threatened by a blade.’

† A muzzle-loading rifle manufactured in Iran.

‡ A saloon car produced in Iran from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, the Paykan was a licence built version of the British Hillman Hunter.

§ A rebel during the reign of Reza Shah.

‖ Ordibehesht is the Iranian calendar’s second month. It begins in late April and ends in May. It has thirty-one days.

a Teyeb Haj Rezaei.

b A Toman is an Iranian currency unit. 1 Toman is the equivalent of 10 Iranian Rials.

c Arabic for ‘seven’.

‘VERY WELL, KATIB. So you said you are the son of the son of the son of … that child whose seed was created around a thousand years ago in Baghdad, at the house of the vizier’s mother, in secret, and who was born in Mecca and entrusted, in infancy, to special wet nurses beyond the reach of the caliph, the child’s uncle, until he was taken to Yemen so as to be out of reach of the caliph’s wrath, which could result in nothing but death? So you are the fruit of Ajam seed in the womb of an Arab woman, the seed of Barmak’s son, Barmak! Which means that you must be a child of the children of Barmakids and Abbasids. How come there’s no mention of this family tree in your dossier? You were educated in Cairo, and then for a spell in Beirut … before leaving to go to Europe. You studied French and history … anyway, after studying you returned to your homeland … and you are still alive! It says here in your dossier that you wrote articles in French under a pseudonym, which were translated under another pseudonym into English and published in Ireland! This is not incorrect, is it? I’m asking if this is true?’

‘Yes, it is true. But it was a metaphor. I meant that my inner child has not yet suffocated in smoke and fire and hatred and gunpowder. But that doesn’t mean that I am literally a child of that child!’

‘I wonder! And what a night tonight is, Katib!’

‘Hasn’t it finished yet, then, Major?’

‘And we’re in your house again. In your room? And the good thing about the morning breeze is that it dispels drunkenness from your head. But drunkenness does have some advantages, even so; one says things one would not have said in a normal state. Perhaps you do not recall how the Barmak clan made a puppet out of the caliph? And that they dressed him in the garb of enemy princes and celebrated the Norouz ceremony in imitation of Iranian kings? There’s no note in your dossier that you can speak the Ajam tongue! Where did you learn it? In Beirut or at Middle Eastern language classes?’

‘What are you driving at, Major? Are you trying to connect me to the enemy through my kin, blood and tongue?’

‘Everything I’m saying I’ve deduced from your own words, seyedi ! I haven’t added anything of my own.’

‘I just told you a story, Major, that’s all.’

‘So you distracted me on purpose with a story to try and sidestep my accredited and documented report?’

‘That document of yours will result in nothing but the humiliation of mankind!’

‘It isn’t supposed to result in anything of the kind. The be-all and end-all is the enemy’s humiliation!’

‘We have prisoners in the enemy’s camps, too. How would you like it if the enemy started publishing similar reports targeted at our prisoners?’

‘They have had no reservations in that regard! I’m interested to hear you call Iranians your enemies, though!’

‘I’ve never claimed anything else. Haven’t you read the article I published on the morning after their missiles hit our university dormitories? Didn’t you read that?’

‘I have it right here; in it, you suggest we find a way to make peace!’

‘I am a writer, Major, and writers cannot supply fuel to wars. Especially a war whose meaning and purpose I haven’t yet fully grasped.’

‘More, tell me more, go on!’

‘I have nothing more to say. The sun has been up for some time now. Of course, you are a guest in this house. One should not set the time of a guest’s departure. But didn’t you intend to go back to your base? Don’t you have a morning roll-call to attend to?’

‘Yes, we do! According to you we probably borrowed the custom of the morning inspection ceremony from the Iranians, too!’

‘I never said any such thing! Modern Middle Eastern armies copied such military ceremonies from the West, as did we. Its history is modern, not ancient. You can add that to my dossier! I’m speaking plainly now — it’s high time you were gone, you’re late for work, Major!’

‘I am at work, right now, right here!’

‘In my house?’

‘Yes, sir! At work, on a special mission. I would like to know once and for all whether or not you intend to write a piece that faithfully records the information in that folder which has been placed on your desk!’

‘So you’ve come here to browbeat me! I’m very tired, Major!’

‘Surely no more tired than I am?’

‘Yes, mental exhaustion, my brain is tired of absorbing and storing crimes! I intended to raise a white flag and at least in my own mind, call a temporary truce. But you wouldn’t allow it, the enemy acted faster and the corporal of my mind was captured, just at the moment when the idea of peace had occurred to me. So he was taken captive, because utter thirst and fatigue had crushed his soul and forced him to surrender. You wouldn’t let me do my own work!’

‘Actually, that’s not true. Your work is precisely what we want you to do: write, that is! The corporal has been captured, so what? He’ll have to answer for that in person at his court martial. The subject I’ve suggested to you covers imprisonment as well. But you think the enemy is treating our prisoners with kid gloves!’

‘Why do you insist on thinking for me, voicing your own thoughts and then attributing them to me? I didn’t say, nor am I saying now, that the enemy is treating our prisoners leniently. I’m not talking about whether the enemy is kinder than us or not. My concern is the very concepts of kindness and cruelty. I am against the notion of cruelty, Major, and animosity. Please … before you leave put that book back in its proper place on the shelf of antique volumes. It took a lot of work to arrange those shelves!’

‘How fortunate, then, that an Ajam missile hasn’t landed in the vicinity of your house. If it had, you would become one with your precious books. The order in your library in an extension of the order in our republic. Now … before I say my final word, I’d like you to read a chapter of this book to me. I studied maths at school. I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of you by reading an old Iranian text! It seems terribly convoluted to me. Even just skimming through it. Am I wrong? Here … read this page. I’ve just found out that Iranians predict the future from books. Among the volumes that we’ve confiscated after overrunning their trenches, aside from the holy book there were also copies of Hafez’s poetry. The book I want you to read for me is not Hafez. But … no doubt any book has something to teach. So teach me something from this book, Katib! Read to me. Read this page, Katib. This writer was a servant of Baghdad too, correct?’

‘Yes, it was written by that same vizier, the servant of Baghdad, and it contains a level and degree of fanaticism and hatred that compares with yours, concerning the enmity that arose among those people, and the hostility towards his sultan, and towards the caliph of his time as well!’

‘Please read! From the beginning, from the part where Abu Muslim is killed!’