Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - The Colonel

“…But she’s very fragile. She’s really just the colonel’s nurse and carer. You know very well that there is the world of difference between her and Mohammad-Taqi, and you’ve already beaten him up. Frankly… I beg of you…”

You would have thought there was nobody in the basement with Amir, since Khezr Javid made no reply. Amir could just as well have been talking to himself. A few moments later he fell silent and Parvaneh heard loud, irregular snoring from Khezr. He must have fallen asleep. She didn’t like the idea of her brother’s companion dropping off like that in the middle of his sentence — wasn’t that deeply insulting both to her and her brother? When she went into the colonel’s room, she felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over her. She realised immediately that, instead of going to her father, she should have gone straight to her room, buried her face in a pillow and cried herself to sleep.

Parvaneh had even forgotten she’d said she’d fill up the stove. Clean forgotten! As if she’d never said it in the first place and as if she never used to do my stove for me every night and plump up my pillows as I like them. All that I could see on her face that night was death and dishonour. Her cheeks were scarlet with shame and her lips were grey with the fear of death and her eyes — well, I never saw her eyes that night, as she never looked at me.

The next morning, at about the time of the call to prayer, Khezr Javid got up and got ready to go. From the expression on his face, he did not want to hear another peep out of Amir. And when Amir did try to speak to him, Khezr ignored him and went upstairs to wash, leaving him there, sitting on a mattress on the floor. It was as if Immortal Khezr had cast a spell on him and struck him dumb. Speechless and filled with a terrible sense of foreboding, he guessed that Parvaneh had already got up to say her morning prayers. He knew that she always came down to see him before going out in the morning, but he could not summon up the strength to go upstairs and warn her that, just for today, just this once, she should stay at home. It was all he could do to haul himself up, sit on the edge of the bed and, ignoring the acid taste in his mouth, light the first cigarette of the day and clutch his head which, from long lack of sleep, weighed half a ton. And there he sat.

Watched by her father, who was sitting watching the rain through the window, Parvaneh ran down the steps into the yard. Crossing to the steps, she went down to the basement, just in time to snatch out of Amir’s hand his second cigarette, which he was about to light, and stub it out. She was wearing a grey school smock, with a dark blue satchel slung over her shoulder. Amir could guess what sort of pamphlets and newspapers she had stuffed into it, and Khezr Javid would obviously soon find out.

Why on earth had Parvaneh come down to the basement again after the night she had just gone through? This question really bothered the colonel. The fact was that the girl, after a night of agonising, had got a grip on herself and conquered her fear of death. She had got it into her head to confront her brother and this scowling, arrogant guest, who had never been accepted into this house anyway, and try to correct the false impression that her brother had formed of her. She especially wanted to face down Khezr Javid, and so she waited in the basement until he came down. Not deigning to glance at him, she looked at her brother:

“Isn’t your friend going to have breakfast?”

“No, and I don’t want any either.”

Without looking at her, Khezr went straight to get his parka off the coat hook while Parvaneh, boldly curious, stared pointedly at his shoulder holster. But Amir was looking down, too weak to watch his sister’s self-possessed performance. He was turning over in his mind what Khezr had said the night before: “It’s dangerous for her, very dangerous.”

Khezr’s voice was still ringing in Amir’s skull as Parvaneh stepped lightly up the stairs. He heard the swish of her blue plastic satchel as it rubbed against her coat. He could also hear that Khezr was ready to go and, hard as it was, he lifted his head to see the Immortal One doing up his shoelaces on the step.

The sound of the front door slamming told Amir that Parvaneh had left. Propping both hands against the side of the bed, he got up. Khezr zipped up his parka and went upstairs. Amir slipped his raincoat over his shoulders and followed him into the yard to hold the gate open for him. Khezr went out and Amir peered out into the alleyway. He imagined Parvaneh’s quick, light footsteps. Amir put the chain back on the door and was about to go back to the basement when he was seized by a strange spasm of fear, of a fear that he had been struck dumb. The rain, which he thought might have stopped for a while, had started again and he stood there, hunched up, mortified and soaking wet. He had no idea how long for. He could sense the colonel standing by the window of his room, looking at him and following the receding footsteps of his daughter. The window had steamed up, blurring the colonel, just in the same way that Amir had been in a blur as he watched the colonel, after he had killed his mother, standing out there in the rain with blood dripping from his sabre. But the difference was that the colonel had not been hunched up like his pathetic son. He was ashamed of nothing and was not going to hide his crime from anyone. Amir was not ashamed either, for he knew that only a healthy mind could feel shame, and he felt no shame. No, the reason why he could not lift his head was fear of meeting the colonel’s gaze. For he would have found reflected in those eyes the thousand nightmares that were whirling round in his own head. He was terrified that Parvaneh would not come home again.

Nor did she.

I could have done something, could have put my foot down… I had not just the right, but a duty to put my foot down. After all, they were my own flesh and blood. Granted, they were all grown up, but so what? Now, let me check again… Shroud, shovel, pick, shroud… On my way now. Yes, this is the way to the cemetery. How are we doing for time? Not to worry, there’s still been no morning call to prayer from the minaret yet. But this rain, this never-ending rain…

It was still pouring and the colonel had to watch his step at the end of the alleyway. He had to pick his way carefully down the slope at the end, round a big muddy puddle, and then up a steep bit. He stopped for a breather before carrying on towards the cemetery and mortuary, where the two policemen were still waiting for him, probably fed up by now. He rehearsed what he would say in case Ali Seif and his colleague had a go at him for taking so long: “Look, my friend, my dear young friend, I’m so sorry. I’m an old man now, it’s a long way and it’s a rough track and…” He would impress on them how much effort it had been for an old man like him to get all his bits and pieces together, but I won’t breathe a word to them about Amir, not a word! Though, it’s not actually risky talking about him nowadays, now that he’s inactive politically and a complete irrelevance. But fear is now invading my soul — has invaded my soul — fear and a wish to hide myself away from wagging tongues and knowing looks.

Repressed, hidden fear: the image of Amir. Fear eats away at the soul worse than leprosy; it hollows a man out and takes him over. The mere fact that he was alive and breathing was enough to convince him that he stood accused, guilty and condemned. Even though he had withdrawn from life and become completely passive, the colonel considered him to be inherently guilty. Amir himself felt guilty of the crime that must have been committed because of him. After all, he had never set foot on any of those conveyor belts that had been set up to take the likes of him to their deaths or, if he had, he had quickly jumped off. Albeit at the cost of his own gradual self-destruction in his father’s damp and mouldy basement. In any case, he was guilty and a ‘corrupting influence on the people’ and, at some point in the future, he would have to give palpable shape and form to his unmentioned crime, if only by killing himself.