Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - The Colonel

the colonel felt his coat tails flapping round his legs as he walked, as if the coat had grown too big for him and he was getting lost inside it. Perhaps he had shrunk without noticing it. Or maybe his knees had doubled up with exhaustion and he was turning into a hunchback. He tried to ignore it, not wanting to show the slightest sign of weakness. He still had an old soldier’s sense of pride, and he was determined to keep a stiff upper lip. Strange, but there it was. And so, when they found the place where they had to dig, he stuck the shovel into the mud like a seasoned peasant and, rubbing his hands together, grasped the pick and set to work.

“Not bad for an old man, eh? I dug a lot of training trenches as a young man.”

Ali Seif just grinned, but the other one, Abdullah, seemed to take pity on the sweat-drenched old man and decided to pitch in. He passed Ali Seif his weapon, took the shovel and started digging. the colonel stood at the foot of the grave. Wiping the sweat from his brow with his left sleeve, with his right hand he groped in his coat pocket for his brass cigarette case. Then he turned up his collar, pulled his hat down and turned his back to the rain so that he could light his cigarette without getting it wet. Before it had a chance to get soaked, he lit one up and sank into a daydream.

Who am I trying to fool? I’m well aware that at every stage of history there have been crimes against humanity, and they couldn’t have happened without humans to commit them. The crimes that have been visited on my children have been committed, and still are being committed, by young people just like them, by people stirring up their delusions, giving them delusions of grandeur. So why do I imagine that people might improve? Everything going on around us seems to indicate that the values our forebears passed down to us no longer apply. Instead, we have sown the seeds of mistrust, scepticism and resignation, which will grow into a jungle of nihilism and cynicism, a jungle in which you will never find the courage to even mention the names of goodness, truth and common humanity, a crop that is now bearing fruit with remarkable speed. We’re obliged to dig our own children’s graves, but what’s even more shocking is that these crimes are creating a future in which there is no place for truth and human decency. Nobody dares to speak the truth any more. Oh, my poor children… we’re burying you, but you should realise that we are also digging a grave for our future. Can you hear me?

Abdullah had shovelled all the loose earth out of the hole. the colonel took up the pick to carry on digging the grave: “Wouldn’t things go a bit quicker if they dug these graves in advance, gentlemen?”

Clearly touched by the colonel’s plight and frustrated by the slow pace of his digging, Abdullah took him gently by the arm and helped him respectfully out of the grave. The colonel was grateful for this, as he was utterly exhausted and demoralised. If he had to do it all by himself, the sun would be well up before he was finished. He knew that he should show his gratitude to the young man for helping him, but The Colonel’s dazzling boots had completely distracted me, and were drawing me towards him, as if to say that it was not my duty to dig my daughter’s grave; it had never been up to me to do that.

You see my difficulty, don’t you, Colonel? But why have you put yourself to so much trouble, coming here on this dark rainy night? I thought you’d gone back long since. Of course, I meant to pay my respects to you earlier. But with my wife right there outside the mortuary, I didn’t want to embarrass her by acknowledging you. I thought you were just going to look in for a moment and then go. Oh, my dear Colonel… the blood is still dripping from your throat! 28I’m so ashamed. I wish you’d stayed at home. I could have sorted everything out and given you a report. It’s a wretched and sickening business, but it’ll soon be over. I think I’ll be on my own soon, as none of my children are left now. They’ll be bringing Kuchik back from the front for us to bury him. He’ll be less trouble, because they’ll take care of most of the arrangements. You probably heard about Mohammad-Taqi’s funeral… and Parvaneh will be buried tonight. That leaves Amir and Farzaneh, and she has already buried herself in Qorbani’s house, while Amir, as you know, won’t last more than another day or two. He dies ten times a day; he only comes alive to die again. He can’t take much more. He’ll be gone soon. His death will hardly leave a ripple. Tonight is the worst bit, and perhaps tomorrow night as well. As you can see, it’s hard work in all this mud and muck and rain. Shall we take a look inside the mortuary? It’s not a very nice place, Colonel, but… Our Parvaneh was going to be fourteen this year. The blood on your throat, Colonel… the blood on your throat… I wish you’d brought your head with you. For how many years, how many hundreds of years, must that dear, strange head stay on my mantelpiece? I know the true worth of that head, Colonel.

Forouz, with her white hair and red eyes, was leaning over Parvaneh’s corpse on the concrete laying-out slab. the colonel could see that her arms were smeared with blood up to the elbows. The mother seemed to be washing Parvaneh’s thin, frail body with tears of blood. the colonel saw his daughter’s whole body covered in blood, and blood had dripped down all four sides of the slab into the channel below and was now licking at the toes of The Colonel’s shiny black boots. the colonel went and stood next to his wife to get a better look at Parvaneh’s face, and saw her skinny arms and hands, drenched in translucent blood, moving over the newly ripening body of their daughter. He bent down and looked at Parvaneh’s face, more intently than he had ever done before. Her eyes opened, and she looked at him briefly with a cheerful smile, before slowly closing them again. He could not believe it; leaning over the slab, he stooped to look at her open eyes once more, but it was too late… For his wife was laying her long bony hands on Parvaneh’s forehead and drawing them gently down from her hairline to below the girl’s delicate little chin, ending in a kind of tired shrug that signalled that her work was now done. And when she took her hands away, Parvaneh’s eyes were closed, her lips were closed and her face seemed mummified in blood… the colonel felt suddenly giddy.

The Colonel’s black field boots were on the march, heavy and hard as stone, crashing in the silence of the mortuary and keeping time with the beat of the old man’s heart as, stiff and frozen, he stood by the concrete table, staring at them. Their soles and polished toes were now red and, with each stride, they left a bloody trail behind them. Presently, the boots came to a halt by the table and he found himself saying, “You need more than your heart to see with, Colonel; it’s a pity you didn’t bring your head with you.” His voice echoed round the mortuary and, as it echoed back, it sounded as if someone else had been speaking. But then normality returned. Continuing with her task, the colonel’s wife had taken hold of Parvaneh’s hand and was busy lifting her down off the concrete table, handling her as carefully as if she were a mirror, a full-length dressing mirror. Parvaneh was being careful, too, putting her dainty little feet down softly on the cold floor of the mortuary. Looking as if she was wearing a shirt of blood and earrings of red dewdrops, she strode off and away, hand in hand with her mother, who floated along like a white cloud beside her. the colonel stood gazing at the trail of blood left by their feet as they crossed the cold, wet floor, as if he had forgotten for a moment that he should be going along with his daughter and his wife.