Atiq Rahimi - The Patience Stone

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Her hand buries itself in her man’s hair. Beseeching words emerge from her dry throat: “Come back, I beg you, before I lose my mind. Come back, for the sake of your children…” She looks up. Gazes through her tears in the same uncertain direction as the man. “Bring him back to life, God!” Her voice drops. “After all, he fought in your name for so long. For jihad!” She stops, then starts again: “And you’re leaving him in this state? What about his children? And me? You can’t, you can’t, you’ve no right to leave us like this, without a man!” Her left hand, the one holding the prayer beads, pulls the Koran toward her. Her rage seeks expression in her voice. “Prove that you exist, bring him back to life!” She opens the Koran. Her finger moves down the names of God featured on the flyleaf. “I swear I won’t ever let him go off to fight again like a bloody idiot. Not even in your name! He will be mine, here, with me.” Her throat, knotted by sobs, lets through only the stifled cry “ Al-Qahhar .” She starts telling the prayer beads again. “ Al-Qahhar …” Ninety-nine times, “ Al-Qahhar.”

The room grows dark.

“I’m scared, Mummy. It’s all dark.” One of the little girls is whimpering in the passage, behind the door. The woman stands up to leave the room.

“Don’t be frightened, darling. I’m here.”

“Why are you shouting? You’re scaring me, Mummy,” weeps the little girl. The mother reassures her: “I wasn’t shouting. I was talking to your father.”

They walk away from the door.

“Why are you calling my father Al-Qahhar? Is he cross?”

“No, but he will be if we disturb him.”

The little girl falls silent.

It is now completely dark.

And, as the woman predicted, the mullah has not come.

She returns with a hurricane lamp. Puts it on the ground near the man’s head, and takes the bottle of eyedrops out of her pocket. Gently, she administers the drops. One, two. One, two. Then leaves the room and comes back with a sheet and a small plastic basin. She removes the dirty sheet covering the man’s legs. Washes his belly, his feet, his genitals. Once this is done she covers her man with a clean sheet, checks the gaps between the drips of sugar-salt solution and leaves, taking the lamp with her.

Everything is dark once more. For a long time.

At dawn, as the hoarse voice of the mullah calls the faithful to prayer, the sound of dragging feet can be heard in the passage. They approach the room, move away, then come back. The door opens. The woman enters. She looks at the man. Her man. He is still there, in the same position. But his eyes draw her attention. She takes a step forward. His eyes are closed. The woman moves nearer. Another step. Silently. Then two. She looks at him. Can’t see clearly. She isn’t sure. She backs out of the room. Less than five breaths later she is back with the hurricane lamp. His eyes are still closed. She collapses onto the floor. “Are you sleeping?!” Her trembling hand moves to the man’s chest. He is breathing. “Yes… you’re sleeping!” she shouts. Looks around the room for someone so she can say it again: “He’s sleeping!”

No one. She is afraid.

She picks up the little rug, unfolds it, and stretches it out on the ground. The morning prayer done, she remains sitting, takes the Koran and opens it at the page marked with a peacock feather, which she removes and holds in her right hand. With her left, she tells the prayer beads.

After reading a few verses, she puts back the feather, closes the Koran, and sits thoughtfully for a moment, gazing at the feather peeking out of the sacred book. She strokes it, sadly at first, then anxiously.

She stands up, tidies away the rug, and walks toward the door. Before leaving, she stops. Turns around. Goes back to her place by the man. Hesitantly opens one of his eyes. Then the other. Waits. His eyes do not close again. The woman takes the bottle of eye-drops and measures a few drops into his eyes. One, two. One, two. Checks the drip bag. There’s still some solution.

Before standing up, she pauses and looks nervously at the man, asking him, “Can you close your eyes again?” The man’s vacant eyes do not respond. She persists, “You can, you can! Do it again!” And waits. In vain.

Concerned, she slips her hand gently under the man’s neck. A sensation, a horror, makes her arm twitch. She shuts her eyes, clenches her teeth. Breathes in deeply, painfully. She is suffering. As she breathes out, she extracts her hand and examines the tips of her trembling fingers in the weak light of the lamp. They are dry. She stands up to roll the man onto his side. Brings the lamp closer to his neck so she can examine a small wound-still open, bruised, drained of blood but not yet healed.

The woman holds her breath, and presses the wound. The man still doesn’t respond. She presses harder. No protest. Not in the eyes, or the breath. “Doesn’t it even hurt?” She rolls the man onto his back again, and leans over him so she can look into his eyes. “You don’t suffer! You’ve never suffered, never! I’ve never heard of a man surviving a bullet in the neck! You’re not even bleeding, there’s no pus, no pain, no suffering! It’s a miracle! your mother used to say… Some bloody miracle!” She stands up. “Even injured, you’ve been spared suffering.” Her voice rasps in her tightening throat. “And it’s me who suffers! Me who cries!” Having said it, she moves to the door. Tears and fury in her eyes, she disappears into the darkness of the passage, leaving the hurricane lamp to project the trembling shadow of the man onto the wall until the full rise of dawn, until the rays of the sun make their way through the holes in the yellow and blue curtains, condemning the lamp to insignificance.

A hand hesitates to open the door to the room. Or is struggling to. “Daddy!” The voice of one of the children can be heard over the creaking of the door. “Where are you going?” At the woman’s shout, the child pulls the door shut and moves away. “Don’t bother your father, darling. He’s sick. He’s sleeping. Come with me!” The small footsteps run off down the passage. “But what about you, when you go in there, and shout, doesn’t that bother him?” Her mother replies: “Yes, it does.” Silence.

A fly sneaks into the heavy hush of the room. Lands on the man’s forehead. Hesitant. Uncertain. Wanders over his wrinkles, licks his skin. No taste. Definitely no taste.

The fly makes its way down into the corner of his eye. Still hesitant. Still uncertain. It tastes the white of the eye, then moves off. It isn’t chased away. It resumes its journey, getting lost in the beard, climbing the nose. Takes flight. Explores the body. Returns. Settles once more on the face. Clambers onto the tube stuffed into the half-open mouth. Licks it, moves right along it to the edge of the lips. No spit. No taste. The fly continues, enters the mouth. And is engulfed.

The hurricane lamp breathes its final breaths in vain. The flame goes out. The woman returns. She is filled with a deep weariness-of her being, and her body. After a few listless steps toward her man, she stops. Less decisive than the previous day. Her gaze lingers desperately on the motionless body. She sits down between the man and the Koran, which she opens at the flyleaf. She moves her finger over the names of God, one by one. Counts them. Stops at the seventeenth name. Murmurs “ Al-Wahhab , the Bestower.” A bitter smile puckers the edges of her lips. “I don’t need a gift.” She pulls at the peacock feather peeking out of the Koran. “I haven’t the heart to go on reciting the names of God.” She strokes her lips with the feather. “Praise be to God… He will save you. Without me. Without my prayers… He’s got to.”