Fariba Hachtroudi - The Man Who Snapped His Fingers

I took refuge in the garden. It had been snowing all week long. A thick layer of powdery snow covered the trees, the lawn, the swimming pool. A pale shroud. The branches of the fir trees bent to the weight of the ice crystals. I buried my head in the pine branches. Rubbed my face. I stripped off my clothes and with my bare hands I attacked the sheet of ice which covered the swimming pool. I pounded it with my fists. With the flat of my hands. With my elbows. I pounded until I could scarcely breathe. The surface began to crack, then gave way, streaked with the blood flowing down my fingers. I pretended to ignore my reddened hands. They made me think of the Sardive brothers’ hands. I had to wash. To purify myself. To disappear. To see your gaze no longer. Your eyes black with disdain. Your scornful grimaces. I had to get away from your voice calling me a murderer. I plunged into the icy water. It took my breath away. I was gasping for air. I was chilled to the bone. Sinking. And yet the weather was fine. The sun was at its zenith. There were colorful figures all around the swimming pool. I recognized the doctor, his wife and son. They were laughing hysterically. I called out to them: Help, I’m drowning. They didn’t see me. Or maybe they were pretending, ignoring the intruder that I was. The despoiler. The doctor’s wife, a tall, elegant, beautiful woman, her arms bare in her chiffon dress, was pointing at something. The servant came out with a tray of refreshments. The doctor put his arm around a little brunette with mischievous eyes. He introduced her as his future daughter-in-law. The guests came closer, surrounding them. Moths drawn to a candle flame. I went deeper, paralyzed. I could hear joyful cries, congratulating the fiancés. That’s what it was, an engagement party. For the eldest son. Now I remembered. It was the last party held in the garden. I was witnessing the last moments of happiness for the famous surgeon’s family. Two days after the party the fiancé was arrested. Parents, friends, and neighbors were completely taken aback. Why? The boy had never been in trouble. He was handsome. Gentle. An angel. A young man who despised violence. He didn’t get involved in politics. No one knew of any suspicious activities. He had no police record, anywhere. Not a single file that might look bad. The brilliant boy was studying architecture, he was a citizen above all suspicion. Why? Why had he been arrested? This was Year One of the Theological Republic, established in the name of God. Peaceful gatherings were forbidden, in the name of God. Protesters were immediately viewed as traitors, Judases in the pay of the aggressor. The witch-hunt against counterrevolutionaries had begun, upon the orders of the Commander and by the will of God. The country would be purged of refractory elements of every stripe, thanks to the help of God. Any individual manifesting suspicious behavior in a time of war was punishable by execution upon the very place of arrest, without any other form of trial, and with the consent of God. Since the ultimate judge could only be God. Amen. The staff announced the Commander’s edict at the front. I admired the wisdom of our leader, the head of our armies. As did all the volunteers in the militia. We were prepared, as one man, to take any high-ranking army officer educated under the former regime who did not share our point of view and kill him on the spot. This law, promulgated in record time like all the others, was necessary to save the Fatherland.

We were just poor, foolish adolescents, easy to manipulate. We were just poor ignorant peasants whom an old man with a hard heart had turned into fools, without even having to give it much thought. We made good cannon fodder. The doctor’s son, like thousands of others, was ripe for hanging. The clerics in charge had set up the altar where they would sacrifice the country’s youth. In the name of God and by the will of the Commander. After six months of desperate searching, the doctor found out his son had been killed. Shot in someone else’s place. I knew all this when I agreed to move in to the villa. You are right, Vima, I’m a murderer, I’m no better than they are. You are right, Vima, it’s not enough not to have used your own hands to kill, that does not absolve you. You are right, Vima, I am their accomplice…

I can hear the echo of your screaming again. You went crazy. Get out. Get out of there, right now. You threw the garden hose at me. I still don’t know how with your weak arms you pulled me out. I woke up at around noon. In a sweat. A cold sweat. With a terrible headache. You left me some medicine, a thermos of tea, and a note on the night table: “You have to leave. Get the hell out. You have to leave those monsters and this country. Otherwise, I’m the one who will leave you. I’ll come back tomorrow morning so we can talk about it.”

Now here I am all alone in the world in a sordid room in a center for homeless refugees. For five years I’ve been trying to hang on. In vain. I don’t lie anymore. I don’t get my hands dirty. I denounce our tyrants. For five years I’ve been telling them I’m ready to speak openly to the cameras. In public. To journalists from all around the world. If they extend their human rights to me, and valid documents. The truth doesn’t pay. No more here than it does there, my Vima. Yuri is one of those guys with a library for a brain, and he has sworn to me that the democrats here are all hand in glove with the tyrants there and everywhere else. They have breakfast with Putin. They have lunch with emissaries from the Supreme Commander. Dinner with Kim Jong-Il. They smoke their cigars with Castro and fuck the young whores — blondes, brunettes, blacks — they are offered wherever they go. Could be. Yuri knows what he’s talking about.

It’s been a rotten day, my Vima. I’ll go and see him to get my mind on other things. If he’s in a bad mood, we’ll brood together. Yuri does nothing but read. He’s been vegetating here for over a year. He tells me I’m the only one who can get him away from his books. It’s because I enjoy listening to him. And he likes to talk as much as he likes to read. He’s a born storyteller. He has a ton of stories in his head. When he’s fed up with me, he starts drinking. In the beginning, I would watch while he polished off one bottle after another, going deeper and deeper. But we haven’t gotten drunk together in ages. That’s what we’ll do tonight. Get wasted and talk about Achilles the invincible. That’s one of his best stories. Achilles’ heel, according to Yuri, is the symbol of a person’s fragility in the world. To think I have spent most of my life without ever drinking a drop of alcohol. What a jerk. I would never have made it in this fucking icicle of a country without Yuri’s vodka. He tells me, Better late than never, dumbass; bottoms up.

I leave the office. In a hurry. With only one thing on my mind, to climb into bed with a book. To forget this entire day. And yet my legs, these bloody legs that don’t always obey me, are leading me elsewhere. Dragging me into the center of town where the shrink’s office is. That’s where I am now. In a sweat. Out of breath. I’m going up the stairs four at a time. I don’t have an appointment. Never mind. Here I am. I have my reasons. It’s obvious. I’ve just confronted my past. The shrink will be proud of me. I have to tell him the good news. It’s only normal. He’ll approve. I ring the bell. The secretary says, but you don’t have an appointment! I know. It’s urgent. I’ll wait. Until the last hour if need be. It’s important. It’s absolutely vital. I must look weird. She doesn’t answer. She stares at me. Doesn’t smile. I leave her where she is standing in the entrance hall. I go and collapse on the sofa next to the door to the consulting room. That way he can’t miss me. He always sees his patients to the door. The last one leaves at 7:45 P.M. Two hours and then some, and the whole time I sit mentally revising everything I have to tell him. Here he is at last. I stand up. He doesn’t have much time for me. I bark that it’s all right, and I thank him, and I think that not much time will be more than enough to tell him about this incredible encounter. Five minutes will be enough. Now I’m lying down. Five minutes go by before I can say a single word. Then I speak and hear myself all at the same time. I can hear my voice getting ahead of my thoughts. My voice spilling out secrets I didn’t mean to reveal. There’s nothing for it. On it goes. Not a word about my day. Or the Office. Or the Colonel. The past I have just confronted rises up before me. But the way it wants to. There is no one else in the background, only him. Del. My love. My wound. My failure to understand. Del who disappeared. The silence that kills. My refusal to live. Overwhelmed by grief, by absence. Where are you, my beloved?