A Curse on Dostoevsky

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“WHO’S THERE?” A high-pitched voice stops Rassoul in his tracks. Where did it come from? He calls out, in his fragile, feeble voice: “Is anyone there?”

“Yes, djinns!” resounds another voice, prompting sarcastic laughter from a stone sentry box by the Kabul Wellayat gate. Peering inside, Rassoul can just discern two bodies stretched out on the ground. “Did you see a woman go in?”

“A woman? Here? If only!” The two bodies shake with laughter.

“Is there anyone at the Wellayat?”

“Who do you want?”

“The public prosecutor.”

“Which djinn is that?’ And then, to his mate, “Do you know it?”

“No. Ask him for a cigarette.”

Rassoul takes two cigarettes and holds them out. “Throw them in!” He obeys, insisting: “There must be someone there, though? A governor, a judge, or…”

“Go and see for yourself! Why ask us?”

Rassoul didn’t see the soldiers’ faces. He makes his way into the ransacked courtroom, its floor strewn with charred papers and notebooks. The walls are riddled with bullets. The governor’s chair is empty, engulfed in a dense, doleful silence. There is still no trace of the woman in the sky-blue chador.

A strange appearance!

A strange disappearance.

An ethereal woman, appearing out of nowhere as if to give him back his voice, show him the way, deliver him to the law, and bring him here, to the Kabul Wellayat, where everything is in ruins: not only the law courts but also the “surveillance” building and prison.

He stops in front of the only building in decent condition. He walks up the stairs and through the door, into a long passage with filthy walls. His steps ring out, making the silence even more intense and foreboding. Suddenly he stops in his tracks, gripped by a strange sensation. He hesitates, then continues against his better judgment. The doors off the passage are open, allowing some light into the dark and squalid little box-rooms on either side. Despite a few tables, chairs and other office furniture, these rooms are all completely soulless—except one, where a few items of women’s and children’s clothing are hanging from a washing line in the sunlight. They are still wet; so there is life here. The woman in the sky-blue chador must live in this room.

I’m going to meet her at last!

Halfway down the passage Rassoul hears footsteps, and then a small boy appears from the basement stairs. As soon as he sees Rassoul he runs down again. Rassoul follows him into the basement, where a sign says: “Law Archives.” A dim light at the end of a long corridor beckons him to a room from which muffled, senile whispers can be heard: “You… Younness… Youss… Youssef…” Rassoul enters the room. It is large, and lined with cupboards and shelves stuffed full of old, yellowing files. The voice still emanates from somewhere out of sight. “Is anyone there?” he calls shyly. No response, just the senile voice rambling on: “Youssef…”

“Is anyone there?” he asks again, almost shouting this time. After a pause, the same voice replies: “Not one, but two of us!” then continues: “Youssef, Youssef, Youssef K…” as if chanting an incantation. Rassoul searches for a way to get to the man. He finds him standing at the far end of the room, in front of a small basement window and behind a large desk. He is rummaging through files as a boy holds up a lamp for him to see.

They both look up at the sound of Rassoul’s footsteps. The old man nods as if in greeting, then mechanically returns to his work. Rassoul walks up to the desk and says: “I’m looking for the public prosecutor.”

The old man, leafing through a large notebook he has extracted from one of the files, doesn’t seem to have heard him. He turns a few pages, and then starts moving his finger down a list of names. “Youssef… Ka, Youssef Kab… Youssef Kabuli! Isn’t that him, son?” The boy holding the lamp is distracted by Rassoul’s presence. The old man grumbles: “I’m talking to you, boy; look and see if this is your father’s name. What’s the matter with you?” The boy, unsettled, bends to look at the notebook. Rassoul takes a step forward and asks again, impatiently: “Where can I find the prosecutor?”

“I heard you, mohtaram. I understood what you were asking. You didn’t pose a riddle, as far as I can tell!” A pause, to obtain Rassoul’s agreement, and then he asks: “Is it urgent?” in an intimidating voice that makes Rassoul hesitate before muttering that it is.

“Let me finish this case, and then I’ll get to yours,” says the old man before turning grumpily to the boy: “So, do you know how to read or not?”

“Yes, I can read, but your finger…”

“What about my finger?”

“It’s covering it.”

“I’m telling you to read the name above my finger, you cretin!” The boy looks down and drones: “You, Yous… Youssef… Ka, Kabuli, yes, that’s it, I think.”

“You think? You’ve been hassling me about this name for a week, and now you’re not sure! This is serious, son, most serious.”

“I’m not saying I’m not sure. I’m saying I think so.”

“What are you rambling on about? Oh well. What’s the file number, anyway?”

“The file number?”

“Yes, the numbers!”

“The numbers?… There aren’t any numbers. See for yourself!”

“What do you mean there aren’t any numbers? Lift up the lamp!” The boy lifts the lamp and the weary old man yells: “So how am I supposed to find this bloody file, then?” and stares at the pile of papers.

“Before going back to your search, do you think you could reply to me about whether the honorable prosecutor…” Rassoul asks testily.

“Listen to me, young man: this boy’s case is far more important than the presence or absence of the prosecutor! A family’s fate hangs in the balance. I’ve been busting a gut for a week now to get my hands on this file, and you want me to drop it all to look for the honorable prosecutor! First, there no longer is a prosecutor. Second, this is not a reception. This is the office of the Law Archives. And I am merely a humble clerk who is now, for my sins, in charge of this place!” He pauses a moment, then bends back over the list of names and mutters: “What do you want with the bloody prosecutor, anyway?”

“I’ve come to hand myself over to the law.”

“Oh, sorry, there’s no one to receive you.”

Stunned but also annoyed, Rassoul moves closer and tries to talk calmly, in his broken voice: “I did not come to be received. I came to…” He raises his voice as if to spell out every word: “TO HAND MYSELF OVER TO THE LAW!”

“I understand. I too hand myself over to the law every morning. As does this young man.”

“But I have come to be arrested. I’m a criminal.”

“Well, come back tomorrow. There’s no one here today.” He returns to his big book. Rassoul is spitting with rage; he puts a hand on top of the pile of papers and howls from his emaciated throat: “Did you hear what I said? Have you understood what I want?”

“Yes, I did! You’ve come to hand yourself over to the law, because you are a criminal. Is that it?”

Rassoul stares at him, dumbfounded. The man nods his head and asks, “So?”

“So, you must arrest me.”

“But I can’t do anything for you. As I’ve said, I’m just the court clerk.”

“Give me some money, baba, so I can buy some bread.” The voice of a child emerges from behind the shelves, attracting the attention of all three men. It’s the same boy that Rassoul saw earlier, in the passage.

“I’ll go…” says the young man, son of Youssef Kabuli.

“No. You stay here, we’re looking for your father,” instructs the clerk as he gives the child some money. Then he turns back to his big notebook, grumbling. “They say I’m the clerk, but actually I do everything around here. There are no trials these days, so I focus on the archives instead…” He is still leafing through the notebook. “I swear the rats would have gnawed through all these files by now if I weren’t here. Or else they would have been destroyed by bombs.”

“Yes, that’s true, it’s swarming with rats down here!” confirms the young man as he puts away the files on the instructions of the clerk.

Troubled by the clerk’s flippancy, Rassoul takes out a cigarette and lights it. His desperate voice becomes hoarse: “I’ve killed someone.” Neither of them takes any notice. Perhaps they didn’t hear. So he repeats more loudly, to make sure. “I’ve killed someone.” Both of them turn to look at him, but immediately and soundlessly return to their work.

Perhaps they heard, but didn’t understand.

He is finding it hard to speak. His voice is still muffled, barely audible.

He raises his voice and shouts: “But have you understood?” The clerk glares at him, but doesn’t reply. Again the silence, the heads bent over the files, the names, the numbers, the doubts… And Rassoul continuing, as if to himself: “I know it is no great achievement, I know I have not done anything terribly unusual. But that doesn’t matter. I have killed, and now I have come to hand myself over to the law.” With that, he sits down at the foot of a cupboard.

Rassoul’s stubborn presence weighs increasingly on the old clerk, who finally closes the large notebook. “Farzan, we will continue looking for your father tomorrow. Go and make some tea,” he says to the young man, who immediately puts the lamp on the table and asks excitedly: “Green or black?”

“Green or black?” repeats the clerk, turning to Rassoul.

“Black,” replies Rassoul wearily.

Farzan leaves. The old clerk picks up the lamp and walks over to the shelves. “That poor Farzan. Under the monarchy his father was a highly skilled accountant, and they were a respectable family. But then the communists came for the father, arrested him and sent him to prison without explanation. What was his crime? No one has ever been told and, as with all prisoners in that era, there was never any trial. They lost track of him. People said he was hanged, or exiled to Siberia. No one knows for sure what happened to him. And now his son is obsessed with finding out what became of his father. He wants to know what he was accused of. I know he will never succeed.” He returns to the desk. “In my opinion, the day the father was arrested something serious happened in the family, which the son has been trying to uncover and understand ever since. And that is what interests me, too. Not the rest of it—justice, injustice, etc. Those are only preferences, not philosophies.” He pauses for a moment to observe how Rassoul responds to his maxim, before continuing: “Since he started coming here, he has become my assistant…,” he chuckles. “I still love collecting stories about the law. They help one understand the history of a country, the character of a people. I have thousands of them. I need time to write them out. But nobody gives me that time. Look!” He points to a mound of files in one corner. “The supreme judge asked me for a list of all the mujahideen imprisoned during the communist era, and also a list of all the shahids. They say that the Ministry of Shahids is asking for it. The Ministry of Shahids!” He starts chuckling again, ironically this time, glancing at Rassoul who is staring sadly at a rat trap beneath the desk.

“So, young man, who did you kill?”

“A woman.”

“And were you in love with her?” he asks, continuing to tidy his papers.