A Curse on Dostoevsky

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“YES, YOU told me as much,” admits Rassoul, sitting in front of the clerk’s desk as he extracts the names of all the shahids executed in the communist prisons from a file. “But I thought I’d be able to persuade him to institute proceedings against me… and then against others, against all the war criminals.” The clerk glances up at Rassoul ironically. “Where do you think you are?”

“Not anywhere, now.”

“Welcome!” bids the clerk, returning to his task.

“And that exhausts me, too. This inability to make myself understood, or to understand the world.”

“Do you even understand yourself?”

“No. I feel lost.” A pause, long enough to travel far into a desert night. “I feel as if I have become lost in a desert night where there is only one landmark: a dead tree. Wherever I go, I see myself constantly returning to the same place, at the foot of this tree. I am weary of pathetically traveling down this same interminable path, over and over again.”

“Young man, I once had a brother. He was an actor at the Kabul Nendaray theatre. He was always happy, and liked the good things in life. He taught me an important lesson: to approach life as if it were a play. Treat every performance like it’s the first time you are performing that role. This is the way to give all your actions new meaning.”

“But I’m tired of playing the part I’m supposed to play. I want a new part.”

“Changing the part won’t change your life. You will still be on the same stage, in the same play, telling the same story. Imagine that this trial were a stage—which is exactly what it is, in fact; and what a stage! I could tell you some stories about that… Anyway, on this stage, at each performance you have to play a different part: first the accused; then the witness; then the judge… deep down, there is no difference. You know all the parts. You…”

“But when you play the judge’s part, you can change the outcome of the trial.”

“No, you are condemned to respect the rules of the game, to say the same things another judge has said before you…”

“In that case we need to change the play, the stage, the story…”

“You would be sacked!” The clerk raises his voice: “ ‘’Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days / Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:/ Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, / And one by one back in the Closet lays.’ That’s not mine, it’s Khayyam. Think on it!” Before Rassoul can get him back to the theater of the law, the clerk pushes the imposing file of shahids toward him. “It’s your turn to help me out, now. Dictate those names to me!”

“I can’t bear shahids!” This statement troubles the clerk. He looks at Rassoul for a long time, before reaching out to take back the file. Rassoul stops him: “But I will help you.” He reads out the names. He has gone through barely a dozen when the Qhazi’s guards reappear.

“Look, he’s still here!” says one, pointing at Rassoul. “We were looking for you in the next world. You’re coming with us!”

And they take Rassoul back to the Qhazi, who asks to be left alone with him. He is still behind his desk, prayer beads and handkerchief scattered among the papers. Apropos of nothing, he asks: “Do you know Amer Salam?”

“Amer Salam? I think so.”

“Have you met him?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“At Nana Alia’s house, I think.”

“When was that?” asks the judge, leaning across his desk in anticipation of a secret.

“The day after the murder.”

“What the hell were you doing there?”

“My fiancée used to work for Nana Alia. Amer Salam came…”

“Where are the jewels you stole from her?”

At last, things are taking shape; at last they’re interested.

Yes, that’s true, but what the judge is most interested in is the jewels, not the murder, or your conscience, or your guilt, or your trial…

That doesn’t matter, as long as I can use the jewels to force open the door of the law. Anyway, implicating Amer Salam in the case might be a way of tracking down the woman in the sky-blue chador.

“Have you gone deaf or what?” The judge’s vehemence dislodges Rassoul from his train of thought.

“I told you. I didn’t steal anything. I just killed her.”

“You’re lying! Amer Salam had pawned several pieces of jewelry with her. Give them back to him! Or he’ll choke them out of you! You don’t know what kind of man he is.”

“I’m telling you that I didn’t steal anything.”

The Qhazi takes off his cap and uses his handkerchief to wipe away the beads of sweat gathering on his shaved head. “Come on, spit it out! I don’t have time to waste on this case.”

“But, Qhazi sahib, I swear to you that I wasn’t able to steal them.”

“So what happened to the jewels?”

“That is the great mystery…”

“Don’t take me for an idiot! Give me back the jewels, and then go to your house and stay there!”

“You must listen to me. I didn’t come to hand myself over to the law for nothing…”

“Well, why are you handing yourself over to the law?” asks the judge, finally realizing the absurdity of this enigmatic surrender. “Where the hell are you from?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I don’t give a damn about your story. Tell me what faction you’re from!”

“None.”

“None!” The Qhazi is stunned. For such a man to take such a position in this war-torn land makes absolutely no sense, of course.

“Are you Muslim?”

“I was born Muslim.”

“Who was your father?”

“He was a soldier. He was killed.”

“He was a communist.” That’s it, here we go again. Always and forever the same questions, the same suspicions, the same judgments. I’ve had enough!

You wanted to tell him your story, didn’t you—your life story? Well then, play the game. See it through.

“Your father was a communist, huh?” Is that a question, or a judgment? “Huh?”

“Sorry?”

“Your father, was he a communist?”

“Oh, that was a question.”

The enraged judge loses his temper. “You too, you were a communist!”

“Qhazi sahib, I have come here to confess a murder: I murdered a woman. That is my only crime.”

“No. There is something shady about all this. You must be guilty of more than that…”

“Qhazi sahib, is there a crime more serious than the killing of another human being?”

The question causes the handkerchief to fall from the judge’s hand. “I’m the one who asks the questions! What were you doing in the communist era?”

“I worked at the Pohantoun library.”

“So, you must have done your military service under the Russian flag.” The judge picks up his prayer beads. “Tell me, how many Muslims did you kill?” It’s a good job he doesn’t know that you were in the USSR, or that would be the end of everything.

“I didn’t do my military service.”

“Then you must have been in the communist youth league.”

“No, never!”

“You weren’t a communist, you didn’t do your military service, and you’re still alive.” Rassoul is silent. The only sound is that of the prayer beads slipping between the Qhazi’s fingers. Suddenly he becomes angry again. “You’re lying! You ungodly communist!” The beads stop moving, and in a black rage the judge calls for the guards. “Get this pig out of here! Shut him in solitary confinement! Tomorrow, blacken his face before punishing him in public: cut off his right hand for the theft, and then hang him! Whip his filthy corpse as a lesson to others: this is the punishment for survivors of the former regime who spread evil and corruption!”

The two armed men throw themselves on Rassoul and grab him. He is dumbfounded.

He does not breathe.

His heart heaves.

The room crumbles.

The prayer beads once again begin slipping through the Qhazi’s fingers, one at a time.

Cries of fury invade the room.

Clanking chains excruciate the ear.