A Curse on Dostoevsky

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BEFORE ENTERING the courtyard of his house, Rassoul wishes for just two things: first, that there won’t be any blood under the tree (he’s still nervous about his nightmare); second, that he won’t see Yarmohamad—he doesn’t want to dirty his hands with the festering blood of the man he hates, death would be a blessing to someone like that. He must insinuate his way into his life, haunt his soul, enter his dreams, become his fate.

So in he walks, carrying his books. In the moonlit night, he approaches the tree and runs his hand over its trunk. He bends down to check the ground beneath it. No trace of blood. He straightens and looks up at his bedroom window. The glass really is smashed. Then he turns toward Yarmohamad’s window. After a brief hesitation, he walks over and shouts that he is back, safe and sound. His cry sticks in his throat. So he raps on the window. Yarmohamad’s shaved head looms up out of the darkness. His face is crumpled with sleep and he tells Rassoul to quiet down so as not to wake his wife and children. A waste of time—Rassoul keeps banging on the window. Then he waves his books, and gives Yarmohamad the finger. After that, he turns away and heads to his room. Relieved, and triumphant.

Go on, Yarmohamad, sleep now if you can, the nightmares will come for you this time! I will haunt your dreams.

Once in his room, he feels like shouting. Shouting with joy. Or horror. He exhales forcefully, hoping to summon a noise from his throat. But nothing comes out. Just breath—which burns, but expresses neither joy nor horror.

Cold sweat runs down his back. He throws the books on the ground and lights a candle. The broken window is the thing that interests him most; he still can’t understand how he managed to smash it in his sleep.

Have I gone mad? Don’t they say that the first sign of madness is when nightmares start breaking out of your sleep to penetrate waking life and take up residence there?

Despairing, he removes his shoes and lies down. He is afraid to close his eyes. Afraid of nightmares. Yes, it is these bed devils, these shadowy figures of the night that are stealing my voice and driving me mad. I will sleep no more!

But his exhaustion is greater than his will. It closes his eyes and pushes him into the depths of darkness. Only the nearby explosion of a rocket rescues him. He starts, and sits up sweating. His tongue is still dry, his chest burning.

Silence, again.

The mountain engulfs the moon.

The night consumes the candle.

The darkness dulls the room.

Rassoul stands up. Sticks a new candle onto the corpse of the old one, drinks some water, and returns to bed. He doesn’t want to lie down anymore. He sits up against the wall. What shall he do? Read a book. He leans over and picks one at random but then tosses it aside and rummages for the first volume of Crime and Punishment, which he opens at the page where Raskolnikov returns home after the murder…

The cold isn’t coming from outside. No, the weather isn’t cold at all. Rather it’s a chill, a strange kind of chill from inside the room. It is emanating from the faded walls, the blackened, rotting beams…

He stands, walks over to the window and opens it. What a beautiful day it is, outside! He puts on his shoes and rushes out of the room, down the stairs and across the courtyard, managing to avoid his landlord. Now he’s in the street. Heart leaping and body light, he heads for the river. All around, women, men, young people, musicians are strolling in the afternoon sun. He wanders among them on the banks of the Neva River. No one notices him. No one looks at him suspiciously. And yet he must stand out, in these worn, bloodstained clothes. What joy to go unnoticed, to be imperceptible! Enchanted by the thrill of invisibility, he suddenly, among the crowd, spots a woman in a sky-blue chador. What is she doing here, in Saint Petersburg? She passes him at great speed. He stares at her, confounded. He knows that walk. She disappears into the crowd. He soon pulls himself together and rushes after her. He spots her crossing a busy junction in her chador. He starts sprinting, until he comes close enough to reach out and touch her. He manages to grab hold of her chador and pull it off. The woman is naked. Appalled, she curls into a ball to hide her body and face, but also the object she holds in her hands. Then, slowly, she looks up. It is Sophia. Between her knees is Nana Alia’s jewelry box. Confused, Rassoul looks at her and murmurs something inaudible. Then he shuts his eyes and throws himself at her feet to cry out in thanks. He feels saved. She has saved him. A hand is shaking him. “Rassoul! Rassoul!” It is not Sophia’s voice. It’s a man’s voice. A man he knows. Razmodin, his cousin. But where is he?

Here, in front of you, in your room. Open your eyes!

Barely awake, Rassoul scrambles to his feet, knocking the copy of Crime and Punishment off his chest. “Razmodin?” His cousin’s name trembles on his lips and is lost. He coughs and pretends to say “Salam.” Razmodin, who is crouching nearby, looks at him anxiously.

“Are you all right, cousin?”

Rassoul opens his eyes wide, then closes them again thoughtfully. Razmodin insists. “What’s going on? Are you well?”

Rassoul nods his head and sits down on the mattress, gazing at the broken window. It is already day but the sky is still black, black with smoke. “Do you want me to take you to a doctor?” No, it’s OK, he gestures. “Yes, I can see that! Tell me what’s going on!” Razmodin’s worried gaze lingers on Rassoul’s shirt. “What is that blood? Did they beat you up?”

After a moment’s thought, Rassoul stands up to look out at the courtyard, and sees Yarmohamad watching him. He beckons him to come up. But the landlord goes back inside his own house. “Leave him alone! He came to my office at dawn and told me everything. He was pale and kept telling me it wasn’t him… And that’s the truth. There are patrols everywhere, these days. Especially in this neighborhood… You’ve no idea what’s going on in this country right now. Buried in who-knows-what world, you have no interest…” Stop, Razmodin, please! Look what they’ve done to him.

Razmodin stops, not to notice the state Rassoul is in, but to hear him explain himself. He waits a moment. Nothing. He can’t believe it. Rassoul rolls up his sleeves to reveal his bruises. “What sons of bitches! But you’re a madman, too. What are you doing with all these Russian books in times like this?” Rassoul’s ankle starts hurting again. He grimaces and sits back down on the bed to rub it. His cousin stares down at him. “Dostoevsky! Dostoevsky! You’re always getting in trouble with your damned Dostoevsky! How do you expect them to know who he is?”

They aren’t all as ignorant as you, Razmodin! Commandant Parwaiz, whose name I’m sure you know, is very familiar with Dostoevsky. His troops are based just opposite your place, in the Ministry of Culture and Information. But in my current state, I am not able to tell you about it.

Write it down!

What’s the point? It’s more peaceful like this, without words, without all these endless conversations. I’ll just leave him to wonder at my mute state.

“Yarmohamad told me that they took you to Commandant Parwaiz’s office. I know him.” So you were right. “We were imprisoned together during the 1979 protests. That was a stroke of luck, being sent to him. Did you mention my name?” Rassoul shakes his head, then stands up to lurk behind the window once more. Yarmohamad is back in the courtyard. Rassoul beckons again for him to come over. “Forget him, it’s done. I paid him the two months’ rent you owed, he’ll leave you alone now.” Distressed by his cousin’s generosity, Rassoul totters back to his bed and attempts to communicate in sign language that he shouldn’t have done it, that he, Rassoul, would have paid it… The same words he’d used last time, when Razmodin paid three months’ rent on his behalf.

“And what exactly would you have paid it with?! You’ve let everything drop. Look at the state of you. You look like a beggar, or a madman escaped from an asylum!” Razmodin would have said, again.

So there is no point in Rassoul going to such lengths to make himself understood. But Razmodin expects to hear it from Rassoul. He can’t understand why he won’t talk to him. He looks on curiously as Rassoul stands up and rummages through a mound of clothing, looking for a clean shirt. They are all dirty and rumpled. Rassoul knows that. He is just pretending, so he doesn’t have to respond to Razmodin. The thing is, he doesn’t want him to know that he has lost his voice. They are cousins, and know each other well. They can hear each other’s thoughts, even when they are unspoken. Despite this, Razmodin insists as he always does.

“Rassoul, you’ve got to do something. How long are you going to live like this? If I could speak the languages you can, I’d have earned buckets of cash by now. These foreign journalists and humanitarian organizations are all crying out for interpreters. Every day, a hundred times a day, people ask me if I know someone who speaks even a little English. But how can I give them your name? You’ve already landed me in the shit. I’ve regretted it a dozen times.” And again, he will forgive him. “If you want, you can put the past behind you and start again. But I beg you, cousin, stop being so aggressive with the journalists. What business is it of yours who works for who, or why they are defending this or that group? Just take the dollars—fuck them and their ideas and shitty political posturing!” But this time, he doesn’t wait for Rassoul to bend his ear with his usual motto: “I’d rather be a murderer than a traitor!” Instead, he continues: “It’s easy to say that you’d rather be a murderer than a traitor. Why don’t you carry a gun then? You’re burying your head in the sand. If you’re asked to fly, you say you’re a camel, and if you’re asked to carry, you say you’re a bird. You’ve dropped your parents, forgotten your sister and your friends. If you want to fuck everything up then just carry on as you are. Do you even know what you want from life?” Furious, he stands up, takes a cigarette from his pocket and lights it. Despite his annoyance at these repeated reproaches, Rassoul is still pretending to look for a shirt, while nodding his head and drawing circles in the air with his hand to signal that he knows what’s coming.

“I swear, you’ve changed, you’re no longer the same man. You wanted Sophia, you got her. But what are you doing with her now? Do you want her to meet the same fate as you? We grew up together, cousin, we know each other, you’re like my brother. You taught me everything…” Razmodin doesn’t finish the sentence, because when he made the same speech—or nearly—a few weeks ago, Rassoul snapped: “Except for one thing.”

“What?”

“The horror of a moral lecture.”

“I’m not trying to lecture you. I’m holding up a mirror.”

“A mirror? No, it’s the bottom of a glass that bears only your own face, and which you hold up to others in order to say Be like me!”

Better to shut up, Razmodin. You think I’m pretending not to give a fuck about what you’re telling me. It’s a good thing you don’t know that I’m condemned to silence, or you’d still be speaking. You’d have emptied out your heart, bilious from my previous insults, without hearing me say that I don’t want your charity, I don’t like your fleamarket humanitarians, I hate these philanthropists who only care about their own name, I can’t stand all these buzzards circling above our corpses, these flies buzzing around the arsehole of a dead cow. Yes, I hate everything now: myself, and you too, my cousin, my childhood friend—you who are looking into my eyes, waiting for me to say something. Well, you won’t hear anything from me now. Perhaps you think this silence is a sign of indifference toward you. Or else resignation to your recriminations.

Interpret it how you will. What difference will that make to the world? To me? None. So just leave me alone!

After this long silence, Razmodin attacks again: “So now you won’t speak to me anymore? It’s all over?” Rassoul stops rummaging through his clothes. He shrugs his shoulders to show that he has nothing left to say. Disappointed, Razmodin stands up. “You’ve really lost it now, Rassoul. If you don’t want to see me anymore, or listen to me, then I’m off…,” he heads toward the door… “the fact that I paid the rent was just to protect our family’s honor. That’s it!” and he leaves.

Rassoul is dumbfounded, his face frozen. Then suddenly he rushes to the window to cry out.

I can no longer even yell my despair, my hatred, my rage…

So cry out in hope, joy, serenity. Perhaps that will help you find your voice again.

Where must I look for them?

Wherever you lost them.