The Colonel Page 9

  “Nur-Aqdas. Nur-Aqdas Khamami. I want to know what happened to her.”

  It just came out. A fleeting smile crossed Khezr’s face as he half closed his eyes and stared into the bottom of his glass. Amir thought he was trying to find a way to change the subject. Khezr carried on looking into the glass for a while, then looked up and stared so intently, as he often did, into Amir’s eyes that Amir was forced to take a drag on his cigarette to avoid his gaze. He realised that Khezr would not be drawn on the subject of his wife. He was far more concerned about his own future and had no wish to stir up the past; the man had never felt regret for his past.

  Even on that last occasion when Khezr had visited Amir in the cellar, he had displayed remarkable self-confidence. Despite the fact that wounded people were still lying on the streets, Khezr, whether on purpose or just through habit, still walked with his old swagger, showing not a flicker of apprehension; his only concern was how to adapt to the new order. It was then, through one or two things that he let slip, that Amir realised that Khezr had been one of the organisers of the demonstration by the security police in front of the office of the Prime Minister in the revolutionary government.25 This shocked him, and he began to think that Khezr Javid, ‘the immortal one,’ might have good reason for feeling so confident about the future. So he gave up asking him direct questions, even about the fate of his wife, and settled instead for slipping him the odd surreptitious, seemingly casual question. So during that last visit, as he always did, he got out the open drum of home brew and put it down beside Khezr with a dish of olives, emptied the ashtray into the waste bin and put it back next to the tray that was perched on his bedside table. As usual, Khezr poured himself a glass but, before downing it, he felt in his pocket and took out a leaflet. Passing it to Amir, he sneered:

  “This is the handiwork of your commie chums! They demanded that we publish a list of SAVAK informers!”26

  Without waiting for a response from Amir, he continued in a mocking tone: “So we published them, more than nine thousand names!”

  Amir could not lift his head up. This humiliation, deeper than ever, was more than he could bear. Khezr’s show of power and his withering contempt had not just made a fool of him, it had made a complete fool of a whole nation. At moments like this, Amir felt defiled, as if a freezing lake of mud had been poured over him.27

  Etched on Amir’s mind were the countless occasions in his life when Khezr, with his big nose and pea-like eyes, had played a role. He thought of the man who, imitating that poet with the reedy capon voice, had stood on a stool outside the prison gates and sung the praises of the revolution. And he thought of the fisherman who smoked cheap Oshnu Specials on an empty stomach for breakfast, and the glint in the eye of the forty-year-old party leader as he sent young men off to the slaughterhouse of war and despair. And finally his thoughts turned to himself, to the shadow of himself and his fellow men. He made an effort to wipe all the disturbing thoughts from his memory and concentrate instead on the great, important moments… Like when the prison gates were flung open. Where exactly was Khezr, and what had he been doing, when that happened? He now called to mind that Khezr was hardly ever to be seen during the troubles, but that he had reappeared in another form the minute it seemed expedient to do so. Just as he was doing now…

  “Won’t you take even one step towards the cemetery? After all, your sister’s about to be buried…”

  “I’m tired and I need to sleep for an hour or two…”

  “Will you really not come? I would if I were you. Damn it, how many brothers and sisters does a man have?”

  No, this man, in his shabby raincoat, this skinny fellow with long, wet hair wandering among the gravestones can’t be our Amir. Anyway, he was curled up in his blanket; he couldn’t have got here by now. No, this man mooning about the rainy cemetery at dead of night, prowling about looking for something that he can’t find, couldn’t be our Amir – or could he? No, it’s not him. Funny, though, he does look like Amir. It must be Amir’s nightmare who’s turned up here. Perhaps I’m seeing my son in his own nightmare. Perhaps… I’m going crazy. No that can’t be it, because what I’m seeing is real, it’s got nothing to do with madness. Otherwise I wouldn’t even be aware that I’m going off my head, would I? There’s no getting round it; that man skulking about the cemetery looks more like Amir than anyone else. It’s got to be Amir. “Amir!”

  One rainy evening, at dusk, Amir’s sister Farzaneh had come to see him, bringing modelling clay and plaster and other bits and pieces for his sculpting. the colonel was standing at the window of his room, smoking and staring out at the rain. He could catch the odd word of what they were saying. I don’t think Amir had asked her for any materials. As far as the colonel knew, Amir did not work in the traditional materials that most sculptors used. No, this solicitous gesture must have been Farzaneh’s idea, probably some excuse to come and see the brother she’s closest to and have a chat with him…

  This time Farzaneh had behaved quite sensibly. For once, she wasn’t crying, and she had not brought her children with her. And the way Amir spoke to her gave her no opportunity to lapse into her usual gloom.

  “You’ve really gone from us, sis. As for me… well, I’m lost. Those who try to find their true role in life are always hit the hardest. Take our father, for instance; in his effort to be true to himself and keep up his standards, he communed with the photograph of The Colonel until his hair went white. And the only reason I’m working on this bust is to get involved with something permanent. I’m in a bad way, little sister. I’m a stranger in my own home! The tragedy of our whole country is the same: we are all alienated, strangers in our own land. It’s tragic. The odd thing is that we have never got used to it. Yet, woe betide us if we do. The irony is that, if you really want to be seen as a good Iranian, and especially if you aspire to high office in this country, you first have to be a foreigner, someone who wasn’t born here at all. On the other hand, if you were born and bred here and try to remain true to yourself, your country and your people, then alienation is the most lenient punishment you can expect. It’s only through being a mouthpiece of foreigners and becoming a foreigner yourself that you’ll be accepted as a native and be honoured and respected. My little sister, I wanted to speak up for my country. I love my country more than anything, but since I no longer speak with the voice of my party I’ve become a non-person, a stranger in my own land. That’s the whole wretched story of our country. I have not been true to myself, my sister, so I am corrupted. That’s why I am thinking of ending it all. But… but not in the way that others have said we shall all end. No, I won’t allow myself to be killed by one of my brothers, although I could certainly bring myself to have their blood on my hands. I already have. No, I shall kill myself and, by doing so, will bequeath them a handicap like a horn on their heads. This may be absurd, but it is the only independent act I am capable of, since we are all done for, or soon will be.”

  “Oh yes, we’d just begun to find our feet when they came down on us like a ton of bricks – oh, they really made us pay dearly for that. They kept trying to convince us that our real problem was the enemy within, the snakes in our bosoms, they called them. ‘Kill them, wipe them out,’ they said – ‘they could be your children, your brothers, your neighbours, your friends. Exterminate them. Exterminate them all. Kill your offspring, stamp out life, stamp out resistance. Can’t you see they’re dangerous?’ This wave of vengeance just makes one want to weep. I know that my sister will die, I know that they will cast my brother’s corpse at my feet, and that my father will finally lose his mind. And you will end up being ground up between the yellow, stinking teeth of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. And I know that I shall kill myself, for I have read every line in the book of death, but I shall not weep. I’m not prepared to play the court jester any more, either, putting on a mask of scornful jollity and cracking jokes about the impending catastrophe. No, silence is the only answer… It is with the white blade of silence that I can purify
a world that accepts the ruin of an entire people and does nothing. What a price we have to pay, sister, what a terrible retribution!”

  the colonel could not hear Farzaneh’s reply. Or had she been struck dumb by surprise and disbelief at her brother’s outburst? But what could she possibly have said in response anyway? Nothing. With her brother in that state, all she could do was shed tears of silent misery.

  About an hour passed before he heard her coming up the basement stairs. When she emerged, the colonel was still standing by the window. He saw her sit down by the pond in the yard to wash away her tears. the colonel turned away from the window and paced up and down the room. Expecting Farzaneh to come in and see him, he turned on the light, sat on the chair by the desk and lit another cigarette. He knew that his daughter would not leave without seeing him, however upset she might be by what Amir had said. He also knew that she could expect a stream of abuse, insults and mudslinging from Qorbani Hajjaj, that husband of hers, whenever she went to see her father, but that she took it all in her stride. And he knew that she would probably have brought some tranquillisers for him. the colonel, of course, just threw them away in the pond. But not when she was there – there was no point in upsetting his own daughter.

  No, this man lost in his shabby raincoat, this gaunt, skinny man with long, wet hair wandering among the graves can’t be Amir… Why am I so obsessed with this delusion? I need to get on with the job, and I’ve got a deadline. I mustn’t waste time on irrelevancies. Now, where’s the mortuary got to?

  The mortuary was a bit over to the right from where the colonel was heading. Earlier, it had struck the colonel as a chamber of horrors, worse than the graveyard. The thought of entering it, especially at night, made his hair stand on end. One often heard of people wandering into a mortuary in the middle of the night and being literally frightened to death.

  How come, then, that I now feel not the slightest twinge of fear? It was more likely, the colonel thought, that the two young men he had left behind would be far more unnerved than he was by being surrounded by dead bodies all that time. It is only professional body washers who have no fear of bodies and the darkness of the mortuary. The minds of these young men had been unsettled by the daily toll of blood, bodies and slaughter on the streets. The fact was, the colonel thought, that however much the youth of today had got used to blood and guts in the street, they still had a long way to go before they attained the detachment of a real body washer. The young still had white teeth. Their teeth had not gone yellow, wolf-like, grotesque and misshapen, like I imagine old fashioned body washers’ teeth get from a lifetime of bone cracking. Even wolves would be frightened by darkness, corpses and mortuaries, though perhaps they would not show it.

  He could hear them now. As he got closer, he could see them walking up and down. Without taking his eyes off the mortuary, he leaned against the wet trunk of a leafless tree to take another breather. All the while, he was watching the young policemen, their faces in the shadow, as they tramped nervously back and forth, shoulder to shoulder. They did not even appear to be talking to each other, just pacing incessantly this way and that, trying to kill time.

  Maybe they’re frightened of the skinny corpse of my daughter, by the ghost of an innocent child. Or perhaps they’re angry at me for taking so long. That’s fair enough, it’s no job for them really. Instead of being given a proper job to do, they’ve been sent out on a rainy night to keep guard over my daughter’s dead body. What sort of job is that? All this hanging about has given them too much time to think about their lives.

  Yet, judging by the anxious and aimless way they were roaming around, they were not much given to thoughtful reflection. They did not appear to be smokers, otherwise they could have found a sheltered corner under the mortuary eaves and, like most old prison warders, have had a cigarette or two to pass the night away.

  I could really do with a smoke now, if only this wretched rain would let up. No, he had to go and finish the night’s work. He could light up after that, just as he had after Mohammad-Taqi’s funeral, when the cup of coffee and cheap Homa cigarette he had had when he got home had really hit the spot. It had tasted as wonderful as his very first cigarette. That day was the first time he had really noticed Amir’s squint, and the way his eyes stared at a point in the middle distance. And it was on that day that the thought had flashed across his mind: ‘My children… oh, how I wish I had never had you!’

  Now I really must get going and put those lads’ minds at ease.

  A short distance away, The Colonel was standing on a gravestone, which made him look a lot taller. His black field boots were dazzling, unsullied by the mud, rain and dirt of the graveyard. Thank goodness they can’t see him, otherwise his terrifying appearance would give them heart attacks on the spot. I must not look at The Colonel, or these young fellows are going to think that the old man is off his rocker. the colonel walked up to the policemen, propped his pick and shovel against the wall of the mortuary and wiped the sweat and rain off his face. He greeted the young men briefly and apologised to them for his lateness:

  “I’m so sorry, gentlemen, but you can see what one has to cope with.”

  Now I have got to make peace with Forouz.

  the colonel’s wife was standing by the door of the mortuary awaiting his return, as if she had already heard that Qorbani would not allow Farzaneh to go and wash her sister, as if to say that it would be grossly unfair and offend her deeply if the colonel blocked her way and stopped her doing her job. She had come to lay out her daughter, but before starting she wanted to be sure that the colonel would not stand in her way. He certainly ought not to prevent his wife from doing this good deed; it would be very heavy-handed of him not to let Forouz wash her own daughter’s body. Such meanness, particularly in the presence of The Colonel, would seem impertinent, and on no account would I want any impertinence on my part to upset The Colonel. So, as if nothing had ever happened between them, he showed his wife into the mortuary.

  Forouz’s face was shining like a moonbeam, her hair was all white and her lips were as white as the cotton shroud she was wearing. Only her eyes, caught in the light of a tallow lamp that stood on a plaster column in the mortuary, glowed red, like two bowls of blood. Apart from her red eyes, in her long white shroud she looked like a silken wing, floating gracefully over the earth. She did not speak or glance around. As at the most submissive moment of her life – this was indeed a rare event – she kept her head dutifully bowed and, walking in step with her husband, glided towards the slab where Parvaneh lay. Her demeanour was so calm and pure. She must want my blessing, that her soul might be purified. What a way to get her own back on me!

  “I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her before I go off on this sordid posting!”

  the colonel had risen from his chair, and Amir was staring at him in astonishment. He could not believe it of the colonel, of his father, that he could murder his mother and, what is more, announce his intention for all to hear. He might have wanted to give me a helping hand, but how… No, he couldn’t alter my decision. Nor could Amir help him, other than by standing aside and looking on as his father sorted his own mess out. I started crying again and I broke down. This might have given Amir some brief hope that the colonel would change his mind about murdering his mother but, to put a stop to any such hope, the colonel stood up, threw off his army cap, strode bare-headed out of the room, crossed the courtyard and went out of the front gate to stand in the rain and wait for his wife to return.

  “You see how hard it is on a man, don’t you, gentlemen? Now I am at your service.”

  He had given the bundled-up shroud to Forouz. Now he had to go and fetch the pick and shovel, which he had left at the bottom of the crumbling wall of the mortuary. When he got there, he started grumbling out loud:

  “What kind of mortuary is this, anyway? It hasn’t even got electricity. This sort of town needs more and more of it, what with all the migrants, refugees, and war wounded, not to mention all the executions th
at are taking place, and all those young comrades on the run…”

  The rain, lack of sleep and the long wait had knocked the stuffing out of the young policemen. Even so, one of them tried to cheer the colonel up by telling him that the city had plans for a brand-new mortuary to meet the needs of the community. It had been approved by the city councillors and had been put out to tender, and work had even started on it. The other policeman chipped in morosely, “Why did those bastards in the Shah’s day never think to build a decent mortuary anywhere outside of Tehran?”

  the colonel felt his coat tails flapping round his legs as he walked, as if the coat had grown too big for him and he was getting lost inside it. Perhaps he had shrunk without noticing it. Or maybe his knees had doubled up with exhaustion and he was turning into a hunchback. He tried to ignore it, not wanting to show the slightest sign of weakness. He still had an old soldier’s sense of pride, and he was determined to keep a stiff upper lip. Strange, but there it was. And so, when they found the place where they had to dig, he stuck the shovel into the mud like a seasoned peasant and, rubbing his hands together, grasped the pick and set to work.

  “Not bad for an old man, eh? I dug a lot of training trenches as a young man.”

  Ali Seif just grinned, but the other one, Abdullah, seemed to take pity on the sweat-drenched old man and decided to pitch in. He passed Ali Seif his weapon, took the shovel and started digging. the colonel stood at the foot of the grave. Wiping the sweat from his brow with his left sleeve, with his right hand he groped in his coat pocket for his brass cigarette case. Then he turned up his collar, pulled his hat down and turned his back to the rain so that he could light his cigarette without getting it wet. Before it had a chance to get soaked, he lit one up and sank into a daydream.