A Curse on Dostoevsky Read Online Free PDF

from your family; it was a sign from you!
    “Don’t you laugh at us, young man. It is fate that has made us ridiculous; fate!” He said this slowly, and seriously. After a brief silence, he continued: “Fate … we say it is fate that in the end forces the mirror to make do with ashes. Do you know what that means?” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “You know that a mirror is simply glass covered with a blend of metals? Well, when time has eroded the metal, the glass is coated in ashes! Yes, it is fate that reduces everything to ashes … How old are you?”
    “Twenty-seven.”
    “I’m twice as old as you … more even … a noble life!” He stared into the middle distance, then continued, “War destroys man’s dignity,” and stood up. “My heart is bleeding but I have no blood on my hands. My hands are pure …” He showed me his palms. “I took part in the jihad myself, in my own way …” he moved closer … “for a long time I was administrative director of the National Archives. They used to be at Salangwat, just near here … It was during the communist era, the first one, the Khalqs. Yes, at the time we had a general director, one of those Pashtun dogs who used to sell all our archives to the Russians. Every time a document disappeared I felt like strangling him. This was the history of our country he was selling. Do you understand? The history of our country! Anything can be done to a population without History, anything! The proof …” He didn’t explain the proof, letting me find it myself in the ruins of our souls. “In short, there was nothing I could do about that director. He was a Khalq.” He spat in disgust and turned toward the owner of the
chai-khana,
crying: “Moussa, some tea for this …,” jerking his head toward me. He paused a moment, as if trying to remember what he’d been talking about. I reminded him. “Yes, thanks … hash … wrecks the memory. No, sorry, not hash!… Fate … fate reduces our memories to ashes! We needhash to cope with our fate—a good big dose to blot out all feeling. But how to afford that, these days? If I had any money left, I’d still be downstairs in the
saqi-khana.”
I told him that I would pay. He didn’t refuse. We stood up and asked the owner to bring our tea down to the smoking room
.
    Downstairs, the smoky space was lit by the yellow glow of an oil lamp hung from the ceiling. Men sat in a silent circle around a large chillum, staring into space. They were all high as kites. Your father found us a spot. He smoked, I didn’t. Gradually all the others left. When only he and I remained, he continued: “What was I telling you?” And I helped him out again. He went on: “Yes, that dog of a director … that dog, whom fate had given wings, was one of these nouveaux-riche types who had heard people talking about whisky, but never tasted it. One day he asked me to get him a bottle. He didn’t say whisky, he said ‘wetsakay’!” Your father burst out laughing. “Do you know what ‘wetsakay’ means in Pashto?” Again, he didn’t give me time to respond. “It means: Do you want a drink?” He paused, and then turned serious. “I bought him some local alcohol, the worst I could find, and added some Coca-Cola and a bit of tea. It looked just like whisky. I put it in a smart bottle and screwed the top on well. Very professional! I took it to him, and told him it had cost six hundred afghanis. At the time that was a lotof money, you know! And after that he kept asking me for
‘wetsakay,’
and I kept giving him that same counterfeit alcohol. A few months later his liver exploded. Burst! Finished! Kaput!” He pulled proudly on the chillum and exhaled the smoke up toward the lamp. “So tell me, young man—wasn’t that jihad? I too have every claim to being a mujahideen, a
bradar,
a Ghazi!”
    I didn’t know what to say. I looked at him sadly. “Ever since that day, I call on Allah and ask him about