My Father's Rifle Read Online Free PDF

stop and didn’t talk to them and went straight home. My mother saw me crying and she wanted to know why. Tearfully, I explained my distress. “I didn’t understand anything the teacher was saying; he speaks only Arabic.” My mother caressed my head, smiling. “Dear boy, a class in Arabic is nothing to worry about; it’s good to learn another language.” I answered, annoyed, “But, Mama, it isn’t just one class. Everything is in Arabic.” Whereupon my father arrived. “Don’t worry, my son, before the end of the year the teaching will be in Kurdish; the government promised us. You’ll be first in your class.”
    The teacher never called on me, I was never punished, and every day I made the same wish—that the courses in Kurdish would begin. In vain. I was forced to learn Arabic. As the end of the year approached, it was exam time, and still no change. Everything continued in Arabic. I waited for the results, hoping that my teacher would be lenient and I would pass into the higher grade. When the day came, all the students lined up in the courtyard. The headmaster, report cards in hand, called us up one by one. We knew we had passed when the teacher signaled us to go up to the caretaker. By custom, the student first gave the caretaker a coin to thank him for his services in the past year. Then, when the student received his report card, we were supposed to applaud. My father had given me a one-dirham coin for the caretaker. I held it carefully in my hand, buried deep inside my pocket, and fiddled with it as I waited to be called. Suddenly I heard my name, my head began to spin, and I became unaware of my surroundings. I headed for the caretaker automatically and put my coin in his box without
waiting for my teacher’s signal. There was a great silence. The headmaster signaled the caretaker to hand my dirham back to me.
    I still didn’t realize that the worst had happened, and I went on waiting for my teacher’s lips to pronounce the much awaited word: “passed.” All the students were looking at me. Without a word, the headmaster gave me my report card. I took it, eyes lowered, and heard the next name being called, “Cheto Rasul.” I walked away under the ripple of applause for my cousin.
    I looked at my report card and saw the red marks; I had been flunked. I thought of not going home, fearing my parents’ reaction.
    My father greeted me very calmly and all he said was, “My son, my dream is that you become a judge or a lawyer. Your older brother, Dilovan, didn’t go to university; he joined the fighters. And Rostam didn’t even finish high school. I must have one son at least who will allow me to walk with my head high.” He was sad, disappointed, and after a minute of silence he smacked me in the face. He didn’t speak to me for several days. Ramo had caught up with me. Small comfort. We’d be in the same class in the fall, and I hoped our teacher would let us share the same bench.
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    My father was summoned to the town hall. He went hoping to get a job, by virtue of the agreements concluded between General Barzani and the Iraqi government. 6 The government employee told him he had been put on early retirement and would be receiving a small pension. For my father, this was a bad omen.

    On the other hand, the teacher-training course my brother Dilovan had taken in the mountains was accredited by the state, and he found a job in a small village far away. He spent a good part of his salary paying for visits to his wife, who, with their little daughter, was living at our house. They had named her Zilan, after a valley where the Turks exterminated Kurdish deportees in the 1930s, to mark their commitment to the cause.
    Xebat (The Struggle), the Kurds’ underground newspaper, became legal and we could now buy it openly. One day, my father came home with the newspaper and a thick book tucked under his