“I don’t know. He probably didn’t have the faintest idea what was happening.”
“Why not? He must have been able to work it out. Didn’t he know what military service was?”
“I don’t think so. I wasn’t really sure myself. The whole idea scared me, it scared us all. The girls in the village wept when we left. They thought we’d never come back.”
“Why’d they put him in a cell?”
“They always locked up the men pretending to be deafmutes. They didn’t give them anything to eat or drink. After a while the men opened their mouths and begged, ‘Water, water! Please, I’m thirsty! Can you hear me? I’m not a deafmute. Water, please!’
“I was afraid that Akbar would get dehydrated. I had to do something.”
“Couldn’t you have reported it to the general or one of the officers?” Ishmael asked.
“No, they wouldn’t talk to the likes of me. Besides, I wouldn’t have dared. I’d never lived anywhere but in our village. I’d never been to the city before. I’d never even seen an officer or a general.
“Then things went from bad to worse. They found a book, a strange little book, in the pocket of your father’s coat.”
“What kind of book?” Ishmael asked.
“How would I know? I didn’t even know your father had a book. Anyway, the gendarmes got together to discuss it: What is it? How did this man get hold of a book written in cuneiform?
“Things were looking bad. I was called into the office. The chief gendarme asked me, ‘Do you know anything about this book?’
“‘Me? No.’
“I looked at it. I didn’t know how to read, but I flipped through it and saw that it wasn’t an ordinary book. It was written in a funny kind of writing. Hundreds of little wedges and spikes that looked like they’d been drawn by a child.
“They brought your father into the office. He’d lost a lot of weight. He was nothing but skin and bones. ‘What’s this?’ they asked.
“‘It’s mine,’ he signed.
“‘How did you get hold of it?’
“Me, Akbar, I wrote it,’” he signed.
“‘You? You wrote this book?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘What did you write about?’
“‘The things in my head,’ he signed.
“The gendarmes didn’t understand him and they certainly didn’t believe him.”
“And you? Did you believe him?”
“I knew your father, but I didn’t always understand him, either. To be honest, I had my doubts. I was afraid he’d stolen the book from one of those foreigners, one of those cuneiform experts.
“‘My uncle,’ Akbar suddenly gestured. ‘My uncle knows all about it. He told me to write down the things in my head.’
“‘Come with me,’ the gendarme gestured. ‘We’ll go and see the general!’
“So, they took us to see the general. The gendarme put the book on the general’s desk.
“‘A book? In cuneiform?’ the general exclaimed. ‘Where did you get this?’
“‘I found it in his pocket,’ the gendarme replied. ‘He claims he’s deaf and dumb.’
“Only God could help him now.
“‘Mine. It’s mine,’ Aga Akbar gestured. ‘Uncle. My uncle knows about it. I think, then I write in the book.’
“‘Do you know this man?’ the general asked me.
“‘Yes, he’s a friend, uh, I mean an acquaintance. He’s a craftsman, the best carpet-mender in the whole region. He lives with his uncle in Saffron Village.’
“‘Do you know how he got hold of this book?’
“‘No.’
“‘OK, you’re dismissed.’
“I had no idea what they were going to do with him.
“An hour later I heard someone shout, ‘Look, it’s Aga Akbar!’ I went out to see what was going on. The gendarmes had taken off his clothes and thrown him into a freezing pond.”
Ishmael looked at his father in surprise. Aga Akbar, who was following every word of the story, nodded and smiled.
The farmer’s wife sat down next to Ishmael and put her arm around his shoulder. “Now, thank God, Aga Akbar has a son to help him.”
The farmer continued. “I couldn’t be sure that Akbar was telling the truth. It was hard to believe he’d written those things. But I was the only one who could do anything and after a while I couldn’t bear to watch any longer. I ran over to the general, who was standing by the pond. I knelt at his feet and said that Akbar was telling the truth, that he was a good man and that they should send for his uncle Kazem Khan.”
“Did that help?” Ishmael asked.
“It did, thank God. They hauled him out of the pond, draped a blanket over his shoulders and took him back inside. Do you remember, Akbar?”
Aga Akbar nodded. “Yes, I remember. I haven’t forgotten.”
“Three days later Kazem Khan turned up at the army barracks with the imam from Saffron Village. The imam placed the Holy Book on top of the general’s desk and swore that Akbar’s book was nothing more than a deaf-mute’s attempt to imitate cuneiform writing, that they were just Aga Akbar’s meaningless scribbles.”
• • •
Many years later, after Aga Akbar’s death, the mail-carrier handed Ishmael a package.
By then Ishmael was the same age his father had been when captured by the gendarmes. He opened the package. It was a book. The notebook with Aga Akbar’s scribbles.
Ishmael sat down at his desk, thumbed through the pages and thought: How will I ever discover the secrets contained in these pages? How can I let the book tell its own story? How can I translate it into a readable language?
A New Wife
We’ve talked quite a bit about Ishmael,
though we haven’t yet described his birth.
Soon we’ll encounter a woman in the snow.
Kazem Khan will pick up the tale from here.
Sometimes you have to be patient. If whatever it is you’re doing doesn’t seem to be working out, leave it for a while. That way you give life a chance to sort itself out.
Kazem Khan was away on a trip. He couldn’t go home because the snow was nearly three feet deep. It would take a few days to clear the road.
So he rode around in search of a fellow opium smoker. Just as it was getting dark, he came to the village of Khomein.
“Good evening!” he called to an old man clearing the road.
“Good evening, stranger. Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for the hunter.”
“Which one? Everyone in this village is a hunter.”
“Er … the one who hunts mountain goats.”
“Ah, yes, I know who you mean. He used to hunt mountain goats, but he’d be lucky to hit a farm goat these days. Anyway, go down the road I’ve just cleared until you see an old oak tree. Take the path to your left and keep going up the hill through the snow. In the distance you’ll see a house with a long stone wall and a large pair of goat horns above the gate. That’s where your hunter lives.”
Kazem Khan rode up the hill through the snow to the house, but it looked deserted. From his horse, he called out, “Hello, is anyone home?”
No answer.
He knocked on the door with his riding crop. “Hunter! Are you there?”
“Hold on!” came the voice of a young woman, “I have to clear the snow.”
Had the voice come from the courtyard or the roof? He couldn’t tell.
“Salaam, stranger!” the woman called.
Kazem Khan looked over his shoulder.
“Here, I’m up here. Who do you want to talk to?”
“Oh, up there! Hello. I’m looking for the hunter.”
“He’s asleep.”
“So early?”
“Yes,” she said and vanished.