I had never got over my wife being taken away by the police and, although I was still in a state of shock at seeing Khezr in the house, I was strangely tempted to take it up with him. I was sure that he must know what her file said about her arrest and interrogation; he must know all about what had happened to Nur-Aqdas Khamami. It seemed perfectly natural that, now that Khezr had taken refuge with me, I should ask him to tell me what had happened to my wife, who had disappeared without trace. But what was it that held me back from mentioning her? I don’t know, but a powerful force was preventing me from uttering my wife’s name. Maybe it was my oriental mentality that made me want to draw a veil over anything that reflected on my honour. All the dreadful images that I had had of what might be happening to Nur-Aqdas had destroyed my mind and left me in a state of terror. I wanted to shut her, and anything that was to do with her, out of my mind. I did not want to see or hear of her again. Nevertheless, my curiosity would not let go of me. It was impelling me to keep digging to find out what had happened to my wife. If the security police had executed her, there had to be some trace of her grave, or of the common pit they had thrown her into. But there wasn’t. So what had happened to Nur-Aqdas? I don’t know. So I don’t see why I shouldn’t put Mr Immortal Javid on the spot and get him to answer me. Wasn’t he now a criminal hiding in my house? So why didn’t I quiz him? Was it that I didn’t dare? That was it. I didn’t have the courage to ask the policeman personally responsible for her file what had become of Nur-Aqdas. I was hesitant, and maybe this shyness came from a sense of shame. This was nothing new; when other people behaved totally disgracefully, it was me that went red with embarrassment. What was holding me back was perhaps this overweening sense of shame. I just sat there on the stool, staring at the floor, and started thinking about Nur-Aqdas. I remembered the first time I saw her, with her eyes blindfolded, her feet swollen and bandaged, sitting on an old blood-soaked chair in one of those deformed, twisted prison cells. She was leaning backwards and I wanted to be able to see her eyes under the black blindfold once more. They had probably lost all their brightness, and I wanted to be able to look out through the half-closed door of that warped interrogation room, to see what hour it was of that night that seemed to have had no beginning. Then suddenly, I don’t know how, I was no longer tongue-tied but, instead of asking Khezr what had happened to Nur-Aqdas, all I could manage to say to him was, ‘What’s the time?’
“Supper’s ready, bro!”
At the sound of Mohammad-Taqi’s voice, Khezr blinked and sat up on the edge of the bed. Before his brother could come down, Amir shot up and grabbed the tray from him and was about to turn round and come down with it when Mohammad-Taqi said, rather louder than he should have:
“Father wants to see you, bro!”
Amir went weak at the knees, but, toughing it out and giving no sign of his alarm, he went back down into the cellar, set the tray down on the rush mat and made a place for Khezr to sit down next to it, while watching for Khezr’s reaction to what Mohammad-Taqi had said. Khezr gave no sign that he had heard anything and began to chew quietly on his food. Amir now seemed to have lost interest in inquiring about Nur-Aqdas. He was more interested in where Khezr was going to sleep after his supper, and why Mohammad-Taqi had used their father as an excuse to get him away from Khezr. How was he going to find an excuse for leaving his guest alone?
“Is there any hooch around the place?”
There was. He put the plastic petrol can of arack down in front of Khezr, with a glass and a bowl of olives. When he got stuck in, Amir had an excuse to leave the room. He put on his slippers and went upstairs to the sitting-room, where his father was waiting for him. He was sitting on a chair next to the stove, beneath the portrait of The Colonel, reading the Shahnameh, the story of Manuchehr, most likely.36
Mohammad-Taqi was sitting on the bentwood chair, oiling his pistol in the light of the lamp hanging from the ceiling. When he caught sight of Amir, he looked up from his task for a moment. Amir waited patiently to find out what the colonel wanted, but the old man’s head was buried in the Shahnameh and showed not the slightest interest in his son, even though he had heard Mohammad-Taqi calling him up from the basement. Amir was worried that he should not have left Khezr alone. The long silence forced on him by his father and brother made him feel small. Finally, he broke it himself.
“Father, what was it you wanted to see me about?”
the colonel peered at Amir over the top of his glasses, shook his head in irritation and buried himself once more in the Shahnameh, handing Amir over to his brother. Mohammad-Taqi did not give Amir a chance to speak. As he finished reassembling his weapon he adopted an abrupt tone that Amir had never heard him use before:
“Who is he, bro?”
Amir did not answer. He decided to stand on his dignity as the elder brother and shut Mohammad-Taqi up. Without a word, he turned round and headed for the door. But, before he reached the verandah, he was brought up short by a bark from Mohammad-Taqi. He stopped, then turned to face his brother, who was casually examining the weapon in his hand.
“What does it matter to you who he is?”
Mohammad-Taqi looked him straight in the face: “I know what sort of person he is.”
“What sort of person is he, then?”
“Police.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen him, I recognise him.”
“Where from?”
“Around the prison, before they stopped visits from brothers and sisters.”
Mohammad-Taqi did not need to add that he had actually seen Khezr Javid face to face, on one of his visits to Amir. Amir was shocked into silence and his knees began to shake. It seemed that they now took him for an accomplice of Khezr. Struck dumb by this realisation, he stood awkwardly in front of his brother. His tongue felt as dry as a brick and he could not swallow his saliva. the colonel had looked up from his Shahnameh and was peering at him in astonishment over his spectacles. There was nothing for it; he had to come clean, before things got out of hand. And so, steadying himself on the table with his hands, he leaned over to Mohammad-Taqi and said:
“He’s a guest. He’s staying with us tonight. He didn’t treat me so badly when he was interrogating me. Anyway, I want to get something out of him about the disappearance of my wife. So don’t go kicking up a fuss about this — understood? I’m being completely above board with you.”
the colonel had sunk back into his book. Amir had not noticed that, while he had been talking to Mohammad-Taqi, his father had lit a cigarette. He saw that he had put his half-empty tea glass down in front of him. Amir turned round and looked at his brother once more. Mohammad-Taqi avoided his glance, got up and went over to the far end of the room, where there was an old wooden bed. Amir watched him go in silence. Not wanting to dilute the force of his words by saying anything else, he slipped out of the room, went out onto the verandah and crept down the stairs to the basement, making an effort not to let on to Khezr that anything to do with him had been going on upstairs.