The Blind Owl and Other Stories Read online

  Several days passed. There was quite a commotion at home. They went back and forth to the bazaar and bought two silk outfits, a water pitcher, glasses, embroidery, a rose water sprinkler, a drinking container, a night cap, a box of cosmetics, eyebrow paint, a bronze samovar, painted curtains, everything imaginable. Since the mother wanted a great deal for her daughter, whatever trinkets from the home came into her hands she would put aside for Marokh’s trousseau. Even the hand-woven prayer carpets that Abji Khanom had asked her mother for several times and which she hadn’t given to her she put aside for Marokh. During these several days Abji Khanom silently and apprehensively watched these things, pretending not to notice. For two days she pretended to have a headache and rested. Her mother repeatedly scorned her, saying, “When is sisterhood valuable, if not now? I know it’s from jealousy, and no one reaches his goal from that. Besides, ugliness and beauty aren’t in my hands, it’s God’s work. You saw that I wanted to give you to Kalb Hosein, but they didn’t like you. Now you’re pretending to be sick so you won’t have to do anything. From morning till night you pretend to be pious, while I must strain my weak eyes sewing.”

  Furious with the jealousy which had overflowed her heart, Abji Khanom answered from under the quilt, “Enough, enough. She tries to put a brand in a heart of ice. Such a bridegroom you found her! Whenever you hit a dog someone like Abbas will appear in this town. What kind of taunt are you giving me? It’s clear that everyone knows what kind of a man Abbas is. Now don’t make me spell out that Marokh is two months pregnant. I saw that her stomach has swollen, but I didn’t show that I noticed it. I no longer consider her my sister.”

  Her mother became very angry. “May God strike you dumb. Go and die. I hope you die, shameless girl. Go and get lost. Do you want to stain my daughter’s reputation? I know this is just jealousy. You are dying because nobody will marry you with that face and figure. Now out of grief you slander your own sister. Didn’t you say that God in his own Koran has written that a liar is a big sinner, eh? God had mercy on others that he did not make you pretty… Every other hour you leave the house on the pretext of going to a sermon. You’re the one who makes people gossip… Go, go. All this praying and fasting isn’t worth the curse of Satan for people who have been deceitful. You’re just fooling people.”

  This kind of talk passed between them for the next several days. Marokh stared at these scuffles astonished and said nothing, until the night of the ceremony arrived. All the neighbours and the local unladylike women had gathered together, their eyes and eyebrows painted black, their faces white and their cheeks red. The women wore print chadors, had straight fringes and sported baggy cotton trousers. Among them Naneh Hasan was in the limelight. Simpering and smiling, she had tilted her head and was playing the drum. She sang whatever came to her mind:

  Oh friends, congratulations. With the blessing of God, congratulations.

  We came, we came again, we came from the bridegroom’s home –

  Everybody’s pretty as the moon, everybody’s a king, everybody’s got almond eyes.

  Oh friends, congratulations. With the blessing of God, congratulations.

  We came, we came again, we came from the bride’s home.

  Everybody’s blind, everybody’s lethargic, everybody’s with sick eyes.

  Oh friends, congratulations. We have come to take the angel and the fairy.

  With the blessing of God, congratulations.

  She would repeat this same thing over and over. They came and went, cleaning trays by the fountain, rubbing them with ashes. The smell of vegetable stew permeated the air. Someone shooed a cat out of the kitchen. Someone wanted eggs for an omelette. Several small children had taken each other’s hands and were sitting down and getting up saying, “The small bath has ants; sit down and get up.” They lit bronze fires in rented samovars. Unexpectedly they had news that the lady of the house where Marokh was a maid was coming to the ceremony with her daughters. On two tables sweets and fruit were arranged and they put two chairs at each table. Marokh’s father was pacing pensively, thinking that his expenditure had been great. But Marokh’s mother was insisting that for the approaching night they should have a puppet show. In all this tumult there was no sign of Abji Khanom. She had been gone since two in the afternoon. No one knew where she was. Probably she had gone to listen to a sermon.

  When the candles were lit and the ceremony was over, everyone had gone except for Naneh Hasan. They had joined the hands of the bride and groom who were sitting beside each other in the main room. The doors were closed. Abji Khanom entered the house. She went directly to the room next to the main room to take off her chador. As soon as she entered she noticed that they had pulled down the curtain in the main room. Out of curiosity she lifted a corner of the curtain from behind the glass. Under the light of the lamp, she saw her sister Marokh, looking prettier than ever with make-up and painted eyebrows, beside the bridegroom, who seemed to be about twenty. They were sitting in front of a table filled with sweets. The bridegroom put his hand around Marokh’s waist and said something in her ear. It looked as if they had noticed Abji Khanom or maybe her sister had recognized her. To spite Abji Khanom, they laughed and then kissed. From the end of the courtyard came the sound of Naneh Hasan’s drum. She was singing, “Oh friends, congratulations…” A feeling of hatred mixed with jealousy overcame Abji Khanom. She dropped the curtain and went and sat on the pile of bedding which they had put near the wall. Without opening her black chador she rested her chin in her hands and stared at the ground at the flower patterns of the carpet. She counted them and they seemed to her to be something new; she noticed the pattern of their colours. She either didn’t notice anyone coming and going, or she wouldn’t lift her head to see who it was. Her mother came to the door of her room and said to her, “Why don’t you eat supper? Why do you make yourself suffer? Why are you sitting here? Take off your black chador. Why have you left it on like a bad omen? Come and kiss your sister. Come and watch them from behind the glass. The bride and groom look like the full moon. Aren’t you happy for them? Come on, say something, finally. Everyone was asking where her sister was. I didn’t know what to say.”

  Abji Khanom only raised her head and said, “I’ve eaten supper.”

  * * *

  It was midnight. Everyone was asleep with the memory of his own wedding night and dreaming happy dreams. Suddenly, as if somebody were thrashing in water, the sound of splashing woke everybody abruptly. At first they thought a cat or a child had fallen into the fountain. With bare heads and feet they lit the lights. They searched everywhere but found nothing extraordinary. When they came back to go to sleep Naneh Hasan saw that Abji Khanom’s slippers had fallen near the cover of the water reservoir. They brought the light forwards and saw Abji Khanom’s body floating on the water surface. Her braided black hair had wrapped around her throat like a snake. Her rust-coloured clothes clung to her body. Her face shone with splendour and luminosity. It was as if she had gone to a place where there existed neither ugliness nor beauty, neither marriage nor funerals, neither laughter nor crying, neither happiness nor sorrow. She had gone to heaven.

  The Stray Dog

  (from The Stray Dog)

  (translated by Deborah Miller Mostaghel)

  Varamin square was made up of several small shops – a bakery, a butcher’s shop, a chemist, two cafés and a hairdresser’s, all of which served to fulfil the most basic needs of life. Beneath the powerful sun the square and its residents were half burnt, half broiled. They longed for the first evening breeze and the shade of the night. The people, the shops, the train and the animals had ceased their activity. The warm weather weighed heavily on them and a fine mist of dust, continually increased by the coming and going of cars, shimmered under the azure sky.

  On one side of the square was an old sycamore tree whose trunk was hollow and rotten but whose crooked, rheumatic branches had spread out with a desperate stubbornness. I
n the shade of its dusty leaves a large, wide bench had been placed from which two little boys with loud voices were selling rice pudding and pumpkin seeds. Thick muddy water pushed itself with difficulty through the ditch in front of the café.

  The only building which attracted attention was the well-known tower of Varamin, half of whose cracked, cylindrical body and cone-shaped top was visible. Even the sparrows that had built nests in the crevice where bricks had fallen from the tower were quiet from the force of the heat and were having a nap. The moaning of a dog was the only sound to break the stillness at intervals.

  The dog was from Scotland and had a smoky grey snout and black spots on his legs, looking as if he had run through a marsh and been splashed with slime. He had drooping ears, a bristling tail, and matt, dirty fur. Two human eyes shone in his woolly face. A human spirit could be seen in the depths of his eyes. Even in the darkness which had overtaken his life, there was in his eyes something eternal and shining, something which held a message that couldn’t be understood. It was neither brightness nor colour: it was something indefinable. Not only did there exist a similarity between his eyes and human eyes, but also a kind of equality could be seen. Two hazel eyes full of pain, torment and hope, eyes that can only be seen in the face of a wandering dog. But it seemed as if no one saw or understood his pained, pleading looks. In front of the bakery the errand boy would hit him. In front of the butcher’s the apprentice would throw stones at him. If he took shelter in the shade of a car, a heavy kick from the driver’s shoe would greet him. And when everyone else grew tired of tormenting him, the boy who sold rice pudding took special pleasure in torturing him. For every groan the dog gave, he would be hit in the side with a stone. The sound of the boy’s loud laughter would rise above the moans of the dog, and he would say, “God damn.” It was as if all the others were on the boy’s side, craftily and slyly encouraging him and then doubling up with laughter. They all hit the dog for God’s sake, since in their opinion it was quite natural that they should hurt the unclean dog which their religion had cursed and which they believed had seventy lives.

  Eventually, the rice pudding boy’s torment forced the animal to flee down the alley which led towards the tower. He didn’t really flee, he dragged himself with difficulty, on an empty stomach, and took shelter in a water channel. He laid his head on his paws, let his tongue hang out and, half asleep, half awake, looked at the green field which waved before him. His body was exhausted and his nerves were overwrought.

  In the moist air of the water channel a special tranquillity enveloped him from head to foot. In his nostrils the different odours of half-dead weeds, an old damp shoe, the smell of live and dead animals brought to life half-suppressed memories.

  Whenever he looked carefully at the green field, his instinctive desires would awaken, and memories of the past would be brought to his mind afresh, but this time the sensation was so powerful that it felt as if a voice he could hear next to his ear was compelling him to move about, jump and leap. He felt an inordinate desire to run and frolic in the green fields.

  This was his inherited feeling: all his ancestors had been bred among the green open fields of Scotland. But his body was so exhausted that it didn’t allow him to make the slightest movement. A painful feeling mixed with weakness overcame him. A handful of forgotten feelings, lost feelings had reawakened. Once, he had had various duties and responsibilities. He knew himself bound to answer his master’s call, to drive out strange people and dogs from his master’s home, to play with his master’s child, to act one way with acquaintances and another with strangers, to eat on time, to expect being fondled at a certain time. But now all these ties had been removed.

  All of his attention had narrowed down to finding a bit of food, fearfully and tremblingly, in the rubbish heap, while taking blows and howling all day – this had become his only means of defence. Formerly he had been courageous, fearless, clean, and full of life, but now he had become timid, the butt of people’s vengeance. Whatever noise he heard or whatever moved near him caused him to tremble. He was even frightened of his own voice. He had become accustomed to rubbish. His body itched, but he didn’t have the heart to search for fleas or to lick himself clean. He felt he had become part of the garbage, and something in him had died, had gone out.

  Two winters had passed since he had found himself in this hell. During this time he hadn’t eaten a full meal, or taken a peaceful nap. His lustre and passions had been stifled. Not a single person had laid a caressing hand on his head. Not one resembled his master in appearance – it seemed that in feelings, disposition and behaviour, his owner was a world away from these people. It was as if the people he had formerly been with were closer to his world, understood his pain and his feelings better, and protected him.

  From among the smells which assailed his nostrils, the one that dizzied him the most was the smell of that boy’s rice pudding: that white liquid which was so similar to his mother’s milk and which brought to mind the memories of his childhood. Suddenly a numbness took hold of him. He remembered as a puppy sucking that warm, nutritious liquid from his mother’s breast while her warm, firm tongue licked his body clean. The strong odour he had breathed in his mother’s embrace, next to his brother, the strong, heavy smell of his mother and her milk, revived in his nostrils.

  When he had sucked his fill, his body grew warm and comfortable. A liquid warmth flowed through his veins, his head separated heavily from his mother’s breast, his body quivered with pleasure from head to tail, and a deep sleep followed. What pleasure greater than this was possible? To instinctively press his paws against his mother’s breast, and with no special effort the milk would come out. The fluffy body of his brother, his mother’s voice, all of this was full of pleasure. He remembered his old wooden doghouse, the games he used to play in that green garden with his brother.

  He would bite his floppy ears, they would fall on the ground, get up, run; and later he found another playmate, too, his owner’s son. He would run after him at the end of the garden, bark, take his clothes in his teeth. In particular, he could never forget the caresses his owner had given him, the lumps of sugar he had eaten from his hand. Still, he liked his owner’s son better, because they had been playmates and the boy would never hit him. Later, he suddenly lost his mother and brother. Only his owner and his owner’s wife and son and an old servant were left. How well he distinguished their smells and recognized from afar the sound of their footsteps. At lunch and supper he would circle the table and smell the food, and sometimes against her husband’s will his owner’s wife would kindly give him a titbit. Then the old servant would come, calling, “Pat… Pat…” and would pour his food in a special dish which was beside his doghouse.

  Natural needs caused Pat’s misfortune, because his owner wouldn’t let him out of the house to go after female dogs. As luck would have it, one autumn day his owner and two other people who often came to their house and whom Pat knew got in the car. Pat had travelled with his owner in the car several times, but today he was agitated. After several hours of driving, they got out in Varamin Square. His owner and the two others passed through the alley beside the tower, but suddenly there was the unexpected stench of a bitch, that special smell that Pat was searching for, and all at once he was driven crazy. He sniffed in different places and finally entered a garden through a water channel.

  Twice near dusk the sound of his owner’s voice calling “Pat! Pat!” reached his ears. Was it really his voice, or was the echo of his voice sounding in Pat’s ears?

  Although his owner’s voice had a strong hold on Pat, because it reminded him of all the obligations and duties that he owed him, still a power superior to that of the outside world compelled him to stay with the bitch. He felt that his ears had grown too heavy and dull to hear sounds outside himself. Strong feelings had awakened in him, and the smell of the bitch was so powerful that he felt giddy.

  All his muscles, all his body and
his senses, were beyond his control, so that they were no longer obedient to him. But it wasn’t long until people came with sticks and shovel handles and shouts and drove him out through the water channel.

  Dizzy, giddy and tired, but light and relieved, as soon as Pat came to himself he went to look for his master. In several side alleys a faint odour of him had remained. He looked everywhere, leaving traces of himself at intervals. He went as far as the ruins outside the town. Then Pat returned because he realized that his owner had gone back to the square, but from there his faint scent got lost among others. Had his owner gone and left him behind? He felt agitated and fearful. How could Pat live without his master, his God? For his owner was like a god to him. But at the same time he was certain that his owner would come to look for him. Frightened, he began running up and down the roads; his efforts were wasted.