Yahya has sprinkled water on the floor of the terrace, and the smell of dust and worn Hessian matting drifts across the small front yard. Mahnaz has brought Moheb out onto the terrace. Seated around the lantern, the three of them eat together. They eat in silence. What are they thinking about? Are they thinking about me?
“Has Father gone back to the city of Pul-e-Charkhi?” Yahya will ask.
Will Mahnaz tell him that I’m not his father? Perhaps, like me, she won’t want to shatter his dreams.
She has hung my freshly washed clothes out to dry on the washing line by the terrace. Mahnaz is thinking of me.
Clouds of hashish smoke permeate the mosque with their pungent smell.
No, Mahnaz won’t be thinking of me. She’ll do everything in her power to forget all about me. She’ll expunge from her life every last sign of me. Once she’s washed my clothes, she’ll donate them to the poor. I only wish that Mahnaz could know that someone is thinking about her at this very minute — someone who’s fallen hopelessly in love with the troublesome lock of hair that insists on hiding one side of her face; someone who’s in love with the persistence of her two slim fingers that repeatedly grant asylum to that strand of hair as, once again, they carefully rescue it and tuck it behind her ear …
The five bearded young men sitting in the circle closest to me pass their spliff from hand to hand. One of them offers me a drag. But the guy sitting next to him says, without looking at me, “He’s from Kabul. He drinks vodka.”
The scornful laughter of the little group echoes through the smoke-filled mosque.
I’ve never once smoked a cigarette in my life, let alone had a spliff.
But what will they think of me if I don’t smoke with them? Perhaps they’re just testing me. No one’s allowed to smoke in a mosque in the first place!
“Just ignore us,” says the guy with the black beard who offered me the spliff. “We merely smoke the humble herb of the ignorant poor!”
Hash fumes and mocking laughter spiral above my head. Someone in another group calls out, “From the ranks encircled of noble men: he who resists …”
The others cry together:
“Cannot persist!”
The cacophony in the mosque wakes up the old man who’s been sleeping on a brick. Perhaps he’s been awake the whole time with his eyes shut. He casts a glance at me. Light from a lantern hanging on a wooden pillar shines in his eyes. He smiles at me — why, I have no idea. Without thinking, I stretch my hand out to take the spliff and put it between my chapped lips. I try to inhale as much smoke as I can. An agonizing fit of coughing tears my chest apart.
“Vodka has mashed up your liver. Hash will mash up your lungs!”
My head rings with their sneering laughter. My limbs feel heavy. My mouth is dry. The mosque is thick with smoke.
What on earth made me smoke hash? Am I mad? I feel as though the blood has drained from my veins. My heart is pounding! I need to sit up.
Another group passes their spliff over to me:
“This is a Shah-Jahani, try it!”
I take the proffered spliff. Once more I draw the smoke deep into my lungs. Once more I’m wracked with a coughing fit, making my ribs feel as though they’re being dislocated one by one with every explosion.
The dervish raises his head. His eyes are bloodshot. His eyebrows look like two arches tacked to his wrinkled forehead. His jowls have caved in, as though he’s sucked his cheeks behind his teeth. He looks both stern and kindly. He moves his lips. He murmurs something under his breath that only he can understand. He throws back the cloak that has covered his wizened frame.
The door of the mosque swings wide open. A man with a white beard appears; he strides inside, bringing with him the absolute silence and weight of the night. Everyone stands up at once and salutes him.
I’m in no fit state to stand up. My head is spinning. I force myself to sit upright by levering my back against the wall.
The man’s right eye is hidden under a fold of his black turban. He stands at the front of the mosque. A few of the young men go over to sit by him. The man pulls out an old book from under his arm. He first recites a verse from the Koran himself and then he orders a young man to recite the sura of Joseph.
Is it me shaking or the wall of the mosque? I shut my eyes.
“… Joseph said to his father: O Father, I dreamt that the sun, the moon, and eleven stars prostrated themselves before me.”
“Praise be to Allah!”
My head is spinning wildly. I finally manage to stand up by hanging on to one of the wooden pillars that’s holding up the roof. I leave Joseph with his father and walk toward the door of the mosque.
“… In the tale of Joseph and his brothers can be found many signs of divine wisdom to aid those in search of truth …”
Where have my shoes gone? I step outside in bare feet. It’s freezing. The poisonous envy of Joseph’s brothers echoes from the mosque and is taken up by the wind. I find myself standing by a stream. The gentle babbling of the water washes the clamor of Jacob’s flock from my mind. The sky is clouded over. The moon and the stars lie prostrated at Joseph’s feet. I plunge my face into the starless water. The stream cleanses the thick fumes of hash from my lungs and my brain. I drink some water, then walk over to a big tree to have a piss.
Joseph’s cries resound inside the mosque. His envious brothers have thrown him into a well. My grandfather’s sobs emerge from the darkness. He would weep like Jacob every time he heard that verse.
I aim my piss at the roots of the tree. A bullet whizzes right past me.
“You atheist infidel!”
The bullet has lodged in the tree. My piss has come to an immediate halt. The man crashes toward me through the darkness of the night.
“Damn your father! Infidel! What do you think you’re doing pissing there like a donkey?”
He waves the barrel of the gun in the direction of the mosque, so I turn and walk back. When we reach the door he shouts, “Stay out! You’ll defile the mosque with your filth!”
He goes inside. The trials of Joseph stream through the opened door of the mosque accompanied by a dazzling shaft of lamplight. A passing caravan rescues Joseph from the well, then sells him as a slave to a minister of the Pharaoh.
The man reappears and gestures with his gun for me to follow him. We walk back down to the stream.
“Make your ablutions!”
Mechanically I sit down by the water and begin to wash my hands, then my feet. I repeat the ritual prayer of ablution in silence to myself. My mind is fixed on the barrel of his gun.
“You atheist pig! Infidel! Aren’t you going to wash your private parts?”
I am shaking. I don’t know whether it’s from cold or fear. I pull down my trousers. Just as I begin to wash myself, the man lunges at my balls. I spin backwards.
“Don’t you dare move! Why haven’t you shaved yourself?”
He grabs at my pubic hair, ripping out a tuft. My yelp skims across the stream.
“You filthy infidel!”
I finish my ablutions and pull up my sopping trousers. I am speechless with fear and humiliation.
He forces me to bend over the stream and begin my ablutions again. Then, in bare feet, under pain of death, I follow the man back to the mosque. I wonder where Joseph has gotten to?
“… Zulaikha, Potiphar’s wife, desired Joseph. She invited him into her chamber and, locking the door demanded, ‘Come close to me!’ ”