A Curse on Dostoevsky by Atiq Rahimi Read Free Book Online Page B

sweating. His tongue is still dry, his chest burning.
    Silence, again.
    * * *
    The mountain engulfs the moon.
    The night consumes the candle.
    The darkness dulls the room.
    Rassoul stands up. Sticks a new candle onto the corpse of the old one, drinks some water, and returns to bed. He doesn’t want to lie down anymore. He sits up against the wall. What shall he do? Read a book. He leans over and picks one at random but then tosses it aside and rummages for the first volume of
Crime and Punishment
, which he opens at the page where Raskolnikov returns home after the murder …
    So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and at such moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did not occur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion. Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds that he heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o’clock. They woke him up now
.
    “Ah! The drunken men are coming out of the taverns,” he thought, “it’s past two o’clock,” and at once he leaped up, as though someone had pulled him from the sofa
.
    “What! Past two o’clock!”
    He sat down on the sofa—and instantlyrecollected everything! All at once, in one flash, he recollected everything
.
    For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill came over him; but …
    The cold isn’t coming from outside. No, the weather isn’t cold at all. Rather it’s a chill, a strange kind of chill from inside the room. It is emanating from the faded walls, the blackened, rotting beams …
    He stands, walks over to the window and opens it. What a beautiful day it is, outside! He puts on his shoes and rushes out of the room, down the stairs and across the courtyard, managing to avoid his landlord. Now he’s in the street. Heart leaping and body light, he heads for the river. All around, women, men, young people, musicians are strolling in the afternoon sun. He wanders among them on the banks of the Neva River. No one notices him. No one looks at him suspiciously. And yet he must stand out, in these worn, bloodstained clothes. What joy to go unnoticed, to be imperceptible! Enchanted by the thrill of invisibility, he suddenly, among the crowd, spots a woman in a sky-blue chador. What is she doing here, in Saint Petersburg? She passes him at great speed. He stares at her, confounded. He knows that walk. She disappears into the crowd. He soon pulls himself together and rushes after her. He spots her crossing a busy junction in her chador. He starts sprinting, until he comes close enough to reach out and touch her. He manages to grab hold of her chadorand pull it off. The woman is naked. Appalled, she curls into a ball to hide her body and face, but also the object she holds in her hands. Then, slowly, she looks up. It is Sophia. Between her knees is Nana Alia’s jewelry box. Confused, Rassoul looks at her and murmurs something inaudible. Then he shuts his eyes and throws himself at her feet to cry out in thanks. He feels saved. She has saved him. A hand is shaking him. “Rassoul! Rassoul!” It is not Sophia’s voice. It’s a man’s voice. A man he knows. Razmodin, his cousin. But where is he?
    Here, in front of you, in your room. Open your eyes!
    Barely awake, Rassoul scrambles to his feet, knocking the copy of
Crime and Punishment
off his chest. “Razmodin?” His cousin’s name trembles on his lips and is lost. He coughs and pretends to say “Salam.” Razmodin, who is crouching nearby, looks at him anxiously.
    “Are you all right, cousin?”
    Rassoul opens his eyes wide, then closes them again thoughtfully. Razmodin insists. “What’s going on? Are you well?”
    Rassoul nods his head and sits down on the mattress, gazing at the broken window. It is already day but the sky is still black, black with smoke. “Do you want me to take you to a doctor?” No, it’s