Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi Read Free Book Online Page B

head!”
    I froze to the spot while the soldier, the gun, and the jeep spun round and round in front of my eyes. Then, at the sound of a gun being cocked, everything suddenly lurched to a halt and I turned to stone. Another soldier came around the side of the jeep. His Kalashnikov ready, he walked right up to me and said:
    “Password?”
    And I said:
    “No idea.”
    “What’s the password?” the soldier behind him shouted.
    “But what time is it?” I asked, trying to catch a glimpse of my watch.
    “Don’t move!”
    I felt the butt of a Kalashnikov ram into my guts. My mouth filled with blood and I spat out the words:
    “The password for the curfew? Sorry, no, I’ve forgotten.”
    I tried to lean close to the soldier so I could tell him I’d been drinking, that I was too drunk to remember the password. But the terror of being picked up by the soldiers and then whacked in the stomach by a Kalashnikov was too much for me. Everything went black.
    “Down on your knees!”

Those hands that stroked my forehead, that hair brushing against my face, that child who called me “Father,” were they really real? Strange how, when you’re dreaming, the dream-reality always seems to be more real than reality itself. This is what we are like: our dreams seem more plausible than our lives. But if they didn’t, all those revolutions, those wars, those religions and ideologies, could never have been dreamed up …
    “Brother, can you stand?”
    Even though I’m terrified, I open my eyes. Nothing has changed. The same woman, the same child …
    Morning never comes. Night is an eternity. That woman is here. I am dead. The woman—or angel—is dragging me away. Where is she taking me? To the abyss? How far to the bottom?
    My breath stinks of booze, my mouth tastes disgusting. I have sinned. I can feel the wounds to my bodythat were given to me by Nakir and Munkar as punishment for my sins.
    “Dear angel, pardon me! Oh God, have mercy! Save me!”
    Which one of hell’s doors are we going through?
    Why do the djinn close the door behind us?
    “Let go of me, Angel …”
    The angel lets go of me. I float in midair. I tumble to the ground. I hear nothing but silence.

 
    ALSO AVAILABLE FROM OTHER PRESS
ATIQ RAHIMI’S PRIX-GONCOURT WINNING NOVEL ,
    the patience stone
translated by Polly McLean

with an introduction by Khaled Hosseini

    “In spare, unflinching prose, Atiq Rahimi gives us Afghanistan’s terrible legacy in the story of one woman’s suffering. Anyone seeking to understand why Afghanistan is difficult and what decades of violence have done to its people should read Atiq Rahimi. He is a superb guide to a hard and complex land.”
    — RYAN CROCKER , former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and Iraq, and U.S. envoy to Afghanistan
    “
The
Patience Stone
is perfectly written: spare, close to the bone, sometimes bloody, with a constant echo, like a single mistake that repeats itself over and over and over.”
    —
Los Angeles Times
    “This story from an Afghan-born author is a powerful one, giving voice to the historically downtrodden Afghan woman … truly an expansive work of literature.”
    —
New York Post
    “[A] clever novel … readers get a glimpse of daily life in a country terrorized by conflict and religious fundamentalism. Rahimi paints this picture with nuance and subtlety … [His] sparse prose complements his simple yet powerful storytelling prowess. This unique story is both enthralling and disturbing.”
    —
San
Francisco Chronicle

 
    Born in Kabul in 1962, ATIQ RAHIMI was seventeen years old when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. He fled to Pakistan during the war and was eventually granted political asylum in France in 1984. He later enrolled at the Sorbonne and received a doctorate in audio-visual communications. After the fall of the Taliban in 2002, Rahimi returned to Afghanistan, where he filmed an adaptation of
Earth and Ashes
. There he has become renowned as a maker of documentary and