The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi Read Free Book Online Page B

girls starved of affection.” She stares at the frozen flight of the migrating birds on the curtains. Sees her father: “He always used to sit cross-legged. He would be wearing his tunic, holding the quail in his left hand and stroking it at just the level of his thing, with its little feet poking through his hand; with the other hand, he would caress its neck in the most obscene way. For hours and hours on end! Even when he had visitors he didn’t stop performing his
gassaw
, as he called it. It was a kind of prayer for him. He was so proud of his quails. Once, when it was bitterly, freezing cold, I even saw him tucking one of the quailsunder his trousers, into his
kheshtak
. I was little. For a long time after that I thought that men had quails between their legs! Thinking about it used to make me laugh. Imagine my disappointment when I saw your balls for the first time.” A smile interrupts her and she closes her eyes. Her left hand strays into her own loosened hair, caressing the roots. “I hated his quails.” She opens her eyes. Her sad gaze loses itself once more in the hole-studded sky of the curtains. “Every Friday, he used to take them to the fight in the Qaf gardens. He would place bets. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. When he lost he would get upset, and nasty. He would come home in a rage and find any pretext to beat us … and also my mother.” She stops herself. The pain stops her. A pain that spreads to the tips of her fingers and digs them more deeply into the roots of her black hair. She forces herself to carry on. “He must have won a lot of money in one of those fights … but then he put everything he had into buying a hugely expensive quail. He spent weeks and weeks getting it ready for a very important fight. And …” She laughs, a bitter laugh that contains both sarcasm and despair, and continues. “As fate would have it, he lost. He had no money left to honor his bet, so he gave my sister instead. At twelve years old, my sister was sent to live with a man of forty!” Her nails leave the roots of herhair, and move down her forehead to finger the scar at the edge of her left eye. “At the time, I was only ten … no …” She thinks about it. “Yes, ten years old. I was scared. Scared that I too would become the stakes of a bet. So, do you know what I did with the quail?” She pauses a moment. It is unclear whether this is to make her story more exciting, or because she is afraid to reveal the next part. Eventually, she continues. “One day … it was a Friday, while he was at the mosque for prayers before going to the Qaf gardens, I got the bird out of its cage, and set it free just as a stray cat—a ginger and white tabby—was keeping watch on the wall.” She takes a deep breath. “And the cat caught it. He took it into a corner to eat it in peace. I followed. I stood there watching. I have never forgotten that moment. I even wished the cat ‘
bon appétit
.’ I was happy, thrilled to watch that cat eat the quail. A moment of pure delight. But very soon, I started to feel jealous. I wanted to be the cat, this cat savoring my father’s quail. I was jealous, and sad. The cat knew nothing of the quail’s worth. It couldn’t share my joy, my triumph. ‘What a waste!’ I thought to myself, and suddenly rushed over to grab what was left of the bird. The cat scratched my face and scurried off with the quail. I felt so frustrated and desperate that I started licking the floor like a fly, licking up those few drops of blood from my father’s quailthat had dripped onto the floor.” Her lips grimace. As if still tasting the warm wetness of the blood. “When my father came home and found the cage empty, he went mad. Out of his mind. He was screaming. He beat up my mother, my sisters, and me, because we hadn’t kept watch over his quail. His bloody quail! While he was beating me, I shouted that it was good riddance, because that bloody quail had sent my sister away! My father