at last a military vehicle arrived, the matter was settled. I watched them hurriedly move Uncle Ahmad to a stretcher and place him in the ambulance. Meanwhile, a soldier got in the car and drove it back to the house – without me.
Someone asked me to accompany him to the police station to make a detailed statement about the incident. I tried in vain to convince them to let me go with Uncle Ahmad in the ambulance, but they refused, saying that my presence wouldn’t be needed.
‘Where are you taking him?’ I asked.
‘To the military hospital,’ someone replied impatiently, from which I understood that the matter wasn’t open to discussion.
As they were about to shut the ambulance door and be on their way, I had a feeling I might never see him again. I ran over to the ambulance, took his hand and started kissing it. I buried my tear-stained face in his hand as though, since I hadn’t shared in his death, I wanted to transfuse him with life. After all, I was the one who’d brought him to this place.
At the same time, I felt as though I were kissing the hand of death, the death that was about to take him, and that was waiting out of mere politeness for me to remove my lips so that it could snatch him away.
I heard him mumble something, though I couldn’t make out the words. I think he said something like, ‘It’s all right, child’ or maybe, ‘Don’t cry!’ But I was crying anyway, since no one could see me in that car-turned-hearse.
A soldier was waiting impatiently for me to get out so that he could close the door. So, followed by Uncle Ahmad’s vacant stares, I had no choice but to leave. After I let go of his hand, it dangled off the edge of the stretcher, his forefinger pointing forward as though he were uttering the testimony of faith during a ritual prayer.
As the car ejected me at the entrance to the police station, I entered a state I’d never experienced before. It was a blend ofsadness, stupefaction, dread and nausea. I found myself together with a motley crowd the likes of which I’d never encountered in all my life. They were scary-looking, their faces expressionless with the exception of their intimidating gazes. Some of them were wearing ordinary clothes, while a number of bearded men clad in what appeared to be Afghani attire were wearing their beliefs on their sleeves. A man in a track suit with a shaved head had his hands bound with iron chains behind his back while another, seated, had been beaten so badly that his features were barely recognizable.
Masked military personnel milled about the place. Resembling woollen stockings, the black masks pulled over their heads concealed everything but their eyes and their mouths, which appeared through three openings that allowed them to speak and see out without being recognized.
What kind of a nightmare was this?
I concluded that this miserable-looking room with its bare walls and its filthy tile floor was an indiscriminate gathering place for a criminal, a suspicious-looking student, a citizen that had shown up for who knows what reason, a newly arrested thief, and me!
I’d ended up there because I was in love with a fictitious man, because I hated iron bridges, and because I’d wanted to make sure that I hated them as much as I thought I did. By some strange coincidence, the room was furnished entirely in iron chairs, the men sitting behind its desks were made of iron, and they were interrogating other men bound with iron chains.
So this was the Iron Age, then, a fact I could only have discovered by putting down my notebook.
After I’d been standing there for a few moments, a policeman noticed my anomalous presence and escorted me to a small side office where I was to wait. I was happy to have some time to myself, and to get away from those men’s curious, unfriendly stares. They betrayed a hostility I could see no justification for apart from my being a woman, and my differentness.
Constantine is a city that watches your every
Someone asked me to accompany him to the police station to make a detailed statement about the incident. I tried in vain to convince them to let me go with Uncle Ahmad in the ambulance, but they refused, saying that my presence wouldn’t be needed.
‘Where are you taking him?’ I asked.
‘To the military hospital,’ someone replied impatiently, from which I understood that the matter wasn’t open to discussion.
As they were about to shut the ambulance door and be on their way, I had a feeling I might never see him again. I ran over to the ambulance, took his hand and started kissing it. I buried my tear-stained face in his hand as though, since I hadn’t shared in his death, I wanted to transfuse him with life. After all, I was the one who’d brought him to this place.
At the same time, I felt as though I were kissing the hand of death, the death that was about to take him, and that was waiting out of mere politeness for me to remove my lips so that it could snatch him away.
I heard him mumble something, though I couldn’t make out the words. I think he said something like, ‘It’s all right, child’ or maybe, ‘Don’t cry!’ But I was crying anyway, since no one could see me in that car-turned-hearse.
A soldier was waiting impatiently for me to get out so that he could close the door. So, followed by Uncle Ahmad’s vacant stares, I had no choice but to leave. After I let go of his hand, it dangled off the edge of the stretcher, his forefinger pointing forward as though he were uttering the testimony of faith during a ritual prayer.
As the car ejected me at the entrance to the police station, I entered a state I’d never experienced before. It was a blend ofsadness, stupefaction, dread and nausea. I found myself together with a motley crowd the likes of which I’d never encountered in all my life. They were scary-looking, their faces expressionless with the exception of their intimidating gazes. Some of them were wearing ordinary clothes, while a number of bearded men clad in what appeared to be Afghani attire were wearing their beliefs on their sleeves. A man in a track suit with a shaved head had his hands bound with iron chains behind his back while another, seated, had been beaten so badly that his features were barely recognizable.
Masked military personnel milled about the place. Resembling woollen stockings, the black masks pulled over their heads concealed everything but their eyes and their mouths, which appeared through three openings that allowed them to speak and see out without being recognized.
What kind of a nightmare was this?
I concluded that this miserable-looking room with its bare walls and its filthy tile floor was an indiscriminate gathering place for a criminal, a suspicious-looking student, a citizen that had shown up for who knows what reason, a newly arrested thief, and me!
I’d ended up there because I was in love with a fictitious man, because I hated iron bridges, and because I’d wanted to make sure that I hated them as much as I thought I did. By some strange coincidence, the room was furnished entirely in iron chairs, the men sitting behind its desks were made of iron, and they were interrogating other men bound with iron chains.
So this was the Iron Age, then, a fact I could only have discovered by putting down my notebook.
After I’d been standing there for a few moments, a policeman noticed my anomalous presence and escorted me to a small side office where I was to wait. I was happy to have some time to myself, and to get away from those men’s curious, unfriendly stares. They betrayed a hostility I could see no justification for apart from my being a woman, and my differentness.
Constantine is a city that watches your every
Similar Books
