The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi Page A

Amir could not work out where it might have been made. At the end of the hall he could just make out what looked like a kind of huge prayer-niche. It looked nothing like his idea of Zoroastrian or even Buddhist architecture. He had never seen a synagogue either, not even in films, so he could not tell if it looked like one or not. With its tall, massive carved pillars, the place was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was not like a church, either, which would be all draped in purple, with dark bare benches, he thought, not like the bright and shiny furniture here. And yet, despite the fact that this hall was like nothing he had ever seen, it seemed somehow familiar to him, perhaps because it oozed power from every detail, like the winter prayer hall of a mosque, or a church, a synagogue, a fire temple, or even the Reichstag.
    Amir was intimidated by the sense of power that he felt all around him, among those grand people who had nothing in common with him. He was alone and lost, a stranger among strangers. He looked dejectedly around in the hope of finding someone he knew, a pretty futile exercise. All he saw was a
procession of men dressed in black coming in through the four entrances. To escape from this dangerous and frightening isolation, all he could do was dart from one pillar to another. So as not to excite suspicion by making it seem as if he was trying to hide, he leaned casually against each one as he reached it. He felt safe there and could see what was going on.
    This was pure hell. How could he get out of it? On either side of the doors stood invisible sentries, while more and more dark-suited men streamed into the hall. They all seemed to know each other, as if they had been summoned here at this late hour for some extraordinary meeting. Was it something to do with the assassination of the police chief, which had taken place that very night, just before midnight?
    Monsters, ghouls!
    The new arrivals looked like demons, their size nigh surpassing the pillars in height and girth. Out of the four of them, three wore long cloaks, with sweatbands wound around their heads. Their faces were round and chubby, boneless, like pink balloons with eyes and noses painted onto them. Seen from below, they looked like minarets, small, medium and large. The littlest one was the size of a Scud missile and Amir could now see why the ceiling was so high. The fourth one was a Slav, the same size as the others, wearing a traditional Russian long white shirt with embroidered hem, and tight trousers tucked into a pair of tall brown boots. The Slav’s square, bony face was endowed with a bushy moustache and long curly hair that fell over his forehead. The biggest of the new arrivals acknowledged the respects of the black-suited crowd with a proud nod of his head and carried on, looking neither to his right nor his left, to the end of the hall, which looked to Amir like the prayer niche of a mosque, as the crowd parted to make way
for him and his entourage. The Slav put his hand to his chest, bowing humbly to the crowd, and followed the other three monsters, half a step behind them. As they came level with Amir’s gaping eyes, he could not help looking up at them, as if at the shaking minarets of Isfahan, 21 for the knot of the sweatband round the fez of the biggest one almost touched the ceiling and his painted eyes were like the eggs of a goose, staring straight ahead without expression, paying no attention to the prostrations of the rows of respectful, silent onlookers. The three of them made a smooth and practised progress through the crowd as if rolling on invisible rails, while the Slav praised and lauded them to the people.
    They said that a bereaved family was coming in. Amir looked up and saw five or six people: a couple with a young boy and a girl and a smartly dressed youth who seemed to have oiled his hair in mourning for his father. The Slav, with no glimmer of human kindness on his face, appeared carrying a tea