Earth and Ashes Read Online Free

…”
    The child laughs and runs toward the guard’s hut.
    You call to him. “Come back! Where are you going?”
    It’s useless. Let him play.
    Mirza Qadir, who has been silent till now, as if unable to find words to lessen your suffering, mumbles something under his breath and offers you his condolences. Then he starts to speak, in a calm, measured way:
    “Venerable father, these days the dead are more fortunate than the living. What are we to do? We’re on the eve of destruction. Men have lost all sense of honor. Power has become their faith instead of faith being their power. There are no longer any courageous men. Who now remembers the story of the hero Rostam?Today, it is Sohrab, his son, who murders his very own father and, excuse the expression, screws his own mother. We are once again at the mercy of the tyrant Zohak’s snakes—snakes that feed on the minds of the young …”
    He breaks off to light a cigarette, points to the scene painted on the wall and adds, “Actually, it is today’s youth who are Zohaks. They’re on the same path as the Devil, pushing their own fathers into a pit … and one day soon their own snakes will devour their minds.”
    He gazes into your eyes. Your eyes are fixed on the entrance to the shop. The interior has become a spacious room at the far end of which your uncle sits by his water pipe. You are a child of about Yassin’s age. You sit at your uncle’s feet as he recites Ferdusi’s epic, the
Book of Kings
. He speaks of Rostam, of Sohrab, of Tahmina … He tells of the battle between father and son, of the talisman that saved Rostam, of the death of Sohrab … Your younger brother starts crying and rushes from the room to go and lay his head on your mother’s lap.
    “No, Sohrab is stronger than Rostam!” he sobs.
    Your mother says, “Yes, my child, Sohrab
is
stronger than Rostam.”
    And you cry, too, but you don’t leave the room. In silence, with tear-filled eyes, you remain at your uncle’s feet, waiting to know whether Rostam will go on fighting after Sohrab’s death …
    Mirza Qadir’s cough brings you back from your childhood.
    The shop returns to being small. Mirza Qadir’s head appears in the window frame.
    “Are you going to the mine to work with your son?”
    “No, brother, I’ve come only to see him … He knows nothing of the misfortune that has struck the family. On the one hand, there’s the misery of the bombing, on the other, the misery of telling such a thing to my own son. How should I tell him? I don’t know. He’s not the type to take it quietly … You’d be able to take his life before you offended his honor. He has a temper …”
    You bring your hand to your forehead and close your eyes.
    “My son, my only son will surely go mad. It would be better if I didn’t tell him.”
    “He’s strong, father. You must tell him. He must accept it. One day or another he’ll find out. It is betterthat he hear it from you, that you tell him you are with him and share the burden of his sorrow. Don’t leave him alone. Make him understand that man’s fate contains such things, that he is not alone, that he has both you and his son, that you are his source of strength and that he is yours. These hardships are everyone’s fate, war has no mercy …”
    Mirza Qadir moves closer and lowers his voice.
    “The law of war is the law of the sacrifice. In sacrifice, there is either blood on your throat or on your hands.”
    “Why?” you ask naively.
    Mirza Qadir tosses his cigarette butt away. In the same soft tone, he adds, “Brother, the logic of war is the logic of sacrifice. There’s no ‘why’ about it. What matters is the act alone, not the cause or the effect.”
    He falls silent. He reads your eyes for the impact of his words. You nod your head as if you have understood. You wonder what the logic of war could possibly be. His words in themselves are well and good, but they’re no cure for the troubles you and your son share. Murad is not