Earth and Ashes Read Online Free Page B

Zaynab, but your voice reverberates on the other side of the door. Then the door opens and you see Fateh, the guard. He laughs and says, “Welcome. Come in. I was waiting for you.”
    You walk down into the ground. Fateh closes the door on you from the outside. From the other side of the door, the sound of his laughter rings in your ears.
    “You’ve been wanting desperately to leave,” he says to you. “Since the morning you’ve been driving me mad. So, go on!”
    Underground it’s cold and damp. You take in the smell of clay. There’s a large garden, an empty garden, without flowers or vegetation, a garden with narrow paths covered in mud and lined with bare oak trees.
    Zaynab sits naked under a tree, next to a little girl. You call out to her. Your voice doesn’t seem to reach her. She lifts the little girl from the ground, wraps her in the apple-blossom scarf, kisses her on the cheek, then carries her away. Yassin is naked in a jujube tree. He says that the little girl is his sister, that he gave his mother his grandmother’s apple-blossom scarf, the one you knotted into a bundle, so that she could put it around his sister because it’s cold. But Yassin doesn’t have a sister! A few days ago, Zaynab was only four months pregnant. How quickly she’s given birth! How quickly her daughter has grown!
    Yassin is shivering with cold. He wants to climb down from the tree, but he can’t. The tree keeps growing bigger and taller. Yassin weeps.
    You feel snowflakes land on your skin. The garden paths fill with snow.
    Zaynab runs from one tree to the next. You call out to her again. She doesn’t hear. She runs across the snow naked, the little girl in her arms. She laughs. Her feet leave no prints in the snow, but the sound of her steps echoes through the garden.
    Yassin calls for his mother. His voice has become high-pitched like hers … You look at his body. It’s the body of a young girl. In place of his small penis, there is a girl’s vulva. You are overcome with panic. Without thinking, you call for Murad. Your voice is stuck in your throat. It reverberates in your chest. Your voice has become Yassin’s—weak, confused, questioning:
    “Murad. Murad! Murad?”
    Someone grips your shoulders from behind. You turn around in horror. Mirza Qadir, smiling his habitual smile, says, “Instead of the brains of our kids, Zohak’s snakes are eating their pricks.”
    Terror seizes you. You want to free your shoulders from Mirza Qadir’s grip. But you don’t have the strength.
    You open your eyes. Your body is covered in sweat. Your hands tremble.
    In front of you are two kind eyes:
    “Father, get up. Your lift is here.”
    Lift? For what? Where do you want to go? Where are you?
    “Father, a vehicle headed to the mine.”
    You recognize Mirza Qadir’s voice and come back to your senses. Yassin sleeps quietly in your arms. You want to wake him.
    Mirza Qadir says, “Father, leave your grandson here. First, go there on your own, speak to your son in private. Then come back here. There’s no room for both of you to spend the night at the mine. If your son sees his own child in this state, it’ll be even worse …”
    It’s a good suggestion. Imagine what will happen when Yassin sees his father. He’ll throw himself into his arms and, before you are able to say anything, he’ll start shouting, “Uncle’s dead, Mummy’s gone … Qader’s dead, Grandma’s dead! Grandfather cries …”
    Murad’s heart will stop when he hears Yassin. How could you make Yassin understand that he shouldn’t say anything?
    You accept Mirza Qadir’s offer, but a sense of foreboding settles within you. How can you abandon your grandson, the only son of your only son, to someone you don’t know? You’ve known Mirza Qadir for no more than two hours. What will Murad say?
    “Old man, are you coming or not?”
    It’s the guard’s voice. You remain silently where you are with Mirza Qadir, your eyes full of questions. What should you