Read Online A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Atiq Rahimi
Tags: Novel
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if she sees you're alive?'
'In your eyes, in the things you say, there's a secret that I see in my mother's eyes ... a secret I've never . . .'
'I've caused you so much trouble ... I hope that . . . Yahya's grandmother . . .'
'And now my husband's family want me to marry my brother-in-law . . . But that's not what I want ... I keep telling them I don't feel as though I'm really a widow. No one has seen my husband's body . . . since, in prison, they bury the dead in unmarked, communal graves . . .'
She takes another step away. Her whole body is shaking under her veil. She moves into the corridor. She searches for her shoes. I stand there, lost, like a button dropped on the black and red patterns of the carpet. Yahya and Mahanz come out of Moheb's room. My legs won't move. Without a look, without a smile, my mother says to Mahnaz, 'God be with you ... May God reward
'Father!' ... ?! 'Father!'
'But where are your family?' I ask her.
My sweating face trapped inside the carpet heightens its smell. Such a familiar smell. The smell of our front room. Parwaneh used to play marbles on the black patterns of this carpet. Farid used to race his matchbox cars along its black lines ... It was the best carpet in the house -my mother's dowry, given by her father to take to her new husband's house.
Hash fumes and mocking laughter spiral above my head. Someone in another group calls out, ' From the ranks encircled of noble men: he who resists . . .'
'... Joseph said to his father: O Father, I dreamt that the sun, the moon and eleven stars prostrated themselves before me.'
' . . . In the tale of Joseph and his brothers can be found many signs of divine wisdom to aid those in search of truth . . .'
'. . . With Joseph intent on escape and Zulaikha intent on holding him fast, they both ran towards the door when suddenly Zulaikha's husband appeared. She cried out to Potiphar: Tell me how you will punish one who wishes to bring harm to your household! Does this crime not merit imprisonment or torture!'
A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear is set at a time of acute political upheaval in Afghanistan. In 1973 Mohammed Daoud Khan engineered a coup that overthrew the constitutional monarchy and inaugurated the short-lived Republic of Afghanistan (1973-1978). However, Daoud Khan's rule was marked by corruption and instability and, when the formerly faction-ridden leftist parties overcame their differences to oppose his regime, political chaos and violent state repression ensued.
The Soviet Union became increasingly concerned at Amin's burgeoning power and his anti-Islamic stance; they were convinced the latter was exacerbating political unrest, particularly in the countryside, and they allegedly advised Taraki to get rid of Amin. But the attempt to have Amin assassinated was a failure, and instead Amin seized power on 14 September 1979. Taraki was killed in the violence (supposedly smothered to death with a pillow). Although his death was first announced in the Kabul Times on 10 October, there were conflicting reports of the actual date he was murdered.
Though the narrator of A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear makes few overt references to the political situation in his country, it informs the whole novel. It is also assumed that the reader will understand the powerful social prohibitions that Farhad is
'In your eyes, in the things you say, there's a secret that I see in my mother's eyes ... a secret I've never . . .'
'I've caused you so much trouble ... I hope that . . . Yahya's grandmother . . .'
'And now my husband's family want me to marry my brother-in-law . . . But that's not what I want ... I keep telling them I don't feel as though I'm really a widow. No one has seen my husband's body . . . since, in prison, they bury the dead in unmarked, communal graves . . .'
She takes another step away. Her whole body is shaking under her veil. She moves into the corridor. She searches for her shoes. I stand there, lost, like a button dropped on the black and red patterns of the carpet. Yahya and Mahanz come out of Moheb's room. My legs won't move. Without a look, without a smile, my mother says to Mahnaz, 'God be with you ... May God reward
'Father!' ... ?! 'Father!'
'But where are your family?' I ask her.
My sweating face trapped inside the carpet heightens its smell. Such a familiar smell. The smell of our front room. Parwaneh used to play marbles on the black patterns of this carpet. Farid used to race his matchbox cars along its black lines ... It was the best carpet in the house -my mother's dowry, given by her father to take to her new husband's house.
Hash fumes and mocking laughter spiral above my head. Someone in another group calls out, ' From the ranks encircled of noble men: he who resists . . .'
'... Joseph said to his father: O Father, I dreamt that the sun, the moon and eleven stars prostrated themselves before me.'
' . . . In the tale of Joseph and his brothers can be found many signs of divine wisdom to aid those in search of truth . . .'
'. . . With Joseph intent on escape and Zulaikha intent on holding him fast, they both ran towards the door when suddenly Zulaikha's husband appeared. She cried out to Potiphar: Tell me how you will punish one who wishes to bring harm to your household! Does this crime not merit imprisonment or torture!'
A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear is set at a time of acute political upheaval in Afghanistan. In 1973 Mohammed Daoud Khan engineered a coup that overthrew the constitutional monarchy and inaugurated the short-lived Republic of Afghanistan (1973-1978). However, Daoud Khan's rule was marked by corruption and instability and, when the formerly faction-ridden leftist parties overcame their differences to oppose his regime, political chaos and violent state repression ensued.
The Soviet Union became increasingly concerned at Amin's burgeoning power and his anti-Islamic stance; they were convinced the latter was exacerbating political unrest, particularly in the countryside, and they allegedly advised Taraki to get rid of Amin. But the attempt to have Amin assassinated was a failure, and instead Amin seized power on 14 September 1979. Taraki was killed in the violence (supposedly smothered to death with a pillow). Although his death was first announced in the Kabul Times on 10 October, there were conflicting reports of the actual date he was murdered.
Though the narrator of A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear makes few overt references to the political situation in his country, it informs the whole novel. It is also assumed that the reader will understand the powerful social prohibitions that Farhad is
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