Read Online My Father's Notebook by Kader Abdolah - Free Book Online

didn’t dare take another step. Perhaps the paths could be crossed only once, perhaps they’d collapse behind you. How would you get back if there was no path?
    You couldn’t think about that as you climbed, or you’d never reach the well. How could anyone dare to go to a place from which he might never return?
    That was the secret. It wasn’t just a matter of strong legs and quick wits, but also of necessity. You had to be prepared to leave your life behind, to say goodbye, to bid your life farewell. Only then could you reach the well.
    Aga Akbar was prepared. After his wife’s death, he’d reached a point where he wanted to go to the well and never come back again. He needed the holy man. He needed to kneel at the well and admit that he was afraid, that he no longer dared to live.
    Just when his bride was being placed in her coffin so she could be carried to her grave, he slipped out through the back door. He started up the mountain in order to forget life.
    People looked all over for him. The entire village was waiting at the cemetery, wondering where he could have gone.
      
    Kazem Khan decided to go look for him in the mountains. He thought he knew where his nephew was headed, but he was afraid that Akbar wouldn’t be able to reach the well, that he’d fall and no one would be able to rescue him.
    He saddled up his mule, grabbed his binoculars andclimbed the mountain. He rode until the animal refused, or perhaps didn’t dare, to go any farther. He stood on a rock and peered at the sacred spot through his binoculars. No Akbar in sight.
    He looked again to see if … Wait a minute, someone was kneeling down, touching his forehead to the ground, or, rather, looking into the well. No, he was sitting on his knees and writing.
    “What a clever boy!” Kazem Khan said and laughed aloud. Akbar had reached the well!
    What could he do to help him? Nothing, no one could do a thing.
    Kazem Khan laughed again. The mountain echoed his laughter. “He’s reached the well!” he shouted. “My Akbar! Hurrah! Hurrah for him! Hurrah for me! Let him weep! Let him write! Ha, ha, ha. I wish I had my pipe. Oh, God, I wish I’d brought my opium. Then I’d sit on this rock and watch him and quietly smoke my pipe.”
    How would Akbar get back down the mountain? Don’t worry. Anyone who could make it up to the well ought to be able to get back down. Clever mountain goats always find their way home again.
    What should he do? Wait for Aga Akbar here or go home?
    He retraced his steps, for now he had a reason to celebrate, a reason to sit on his pipe-smoker’s carpet. Maybe it wasn’t quite the thing to do, he thought, given that Akbar’s wife had just been buried, but her family should have mentioned their daughter’s illness. We’re not going to mourn, we’re going to celebrate! We have to help Akbar get over her death. We’ll hold a party, first thing in the morning. No, we’ll hold it now, tonight, in the dark. I’m going to say to everyone I see, “Hurry! Hurry! Go up onto your roof! Salute my nephew! He’s reached the well!”
    Kazem Khan went straight to the house of his oldest sister.“Where are you? Go and get a green scarf for Akbar! What a man! Our Akbar has reached the sacred spot. At this very moment, he’s standing at the edge of the well! Here, take the binoculars! Hurry! Go up onto the roof! Look! He’s still standing there!”
    Then he rode over to the mosque, where people were mourning the bride. He got down from his mule and raced inside. “Men! Allah! Allah! Look, a green scarf! Here, take my binoculars! Go up onto the roof and look before it gets dark! Akbar has reached the well!”
    In the middle of the night, when everyone had begun to fear that he’d never be seen again, a dark figure strode into the town square. Akbar.
    Kazem Khan wrapped a green scarf around his neck and wept.
      
    Back before the railway had been built, in the days before the train, the area around the well had been