Read Online The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Free Book Online Page B

the basement. the colonel felt his daughter looking at him and noticed that she had by now shut the gate and was running her palms softly down over her face and down her chin to her neck and throat. The last that the colonel remembered seeing of Khezr Javid that night was of his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his parka, and of his epaulettes and the diamond shaped crease in the top of his woollen cap disappearing down the stairs.
    Parvaneh had come into her father’s room and was drying her face and hair with a towel that she had brought in with her. the colonel stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray without looking at his daughter. She stood by the stove and lifted the lid off the teapot to smell the tea, to make sure that it had not stewed. She checked the kettle and poured two glasses, one for her father and one for herself, put them on the table and sat down.
    â€œPapa, would you like some tea?”
    Why didn’t I have some? Life for an old man is made up of small kindnesses like this. Didn’t she know that? … but of course she did.

    â€œI’ll put some more paraffin in the stove for you presently.”
    I knew it. Parvaneh did this for me every night. The kindness in my daughter’s voice breathed new life into that simple act of topping up the paraffin stove. I wanted to show willing, so I said if she was busy I could do it myself, but she ignored me and asked if she could take some tea down to her brother and his visitor and give Amir his night-time pills before she got her hands all paraffiny.
    â€œShould I give them some tea?”
    â€œYes… do you know how many pills your brother is meant to take, and when?”
    She knew. She put the teapot, sugar bowl and two glasses on a tray and, before leaving the room, pulled her scarf over her head and put a towel over the teapot to keep it warm. When she got to the basement, Khezr Javid was just taking off his parka and hanging it on a clothes hook. Parvaneh could see his shoulder holster, which more than satisfied her curiosity. Khezr was evidently taken by surprise for, as the door opened and he saw the girl putting the tray down on the stool, he started, then quickly composed himself and shot a sideways glance at Parvaneh. She could see from her brother’s face that she should not have come in without asking. Mortified, she had to get away from her brother and his strange visitor as fast as she could. She fled up the stairs but, before she reached the yard, she heard Khezr Javid’s voice, as if for the first time:
    â€œShe’s still very young and weak. You really shouldn’t have got her involved in the revolution and all this activism. It’s dangerous for her, very dangerous.”
    Parvaneh realised she was standing on one leg. Khezr’s voice had made her stop stock still, balancing herself with her other foot on the top step. She only noticed it when Khezr stopped speaking. She had been holding her breath while they had
been talking about her and, when she realised that Khezr had finished, she breathed again. Putting her weight on both feet she stood, listening, with her ear to the wall, trying to make out her brother’s reply to Khezr over the sound of the rain. Amir said something along the lines that Parvaneh just had a youthful zeal for revolution, and that she had only been selling a few newspapers on the street. Besides, no-one in particular had forced her to get involved. His voice was pleading, as if he was begging Khezr to cut him some slack and not be too harsh on his little sister:
    â€œâ€¦But she’s very fragile. She’s really just the colonel’s nurse and carer. You know very well that there is the world of difference between her and Mohammad-Taqi, and you’ve already beaten him up. Frankly… I beg of you…”
    You would have thought there was nobody in the basement with Amir, since Khezr Javid made no reply. Amir could just as well have been talking