My Father's Notebook (24 page)

They carried the heavy box to the front door. Tina opened it cautiously and peeked outside.

“I don’t see anyone,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They walked to the end of the street, where they had their garden, and made their way through the darkness to an old, dilapidated shed. The door was open. Tina hid the box beneath the gardening equipment and shut the door. “Let’s go home!” she gestured.

“Thank goodness that’s done,” Tina said when they were safely back home.

“What should we do next?” Akbar signed.

“Nothing. All we can do is wait and see what tomorrow brings.”

“I was wondering—” Akbar began.

“What is it now?”

“Nothing.”

They sat quietly for a long time. Neither of them wanted to go to bed. Golden Bell might come through the door at any moment.

Tina heard footsteps. Maybe it was the police! She leapt up and peeked through the curtains, but it turned out to be their neighbours going to the mosque for their morning prayers.

“God help us, it’ll be daylight soon and Golden Bell still hasn’t come home! Where should I start looking?”

She’d always known that Golden Bell would never lead a normal life. Golden Bell would never have a home, a husband, a child, a cat, a kitchen, a—

“I was wondering—” Akbar began.

“What is it this time?”

“Golden Bell left a few … I mean, if the police come, do you think they’ll look in my shop? Golden Bell left some things in the lean-to.”

Tina slapped her forehead. “What did she hide in your shop?”

“Papers,” Akbar signed.

“What kind of papers?”

“Those printed things.”

“We have to go to the shop, but we can’t go now, everybody’s awake.”

She peeked through the curtains again. “I guess it doesn’t matter. We can walk along with everyone else. Come on, now is as good a time as any.”

She put on her chador.

Tina and Akbar walked calmly out of the house and headed towards the mosque with the others.

“Turn left at the corner and go to your shop,” she signed. “Don’t switch on the light. I’ll tag along with the other women until we reach the mosque, then I’ll double back to the shop.”

Akbar did as he was told. When he reached the shop, he took out his key, stuck it in the lock, opened the door and slipped inside. He waited in the dark for Tina.

It didn’t take long. She struck a match and signed, “Go and get the oil lamp … No, wait, a candle is better.”

Akbar trotted off and came back with a candle stub. Tina lit it and went into the lean-to.

“Where are they?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t take much notice.”

Holding the candle in one hand, Tina groped around with the other until she came upon a stack of papers in a cardboard box. She held one of them up to the candle and read a few lines. It didn’t make any sense to her, but she could see that it was a flyer. She thrust it into Akbar’s hand. “How could you be so stupid?” she angrily signed. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

She got down on her knees and searched some more. She pulled a typewriter out from under a table. “How will I ever be able to get rid of this? Oh, Akbar, Akbar, you’re ruining my life!”

Tina crawled through the darkness on her hands and knees. Behind a wooden box she found a few cans of spray paint. It was the first time she’d ever seen graffiti spray. She carefully picked up a can and examined it in the dim candlelight. “What on earth is this? Oh, my God, stay back, Akbar! Don’t touch the thing, it might explode! Get me a plastic bag. OK, now put it in the bag. No, wait, I’d better do it myself.”

She picked up the cans one by one and put them in the bag. “Golden Bell,” she moaned, “you’ve not only ruined
your
life, but also mine.”

Then she turned to Akbar. “Hurry up! Where’s my chador? I’ll take the papers, you take the typewriter. Hide it under your coat. Or wrap it in a rag. No, a carpet. Hurry! I’ll carry those dangerous-looking cans. Now go! Follow me down to the river!”

It was light outside, though the sun hadn’t come up yet.

By the bakery they ran into some men hurrying home with fresh bread.

“Salaam aleikum!”

“Salaam aleikum!”

Tina turned down a side street, towards a grape arbor, and Akbar trailed along behind her. Fifteen minutes later they came to the river.

Tina hunted around and found a heavy rock, which she put in the box of flyers. She took off her headscarf, tied it around the box and lowered it into the water. Then she gingerly picked up the bag of spray cans. She filled the bag with water, tied it shut and pushed it gently away from the shore. It floated briefly along with the current, then sank.

“Don’t just stand there!” she snapped at Akbar. “Throw the typewriter in, too!”

But Akbar couldn’t bring himself to do it. He hesitated.

So Tina picked up the typewriter, walked down to the river’s edge and threw it as far as she could. It splashed noisily into the water, but Tina fell to her knees. “Ow, my back!” she cried. “Come here, Akbar! Hold my hand! I can’t breathe. No, don’t touch me, don’t come near me. Golden Bell, look what you’ve done to me!”

She began to cry. After several minutes, she was finally able to stand up again, with Akbar’s help. She held his arm and they slowly made their way home.

At eleven o’clock that same morning, two agents of the secret police walked into Akbar’s shop. Akbar hadn’t felt up to going that morning, but Tina had insisted: “Go to the shop as usual and do your work. We mustn’t do anything out of the ordinary, or people will realise that Golden Bell didn’t come home last night.”

Akbar was sitting at his workbench when the shadows of the two men fell across the carpet he was mending. Startled, he raised his head and began to stand.

“Don’t get up,” one of them gestured.

Akbar sensed that these were the men Tina had been talking about. The other agent went around the shop, inspecting things. He moved aside the carpets on the workbench and peered into a box on the shelf.

“Your daughter, the girl who helps you in the shop, where
is she?” the agent asked, in rudimentary sign language.

Despite the man’s clumsy signs, Akbar knew what he meant.

“What did she do in your shop?” the agent continued.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Akbar signed.

“Your daughter,” the agent gestured more emphatically. “Daughter, earrings. Green earrings. Long hair. Breasts. You understand? What did she do here? Who else came to your shop?”

Akbar knew he wasn’t supposed to say anything, but he was upset by the man’s crude gestures. It was Golden Bell’s long hair and green earrings he was describing. He must have seen her without her chador. Surely that was impossible?

Though Akbar was inwardly seething, he managed to sit calmly in his chair.

“He doesn’t understand what you’re talking about,” the other agent said.

“He understands all right. Show him the photographs.”

The other agent went into the lean-to.

The first agent took a couple of pictures out of his coat pocket. He thrust the picture of a man in front of Akbar’s face. “Do you know this man?”

“I don’t understand. Let me get my wife.”

“Sit down. Look at this picture. Have you ever seen this man in your shop? Did he have any contact with your daughter? Did he—”

“I don’t understand. You have to send for my wife,” Akbar gestured for the second time.

“I bet you’ll understand now. Here’s another picture. I’m sure you’ll recognise
her
,” he said with a smirk. And he showed him a picture of Golden Bell with her hair in a tangle and her face covered with cuts and bruises.

That did it. The man had violated the inviolable. Akbar snatched the picture out of his hand, leapt to his feet and pushed the man aside.

The agent backed up a few steps, pulled out a gun and yelled, “Sit down!” But that only made things worse. Akbar grabbed a stick and started hitting him, shrieking all the while, “GEEEEE OUOUOU!”

The other agent rushed out of the lean-to and was about to grab Akbar from behind, when Akbar wheeled around and whacked him on the shoulder with his stick. The agent doubled over in pain.

Akbar hurried outside and began shouting: “MYYYY GOOLGOOL EAEAEAR RRRGGG!”

Shopkeepers raced outside and passers-by rushed to his aid. “What’s wrong?”

“In there. Those men. A picture. Golden Bell. Her hair. Her earrings,” he gestured.

No one knew what he was talking about.

The situation had got completely out of hand. The hated agents of the secret police slinked off to their car and disappeared.

The shopkeepers took Akbar back to his shop.

“What did they want?”

“That man had a picture in his pocket. Golden Bell’s long hair. Her green earrings. And her … How could he have seen her green earrings? Do you understand?”

“No,” said the grocer.

“Golden Bell didn’t come home, I mean, she got home late last night, but my wife can tell you more. And that man pulled out a gun. He had the picture in his pocket. Suddenly I got angry, I picked up a stick and hit him. The other agent was about to grab me from behind. I hit him hard on his … the picture, where’s the picture?”

“I think we’d better get his wife,” the baker said. “He’s upset about something.”

Ishmael phoned a few more times, but Tina couldn’t bring herself to tell him that Golden Bell was in prison. Instead, every time he called, she told him that Golden Bell just happened to be away at that moment.

“Tina, it’s hard for me to phone. I can’t do it often. I’ll try again tomorrow evening at around seven,” he finally said. “Tell Golden Bell, because I want to talk to her. And can you ask Father to come home earlier tomorrow night? I want to hear his voice. He’s all right, isn’t he?”

“We’re old. Some days are better than others. But he’s doing fine. He’s working the same long hours he always has.”

That was a lie, because at that very moment Akbar was lying ill in bed. Tina had deliberately stood with her back to Akbar so he wouldn’t notice that she was talking to Ishmael, but he sensed that she was hiding something. He struggled to his feet, walked over to Tina and signed, “Who’re you talking to?”

“Our next-door neighbour,” she replied.

Akbar could tell that she was lying.

“Is it Ishmael?” he signed, and he began to say out loud, “Ismaa Ismaa Ismaa Agggaaa Aga Akkekebaaraa.”

“Tina!” Ishmael yelled into the receiver. “Is that Father?”

Akbar grabbed the phone and started telling him Golden Bell’s story in a trembling voice: “I I I crrrr sh sh sh is gogogo I I I Akka am iiin bedbedddd ohohoh shop shop is clo sh sh sh is gogogo oh nonono.” Then he handed the phone back to Tina, wiped away his tears and went back to bed.

Sobbing, Tina told Ishmael the truth. She told him that Golden Bell was in prison, that after six months they’d finally been given permission to visit her once a month, that Akbar had collapsed by the cedar trees and the neighbours had carried him home on their shoulders.

Akbar went back to his shop, but he had trouble working.

“My head doesn’t feel right,” he told Tina. “I keep weaving the wrong flowers into the carpets I’m mending.”

“You just need to concentrate. If you make mistakes, we won’t earn any money. Go to the shop and work calmly and quietly. It’ll all come back to you.”

A month later, when he didn’t come home from work one day, Tina went looking for him. She found him lying on the carpet with his cuneiform notebook beside him. He had fainted. Tina ran to the bakery. The baker immediately called an ambulance and Akbar was taken to the hospital. “Your husband needs to rest,” the doctor told Tina. “Work will kill him.”

After a week, Akbar was released from the hospital. He now walked with a cane.

He hated sitting around the house, so one morning he shuffled to the shop with his cane, unlocked the door, moved his chair over to the window, sat down and tried to do a bit of work. In the afternoon he walked to the cemetery and sat by the grave of his nephew Jawad. From there he looked up at Saffron Mountain. When evening came, he went back home. “Where have you been?” Tina burst out. “What will I do if you fall?”

He went in the house, picked up a pen and crossed off another day on the calendar. Then he counted the number of days left before they could visit Golden Bell.

On visiting days he got up at the crack of dawn, grabbed his cane and walked the six miles to the prison on his own.

Tina used to beg, “Don’t do it. It isn’t good for you. Why don’t you take the bus, like I do?”

But Akbar never listened. “It makes me feel better. You don’t have to worry about me. I don’t walk fast. I stop and rest along the way.”

When he got to the prison, he usually sat in the teahouse on the square until the bus arrived with its load of visitors. The moment he saw Tina, he stood up and went over to meet her.

Akbar always took along a few skeins of yarn that he’d dyed himself, because Golden Bell was knitting socks, mittens and a warm robe. Since she was ruining her eyes in her dark cell, Tina took her fresh vegetables and lentils. On a previous visit, Golden Bell had asked them to bring her walnuts and dried figs.

“What do you need those for?” Tina said. “You don’t get much exercise, so don’t eat too many figs.”

“Don’t worry, Mother, I won’t.”

And so, the months and the years went by. The Berlin Wall fell and Ishmael ended up in the Netherlands, in a house in the polder. He had a place to sit and a window through which he could look out over his past.

These were difficult years, but he wasn’t sorry he’d escaped or made the political choices he had. He’d learned a lot, he’d had all kinds of experiences and he’d even enjoyed life. Golden Bell’s imprisonment, however, was a constant source of pain and worry. He also felt terribly guilty.

It was winter. Early one morning Akbar grabbed his cane and set off for the prison.

In the spring or summer he always ran into farmers walking out to their fields to work the land. “Salaam, Aga Akbar, how are you?”