Hajji hung his head with shame and they whipped him fifty times in front of a crowd of spectators, but he didn’t move a muscle. When it was over he took his big silk handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He picked up his yellow cloak and threw it over his shoulders. Its folds dragged on the ground. With his head lowered, he set out for home, and tried to set his foot down more carefully to stifle the squeaking sound of his shoes. Two days later Hajji divorced his wife.

Three Drops of Blood

(from Three Drops of Blood)

It was only yesterday that they moved me to a separate room. Could it be that things are just as the supervisor had promised? That I would be fully recovered and be released next week? Have I been unwell? It’s been a year. All this time, no matter how much I pleaded with them to give me pen and paper they never did. I was always thinking to myself that if I got my hands on a pen and a piece of paper, there would be so much to write about. But yesterday, they brought me a pen and some paper without me even asking for it. It was just the thing that I had wanted for such a long time, the thing that I had waited for all the time. But what was the use? I’ve been trying hard to write something since yesterday but there is nothing to write about. It is as if someone is holding down my hand or as if my arm has become numb. I’m focusing on the paper and I notice that the only readable thing in the messy scribbling I’ve left on it is this: “three drops of blood”.

* * *

The azure sky; a green little garden; the flowers over the hill have blossomed and a quiet breeze is bringing over their fragrance to my room. But what’s the use? I can’t take pleasure in anything any more. All this is only good for poets and children and those who remain children all their lives. I have spent a year in this place. The cat’s hissing is keeping me awake from night till dawn. The terrifying hissing, the heart-rending mewling, have brought me to the verge of giving up. In the morning, I’ve barely opened my eyes and there is the rude injection. What long days and terrifying hours I have spent here. On summer days we put on our yellow shirts and yellow trousers and come together in the cellar. Come winter we sit by the side of the garden, sun bathing. It’s been a year since I’ve been living with these weird and peculiar people. There is no common ground between us. I am as different from them as the earth is from the sky. But their moaning, silences, insults, crying and laughter will forever turn my sleep into nightmare.

* * *

There’s still an hour left until we eat our supper. It’s one of those printed menus: yoghurt soup, rice pudding, rice, bread and cheese, just enough to keep us alive without starving us. Hasan’s utmost wish is to eat a pot of egg soup and four hunks of bread. When it’s time for him to be released they should bring him a pot of egg soup instead of pen and paper.