By Rahnaward Zaryab
Translated from Dari by Dr. S. Wali Ahmadi
From April-June 2000 Issue of Afghan Magazine | Lemar - Aftaab
[caption: "Bright Eyes" Qodrat, an orphan, sets in class. By Massoud Hossaini Kabul, November 12, 2002 ]
I was in the fourth year of elementary school. On one of the first days after classes began, our teacher came in and said, “Boys…”
And then, with his eyes to the ground, he began to walk to the other end of the classroom. He seemed to be counting the slates on the floor. In the meantime, he looked very short. The fact is that our teacher really was a diminutive little man.
Suddenly, he stopped by the wall. He looked up– as if he had finished counting. His lips moved a few times and he finally spoke.
“For tomorrow, each one of you must write a composition– about spring,” he said.
This came as a surprise to us. Our eyes must have been fixed on the teacher in utter amazement, while we felt our ears ringing. “A composition?” we all wondered, “–about spring?”
The teacher must have perceived our state of shock. So he started explaining what he meant for us to do: “That is, I mean, well– you know, a composition about spring. Write a composition about spring. That’s it. Say what people do, for example, or, rather, what animals do– in spring, that is– and the like.”
The teacher, assuming that we were all as wise as himself, thought that his explanation was sufficient. But we were still confronted with the question, “A composition about spring.”
On my way home after school, I thought of nothing but the “composition” we were supposed to write.
When I got home, I asked my mother, “Do you know what a composition is?”
My mother looked at me wide-eyed and said, “No, I don’t know what it is. Did you learn it today?”
“I didn’t learn it,” I said, “but I have to write one. I have to write a composition.”
After lunch, I began to write. I mean, I wrote on the top of the sheet, but couldn’t continue. I didn’t know what to write. So I thought and thought, yet nothing came to my mind. Finally, I stood by the window and stared outside into the yard.
I saw sparrows on the branches of the tree in our yard. The sparrows looked yellow against the green background of leaves. I saw our hen playing in the dirt in a corner. The hen looked blue to me. A little swallow was making a nest by the log of the roof. The little swallow looked like a kite in the shape of a fish. Then I saw our cat, who hated the sun and had taken refuge in the shadow of the wall. The cat looked green to me.
I returned to my pad of paper. Again, I couldn’t write a thing. Depressed and really sad, I went out of the house and sat by the wall outside in the alley. I thought.
Then I thought some more. The question was still pushing itself to the walls of my brain “–a composition about spring?”
As I was thinking, I saw our neighbor leaving his house. He was a lean man, and tall. My father used to tell us that this neighbor was a poet. When he saw me, he came to me.
“Why are you sad?” he asked.
“Our teacher has asked us to write a composition,” I replied, “–about spring.”
“And you can’t do it, can you?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
Our neighbor began to laugh. He took my arm. He looked up towards the sky and with his finger drew a large half-circle in the air.
“Look around you,” he said. “Whatever you see, just write it down. This will be a composition about spring.”
Suddenly, everything began to clear up in my mind. “I see!” I cried out with joy. Then I ran back home in a hurry. I stood by the window. Everything looked just like before I had left. My mother was sitting by the tree and was cleaning the rice she wanted to cook later.
I took the pen and wrote the title, “A Composition about Spring.”
Then I wrote: “In spring, yellow sparrows play on the branches of trees. The blue hen plays in the dirt. The little swallow, which looks like a kite in the shape of a fish, makes a nest. The green cat hates the sun, so he sleeps by the shadow of the wall. My mother sits by the tree and cleans the rice. In spring the sky is clear. The bees fly all over. And schoolboys write compositions about spring.” I couldn’t write anymore, but I was quite happy with what I had.
The next day, the teacher was going over our compositions in class. My turn came. The teacher read what I had written. He then stared at me curiously for a moment. My heart was beating fast. The teacher gestured to me to approach his desk. I did.
He looked at me with a great degree of surprise and said, “Tell your Dad to take you to a doctor of some sort.”
“Why, sir,” I asked.
“Your eyes don’t seem to be working right,” he replied.
“They are quite all right sir,” I said.
“Well, then you should know that a sparrow is not yellow, a hen is not blue, and no cat is evergreen. None at all. Understand?” he said.
“Yes,” I answered.
The teacher handed me the paper and said, “Now go!”
I looked at the paper and saw a big red X. I felt that my eyes were full of tears. The X looked like two bloody swords.
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Notes
This translated short story was first published on the Afghan journal CRITIQUE & VISION. Permission for re-publication was granted by CRITIQUE & VISION.
About Rahnaward Zaryab
Rahnaward Zaryab is an Afghan novelist, short story writer, journalist, and literary critic/scholar. He was born in 1944 in the Rika Khana neighborhood of Kabul, Afghanistan.
Further Reading:
Celebrated Afghan Writer Recalls Kabul Of Decades Ago
NPR Audio
Writer Retreats to a Kabul That Lives Only in His Memories and Books
New York Times, By Mujib Mashal
