The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi

under stood immediately. He shut me in the cellar. It was dark. I had to spend two days in there. He left a cat with me—another stray who must have been roaming around—and told me gleefully that if the animal got hungry it would eat me. But luckily, our house was full of rats. So the cat became my friend.” She stops, shakes off her memories of the cellar, and comes back to the room, and her man. Unsettled, she gazes at him a while, and suddenly moves away from the wall. “But … but why am I telling him all this?” she murmurs. Overcome by her memories, she stands up heavily. “I never wanted anyone to know that. Never! Not even my sisters!” She leaves the room, upset. Her fears echo down the passage. “He’s driving me mad. Sapping my strength. Forcing me to speak. To confess my sins, my mistakes. He’s listening to me. Hearing me. I’m sure of it. He wants to get to me … to destroy me!”
    She shuts herself in one of the other rooms, to calm her nerves with total solitude.
    The children are still shouting among the ruins.
    The sun moves over to the other side of the house, withdrawing its rays of light from the holes in the yellow and blue sky of the curtains.
    Later, she comes back. Eyes solemn, hands shaking. She walks up to the man. Stops. Takes a deep breath. Grabs hold of the feeding tube, closes her eyes, and pulls it out of his mouth. Turns around, her eyes still closed. Takes an uncertain step. Sobs “Forgive me, God!” picks up her veil and disappears.
    She runs. Through the garden. Down the street …
    The sugar-salt solution drips, one drop at a time, from the hanging tube onto the man’s forehead. It flows into the valleys of his wrinkles, then toward the base of his nose, into his eye sockets, across his chapped cheeks, and finally into his thick, bushy moustache.
    The sun is setting.
    The weapons awakening.
    Tonight again they will destroy.
    Tonight again they will kill.
    Morning.
    Rain.
    Rain on the city and its rubble.
    Rain on the bodies and their wounds.
    A few breaths after the last drop of sugar-salt solution, the sound of wet footsteps slaps through the courtyard, and into the passage. The muddy shoes are not removed.
    The door to the room creaks open. It’s the woman. She doesn’t dare enter. She observes the man with that strange, wary look in her eyes. Pushes the door a fraction wider. Waits some more. Nothing moves. She takes off her shoes and slips quietly in, remaining on the threshold. She lets her veil fall to the floor. She is shaking. With cold. Or fear. She walks forward, until her feet are touching the mattress on which the man is lying.
    The breathing has its usual rhythm.
    The mouth is still half-open.
    The look is still mocking.
    The eyes are still empty, soulless … but today they are wet with tears. She crouches down, terrified. “Are you … are you crying?” She sinks to the ground. But soon realizes that the tears come from the tube; they are sugar-salt tears.

    Her throat is dry, her voice deadened. Blank. “But, who are you?” A moment goes by—two breaths. “Why doesn’t God send Ezraeel, to finish you off once and for all?” she asks suddenly. “What does he want from you?” She looks up. “What does he want from me?” Her voice drops. “You would say,
He wants to punish you!
” She shakes her head. “Don’t kid yourself!” Her voice is clearer now. “Perhaps it’s you he wants to punish! He’s keeping you alive so you can see what I’m capable of doing with you, to you. He is making me into a demon … a demon for you, against you! Yes, I am your demon! In flesh and blood!” She lies down on the mattress to avoid the man’s glassy stare. Lies there a long moment, silent and thoughtful. Traveling far, far back into the past, to the day the demon was born in her.
    “After everything I confessed yesterday, you would tell me that I was already a demon as a young child. A demon in my father’s eyes.” Her hand touches the man’s arm