The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

plan that he had been toying with for some time.
    the colonel was weeping. He did not know how long ago it had started. All he could feel was that his eyes were burning with alcohol and – probably – red with his tears. Everything round him was swimming and he could not make out whether it was his own Amir sitting at his little table by the window, or someone else. Nor could he make out whether Amir was looking at him or was staring at the pages in front of him with his ears pricked up to listen to what his father was saying, to the incoherent, crazed ramblings, welling up from deep inside him, as if from some other person. He thought, he hoped that Amir could see what a state he was in. He was sure that Amir had recognised his mother for what she was and could see the fix that his father was in, and that he had no choice but to do what he was about to do. For it seemed only natural to the colonel that the convulsions and spasms that were shaking his whole being should be transmitted to the closest person to him, to his son, who was right there in front of him. And why shouldn’t Amir be part of the tragedy?
    the colonel sensed that the hairs on his son’s neck were standing on end with horror, but his instinct also told him that Amir was at one with his father in what he intended to do, and would help him, for he saw that all the powers of the earth, visible and invisible, were behind him in the crime that he was about to commit. Without allowing himself a second’s doubt as to Amir’s ideas on the matter, his one thought was to make him his accomplice in the deed.
    Yet at the same time he could not involve Amir in the crime. the colonel thought himself a fair man and, however much Amir might sympathise with him, he could not be so selfish as to expect his boy to turn his hand to murdering his mother. After all, he knew that to kill someone, let alone kill one’s own
mother, was not an easy thing to do and even to think about it was upsetting. It was unthinkable. So the colonel thought it best to leave his son sitting awkwardly on his chair while matters took their course. Amir’s silence could mean only one thing: that he wished to stand aside from what was about to happen and let his father sort his problem out by himself.
    Eventually, when he staggered up from the bed, he was barely able to keep his balance. Something – probably an empty glass – dropped on the floor and smashed. the colonel stamped on it. He swayed back and forth and everything seemed to go black in front of him. He wiped the sweat off his brow and, in one stride, hauled himself over to the stove, steadied himself on the mantelpiece and began bawling like a stubborn and angry baby. He felt that he did not even have the courage to look The Colonel in the eye. For the black eyes of The Colonel in the photograph were staring at him from under his bushy black eyebrows, behind the glass on which dust never settled and, from the reproach in that look, he felt not just shame, but terror. All he could do was lean his forehead against The Colonel’s field boots and, weeping, call out his name over and over again. Colonel… Colonel…
    Later – he did not know how much later – he pulled himself together, picked his officer’s cap off the bed and set it squarely on his head, drew his sabre from its scabbard, took one step back and looked The Colonel straight and firm in his unyielding eyes:
    â€œI’ll kill her, I’ll kill her tonight!”
    I can’t remember, but in all likelihood that was the night when Amir began to change into a completely different person. It was that night that opened the wound that never healed. It must have been after that that Amir went off, got engaged, joined some
revolutionary groups, lost his wife, went to prison and put himself through ordeals of fire and water 18 in order to be born again and get his life back on track. But it didn’t happen, in fact