Harshness: Short Stories by Ali Ashraf Darvishian - 2002-08-18

Harshness: Short Stories by Ali Ashraf Darvishian - 2002-08-18. In this collection, Darvishian presents 10 short stories, all depicting scenes from the 1980s, particularly in the western part of the country, except for one titled 'Ghost.' The stories illustrate collective executions, torture, repentants, war, missile attacks on cities and villages, and chemical bombardments of border areas in Iraq by Saddam's army. In the story 'Harshness,' from which the book takes its name, a boy goes to the reeds to cut cane and witnesses the execution of eight people from behind the reeds. The blood of the executed splashes onto the cane, and when the boy makes a large pen from the cane and writes his homework, he writes '... and the only outcome is slaughter, slaughter, slaughter...' while the teacher's model was something else. 'The boy trembled: 'This large pen with blood splashes' (p. 17). The scene that Darvishian depicts in this story is remembered by anyone who read the Ettelaat newspaper from August 1979: the execution of eight people at Kermanshah airport with their eyes blindfolded, while one of the executed had a broken arm hanging around his neck. Those days, instead of the promised Constituent Assembly, they were supposed to create a Council of Experts, and the famous Sharia judge of those days was sent to the western part of the country to intimidate the people. The black-clad men with their faces painted brought the eight men down from the jeeps. Their eyes were covered with white bands. Amid the insane gunfire, they hurriedly lined them up. The right hand of the first person was bandaged, and blood was oozing from under the bandage. The soft blonde mustaches swayed in the wind...' (p. 10). In the story 'Bafrineh' (Snow White), the narrative depicts the chemical bombardment of a Kurdish village during the war. A mother leaves her children to gather firewood in the mountains, and while she is away, the village is bombed with chemicals, and when she returns, she finds everything from ants and chickens to her children dead in place. 'Bafrineh, like a kind mother, had laid Joseph on the arm of her hookah pipe. The chicks were sprawled next to the hen, breathless. The hen remained motionless under its wing... A dead ant was stuck to Bafrineh's bluish chin' (p. 105). In 'Bread and Salt for the Peacock's Feather,' a missile attack on a village and the impact on a school is depicted. 'Several explosions were heard from afar. Two explosions were very close. The wooden beam shook violently. The man jumped down hurriedly... A woman screamed from afar. 'O Imam Reza... They hit the school!' The golden hair of a child had fallen over his clear eyes. His little hand had fallen like moonlight in the middle of his book' (p. 68). As mentioned at the beginning, the book recounts the heartbreaking scenes of war and executions. It may bore and sadden the reader, but what can be done? Someone must narrate the tragic scenes of our country, which unfortunately are not few, to record them in history. Darvishian is a sincere narrator. Amir Armin, exclusive for the Persian section of the Voice of America Internet unit.