My Father's Notebook Read Free Page A

didn’t want to. So I went first. I climbed up onto the wall and lay there. ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘Give me your hand.’
    “I grabbed him, pulled him up and then helped him climb up onto the roof. We inched our way to the courtyard stairs.
    “‘Don’t look so surprised,’ I said when we reached them. He didn’t want to go down the stairs.
    “‘What are we going to do?’ he signed.
    “‘Nothing, just look around. Come on, this palace belongs to you, too.’
    “We walked gingerly down the stairs. He briefly forgot his mother. I even noticed a smile on his face.
    “We went into the courtyard. I’d never been inside the palace before. I thought the doors would be locked, but they were open. I thought the rooms would be empty, but no, the furniture was all in place. The courtyard door had been blown open by the wind and the snow had drifted halfway down the hall. We went in.
    “There was dust everywhere. Even the expensive Persian carpets were covered in a fine layer of sand. We left footprints. You could see that a man and a little boy had walkedthrough the rooms. ‘Give me your hand,’ I said to Akbar. ‘Do you see that? That’s what death is.’
    “I looked for the nobleman’s study, for his library. Akbar stared in amazement at everything—the chandeliers, the mirrors, the paintings. ‘Go on, take a look,’ I said. ‘You see those portraits? Those are your ancestors. Take a good look at them. Oh, Allah, Allah, what a lot of books!’
    “I had no idea there were so many books on Lalehzar Mountain. ‘Hey, Akbar, come here. You see this book? It’s been written by hand. Let me read it:
    Khoda-ya, rast guyand fetna az to-ast
    wali az tars na-tavanam chegidan
    lab-o dandan-e torkan-e Khata-ra
    beh een khubi na bayad afaridan.
    “I took out a sheet of parchment on which a family tree had been drawn. ‘Do you see those names? Each one of those men has written a book. You can also write one. A book of your very own.’
    “‘Write?’ signed Akbar.
    “‘I’ll teach you.’ I rummaged around in the drawer in search of an empty notebook and found one. ‘Here, take it. Put it in your pocket. Now hurry up, let’s go.’”
      
    They left the palace and rode home. Kazem Khan needed to smoke his opium pipe and drink a few cups of strong tea. “Where are you, Akbar? Come here, I’ve got a lump of sugar for you. Russia’s finest sugar. Mmm, delicious. Have a sip of tea, Akbar. Now where’s your book? Come sit by me. Opium is bad. You must never smoke opium. If I don’t smoke my pipe in time, I get the shakes. When I do smoke it, though, I think up fantastic poems. Go and get your book and write something in it.”
    “I can’t write. I can’t even read,” Akbar signed.
    “You don’t have to read, but you do have to write. Just scribble something in your notebook. One page every day. Or maybe just a couple of sentences. Anyway, try it. Go upstairs, write something in your book, then come and show it to me.”
      
    When Kazem Khan had finished his pipe, he went upstairs.
    “Where are you, Akbar? Haven’t you written anything yet? It doesn’t matter. I’ll teach you. You see that bed? From now on, it’s your bed. Open the window and look out at the mountains. That beautiful view is all yours. Open the cupboard. That’s yours, too. You can keep your things in it. Here, this is the key to your room.”
      
    It was impossible to concentrate on reading or writing when you were sitting by the window in that room, Kazem Khan complained, because you would be mesmerised by the view, by nature. You had no choice but to lay down your book, put away your pen, go and get your pipe, chop up some opium, put a piece of it in your pipe, pick up a glowing coal with a pair of pincers, light the pipe, then puff, puff, puff on it, blow the smoke out of the window and stare at the view.
    The first thing you saw were the walnut trees, then the pomegranate trees and, beyond that, a strip of yellow