Qobad

He crested the hill and sat on a rock, put down his Russian rifle and unhooked his bullet belt. He placed it on a dry camelthorn bush and lit a cigarette, taking deep drags as he stared at his weapon. Six months had passed since he’d last shot that gun, and that was to scare away the boars rolling around the wheatfield. He had no reason to carry that heavy thing everywhere, but over the years it had become a habit he could no longer shed. He would pick it up absent-mindedly every time he left the village, the same way he picked up his water canteen, and carried the gun like his balance depended on it, though he had vowed never to use it to kill a human being again.

No one knew about this pledge. Twenty years had passed since the last killing. Since then, he had gone to no one’s house in the middle of the night to put a bullet in their heads. But the people in the village seemed to have failed to notice that. They still knew him as ‘The Great Qobad’, and still wove legends and stories about him and his gun.

From where he was sitting, the village resembled a stack of delicately placed matchboxes, with clay-and-straw roofs and granite walls. The autumn was drawing to an end. The first rain came down late this year, and now the village was preparing for the first snow. From his seat, Qobad could see the farmers bringing piles of wood down from the grey mountains on the backs of their donkeys and mules, hoarding them near the hedges of their yards. This was their last opportunity to get ready for winter, before the first snow laid siege to the village and entrapped the villagers for a few long months.

Qobad extinguished his cigarette, wrapped the bullet belt back around his waist, threw his gun on his shoulder and descended the hill. He walked across its brown, barren skirts and ran into a young shepherd. The man waved in response to his greetings, then picked up a rock and threw it at the wild goats grazing near his herd. Qobad got to the bridge that functioned as the village gate. An old woman with a heavy bag on her back walked past him. They exchanged a ‘good afternoon,’ then Qobad turned into the alley where, years ago, he had killed her cousin. This family feud was now old enough that he could see the dead man’s family without feeling terrible.

He had no reason to carry that heavy thing everywhere, but over the years it had become a habit he could no longer shed.

A group of kids were riding sticks, pretending to be on horseback. One of them screamed ‘Qobad!’ and they scattered like a flock of geese noticing a fox. He always liked kids. If they stuck around and got close, he would kiss their heads and put some raisins in their pockets and chat with them. But that didn’t change the way most children regarded him. They often fled as soon as they saw him.

He turned onto an alley that connected with the village’s only street. A group of women sat on the steps of a house, chatting. When he emerged, they retreated inside and closed the door. He had to pause in the middle of the alley to wait for a herd of hungry goats to sprint across into a corral. The shepherd was holding open the gate, watching Qobad with worried eyes. The birds shrieked and the cattle bellowed. The village was fraught with sounds portending the arrival of winter.

Then he noticed people gathering at the mouth of the alley. Doors were thrown open and people ran out towards the street. A crowd came from behind and engulfed him. Some ignored him, others threw him a furtive greeting and headed to the street. He followed them to the village main square. On the surrounding rooftops women were standing, holding small children. This kind of gathering was rare, and occurred only when someone was killed or two families engaged in a bloody fight over water or land.

As he approached, a few people came forwards to welcome him. Among them he spotted his nephew, Rasoul. He looked exhausted and his ears were red. Spittle had dried on his lips.

‘Uncle Qobad,’ he said. ‘God knows I wanted to load the gun you gave my father, but my mother didn’t let me. She said we had to wait for you.’

Qobad didn’t answer. He approached the crowd. People on his left and right called his name. He ignored them. He was headed for the huddle of the elders, but before he could get to them the villagers had surrounded him. They all spoke at the same time and he understood none of them, but he could read in their eyes all he needed to know. They wanted from him what they always wanted. The villagers regarded him as a boulder, using his shade in hot summers and hiding behind him to wait out the blizzards. He never wanted to play this role, but life had put him here, as if he was predestined for it.

An old man shuffled towards the circle. The crowd opened up to show respect. He came through, his cane beating against the stone, and stood face to face with Qobad.

‘Qahraman was here,’ the old man said, pausing to let the news sink in. ‘Qahraman and his men were here last night.’

Qahraman was a name that made everyone tremble in fear. He was a vile, violent man, his brutality the stuff of legend in the area. Everybody in the mountains was convinced that nothing could stop Qahraman, that he transcended laws and rules. He was heartless enough, the stories had it, to steal babies from their swaddles or shoot at the belly of a pregnant woman. Every time he bore down on a village he left burnt, ashen land in his wake. He had been encircled by the guards many times, and in every case he slithered out of the siege like a snake. There were numerous tales about him, and in every one of them he was a winner. Last night he was there, in the village that had Qobad as its protector, the man whom everybody feared and trusted. Because of Qobad, no one thought Qahraman would ever dare to touch this corner of the mountains.

‘They were twelve horsemen,’ the old man continued. ‘They threatened bloodshed.’ A cold snowflake landed on Qobad’s aquiline nose. He looked up at the creamy sky, the flurry of snow that fell but mostly melted before reaching the earth, except for the larger flakes that powered through and landed on the wrinkled, leathery skin of the men around him.

‘Qahraman had come to claim Chiasooz.’

Chiasooz. The word is soaked in old blood. When Qobad was a child, several villages were fighting over the Chiasooz plain. When he was six, in that final attack that defeated his village and made his people flee to the mountains, he was left behind. All of a sudden he found himself alone, wandering around barefoot, crying and calling for his mother. On the hilltop the galloping horses were kicking up dust, and from the dust emerged the towering silhouettes of gunmen as they attacked his village. This image was etched indelibly in his mind, and it surfaced every time he sensed a threat to his village. Qobad had survived. His father, midway through his escape, noticed that his son was not with them. He had returned to the village and snatched Qobad away just before the gunmen arrived.

The fight over Chiasooz went on for a long time, and white flags were raised only when the war became unfeasible for all sides. The plain was divided among the villages. Peace had ruled over the mountains ever since, until now, with Qahraman emerging to tell them that he was planning to end it.

‘Qahraman insulted you,’ the old man said, holding a red cloth in his hands. ‘He threw this scarf, and told us to hang it from the wall of your house.’

Qobad fastened his pitch-black eyes to the ground. He scratched his thick beard, then his cheeks, which were now red with rage. He had tried for twenty years to build a new reputation. He didn’t want to be known as the mountain rebel. His presence still inspired fear, but many had accepted his new character. These days he regarded himself as a farmer, a man like others who spent their lives working on the land. Twenty years had passed, and now only old people had firsthand memories of his killing spree and his violence. He was this close to a new life.

But was he truly upset? Deep inside, he knew that he wasn’t. Despite all his efforts, a stronger impulse, albeit dormant, still lurked inside him. Rebellion was in his flesh and blood, woven into the fabric of who he was. But no, he thought. He would have to contain himself.

 ‘It is snowing tonight,’ he yelled assertively.

The crowd hummed.

‘Don’t you see? It is snowing tonight.’

Quizzical looks were cast at him from all directions. Bodies fidgeted and jolted. They heard fear in his scream, and his fear made them afraid. They watched his large bulk lumber away from them, heading towards home. The crowd stirred. The voices rose. The youths encircled the old man who had delivered the news to Qobad. It was hard to believe that Qobad, ‘The Great Qobad’, had his head down like a scared dog and was walking away.

They heard fear in his scream, and his fear made them afraid.

Qobad took twenty steps, then bent over, as if under the weight of the looks from the villagers. He took off one of his shoes and shook it to remove a pebble. Then he put it back on, tightened his belt, took a few more steps, swivelled and stared at the crowd. He uttered no words and he didn’t have to. In his silent way, he was communicating to them that he would no longer protect them. He kept staring defiantly. His dark gaze made the crowd scatter. The last person standing was the old man, leaning against his cane, shaking his head and whispering under his breath. Then he shuffled across the street and entered the coffee house.

The nephew, Rasoul, standing under the shed in front of a house, watched Qobad disappear around the corner. He then followed the old man inside the coffee house and crept into a corner by the fire. About fifty other men had gathered around the burning wood, sitting on chairs and tree trunks. Rasoul watched the young worker run out of the store to fetch large pieces of wood, shove them into the fire and settle a kettle on the burgeoning flames. The sharp smell of wet wood and cigarette smoke filled the air.

Everybody was talking disparagingly of Qobad. He is not the man he used to be, they said. He sounded ridiculous. Rasoul listened in silence, feeling humiliated and paralysed, as if he were watching them bury someone he loved and admired.

The debate was soon polarised along a generational divide. The youth were up in arms, screaming that they didn’t need Qobad, that they could take care of Qahraman on their own. The old man sucked his teeth and warned them against hasty decisions, but they ignored him, drowned him out, even screamed at him, blood boiling in their veins.

‘This is not who we are. We won’t sit back and watch someone come from five villages away to claim our land.’

‘Forget about the old Qobad. He hasn’t killed an ant in twenty years. He avoids blood at any cost.’

‘You talk like you don’t know Qobad. The man has killed at least twenty people.’

‘That was the old times. Now he’s like a dove.’

‘You’re wrong. He is called “The Great Qobad” for a reason.’

‘All the greatness he has, he owes it to this land. If we lose it, nothing about him or us will be great anymore.’

‘You know how many people will die if we go to war with Qahraman? Leave it to Qobad. He’ll figure out a way.’

‘You folks seem to forget that we are not the only people with claim to Chiasooz. It belongs to other villages too. Even if we give up, those folks won’t let Qahraman take it.’

‘But Qahraman doesn’t care about other villages. He is happy to share it with them. He is just after us because he wants to beat Qobad.’

‘This is not about a piece of land. This is about our dignity.’

‘At the end of the day, we have no warrior who’s anything like Qobad.’ ‘What should we do, old man?’

‘Yes, uncle, please tell us what we should do, now that Qobad has hung us out to dry?’

The air was stuffy with the vapour out of the kettle and smoke and human breath, but at least it was warm. Outside, a thick layer of grey, loaded clouds choked the sky. Rasoul stayed silent but didn’t miss a word. As it grew colder, men dragged their chairs and tree stumps closer to the fire.

‘It looks like Qobad doesn’t want us to go to war against Qahraman,’ the old man said.

‘But what will people think? How will other villages look at us?’

 ‘Qobad will find a way to solve this issue without bloodshed. We need to give him time.’

‘He doesn’t seem to care.’

‘Shut your mouth!’ cried Rasoul from his corner, finally finding his voice. ‘If it weren’t for Qobad, Qahraman would have razed this village to the ground a hundred times by now.’

‘Qobad is a coward,’ said a fat young man, sitting far from the crowd.

All heads turned to him. He had said what was on everyone’s mind but no one had dared to articulate.

Rasoul lunged at him and threw him on the heap of wood behind the fire. The two men grappled and wrestled each other to the ground and fought among the legs of the others. The crowd separated them. Rasoul rose, his nose bloody, his clothes covered with the sawdust from the floor. He left the coffee house, cursing the village and its people, and headed towards Qobad’s house.

The street was empty. A scattering of small, feeble snowflakes whirled in the air. He kept his head up and pinched his nose to staunch the blood, thinking of the stories he grew up hearing about his uncle. In the space of a single evening, his image of Qobad had been shattered. All the honour and glory he had brought to his family name had vanished, and now they were associated with this pathetic man who curled up in a corner as soon as he faced danger. Rasoul was incensed. If Qobad shirked that fight it would be a blow to the reputation of their entire family.

All the honour and glory he had brought to his family name had vanished.

He entered into Qobad’s house without knocking. This was a disrespectful thing to do, but he couldn’t care less. Inside the house, in a large shadowy room, his aunt was sitting by the fire, stitching an old blanket. She glanced at Rasoul’s bloodshot eyes and returned to sewing without uttering a word.

This was nothing new to Bati. Since she was eighteen, her life had been all about Qobad and other men fighting and shooting at each other. Her rhythm of sewing accelerated with Rasoul’s arrival. He grabbed the metal prod and turned the fire over, then sat down and stared at the flames. The room had a fretful air as if it awaited terrible news.

‘Where is Uncle Qobad?’ Rasoul asked.

‘What happened to your nose?’

‘I had a fight over him.’

‘Since when do people here fight over Qobad?’

‘Word has gotten around that he is scared of Qahraman. People are insulting our family.’

Bati stopped sewing.

‘People love to gossip.’

‘But what they say—’

Something in the woman’s gaze silenced Rasoul. They sat together quietly, watching the flames. She was thinking of all the days Qobad spent away from home, all those nights of loneliness, raising their children with no help, no money and, hardest of all, the cruel snark people kept hurled her, the pitying tone when they talked to her children, the spiteful way of expressing concern that the kids were growing up fatherless.

Qobad left the village again, but this time no one thought he would disappear for so long. Many were confident that he was dead, fallen victim to hungry bears or murdered in a fight. A rumour began to circulate that he had crossed the border and started a new family on the other side. A story came from a hunter who claimed to have seen him, but as soon as he called his name Qobad jumped up and climbed the hill like a wild goat and disappeared. They called him ‘The Coward Qobad’, added bitterness seeping in with the winter months and Qahraman’s new reign. His wife heard it all, and although she believed none of it, every story was a stab in her heart.

Then, late in the spring, Qobad suddenly showed up in the village again. Nothing in his appearance gave any clue as to where he had been or what he had endured. The bones in his face were prominent and his frame erect, just as it had been in his younger days, as if all along he had been a ghost wandering around, waiting for the right moment to materialise. In his typically cold demeanour, he walked home through the transfixed crowd. No one dared to ask him where he had been. How horrible were the long years of his absence, his wife was now thinking with her nephew at her side, all the years she fought to keep their children alive. Bati was no longer young. She couldn’t deal with another disappearance.

There was a noise outside. Qobad had arrived at the threshold of his home. His shoes were soaked. He eyed Rasoul and sat down next to his wife.

‘I am so hungry,’ he said, like a child.

The woman fetched a large bowl of soup and a piece of bread from the kitchen. Rasoul was gone when she came back. He hadn’t exchanged a word with his uncle. Qobad broke the bread into the soup and ate it all, then lay down and closed his eyes.

Coldness woke him up. He rubbed his eyes. The fire was dying. He turned over the coals and dropped in a piece of wood. Yellow light stirred on the walls. He pulled on his wool socks and threw a piece of bread and cheese into his rucksack. From the shack in the yard he grabbed his gun and left. It was time.

He climbed the hill behind the village. From the top, the village looked like a cave whose ceiling was lit up by fireflies. On the other side of the hill, he no longer heard the dogs barking. An intense, complete silence reigned over the valley, a silence so profound it was as if it had never been disturbed by a human presence.

He did what he had always done—leaving the village quietly, no hesitation in his legs, carrying the same rucksack, his old bullet belt and the gun he had owned for decades. Now he was at the bottom of the valley, walking down the path where he had ridden his horse countless times as a child. As he climbed over the last rock he was overwhelmed with the sense of ending. No more hiding. No more running away.

He entered the territory of the next village. Not that anything was unfamiliar. From the entire region he had countless memories, years of war and peace, many weddings and funerals. Lights flickered all across the mountainside at regular distances, like a gold chain hung unevenly around a neck.

He found a cave and crept into it. He put up his cold, wet feet and leaned against its wall. He rolled a cigarette and looked down at the village from above. Now here he was, on the hill at whose feet lay the village where Qahraman was sleeping in its tallest and sturdiest house, likely next to a woman forced to spend the night with him.

Qobad had become like a ghost, like the old Qobad, with dead, black eyes, the invisible assassin whom the strongest ramparts could not hold at bay. Now he had to climb down the hill, step over the puddles and into soft mud, watching his shadow flickering on the village walls as he approached his prey. If anyone heard him, he would take them out with a blow to the temple. Getting to Qahraman’s house, he would crouch and move soundlessly along the wall and climb it at its darkest spot, in the midpoint between the big lights, one for the stable and the other for the house. He would rip the back door curtain and snake inside, silently creeping through the rooms to get to Qahraman.

He was not the type who shoots as soon as they get a chance. His fingers would beg to pull the trigger, but he would resist. This was part of his ritual, his private ceremony of bloodshed. He might even drag Qahraman out of the bed, make him raise his hands and put the bullet in his stomach from close range. He considered humiliating Qahraman some more. He would be the god in that room after all, for he would be the one with his finger on the trigger, the one that the gun would obey.

But he wanted to keep it simple this time. He would put a bullet in his stomach, then one in his head for good measure, then run back and climb the wall and disappear into the dark. Qobad would cross through the village and sprint alongside the graveyard, his steps fast and long, and then wade through the snow to get to the mountains. Behind him there would rise a commotion, the screams of the gunmen running everywhere, then the barrage of gunshots travelling toward him. 

‘Qobad’ first appeared in New Australian Fiction 2024. This story was first written in Kurdish and then translated by Boochani into Farsi. This story is the first time Boochani’s fiction has been published in English, and has been translated by author and scholar Amir Ahmadi Arian.