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A novel: Black stains

"If the word is the world, literature is life". This is Azerbaijani author Vugar Guliyev's motto. During the summer and autumn of 2011, the Göteborg Book Fair will regularly publish his short stories and chronicles on our website. We start off with "Black stains", a story that shows a way of being human again.

"It was some nights that Sabir, the elderly owner of an antique shop, had become a tossing-and-turning-insomniac in bed. A flow of buyers, cameramen and journalists seemed to be the zenith of any shopkeeper's luck. However, it was not that.

The shop, which enlivened the whole city, was located in "Ichari Sheher" (the inner city) the heart of the ancient Baku, in which winding streets, lanes and nooks had dearly warmed up many generations of people.

Some months ago, a middle-aged woman appeared in the shop to display, as she said, an inherited antique mirror for sale. It was an old-fashioned looking glass, set in a solid oak frame with professionally carved unique patterns on it. The mirror continued to become heavier with humidity until a husband and a wife rolling after each other along the showcases had appeared in the shop.
Standing opposite the mirror, the roundish wife of the thick-pocketed and unshaven man, impertinently dressed in an expensive suit, shrieked like the siren of a fire engine.

With the words "No, it can't be" she rushed to dust the mirror with the sleeve of her expensive clothing. Becoming pale afterwards, she began slapping herself all over her body with soft cotton-like white palms. She repeated the same words and then noisily fell on the floor simultaneously rolling on her back after which her stomach began to jut out in an ugly way.

Two sellers and Sabir rushed to help her husband lift her. Once the body was placed on the sofa, Sabir went to pick up the madam's expensive purse. Having noticed the mirror and suddenly realising the reason of the woman's hysterics, the owner of the shop stood motionlessly in an indecent posture.

The mirror was reflecting everything except people. "What does it mean?" thought Sabir, "Can it be bewitched? But… it's a sensation". He cheered up, "Here you are, old man. Luck comes to you itself". At this moment, the woman's coughing and sobbing made him stand straight. As he continued pondering, Sabir carried the purse to the visitors. He had decided what to say and stood seriously, as the miserable - looking woman, sprawled about on the sofa, emptying water from the glass at big gulps.

"Oh dear, I was so scared," she said with a trembling voice. "You were just about to lose me," she continued drowning in tears.
"Don't worry, lady," said Sabir, reaching out the purse to her. "This is the mirror of a prestidigitator who went bankrupt. He had to bring it to us for sale. It reflects all objects around except people."
"What a nonsense?" said the thick-pocketed man suddenly and added "But frankly speaking, I quite like it. I'll take it," he said with the energy of a businessman.
"I'm sorry. We sold it yesterday."
"I'll pay twice the price of it," he said angrily.
"The person who bought it doesn't like jokes at all. We are just waiting for his driver to take it away."
"I'll pay three times as much. Tell me the price. And who is this secret buyer after all?"
"We keep all the information confidential," said Sabir and significantly looked upward trying to accentuate the extraordinary importance of the uncalled person.
"All right," snarled the man, looking around in a rage.
The next day a sudden influx of unexpected mass media representatives occupied the shop, cheekily rummaging about the mysterious mirror. Announcing that the mirror had already been sold, the shop owner managed to make the noisy guests leave.

Having waited until the new wave of rumors about some new and unknown mirror-owner reached its peak, Sabir decided to look for the woman who had caused the turmoil. He then skillfully wrapped the mirror in a large piece of fabric, drove the car towards his house and placed it in his small warehouse in the courtyard. Afterwards, armed with patience - the meaning of his name - and the lady's address, he made his way.

At the mentioned address, a gloomy skyscraper was hastily being built in the place of the old houses which used to have effulgent courtyards for sincere and amicable neighbor - relations.

Even before it had been finished, the skyscraper looked like a headstone from a graveyard. And the people who used to live at this address and the very lady, all of sudden, seemed to Sabir to have been buried under this building. Depressed by his thoughts, he ignited the car and wanted to set out, when a boy in rags ran to him stretching out his hand. Squeamishly turning around, he did set out. In an instance an unexpected brain wave made him pull over. Sabir beckoned the boy, reached out to him with some change, and immediately drove back home.

He rushed into the warehouse, uncovered the mirror and stood in front it. His heart was thumping. Sabir wouldn't see himself again. "How could the alms I gave to the boy be powerless? Haven't I done anything in my life to see at least a tiny bit of my reflection in the mirror? Now wait," he stopped the flow of his thoughts "What caused you to have decided that doing good would make you see your own reflection? Of course, everything is correct," he answered himself.
"I came to this decision as I was pondering over every reflected object in particular, and the answer was that each of them serves a man. How could I turn out to be that far from it? And what if I am out of my mind at this age?" he waved indifferently. "I wish I knew the mystery of the mirror?" Sabir sighed deeply, put the mirror back and covered it and left the warehouse with his head grown ponderous.

Having locked the door he heavily sat down in the old arm-chair in the courtyard, leaned back his head and turned his eyes toward the blue height with cotton-like white cloud wreaths sailing evenly like ships. His head, as if it was swollen with lead-like heavy thoughts, was very painful. But a suddenly appeared wind freshened up his breath by its blowing, enwrapped his tilted head with vivifying air and removed its ponderousness.

That was the moment when he heard the call from the minaret of a mosque to say the afternoon prayers very clearly. "It's too close and very loud," he thought to himself. "Can it be a sign from above? And what if I really follow this way? And what if I show the mirror to all mullahs? Ha-ha! I think I can guess what will be; the majority of them will only see the reflection of carelessly fiddled rosaries instead of their own."

However, Sabir could not even have thought of unveiling the mystery of the mirror in two years' time, during which he would do his best to master the Word of God with his secular notions and understandings. That moment was to happen on his elder son's birthday.
Every year on Aslan's birthday the autumn rain seemed to tap dance an encore in all the city streets. Sneaking up towards the town, the black clouds let people know that that day would not be any different from the previous traditionally raining ones. Sabir had to finish his working day earlier to start a devastating search for a present for his son among worthlessly expensive goods filling the city shops. When he was closing his shop, bleak clouds had already moved closer to the city catching hold of its streets by their wet fingers.

The rain started drumming on the house and all transport roofs when Sabir was stuck in a traffic jam. In spite of the rain's drumming noise along with motor sounds and the malediction of impatient drivers, Sabir suddenly heard a pitiable squeal. Scanning around, he noticed a small crumpled box where the squeal was coming from. He then looked around but couldn't see a cat running towards her kittens. Hardly had Sabir thought to himself with a gentle smile on his face
"Keep your patience, babies. Your mom is coming", when a sudden beeping from behind made him flinch.
And when the string of cars was just about to move forward, a car of foreign make rushed forward like a bullet and began beeping and snaking hysterically. The harrowing yell of a cat muffled up the screech of the brake at once.
The yell made Sabir feel as if his heart had been shot through. When he slowly drove his car forward, he could see the reflection of a rollicking driver in the rear-view mirror. He had just calmed down and raised up his hands offering up a prayer.
Sabir continued driving his car thinking of what had happened and did not notice how long it had taken him to return to the same place. The crumpled box contained a few kittens which were shivering with cold. He picked up the box and put it in the boot of the car, and grabbed the dustpan that he used to clean his car, to scrape off the cat's overdriven and crushed body from the asphalt. He dropped the body into a trash bin and said "Sleep well, mommy. I'll take care of them."

That evening, depressed by what he had been through, Sabir hastily returned home with the wet kittens instead of a present. He left the car in the garage, swiftly entered the warehouse and started to look for a box to lay the kittens. The wind, with its sudden bluster made the kittens curl up more tightly into pitiable black stains. There was a chilling draft inside the warehouse due to the door left wide open.

Sabir skillfully prepared a place in the corner of the warehouse and started to dry the kittens and laid them into a clean box. Afterwards, having failed to find anything to cover the kittens with, he undressed the mirror, tore the fabric into pieces and began to wrap them up separately. That was the moment when the wind banged the door so strongly and startled Sabir so he was just about to hurt one of the kitties that was basking in the warmth of Sabir's palms.

As he continued to place the kittens in the box, he noticed that the warehouse, in spite of the shut door, was still lit. Having carefully wrapped the last of the kitties, he turned around questioningly and grew torpid in amazement; he saw the reflection of his figure outlines in the mirror which lighted up everything around.

Sabir overcame his torpidity and stepped towards the mirror. As he did so, his luminous figure-outlines did the same in unison with his movements. Unexpectedly the tears of happiness that appeared in Sabir's eyes were also reflected in the mirror as tiny transparent drops. "Oh God!" he grabbed his head and squatted down, "How blind was I … Even now I can't imagine how much unselfishness and righteousness I need to scrape off all this dirt so that the soul would shine?! And what I have done could just be only the beginning."
There was only one question that worried Sabir that night. The next day he got the answer to it at his shop.

In the morning the mirror stood conspicuously at the antique shop in "Ichari Sheher". All that day long Sabir had a wide, understanding and kind smile on his face as he was watching people grew torpid with what they could see, or rather what they could not. Only he was able to see their horrible and repellent reflections in the mirror as shapeless black stains. As for people, they weren't able to see those yet".

Vugar Guliyev

Uppdaterad av: Bok & Bibliotek, 2011-06-09