Mahmud Marhun – Embraced by the Grave

The nameless protagonist of Afghan author Mahmud Marhun's Embraced by the Grave begins the short story confused, convinced he must have fallen asleep. But no, this is not true – he quickly comes to realise that he is somewhere unknown and, when interrogated by an unfamiliar person, discovers he has committed a grave offense.

—You gathered an army on your own in order to defame Islam.
—Me? No, no way, I was engaged in jihad, I was a mujahid.

But it turns out that the protagonist was not, in fact, engaged in a jihad. He has killed Muslims, and instead of the martyrdom he desires there will be a hellish afterlife.

Marhun's story is very short (some 700 words), but it cuts right to the heart of the matter. The story concerns a man, likely quite young, who has fallen under the sway of an ideology he hasn't fully comprehended and, instead of committing a “good” killing he has committed a “bad” murder, his actions determined by the strategic imperatives of “the generals”, and not his own conscience.

The story is presented as a back-and-forth dialogue between the confused young killer and his interrogator. The conversation functions as a method for exposing the dangers of blindly following cant and highlights some of the many problems evident in a country where its young men are willing and eager to blow themselves up in order to kill people who have been identified, rightly or wrongly, as targets. The protagonist begins the story confused about his location but certain of his principles, convinced that he has done something tremendous for his religion: “I was in a village neighboring Duzhakh, and I had gathered some soldiers to fight for Islam, to safeguard my faith.”

We are to learn that these soldiers were not fighting for Islam, but instead:

...you went there and caused some innocent children, who had not yet learned how to distinguish a friend from an enemy, to be consumed by death.

Marhun's protagonist, confused, asks:

—Well, so what is this place now?
—Have you still not figured it out? This is a grave and you are dead.

Even after this, he refuses to believe – how can he be dead, for dead martyrs are treated better than this. This interrogation, this forced examination of deed and thought, this is not what was promised. It is only when presented with his Book of Deeds, which he can only take with his left hand (for his right has been removed), that he understands: he has become fallen, and is no martyr at all.

Marhun would know better than most (he was born in Kandahar and lives now in Kabul) that suicide bombings are a fact of life in some regions of the world, and that, far too often, the people blowing themselves up are young, idealistic, and blinded with incorrectly placed fervour and misaligned loyalties. This dead young man achieved none of his goals by blowing up a schoolroom of children, and yet it is what he has done. But if he had achieved his goal – what then? Innocent people would still be dead, but this time they would be Christians/Americans/invading forces (it is unclear who he wishes to kill, just that he does). What then? Nothing would have changed, nothing would have been made right. A young man would still be dead, and so would a great deal of other people.

Embraced by the Grave offers a platform for the dead terrorist to justify his actions and intellectually examine what he has done and what has been achieved. It is telling that Marhun makes the man confused throughout, yet convinced at the same time – until proven otherwise, he knows he has done something great for Islam. When he learns that this is not the case he despairs, and the confusion remains. It is sad that a would-be martyr such as Marhun's protagonist would only ever discover the futility and blind violence of his actions after they have occurred, which likely means they are never to learn what they have done and what it means. The dead martyr despairs of what he has done, but it is too late, for him and for the dead children.

Embraced by the Grave by Mahmud Marhun is a short story from Words Without Borders' May 2011 edition, Writing From Afghanistan issue. All of the work reviewed is freely available online.

See Also

Words Without Borders review series:
---January 2011: The Work Force
---October 2010: Beyond Borges: Argentina Now
---August 2010: Writing From Hungary

Index of short stories under review