Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

I stared at thenightof the city

coming as it did after he had survived a harsh and hazardous journey, but for the mullah himself, it was the calm after the storm. The man who carried the letter to the mullah’s hometown took a long, circuitousroute.Exhausted after this difficult trip, he reached his destination and found where Bahman Nasser lived. As if keen to be rid of a dangerous burden, he did not rest until he had delivered the message to Bahman, who was in the schoolyard memorising the satirical poems Jarir and al- Farazdaq had written about their feuds. 2 The man approached theweak, bespectacled Bahman 2 Jarir ibn Atiyah and al-Faraz- daq, two Arab poets from the seventh and eighth centuries, are known especially for their satirical poems – a dominant form at the time

quietly, handed him the envelope and urged him to read it carefully. Bahman, ignorant of what was in the sealed envelope, took it andput it inhis bagwithout a word. The handover was completed in a flash. It all happened so fast that later Ghazalnus was never sure whether the messenger had been real or imaginary, whether the letter had been delivered in reality or in a dream. Many years later, no matter how hard he tried to remember the face of the messenger, he couldn’t recall a thing. Bahman had always known that one day he would receive a letter from somewhere far away that would completely change his life. From early youth, he had dreamed every night of a message from afar that would shake up his world. Mullah Hajar’s

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