The Patience Stone

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It is a vexing fact that women are the most beleaguered members of Afghan society. Long before the arrival of the Taliban, Afghan women struggled for basic rights. Outside of a few urban pockets, the ironclad rule of patriarchal, tribal law has long denied women their right to work, education, adequate health care, and personal independence-all of this made infinitely worse by three decades of war, displacement, and anarchy. Though there have been some improvements in recent years, far too many women continue to languish under the unquestioned, absolute domination of tribal customs that deprive them of meaningful participation in societal life. For far too long, Afghan women have been faceless and voiceless.

Until now. With The Patience Stone, Atiq Rahimi gives face and voice to one unforgettable woman-and, one could argue, offers her as a proxy for the grievances of millions.

The plot could not be simpler. The entire story unfolds in one room, where an unnamed woman nurses her badly injured husband, who lies motionless, wordless, and helpless. As warring factions plunder and pillage on the streets, the woman feeds her husband through a tube. She lubricates his eyes and changes him. And she speaks to him. Tentatively at first, until gradually, the dam ruptures, letting loose a flood of startling confessions. With increasing boldness, the woman reveals how she has resented her husband, her disappointments in him, her fiercely guarded secrets, her desires and hopes, the pains and sorrows she has suffered at his hands. As her husband lies before her like a stone-indeed like the legendary titular stone, which absorbs the anguish of all who confess to it-the woman suddenly finds herself free from all restraint and her monologues reach a fevered pitch.

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