Missing Soluch (51 page)

“Okay. What is it? Tell us!”

“Let’s cut the animal into pieces and bring them up one at a time!”

“That’s a great idea, Khodadad. You always know what to do, old shepherd!”

“Let’s get to work! Who thinks they’re up to it?”

The shepherd and the well-digger volunteered.

“Bring the well wheel! Sharpen your dagger, Khodadad!”

“Who’s going to explain this to the Sardar!”

“I’ll do it!”

“We’ll all do it!”

“All that’s left for him is the price of its hide!”

They brought the well wheel to lower down the men. Khodadad the shepherd and Mohammad Kazem the well digger took off their boots. Khodadad thrust his dagger into his waistband and went toward Salar Abdullah and the Kadkhoda.

“I’m taking my life in my own hands by going to the bottom of this well! I’m expecting to be paid. One hundred
tomans
!”

It was no longer necessary to have everyone there at once. Those who had a role to play and those who had a share in the waters of the canals stayed. The others began wandering back to Zaminej.

But no, they failed to pull the camel from the well whole. Ali Genav went to collect the grazing camels for his cousin the Sardar. Mergan was also worried by the thought that the camels would be lost.

“It’s a shame, those camels! They shouldn’t be lost in this way!”

* * *

The moon had risen by the time Mergan returned home.

Only Abbas was still awake. He was sitting and looking up into the night. The others, Molla Aman and Abrau, each had put something under his head and fallen asleep.

Mergan was exhausted, so she should have gone to sleep as well. But how could sleep come to Mergan’s worried eyes? Without sitting down, she began to pack whatever possessions she had. Possessions … one might just say a few shirts and a pair of leggings and a shroud.

Those people who have roots in the old ways generally accept that at the first opportunity, whenever there’s enough to feed oneself for a bit, one should then think of obtaining a death shroud. A couple of lengths of cloth; it’s not expensive to procure one. And once in her life, Mergan had found herself
with such an opportunity. A shroud, the only piece of clothing that a person will wear only once. She packed the shroud separately in a trunk, setting it aside. She also wrapped some bread, sugar, and tea in a separate package. She collected some bits and pieces to leave for Abbas and put the trunk with the shroud on top of them. Then she went over to the bag of flour; there was less than one
man
of flour left. She also put that beside the bits and pieces for Abbas. Only one thing remained, one task she still had to do. She looked at her brother and her son. They were both asleep. She tiptoed outside. Abbas was still awake, and the light of his cigarette shone in the darkness. Ignoring him, she went into the alley.

In the late-night alleys of Zaminej, it’s impossible to even see a bat flying. The darkness can be deep, the silence profound. But the uneven ground was familiar to Mergan’s bare feet. Walking from alley to alley, from hovel to hovel, she quickly reached the outskirts of the village. The fields and the night filled her lungs, both immense and yet compressed. She paused. Not from fear, but from doubt. She turned and walked back toward the village and went straight to Sanam’s house. The door was shut and everyone was asleep. She knocked on the door. Morad, sleepy and confused, opened the door.

“Eh? What’s happened, Auntie Mergan?”

“Bring your shovel and bag and come with me. I’ll explain.”

He took his shovel and bag from the edge of the wall and latched the door behind himself quietly. The two were in the alley together. Mergan walked in silence, and Morad couldn’t bring himself to ask about what they were doing. He walked behind her quietly as she traversed the various winding alleys
to the outskirts of the village. She stopped there and turned to face Morad, who stood beside her. She asked, “You’re still coming along with us?”

“I told you myself! I’m coming. Why would you think otherwise? I’m not meant to stay here. So what if I leave a month earlier than I’d planned? I was going to go in one direction; now I’m going in another! What difference does it make?”

“Good, okay … Now listen up, then! I’ve buried something out here somewhere, and I have to dig it out. Just follow me!”

Mergan walked ahead.

“I would trust Abrau as well, but I’d be afraid if someone else caught wind of it. But I feel I can rely on you. I think of you as one of my own sons. Come this way!”

Morad walked through the empty field behind Mergan. He asked, “How are you going to find anything in this darkness?”

“I’ll find it. I’ll find it. Just come! I just hid my possessions from these thieves. But I’ll find it. Come this way.”

Mergan suddenly turned around.

“No one noticed us, did they?”

Morad said, “At this time of night, everyone’s asleep dreaming of kings and princes. Who has the heart to go out walking around in the darkness?!”

Mergan froze in her place.

“This is it! It must be right here! Start digging here. I’m sure it must be here.”

Morad brought the shovel down from his shoulder and busied himself with digging the dirt. Mergan knelt on the ground and dug with her hands as well. But it was in vain. Mergan had chosen the wrong spot.

Morad asked, “Are you certain this is the right place?”

“I’m sure; I’m certain. I did the calculations.”

“Let’s take a minute so you can remember. What was the marker of the spot?”

“A rock! A large rock. I’m sure, I remember. It was a large rock!”

“But there was no rock here!”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m losing my mind!”

Mergan sat up and grasped at her knees with her hands, like a mother wolf who’s gone to give birth in the desert night.

What if she couldn’t find what she’d buried?

She rose and took Morad’s hands in her own and said plaintively, “Morad my dear, you have to find it! Find it for me … My heart will break if you don’t! Morad dear, please!”

“Yes, okay. But first, calm down. Just sit here. Tell me, how did you measure where it’s supposed to be?”

“It’s a straight shot from the wall of the Sardar’s home. I took a thousand and nine steps from the edge of his wall to the big rock. I dug a hole next to it, and when I was done I pulled the rock over it to cover it.”

“Fine, just stay here and don’t move. I’ll go back over to the Sardar’s wall and will count the steps. You won’t be afraid here, will you?”

“No! Go on. Just please find it. Those few bits of copper were going to pay for our travel costs. I only have you to help me!”

Morad went back and Mergan watched as he faded into the darkness. Then she was all alone, alone with the night.

Who could have dug up the earth and taken Mergan’s things? Other than Hajer, who knew about what she had done?
No one. But could her innocent daughter have come and dug them out from where they’d been buried? Could Ali Genav have made her do it? That’s all she needed! But Mergan didn’t believe it. No, Hajer couldn’t have done it.

Or could she have? No. She couldn’t imagine it.

“I think I found it, Auntie Mergan! I found it! Come here!”

“Where are you, my son! Where are you?”

“Here. Can’t you follow my voice?”

“I hear your voice but I can’t see you. I can’t see!”

“Just follow my voice. This way!”

“Oh God! I’m so lost! Help me, God!”

“Come this way. Why are you going in the wrong direction?”

“Which way?”

“Stop! You can’t seem to get your bearings. I’ll just dig them up and bring them to you.”

“Should I just stand here?”

“Stay where you are!”

Mergan and the boy were in the night fields, apart from one another. Mergan was standing in her place like a bush or a tree, shaking. She was excited, worried, frightened. The sound of digging stopped and the field was again filled with silence. Mergan held her breath.

Had Morad taken what she’d buried and left?

God damn you. Why are you so suspicious?

Mergan bit at her lip with her teeth. Morad emerged from the darkness. He planted the shovel in the earth and took his bag from his shoulder. Mergan peered into the bag and in the night’s darkness began to feel the copper plates with her fingers. They were all there! Her copper! She calmed down, then
rose with a prayer, “May your youth be blessed, my boy! May my dust give you life. Let’s go. You want me to carry the bag?”

“No, you can carry the shovel.”

When they reached the middle of the village, Morad asked, “Shall we take them to your home?”

“No, I’d rather you kept them safely. I’ll sell them in the morning when we reach the town.”

“Should I come to your door tomorrow morning?”

“No. Stand by the stream just outside the village. On the path to town. We’ll find each other there, before the morning prayers are called.”

The mother and the boy separated. Morad went toward his house and Mergan toward her own. Mergan entered the yard quietly and went toward the door of the house. She hoped that everyone was asleep, but stopped upon hearing Abbas’ burnt-out voice.

“Good evening!”

Mergan turned to the boy, trying to get herself out of the predicament she found herself in.

“You’re still up?”

Abbas said, “So where’s your loot?”

“What loot?”

“The copper!”

“What are you talking about? What copper?”

Abbas said, “I’m still your son. It would be nice if you were to have left me one of the jugs to make buttermilk in during the hot days of summer!”

Mergan didn’t tarry any longer. She walked toward the room, saying, “I hope dust fills your envious eyes, my child!”

For some reason, Abbas didn’t bother to continue the argument. He lay back in his place, set his head back, and looked up at the stars. The night was like any other night.

That night, what was left of it, Mergan didn’t sleep. She lay there with no feeling, but she didn’t fall asleep. Instead, something—a kind of dream—surrounded her. Wordless images ran across her mind, caught against one another, broke apart one another, appearing and disappearing. The images would fade away, only to attack her once again. Her physical exhaustion and her mind’s confusion were in a battle with each other, and from this battle nightmares were emerging. The images were continually reborn, renewed at every moment. They came together, then tore apart, ghosts that would become entwined and then would be pulled apart. Images that had no substance or language. Some of them were entirely unknown to Mergan. Images that she had never experienced before, never seen before. Some were fantastic. The outlines of strange faces. What sorts of creatures were these, then? What connection, what relation did they have with each other? Where did they come from and where were they going to? Mergan’s mind was an endless desert, an endless sky. With no beginning or end, with unknown shooting stars, with flames in motion, with bats and night birds in flight. What were these images that were presenting themselves to Mergan? Had her mind been plundered? Why did these thoughts run riot in her mind? Why were their beginnings and ends unclear? Whose face was this that was visible in the darkness of a well, that was transforming itself from moment to moment? Whose visage was this? Why was it expanding, filling the entire darkness of the well, and then giving light to thousands of other images which would collide
and be shattered, like thousands of eyes? Then they’d grow smaller and smaller, collapsing into dots. Each dot would then become a star.

Who was this man who was standing in the threshold?

Who was this woman whose hair was down?

Who was this man, standing in the threshold, who was speaking and speaking, but whose voice could not be heard?

Who was this woman with her hair down who was screaming and screaming, but whose voice could not be heard?

How wrinkled were the breasts of this woman! Look at her eyes. Her eyes! In the depths of her eyes, were those children whose heads were the heads of humans and whose bodies were the bodies of lambs?

Why can the man’s voice not be heard?

How wide are the eyes of this woman!

How is it that the heart of the sky is punctured from time to time? How do the walls come together from time to time? Lamentations ring out! Then the sounds of drums and cymbals! Is a wedding made into a funeral, then? The canals. They’re opened; perhaps they’ve been opened. The sound of a horse neighing! It’s a stallion dashing across the desert! A black snake has planted its tail in the earth and is standing straight under the glare of the sun. A dry tongue has fallen to one side within a mouth opened wide. Look how the sun spreads its chest out across the earth!

“God, dear God! Why can I not calm down? Do I have a fever? What have I lost …? Rise! Get up! Morning is breaking. Wake up!”

Mergan rose. Her brother was also up. And now Abrau, by Molla Aman’s feet, also rose. Mergan took the small trunk from
beside the wall and carried it outside. Molla Aman and Abrau also folded up their sheets and came outside. Abbas was half sitting up in his usual place. Mergan went to the oven. Abbas looked at his mother with tired, sleepless eyes. She said to him, “Here, the house is yours! Now take your things and go inside!”

Abbas was silent. Abrau was wrapping up the blanket he was taking with himself. Molla Aman splashed water onto his face. Abbas came down from the roof of the oven. His mother approached him, grasped his head onto her chest, and whispered into his ear.

“Don’t worry, you won’t starve, my boy! You’ll be okay! I’ll send you money, and until then others will look after you. I’ve always done well to others here. I’ve been a mother to everyone. They won’t let my boy suffer. I trust them like my own eyes. May you live a life of perfection, my son!”

She grasped Abbas’ dry, aged head and pressed it to her chest as if gripped by a kind of madness. Then she suddenly let him go, as if she didn’t want the waves in her heart to overflow. She couldn’t let them. So she let him go.

Abrau, himself now ready to go, had wrapped the straps for his satchel around his shoulders and was carrying his blanket on his back. Mergan looked at her boys. The brothers were drawn together. Abrau, with a load tied to his back, began moving toward Abbas calmly and—for some reason—with a hint of shame. Abbas, with his head overrun by white hair that seemed almost to be scraping against the dark morning sky, had turned toward his brother as well. The brothers paused a moment as they grew nearer, but then Abrau extended a hand toward Abbas, who suddenly threw himself into his brother’s arms. His shoulders were overtaken by a wave of shaking and trembling.
A muffled sound that was akin to an injured dog’s yelp caught in his throat. Despite this, he began speaking with difficulty and in a broken voice.