Missing Soluch

by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

  Ghodrat said, “Just toss them. I’m putting in an extra two qerans now!”

  Morad tossed the pieces up.

  “It’s so dark in here!”

  It was Ali Genav. He swung the door open and entered the stable.

  “Close the door!”

  “Close it!”

  “Shut the door!”

  Ali Genav blinked, then shut the door. The game had picked up again. Ali Genav slowly pulled himself to the wall and stood watching over the game. Morad was still dealing, and he was dealing winning sets to himself, one after another. Jalil was upset. He had begun to lose. His fist was getting more and more empty. From time to time, he wiped his nose with his sleeve, and he kept his eyes on the pieces as they were thrown and as they fell. The coins, ranging from the small ten shahi to the valuable five qerani, were circulating around the gambling circle, going from hand to hand. Their palms were sweating. Eventually all the boys, including Jalil, had arranged all their coins in neat piles beside themselves. Each had constructed a little tower of coins—from large to small in value—in front of himself. The boys were caught up in the game. The game was moving along quickly; time passed without their noticing. Now, no one was anteing small change, like ten-shahis or one-qeran coins. Even Jalil wasn’t anteing less than two qerans against the others. The pieces would go up in the air and fall on the ground and eight or nine qerans would change hands. Everyone was focused on playing the game. Their lips were dry, their eyes staring, their bodies tense. Even Ali Genav, the most accomplished gambler there, had stopped the knitting he had brought with himself and was fixated on the game. No one made a sound.

  “Where is that son of a bitch?”

  Kadkhoda Norouz’s angry voice echoed in the yard, followed by the sound of his feet stomping across the snow.

  “Eh? Where is your pathetic excuse for a brother, girl?”

  The game stopped. Abbas knew the Kadkhoda was looking for him. He froze in his place. Everyone froze. Only Ali Genav was able to do something; he picked up his knitting and busied himself with it. He somehow also managed to reposition himself back on the edge of the trough, to make it seem as if he had nothing to do with the disgrace going on in the center of the stable. Nonetheless, Ali Genav immediately wished he’d never come.

  The door of the stable flew open with a body blow by the Kadkhoda. He filled the doorway with his worn camel-hair cloak, a scarf on his head, and leather boots on his feet. He glared at the boys. Abbas, like a sparrow in the sights of a hawk, braced himself with his back still to the door. Others, standing or half-standing, froze in their places and lowered their heads. The money was still on the ground, left in individual piles. The bajal pieces were scattered on the dirt where they’d fallen: a horse and three others. Everyone was frozen in place. In the dim light of the dusk, the Kadkhoda quickly recognized Abbas. He strode toward him and laid a boot kick into his back.

  “You son of a dog! Now you’ve gone to lead my son astray as well? You’re running a gambling circle here?”

  Abbas was thrown face down into the playing circle, and the first idea that occurred to him, while absorbing the Kadkhoda’s curses and kicks, was to grab one of the piles of coins. He reached out to the small tower of Jalil’s coins, grasping them in his hand along with a fistful of dirt and mud. The Kadkhoda took Abbas by the collar, lifting him up to turn his face toward him. The fear that the Kadkhoda would take the money away from him terrified Abbas, and so before he had been turned to face him eye-to-eye, he stuffed the coins—along with the dirt, mud, and old straw he’d grabbed from the ground—into his mouth, filling his cheeks as if he they were filled by two walnuts. The Kadkhoda planted a slap across Abbas’ face, and a few coins flew out from between his lips and teeth. Before the second slap could connect with his face, Abbas swallowed, and while the Kadkhoda watched him, his eyes bulged as if they would pop out of their sockets. The veins on his neck were visible, and the skin on his face reddened.

  The Kadkhoda shouted, “Go bring some water! The fool’s going choke himself!”

  He let Abbas go and turned to find his son Hamdullah. He found him in the corner on the trough. He dragged him down and jerked him left and right. Ali Genav saw an opportunity to sneak out. But the Kadkhoda turned toward him.

  “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, man? Your beard’s getting white, your mother and wife are dying, and you’ve come here to gamble with a few boys who don’t have hair on their lips yet! Ach!”

  Meanwhile, Hamdullah managed to escape his father’s grip and ran out into the alley, crying. Ghodrat, who until then had been standing on the edge of the action, also dashed out. Only Morad and Jalil remained. Morad had left to bring a bowl of water, and now was busy pouring water down Abbas’ throat. It was as if Jalil hadn’t realized that he had a chance to escape. The Kadkhoda was still busy talking to Ali Genav. So Jalil crept out the door and tried to forget about his coins that he had lost inside.

  Abbas was still swallowing the coins, with the help of the water that Morad was pouring down his throat. Although Morad kept telling him to spit them out, he didn’t listen to him. With his red face and bulging eyes and veins, he was swallowing the coins one by one. After the last one had gone down, he took a deep breath and leaned his shoulder against the wall. Because of the effort, sweat was pouring from his ears, his back, and under his arms. He felt like dying. He hoped that the Kadkhoda would have nothing more to do with him, but the Kadkhoda returned and stood above him.

  Abbas cried out painfully, “Kadkhoda, I was wrong!”

  The Kadkhoda then swung the door open and went outside. Ali Genav stood over Abbas for a moment, then stooped and walked out the doorway. Now that the Kadkhoda had left, Hajer came into the stable to see what had happened to her brother. Ali Genav looked her over as if she were goods he was about to buy, and then asked, “Your mother’s not returned yet?”

  Hajer said no, then she entered the stable. Ali Genav was about to enter the alley when he changed his mind and entered the house. He sat by the doorway in such a way as to catch the last of the sunlight for the shawl he was knitting, and he busied himself with it. Hajer returned from the stable and began to light the lamp.

  Ali Genav asked, “No news from my house?”

  Hajer replied, “No. It was still light when I went there and came back. My mother was there then.”

  Morad brought Abbas into the room and leaned him against the wall. Then he sat beside him and asked Hajer, “Don’t you want to light your stove?”

  Before Hajer was able to reply, Abbas said, “The lock! Get the lock from the cabinet and give it to me.”

  Hajer brought the lock. Abbas rose from his place with difficulty and as he was leaving told Hajer, “Go tell Mama to come and make me her herbal tea! The kind for your stomach! Get going! Ow …”

  He reached the stable door, while bending over in pain. He put the lock on the door and returned the same way. He mumbled painfully through his teeth, “All I have is mixed in the dirt and mud in the stable. How am I supposed to find it all? That sneak Abrau, I don’t trust him!”

  Abbas, wrapped in his own pain and worries, didn’t notice Abrau returning. He crept into a corner bent over, and he hid the key to the lock inside the hem of his pants.

  “Castor oil! Strained oil! Girl, go get our mother!”

  He said this and then collapsed against the wall beside the stove.

  Wearing Ali Genav’s long cloak and his big boots, Abrau looked like a dwarf. He had wrapped something around his head and his face. His face was purple and his lips were cracked. The cold had broken his weak body down. In the doorway, his body collapsed like an old wall crumbling, and he fell to his knees. Ali Genav slowly rose up, grabbed Abrau under his arms, and pulled him to the side of the room. Hajer didn’t wait a moment longer and ran out to get Mergan. Ali Genav set aside his shawl and began massaging Abrau’s frozen hand in between his own thick, dark hands. Abrau’s eyes were open, but he couldn’t speak. Ali Genav told Morad to light the
stove. Morad left to bring back a stack of cottonwood from the oven outside. As he continued to massage Abrau’s heart and neck, Ali Genav asked, “So what happened? Did you bring him? The bonesetter?”

  Abrau still couldn’t speak. He raised his head up. Ali Genav began to massage Abrau’s ears with his hands.

  “What happened? What did he say?”

  Abrau finally replied, in broken speech, “Cold … too cold … didn’t come!”

  Abbas brayed from across the room, “Didn’t I tell you to send me? I told you not to trust him with that job! If I’d have gone, he’d be here. I would have brought him. Even if he was sleeping with his wife, I’d have dragged him out and brought him. Castor oil! I need some castor oil … You should have had someone capable do it!”

  Ali Genav removed his cloak from Abrau’s body and loosened the laces on the boots, taking the boy’s feet out of them. He rose and was about to leave when Mergan entered the door with Hajer behind her. Just then Morad stepped in the room with his arms full of cottonwood. Ali Genav looked at Mergan as if he had a question he didn’t dare ask her. Mergan’s eyes had a shadow across them. What could he do? Finally he opened his mouth.

  “Yes? Well?”

  Mergan said, “She passed … God have mercy on her.”

  “Who? Which one?”

  “Your mother. Mother Genav!”

  Ali Genav said with disbelief, “Now what the hell am I supposed to do? Night! It’s already night!”

  He said it quietly, not directing it at anyone. It just slipped out. He put his cloak under one arm and his boots in one hand and walked heavily out the door.

  Abrau pointed to Ali Genav as he left, and said to his mother, “My pay! My pay!”

  Mergan sat between her sons. Abbas said, “Mama, dear! I need some castor oil! I’m dying. My stomach, my insides. My insides hurt so much! Give me castor oil. My insides are full of coins! Mama!”

  2.

  Worried and anxious, in the mists of the morning, Abrau slid out from where he was. His bones had warmed a bit, and he felt as if he could walk. Quietly, he dressed and tiptoed out of the house. Sounds were still coming from behind the closed door of the stables. Abrau crept forward and listened. These were the last emanations from Abbas’ troubled stomach—he had locked himself in the stables last night and now, at the break of morning, wrapped up in his own pain and his own concerns, Abbas had locked off the stable. He had closed the door and would not let anyone else inside. The last light from the lantern flickered in the darkness of the stable. Abrau thought that Abbas must finally have found some relief in there. But Abrau wasn’t really concerned about his brother. He tied up the edges of his overcoat, drew the string around his waist into a knot, and then exited through the gap in the wall.

  The alley was still dark. However, the snow’s light was beginning to break through the darkness. The snow was now covered by a sheet of ice. It had become dry and impermeable. The coldness was spreading, that cold that follows every snow. As the saying goes, “Worry not for the day of snow; worry for the day after!” But Abrau was relieved that on the day after the snow, meaning on this day, he had no major chores to see to. He had already made his contribution with his work on the day before. Even on the short distance he had to go, the coldness burned him. His eyelids couldn’t fight the harsh dawn wind, which rose off of the snow and cut through him. His hollow eyelids, which were pockmarked from childhood chicken pox, flickered open and shut. They couldn’t stop blinking. His nose began to run. His face, bitten by the cold, began to look withdrawn and bruised. Abrau felt frostbite beginning to numb his chin and forehead while tears gathered at the edges of his eyes. He hid half of his face in the collar of his overcoat as he passed before the door of the mosque. The door was half open. Abrau peeked inside. A casket covered by an embroidered sheet was set onto the winter cover of the pool in the courtyard, which was frozen stuck. One of the stray bitches from Zaminej’s wild packs had decamped beside the casket. Abrau guessed that Mother Genav was still lying inside the casket, since people aren’t buried at nighttime. So, there was no time to waste. He continued on his way, entering the alley leading to the town’s public pool. The pool was a solid square of ice. All around the pool, piles of snow were heaped on top of each other. The bath’s boiler room was just a ways farther on, at the edge of one wall of the town baths, next to the drain to the pool. Abrau circled the pool and headed step by step down an embankment along a narrow path. The path twisted and turned like a snake’s tail, leading to the low and broken doorway into the boiler room.

  Abrau opened the door. Ali Genav was sitting on a slab of rock beside the water heater stoking the heart of the fire with a metal poker, occasionally tossing a handful or two of kindling into the fireplace. He has sensed Abrau’s entrance, but Ali Genav was calmer and more deliberate than to be drawn out of his own thoughts by a sudden movement in his surroundings. So, he remained focused on his work, as if no one else were there. Abrau shut the door behind himself, approached Ali Genav, and sat quietly in the comfortable warmth of the fire. How the warmth entered his heart! Without looking at him, Ali Genav handed the poker to Abrau and extracted a crumpled packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt. He took a cigarette out with his mouth, holding onto the end of it with his teeth. Then he took a burning branch from the fire, lit up, and exhaled a cloud of smoke from his nostrils. With a voice full of self-pity, he said, “I’ve not slept a wink since last night! The moaning and groaning of this damn woman stopped me from even shutting my eyes, damn her and her father and ancestors! She was swearing and moaning until the break of dawn. It’s as if she thinks she’s owed something. Infernal woman! She makes the world a salt-desert, bringing nothing good to it. If she’d die, I’d be free of her. Why should someone waste his wheat and bread on a woman who has nothing to offer and who brings no blessings! A female donkey would at least bear offspring once in a while, but this bitch won’t even bear a thistle bush so that one can at least feel the satisfaction of having left something behind! May her father rot in hell. What is supposed to give me hope in life? When I die, what will carry my name, except for a slab of stone?! When I die, it’ll be as if I never lived. So like some fool I came and went. So what? So I beat her once the first time she was pregnant and she lost the kid! Now what am I supposed to do with her? I lost my head and I beat her. Now what? She complained so much and harassed my father and mother so much that I couldn’t have a say in the house. And then this happened to my poor mother. I swear on this fire before me, she was the cause of all these problems. Otherwise, I would never have thrown my own mother out of my house to go and live in a ruins and to meet this kind of an end. Didn’t I suckle from my mother’s breast? How will she ever forgive me for what I’ve done? How? After all, she’s gone now!”

  Abrau had come to raise the issue of his pay for his previous day’s work. His worries now came from the fact that, after having awoken at dawn to come down to the water-boiler room, Ali Genav was clearly so self-involved that Abrau didn’t have the heart to ask him for anything, much less for his money.

  “And now my donkey has come down sick, too! The hairs on his body are all on end, and the poor thing is shaking like a leaf. What did you do to him yesterday?”

  “A donkey that’s put to work doesn’t become sick, does it?! You must have let it get cold last night!”

  Ali Genav replied, “No! He must have been sweating, and you must have had him stand somewhere for a while in the wind, and he caught a cold.”

  Abrau took a handful of kindling and pushed it into the fireplace with the poker. “We went straight there and came right back. And I’ve ended up sicker than your donkey!”

  Ali Genav smoked the last bit of his cigarette and sighed, “I don’t know what to do with this woman! She’s become the greatest burden of my life.”

  Abrau carefully said, “Ali …”

  Ali Genav looked at him. The pupils of his eyes shone in the light from the fire.

  Abrau asked, “Do
men who leave ever return?”

  Ali Genav stared at the smoke rising from the fire, took the poker from Abrau, and said, “What do you know about the ways of the world? He might eventually come back. Some do. Your father could return one day.”

  Abrau said, “And do they all leave in this way?”

  Ali said, “No, each one leaves in his own way.”

  Abrau said, “I just wish I knew where he’d gone. Why didn’t he tell us where he was going?”

  Ali said, “Do you think he knew where he was going himself? Some have left and have never been heard from again; while others send word after some ten or fifteen years. Morad Nim Mani left and we didn’t hear from him for eighteen years, when we found out that he was in Bejnurd working as a prayer scribe. But once Muhammad Balachai left, it was as if he’d never existed! And we heard the news of the death of another fellow just recently—his children went up toward Sangsar to take his sheep, and they ended up staying out there. And then there’s Ghuli, the father of our own Safdar … He left like a real bastard. He had three camels and worked as a porter on the road to Ghuchan. Out there, he did business among the Kurds, and the women there attracted his attention. Some say he’d fallen in love. He used to play the dohul drum and he was a good dancer. Anytime the Kurds had a wedding, he’d show up. Eventually, he sold his camels and wasted away what little he had. Then one day he came back to Zaminej with his hands empty, begging. I remember it well. I had just shaved for the first time and I was going with some others to play kolah qidj when I saw that Ghuli Khan had shown up. His camel’s saddle was on his back. Those days, if you were a camel owner, you could marry well. He had a fiancée here, Safdar’s mother, who was then still really just a girl. He went to his fiancée’s home and was acting the role of the husband-to-be. That night, he had his way with her. He planted the seed of our own Safdar that very night. Then next day, he sold the inheritance he had from his father—a copper cup and saucer set and some bits—to Karbalai Doshanbeh, the father of Salar Abdullah. He bought some rice with the money and made a rice dish and ate it with his fiancée. The next morning he left and no one would ever see him again. No one knows what hell he’s gone to! Some say he’s gone back to those same parts, around Darreh Gaz, that is, where the Kurds are. Some say Safdar knows about this. But any time talk of his father comes up, Safdar shakes his head and says, ‘He can go to hell!’ One time, I jokingly said to him, ‘Go find your father; they say he’s been seen up by Darreh Gaz.’ He replied, ‘I hope he goes even farther away, to Kalleh Khavajeh or farther!’ And you’ve heard the story about my own uncle, no?”