Missing Soluch

by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

  Mergan said, “You need to give the Molla and Hajj Salem something each. You should probably also offer Ghodrat’s father something …”

  “How much for each?”

  “You know best.”

  Ali Genav put his hand in his jacket pocket and moved over alongside the village Molla. Mergan watched as he slid a bill into his hand, before approaching Hajj Salem, who took the money but also bargained to be able to visit the baths with his son. He kept up his prayers, saying, “May God have mercy on that poor woman. She was good and God-fearing. May light always shine on her grave. No one could match her in her desire for good. I saw her many times give half of her dinner bread to others less fortunate. May she be in heaven with Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet himself!”

  “God willing. God willing.”

  “From God’s enlightened view, no good deed will be hidden, Ali. Do you know that providing for the washing of this poor creature, my Moslem, is itself a deed that will be rewarded in the hereafter, my brother? He will pray for you. I’ll tell him to also pray for your deceased mother. The prayers of the innocent are always answered. This creature of mine is himself sinless, Ali dear!”

  Ali Genav replied, “Very well, tomorrow morning. Both of you come to the baths tomorrow.”

  They entered the village. The Molla approached Ali and said, “If there’s to be a mourning ceremony …”

  But Ali Genav didn’t listen. Hajj Salem stood on the incline beside the alley and raised his cane in salutation of Ali Genav, saying, “Until tomorrow morning, then! May you stay young and have a long and blessed life!”

  He waved his cane in the air and walked away. Moslem followed his father. The Molla also changed direction. Morad said goodbye and Ghodrat’s father looked at Ali Genav, who said, “You also come to the baths, and bring Ghodrat with you.”

  “Goodbye!”

  They left. Ali Genav walked shoulder to shoulder with Mergan.

  “What cheek! They expect a mourning ceremony? I’m supposed to give my daily bread to this and that person for what? So they can say a prayer? Better if they don’t! What sins had that poor old woman committed for us all to want to pray for her soul?”

  Mergan didn’t say much. She didn’t feel close to Ali Genav, even though he had now adopted an intimate tone with her. But Mergan herself didn’t sense any intimacy between them.

  “Now I need to take that woman to town, put her in a hospital. I’m fed up with her crying. I’ll find someone and get the papers. But this damn donkey’s chosen a bad time to get sick!”

  They reached their alley. Mergan turned to go toward her own home, but Ali Genav blocked her way, insisting that she come to his home first.

  “If nothing else, let me give you a piece of bread after all. My home is yours as well. Come, let’s go see how Raghiyeh is doing.”

  Raghiyeh was lying in the same place. Her eyes were shut and she was moaning softly. It seemed as if she’d fallen asleep just after dawn. Mergan sat by the door and Ali Genav brought a few pieces of bread, setting them on the edge of her chador.

  “Dry your mouth with these. If you want, take them to share with your children. Today, I’ll take Raghiyeh to the hospital, somehow.”

  Raghiyeh opened her eyes and, speaking in broken breaths between her dry lips, said, “No … No … I won’t go … to that place … I’ll die … I’ll die!”

  Ali Genav growled, “Damn you. The right place for a sick person is in the hospital. What do you mean, you’re dying?”

  “No! Leave me here. Let me die right here under my own roof.”

  Not listening to his wife any longer, Ali Genav filled the pockets of his cloak and jacket with dry bread, breaking some into small pieces and putting them in his mouth. He left the house and went directly to his donkey. The animal was still shaking and its muzzle was wet from its runny nostrils. He ran his hand across the patchy, dung-stained hide of the beast. He pulled off bits of manure that were clinging to the hairs on its hips and scratched its belly with his fingernails before saddling the animal and putting its bridle on. He suddenly remembered that he still needed to take the coffin and put it in its usual place in the corner of the mosque’s courtyard. But it was too late to take care of that. He had to focus on this task first. The stable door caught his eye; he took the door off its hinges and set it on the ground by the wall in the yard. He swallowed the bread he had been chewing, and he put another piece in his mouth before re-entering the house. He took his mother’s old mattress outside and laid it on the stable door. He stood over Raghiyeh and said, “If you have some old sheets, best wrap them around yourself!”

  Raghiyeh didn’t respond. Helped by Mergan, Ali Genav began wrapping his wife with sheets. They put a blanket around her body and he told Mergan to grab her under the arms. Raghiyeh was not heavy; she, too, was as light as a strand of hay. They took her outside and lay her on the detached stable door. Ali Genav ignored his wife as she moaned. He brought some cord out from the pantry room. He led the donkey out of the stable and into the alley. He went over to Raghiyeh and wrapped the cord around her and the door, and with Mergan’s help he placed her and the door onto the back of the donkey. Then they tied Raghiyeh and the door to the animal. Mergan brought out Ali’s cloak and held it in her hand. He ran back into the house and then returned a moment later. He handed the house key to Mergan, adjusted his wallet in his side pocket, took the cloak from Mergan’s hand, and said, “Tell Abrau to keep an eye on the water boiler. You also keep an eye on his work. If I end up staying in town tonight, you can light the water boiler and have Abrau keep an eye on it tomorrow. This evening, you and Hajer both go and use the baths. Also, tell Abrau that when Hajj Salem and his son come to use the baths tomorrow, don’t ask them to pay. I won’t ask anything more of you. If I don’t come back tonight, you can bring Hajer and sleep here. Did you take the bread?”

  “I took it.”

  “Good. Goodbye then. I’ll take her and somehow have her hospitalized!”

  Ali Genav prompted the donkey, and Mergan turned to go home.

  Abbas was sitting on the edge of a ditch by the house and was washing coins in a ceramic bowl. The bowl was full of water, and the coins had settled on the bottom, although Abbas was still fingering them. Mergan passed her son and entered the house. Hajer was napping by the oven. The fire in the oven had burned to ashes. Mergan sat by the oven and set a piece of bread on the ground. Abbas entered the room, still bent over by some residue of pain. His fist was full of coins, which he was counting. It seemed as if he had counted them several times already. When he reached the oven, his knees folded and he sat down. He took some bread and broke off a piece of it with his teeth.

  “I think two five-qeran pieces are still inside me!”

  BOOK 3

  1.

  Abbas had taken his father’s old sack, Hajer had her mother’s chador, and Abrau had a bag made of bits of rags sewn together.

  The two brothers walked shoulder-to-shoulder, and their sister followed behind them. They were heading to the fields. It was nearly the holiday of Nowruz—the first day of the New Year and the first day of spring—and the fields were turning green. The sun’s rays were growing warmer, warming people’s hearts everywhere. Feet were no longer stung by the coldness of the earth. Faces were no longer clouded over, at least not as much as they once had been. The sky was wide and open, no longer low and imposing. The days felt light, the fields and prairies seemed wider—all of which imprinted itself onto the hearts of Soluch’s children. Their hearts felt brighter. It was spring’s luminous return. People walked with less fear, although not fearlessly. Heads were raised higher, raised in the wind. Spring and youth! The drunken air of spring, raising heads once worn raw. Eyes no longer seemed drawn in, expectant, but were open, brighter, shining. The playful games of spring flickered in people’s eyes, just as gazelles frolicked in the spring-struck fields.

  Soluch’s children—if only for an interlude—no longer addressed each other with anger, insinua
tions, or insults. Even if not precisely generous in their kindness to each other, which perhaps was impossible to expect, they were at least no longer enemies. They no longer went about their chores wearily, begrudgingly. Motivated now by something other than compulsion, their steps were marked with a hint of enthusiasm. Their hearts were lit by something new: passing out of darkness. One could perceive this feeling budding forth in their every action. Winter’s ramparts were crumbling to dust beneath their feet.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the grass fields!”

  Abbas had answered Hajer.

  Abrau asked his sister, “Do you know how to boil bilqast?”

  “Why shouldn’t I know how to?”

  Abrau paid little attention to Hajer’s reply, distracted by a tiny lizard with ornate skin. He wanted to be careful so as not to crush it with his meandering steps, or to injure it with his scythe. He wanted to catch it alive. Around Zaminej, when children became bored and restless enough, they’d go in a group and chase a lizard. Once they caught it, they’d pinch its head so that it would open its mouth. Then they’d place a pinch of snuff on its tongue and let it go. The lizard would move in fits and starts, eventually becoming confused and staggering in circles around itself, losing its bearings. Finally, it would lie down and roll over. Its belly would expand. At this point, the most audacious of the children would take the sharpest stone at hand and pound it on the distended belly of the poor animal, freeing whatever contents had been inside. This diversion would then be over, save for a few children who stayed around to spit on the ground before leaving.

  Abrau backed away from the lizard.

  “Let it go to live its own life. Why bother it? It’s not in anyone’s way!”

  Abbas’ tone was kind and brotherly.

  “Want to throw stones?”

  Abbas bent over and took a hand-sized stone from the ground.

  “What target?”

  “Over there! Next to the stream. Throw it from right here.”

  “What’s the prize?”

  Abbas hesitated.

  “It’s … two bunches of dates!”

  “Whoever loses pays!”

  “Whoever loses pays.”

  “Who goes first?”

  “First … you.”

  Abrau told Hajer to stand by the edge of the stream to watch over where the stones landed. Hajer ran ahead.

  “Wherever a stone lands, mark it with a stick!”

  Hajer stood by the edge of the stream.

  “Go ahead!”

  Abrau said, “Why don’t you go first. From here.”

  “No. You go first.”

  Abrau stepped forward and stretched. He put his weight on his left foot and felt the stone in his right hand before launching it. As Hajer watched, the stone landed on the banks of the stream. Hajer marked the stone by pressing a stick into the earth beside it. It was Abbas’ turn now. A smooth stone from his hand, passing over Hajer’s head and landing in the earth on the far side of the stream. Abrau looked at his brother. Abbas smiled broadly, showing his thick teeth. They went up toward their sister—Hajer was looking through the overgrowth for some edible plants. She found something, a kind of barley leaf. She knelt and pulled a stalk from the moist earth. Clods still clung to the roots, as they always do. The leaves were covered with a layer of dust.

  Hajer took the roots in her thin fingers and shook the plant, to shake the dust from the leaves, until the stalk was clean. She was about to place the plant in her mouth when Abrau, like a baby goat, snatched the plant from Hajer’s hand and put it in his own mouth. With laughter in his eyes, he brought his bugle-shaped lips together and puffed out his cheeks. He ran away and Hajer ran after him. He ran laughing and, stepping onto a mouse hole, he stumbled. Hajer landed a few light blows on her brother’s shoulder—not really from anger, but simply to register her complaint. Abrau, doubled over in laughter, sat on his heels and began to cough. Half-chewed bits of the barley leaf—perhaps the roughest of all edible plants—had stuck in his windpipe. He coughed and coughed. His eyes filled with tears and all he saw was red. Hajer slapped her brother on the back and then began pounding his back with her fist. She’d learned this from Mergan. His coughing eventually stopped. Abrau lay on the ground, leaning on his elbow, laughter still in his eyes. Despite this, Hajer had to give voice to her complaint to him.

  “Shame, shame on you. May it be worse than dog meat!”

  Abbas called out with excitement.

  “Hey! Hey! Jigriz plants! A whole lot of them!”

  Hajer stood beside Abbas. Abrau gathered himself and ran to them. Next to the stream, in a small ditch, Abbas had found a cluster of jigriz plants. All three sat down. Abbas with a scythe, Abrau with a hoe, and Hajer with the broken handle of a spoon; all three scraped up and gathered bunches of jigriz—each bunch looking very much like a piece of goat’s liver. It goes without saying that their mouths were chewing as they worked and that their lips and mouths were stained with the color of grass. Abbas’ sack was half-full of the plant when he said, “Now we have to find bilqast as well. You can’t just have jigriz for dinner! Let’s split up and go in different directions.”

  “Let’s go!”

  They left their bags and satchels beside the stream and each went in a different direction.

  The field was thinly covered with greenery. The new overgrowth was here and there more thickly woven into a shrub. The color of the growth and the color of the earth washed into each other: date-brown and green. Here and there a shrub of bilqast; here and there some jigriz. Everywhere the fragrance of fresh rain on earth. Footprints leave marks on light earth. The earth was claylike. They focused their eyes, cutting down handfuls of thorny overgrowth, gathering it inside their shirt-tails. Occasionally they would look at each other with hidden glances. Looking, searching, moving more quickly. It was a secret competition. The competition was the natural essence of the work, an essence that occasionally became apparent and naked. Most often this competition manifests itself through animosity. But not this time; this time it was hidden. The two brothers and their sister, each wanted to have the bigger harvest of greens. At least, each one wanted to have no less than any of the others.

  As they began to regroup, they realized how far from each other they’d gone.

  A man was sitting next to their things on the edge of the stream handling a bundle of jigriz. As they came closer, they recognized him—it was Karbalai Doshanbeh, Salar Abdullah’s short, barrel-bodied father. Sitting where he was by the stream, he looked like a large clod of earth. Despite his being short, he was thick-boned and strong. He had a round face, a prominent forehead, a long white beard, and eyes that had not yet lost a hint of youthfulness. In both winter and summer, he wore a woolen scarf that had once been white around his old skullcap. As far back as anyone in Zaminej could recall, Karbalai Doshanbeh wore this same scarf and the same skullcap. Whether for funerals or weddings, in snow or shine. The edges of the scarf had begun to fray and the ancient pattern in its weave had taken on the hue of gray mud. On the old man’s face one could see tiny red capillaries—especially on his large round nose, which seemed like it was cracked with lines and shriveled in the sun. A white weave of chest hair burst from the neck of his dirty and collarless shirt, the edge of which looked like a dark rosary hung around his neck. Despite this, his face and hands were always well scrubbed, and he never missed a prayer.

  Waiting for Mergan’s children to arrive, Karbalai Doshanbeh took clods of earth in his hand and crushed them between his thick, stubby fingers. When they reached him, he was still looking at the ground, which was where he usually would be found to be looking. He generally spoke little and slowly, but to great effect. The sickle and the satchel were by his hand, and he held onto a string tied around the neck of his goat, which was feeding by the stream. Mergan’s children one by one greeted him, and then went to set down what they had gathered. Karbalai Doshanbeh looked up at them, and in response to their greetings said, “
So you’re gathering greens to eat?”

  “Yes, Karbalai.”

  Abbas and Abrau sat on the stream’s banks beside Karbalai Doshanbeh, and Hajer disappeared farther down by the water. Karbalai Doshanbeh asked about Mergan. Abbas responded, “She’s somehow getting by …”

  Karbalai Doshanbeh’s voice carried sympathy. “That poor woman; see how she’s been left without protection or direction? What news is there of your disgrace of a father?”

  Abrau looked down and began playing with the dirt. Abbas replied that they had no news from him yet. Karbalai Doshanbeh said, “You need to forget about him now. Whatever stories your mother’s spinning for people about Soluch sending her money … it’s not as if we live in the village of the blind! If there were news, we’d hear of it ourselves, no? Mergan’s playing the partridge—she hides her head under the snow and figures others can’t see her. She lies … She slaps her own face to make it seem red. What about your uncle, her brother? Molla Aman? Any news from him?”

  “It’s been a while; we’ve not heard from him either.”

  “Before all this, whenever he passed by these parts, he’d always come to see me! Now, he never comes by. Maybe he stays away and doesn’t show his face because he still needs to settle some debts he has to me? He used to work as a camel driver for me. You’re too young to remember this. But that was why I lent him some money. Those days he was in love … I didn’t know he’d not hold up his word! But now, I guess he doesn’t intend to pay. But he’ll eventually show up here one day. He can’t go and hide at the ends of the earth forever. He’ll have to come himself and repay his debt. But if you see him sometime, give him a message from me. Tell him that Karbalai Doshanbeh says, ‘I didn’t give you money to steal from me, and it’s not as if I don’t have the intention to reclaim it. It’s time for you to come and settle our accounts!’ But Mergan … Mergan’s different. Poor Mergan! She’s been burned. She was trapped by this son of a bitch Soluch, and he burned her. She never enjoyed her youth, and now it’s come to this. Tell her, from me, that if someday she needs any money or help, let me know. I won’t ask her for collateral, and I won’t charge much interest. Although … I’ll come by your house myself soon.”