“So what will I gain from all of this?”
“What will you gain? This is good for everyone. And why should you be only thinking about what you get from it?”
“So why should I want to give up my land?”
“Your land? Ha! What land? God’s Land! That’s land that belongs to God!”
“If it belongs to God, well, I’m one of His servants. What difference does it make? His servants work His land. Are you saying I’m not His servant?”
“Of course you are. Why shouldn’t you be? Who is a better servant than you? But in the end, we need to make God’s Land bloom!”
“Yes, let’s make it bloom. Am I saying anything other than that? But if you’re going to evict me from this land, who will ensure my rights and those of my children? You think the three or four bills you want to put in the palm of my sons’ hands will be enough?”
“What would you prefer? That I bequeath all my property to you?”
“When did I say that?”
“Well, in effect, that’s what you’re saying! What else are you saying?”
“I’m saying that in a few months when you’ve harvested the land, are you planning on sharing the profits with me? Of course not!”
“But why should you expect me to? In any case, by then, who knows who will still be here and who will be gone? Pistachios take seven years to yield; so it’s seven years before anything will be harvested.”
“But what will be my portion of this?”
“Your portion? That’s brighter than day! I’m offering to hire one of your sons. What more could you want?”
“That’s it?”
“What more do you expect?”
“Nothing!”
“Fine! Why am I even wasting my time with you, foolish woman?”
Zabihollah came to Mirza’s side and said, “Mergan’s stubborn as a mule, eh?”
Mirza Hassan said, “Let her play the mule. She’ll be the loser because of it!”
Zabihollah went down from the porch, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Mirza Hassan.
“It’s better to try to come to terms with her son Abbas. If he sees the color of money, his mouth starts to water.”
Mirza said, “She can go to hell. Who does she think I am?”
* * *
Mirza Hassan’s yard was now empty. Zabihollah and Mirza began to leave, and Kadkhoda Nourouz accompanied them. Salar Abdullah caught up with them at the gate. Kadkhoda Norouz said, “She has no one to protect her, the poor woman. We have to come to terms with her somehow. Thirty, forty tomans here or there isn’t much to spend. It’s as if we’re fulfilling our religious duty to charity with it.”
Mirza sat on a bench silently and took out a cigarette. “It’s just that she’s stubborn and doesn’t know what’s good for her, the bitch; otherwise I agree. I want to come to terms with her, because among the villagers she has the aura of victimhood and righteousness. But you see how she is!”
Kadkhoda Norouz began walking and said, “I’ll go and convince her.”
Abrau arrived, short of breath. Salar Abdullah asked, “So, what did you find out?”
“The driver says the tractor’s been delayed for tonight. They need to change its light. He says he’ll bring it tomorrow.”
Salar said, “Be ready and on the road at the break of dawn. Did you settle your accounts with Ali Genav yet?”
Abrau said, “I didn’t really have any accounts with him.”
Salar looked at his partners and said acidly, “They call minding the bath a job? Anyway … the weather’s getting warm. No one will be using the baths for another six or seven months. Anyone can just go down to the stream and wash there.”
Kadkhoda Norouz returned. Mergan and Hajer were with him. It seemed she had finished her work; the sack with her tools was on Hajer’s back. As she passed by the men, she said to Zabihollah, “You can give Abrau what you owe me for the whitewashing of your house to bring with himself!”
Mirza looked at the Kadkhoda, who shook his head.
“No … she won’t reconsider!”
Mirza rose from the bench. “I’ll make her reconsider! You, boy, go tell Abbas to come to Zabihollah’s house tonight. We need to discuss something with him!”
Abrau said, “Okay.”
Mirza, Zabihollah, and Salar Abdullah left as Abrau stood watching them. Haj Salem and Moslem came out from behind a wall and set out following the partners. The Kadkhoda walked out as well, but before he shut the gate he looked at Abrau.
“Your mother is truly impossible, you know?”
3.
Abbas felt rejuvenated as he left Zabihollah’s house. He felt satisfaction mixed with anxiety. The fatigue had left his body, or was lost inside his body. He grasped the bills of money he had received from Mirza Hassan, knowing just what he intended to do with them. He didn’t want to keep them at hand nearby. He never wanted his money to be in eyeshot. He never wished for his affairs to be out in the open. There was always subterfuge to his plans. He always wanted things to be partially hidden, especially his winnings or losses in gambling. If not all of it, at least a few qerans of money. He loved to keep secrets. Even if the secret was meaningless. The feeling of insecurity and his lack of trust in others had taken such a root in him that he sometimes tried to keep hidden the most obvious of things. Most of his lies were exposed in the light of day, but he didn’t care if others thought of him as a liar, or called him one. What was important to him was that others not know what he was really up to. Put simply, Abbas didn’t want anyone to know what he was doing with even a single qeran of his money, or where he had stashed it. Of course, this inclination was not particular to Abbas but is shared by many others in similar circumstances.
Abbas’ present problem was to figure out how he could cut short the inevitable argument he would have with his mother. He wanted to think of a way to keep a hold of half of the money and to avoid a fight by giving half of it to her for the house. He had just decided to look for a place to hide the other half that he would keep. He entered a deserted and ruined home and undid the tie on his pants. The hem of his pants was the safest spot on him. Shortly, he returned to the alley and tightened the tie on his pants. Now only two bills remained in his hand from what he’d been paid for his portion of the family’s plot in God’s Land. He had just handed over two dang of the six dang that had been Soluch’s plot.
In the alley he encountered Ali Genav’s wife, who was creeping along like a shadow in the dark. She moved very slowly, holding onto the wall with one hand and grasping her walking stick with the other. Her soft moaning sounded like the flutter of a moth’s wings. Abbas was saved from himself for a moment—Raghiyeh distracted him from the troubled thoughts filling his mind.
Although Raghiyeh had spent a few mornings in a town hospital, there was no sign of improvement in her. Day by day, this broken woman deteriorated. It was as if she was melting, as if her bones were shrinking and the skin on her face was drying. She didn’t have the energy to speak for long, and her legs couldn’t even transport her skin and bones from one place to another.
Abbas approached her and with a loud voice—as if she had gone deaf—he said, “How are you doing? How are things?”
Raghiyeh leaned against the wall and caught her breath. It was as if she could die at any moment. Leaning on the wall, she slid into a seated position and stayed grasping the walking stick with both hands like a pillar. She sighed sadly. It was an effort for her to make any sound, and she could barely raise her voice to be heard by Abbas. She sounded very far away. It was as if she were speaking from behind hills of gravel, or from the center of a furious tempest. She no longer had the sound of a woman, a human. She sounded like a lamb that had strayed from the herd and had been caught in a wasteland alone. It was the sound of exhaustion, thirst, of the sadness of a life in the desert, near death. The sound was not the sound of Raghiyeh but the soft murmur of dry wheat in the wind. It was as if a thorny handful of barley were blocking her throat.
The sound seemed to rise from beneath the earth, as if Raghiyeh had already died.
“No. I’m dying. I’m dying. I was going … I was going to go to your house … your house …”
“Yes?”
“I was going … to tell your mother … Oh God …! My breath … why can’t … I catch my breath?”
“Yes? To tell her what?”
“To tell her … that … that … she could have waited … at least until … I died before …”
“Before what?”
“Before … before giving … her daughter … to my husband … but … but … I turned back … I didn’t tell her … because … I realized … What good …? What good would it be?”
Raghiyeh leaned her head against the walking stick. She waited for a moment and then tried to lift herself up with all of her strength. But she couldn’t, and she sat down again. Abbas grabbed her under the arm and helped her up. She stood and leaned against the wall with one hand. She caught her breath and then slowly began walking. She went slowly and calmly, like a turtle, only slower. Abbas thought to himself, “It will take her all night just to go the short distance back to her home. What if she dies on the way?” He heard her voice.
“It’s not right … Oh God …! I pray on Zaynab’s misery … I pray on Zaynab’s sacrifice … Just don’t let this happen …”
The sound of her voice was swallowed in the turns of the alley, and Abbas headed back to his home, walking more slowly than before.
On this night, the house had a strange atmosphere. There were no visitors to their home, but inside it seemed more alive than usual. Everyone in the house had broken the humdrum continuity of their nightly routines, and their actions had a new hue and color to them. It was like when the autumn morning light shines on the wheat harvest; the old dry husks that contained them had begun to open and fall away, letting them flutter individually in the way that was their nature. They blew in the wind, this way and that. Some even took to the wind, flying. Each had its own reason for joyfulness. In the midst of this, although he tried not to show it, Ali Genav was the happiest of all, while Mergan was also happy, in her own way. Her life had been shaken; the wedding of a daughter is always a point of pride for a mother, and seen from her perspective, Mergan was satisfied. Even Hajer was now more or less satisfied, because she was slowly approaching that stage that customarily most girls, more or less, anticipate: marriage.
Hajer had brought herself to believe that most marriages are only slightly desirable but become more acceptable with a bit of imagination. It’s a human affair, after all! One can quite often just choose to overlook certain things. Like the fact that Hajer wasn’t yet thirteen, or the fact that Ali Genav’s beard was turning gray. And most of all, the fact that she was marrying a man who not only still smelled of his first wife, but who also lived with her. Also, this wife lived her life as a ghost, pacing around their little house with a cane. Raghiyeh … a woman transformed into anger and complaints, whose voice seemed to emanate from the mud-brick walls. She was a woman with eyes that watch the world from behind an inner curtain. Eyes covered by dust, tinted with the color of sleep, which watch you from the depths of their sockets. They keep looking at you and ask you something silently. They only say one thing; something wordless, something impossible to express. A thousand words could be said, but that one last one would be left unsaid, a word that keeps on bothering you. But it’s a human affair, after all. Some things can just be overlooked. No doubt, Hajer would have to overlook many things.
Ali Genav said, “Hopefully, we’ll just sign the marriage contract there. I know a certain Molla.”
Mergan put a cup of tea before Ali Genav and said, “Hopefully!”
Abbas was in the doorway. Mergan looked at Abbas and asked, “So? What did he want?”
Abbas sat down right there in the doorway.
“He wanted the plot in God’s Land. So I gave it to him.”
“Gave it? What did you give?”
“That scrap of land!”
Mergan couldn’t tell if her heart had suddenly frozen, or if it was her head that caught fire. She rose to her knees and said, “To Mirza Hassan?”
“To all of them!”
“With whose permission?”
“With my own permission!”
“But who are you? Who do you think you are?”
“I’m Soluch’s oldest son. The oldest son. That’s what they told me.”
“Are you responsible for all of us? You can’t speak for all of us! That piece of land belongs to the whole family!”
“I just sold my portion. Did you expect this to be like the coppers that you took and secreted away somewhere? Anyway, you’re Soluch’s wife and can’t inherit the land. That’s what they told me. A woman can only have a claim on the house and the household. That’s what they said.”
Mergan went limp, leaned her head and shoulders against the wall, and cried out, “Oh God! May God strike you down! You’ve ruined us! Ruined us! Now how am I going to hold my own in the face of those thieving, cunning men?”
Abbas said, “You’re ruining us yourself! Everyone else is taking their offer and going; it’s only you who’s holding out like a stubborn mule!”
Mergan raised her head from the wall.
“If they gave everyone everything and a bit more, I wouldn’t care! Why are you breaking away from your own family and joining those sons of bitches?”
“Because I wanted be done with this business! Why are you so shortsighted? It’s clear that in the end they’ll take the land, so why fight about it? Do you think I can fight them? When the game’s up, you’re better off giving in. Kicking and screaming at that point is of no use! And from now on we’ll have to come to terms with them, so we’ll be beholden to them. They’ll have a hand in everything. Take a look; who’s offering to hire your other son to work with the tractor?”
Mergan and Ali Genav both turned to look at Abrau, who, despite looking at the ground, felt the sharp, heavy glare of his mother’s eyes on his forehead. He couldn’t stay silent. He looked up and said, “Abbas is right. After tomorrow, I’m not working at the baths. I’m working with the tractor!”
Ali Genav asked, “What? You’re going to work with the tractor? So what about your job at the baths? Now that winter’s over, you’re free to fly away? That’s the customary way of behaving?”
Abrau didn’t look at Ali Genav while he replied.
“I never promised to work at the baths till the end of my life. If something better comes up, you have to take it!”
Ali Genav gritted his teeth. “Fine, great! But I’ll remember this, be sure of that!”
Abrau realized it would be better to speak his mind honestly, so he turned to Mergan.
“I’m thinking of selling my portion to Salar Abdullah and his partners as well. How long am I supposed to live in these tattered rags like a flea? I want to go to town and buy myself a decent pair of pants. You can’t work on a tractor wearing torn, worn-out clothes!”
Abrau ended his statement by standing up, and began to get ready to leave. He didn’t want to continue the discussion he had just started. Mergan wiped the edges of her eyes with her scarf and spoke with a trembling voice.
“He’s talking about ‘my portion’ as well! He doesn’t understand what’s really important!”
Ali Genav said, “So tonight, I’ll have to go to prepare the furnace for the baths myself.”
Mergan didn’t say anything. Ali Genav rose.
“So tomorrow, at dawn, I’ll come to get you!”
Mergan only nodded her head. Ali Genav left.
In the alley, Ali Genav saw the two brothers walking shoulder-to-shoulder toward Zabihollah’s house.
“May it be a blessing. Congratulations, Ali Akbar Khan! Congratulations!”
Hajj Salem and Moslem had materialized before Ali Genav. Moslem walked right up to him. Ali Genav said, “Wait until morning. Morning is better. I have nothing in my pockets right now. Hopefully in the morning.
”
Hajj Salem rubbed his son’s neck with his walking stick. “You beast! Wait until morning. Every day is God’s day. Now let’s go to Auntie Mergan’s house to offer our services. I’m sure that given it’s the auspicious day of her daughter’s wedding, she’ll offer to whitewash our humble nest!”
Father and son began walking in the darkness toward Mergan’s house.
Ali Genav waited for a moment, then turned away from his own home and began following Hajj Salem and his son.
Abbas and Abrau left from Zabihollah’s home. Zabihollah had even paid Mergan’s share to Abrau, who was worried about finding a place to hide his own portion without mixing it up with his mother’s money. Abbas, playful and chummy, made circles around his brother, saying, “Zaminej is full of money! You know, everyone’s rich now! Today, so much money has changed hands, so many have been paid by Mirza and his partners—they’ve been giving out money since the morning!”
Abrau said, “These guys mean business. Not like Ali Genav, with the pittance he pays! The source of his generosity is smaller than a rooster’s asshole! When he agrees to pay you a couple of coins, he acts as if he’s giving life to the angel of death! The cheap son of a bitch! You want to earn a real living with a man, but not with someone like that. It seems I really broke his heart, but I liked it! Now he has to get up in the middle of the night and work the furnace until morning, just to learn what it means to never sleep! It’s as if he thought that by marrying into the family, he’d become our lord and master as well!”
Abbas said, “I’m not happy even about his marrying into the family. I’m afraid we’ll get caught up with his wife and her problems.”
“Tell me about it! His wife is constantly going around cursing everyone!”
“But it’s too late now; everyone’s heard all about it. What can we do? We have to let him take her! At least he’ll give her a roof over her head. In a way we’ll be freer, ourselves. To each his own destiny!”
The boys talked as they walked down the tightly woven alleys of Zaminej. They spoke of everything, even Soluch. It was so dark, they couldn’t see each other’s eyes. Perhaps this allowed them to speak more frankly. Their complaints of each other were lost in the darkness, and a natural feeling of fraternity took its place. Because of this, Abrau became worried about Abbas’ plans and future.
Missing Soluch Page 22