Missing Soluch

by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

  “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.

  “I’m afraid … that I won’t live long enough … to see you … to see you again … brother! Don’t … don’t … forget me … will you?!”

  Abrau held Abbas out and shook him.

  “Calm down! It’s no good to be crying just as we’re setting out! You never cried before!”

  Abbas leaned against the wall and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

  “No … only … only … Forget it …! Nothing …! Just go then …! May you travel in safety … I … won’t say any more!”

  Molla Aman was already in the alley and shouted over the wall.

  “Come on then! Are you preparing to go to battle or something? Let’s go!”

  Mergan, and Abrau behind her, walked through the opening in the wall and out into the alley, following Molla Aman’s footsteps.

  Abbas came to the alley, walking with his crutch, and poured a cup of water in the footsteps of the travelers for good luck. Abrau turned once again and waved his cap at Abbas.

  As Molla Aman and Abrau walked on, Mergan’s footsteps faltered at the door to Ali Genav’s home, and she stopped. They continued on. She opened the door and stepped inside. But then she stopped inside the doorway. She didn’t want to wake her daughter. No, it would be better if she didn’t know and didn’t see them as they left. Also, she didn’t want to see Ali Genav while she was leaving. So, caught between two impulses, she stood where she was.

  A moment or two later, Raghiyeh came out, like a mouse leaving its hole. She was quiet and calm. The sound of the door couldn’t have woken her. Mergan imagined that Raghiyeh hadn’t slept the night either. She came toward Mergan limping quietly and passed her by, as if Hajer’s
mother wasn’t standing there before her. She went to the alley. Mergan turned and followed her out.

  “Raghiyeh dear, Raghiyeh! I’m leaving my daughter, Hajer, in your care, and I leave you in God’s. Raghiyeh dear, don’t bother her. She’s just a girl. If she’s done you wrong, or if I have, don’t do wrong to her!”

  Raghiyeh didn’t look back. She didn’t answer, and under Mergan’s gaze she limped over to Mergan’s house, now Abbas’ house.

  Mergan watched her until she reached the wall of the house, walking softly, with determination. Then she shook herself—her brother and son were far ahead by now. She looked one last time back at Raghiyeh, then set out walking quickly, reaching Molla Aman and Abrau at the outskirts of Zaminej.

  The tractor was still sitting by the graveyard. It was like a corpse that had been pushed out of its grave. Wrapped in a shroud of red desert dust. Morad was sitting by the tractor, next to the stream, one hand in the water.

  Water?

  “It’s blood. Do you see the blood?”

  They sat. There was blood in the water. Molla Aman lit a match, “Water stained by blood! They must have cut up the old mare’s body, then.”

  They rose, all but Mergan. She remained sitting by the water, looking down the stream. Someone was coming. A man was coming. Somebody was coming. A person covered in a bloody shroud. He had a shovel in one hand—Soluch. With a muddy shovel. He had emerged from the canal drain. He must have opened the canals himself. His face was not visible. Beneath the shroud, blood was dripping from the cloak he always wore, the cloak made from the hide of his donkey. The blood left an unbroken trail in his footsteps.

  “What kind of place are the mines? How are they …? Is there work for women there as well?”

  * * *

  The night was breaking.

  The night was breaking on the trail of blood.

  —1979