Missing Soluch (10 page)

But his uncle didn’t believe him. He simply set new rules for Abbas to obey.

“If you even think of doing this again, I’ll tie up your hands and feet and toss you right here on the cracked earth so that vultures can have a go at your eyes!”

After that, Abbas kept his mouth shut and quietly followed behind Uncle Aman and his donkey. Later, while he was working on plastering a bread oven, Soluch, who had never gotten
along well with Uncle Aman, said, “So are you satisfied now? Did you learn a trade from your uncle? If you’ve hit your head on a stone, come and take on the work of your ancestors and buy bread with an honest wage!”

Abbas had never gone back, and he didn’t feel a moment’s regret. Now that he thought about it, he realized that the girls in hilltop villages were beautiful and pleasant. “They were like milk-drunk lambs nudging for more!”

Mergan arrived, carrying with one hand the tin of embers, and with the other, holding Hajer’s hand. Abbas could make out their outlines in the night. Hajer had just begun to cry again. Not loudly, her sobs were stifled. Her mother was pulling her behind her; Hajer was dragging her feet. Some sort of terror, a terror of her older brother, made her knees tremble. Although she had found her mother’s protection, she was still uneasy. She dragged her feet and looked anxious. This only stoked Mergan’s anger, and even before reaching the house, she was swearing a storm over Abbas and addressing him with whatever insult came to mind as she walked.

“So where is he, the son of a bastard? In what hell is he hiding? So he thinks he’s a young lion, eh? I’ll show him! As soon as the arena’s empty, he attacks, does he …? So where is that brother of yours?”

Abrau emerged from under the blanket.

“I don’t know. He’s the one who attacked me and chewed my ear this morning.”

This lit a fire beneath Mergan’s feet. It compelled her to increase the volume of her swearing. Abbas was becoming a challenge in Mergan’s closed life. She couldn’t let him go any further in his impudence—she’d have to take care of him very
soon. In this house, there was only room for one lord, either Mergan or Abbas. She had to make clear who held the reins in the household. She couldn’t let her son become a threat, even a hollow one. The boy had become a lion for himself. Now he was threatening Mergan’s children.

Mergan placed the tin next to the stove. She went to the pantry and returned with fire tongs. She went to the stables, searched the nooks and crannies, came out, and shouted, “Where have you hid yourself, lion heart? If you’re such a man, why not show yourself to me?”

Abbas scrambled and climbed up to the yard wall around the house, but Mergan made out his dark outline as he did so. Mergan ran, but before she could reach him, Abbas was on the wall and shuffling away. Mergan went to the foot of the wall and said angrily, “You! If you so much as touch one of my children again, I’ll ruin you! Take these words and hang them on your ears!”

Abbas didn’t reply and leapt to the neighboring roof. Up there, the cold air had more of a bite, but just that he was out of Mergan’s reach was enough for him. Mergan grabbed the blanket he had left by the bread oven and began walking back to the room.

“Tonight you can wander the streets and rooftops like a stray dog—that should teach you a lesson!”

Mergan entered the room and closed the door behind her, sliding the heavy lock into place. Hajer was still trembling. Mergan set the blanket on her daughter’s lean shoulders and, using the tongs, stirred the embers in the tin beside the stove. Then she tossed the tongs to one side and busied herself with setting out the places for sleep. The beds needed to be set
around the tin of embers, as they were every night. Mergan set a heater cover over the tin and placed a blanket over the contraption. She laid out Hajer in the place she had been sitting and covered her entire body, as much as was possible. Then she pulled on Abrau’s feet and positioned him close to the heater as well. Then she blew out the lamp and lay down in her own place.

Beneath the arched ceiling of the room, the night was pitch black. Since during the winters they covered the opening in the roof, there were neither doors nor windows to allow the eye to pass through the darkness to catch a glimpse of the open and starry night.

Under the weight of the night, Mergan was trembling. Her feet, her hands, and her heart, all trembling. She could not calm herself. She ran her fingers through the smooth hair of her daughter and cooed, “Did he hit you hard?”

Hajer answered, “I didn’t say. I didn’t tell him anything!”

Mergan pressed the girl’s face to her chest and felt something like smoke escaping from her heart and passing through her entire body, eventually escaping through her eyes and throat. Her lips and eyelids began to shake, but Mergan held back the clamorous wave. She didn’t want to worry her daughter by sobbing. She herself hated mourning ceremonies. So she let Hajer go and she rose, took a handful of wheat grain from the pantry, and put half of it into her daughter’s hand.

“Tomorrow we’ll get flour. We’ll light the bread oven.”

She was left to calm herself. But peace of mind escaped from her. Her heart beat. Her thoughts went in a thousand directions. More than anything, Abbas was the object of her irritation. It was cold outside, the dry cold of the desert. A wolf could hardly survive in this climate. So what could that baby
grasshopper do? There was no sign from him! Mergan was waiting for Abbas to let out a cry. To scream. To swear and throw himself against the door. But Abbas had not done this. What would he do? Why was there no sign of him? Mergan wanted to get up and go out, grab his wrist, and bring him home. But something unclear prevented her from doing this. Perhaps because she didn’t want to go against herself? She didn’t want what she had said to be worthless. She didn’t want her threats to seem without substance. She was stuck. She had trapped herself. Pangs shot through her heart. She didn’t want to torment her son, but she did. She couldn’t bear the pain of this, but she did. This itself was the worst. That she was able to bear something that her heart did not want to bear. So she was hurting herself twice. Once, from her son’s pain; second, from the pain of bearing this pain. She didn’t know what she could do. If she called out and told him to come home, Abbas would never again pay mind to her instructions or threats, and would never take her seriously again. But this way, she would have to stay up worried about him until the dawn, grinding her teeth and feeling vinegar boil inside her. If she sent Hajer out to him, she knew he was clever enough to see that this would be a ruse arranged by their mother. Then the only outcome would be a fruitless mendacity. So Mergan was confused. Her heart was on fire, and she couldn’t lie still. She kept moving her weight from shoulder to shoulder, and she chewed on the blanket and pillow.

How could she stand it?

Mergan rose and tiptoed to the door. She opened the latch quietly and waited a second. There was no sign of Abbas. No footsteps. No breathing. She wanted to shout the boy’s name out, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to be able to. The cry was
tied up inside her throat. She returned to her place, lay down, and fixed her eyes more intently than before upon the door. At this moment, Mergan had no other wish other than for the door to open and for Abbas to return. To return. To return swearing at her. To return and to turn the house upside down. To return and to set fire to the house. To return and to beat his mother. To give a beating. Return; just that he return!

Hajer asked, “Mama, where did you get the embers?”

“From hell!”

On the domed roofs of Zaminej, the dry cold wind shook Abbas. The wind flapped his trousers as he stood straight as a skewer, his hands thrust beneath his arms. His teeth chattered from the trembling that had taken over his body. Tears were beginning to stream from the corners of his eyes.

He sat with his back to the wind in the sheltering area between two roof domes and gathered his composure. He had to do something; even this somewhat sheltered spot did not afford enough protection from the wind for him to spend the night there. He had to find somewhere else, somewhere warm. But whose door could someone like him knock on? Who would open their house to Abbas, the son of Mergan? He had to think of someone like himself. Aunt Sanam’s house! But no. There
was nowhere to sleep there. And more important, the people who came and went from Aunt Sanam’s house were all either inveterate gamblers or opium addicts. It was no place for a boy like Abbas, especially on a night like this. If he could hold out until morning, perhaps then he could go to Ali Genav’s bathhouse to warm up a bit. But Ali Genav didn’t open the baths until the dawn prayers—even if he was a stray dog, he wouldn’t last outside that long. He then thought about finding a stable and warming himself with the heat of a cow’s breath, or by lying among some sheep. But in this season of the year, and in a year like this, it was possible that someone could accuse someone like Abbas of stealing livestock at the drop of a hat. Was it worth the risk? No—that would be foolish as well. He could only think of one place to go: Hajj Salem’s old crypt of a house, behind Ali Genav’s house, adjoining Kadkhoda Norouz’s stables.

Abbas half stood and climbed across the roofs on all fours, like a black cat. He tried to crawl quietly as he went. God forbid that someone below hear him on the roof, as that would surely end with a commotion: “What are you doing on my roof at this hour of the night, you son of a bitch! Don’t you have any respect?”

Someone could raise a commotion just because of where he was. So he had to go as quietly as a cat, and he did. He paused on the roof of Ali Genav’s house and looked around. Hajj Salem’s tallow-burning lamp was still lit. Abbas knew the old man was up late most nights. And it wasn’t that late, in any case.

As Abbas watched, the door latch of Kadkhoda Norouz’s sitting room sounded, and a moment later the Kadkhoda exited, walking down the steps with a lantern in one hand and a walking stick set over his shoulder. Abbas heard Moslemeh’s voice
complaining, “Where to, at this hour of the night? Again, you’ve put on your overcoat and hat and are going? Where to?”

The Kadkhoda answered right away, “I’m going to Mirza Hassan’s house, the son-in-law of Agha Malak.”

Speaking now to the yard rather than to Moslemeh, he went on. “My voice’s hoarse from bargaining with that woman … and in the end …”

The sound of the heavy outer doors of the house clanging drowned out Kadkhoda Norouz’s grumbling. Abbas turned his head from the Kadkhoda’s house and looked to the hovel of Hajj Salem, Moslemeh’s father. The dying emanation from Hajj Salem’s lamp flickered through the cracks of the door. Abbas looked directly down; at the bottom of the wall he was standing on, ash and dirt was collected in a pile. Abbas leapt onto the ash pile, half rolled, and then rose. He shook the ashes from his clothes and crouched by the wall.

The sound of Hajj Salem berating his son rose from inside the house.

“Beast! Tie up those pants of yours! Showing yourself nude is bad in the eyes of God, you oaf! Tie up that pants string! We have work tonight. Didn’t you hear the gate of your sister’s husband’s house? The Kadkhoda’s left. I have a premonition that he’s going to the house of one of his partners. Tie up those pants, you bastard! How many hundreds of lice are hiding in the lining of your pants anyway?”

The unhappy sound of Moslem rose. “D … d … d …!”

Abbas moved himself from the edge of the wall where he was to the shelter of the crypt and backed up against its wall. If the father and son were about to leave, how could he make himself their guest?

Hajj Salem’s voice kept up. “Tie it! Tie it, animal! That’s enough, enough! And tomorrow is God’s day. Let’s go. We’ll head toward a reward. Tonight, the big men are all gathering, and you have to collect a week’s worth of bread from them all. Eh, I said tie it, you beast!”

“Okay … Okay … Don’t hit me, Papa. Okay!”

Hajj Salem emerged from the crypt hunched over and covered by his tattered quilt, holding his crooked walking stick. He looked to the sky and said, “Dear God, my hopes are with you. If you’ve made me destitute, then bless others with your blessings! If you’ve tied my hands, then grant joy to the hearts of others … Come on out, you beast of God!”

Moslem exited, still holding the tie-string of his pants in one hand, saying, “It won’t, Papa! It won’t … I can’t, Papa!”

Hajj Salem, with a curse on his lips, knelt at the large bare feet of his son. He took the string from Moslem’s hands, and while he tied the pants, began to swear. “God give me compensation for how you torment me! May his hands be crippled, my little animal. He’s spent thirty springs on the earth like an ass, and still can’t tie his pants up … I swear to God! Get moving! Come on, let’s go!”

Moslem set out behind his father and bellowed, “Very … Papa! Papa! Very …”

Hajj Salem turned. “God damn your ‘Papa’! Very what?”

Moslem said, “Very … very … tight. Very tight … knot … knot …”

Hajj Salem set out again, saying, “Come on! It’ll let itself out slowly. Haircloth string doesn’t hold a knot well. Come on!”

“Yes! Okay, I’m coming. I’m coming!”

Father and son left the ruins, and Abbas, who was still stuck against the wall, had no choice but to follow them. It could have been possible for him to sneak into the old crypt and to warm himself in a nook or corner inside. But he was somehow drawn to follow them instead. In Abbas’ estimation, Hajj Salem must have smelled a treat of some kind if he had dragged Moslem out tonight.

Hajj Salem and Moslem spent their days in their destitute crypt, under the collapsed roof of a half-destroyed stable just behind Kadkhoda Norouz—and Moslemeh’s—house. They eked out a daily pittance from this and that person, with the kind of work that was preoccupying Hajj Salem right now.

No one had seen it, but it was rumored that Hajj Salem possessed a huge quantity of old books. Until quite recently, he would take a volume of the
Shahnameh
epic written in a large script, sit at the edge of the mosque, lean his old walking stick against the wall, and begin to read out for the villagers of Zaminej. But lately, his failing eyes were no longer of use for trying to read the
Shahnameh
or any other book. Because of this, his books were most likely gathering dust in the back of his hovel.