Missing Soluch (11 page)

“Take my walking stick!”

“I’m taking it, Papa! Give me … give me …”

“Okay! Now help me from the edge of this wall. This night’s so dark. God forbid I fall into a pit!”

“Yes, Papa. Okay!”

“Tonight, the night’s like a ghost that has washed its face with tar!”

“Yes, Papa, dear. Okay! I’ll take you. Where should I go?”

“Zabihollah’s house. The new lords of the village should be gathered there!”

“Yes, Papa, dear. Zabihollah Khan’s house. Zabihollah Khan’s house.”

Moslem was always with his father. Hajj Salem was also stuck to his fool of a son like a worn-out shirt. Each morning, when Hajj Salem would put on his worn, long robes, take his twisted old walking stick, and leave their crypt of a home, Moslem was like his shadow. The father and son would set out in Zaminej’s alleys, chewing on a bit of bread—if there was one to be had—all the while bantering and bickering. Everyone’s ears were drawn to this banter, because it was part of the fabric of the lives of all who heard it. And in the end, the bickering was always resolved peacefully.

When two people have no choice but to live with one another, a special kind of conflict binds them to one another. And after this, under no circumstances can they live without this conflict, whether they acknowledge it or not. It’s as if a thread has been tied around their hands, their shoulders, their legs, and their necks, and each end of the thread is in the other’s hands. They become each other’s binding. In this inevitable conflict, if they draw too near, they will both choke, and if they draw apart, fear will bring them back together. If they both don’t let go of the thread together, the conflict inevitably continues.

For Hajj Salem and his son, even walking together was fraught with conflict. The thread that bound them together, wove them to each other, was the conflict itself. In eating, sleeping, walking, and falling, they were perpetually at odds. Moslem always wanted to be seen by others as walking shoulder to shoulder with his father, their shadows falling beside one
another. But Hajj Salem never wanted this. Moslem would try to stick himself to his father’s shoulder, and Hajj Salem would use his walking stick to deliver a blow to his son’s legs, driving him away from his side. Moslem would grab his legs with his large hands and furrow his brows, pursing his lips. His father, speaking in a contrived voice—that voice that he chose to speak in all the time—would order his son, “Two steps back, you fool!”

Moslem, trying to protest for the thousandth time, would say, “D … d … d …!”

And for the thousandth time, he would take two steps back, falling into step behind his father.

“So now you’ve done your deed, you son of a whore! You finally delivered your blow! You delivered your poison, you beast! Ah … my back!”

Just shy of Zabihollah’s house, Hajj Salem had slipped and fallen into a ditch beside the wall. His walking stick was in Moslem’s hand, and the old man was flailing around at the bottom of the ditch. Moslem extended the stick toward his father and was saying, “Papa … Papa … take it! Grab the end. Grab the end of the stick. Grab it.”

“I can’t see, you fool! I can’t see! Are you blind that you can’t see that I can’t see?”

“Take it! It’s here. The stick … stick … here … here …”

“Ah … Oh … You son of a whore … Why are you mixing me up with that stick? Don’t hit me! Don’t hit me, my son!”

Moslem began laughing out loud. The old man was at the bottom of the ditch grabbing at nothing and turning around in circles, swearing at the top of his voice. Moslem would tap the top of his father’s head with the stick, occasionally grazing his beard and neck with it, laughing as he did. Hajj Salem was at the
end of his wits, and began pleading, “Don’t torture me, my son! Don’t torture me! God won’t forgive your sins. Don’t torture me. I pray to you. I’ll breathe my last breath in this ditch. Don’t torture me. You’ll become an orphan, Moslem! Ah … now you’ve lost your father, Moslem. You’re fatherless!”

Hajj Salem sat at the edge of the wall on the edge of the ditch and covered his face with his hands, breaking into loud sobs. Moslem also sat at the top of the ditch and began crying along with his father, hitting his head with his hands. As the walking stick had fallen into the middle of the ditch, Abbas conjured the courage to jump down, handed the stick to the old man, and helped him climb out and shake the dirt off his clothes.

Hajj Salem said, “God did not forget me. An angel! God sent me a Gabriel! Gabriel! Who are you, boy? Who are you at this hour of this dark night? Who are you? And that foolish son of a bitch, that torturing degenerate, where did he go?”

“He’s there sir; he’s over there.”

“I can’t see him! I’ve been stuck with the night blindness, oh no! I’m night blind! Aren’t you the son of Mergan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I recognize you from your voice. From your voice. May you have a perfect life. God sent you to rescue me, I know it. You … you’re … Gabriel. But that son of a whore, where is he? Moslem!”

Moslem came forward crying and pleading.

“Don’t punish me, Papa. Don’t punish me. I beg you on your life, don’t punish me.”

“I won’t punish you. Stop it. I just don’t want you to embarrass me where we’re going. Just stop it!”

“Okay … Okay … I’ll stop it. Yes.”

Abbas took the end of the stick and handed it to Moslem, who then set off in the direction of Zabihollah’s house.

The sound of a cow’s cry rose from the stables of Zabihollah’s house. Moslem stopped his father at the edge of the wall. Hajj Salem ordered his son, “Knock on the door!”

Moslem pounded the door with his fist, and a moment later Zahra, Zabihollah’s sister, opened the door.

“My daughter, I’ve come to see Zabihollah Khan.”

“He’s not here!”

“Where is he, child?”

“At the house of Mirza Hassan, Agha Malak’s son-in-law.”

Hajj Salem spoke to Moslem, “So get going then! Didn’t you hear?”

Moslem pulled on the stick to lead Hajj Salem to Mirza Hassan’s house.

Abbas remained at the door of Zabihollah’s house. Zahra was about to shut the door when Abbas ran up to her.

“I heard your cow crying!”

“She’s birthing.”

“Do you want me to watch over her?”

“No! She’ll do fine herself.”

“Do you want me to go and call Zabihollah?”

The door shut and Abbas was left alone in the alley. He had no choice but to head to Mirza Hassan’s house. So he went.

They hadn’t let Moslem and Hajj Salem into the house. The father and son were sitting quietly by the wall. Abbas sat beside Hajj Salem. The yard was quiet and two beams of light shining from the kitchen and the sitting room struggled to break through the dark. It was clear that the wife and mother of Mirza
Hassan were busy in the kitchen. And Abbas could see that Hajj Salem was grasping Moslem’s hand as he breathed in the air, smelling something.

The men—whose voices could be heard—were sitting around a hearth in the middle of the sitting room and discussing something. Abbas could easily tell who was speaking from their voices.

“I know, I know. It’s clearer than day to me that the woman’s gone and hid the copper. Wherever it is, she’s really hid them. I know this witch’s tricks already!”

“You should be hunting lions, Salar Abdullah! Why drive yourself mad for these bits of copper?”

“She’s showing me up, Mirza! It’s hard to take. It hurts less to have a loss of thousand
tomans
in a business deal than to misplace a single
toman
yourself. If only I had grabbed Soluch’s collar right then on that day and hadn’t shown him mercy … Ah! I’ll be sure never to do another favor for ants like these people.”

Kadkhoda Norouz spoke up. “Let’s move on, Salar! We need to go the heart of the matter we’re gathered here for. Right to the heart of it. Karbalai, please, tell us what’s on your mind.”

Karbalai Doshanbeh didn’t respond. In his place, it was Mirza Hassan, who was heard saying, “Don’t you know how Karbalai works by now, Kadkhoda? He takes a word, chews it in his mouth a hundred times before he spits it out. And by then he’s swallowed half of it, after all!”

Salar Abdullah said, “My father has no interest for this kind of thing.” He then continued, “I’m saying this in front of you all. He doesn’t approve of this.”

Mirza Hassan said, “Are you saying he doesn’t want to contribute his money into this plan, even though he’s not doing anything with it?”

Salar Abdullah replied, “That’s right. It’s not clear to him what the end of this is. Right from the beginning, after he sold those camels, he didn’t buy a bit of land or any water. We all know this, don’t we?”

Mirza Hassan asked, “How about you, Salar?”

In the silence that followed, Abbas crept to the edge of the sitting room’s door. Salar Abdullah finally replied, “Me? I’m just a farmer. And that’s all I do.”

“So how much can you put into the pot?”

“I’ll sell off forty of my sheep. Whatever I get from that, I’ll put into this.”

“How about you, Zabihollah?”

Zabihollah chewed on his lips and said, “I’ll see what I have around. Maybe I can put in something like twenty. Twenty thousand
toman
. Honestly, I had set aside half of it for my wedding and had planned to use the other half for a few deals, but I’ll use it for whatever’s best. So I’m in.”

Now Abbas could see half of Mirza Hassan’s pockmarked face and part of his slim black mustache in the light shining from a wax lamp. Mirza Hassan ashed the tip of his cigarette onto a tray by the hearth and said, “Kadkhoda … I’d guess … we can count on you for forty or so?”

Kadkhoda Norouz sipped at his cup of tea, placed a hard candy in his mouth, and said, “Maybe not that much. But … I have some ideas.”

“It’s just that at some point we have to determine how much each of us can offer. Because we need the money to go forward and get the loan from the Ministry of Agriculture.”

Before addressing Mirza Hassan’s comment, Kadkhoda Norouz asked, “Have you thought of the land yet? They have to send surveyors to look over the land. They have to determine if
the soil is appropriate and if it will be suitable for pistachio farming or not. In this area, pistachios are an absolutely new crop. The government’s not just going to throw its money away, you know?”

Mirza Hassan paused a second, then said, “It’s just as you say. The surveyors will have to see if the land is right for this. The reason we’re here is that in actuality our plots are all next to each other. And so our land may have a problem.”

“Yes, I know. The problem is that we all still want to plant our usual crops and to harvest them from our own plots. We don’t want to give up on planting wheat, barley, cotton, cumin, honeydew, and watermelon and use our precious land for pistachio planting, only to slap ourselves in the face in seven years and find ourselves sitting at the roots of some unripe pistachio saplings! Beyond this, pistachio plants need soft soil. You can’t farm pistachios in dry, hard land!”

Mirza Hassan replied, “This is my view as well, Kadkhoda. That’s why now I’m thinking about using God’s Land”

“God’s Land?”

Karbalai Doshanbeh smiled at Mirza Hassan as he spoke.

Mirza Hassan said, “You’re laughing, Karbalai? Yes, God’s Land. At the edge of our land and Zabihollah’s. And one side of your son’s lands extends up to it. We can easily stretch out into God’s Land.”

Karbalai Doshanbeh said, “God’s Land is all that the poor people have to work with.”

Mirza Hassan replied, “People work on it, but they don’t own it!”

“So who owns it?”

“God does! That’s why His name is on it!”

“Fine. And now some simple souls are working on it and they raise a few watermelons from it.”

“What’s a few watermelons worth to them? We’ll pay them for the land!”

“What if they don’t take the money?”

“We’ll take it and register it. The more documentation we have, the more money we’ll be able to get from the government for it. I’ve even laid the groundwork to do this.”

“You don’t say!”

“And why not, Karbalai? It seems you only have bad to say about all of this; you’re jinxing us!”

“We’ll see!”

Karbalai Doshanbeh rose from the hearth and went to put his shoes on.

Mirza Hassan said sarcastically, “Oh, now are you upset with us, Karbalai Doshanbeh?”

Karbalai, busy tying up his shoes, said, “No, no … Goodbye … Goodbye …”

Karbalai Doshanbeh was about to leave the room when Mirza Hassan delayed him by saying, “Karbalai, come on, and for once put your unused money to some good, why don’t you!”

Karbalai Doshanbeh stepped outside the room and then said, “I didn’t get this money from water, so why should I try to irrigate God’s Land with it?”

Abbas hid himself in the shadows. Karbalai Doshanbeh came down from the porch steps and Hajj Salem rose before him. Looking at the father and son, Karbalai Doshanbeh said, “What’s going on here? A funeral?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, and set off. Moslem began following him, but Hajj Salem pulled him back. “Take it easy,
fool! Don’t you recognize him? He’d take the life from the angel of death himself!”

Abbas crept to the edge of the door. Mirza Hassan was lighting a new cigarette. Karbalai Doshanbeh had humiliated him. He had to recover by saying something.

“He’s a coward!”

Zabihollah said, “From the start, I didn’t have high hopes for my uncle. If he doesn’t have his money near himself, he can’t even sleep at night. He’s a person who for twenty years has eyed the alms hungry beggars collect, just to figure out how he can get a cut of it. How could we imagine that he’d come here and put his precious money into something like this?”

Salar Abdullah said, “Any older person, my cousin, and not just him, eventually loses his nerve and ambition. It’s not just about him.”

Kadkhoda Norouz said, “Good. So let’s go the heart of the matter. Mirza Hassan Khan, you think you can register God’s Land somehow? You say you’ve already started the process?”

Mirza Hassan replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll register it!”

“In your own name?”

“No. In all our names. I’ve already made the request. In Zaminej, we only need a water pump and a tractor. That’s all! Once we’re all in agreement, I’ll set out for Gorgan City. There, I can find a used tractor in good shape. I know people there.”