Missing Soluch (8 page)

Mergan, speaking to herself as well as Hajer, said, “When was the oven lit today?”

Hajer had spent all day with her mother, so the question wasn’t one she could answer. But by giving voice to this, Mergan was seeking a degree of healing. Just to say this warmed her heart. Somehow, it was meant to convince both her and the children that she was looking to the issue of heating that night. With a few words, she was showing her children that her duty every night—to find a bit of kindling from other ovens—was still on her mind. Somehow she would bring a little hope to Abrau’s hallucinations, Hajer’s worried eyes, and her own troubled heart.

Hajer brought the kettle and cups and then returned to the side of the oven, sitting at the edge of the wall. Mergan filled a cup with the boiled herbs and told Abrau to sit up straight.
Abrau struggled to lift himself, using his arms like pillars, sitting up like a cat. Mergan had heard that heavy nausea brings on a fever. She had also heard that these herbs, when boiled, relieve nausea. So she let the boiled herbs cool a little, then poured some in Abrau’s mouth. She did just what she knew to do. No less, no more. With her heart and soul, and hopes for his better health, she poured a mix of boiled herbs, with violets and cassia herbs, into her son’s mouth, when her arm brushed against his injured ear, causing him to cry out in pain. Mergan had only just noticed that someone had bitten his ear.

“Who? What son of a bitch? Who? Well? Now I see why my son has a fever! Tell me. Who was it? What bastard? Tell me. Whoever it was, I don’t care. I’ll make him pay. Tell me. I’ll beat him with a stick. The sons of bitches have found an orphan to attack? Hasn’t God done enough to this poor child, that now you also do this to him, you heartless bastards?”

Mergan was no longer asking her son who had given him the beating. She wasn’t speaking to him at all. She was speaking to everything. To the air. To the walls and the doors. For ears that could hear and those that couldn’t. She placed Abrau back in the blankets and rose. She tied her robe to her waist and was walking in circles around the room, around herself. Hajer remained frozen in her corner against the wall, and Abrau had set his dizzy and confused head back down. Mergan would walk, then stop, stop and then begin walking, all the while speaking to herself. She spoke out loud. To herself. To the house. To the night. To what is and is not. What she was speaking of wasn’t simple speech. It was more like poetic recitation. She would speak, and then go silent. She would be silent, and then suddenly it would boil over, her voice rising and calling out.

“Which one should I take care of? Which one should I cover with my wing? In which one’s mouth shall I put a few seeds? Whoever can comes and pecks at one of them. Whoever can comes and pecks at the head of one of them. So just come all at once and take us all! Come and toss us all in a pot of boiling water! Come, come on!”

“I hope no one’s head is uncovered. We’re coming in!”

The heavy sound of Kadkhoda Norouz’ footsteps, accompanied by a short cough, brought Mergan back to herself. The shoulders of two men filled the entryway of the room. Kadkhoda Norouz had a cloak thrown over his shoulders, and Salar Abdullah was wearing a long tunic. Both had head scarves tied around their heads. Kadkhoda’s scarf was tied with greater care, and the tail end of Salar Abdullah’s scarf trailed down onto his chest.

The men brought the cold into the house with them. Until this moment, the cold had been forgotten. It was only Hajer who had suffered the cold and had stuck herself to the stove. Mergan and Abrau were each burning with their own fevers; Abrau of illness, Mergan of rage. On seeing the men, Mergan went silent and retreated to sit in a corner. Not that she wasn’t expecting their visit; she was. She had even prepared for it. All the same, their arrival was a shock. Seeing the men, she was frozen in her place.

The men sat, Salar at the doorway, and the Kadkhoda by the stove. Hajer slid away from the Kadkhoda, who sat beside the stove in such a way as to position his crotch close to the faltering heat of the fire. Because of this, in order to look at Mergan so as to speak directly to her, he had to twist his large head on his shoulders, straining to face her.

“Go bring those four bits of copper work!”

Mergan stayed just as she had been, with her back to the wall, hugging her knees silently.

The Kadkhoda repeated, “Get up. Get up and go bring those four pieces of copper work!”

Mergan still did not respond. Did not move. Salar was eyeing her. Her parched cheeks and drawn profile were discernible in the flickering light of the tallow-burner. A stubborn silence had her frozen in her place as if she were not alive, like the outline of a woman cut from stone. But Salar was agitated. His spleen held more than a few things that he wanted to bestow on Mergan and her boys. But since Kadkhoda Norouz had come to mediate, it would not have been to his advantage to let loose at this time. The Kadkhoda turned his head again and shouted at Mergan, “Have you gone deaf? I told you get up and get those four bits of copper work! Do I have to become rude with you?”

Mergan, staring ahead at the floor, said, “You go get them yourself. You know where they are.”

The Kadkhoda replied, “If you don’t go get them yourself, that’s what we’ll have to do. I’ve not come here just to sit and look at you!”

Mergan replied, “May God repay you for your kindness!”

The Kadkhoda smarted from the sting of the remark, and said, “A deal is a deal. Brotherhood has its own place—one brings wheat, and leaves with apricots. Salar, you go yourself. Get up and go get the copper pieces from their place and bring them here. Get up—while I’m here, it isn’t against the law.”

Salar Abdullah was ready and he rose to enter the pantry. The others in the room—Mergan, the Kadkhoda, Hajer, and
Abrau—each remained silent in their own way. The clanging sounds of copper could be heard on the other side of the curtain. Salar Abdullah drew the curtain back, placing the copper pieces outside one by one. Finally, he exited the pantry, a goblet in one hand, and said to Kadkhoda Norouz, “The copper’s less than half of what it was, Kadkhoda! Come and see for yourself!”

The Kadkhoda rose, went to the doorway of the pantry, and fell into thought while looking at the copper work set out there.

“Ten
seers
, half a
man
 … Fifteen
seers
. Estimate this one piece at seven
seer
; all together it comes to … ten, thirty, fifteen, and seven—my guess is this is, all together, about one
man
and two
seer
. So we’re short four
man
and two more
seer
. So …?”

Before anything further could be said, Salar Abdullah removed the tallow-burner from the shelf, went back into the pantry and looked in all the nooks and crannies, came out and replaced the tallow-burner to its place, and said, “Nothing. They’re not here. They’ve melted into thin air!”

Mergan remained silent, looking at a spot in front of her feet. But she could sense the sharp glare of Salar and the Kadkhoda on her. She was ready for a fight. She’d made all of the calculations. Perhaps that was why she was so firmly frozen in her place. Like a dragon protecting treasure. She had no choice. The earth itself was the only thing giving her support. She had no desire to rise, to stand. She didn’t want to have her knees begin shaking from the Kadkhoda’s and Salar’s accusations and quarreling. She wanted to hold her own. That was why she was firmly fixed to her seat on the earth.

Salar said, “Thief! She’s taken a hand to the copper. I’d seen them myself! A pot, a bathing pitcher, a tray, the vase, and
a set of pieces coming to thirty
seer
. It wasn’t just these four worthless bits of copper. She’s taken a hand to my property!”

Your property?

It would have been natural for Mergan to say this, but she didn’t. She only thought it. The Kadkhoda approached her with wide strides and stood beside her and asked, “So what’s happened to the rest? Where did you put them?”

Mergan’s mouth remained firmly shut. The Kadkhoda repeated, “I’m with you! Where did you put them?”

Kadkhoda Norouz’s voice was shaking. Mergan couldn’t remain silent any longer, so she said, “Just where they were before!”

Salar cut her off, saying, “They’re not! All there is are these four worthless bits of copper work! Where are the valuable pieces?”

Mergan replied, “They’ve gone to hell—where are they? What do I know where they are? He himself, his own cursed self, he’d come and take one piece every night to melt down. So what do I know? He’d come and go to the nearby villages—maybe he’s left them with a friend of his. God burn his cursed soul for absconding holy Zaynab’s rights!”

Salar began shouting out of control, “It’s a lie! A lie! She’s lying while swearing on the purity of Zaynab! It was your own dishonorable self who absconded with the coppers!”

Mergan stared at Salar a moment and said, “Me? May my hands dry up if I’ve even touched these copper pieces. May my children wither and waste before me if my soul had any idea of what happened to them. Soluch, that son of a bitch himself, was the one who’s made off with my bathing pitcher, my vase and tray, and the rest of them, and has sold them!”

“You’re lying, you and your seven backs, you witch! That man wouldn’t touch the property of others. Soluch wasn’t the kind of man to steal something from his own property!”

“His own property! How could he have gave gotten it? Oh, maybe he inherited it from his father, a mud-plasterer! Do you remember when his old man died what he left for him? A plastering spade. That was all. His property, his property! It’s as if you think I was the wife of the son of a nobleman and I didn’t even know it!”

Salar said, “Will you swear on the Qur’an?”

“Swear what on the Qur’an?”

“That you didn’t steal the copper work yourself!”

Mergan ran toward Hajer, embraced her daughter, slapped her head, and said, “May I bury my own daughter! May I bury her with my own bare hands, if … if I should know anything about this. Kadkhoda! At least say something to this man!”

Kadkhoda Norouz knew Mergan well. Not just Mergan, but also he knew most of the people in Zaminej better than anyone else did. And that was why he was the Kadkhoda, and not Salar Abdullah. So he knew that if the matter should be drawn out any further, Mergan would not hesitate to even lift Hajer up and smash her into Salar’s head, and Kadkhoda Norouz didn’t want this to happen. He didn’t want something like this to happen while he was there. Mergan’s attack on Salar Abdullah earlier was a consequence of a similar situation. So the Kadkhoda wisely realized he would have to take a moderating position. To step on Mergan’s tail more than this would be unwise. Mergan was that kind of person that the Kadkhoda and Salar Abdullah termed “headless and footless”—out of control. From one standpoint, they were right, since Mergan had never had an
opportunity to distinguish her head from her feet. In a sense, her head had never benefited from a strong neck; her feet had never had shoes. But if they meant “headless and footless” to signify something else, then it was up to the Kadkhoda to know what that was. Because Mergan exemplified the working woman of Zaminej. She was perhaps the hardest-working woman of the village. She was like a sharp sword. She never rested. Once she began, she could do the work of two men. Strong and obstinate. And so the Kadkhoda estimated that Mergan would not back down. He turned to Salar and said, “Leave it. Just take these four pieces, and we’ll later deal with the remainder.”

Mergan rose and said, “There is no remainder, Kadkhoda. I can’t go on having to look away when I happen to cross paths with someone who claims I’m in his debt! Either take these copper pieces and settle the business, or I’ll stop you from trying to take even a cup from this house. Blood will have to flow!”

“That’s enough from you. Don’t shout yourself hoarse with all that.”

“Enough is enough. Just don’t leave me at the mercy of every nobody who’s around. But I’ll leave the rest to you.”

The Kadkhoda looked at Salar Abdullah and said, “So, what do you say?”

Salar stooped and gathered the pieces and then shot a hurt and angry glance at Mergan, saying, “Oh, I’ll have the rest. You’ll see!”

Mergan grabbed Salar’s hands and said, “There is no more. Do you understand? Either we are even, or you leave these behind.”

The Kadkhoda separated Mergan from Salar’s hands and said, “Get going, Salar. Get a move on, you! Soluch isn’t dead. Who knows, he might return.”

Salar cradled the copper work and exited by the door. Then Kadkhoda Norouz released Mergan, picked up his overcoat that had fallen to the floor, and left, following Salar Abdullah. Mergan sat on the ground.

From inside the doorway of the stable, Abbas was taking in the sight of Salar Abdullah and Kadkhoda Norouz leaving. After eavesdropping on what they were saying as they walked by the wall, he quietly slipped out the door. The possibility of Salar’s return frightened him. So from the edge of the wall his eyes followed the two men as they left down the alley, before he quietly entered the room. He found Mergan in tears. Hajer was frightened and cowering in a corner silently. Abrau was still lost under the blankets, more or less still moaning as before.

Abbas kneeled by the stove and said, “Mama, where did you hide the copper?”

Mergan, whose frustration had been building up inside her, shouted, “In hell! What are you starting up for now? Let me die in peace!”

Abbas kept at the subject, saying, “I heard everything. You’ve hidden the copper somewhere.”

Mergan was about to launch into an argument when she instead wiped her nose with the edge of her scarf and asked, “When did you get back that I didn’t notice? So where’s the bread? I thought you were taking your bundle of wood to the baker, weren’t you?”

Abbas answered, “The bastard didn’t take it. He doesn’t want any more tonight. And what he needs tomorrow he’ll only buy tomorrow. I nearly killed myself bringing the load back to the house!”

Mergan suddenly thought of something.

“Did their bread oven still have embers burning?”