Missing Soluch (31 page)

“Just give something, guys! Give a coin or two so we can get rid of him!”

Just then, Ghodrat arrived. The group was complete—twenty-one people. Morad started in on Ghodrat. “Do you think this is a trip to your auntie’s house? The sun’s been up
forever! And you want to find work in a strange land with useless shoes like those?”

Ghodrat carried a bag over one shoulder and his father was following him, wiping his runny nose every so often.

“It’s coming. It’s coming!”

Abrau suddenly shouted and threw himself into the path.

“What’s coming?”

“The tractor!”

First, a cloud of dust was visible in the distance. Then something came into view. Then that sound, a sound entrancing to everyone. But the group was about to leave. They were all holding their sacks and satchels on their backs, and the mothers had just finished embracing their sons, the daughters standing to one side with their lips trembling.

Abrau had his hat in his hand and waved to the tractor’s driver from a distance. The tractor approached with an increasing roar. The camels started to buck with fear. Abbas raised his walking stick over his head and swearing in a continuous stream at the tractor and its driver as he tried to gather the scattering camels.

The tractor stopped beside the crowd, bringing with it a cloud of dust from along its way. As soon as those gathered extricated themselves from the dust, the young men began walking away in a line along the side of the tractor. The women gathered at a point on the path to watch their loved ones leaving. Some of the young men could be seen to be looking over their shoulders as they went, glancing back at their mothers and sisters. But as they grew distant, their eyes met less and less. The men kept walking, and the women stayed in place.

Ghodrat’s father was sitting on a rock. The tractor-driver half-glanced over at the women from beneath his lowered cap. Abrau leapt up to the tractor and put a solid foot on the running board. The driver asked about Salar Abdullah, and Abrau told him they’d need to look for him at his farmland. The driver started up the tractor once again, and on the far side of the machine, Abbas spit at the deep, dusty tracks it left behind.

* * *

The commotion settled. The women each went their own way. Only Ghodrat’s father remained, sitting on the rock holding his head in his hands. Abbas turned and began walking toward the camels, which were following their habitual path to the outlying fields. Abbas was still in the middle of the settling dust, lost in his thoughts. All of his peers were leaving or had already left. Zaminej was emptying out. While they had been there, Abbas had rarely shared a feeling of camaraderie with them; indeed, usually he was at odds with most of them. But now that they had gone or were about to leave, he sensed their absence. Empty places, gaping holes, opened up in Abbas’ mind. Like anthills in soft soil, spaces cut into the dirt.

Abbas crushed an anthill with his foot and marched on. He looked again at his feet and saw grass. The open fields. Fields streaked with green glistening beneath the soft warmth of the morning sun. Wide-open lands, tended fields alongside wild lands stretching out into the distance. To reach the distant wild lands where the camels would graze, one had to carefully direct them between farmed fields. He began to gather the camels … “Hey, ho, hey!”

The wheat had just begun to sprout, a green carpet over the fields. The camels were not to enter the wheat fields, as even if they didn’t graze on it, they would crush and kill the plants beneath their hooves. The camels were still somewhat full from their morning provisions and so were not much tempted by the wheat stalks. They walked softly and calmly, free of their saddles, bridles, and gear. Camels are quick to sense this freedom, as is easy to see in their gait as they walk. Free of their saddles, they stride freely. They can choose to step lightly or heavily, in long or short steps, either trotting or walking. A camel can choose to stop in its tracks, turn its head over its shoulder, and look around; it can look anywhere and not just straight ahead. It can raise its tail and drop dung, unmuzzled and with nothing around its neck. When the camel’s tethered in a train, with one camel’s bridle tied closely to the next camel’s behind, it loses its individuality. It acts as if it’s bearing a load, even if there is none. That’s what the bridle and caravan leader tell it: don’t step out of line. Unless it is the lead camel, whose tether is handled by the caravan leader. Don’t wander. Walk, walk. The leader will lead the way …

But they were free. The Sardar’s camels were free in front of Abbas, untethered and without bridles, without anything, not even the bells or chimes that camels often wear. It was spring, and spring breaks the work habit of a camel. It may gallop or trot if it likes. It froths at the lips and there is a wild abandon in its eyes. Spring fever intoxicates.

Abbas had noticed spring fever in the camels over the past few days.

The black male was walking ahead of the others. It was not far to the grazing lands. By the time the sun was up three ticks,
the camels would be in the wild lands. The sun was rising, and with it the daybreak’s first heat was dissipating. The air felt milder and milder. Abbas began to feel that his shoulder was sweating beneath the sack he was carrying. The sunlight on the red earth reflected against the woolly coats of the camels. Abbas waved his walking stick over his head and called out, “Hey hey hey … you bastard!”

The black male had turned on a mare camel. Abbas ran forward and brought a blow down on the temple of the male, who had grabbed the female’s throat in his teeth. Abbas brought down a second blow, and then another. The male let go of the mare and stared at Abbas. Froth was pouring from the edges of his mouth. With a shouted threat, Abbas pushed him forward and broke his stare. The black male camel fell in with the others and began walking ahead. Abbas walked along, calling at the herd.

Over the last few days, the look of the male camel had changed. He seemed unsettled, as if there was a trace of hatred or even anger in his actions. Abbas had sensed this. The male also disturbed the other camels. He would act aggressively toward them, biting at them for no reason. He would suddenly grab at them with his teeth, biting their legs or their ears. Abbas had been riled by this. He had to constantly separate this one camel from the others. With a few blows and by shouting he could eventually be made to let go of the other animal, but sometimes it would take forty blows to his head and legs before he would let go. Abbas was not so softhearted as to be bothered by hitting the animal. He was concerned more for himself in the situation, since this wasn’t easy work. Separating two camels, one of which acts drunken and tinged with madness,
made him tired and irritable. He would end up sweating all over. Alone in the desert, he’d be exhausted and had to eat more of his bread and drink his water quickly. As a result, he’d return home twice as exhausted as usual and collapse in his bed like a corpse at night.

With the ascending sun, the herd entered the grazing lands. The scrub was long enough for them to eat, green and moist. Other than in spots, these lands were covered by wild
shur
, a kind of plant that only camels can eat while still green, but that could be used for feed for cattle if dried. In the spring and summer, men would gather the
shur
into bundles for feed for their donkeys and camels, stacking it in bundles alongside the outer wall of their homes. The plant would slowly dry up and lose its toughness while taking on some moisture from the rain, making it suitable for their sheep and goats. Some would pound the dried plant to collect its seeds for use in laundering clothes; this was called
ajuvveh
. But as long as it was still green and in the ground, the plant was only suitable for the camels; only their mouths could pull the plant out from the roots and eat it with its salty flavor. The camel’s store of water, perhaps, gave it a special ability to digest the plant inside its huge stomach.

Abbas let the camels go free in the field while he set down his sack and sat beside an ancient well.

This now-dry well was, as Abbas himself remembered, one of a chain of salt-water wells that were once connected underground. Before this system dried up, the water in it was used to power the old mill. Salt water is only useful for this, for turning the stone of the mill. But when the water level dropped, the mill also went out of use. And just before the old mill fell out of use, a new motorized mill was set up over in the village of Dehbid,
taking over from Zaminej. People now had to take their wheat to this mill instead. So then the old salt-water mill’s doors were closed and the miller, old Shahmir, had migrated to Dehbid. There wasn’t much for him to do in Zaminej, and he’d gone blind by then as well. The times when Abbas helped his uncle Molla Aman with his peddling he’d sometimes see Shahmir in Dehbid, walking with one hand on a wall and a walking stick in the other, reciting old stories from the epic poems. If the women of Dehbid wanted, they would invite Shahmir into their homes for him to regale them with the old tales that only he knew from the poems.

Now Shahmir’s old mill, far away from the village, situated at the end of the underground channel linked by the salt-water wells, had fallen into disrepair. Broken, dry, and crumbling, the mill was half-covered by sand and rubble and was a haven for snakes and mice.

Abbas reached for the water flask, put its mouth to his, and swallowed. The water wet his mouth and throat. He returned the flask to his sack, closed the bag, and lay on his back. Face-to-face with the sun, he brought his eyelids together, closing them. This was what was good about herding camels. You could set the herd loose in a field and then just relax. You could sleep if you were sleepy—it didn’t matter. Before the evening prayers, all you had to do was get up once in a while and bring back any camels that had strayed too far away. The camels busied themselves, and the camel herder was usually free to do as he wished. If he was ambitious, the herder could go out alongside the camels and gather a bushel of the scrub to bring home with himself at dusk. But those who shared Abbas’ disposition would just while the day away until sundown, gathering the herd from
the various corners of the field while there was still some sun, to bring them back to Zaminej. The evenings were the time for the young men to enjoy; sitting by a wall in the moonlight or gathering in the back room of Sanam’s house—that was what Abbas lived for.

But where were the other guys now? All of the other youth, where had they gone?

Between his closing eyelids, Abbas saw his peers leaving … They were already gone. It was so quick. He shut his eyes. He had to forget them. Abbas didn’t want to be the kind of man to let useless sorrow into his heart. Just like a young wolf that cannot afford to be swayed by regret or grief, he had to stay focused on eating his next meal and finding the next prey to ambush. No time for sentiments: let sorrow raise its head in some other place, far away.

This was all well and good, but something still bothered Abbas. All this coming and going would no doubt bring changes to the village. Some things were almost certainly going to be rearranged. But what would they be? He couldn’t foresee them. He couldn’t pass by the old ruins of the salt-water mill with his eyes shut so as to forget Shahmir’s sad end. The mill that was now, at best, a haunt for spirits was not so long ago a warm and lively place. The people who brought their barley and wheat to be ground there would gather around its oven in the winter and tell stories and gossip. Abbas had gone there many times with Soluch to bring grain to be ground. Abbas rode on their donkey—this was before it died—holding a sack of barley between his legs while holding onto the bridle. The early mornings brought Soluch to the mill; for this reason, Abbas’ memories of the path were usually of sleeping on the way, or of being on the
smooth stone ground beside the mill’s oven.

But now, the motorized mill of Dehbid could grind all the wheat and barley that was brought to it from all over, making more flour from the grains than one could know what to do with. And old Shahmir, whose eyes could no longer see, was left only with the old stories that filled his mind. He was left to tap his walking stick as he wandered, recollecting all that he’d heard and seen in his life, relating it to others in the weaving of his stories.

Could it be that the youth of Zaminej, Abbas’ contemporaries, would never again return to the village?

Abbas was suddenly shaken. What if they didn’t return? Some might never come back, since it had been said that after the group of partners set up their motorized water pump, there would be even less water in the cisterns. People were complaining that the pump would suck out the underground water of the surrounding areas. Abbas couldn’t get his mind around it all—all of the changes that were beginning to occur. All the talk of pistachio farming. Pistachios. Even the name was unfamiliar. Abbas had never even eaten a pistachio. He’d heard it was something similar to the meat of an apricot pit. He had seen apricots, out in the foothills, while he was traveling with his uncle. But in Zaminej, all that came out of the ground was barley and wheat and cotton. There were fruits also, such as honeydew or watermelons, and in some places people planted tomatoes.

Abbas had heard that the water pump would reach down into the heart of the earth and bring up the water. Mirza Hassan and Salar had hired a few people to dig a well. When he heard this, Abbas thought of his father—himself a well digger. If he
were still around, he could have become the overseer of the digging of the water pump’s well. They’d not need to have hired well diggers from Dehbid. The rumors were that a few of the other landowners had gotten their courage up and had also invested in the water pump, so they’d be able to make use of it for an hour or two at a time. But most villagers had not only refused to invest in the pump, but had begun to give voice to their dissatisfaction about it as well. Their claim was that the pump would dry out the cisterns, and that if this happened all the other village lands would become dry and worthless. They’d say, “What it means is that once the pump is set up, we’ll have to pack up our things and leave the village!”