Missing Soluch (42 page)

“And what do you eat, Karbalai? Dry bread and water, or do you chew on gold coins like a mouse?”

The Sardar wasn’t concerned about offending Karabalai Doshanbeh with something he had said. At heart, he wanted to hurt and to drive the old man from Mergan’s home using nothing but his sharp tongue. So he continued.

“Even during your days as a camel herder you never ate much! You always could find enough on other people’s plates to fill your own belly. You would drink your tea with the sugar or currants you were offered from the traders. You would butter your bread with the stock you were transporting with your camels! But what do you eat now? You don’t have the same people to go to as before. We don’t have the bankrupt landowners that you used to visit during meal times to ask them about their payments. So what can you be doing for food? It must be that you’re keeping yourself nourished by breathing the sweet smell of all your money! I’ve never known you to use even two
seers
of butter to soften your bread. So how much dry bread can you eat, man? Don’t you injure your intestines with all that dry bread you must be eating?”

Karbalai Doshanbeh retorted, “You’re sitting all high and mighty, blowing hot wind out your throat! For me, I’ve never heard of the poor shoeless Sardar having anything with his bread but watered-down yogurt! But friends and enemies alike both know that Karbalai Doshanbeh has one portion of the best sheep’s fat with his food every day!”

The Sardar spoke under his breath, “In different people’s houses, no doubt!”

“Why in different people’s houses? Nowadays, no one has anything to spare. I eat in my son’s house. My own son’s house!”

“Oh, so you eat in your son’s house? One would have to be deaf not to have heard that his wife has kicked you out of the house and that you’re living out in the storage shed!”

“His wife? You think his wife can kick me out of my own house? She’d never dare to! She knows that every day I expect her to prepare three full meals to put before me. Each week I eat eggs and molasses cooked with yellow oil seven times.”

“If so, where’s your fat ass?”

“You want to arm-wrestle me over this?”

Now this was completely reckless. Karbalai Doshanbeh blurted this out from frustration, all at once. Something instinctive had compelled the old man to say this, or rather, to let this slip out. It was pure bravado. If Mergan hadn’t been around, Karbalai Doshanbeh would never have spoken so foolishly, not even in a hundred years. But it seemed that Mergan’s presence, and the fact that she was the audience to their verbal sparring, had agitated the old man. He was now heading for a confrontation with the huge Sardar, which would no doubt have a sorry end for himself.

The Sardar began to roll up his sleeve and prepare.

“What’s the bet?”

“You decide!”

They both clearly understood the reason for their resorting to such bravado and, now, tests of their manliness. It was also clear to them that Mergan had sensed the reason for all of this as well. So the Sardar quickly said, “The bet is, whoever loses can never show his face in this house again!”

There was no place for backtalk or negotiation in these terms. The Sardar had thrown down the gauntlet, but was confident of winning. Before Abbas’ wide eyes, and Mergan’s quietly shocked gaze, the old hero Karbalai Doshanbeh rose calmly from his place against the wall and came to the lowered floor next to the hearth, standing before the Sardar. Short and compact, he was quiet and serious. He set his left knee on the ground, and set his right foot in the ashes of the hearth. The Sardar did the same before him. The two old men took their positions facing each other. It was now time for them to grip each other’s palms and to try to break the other down. This ritual to test men’s strength was brought by the caravan drivers from Kerman province as a gift for the people of Khorasan. They each grasped the other’s right hand. Karbalai Doshanbeh’s fingers were short and thick, while the Sardar’s were each like a cucumber. In this test of strength, their hands were to be locked together and their elbows set onto their raised kneecaps.

Mergan didn’t know what her role was in all of this. In fact, she was the most worried of all. She didn’t want to be a part of this game. She stood and watched the battle from the edge of the room. Two ogres had made their way into her house, had
imposed themselves on her and her household, now she could find no way to extricate herself from the predicament they had laid out before her.

“Okay, let’s see how strong you really are!”

“You begin. I’m waiting for you to start!”

“No, both together!”

“Okay, together … Go!”

Each directed all of his strength into his arm and toward his fist. The contest was simple, gauging the strength of two men’s arms, pushing in opposite directions, as two sources of power. The veins in Karbalai Doshanbeh’s neck began to bulge. The Sardar’s eyes began to widen. The struggle proceeded quietly, slowly. The pressure moved in waves through their muscles and nerves, focusing in their hands. The veins in the backs of their hands were visible. The two hands had become one; the two men, one body. A body set alight. Blood rushed to their temples. Their cheeks and eyes were contorted. Stones in the slings of two fingers. Their teeth bit their lips. They could each taste blood in their mouths. Necks stiff and thick. Beards trembling. Nostrils wide. Bodies shaking as if feverish. Their bodies looked as if they were breaking down, nearly collapsing.

It was clear that the Sardar could, in one sudden motion, break the grip of Karbalai Doshabeh’s fingers. But he didn’t, on purpose. He wanted to play with the old man, exhaust him, cut him down, and lay him out for dead. He mercilessly pushed on, intending to completely destroy the old man. But Karbalai Doshanbeh held his ground. It was as if he was finding strength from each of the days he had lived through. He found the spirit to defend himself as if with claws and teeth. Blood began to trickle from his lower lip into his beard. The capillaries in his
eyes were red with blood. The vein in his forehead was about to break. But he didn’t want to back down. He couldn’t bear the insult of defeat. He was looking for an opportunity to play one last card. The Sardar gave him room to keep looking for a way out, given his complete confidence in his own strength. So as to give some hope to the old man, and to drag out the game a little, he began to shake his wrist on purpose. Karbalai Doshanbeh couldn’t help but believe that the tide was turning, and his hopes were raised. He summoned all the strength he could gather and in one sudden move broke the pillar of the Sardar’s hold, causing his hand to shake in a way that was now out of his control. He gained momentum and mercilessly pressed down, so much so that the angle of the Sardar’s grip fell to a point that made it impossible for him to recover his initial advantage. Karbalai Doshanbeh made the most of the dead end that his opponent had now found himself in, and he brought one more final surge in his grip. Crash! The Sardar’s four fingers broke backward. The sweat-covered palms of the two men’s hands broke apart, and the men each fell back, bathed in his own sweat.

The pain was immense, but the disgrace was much worse. What does a man have other than his own word? The Sardar raised his body, holding his injured fingers under his arm. Without looking at a soul, he exited, under his opponent’s triumphant glare. Mergan followed the outline of the man’s broken shoulders as he disappeared into the darkness with a hint of pity. The miserable, wretched man!

Karbalai Doshanbeh dragged himself to the edge of the wall, leaning against it as he always did. He busied himself with massaging his fingers, without saying anything or looking at
anyone. He sensed Mergan’s silent surprise, but he felt it improper to ruffle his old feathers before her any more than he was doing.

Abrau entered the room, his sleeves rolled up and his hands covered in blood. He was holding a horn from the head of the goat that had just been sacrificed to celebrate the arrival of the water pump. With a glance at the flushed face of Karbalai Doshanbeh, and another to his mother’s pale visage, he tossed the horn to one side. He pulled a knife from his waistband and, standing just before Karbalai Doshanbeh, he thrust the knife into the wall. He turned and looked the old man in the eyes and leaned his body against the wall. The bloody knife was in the wall just above his shoulder. This was the first time that Abrau had slaughtered an animal. This may have been the reason for the new color and disposition in his eyes. He opened his lips and growled, “Up, Karbalai! Get out of this house!”

The weight of the words was such that Karbalai Doshanbeh’s arrogance was shattered at once. The old man put one hand on his knee and half-rose while saying, “Not a bad idea … I was just thinking of … leaving!”

He rose and walked to the door. He paused and asked, “So, it seems the water pump’s arrived without a problem?”

Abrau didn’t respond. He shut the door behind the old man, threw the latch into place, pulled the knife from the wall, and turned to face Mergan.

Who would believe it? Could a son kill his own mother? Abbas’ large, worried eyes were staring at them. No, Mergan couldn’t believe it!

Abrau, under Abbas’ anxious gaze, stood before his mother, looking directly into her eyes.

“Tell me the truth, mother! What the hell are these beasts doing in my father’s house? Are they here to try to take his place? Eh? Did you lose your tongue, then?”

That was right. Mergan had simply lost her tongue.

* * *

“Auntie Mergan, Auntie Mergan! Moslemeh wants you to come to their house tomorrow; they need help with the clay oven! Aren’t you at home, Auntie Mergan?”

Fall marked the coming of the water pump, and the return of the boys of Zaminej.

Only Ghodrat didn’t return.

“But why? Why only him?”

“He said, ‘Why should I return?’ He said he’d just have to go back again. ‘That’s a fool’s game,’ he said. ‘One needs to just go and find a place for himself.’ ”

“He didn’t give you a letter or something to give me?”

“No … He didn’t give me anything.”

“But where is he staying?”

“When the work as a field hand was done, he made his way to the capitol and sent word that he found work in a bakery there. But he said that working as a baker wasn’t his destiny. He was sure he’d find better work soon!”

“But what about me, his own father?”

Morad laughed and said, “He said my father can go to hell! I didn’t bring him to this world so as to now owe him something—he brought me here!”

Ghodrat’s father pulled away from Morad and Abrau and stood by a crumbling wall. There, he said, “Ghodrat, my boy! You’re tearing my heart out! I hope nothing will happen to you, my son! I hope that wherever you end up, you’ll have bread to eat and you’ll be healthy, my son!”

Abrau and Morad walked away from the weary, wretched old man. The sound of his lamentation faded as they left him behind. Morad’s pocket was full of money, and he was walking on clouds. He had no patience for sadness. He wanted to walk all around Zaminej in one go, showing himself off to all the people of the village. He had a new set of tight clothes on, and he walked as if parading for anyone who saw him. His left hand was thrust into his pocket, and he shook the change in the bottom of the pocket to make it jingle. Abrau took every opportunity to assess Morad’s clothes, if only to find some fault with the length or the cut of them. In Abrau’s mind, the clothes were strange. The pants were cut short and their crotch was too tight. The sleeves of his jacket also didn’t come to his wrists, and it seemed as if at any moment his sturdy shoulders were going to tear the jacket in two across his back! But Morad had no plans to take off the clothes before each and every inhabitant of the village had seen them. Morad was in love with the brown stripes that caught the eye as they crossed against the khaki background of his jacket and pants. Although Abrau had an impulse to try to buy the clothes off of Morad, Morad was not willing to consider selling them until the clothes lost some of their splendor. And Abrau would just have to eat his heart out waiting!

“So what do you say?”

“They’re not for sale, man!”

“But they look terrible on your body!”

“So it looks bad! Don’t look at me then!”

“Fine, I won’t!”

“Fine, then don’t!”

Shoulder-to-shoulder, they walked along with few words exchanged between them. They headed to Mergan’s house so Morad could visit Abbas. But neither Abbas nor Mergan was at home.

“Where did they go to, so early in the morning?”

“What do I know? None of us knows much about what the others are up to any more.”

“Are you fighting with your mother?”

“We don’t really speak. What is there for us to talk about?”

“What about your sister? How’s Hajer?”

“I hardly see her. The bastard won’t let her leave the house! Even if she just goes to fetch water, he watches her with four eyes instead of two.”

Morad reflected for a moment, and said, “Well, then …!”

Abrau changed the subject. “Mirza Hassan has started up the water pump. Let’s go and see if he has some work for you!”

Morad said, “What would I do that for? He’d have to beg me to even consider it. You think I don’t have enough? I have savings that will feed me until the next New Year without needing anything from anyone. And if on the day of the New Year I find my pockets are empty with nothing but some fleas in them, I’ll pick up my bag and put on my boots. And who knows, maybe this time I’ll go and not look back—like Ghodrat! What about you? I guess your work’s not too bad then?”

“Me … ah … no. My work’s not bad.”

“If you only could see all the tractors that are everywhere in the next province over! They’re like ants! No one there ploughs with cows any more. They even harvest the wheat with tractors as well. We can’t get work as harvesters, you know. Now we can only work on the summer planting. The summer planting has to be done by hand, so the tractor’s no good for that. And over there, the summer work pays really well, since you’re so close to the capitol. The harvest gets to the market in two hours. Nothing goes bad before it’s sold. But that’s honeydew for you! Each one is three or four
man
in weight. Sweet as honey. If you eat one, you’re full till sundown. It’s really something!”