Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Missing Soluch

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Missing Soluch: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Perhaps the most important work in modern Iranian literature, this starkly beautiful novel examines the trials of an impoverished woman and her children living in a remote village in Iran, after the unexplained disappearance of her husband, Soluch.
Lyrical yet unsparing, the novel examines her life as she contends with the political corruption, authoritarianism, and poverty of the village. It follows her vacillations between love for Soluch and anger at his absence, and her struggle to raise her children without their father.
The novel critically evokes the unfulfilled aspirations of modern Iran, portraying a society caught between a past and a future that seem equally weighed down by injustice.
This landmark novel — the first ever written in the everyday language of the Iranian people — revolutionized Persian literature in its beautiful and daring portrayal of the life of a marginal woman and her struggle to survive.

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Abrau said, “I’ll take the bundle.”

“You’ll take it? Are you mocking me, you son of a bitch little nothing! You’ll take it? I’ll show you!”

In one way or another, Abbas leapt like a rabbit onto Abrau’s pile of wood and grabbed the cloth of the bundle. Abrau also, in one leap, threw himself onto his pile and wrapped his body around it. Abbas lost control. His blood rushed to his eyes, and he saw nothing more. He only wanted to peel Abrau, who was stuck onto the pile of wood like a leech, off of the bundle and to put the two piles of wood together. He opened his arms wide and picked up the bundle — which had become one with Abrau — lifted it to his chest, and smashed it to the ground. But Abrau still clung onto his small bundle and wouldn’t let go. Abbas lifted his foot and brought a heavy blow down on Abrau’s back, so that he let out a cry. Despite this, he didn’t let go of the bundle. He was screaming and holding on. Abbas was like a mad dog. His anger was overflowing. With a struggle, despite scratching the backs of his hands badly, he managed to get his arms under Abrau’s belly and hold him in a tight embrace. He fell on one knee and pulled Abrau to his chest and stomach. But Abrau wouldn’t let go. Abbas stuck himself to his brother’s back, put his knee in the small of his back, and took his dirt-covered ear between his teeth and bit.

As a result of the pressure from Abbas’ knee, the tight hold around his body, and the pain of his brother’s teeth biting his ear, Abrau lost consciousness and, like a bit of cargo that has fallen from a load, with a quick kick, he fell onto the clods of earth beside the wall of the ruins.

Abbas’ mouth was full of blood. He spit. The blood was salty. He rolled his brother’s head on the earth and looked at his injured ear. The left side of Abrau’s face was covered in blood. The rays of the sun glittered in the crimson blood. Abbas sat on a pile of dirt and put his head in his hands. He couldn’t even cry. It was as if he could only cry in blood-tears. He rose and gathered Abrau’s woodpile and added it to his own. He left Abrau’s cloth next to where he had fallen. He sat next to the new bundle and set it against his back.

Now that’s what you call a bundle of wood!

He set his back against the bundle and set one knee into the ground, and with an effort lifted it from the ground. He stayed bent and adjusted the heavy bundle on his back. Abrau was there, fallen before him. He passed by Abrau and stepped into the road. His shadow fell before him, and he walked with an eye to the shadow cast by the bundle. He wished it looked bigger. But it didn’t look very big from this angle. The sun was shining from behind him. So he turned and stood with his side to the sun. Now the shadow looked bigger. It gave Abbas a sense of satisfaction. He set back out on his way, going up another alley. The sound of Abrau’s heavy breaths stopped him. He turned. Abrau was running up from behind him. He stood. Abrau’s eyes looked like two hot coals. Two hot coals and smoke. Abbas felt sorry for him. Despite this, he snapped at him, “Well, now what do you want? Wasn’t what you got enough for you!”

Abrau replied, “The sickle. I want your sickle.”

3

Abrau returned as the sun was setting. He had a bundle of wood on his back, and sweat was dripping from the tip of his nose. His face was white in the moonlight. His lips and cheeks were trembling from weakness. His heart felt empty. The sweat that covered his face and ears was not the sweat of fatigue; more than that, it was a sweat of weakness. Of fragility. He felt as if the very fabric of his body was coming apart. He had heard the saying “If a man’s knees begin to tremble, he will eventually fall.” However, Abrau refused to fall. He conjured up the last reservoir of strength within him and took another step toward the awning of the bread oven. Gasping, he arrived and leaned the bundle against the wall, and his knees began to fold under him. The wood stalks scraped against the wall as they slid to the ground. He sat down, leaning his back against the bundle of wood. His legs extended out beneath him, and his eyelashes, heavy with sweat, slowly shut as his arms stretched out naturally to each side. But he didn’t remove the bundle’s strap from his chest. It was as if his body was melting. His head was spinning and he felt like a kite lost in the air, fluttering along. It felt as if his body’s weight was dissipating. It felt like coming apart at the seams, like breaking apart, and transforming into the tiniest speck. Like being torn off like a meteor is torn off a star. Hanging, suspended, and abandoned. Hanging in a moment’s hesitation between being and nothingness. Selfless, blowing in the wind, swinging. It seemed to him as if nothing was tethered to its place. Dust filled the air, blowing around everything. Blowing onto the millstone, mixing with the grains of wheat. Swinging, like on a swing. Soluch once took the family on a New Year’s picnic. On that day, he hung a swing from a tree for the children. A rope hung between two willows.

Abrau became dizzy, nauseous. Abrau was torn from his place by the bile that was pushing up from his intestines. Rising, the bundle of wood was lifted along with him. He knelt over, and the wood slid over and on him. Bile. Abrau vomited and fell on the ground chin first. The bundle slid to one side on top of him. The pressure in his intestines was not quelled. It kept throbbing. Wind blew within his empty intestines. He had no strength left in him to move. But the pressure inside compelled him to do something. The notion occurred to him to rid himself of the bundle of wood, so he grasped the knot on his chest and with a motion opened it. The bundle loosened and fell to one side. Abrau became lighter. More vomit. Not just bile, this time also some blood. He quickly lifted a finger to his ear. No, the blood on his ear was caked dry. He didn’t want to believe that he had brought up blood. Drenched in sweat, he crawled on all fours into the house and dragged himself to the foot of the stove. The extinguished stove.

In no time, a cold — the cold that he had, in his feverish state, forgotten — took hold of him, shaking him like an electric shock. Every part of his body shook. No one was there. No one was home: “Is there anybody here? Anybody?” His broken voice echoed back at him. He had to get up. He rose. With one hand on the wall, he stood, still shaking. Like a willow sapling in the wind. As if an earthquake was shaking him. His knees, shoulders, and waist all shook. It took a great effort to hold himself up against the wall. The house was dark, or … were his eyes going dark? He looked at the door. The night had filled the doorway. No, the house itself was dark. Nonetheless, he had to do something. The blankets were in a far corner. Staggering and groping, he made his way to them and, trembling, lifted one blanket over him. No, one wasn’t enough. Another. And one more. All of them, every blanket. But the sound of his chattering teeth continued. His teeth made the sound of hard candy shaking inside a tin. Something even he didn’t understand compelled him to let out a wail. A cry. Something to open the way for the pain. To open the narrow passage that any person in pain must keep open. Otherwise, if the pain cannot escape, it explodes. A cry, a drawn-out cry. As it ploughs through the heart. A cry that sounds as if it’s one hundred years of age, drawn from the veins and arteries, from the marrow of the bone. No, it is the veins and arteries, the marrow itself, that has transformed itself into this sound, this call, now pouring up through the throat. It is life itself. Life, pouring over the tongue, getting caught within the chattering teeth, seeking a way to ask for help, to seek succor.

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