Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Missing Soluch

“So why have you locked yourself into the stable then?”

Abbas began to slowly shut the door and said, “I can’t … I can’t stand up …”

Ali Genav kept looking at the door after it was shut, as Abbas’ voice faded away. He didn’t have a moment to spare. He didn’t need to think about the situation, as he more or less understood what had happened. He’d seen how Abbas had stuffed the coins, along with the dirt, into his mouth. He was about to walk into the alley when Mergan’s voice stopped him.

“Just a second. I’m coming.”

Ali Genav waited until Mergan came out. She had Soluch’s small well-digging shovel in one hand. She gave the shovel to Ali Genav and busied herself with tying the edges of her chador around her neck. Once she was ready, she took the shovel from him and set out following behind him. First, they went to his house. She wanted to check in on Raghiyeh. Ali Genav lowered his head, entered the room, and passed by Raghiyeh and pushed back the curtain to the pantry. Then he disappeared behind the curtain. Mergan stood by the door, on the steps, and asked Raghiyeh how she was doing. Raghiyeh cried out deeper than before, “I’m a goner too! Mergan, dear, I’m also dying, my sister!”

Ali Genav came out of the pantry with his pick and shovel and answered his wife.

“You’re not going to die, don’t worry. You won’t die till you cause the end of me!”

He walked out the door, not listening to Raghiyeh’s cries and curses. In the alley he told Mergan, “She won’t let herself die before she’s dragged me to the edge of death myself!”

The Molla of Zaminej was still standing on the broken wall of the mosque chanting the call to prayer. Mergan and Ali Genav stood before him. The Molla stopped for a minute.

Ali Genav said, “Why are you shouting yourself hoarse, Molla dear! Who wants to leave their homes on such a day with such weather? And just for poor Mother Genav? Come down. Come down and go have a cup of tea while I go and dig the grave. See how you’re suffering in this cold! Give me your hand and come on down.”

Ali Genav took his hand and brought him down off the wall. The old man was shaking and his lips were nearly frozen. Ali Genav again told him to go and warm himself by the hearth. Just then the sound of Qur’anic recitation was heard. “By God! Who is this now?” Ali Genav put his shovel and pick beside the wall and entered the mosque. The place in the middle of the courtyard where Mother Genav’s casket had been placed was now empty. Where did they take the casket, then? Who had taken it? The sound of recitation was coming from the night-prayers niche. He entered the niche, trying to see in the darkness. There were dark shapes at the back of the room. He entered, and as he stepped forward the sound became louder. He kept going. It was Hajj Salem; he was sitting cross-legged above the casket and was reciting from the Qur’an. His son was lying at the other end of the casket, snoring as he slumbered.

“God curse the devil!”

Hajj Salem and his son and taken the casket from the courtyard into the niche for night-prayers, so that, sheltered from the sharp cold outside, one could recite and the other could sleep.

Mergan and the Molla were still standing in the courtyard of the mosque when Ali Genav came out, growling, “They’re making work for themselves. They’re crazy! Now I have to pay up for the recitation as well!”

He left from the broken door of the mosque and grabbed his shovel and pick, heading to the graveyard. Mergan walked along with him, step by step. The Molla dragged himself slowly behind them, saying, “But … the prayers for the deceased! The funerary prayers!”

Ali Genav turned around and said, “Molla, your lips can’t even move because of the cold! Just go and warm yourself. When we’re ready to take her to the grave, I’ll come and get you.”

The Molla didn’t say anything, and if he had, Ali Genav would not have listened to him. He had picked up his pace and was walking through the alleys toward the graveyard. Mergan was following behind him. Ali Genav stood at the edge of the graveyard. The gravestones were poking through the deep layer of snow, seeming more quiet than usual. Ali Genav looked to find his father’s gravestone. It was a tradition that members from each family be buried near one another. Despite the fact that Ali Genav was one of the men least mindful of such matters in the entire village, due to an impulse the heart of which he didn’t understand, he still wanted to be certain to bury his mother beside his father. So he walked to and fro between the graves alongside Mergan. There was no other way to find the right location; he had to go from grave to grave. He found his father’s grave and took forty steps in the direction of Mecca. Then he cut into the earth with his shovel and told Mergan, “This is it!”

Mergan stood beside him and hit the ground with her shovel, busying herself with cleaning the snow from the site. Ali Genav took off his cloak and threw it onto the handle of the pick. Then he grabbed the cold handle of the shovel between his two hands. The man and woman both went to work. All around them was white and cold. Cold and silent. There was no one other than those two, hacking at the moist soil and piling the snowy dirt on the edge of the grave.

The snow glimmered with the break of dawn. Snow covered the sleeping village like a blanket. The graveyard and the crumbling tombs were framed by a broken wall in one direction, a wide-open field in the other. Crows, black crows circled the graveyard. The ditch was dug knee-deep. Then Ali Genav set aside the shovel and picked up the pick. They had dug out the moist top-soil and had reached the firm layer beneath. Now he had to use the pick. He began working alone, as there was not enough room in the grave for the two of them. Mergan stood to one side until Ali Genav’s work was done, then she entered the grave and dug out the loose soil with her shovel. Meanwhile, Ali Genav straightened his back and set the pick on the mound beside the grave.

“Hand me the shovel!”

“Take a break. I’ll dig out this dirt.”

Ali Genav was exhausted. His forehead and ears were covered in sweat. He came out of the grave and sat beside his cloak, lighting a cigarette and throwing the burnt match to one side.

“I want to free myself of the burden of this woman!”

Mergan listened to Ali Genav as she dug the dirt out, shovelful by shovelful. He continued.

“I wasted my youth on her, but it’s enough, now! In the few days I have left to live, I want to have some peace of mind.”

Mergan was still shoveling the dirt from the grave, and didn’t say anything. He asked, “What do you think, Mergan?”

She replied while digging, “God wouldn’t approve. Her legs are broken and she has no one to protect her but you. If you throw her out, where would she find a roof to sleep under?”

Ali Genav wiped his lips with one hand and said, “I’ve had it up to here, though, Mergan! I’ve not had a single happy day for the past few years, now. What am I guilty of? And my name shouldn’t die out when they put me in my grave. As long as I can remember, this woman has done nothing but complain, cry, and complain some more. I’ve not had one happy night in my entire life. Now that her complaints are mixed with curses, I can’t even sleep a wink! She’s torturing me with her complaining, her cursing! Also, she’s the one who brought on that poor old woman’s death. She complained so much that I threw my own mother out of her house during her last days on earth, and the poor thing’s finished her life like this! Oh, God!”

Mergan finished clearing the last bit of dirt and came out of the grave. Ali Genav finished smoking his cigarette and tossed it away. He took the pick in hand and jumped into the grave. The grave was now waist-deep. They had to dig deeper, at least to chest-level. Mergan put Ali Genav’s cloak over her shoulders and sat to one side. Ali Genav bent his body and sank the pick into the earth.