Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Missing Soluch

Oh no, Mergan. Your son has fainted in an alley somewhere while you were grinding herbs in your pestle to use as an ointment.

Hollow, Abbas’ body was hollow. Light, lighter than it should have been. His bones seemed to have become crumbled. Mergan may have exhausted herself running in the sun-drenched alleys, but she did not falter in raising Abbas’ body. She lifted him and leaned him against a wall. Then she put her back to him and pulled his arms over her shoulders. She knelt with one knee in the dirt; then, like a man lifting a bundle of wood, she rose while pulling Abbas over her back. She slipped her long, bony arms under his dried-out legs and stood. It was difficult to run with this load on her back, but she took her steps with care and determination. As she walked, she could hear water sloshing to and fro inside Abbas’ belly.

Abbas himself felt numb. Even the shaking of his bones as they went left very little, if any, impression on him. He only felt something distant and hazy, something fleeting and indistinct. It felt like riding on Gabriel’s wings. The movement was regular and soothing. His hands had fallen over Mergan’s shoulders and against her chest. His head was like the head of a dead bird, rolling against her back. His eyelids, like dried leaves, were still half-open.

Mergan placed her son on the ground and lifted off his shirt. She ran to get water. Abbas had crumpled on the dirt floor of the room. His head was to one side, his arms to the other. A bit of spittle was dripping from one side of his mouth, and his heart beat an uneven drumbeat within his ribcage. Mergan returned with a bowl of water, and then took off her headscarf and wet it in the water. She wet Abbas’ face, forehead, and lips with the wet scarf, then rubbed the dripping cloth against his chest and belly. It had an effect on him. Abbas’ bedding was set out by the wall, and Mergan dragged him over to it. Abbas placed his head on the pillow and struggled to open his eyes. But before he was able to look around or see anything, his eyelids fell shut again.

No, Abbas was no longer Abbas, and he would never be him again. He was now a broken corpse, as broken as if he were an old man, left fallen beside the wall. Mergan slid to one side and leaned against the wall, staring at him in this sorry state. What should she do? What could she do? Abbas had been transformed into a misfortune. A misfortune dear to her. If your heart is injured, you can neither erase the injury from your heart, nor can you throw it away. The injury becomes a part of your heart. If you lose the injury, it means you have lost your heart. And if you truly wish to be rid of the injury, you are in fact willing yourself to lose your heart. And how can you lose your heart? So you go on, with the injury and your heart as one. Abbas and heartache were now one. They had become as one. Would it be possible to separate them? Abbas was himself the pain in her, and vice versa. The two were united and were indistinguishable. They were an injury on Mergan’s heart. An aching in her heart. And she had no choice but to love the injury and the pain. She went to Abbas. She had to hold him, this very moment. She wanted to kiss his eyes. She knelt beside him. But no. She couldn’t. Abbas was not the child he had once been, nor was he the young man he had become. He was now a man, an old man. An old man with wrinkles covering his face — where did they come from?

Mergan couldn’t kiss her child. Something was preventing her from taking him in her arms, even as she was overflowing with love for him. There was a wall between the two, however dear they were to each other. A separation between their hearts. She couldn’t grant her kindness, her deepest treasure, to him.

Oh Mergan! Your love is only apparent in your most ancient of aspects, your tears. And you are burdened with the task of having to cry until the Day of Judgment. Crying, so that your mother’s tears are like still waters within you. Dig a well and let it flow; let it flow from within you. Let yourself flow. You can cry with the tears of all mothers, a storm of cries and laments and tears. Oh dormant sea!

But no, Mergan had become a fortress. Although her mother’s tears had become a still water within her, other inclinations had built a rampart around it, holding it locked within her. Let this still water become putrid! Let it dry out. Dry, autumnal, silent, and cracked. Burnt, borne on the wind. Autumn, the yellow leaves of fall. The howling of the lost winds. She was like an evergreen in autumn. Mergan had lived through many autumns. But no, the ancient evergreen does not cry out. It never cries. Let all this crying end. Be gone! What of anger? A dam of fury set on a river of the oldest anger. A scourge on the ancient still waters. A flood on the face of the rain. An uproar, tumult. Unforgiving, a kind of cruelty meeting cruelty. An outcry against pain. Not a lament, but an eruption. Clawing at tear-filled eyes. She has had an illegitimate child, the illegitimate child of lamentation, mourning, surrender. Let go, set free. Set yourself free, Mergan! Free of all the life-sapping pain! Let fury and knives and blood rain without pause! Mergan’s heart, the essence of the naked shame in Lot’s desert.

A shadow! What is this shadow? Who is it? Who?

“What do you want, eh?”

“Bring over that bit of bread, so we can sit and finish our deal!”

“Eh? Mirza Hassan! No, I won’t give you the land!”

“I’ll just have to take it then!”

“I’ll never give it to you. It’ll be my grave!”

“I’ve already registered the deed. The company’s given us a loan with that land as collateral. I’m mechanizing farming in this area. You don’t even understand what this means! Mechanization! So it’s all in my favor; everything’s backing me. I’m telling you nicely. I don’t want people to say that I’m fighting against a woman. That’s not how I work. Let’s make an arrangement, come to terms. I have plans to do important things in this area. Cotton farming, pistachio farming. Do you understand what I’m telling you? I’m going to make this area green! You see, I just want to come to terms with you. Despite the fact that you’re only Soluch’s wife and don’t have any claim to his lands. So even if he had registered a deed to that land, you’d not have any claim to it. But I just want you to be satisfied!”

Mergan’s eyes were like daggers. “Get out, get out!”

“I’ll go. But just know one other thing. I’ve bought your daughter’s claim as well. Your son-in-law brought the contract to me with his two hands.”

“I’m telling you, get out!”

“Fine. I’m going.”

The shadow departed. Mirza Hassan was no longer there.

Mergan walked up and down the room with long strides. She came and went like a lioness in a cage. Her lips were firmly shut, her eyebrows furrowed. Her head was bare, her feet bare. She didn’t even realize that she hadn’t bothered to cover her head before Mirza Hassan. Her hair was limp, thin, dark. Her eyes were wide; her look cut like a knife. Her hands were fidgety, but her steps were firm. She was drawn and taught, like an arrow in a bow.

Abbas was mumbling deliriously, “May God overlook my faults.”

Mergan spit and left the room. She took Soluch’s well-digging shovel from the stable and walked to the alley. She walked quickly, winding like the wind from alley to alley. She reached the outskirts of the village, the open fields, and made it to the wild lands beyond. Shortly, she was at God’s Land. The lands there had fallen, like someone’s prone body. They were tired, flattened. Mergan had never seen them in this way. She had always seen the lands as alive, fertile. Now, outlines in the land had been erased, but despite this she could still see how it used to be laid out. If you divided the plot into six sections, one section belonged to her. Abbas and Abrau had each sold their two sections, four sections in all. Hajer had also sold hers, her one section. These divisions followed the traditional rules of inheritance, males inheriting twice what each female inheritor can. So, the remaining one section was all that was Mergan’s. She measured out the section and separated her one section by drawing a line in the earth with the shovel. She outlined the four corners of her land with piles of dirt and sticks, and set stones onto the piles. She then picked up the shovel and stood straight. She was done. She wiped the sweat from her brow.