Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Missing Soluch

“So, Mr. Driver, when do these new lords of ours plan to bring their little water pump our way?”

Abrau didn’t answer Karbalai Doshanbeh’s question. In addition to harboring a deep dislike of the man, he feared opening himself to injury by his sharp tongue.

This sarcastic, biting delivery was just part of Karbalai Doshanbeh’s mould. In general, this delivery would become more acidic and poisonous when attacking something that was new or novel. It was as if he could not believe in anything that didn’t fit his own desires. He acted as if the new instruments and tools were so many useless toys. This was why, although his own son Salar Abdullah was a major investor in the pump and tractor, he himself had avoided any involvement, and indeed was waiting for the day when the partners would show up at his doorstep — the day when they were too ashamed to go to the government for further loans. If Karbalai Doshanbeh had loaned the partners the same amount of money they had just borrowed, who knows how much interest they’d have to pay annually?! He didn’t have such a substantial amount on hand, and even if he did, they would never be able to offer a collateral that would be appropriate. Before all of this, before the emergence of what Karbalai Doshanbeh called “the new lords,” all the landowners borrowed from him. But now, new options were available to them, new paths. The system had changed. There was a new clique in charge. These new arrivals were now borrowing from the government itself and selling their harvest to the government as well. Of course, when they were unable to meet the terms of their loans, they had no choice but to sell their harvests off to the government. It was simple: the value of their yield would be used to compensate for the cost of the interest they owed. They accepted this and didn’t want Karbalai Doshanbeh to eye their debts. It hadn’t yet occurred to him to do as the government and to collect on his debts by buying the harvests of farmers at a price he would set. It was unlikely he could have pulled it off even if he had tried. In any case, his business had fallen off dramatically, since the petty landowners were now looking to the government’s coffers, and the only people dealing with Karbalai Doshanbeh were people who couldn’t even claim a single star within the seven skies. The landless, homeless people. People like Molla Aman and a few others who didn’t have anything to offer for collateral. So the money that they would borrow from him was never enough to return him much of a profit. This made Karbalai Doshanbeh even more venomous in his treatment of others around him. He had hunkered down in a fort of arrogance and indignation, shooting arrows at whomever approached him, whether friend or foe.

Somewhat involuntarily, Karbalai Doshanbeh had actually given his son, Salar Abdullah, some assistance and help in becoming a major investor in Mirza Hassan’s project, thus allowing him to make a large claim in the tractor, the pump, and whatever harvest came of it. Despite this, his nature and character were clearly in conflict with his son’s. He would never confront his son, however, and in public he only would say to him, “You know best.” But in his heart, he did not approve of his son’s work. In any case, Karbalai Doshanbeh’s narrow mind and limited imagination were not of a quality to challenge what was happening in the village. The scorpion ends up trying to sting anything, from stone to iron to human bodies. He no longer even tried to assess the situation before attacking. What was worse, it was unlikely he would ever change; his mind had become thick and inflexible, and for a long time, it had been unable to accept anything new. When a new idea was voiced to him, he acted as if he hadn’t heard it. Many had made themselves hoarse by trying to tell him, “Don’t perform your ablutions in running water!” But he would still insist on doing this. Any time he had to perform his ablutions, he would stand right in the middle of a stream and would begin to wash himself in the water that was directed into people’s water jugs just a few dozen steps downstream. And he would always spend half an hour performing his ablutions; he was incredibly finicky about the ritual. It was as if he considered himself to be inherently impure, and so a sense of religious purity came to him only with great difficulty.

But here, in Mergan’s home, Karbalai Doshanbeh began to feel as if he had been stung; he felt a burning sensation on the leathery surface of his heart. The sack of flour that had been sent to Mergan by the Sardar stung him. But he also felt stung by the partners that owned the water pump and tractor. At this point, this seemed even more important to him; it distracted him from the matter of the sack of flour.

“Eh? So you don’t have an answer for me, Mr. Driver? When is the water pump of these novices arriving? For two or three days now my Abdullah keeps talking of slaughtering a sheep in celebration. So I’d guess it’s coming soon, eh?”

Abrau uncomfortably answered, “Yes, I would think it’ll reach Zaminej any day now. Mirza Hassan’s gone to bring it here.”

It’s not necessary for someone to have killed your father for you to have a grudge against him. There are people whose walking, talking, or even their laughter incites hatred within others. Karbalai Doshanbeh was one of these people; at least that was how Abrau saw him. To begin with, on numerous occasions he had made insulting comments concerning Soluch. Even the bits of copper that Salar Abdullah had taken from their home as collateral, or the welts he’d had from the lashes that had him twisting in the cottonwood field like a snake, all led back to Karbalai Doshanbeh. Added to this was now his heavy, suffocating presence in their home — this had been going on for much more than simply a day or two. It had now been some months since he first began finding excuses to come and sit in their house. Sometimes he would not even bother to invent an excuse, and he would just sit and make snide comments, or sit silently like a sentry to the gates of hell. To understand the psyche of Soluch’s younger son, one has only to place oneself into his shoes. In the folds of Karbalai Doshanbeh’s calm and unemotive face, a kind of impudence and cheekiness shone through. Something that was not easy to rub off and clean away. This shadow cast itself over Mergan’s entire life like a dark cloud. And perhaps Karbalai Doshanbeh’s self-confidence was overstated, as if he needed to feel confident regarding the Mergans of the world as a consequence of his own failures. Whatever the reason for it, his presence was an insolent insult for Abrau. He couldn’t stand seeing the old man. How many times had he imagined himself tearing off the old, stained kerchief from around his throat? His presence in the house was suffocating him. It was like a slap in the face. In the company of the old man, he’d been unable to hold his head up at all, or even to look directly at his mother. He was in torment, a life-sapping, constant torment. It wasn’t something that just stung him and let him be. It wasn’t just a kind of pain. It was something living, something that had been born within Abrau’s soul, and was always with him. Something he couldn’t shake, even if for a moment, even if just to have a breath of air. The constant jabs and insinuations only made the situation more intolerable.

“Ha! I’ve heard you’re packing away your daddy’s shoes!”

“I’ve heard you say, ‘Yes ma’am’ to a flea!”

“Abrau, my boy! When will I see you carrying my bath things and following me to the bath house?”

“Don’t worry. He’s bound to have found a place to lay his head down somewhere!”

“It’s not what you’ve heard! Karbalai Doshanbeh’s not one to give up a fight with the angel of death!”