“You son of a dog! Now you’ve gone to lead my son astray as well? You’re running a gambling circle here?”
Abbas was thrown face down into the playing circle, and the first idea that occurred to him, while absorbing the Kadkhoda’s curses and kicks, was to grab one of the piles of coins. He reached out to the small tower of Jalil’s coins, grasping them in his hand along with a fistful of dirt and mud. The Kadkhoda took Abbas by the collar, lifting him up to turn his face toward him. The fear that the Kadkhoda would take the money away from him terrified Abbas, and so before he had been turned to face him eye-to-eye, he stuffed the coins — along with the dirt, mud, and old straw he’d grabbed from the ground — into his mouth, filling his cheeks as if he they were filled by two walnuts. The Kadkhoda planted a slap across Abbas’ face, and a few coins flew out from between his lips and teeth. Before the second slap could connect with his face, Abbas swallowed, and while the Kadkhoda watched him, his eyes bulged as if they would pop out of their sockets. The veins on his neck were visible, and the skin on his face reddened.
The Kadkhoda shouted, “Go bring some water! The fool’s going choke himself!”
He let Abbas go and turned to find his son Hamdullah. He found him in the corner on the trough. He dragged him down and jerked him left and right. Ali Genav saw an opportunity to sneak out. But the Kadkhoda turned toward him.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, man? Your beard’s getting white, your mother and wife are dying, and you’ve come here to gamble with a few boys who don’t have hair on their lips yet! Ach!”
Meanwhile, Hamdullah managed to escape his father’s grip and ran out into the alley, crying. Ghodrat, who until then had been standing on the edge of the action, also dashed out. Only Morad and Jalil remained. Morad had left to bring a bowl of water, and now was busy pouring water down Abbas’ throat. It was as if Jalil hadn’t realized that he had a chance to escape. The Kadkhoda was still busy talking to Ali Genav. So Jalil crept out the door and tried to forget about his coins that he had lost inside.
Abbas was still swallowing the coins, with the help of the water that Morad was pouring down his throat. Although Morad kept telling him to spit them out, he didn’t listen to him. With his red face and bulging eyes and veins, he was swallowing the coins one by one. After the last one had gone down, he took a deep breath and leaned his shoulder against the wall. Because of the effort, sweat was pouring from his ears, his back, and under his arms. He felt like dying. He hoped that the Kadkhoda would have nothing more to do with him, but the Kadkhoda returned and stood above him.
Abbas cried out painfully, “Kadkhoda, I was wrong!”
The Kadkhoda then swung the door open and went outside. Ali Genav stood over Abbas for a moment, then stooped and walked out the doorway. Now that the Kadkhoda had left, Hajer came into the stable to see what had happened to her brother. Ali Genav looked her over as if she were goods he was about to buy, and then asked, “Your mother’s not returned yet?”
Hajer said no, then she entered the stable. Ali Genav was about to enter the alley when he changed his mind and entered the house. He sat by the doorway in such a way as to catch the last of the sunlight for the shawl he was knitting, and he busied himself with it. Hajer returned from the stable and began to light the lamp.
Ali Genav asked, “No news from my house?”
Hajer replied, “No. It was still light when I went there and came back. My mother was there then.”
Morad brought Abbas into the room and leaned him against the wall. Then he sat beside him and asked Hajer, “Don’t you want to light your stove?”
Before Hajer was able to reply, Abbas said, “The lock! Get the lock from the cabinet and give it to me.”
Hajer brought the lock. Abbas rose from his place with difficulty and as he was leaving told Hajer, “Go tell Mama to come and make me her herbal tea! The kind for your stomach! Get going! Ow …”
He reached the stable door, while bending over in pain. He put the lock on the door and returned the same way. He mumbled painfully through his teeth, “All I have is mixed in the dirt and mud in the stable. How am I supposed to find it all? That sneak Abrau, I don’t trust him!”
Abbas, wrapped in his own pain and worries, didn’t notice Abrau returning. He crept into a corner bent over, and he hid the key to the lock inside the hem of his pants.
“Castor oil! Strained oil! Girl, go get our mother!”
He said this and then collapsed against the wall beside the stove.
Wearing Ali Genav’s long cloak and his big boots, Abrau looked like a dwarf. He had wrapped something around his head and his face. His face was purple and his lips were cracked. The cold had broken his weak body down. In the doorway, his body collapsed like an old wall crumbling, and he fell to his knees. Ali Genav slowly rose up, grabbed Abrau under his arms, and pulled him to the side of the room. Hajer didn’t wait a moment longer and ran out to get Mergan. Ali Genav set aside his shawl and began massaging Abrau’s frozen hand in between his own thick, dark hands. Abrau’s eyes were open, but he couldn’t speak. Ali Genav told Morad to light the stove. Morad left to bring back a stack of cottonwood from the oven outside. As he continued to massage Abrau’s heart and neck, Ali Genav asked, “So what happened? Did you bring him? The bonesetter?”
Abrau still couldn’t speak. He raised his head up. Ali Genav began to massage Abrau’s ears with his hands.
“What happened? What did he say?”
Abrau finally replied, in broken speech, “Cold … too cold … didn’t come!”
Abbas brayed from across the room, “Didn’t I tell you to send me? I told you not to trust him with that job! If I’d have gone, he’d be here. I would have brought him. Even if he was sleeping with his wife, I’d have dragged him out and brought him. Castor oil! I need some castor oil … You should have had someone capable do it!”
Ali Genav removed his cloak from Abrau’s body and loosened the laces on the boots, taking the boy’s feet out of them. He rose and was about to leave when Mergan entered the door with Hajer behind her. Just then Morad stepped in the room with his arms full of cottonwood. Ali Genav looked at Mergan as if he had a question he didn’t dare ask her. Mergan’s eyes had a shadow across them. What could he do? Finally he opened his mouth.
“Yes? Well?”
Mergan said, “She passed … God have mercy on her.”
“Who? Which one?”
“Your mother. Mother Genav!”
Ali Genav said with disbelief, “Now what the hell am I supposed to do? Night! It’s already night!”
He said it quietly, not directing it at anyone. It just slipped out. He put his cloak under one arm and his boots in one hand and walked heavily out the door.
Abrau pointed to Ali Genav as he left, and said to his mother, “My pay! My pay!”
Mergan sat between her sons. Abbas said, “Mama, dear! I need some castor oil! I’m dying. My stomach, my insides. My insides hurt so much! Give me castor oil. My insides are full of coins! Mama!”
2
Worried and anxious, in the mists of the morning, Abrau slid out from where he was. His bones had warmed a bit, and he felt as if he could walk. Quietly, he dressed and tiptoed out of the house. Sounds were still coming from behind the closed door of the stables. Abrau crept forward and listened. These were the last emanations from Abbas’ troubled stomach — he had locked himself in the stables last night and now, at the break of morning, wrapped up in his own pain and his own concerns, Abbas had locked off the stable. He had closed the door and would not let anyone else inside. The last light from the lantern flickered in the darkness of the stable. Abrau thought that Abbas must finally have found some relief in there. But Abrau wasn’t really concerned about his brother. He tied up the edges of his overcoat, drew the string around his waist into a knot, and then exited through the gap in the wall.