Abrau said, “I just wish I knew where he’d gone!”
Ali Genav said, “Forget about it — if wanting to see him was like a tooth, I’d say you should pull it out and throw it away. Imagine he was never here. What do we know? Goats go where there’s grass, don’t they?”
Abrau replied, “I just wish I could forget about him!”
Ali Genav said, “Between you and me, your father had no choice. He was a respectable man. We need to give him his due; he had a strong sense of honor. He was hard-working. He was creative. He wouldn’t let anyone speak down to him. He had a short temper. He just couldn’t take much more. That’s why he left! Soluch was entirely different from Safdar’s father. I know that if Soluch is ever able to fill his pockets with something, he’ll be sure not to forget you. He’ll be sure to show up then. He was a reliable sort, Soluch. The poor guy!”
Abrau was stoking the fire. He said nothing. He was sitting on his legs before the fireplace, lost in thought. His lips were pressed together. It seemed as if he were unconscious of Ali Genav’s presence. Ali Genav also decided to drop the subject. He was tired and sleepy. He yawned, punched his chest with his fist, and said while rising, “I’m going to go lie down and see if I can sleep. You keep an eye on the fire. The pots are already boiling, so take it easy with the kindling. Just take care the fire doesn’t go out.”
Abrau was silent. Ali Genav went to a corner of the room, lay down on an old blanket, and said, “Put the kettle by the edge of the fire so that it’ll boil. I have so much to do today! I have to dig my own mother’s grave, God rest her soul. That other poor woman — I don’t know what to do about her. But if I can’t get some sleep, I’ll be useless.”
Abrau put the handle of the kettle on the end of the poker and set it on the edge of the fire.
“You’re like me. We have the same nature. You’re good with any kind of work. But this Abbas, he takes after his worthless uncle! He’s split right down the middle. Instead of focusing his mind on any particular work, his eyes are always looking around for something else. He’s always trying to get at what someone else is holding or carrying. His eyes are like hungry thieves. He’s like a dog that thinks someone will eventually come around to throw him a bone. His mind and eyes are always searching, like a stray dog. In a few days, he’ll have a beard and mustache — I can’t help but wonder how he’ll fill the belly of a wife and children then?”
Soluch had told Abrau many times, “The only time a man can raise his head among people is when his shoulders have been drenched in sweat. A man is someone who, if you slap him on the back, dust rises from his shirt!”
On the rare occasions when Soluch spoke, he would generally speak in this vein. He’d say things like, “Work! Work! The bread you get from work is what gives you your essence, your honor. A man only has his work!”
But why did he leave all of a sudden?
There was no way that Abrau could digest this. However he looked at it, he couldn’t comprehend it. He knew that need was at the heart of it. Could there be anything else? Yes, need — but so what? Was Soluch the only one who was in need? Only him? How could he be justified in leaving? Just leaving like that. Leaving behind his wife and daughter. One might consider the others, Abrau and Abbas, as nearly men. But what about Hajer? Didn’t he consider the fact that by next spring Hajer would be nearly at the age of maturity? That she’d be stepping onto the ladder of adolescence? Had he even thought about these things? He must have. The Soluch that Abrau knew was a responsible man. He was practical, more bones than muscle. He couldn’t have gone without thinking over all of these questions. But where could he have gone? After all, winter’s not the season for working. If you had a special skill that used the different fingers of your hand, during the winter you’d never have to open your fist. To the extent that Abrau’s experiences in life had taught him something about these things, he knew that no matter where they went to find work, all the men would return to their homes in the winter. There, they’d huddle under one roof with the rest of their families to wait out the season until spring. They’d make it through the winter in one way or another, surviving with very little. So where could Soluch have gone in the middle of the winter? What kind of work could have drawn him away?
The kinds of jobs that Abrau knew about could be counted on the fingers of his two hands. And the places outside the village that he knew of were also just as few. Setting aside the seasonal work in the fields, Abrau had heard that some years back the young and old men of Zaminej used to go for work on the road line. These were the years during which the road from Tehran to Mashhad was being rebuilt. He had heard much about this. But he couldn’t imagine what this road line looked like. It was just a name in his head. He knew that in the summers, especially in years when the harvest was bad, the skilled harvesters would go out toward Ghuchan for work and each would return to Zaminej with ten or twenty man of wheat, storing it in their storehouses to make morning bread for their children. But this was all he was aware of when it came to the kinds of work that were available outside of the area. Morad, the son of Sanam, wasn’t so friendly with Abrau to have told him what sort of work he did outside of Zaminej. If pressed, he would just say, “It’s a wide world outside. Out there, a man can always make a living.” That’s all he’d say.
Once, when Abrau was a small child, perhaps even before he wore pants, one of those “city-room” minibuses showed up to transport pilgrims from Zaminej. The children gathered around the machine and looked at its windows, tires, and seats with eyes wide with amazement — their jaws simply fell open! Pilgrims from three villages in the area had collectively rented the bus to take them to the city of Mashhad and back. Just seeing that bus opened vistas in Abrau’s imagination. For the first time, he realized that people could travel with something other than an animal and that it was possible to go very great distances with a vehicle such as this. Places far, far away. After that, Abrau had grown used to seeing automobiles, but seeing these had not affected him as much as that first experience had. Abrau thought to himself that Soluch was not the kind to travel in a car. More likely he’d gone by foot. But where and how far could one go traveling by foot? And how far are feet willing to travel if being directed by an empty belly? What if he had fallen while trying to make his way through the snow and ice? What if wolves had tracked and circled him? And if vultures had hovered in circles above him? Abrau had heard that vultures would first peck out the eyes of a corpse. The shepherds of Zaminej used to tell stories of vultures that would descend on sheep that had fallen, plucking out the eyes of the carrion before beginning to disembowel it. Each vulture had to be about the size of a house’s roof archway. They would cover the carrion like a tent casting shadows over the body. What a terrifying sight! They could frighten someone to death if he wasn’t dead already. Could he imagine Soluch resorting to begging, given his sense of honor? Could he even consider for a moment that Soluch might steal a cup or a water jug from the front door of someone’s house? That Soluch could even stretch out his hand so as to take what was not his? Was it possible? No! Abrau would sooner die than to accept such a thing. No! Soluch, his own father, would never steal or resort to begging. Abrau could never think of Soluch in that way. Soluch was a man with strong arms and broad shoulders, not a wolf with sharp nails and teeth.