“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.
He said, “She’s barren, it’s clear! I did it myself, I know. She had something in her belly and I kicked her with my boot right in the stomach, and the baby was done for. Now I wish I’d broken my foot! I was an animal. Shame! That was youth. But now … Now what? Now … Who knows? But I have some ideas. Ideas, Mergan! You’re a smart woman. You’ve seen the world. You know what I’m saying. I make a good living. I have to think about myself. My work, my life. The more I think about it, I see I want a woman who can help me. Someone who’s able to come to the baths on the women’s days, sit and help the customers wash or dry themselves, and collect a couple of coins of admission from each person. But this woman’s stuck at home, and the state she’s in she won’t be able to do anything for at least a whole year.”
Mergan didn’t know what to say to Ali Genav. She was silent. She didn’t understand why he was telling her these things, or what his intention was. Why was he telling her all of this here? Why now? Her mind was racing, but she couldn’t find an answer. She was captured by her own imagination, taken by it. The weather was still; it was just about dawn. All around, as far as she could see, was emptiness. Zaminej was silent, broken. There was still some time before the day’s eyes would open. A sudden fright ran through her. Fear. A fear mixed with an element of a woman’s nature. Of the nature of a man and a woman. Of one body before another. Something was flickering, something that was not under anyone’s control. Mergan was overtaken by a feeling initiated by Ali Genav’s words. But this light and baneful flickering was fleeting. It was now covered in layers of apprehension. Fear was overpowering nature. Now her fear had frozen her. She couldn’t move. Sitting under his cloak beside the grave, she was paralyzed. She felt as if her heart had stopped. Her eyes were transfixed by his thick, dark hands. His wide shoulders, his heavy breathing as he worked, all scared her. She suddenly wished she could find an excuse to get up and leave the graveyard, but she couldn’t. She had neither the skill nor the courage to find a way to get away. Her knees felt weak, as if she were trapped like a sparrow in a hawk’s sight.
Ali Genav threw the pick out of the grave.
“Now hand me that shovel!”
Mergan rose with difficulty, stood by the grave, and held the shovel out for him. Before she knew it, he grabbed both the shovel and her wrist, and with one motion pulled both into the grave. He threw her against the wall of the grave, and between his heavy breaths, he stared at her wide and terrified eyes, speaking in a broken voice.