“Your daughter! Give me your daughter! Let me marry Hajer!”
Mergan felt as if she were about to die and Ali Genav had taken on the likeness of the angel of death. That was how he appeared to her; his eyes bulging, spittle around his lips. She began to shake visibly, flapping her wings like a pigeon in a well. Her mouth and throat were dry, and she felt as if her limbs had been stretched and were being torn apart in his hands. When he eventually loosened his grip on her wrist, she sat back and leaned her head against the wall of the grave. Gasping for air, she shut her eyes.
“Oh my God!”
Once Ali Genav had regained his composure he busied himself with the work of digging and said again, “Give me your daughter. I want to have a son with her. I want to keep my name alive.”
“My daughter … isn’t old enough to marry. She’s not ready for a husband.”
“She is! If you toss your hat up, by the time it hits the ground she’ll be old enough. And she’ll be ready for marriage!”
“Hajer’s still a child. She’s not mature enough. She’s not of age.”
“She’ll mature. She’ll come of age. Why are you worrying about these details? If I marry her, I’ll be satisfied with her as she is.”
“Because … but …”
Ali Genav poured out the contents of his shovel heavily.
“No buts and ifs! Promise me right here. Your family needs someone to look over them. I’ll give your sons jobs. I’ll have you work with your daughter at the baths. Until your daughter’s old enough to do the work by herself, you can oversee her. I’ll take Abrau under my own wing. I’ll have him tend the water heaters and he can go and gather kindling for the boiler stove. I’ll find something for Abbas as well. If nothing else, I’ll get him work tending my cousin’s camel herd. If nothing else, he’ll be making a living for himself! Your life will improve; you’ll be happy. You think these young fools who leave the village for six, seven months to run like dogs after a single morsel of bread, who then come back and sit bored by the hearth for the rest of the time … You think they’re better than me? Think of Morad, Sanam’s son! You think someone like that can provide for a wife? A woman needs a man to oversee her, not a fancy baby rooster! Think about it and convince her. In the first month of the New Year, after the forty-day mourning period for my mother, we’ll go to town to buy the things we need. You, too — you need to be in your best.”
“But what about Raghiyeh, then?”
“She can’t be a wife any longer. I’ll have her stay in the pantry for a while, and then I’ll build a little hole for her in the pen. When I have a chance, I’ll build a roof next to the clay oven and I’ll put up walls. Then Hajer and I will move out into the new room, and Raghiyeh will stay in the place off the pen.”
Their work was done. Ali Genav scraped the walls of the grave with his shovel and tossed out the last pile of dirt. He pulled himself out of the grave and then held a hand out for Mergan. She wrapped her hand in her chador and held onto his hand. He pulled his presumed mother-in-law out as if she were already family. Then he brushed the dust from his clothes, put his cloak on his shoulders, and picked up the shovel and pick.
“Why don’t you leave the shovel here. We’re going to have to cover her up afterward.”
Ali Genav replied, “I’ll bring it back with myself. Some person might come by and take it.”
They walked back together.
“Do you know how to wash the corpse?”
Mergan replied, “Of course. But after that, I’ll need to carry out a full ablution for myself.”
Ali Genav replied, “Nothing to it! In the evening, I’ll give you the key for the baths, and if you’d like, you can take Hajer as well and give her a good wash.”
Mergan didn’t say anything, neither yes nor no. Silent, and with a lowered head, she walked alongside him.
He continued, “You know that bit of rough land that Soluch used to work? We’ll plant watermelons on it. With the snow we’ve just had, I’ll wager each plant will give fifteen mans of melons. I’ll bring you the seeds. The land is rough and doesn’t need to be ploughed. You can do the work yourself with your sons. I think we could have two, three thousand plants take root there. And let me tell you something, since we’re going to be related. If you don’t watch out, this year you could lose that very bit of land you own. Mirza Hassan, Salar Abdullah, and a few others are thinking about trying to register all the land out by the valley to themselves. I hear they’ve already begun the process in town. If you’re not working the land, you won’t be considered its owner.”
Mergan raised her head. “They want to register God’s Land as their own?”
Only half-seriously, Ali Genav replied, “If it were the land of God’s worshippers, it would already be registered with a deed! It’s as if they’ve found a dead horse and they’re trying to steal the horseshoes off of its hooves!”
“What about the fact that we’ve been working on that land for the past several years?”
“No doubt you’ll have to get your compensation from God himself. You simple woman! Landless people go out to these rough lands, pick a bit at it with a shovel, plant on it for a year, and then leave it in the hands of God. Very few people have chosen a plot for themselves. Usually they go once a year, plant a few seeds, and then leave the village for work. Later, they gather a small harvest off the land, and if they didn’t, the wind would simply blow the seeds. That’s why there’s no accounting or ownership. It’s constant work, planting, ploughing, harvesting, that gives someone ownership of land. Open, unused land has no owners, since there are no plots on it. No one works the land, and so the owner will be whoever has the strength to take it. Whoever speaks more cleverly, who has more in his pocket. What they’re saying is that from the valley on one side of the land, to the edge of the sands of the desert, they want to plant pistachios in a field of one farsakh by three farsakhs. That’s what they’re dreaming of. They want to bring in a water pump and to smooth out the land there. The ministry of agriculture will give loans for these kinds of projects. In any case, what I’m saying is that to keep your plot, you need to be sure to keep working it. If possible, you should outline the borders of the plot. From what I hear, Salar Abdullah, Zabihollah, and a few others are doing the work on this. Kadkhoda Norouz also has a hand in it. They need to come to agreement with a handful of the landless here, one of them being you. I don’t have high expectations of the others. People like the sons of Sanam. And like Ghodrat, the son of that thief. And a poor and motley group of others, just like them.”
Mergan said, “I’ll take my shovel out on the first day and go to the land. They want to register it? Ha! What about all the work we’ve done to pull out the thorny weeds one by one, and to smooth the land so it’s like the palm of my hand? I have to feed my children during the summer from the fruits of this land.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Soluch was the first to think of doing something with these forsaken lands. I remember seven years back, it was after he had begun to work there that others also started to as well. For example, I myself have only been planting there for two years.”
They had now reached the mosque. The Molla of Zaminej was sitting on the broken wall. Ali Genav told him that the grave was ready. The Molla rose and entered the mosque. Hajj Salem had stopped his recitation and was now napping beside the casket. Moslem was awake and was playing with bits and pieces he had gathered from the floor of the mosque. Hajj Salem’s head was resting on the casket. Morad was also there, standing silently by the pillar in the night-prayers niche, like a shadow. The Molla went and asked them to help raise the coffin. Morad came over. Hajj Salem jolted awake, picked himself up, and placed the tattered Qur’an of the mosque onto the bookshelf, mumbling something under his breath, something like, “There’s no strength and no ability without God!”