Mergan couldn’t kiss her child. Something was preventing her from taking him in her arms, even as she was overflowing with love for him. There was a wall between the two, however dear they were to each other. A separation between their hearts. She couldn’t grant her kindness, her deepest treasure, to him.
Oh Mergan! Your love is only apparent in your most ancient of aspects, your tears. And you are burdened with the task of having to cry until the Day of Judgment. Crying, so that your mother’s tears are like still waters within you. Dig a well and let it flow; let it flow from within you. Let yourself flow. You can cry with the tears of all mothers, a storm of cries and laments and tears. Oh dormant sea!
But no, Mergan had become a fortress. Although her mother’s tears had become a still water within her, other inclinations had built a rampart around it, holding it locked within her. Let this still water become putrid! Let it dry out. Dry, autumnal, silent, and cracked. Burnt, borne on the wind. Autumn, the yellow leaves of fall. The howling of the lost winds. She was like an evergreen in autumn. Mergan had lived through many autumns. But no, the ancient evergreen does not cry out. It never cries. Let all this crying end. Be gone! What of anger? A dam of fury set on a river of the oldest anger. A scourge on the ancient still waters. A flood on the face of the rain. An uproar, tumult. Unforgiving, a kind of cruelty meeting cruelty. An outcry against pain. Not a lament, but an eruption. Clawing at tear-filled eyes. She has had an illegitimate child, the illegitimate child of lamentation, mourning, surrender. Let go, set free. Set yourself free, Mergan! Free of all the life-sapping pain! Let fury and knives and blood rain without pause! Mergan’s heart, the essence of the naked shame in Lot’s desert.
A shadow! What is this shadow? Who is it? Who?
“What do you want, eh?”
“Bring over that bit of bread, so we can sit and finish our deal!”
“Eh? Mirza Hassan! No, I won’t give you the land!”
“I’ll just have to take it then!”
“I’ll never give it to you. It’ll be my grave!”
“I’ve already registered the deed. The company’s given us a loan with that land as collateral. I’m mechanizing farming in this area. You don’t even understand what this means! Mechanization! So it’s all in my favor; everything’s backing me. I’m telling you nicely. I don’t want people to say that I’m fighting against a woman. That’s not how I work. Let’s make an arrangement, come to terms. I have plans to do important things in this area. Cotton farming, pistachio farming. Do you understand what I’m telling you? I’m going to make this area green! You see, I just want to come to terms with you. Despite the fact that you’re only Soluch’s wife and don’t have any claim to his lands. So even if he had registered a deed to that land, you’d not have any claim to it. But I just want you to be satisfied!”
Mergan’s eyes were like daggers. “Get out, get out!”
“I’ll go. But just know one other thing. I’ve bought your daughter’s claim as well. Your son-in-law brought the contract to me with his two hands.”
“I’m telling you, get out!”
“Fine. I’m going.”
The shadow departed. Mirza Hassan was no longer there.
Mergan walked up and down the room with long strides. She came and went like a lioness in a cage. Her lips were firmly shut, her eyebrows furrowed. Her head was bare, her feet bare. She didn’t even realize that she hadn’t bothered to cover her head before Mirza Hassan. Her hair was limp, thin, dark. Her eyes were wide; her look cut like a knife. Her hands were fidgety, but her steps were firm. She was drawn and taught, like an arrow in a bow.
Abbas was mumbling deliriously, “May God overlook my faults.”
Mergan spit and left the room. She took Soluch’s well-digging shovel from the stable and walked to the alley. She walked quickly, winding like the wind from alley to alley. She reached the outskirts of the village, the open fields, and made it to the wild lands beyond. Shortly, she was at God’s Land. The lands there had fallen, like someone’s prone body. They were tired, flattened. Mergan had never seen them in this way. She had always seen the lands as alive, fertile. Now, outlines in the land had been erased, but despite this she could still see how it used to be laid out. If you divided the plot into six sections, one section belonged to her. Abbas and Abrau had each sold their two sections, four sections in all. Hajer had also sold hers, her one section. These divisions followed the traditional rules of inheritance, males inheriting twice what each female inheritor can. So, the remaining one section was all that was Mergan’s. She measured out the section and separated her one section by drawing a line in the earth with the shovel. She outlined the four corners of her land with piles of dirt and sticks, and set stones onto the piles. She then picked up the shovel and stood straight. She was done. She wiped the sweat from her brow.
It was dusk. The shadows from the thistle bushes were long on the earth. She left the field and turned to look at the watermelon plants. The plants had been upended in the dirt. Most of them had dried out. No, nothing would be harvested this year. What harvest? What work? Mergan, all alone and between her various jobs, had come and planted seeds and left them. But that was it. She’d not had the opportunity to tend to the patch. She had to go. With regret in her heart, she turned and left.
* * *
Zaminej was sinking into the dark embrace of dusk. Shadows came to and fro. Women walked, carrying containers of water on their backs. Men passed in small groups, walking shoulder to shoulder. A donkey, with no saddle, stood looking lost. A dog passed slithering alongside the wall. An owl sat in a ruined house.
Mergan walked along the wall. She was lost in thought, walking in the dark alleys. A silent darkness. In the old village, even intimate friends would fail to recognize one another. Mergan walked with her head lowered. Her home was not in the alley she had chosen to walk along. This alley led to the Sardar’s home. The back alley. Mergan was worried about Abbas. But she had decided that she would have to ask the Sardar to give her his pay. She felt that if she at least was able to collect his pay, it might have some effect on her son’s poor health.
The Sardar’s camels were scattered here and there. Sitting, standing, lying. The Sardar was sitting, busy tying up his tools and rope in the light of a lantern hanging from a nail in the wall. It seemed he was readying to take out the camels at the break of dawn. Quietly, softly, Mergan entered the yard and walked toward the Sardar. He had finished tying a knot and looked up. Mergan was standing before him. He wiped the flecks of hay that were stuck to his beard and eyebrows with the palm of his thick hand and set his big dark eyes on Mergan.
“So. You’ve come then. What do you want?”
Mergan said, “Just Abbas’ pay.”
“His pay? What pay?”
“Just the pay for his work. For herding your camels. We can’t get any work now. He hasn’t even been able to take my hand and go work. I went to see my land and …”
“Aha! So … pay! Ha! Fine. But what about my camel? Who will pay me for that?”