The people of Zaminej came to understand Moslemeh’s nature and slowly began to look at her with a more jaundiced eye, as if she were different from everyone else, like a kind of crazy woman. And they found the evidence for this in her brother and father. Moslem, her brother, who was in fact mad. Moslemeh’s father, Hajj Salem, was himself considered to be nearly so by the villagers.
“Ay! What are you sitting there for, girl?”
It was Moslemeh. She had a pot in one hand and was standing facing Mergan at the bottom of the steps. Mergan rose from the corner of the yard and said hello. Moslemeh went in the direction of the stable, saying, “Come and help me. Come! Let’s get this calf to take a few pecks at his mother’s teats. Come. The cow won’t give us any milk until she’s licked the tail of her calf. Stingy cow!”
Mergan followed Moslemeh into the stable. It was still dark inside. The outline of the cow was only barely visible at the other end of the stable. Its glassy eyes glistened; its head was tilted to one side. The cow was at ease, and as the door opened, it took a step forward.
As their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, Moslemeh slid her pot across the smooth and worn floor of the stable and directed Mergan. “Grab its neck and bring it here!”
Mergan brought the cow over and turned the animal so that the pot was positioned beneath its swollen teats. Moslemeh brought a decrepit stool forward from the edge of the stall. Her shoulder leaning against the cow’s belly, she sat on the stool and began playing with the engorged tips of the cow’s teats. She smacked her lips and began milking.
“Don’t be stingy, now. Don’t be stingy. Ah, that’s it. Ah … Ah … Ah … Give us a little, stingy! Give us, my dear. Give us some. Ah … Praise God … Give a bit … Give some … Give a bit more.”
The cow was dry. Teats that size should be pouring milk like a spring shower, and each nipple should be streaming milk like a fountain into the pot. But the cow’s milk wouldn’t come out. Its large head was still tilted and its glassy eyes were looking toward the other end of the stable, at the eyes of its henna-colored calf held behind two pieces of railing. The delicate and beautiful ginger-hued calf was stretching itself over the railing toward its mother and braying softly, a call its mother responded to with her own half moan. Moslemeh was slowly losing her patience.
“Nothing. You could kill yourself just to get a cup of milk out of her. Let the calf out, so it can come over here and eat me up!”
Mergan opened the latch on the gate, and the calf brought its head over to the underbelly of the cow, nuzzling at the full teats of the mother. Moslemeh wasted no time putting her fingers to work at milking.
The cow’s milk was now flowing, and the pot was slowly filling. Moslemeh, who had propped her head against the belly of the cow and was hard at work with her nimble fingers, shouted, “Get it, the bastard! It’s like it’s lapping milk from the spout of a watering can! Grab it! What’s wrong with you!”
Mergan placed the head of the calf beneath one arm and struggled to detach the calf from its mother’s teats, but the calf wouldn’t let go. Helpless and ashamed, Mergan said, “It’s stronger than me — somehow it’s grabbed a nipple and …”
“You can’t handle it? Haven’t you been raised on bread? Grab that muzzle from that nail and put it on the calf. It’s there. In the corner. Next to the lantern.”
Mergan took the muzzle from the nail and brought it over. Moslemeh stopped milking the cow and together they wrested the head of the calf from under the cow, and Moslemeh tied the muzzle on the calf’s snout.
“Now let it go!”
Mergan let go of the animal’s neck, and the calf headed back to its mother’s underbelly. Moslemeh returned to the old stool and went back to milking. Now Mergan had nothing to do. She sat on the edge of the stall watching the calf as it rubbed its nose against its mother’s teats in vain, while the cow licked the calf’s tail. The work was going smoothly now. Now that Moslemeh was no longer distracted by the calf, she asked, “So, what’s brought you here at the break of dawn?”
Mergan, jolted as if she’d been awoken from sleep, said, “He’s gone. My children’s father is gone.”
Moslemeh said, “Gone? So what if he has! He won’t find anywhere better; he’ll come back himself. Where’s he going to go to?”
Mergan didn’t say anything else. Speaking was pointless. Moslemeh didn’t continue the conversation either. She was busy with milking and used various techniques for drawing the milk out from the cow’s teats. When the pan was one finger’s measure before overfilling, she rose, tired and satisfied, and pushed aside the old stool. She carefully raised the pan, and as she left by the stable’s door she said, “Take the muzzle off the calf.”
Mergan took the muzzle off and returned it to its place on the nail and left through the doorway. Moslemeh had set the milk on the ground and was waiting for her outside. Mergan picked up the pan and carefully and gracefully placed it on her head. She adjusted the pot on her head and evenly walked to a door leading to a room beneath the stairs. The room was a pantry, where Moslemeh made yogurt from milk. Mergan had worked for Moslemeh many times before and was familiar with this room and all of the nooks and crannies of the house. As she reached the doorway, she lowered the pot from her head, set it in a space in the wall, and straightened her back. Moslemeh placed a cover over the pot and left. She said, “By the time you take a water jug and fill it from the water cistern, the Kadkhoda will be up. It’s over in the corner of the veranda over there. I’m always worried that the jugs will crack, so I cover them with rags.”
Mergan took a jug and left the house.
The alleys were still deserted, as if people hadn’t even begun to think about leaving their houses. A cold wind licked at her, winding its way around her body through the holes in her dress. Her dry fingers were sticking to the handle of the water jug. She held it fast against her shoulder, so the wind would not catch at it and lift it. The wind and its coldness brought tears to her eyes. But she was still not thinking about herself, as her eyes involuntarily darted back and forth in case Soluch, or some sign of him — whatever it could be — would appear. But the alley, the doorways, and the ruined houses along the way were all so lonely that Mergan’s hopes were not to be raised. Despite this, she went along peeking into this ruin or glancing over that wall. When she reached the cistern, she walked around the domed structure, looking at all the corners and crevices. But it was clear that Soluch was not to be found there either. She then descended the stairs to the water, filled the jug, and began to return back to Kadkhoda Norouz’s house, walking with her back to the wind. As it was blowing in the direction she was walking, she walked a little more easily, putting less effort into it. Yet she still struggled to keep the jug even on her shoulders. The wind blew in gusts, as if aiming to dislodge the jug from its place. The most difficult span was the open square that separated the cistern from the alley where the Kadkhoda’s house was. As soon as she made it across and reached the alley, she sought cover against the wall, dropping the jug from her shoulders. She propped the belly of the jug against her thighs and for the first time registered the pain that was coursing through her fingers. She held her hands under her arms and squeezed her elbows, then brought her hands out and rubbed them against each other. But her dry and frozen fingers would not be warmed so easily. But it was enough that she could still open and close her fist. So she grasped the handle of the jug, threw it back on her shoulder, and set out again across the cold ground.