I wish my back would break! I wish your back would break, Mergan!
If she had been able to bring the other two to this same stage, she would have had no sorrows in the world. But they’d been wasted along the way. Each was trapped in a different predicament. Her sorrow no longer centered on the question of why Abrau had turned out the way that he had, but why the other two had turned out as they had.
I’d sacrifice myself for you, my son!
But Abrau was now of age. He was a full person. He could fly away, or work. He could work without being tormented. He could even fight with her, with Mergan!
Come here, my son. Come here!
No, but Mergan couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. It was not that she couldn’t forgive him; she could do that easily. She had already forgiven him. Mergan no longer had a sense of herself, although she knew herself. Things had been shifted; some things had been unified. Her “self” was no longer separated from the “self” of her children. Mergan “was” as they were. Her inability to speak was not as a consequence of her difficulty in forgiving him. She could forgive. But she didn’t want to fill the house with lamentations by opening her mouth. If she opened her mouth, she felt, fire would shoot out, a store of smoke and fire and pain. She would be crying, wailing. Tears were better left for solitude, especially if they were going to make your throat ring like a piece of copper. She didn’t want to release the unending pain from its binding within her heart. There would be other times to cry. But not here, not now. Abrau had not come to mourn. He had come to make peace. His man’s shoulders need not be made to tremble. He need not cry! He need not drown himself in lamentation. This was not the role of a man, and Mergan’s son Abrau was now a man.
My son, be strong!
“At least say something, Auntie Mergan!”
She didn’t say anything.
“So you come forward, Abrau. You say something!”
Abrau looked at his mother. Was she looking back at him? No … it seemed she was both in her own thoughts while also almost looking at him. She was like stone, like crystal. Abrau approached and stood by Morad. Mergan remained sitting in the same position. Abrau had to say something. But what could he say? He stood there.
Morad again began speaking.
“Kiss each other on the cheek then! The world is the place to forgive. So go ahead, kiss each other!”
He grabbed Abrau’s wrist and pulled him into a kneeling position.
“It’s the night before the holiday, as well. So make peace with each other. Come on, Abrau!”
Abrau threw his arms around Mergan’s neck. His cheek pressed against his mother’s bony cheek, and he stayed in that position for a moment. Their eyelashes were blinking. Their hearts were beating. Abrau turned and sat on the ground.
Morad said, “Good! Auntie Mergan … good … You can set aside your anger now. You, Abrau, act like a decent person now. What was that you did? But let’s forget it now! Okay, let me go and set the kettle on. We can drink a cup of peace tea, no? Where is it? Where is …?”
Morad was looking to light the stove and prepare the tea. The blinking of Abrau’s eyelashes slowed a little. He pulled himself to the edge of the wall. Mergan sighed. The air was broken. Each one, by the movements of their bodies, or with a glance, broke the dark icy silence, which was thrown into confusion. The first to strike at it had been Morad. Once he had begun to speak he didn’t stop. He busied himself with preparing the tea, and kept talking. He said nonsensical things, as he had become a prisoner of his own stream of words. He talked and talked and talked, and when he thought he had said something that made no sense, he just tried to make up for it by saying something else. This led to further binds; nonsense begat worse nonsense. But Morad wasn’t trying to just say sweet things, or trying to have his words produce a specific outcome, or bear a specific fruit. He didn’t think of these things at all. His only desire was to fill this house of ghosts with sounds, the sounds of voices. He wanted to rend the curtain and try to take things back to where they had once been. He didn’t hesitate to add flourishes to what he was saying, and even spun unrelated tales — some true, others not — about his work and life outside the village.
“… so now it was almost dusk! We were going to go to wash our hands to think a little about what to do for supper that night. We brought up some water from the well, and all of us made a circle around the well. There were eight or nine of us! Guys from Kashan to Nahavand, and from around here, too. All that was left of the sun was a sliver the width of a single tooth from a winnowing tool. I turn my head, exhausted and tired, and I could see that someone was coming toward us from far away. He looks tired, too. He’s limping. He has a shovel in one hand as well. I tell the guys, look at him! They all turn. We’re all looking at him. When he sees us, he begins to slow down. It’s clear he’s hesitating. When he comes closer, we see he’s a stranger. None of us have seen him anywhere in the area where we were working. He comes closer. We see that his clothes are all torn up. Nothing on his body is in one piece. One of his sleeves is torn right off; one of them’s only hanging by a thread. His arms are bare up to the shoulder. But what muscles he had! His shirt was torn from the collar down to his belly. His arms are bloody up to his elbows. There are scratches on his forehead and on his cheeks. The blood on his face and chin is dried. He had cuts on his chest as well. One of his pants legs wasn’t torn; that was the leg that was limping. I thought maybe he’d been hit with a stick or a shovel. He didn’t say anything, and neither did we. One of the guys from Kashan — Rizaq, what a great friend he was — took him a bucket of water. The man kneels at the bucket like a thirsty camel. I think to myself that it looks like he’s not had a drink of water in ten days! He puts his face and lips in the water, and it seems like an hour before he takes them out. The sun’s set by the time he gets up from beside the bucket. We thought he’d just wash up and then rest with us and tell us what had happened to him. But he just takes his shovel, and without looking at any of us he leaves, vanishes. We were just left there, completely baffled … I’ll go get the kettle off the stove. The tea’s ready. Shall I pour you both some?”
Abrau was also helping out. He brought out the cups and went to get the kettle. Mergan pulled the lamp over to the wall. They sat in a circle. Abrau brought the kettle and put it beside his mother. Mergan took the kettle and poured the tea. Three cups of tea. It was time for them to sit back and drink the tea. Mergan took the cup before her, took a block of sugar, stood up, and walked out the door. Out by the clay oven, she set the cup and the sugar beside Abbas and then returned and sat down.
Abrau slid his cup of tea over toward his mother, saying, “We’ll take turns!”
Morad lifted his cup, and while he blew to cool it, said, “Don’t worry about it, Auntie Mergan! That land wasn’t really any good for anything. You could burn yourself out working on it and still not end up with a bit of bread from it. Let it go in the wind! Let’s see how those who were fighting over it do and what they’ll harvest from it. Mirza Hassan’s planted a handful of pistachio saplings and took the rest of the money off somewhere where even the wind can’t find him. It’s not clear how and where he ended up with the money! Just a little while ago I was saying that those lands are nothing but a burden on whomever owns them! If someone knows he has nothing, it’s better than driving yourself crazy over something you own! What’s the point of becoming the master of something worthless? You need to stand on something that has some value. I’ve figured out what my life and work will be. My heart’s not tied to anything here. All I have in the world are two hands, whether I’m here or somewhere else! I can go to Tehran, Mashhad, Ghuchan; anywhere I go, I can work and make some money to feed myself with. I’m trying to convince Abrau to come with me as well. Over in other parts, you find as many tractors and other machines as you can dream of. They’re everywhere. And there are more and more by the day. Abrau’s already learned a skill for himself. He’s good at these kinds of things. So what’s to worry about? We’ll go and find work. We have our health. Our hands and arms are strong enough. And this country, thank God, is rich enough. We’ll find a corner for ourselves in the end, won’t we?”