“I told you myself! I’m coming. Why would you think otherwise? I’m not meant to stay here. So what if I leave a month earlier than I’d planned? I was going to go in one direction; now I’m going in another! What difference does it make?”
“Good, okay … Now listen up, then! I’ve buried something out here somewhere, and I have to dig it out. Just follow me!”
Mergan walked ahead.
“I would trust Abrau as well, but I’d be afraid if someone else caught wind of it. But I feel I can rely on you. I think of you as one of my own sons. Come this way!”
Morad walked through the empty field behind Mergan. He asked, “How are you going to find anything in this darkness?”
“I’ll find it. I’ll find it. Just come! I just hid my possessions from these thieves. But I’ll find it. Come this way.”
Mergan suddenly turned around.
“No one noticed us, did they?”
Morad said, “At this time of night, everyone’s asleep dreaming of kings and princes. Who has the heart to go out walking around in the darkness?!”
Mergan froze in her place.
“This is it! It must be right here! Start digging here. I’m sure it must be here.”
Morad brought the shovel down from his shoulder and busied himself with digging the dirt. Mergan knelt on the ground and dug with her hands as well. But it was in vain. Mergan had chosen the wrong spot.
Morad asked, “Are you certain this is the right place?”
“I’m sure; I’m certain. I did the calculations.”
“Let’s take a minute so you can remember. What was the marker of the spot?”
“A rock! A large rock. I’m sure, I remember. It was a large rock!”
“But there was no rock here!”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m losing my mind!”
Mergan sat up and grasped at her knees with her hands, like a mother wolf who’s gone to give birth in the desert night.
What if she couldn’t find what she’d buried?
She rose and took Morad’s hands in her own and said plaintively, “Morad my dear, you have to find it! Find it for me … My heart will break if you don’t! Morad dear, please!”
“Yes, okay. But first, calm down. Just sit here. Tell me, how did you measure where it’s supposed to be?”
“It’s a straight shot from the wall of the Sardar’s home. I took a thousand and nine steps from the edge of his wall to the big rock. I dug a hole next to it, and when I was done I pulled the rock over it to cover it.”
“Fine, just stay here and don’t move. I’ll go back over to the Sardar’s wall and will count the steps. You won’t be afraid here, will you?”
“No! Go on. Just please find it. Those few bits of copper were going to pay for our travel costs. I only have you to help me!”
Morad went back and Mergan watched as he faded into the darkness. Then she was all alone, alone with the night.
Who could have dug up the earth and taken Mergan’s things? Other than Hajer, who knew about what she had done? No one. But could her innocent daughter have come and dug them out from where they’d been buried? Could Ali Genav have made her do it? That’s all she needed! But Mergan didn’t believe it. No, Hajer couldn’t have done it.
Or could she have? No. She couldn’t imagine it.
“I think I found it, Auntie Mergan! I found it! Come here!”
“Where are you, my son! Where are you?”
“Here. Can’t you follow my voice?”
“I hear your voice but I can’t see you. I can’t see!”
“Just follow my voice. This way!”
“Oh God! I’m so lost! Help me, God!”
“Come this way. Why are you going in the wrong direction?”
“Which way?”
“Stop! You can’t seem to get your bearings. I’ll just dig them up and bring them to you.”
“Should I just stand here?”
“Stay where you are!”
Mergan and the boy were in the night fields, apart from one another. Mergan was standing in her place like a bush or a tree, shaking. She was excited, worried, frightened. The sound of digging stopped and the field was again filled with silence. Mergan held her breath.
Had Morad taken what she’d buried and left?
God damn you. Why are you so suspicious?
Mergan bit at her lip with her teeth. Morad emerged from the darkness. He planted the shovel in the earth and took his bag from his shoulder. Mergan peered into the bag and in the night’s darkness began to feel the copper plates with her fingers. They were all there! Her copper! She calmed down, then rose with a prayer, “May your youth be blessed, my boy! May my dust give you life. Let’s go. You want me to carry the bag?”
“No, you can carry the shovel.”
When they reached the middle of the village, Morad asked, “Shall we take them to your home?”
“No, I’d rather you kept them safely. I’ll sell them in the morning when we reach the town.”
“Should I come to your door tomorrow morning?”
“No. Stand by the stream just outside the village. On the path to town. We’ll find each other there, before the morning prayers are called.”
The mother and the boy separated. Morad went toward his house and Mergan toward her own. Mergan entered the yard quietly and went toward the door of the house. She hoped that everyone was asleep, but stopped upon hearing Abbas’ burnt-out voice.
“Good evening!”
Mergan turned to the boy, trying to get herself out of the predicament she found herself in.
“You’re still up?”
Abbas said, “So where’s your loot?”
“What loot?”
“The copper!”
“What are you talking about? What copper?”
Abbas said, “I’m still your son. It would be nice if you were to have left me one of the jugs to make buttermilk in during the hot days of summer!”
Mergan didn’t tarry any longer. She walked toward the room, saying, “I hope dust fills your envious eyes, my child!”
For some reason, Abbas didn’t bother to continue the argument. He lay back in his place, set his head back, and looked up at the stars. The night was like any other night.
That night, what was left of it, Mergan didn’t sleep. She lay there with no feeling, but she didn’t fall asleep. Instead, something — a kind of dream — surrounded her. Wordless images ran across her mind, caught against one another, broke apart one another, appearing and disappearing. The images would fade away, only to attack her once again. Her physical exhaustion and her mind’s confusion were in a battle with each other, and from this battle nightmares were emerging. The images were continually reborn, renewed at every moment. They came together, then tore apart, ghosts that would become entwined and then would be pulled apart. Images that had no substance or language. Some of them were entirely unknown to Mergan. Images that she had never experienced before, never seen before. Some were fantastic. The outlines of strange faces. What sorts of creatures were these, then? What connection, what relation did they have with each other? Where did they come from and where were they going to? Mergan’s mind was an endless desert, an endless sky. With no beginning or end, with unknown shooting stars, with flames in motion, with bats and night birds in flight. What were these images that were presenting themselves to Mergan? Had her mind been plundered? Why did these thoughts run riot in her mind? Why were their beginnings and ends unclear? Whose face was this that was visible in the darkness of a well, that was transforming itself from moment to moment? Whose visage was this? Why was it expanding, filling the entire darkness of the well, and then giving light to thousands of other images which would collide and be shattered, like thousands of eyes? Then they’d grow smaller and smaller, collapsing into dots. Each dot would then become a star.