Missing Soluch Read Online Free PDF Page A

flame that was burning in her heart. That was a flame not easily extinguished. Mergan didn’t want to allow the flame to escape out from her eyes, her throat, her hands, or her mouth. She wouldn’t allow it. So the flame flickered inside her, burning. It stung and consumed her. Fire poured within her. A silent clamor. A rough farmer was ploughing her heartwith his ploughshare. To the very roots! The roots that had grown deep these many years were being ploughed and upturned from their ancient place in her heart. Being and nothingness were upended, turned upside down. Her heart was no longer that small, quiet bird, that tame and obedient sparrow. The wings of the bird had been torn out. Naked and featherless. The hawks, yes, the hawks had set out to flight. And where were the vultures? Mergan felt the cold sharp blade of the plow cut into her guts, as if the sedimentary skin of the soil was scraped off. What was being unearthed in this long-forgotten land opened her eyes: Mergan was in love with her man! She sensed this clearly now. She loved Soluch! She remembered the love she had for him. A forgotten love. She began to realize how much she had forgotten her love for him. Her love was for a man whose absence from her side, even if he were to sleep alone out by the clay oven for a thousand nights, was unthinkable for Mergan.
    This man whose very presence and absence was uncertain of late suddenly rose again in Mergan’s heart. Mergan just realized that she truly loved Soluch. That she had loved him. But what was this feeling? Where had it come from? How had it been awakened in her? So he’d gone—yes, and he could go to hell! But why had he left this trace, this echo of himself inside of her? As of today, nearly seventeen springtimes had gone by since they had married. Seventeen springs, and Abbas, their oldest, was now nearly a man for himself. His upper lip had sprouted peach fuzz. And with that mouth and those big teeth, he could really swear up a storm …
    Seventeen years! Is it possible for something to be lost inside you for years without your knowing of it? To have loved and to have forgotten it? Where would these words lead to?
    With every step Mergan took, with each breath that took her farther from Soluch, she felt she was instead rushing closer and closer to him. How far, how distant had they been from one another in enduring the passing days and nights? Oh … How a lifetime is wasted!
    People were slowly emerging and leaving Zaminej. It was the season for ploughing. But not for dry farming. The dry farmers were still waiting for the rains. They were still sitting in their homes, praying in their hearts, and looking to the skies. Here and there a man and a cow would walk out of Zaminej, heading for the higher grounds. Hajj Salem and his son Moslem were still sitting beside the wall. Moslem had stopped stomping his feet, but his hands were still hidden between his legs.
    “Papa … Papa …”
    Hajj Salem was unresponsive, and his gaze was transfixed to a spot in the gray cloud cover, as if his eyes were caught on something.
    “Papa … Papa …”
    The old man came to.
    “Damn it! What’s gotten into you now?”
    Moslem showed his thick, yellow teeth from satisfaction.
    “The sun … the sun’s come out!”
    “So … what am I to do?”
    “Warm yourself! Warm yourself!”
    Hajj Salem looked at his son, was silent for a spell, and then said, “The fool!”
    Mergan passed by the father and son like the wind. Blue from the cold, she reached her home and rushed into the room. Salar Abdullah was sitting on the earthen floor. He had a scarftied tightly around his head and had wrapped the edges of his robe around his knees.
    Mergan entered without greeting him and passed him without a second glance. She went to the far side of the room and sat quietly in the darkness of the corner of the house. She lifted her hands, which were numb from the cold, and her contorted fingers hung limply. Pain shot