by Ali Araghi
Nosser followed the war news on the radio as if God had so commanded in his Holy Book. Not many people in the village were interested in the war or felt threatened by the blaze that was eating Europe or the fact that their northern neighbors, the Soviets, brought the war too close to their homes. Salman’s father Mash Akbar, one of the two village butchers, was the only person who would discuss the war. Nosser spent many an evening with him going over the newspapers that came from Tehran every other day in the truck that brought provisions under a burlap cover.
It was in this situation that Pooran had to deal with Maryam’s suitor. Three weeks after Nosser returned from the army, the Ford V8 chauffeur paid a visit to ask for their daughter’s hand. He had seen Maryam on the day of Nosser’s departure and he had fallen for the way a lock of hair hung over her forehead from underneath her chador. When the young man heard that the girl’s father was back, he formally sought her hand in marriage. He was a chauffeur for one of Tehran’s big merchants, a friend of Khan’s. It was thanks to a mixture of politics and sincere affection for an old friend that the merchant had lent Khan his V8 and chauffeur for Nosser’s special day. Pooran did not find her husband as interested in the matter as she expected. Given the suitor’s good social status as a chauffeur, Nosser declared his approval with a nod of the head while listening to the radio and cleaning his rifle. Khan was the bigger supporter. He hosted the premarriage talks in his house in the Orchard with the boy’s mother, father, uncles, and aunts. He liked that the suitor was named after the crown prince, Mohammad Reza, although, being lanky and carefree, he was not comparable to the son of the Shah in any other way.
On the day of the proposal, Khan was unnerved that Mohammad Reza talked too much, and Pooran found his ambitions to get into the import/export business or open a shop overly optimistic, as both enterprises would require a lump of money that Mohammad Reza did not have. Pooran had dreamed of a better groom for her daughter, perhaps a doctor who was also charming and handsome. Mohammad Reza was not even much taller than Maryam. But he seemed like a good boy and had a respectable job, and she liked the way his neat suit and tie looked on him. She would not be ashamed to show him to others and tell them he was her son-in-law. On top of that, Pooran was not brave enough to endure the fear of not finding Maryam a husband before she turned fifteen. After the groom’s family had made a few trips to the Orchard, the wedding was announced.
In the following months Nosser began to think twice about the fact that his daughter was going to leave Tajrish to live in Tehran. The flames of the war that was devouring the world blazed too close. If anything happened, the capital would be the first to catch fire. Nested at the foot of mountains, in the shelter of rocks and boulders, Tajrish was safer. But, as they say, “A daughter belongs to others.” He did not voice his concerns.
* * *
—
MULLA ALI PLACED HIS HANDS on Ahmad’s shoulders and pushed him gently forward. “Nosser,” he shouted into the white above, “can you see Ahmad? He’s here, right here with me! Don’t bring God’s wrath upon the people. Don’t do this to the House of God. For the sake of your son.” A heavy silence fell upon the crowd who looked up into the fog listening for a reply. Crows cawed somewhere deep in the white murk from their perches atop plane trees. Sparrows chirped their morning songs. “Nosser Khan!” shouted Mash Akbar, Salman’s father. “Nosser Khan, can you hear us?” Ahmad slowly removed his hands from his ears. “Nosser Khan!” The crows stopped their baleful shrieks and now it was only the song of the sparrows piercing the shroud of the fog that had enveloped Tajrish and its people. Ahmad turned at the sound of footsteps to see his mother rushing toward them. He wiggled out of Mulla’s hands and ran to her.
“What’s your father doing?” Pooran whispered as she approached the edge of the crowd.
“He’s shooting flying Russians,” Ahmad answered, squeezing his mother’s chador in his fist.
“What?” she turned her eyes to the crowd as if, not believing Ahmad, she was looking to see what was really happening.
“I got up and I was going to feed the chickens and come help you. But Salman knocked and we ran here. Father is up there at the top of the minaret. He’s hunting the Russians, and Nemat said we are crazy. Father is fine, right?”
“God willing, son, God willing.”
“Nosser Khan,” shouted Salman’s father, “your wife is here, too. Come down. Nosser, can you hear me?” But no human sound seemed able to descend from the invisible top. The sparrows had become silent too and now Ahmad could even hear the wheezy breathing of Mohammad the Carpenter, who had tilted his large head back and looked up into the fog with an open mouth. Sweat slid from his temple down his round, fleshy cheek. Time had stopped. The villagers had turned into stone figures in a hushed apocalypse. Then Nosser’s voice blasted from the heart of the fog:
“Send the boy up.”
Faces turned to Ahmad. He looked at his mother.
“God bless your father, Mr. Nosser,” shouted Mulla Ali toward the minaret. “May your family live long. He’s coming right up to you now. Just put the pickax down and don’t throw any more bricks, Nosser Khan. All right? We don’t want the boy hurt, do we?” Ahmad’s mother gave him a soft tap on the back meaning, Go to your father. Everything is going to be all right. Mulla Ali accompanied him through the crowd. “He is at the foot of the stairs, Mr. Nosser.” The door was open wide. It was a small, old, wooden door leading to a dark and narrow spiral stairwell that went up as if to a white hell in the sky. A broken lock lay on the floor. “Go, go.” Mulla Ali pushed Ahmad in.
The jagged triangular steps curled around the inside of the minaret toward the crown. Ahmad wanted to hurry, but he had to place each foot carefully, avoiding the fallen chunks of brick. He ran, a groping hand on the wall, but the blackened plaster provided nothing to hold on to. Small openings in the wall allowed the softened morning light to penetrate the darkness. If the openings had been lower, Ahmad could at least peek down at the people, but all he could see now was the fog.
“Who is that?” his father barked from above. “Who’s coming up? I have bricks. I’ll throw. Who is there?”
“It’s me.”
“Ahmad?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Come on up here, son,” he snapped. “Quick.”
As Ahmad hurried up, each step more covered by dust and pieces of brick, he began to hear his father’s hoarse breathing. A few more steps and there he was, sitting on the stairs. Behind him on higher steps lay his leather boots and the pickax he had used to pry out bricks. Ahmad looked at the pockmarked wall, then at his father’s rifle sticking out of the opening in the wall. The stock rested in his strong arms like a baby. The soft light from the opening lit the left side of his face. Deep wrinkles burrowed his dusty, sweaty forehead. He looked more like Grandfather. But Khan was old. Nosser was not.
“There you are,” he said, his voice rasping, his eyes fixed on Ahmad with an unwavering intensity. “Where have you been?”
“I was down there,” Ahmad replied, “with the others.”
“Are you afraid?”
Ahmad was not sure what to answer.
“I said are you afraid?”
Ahmad shook his head.
“Then hold up your head and let me hear your voice. Are you afraid?”
“No, Father, no.”
Nosser rolled over to look out the opening and a button popped off his shirt, bounced off the step where Ahmad was standing, and landed on the one below it. Ahmad fished the button from dust and debris. In the palm of his hand, it reflected the subdued white of the fog outside, as if it were pearl. Ahmad looked at his father’s shirt. The dark-brown pinstripes cascaded and surged like waves. “Is your mother there, too?” Nosser asked, squinting down into the fog.
“Yes.”
Nosser placed his cheek on the rifle and tilted it up. “They’re there,” he
said with an eye closed. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Who’s up there, if you are listening?”
Nosser had not said who was up there. Ahmad threw a furtive look out the opening from where he was standing: nothing was there but the milky sky. “Russians?” he mumbled.
“Yes!” Nosser roared with excitement as he turned to face his son. “Yes, boy, yes! They’re up there spying on us. Of course. Why not? It’s a war. Isn’t it a war?” He paused for a second. “Is it not?”
“Yes, it is, Father,” Ahmad said, slipping the button into his pants pocket.
“Listen, Ahmad,” he lowered his voice as he leaned forward and grabbed the boy’s shoulders in a firm grip. “Listen, Ahmad, they’re going to come, put their filthy boots on our soil. From the North. Maybe others, too. They’re here to make us a war country. I don’t have much time left. But you have a lot of time. As much as you wish. You’re still a little boy. I want you to be watchful. Keep an eye on land and sky. Do you understand?” Ahmad did not remember having seen white strands in his father’s beard before. He had aged overnight. His cheeks were sunken and the black rings made the sparks in his eyes menacing. For an instant, Ahmad thought he was talking to a stranger. But the voice was familiar. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Ahmad nodded, not sure what his father was talking about. “Good. Now there’s one thing I need to tell you. Here.” He lifted the rifle and nested it in Ahmad’s arms. “This is like a baby. You have to hold it in your arms very carefully; tightly but gently. Like a baby. You have to take care of it.” He took Ahmad’s hand and placed it on the rifle. “And you know why?”
“Mr. Nosser, yo!” Mulla Ali’s voice came from the foot of the stairwell. “How is the boy? Are you coming down? Can you send him down?”
Nosser looked around and picked up half a brick behind him. “Step aside,” he ordered Ahmad and hurled it down the stairs. The brick ricocheted off the wall, tore a chunk off of the plaster, and disappeared into the darkness.
“You know why this is happening?” Nosser pulled Ahmad back in front of him. “Because the world is in a war. A big war. It isn’t only us, it’s the whole world, and the second time, too. It’s been going on for years and now it’s crawling toward us. I want you to hold onto your gun and promise to take care of your home and your mother and sister. If you see a sparrow in the air, don’t shoot it, but if you see a Russian in the air, shoot it. Do you understand, Ahmad?”
He did not understand. He had chased chickens in the yard, hidden in the large copper cauldron in the basement while playing hide-and-seek, ridden on top of apple crates on the back of Khan’s wagons, and even snuck into Rakhsh’s stable without his grandfather’s permission, but he had never held a gun in his hands. He had never shot anything except for crows, sparrows, and empty tins with a slingshot. His father was waiting for an answer. Ahmad nodded. With the nod came the slap in his face.
“Don’t you lie to me! You don’t understand. You have no clue what you are holding in your hands. You don’t have the slightest idea your country is in danger and neither does anyone down there.” Ahmad’s ear was burning, but he did not dare let go of the gun to press it and soothe the pain. Tears welled up in his eyes. “Now listen to me: strangers will come, from the land and from the sky. There is a war going on. War is when strangers come to our village to take our things and kill our people, to turn us into a second Poland. They have guns and rifles like this one. So we need to have guns of our own to save our lives and protect our loved ones. Others can’t see this now. But they will. You’ll live a long life. Remember, you need to fulfill your responsibilities. Now repeat so I know you understand. You need to do what?”
“Fulfill my responsibilities,” Ahmad answered, fighting back tears.
“Good boy, which is what?”
Against his will, a tear slid down Ahmad’s cheek. “To protect my mother and sister and Khan and Agha.”
“That’s my boy.” A smile flashed on Nosser’s face. “It’s not that bad. Collect yourself. All you have to do is accept them and cherish them and savor them as if you were drinking from a glass of cold barberry juice, as if you were sucking on a piece of ice in the summer.” And with that he grabbed the barrel and put the tip in his mouth.
Ahmad’s hands were drenched in cold sweat. It looked like he had shoved a gun in his father’s mouth. Like he was going to kill him. But he was not. What he meant to do that day was to get up, feed the chickens, and go to the Orchard where everyone was preparing for the wedding: women of the village sailing around the steaming cauldrons, checking how much longer the stew needed to cook or if there was enough salt in the rice, others sitting on blankets and rugs, in front of heaps of herbs to be cleaned and crates of apples and cucumbers to be washed; men sweeping the ground and laying more rugs, carrying big bags of rice to the women and putting the watermelons in the narrow creek that ran through the Orchard. Ahmad had looked forward to the wedding tunes that the duo of musicians would blow into the sorna and beat on the dohol all through the evening and night. He had wanted to bet with Salman and the other boys who could keep his hands in the cold creek water the longest, watch the men dance, and maybe dance a little himself somewhere behind the crowd. He wanted to see if Agha would come out of his tree for Maryam’s wedding. What he had never meant to do was put a rifle in his father’s mouth.
At that moment Khan’s strong voice echoed up the staircase. “Nosser, I’m coming up.” It was not a request, nor was a trace of doubt in it. Khan was finally there to right the wrong. Ahmad watched his father’s strong hand slide slowly along the barrel to rest peacefully over his frail fingers, as if to help him bear the burden. The hand’s skin was darker and more wrinkled than Ahmad remembered, but its weight felt fatherly and familiar. Ahmad could hear Khan’s footsteps. His father’s hand was talking to him. Everything is going to be okay, it said. Ahmad’s arms were tired from the weight of the rifle and his father’s hand. He wished he could put it down for a second. But then it went off.
It was sudden. It was loud. Then it was silent. Not a caw from a distant crow, nor the faintest rustling of villagers’ shoes on the dirt. There was no sound. But there was color. Red had splashed behind his father on the steps, on his boots and pickax, and on the bending walls that ascended still higher. Was his father’s head there or had it disappeared? Had it bent back? It seemed that the fog had started to leak in through the opening to dissolve Nosser. And Ahmad too—until he felt his father’s body, leaning heavily on the barrel of the rifle. He could not hold it anymore. He made no attempt at escape as his father tilted toward him, toppled, and everything went black.
2
HMAD’S MOTHER WAS ANXIOUS to hide the news, not from the villagers who must have already known everything there was to know, but from the groom’s family who were due to arrive around noon and head for the Orchard. Tears streaming from her eyes, she pleaded with Khan and Mulla Ali and the people around the body in the mosque. Could they not postpone the funeral by one day and keep the wedding from falling apart? Otherwise they would have to wait for the Third night, then the Seventh night, the Fortieth, and the anniversary before anyone could even begin to think about a wedding again and by that time, who knew if the groom’s family would still take Maryam, a year older and fatherless.
Khan sat cross-legged against the wall at a distance from the others, silent and pensive, his black Astrakhan hat on the floor by his side. Pooran got up from beside the body and walked over to him. “Khan, I swear to God, I will make this wedding happen myself,” Pooran threatened, “whatever it takes.” She stood there looking down at Khan, oblivious to the fact that her chador had slipped off her head, showing the hazel mane cascading down the sides of her head in graceful disheveled waves, until some older women huddled over to fix it. They wiped her face and gave her a glass of cold water to calm her down so she could see the nonsense of what she was suggesting. Even i
f it was doable, even if all the village swore to keep their mouths shut, how could the absence of the bride’s father be justified? The young girl’s life would be doomed forever if her marriage began with such a ruse. Little by little, the sips of water sizzled on the raging flames that burned inside Pooran. Surrounded by women, some of whom had volunteered to weave the very rugs they were sitting on when Khan decided to build the mosque, Pooran despaired. She placed her forehead on the white sheet that covered the body of her husband.
Then Khan got to his feet. “We’ll do as she said,” he announced, fitting his black Astrakhan on his gray hair with three fingers. All they had to do was to surround the groom’s family at all times with people who would not divulge the secret. Once inside the Orchard, they would be isolated from any outsiders. “Who will help my family?” he asked the people in the mosque. A hand went up in the front, then another, and then the rest. Khan sent some of the men to go door to door to the houses that flanked the path from the road to the Orchard. He ordered the women to continue with the preparations. “May God forgive our sins,” Mulla Ali said loudly. “We need ice. Lots of ice to keep the body.” Pooran hugged her husband’s body and cried for a few minutes before she got up and drank the rest of the water in the glass. The ice had melted away.
* * *
