Free Missing Soluch by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi Page B

here just to sit and look at you!”
    Mergan replied, “May God repay you for your kindness!”
    The Kadkhoda smarted from the sting of the remark, and said, “A deal is a deal. Brotherhood has its own place—one brings wheat, and leaves with apricots. Salar, you go yourself. Get up and go get the copper pieces from their place and bring them here. Get up—while I’m here, it isn’t against the law.”
    Salar Abdullah was ready and he rose to enter the pantry. The others in the room—Mergan, the Kadkhoda, Hajer, andAbrau—each remained silent in their own way. The clanging sounds of copper could be heard on the other side of the curtain. Salar Abdullah drew the curtain back, placing the copper pieces outside one by one. Finally, he exited the pantry, a goblet in one hand, and said to Kadkhoda Norouz, “The copper’s less than half of what it was, Kadkhoda! Come and see for yourself!”
    The Kadkhoda rose, went to the doorway of the pantry, and fell into thought while looking at the copper work set out there.
    “Ten
seers
, half a
man
 … Fifteen
seers
. Estimate this one piece at seven
seer
; all together it comes to … ten, thirty, fifteen, and seven—my guess is this is, all together, about one
man
and two
seer
. So we’re short four
man
and two more
seer
. So …?”
    Before anything further could be said, Salar Abdullah removed the tallow-burner from the shelf, went back into the pantry and looked in all the nooks and crannies, came out and replaced the tallow-burner to its place, and said, “Nothing. They’re not here. They’ve melted into thin air!”
    Mergan remained silent, looking at a spot in front of her feet. But she could sense the sharp glare of Salar and the Kadkhoda on her. She was ready for a fight. She’d made all of the calculations. Perhaps that was why she was so firmly frozen in her place. Like a dragon protecting treasure. She had no choice. The earth itself was the only thing giving her support. She had no desire to rise, to stand. She didn’t want to have her knees begin shaking from the Kadkhoda’s and Salar’s accusations and quarreling. She wanted to hold her own. That was why she was firmly fixed to her seat on the earth.
    Salar said, “Thief! She’s taken a hand to the copper. I’d seen them myself! A pot, a bathing pitcher, a tray, the vase, anda set of pieces coming to thirty
seer
. It wasn’t just these four worthless bits of copper. She’s taken a hand to my property!”
    Your property?
    It would have been natural for Mergan to say this, but she didn’t. She only thought it. The Kadkhoda approached her with wide strides and stood beside her and asked, “So what’s happened to the rest? Where did you put them?”
    Mergan’s mouth remained firmly shut. The Kadkhoda repeated, “I’m with you! Where did you put them?”
    Kadkhoda Norouz’s voice was shaking. Mergan couldn’t remain silent any longer, so she said, “Just where they were before!”
    Salar cut her off, saying, “They’re not! All there is are these four worthless bits of copper work! Where are the valuable pieces?”
    Mergan replied, “They’ve gone to hell—where are they? What do I know where they are? He himself, his own cursed self, he’d come and take one piece every night to melt down. So what do I know? He’d come and go to the nearby villages—maybe he’s left them with a friend of his. God burn his cursed soul for absconding holy Zaynab’s rights!”
    Salar began shouting out of control, “It’s a lie! A lie! She’s lying while swearing on the purity of Zaynab! It was your own dishonorable self who absconded with the coppers!”
    Mergan stared at Salar a moment and said, “Me? May my hands dry up if I’ve even touched these copper pieces. May my children wither and waste before me if my soul had any idea of what happened to them. Soluch, that son of a bitch himself, was the one who’s made off with my bathing pitcher, my vase and tray, and the rest of them, and has sold