Missing Soluch by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi Page A

eyes followed the two men as they left down the alley, before he quietly entered the room. He found Mergan in tears. Hajer was frightened and cowering in a corner silently. Abrau was still lost under the blankets, more or less still moaning as before.
    Abbas kneeled by the stove and said, “Mama, where did you hide the copper?”
    Mergan, whose frustration had been building up inside her, shouted, “In hell! What are you starting up for now? Let me die in peace!”
    Abbas kept at the subject, saying, “I heard everything. You’ve hidden the copper somewhere.”
    Mergan was about to launch into an argument when she instead wiped her nose with the edge of her scarf and asked, “When did you get back that I didn’t notice? So where’s the bread? I thought you were taking your bundle of wood to the baker, weren’t you?”
    Abbas answered, “The bastard didn’t take it. He doesn’t want any more tonight. And what he needs tomorrow he’ll only buy tomorrow. I nearly killed myself bringing the load back to the house!”
    Mergan suddenly thought of something.
    “Did their bread oven still have embers burning?”
    “I don’t know. They’d already shut the door of their house.”
    Mergan hurried, taking a tin container from beside the stove. Abbas grabbed his mother’s wrist.
    “You still didn’t say where you hid the copper? What are you hiding? What were you thinking? That I’d be fooled? That copper belongs to me, too. It’s not all just yours!”
    Mergan pulled her hand from her son and said, “You’d better shut your mouth, you. So now you think you’ve become a grown-up for me! Let’s wait till your piss froths, then I’ll let you puff out your chest a bit!
    However it was, and from wherever she could get it, Mergan needed to bring embers back to the house. For this reason, she couldn’t wait around and argue with her son. She grabbed the edge of the tin and rushed out of the door like a wolf. Abbas, stung by his mother’s treatment, felt he was weak, a nothing. Such a nothing that he wasn’t even worth fighting with; exactly the sort of sentiment that no young man can bear. The fact that he didn’t have facial hair yet was acceptable, as long as he was taken seriously, treated like a person, like a man. Mergan, in the state she was in, had no chance to perceive the nuance of this. So Abbas was left to bemoan his mother’s insult. An insult, no matter how off-handed. He wished for the day that he could take a place above his mother. To be the master. But this was not all. Someday …? When? Where to find the patience to wait for that day? Now. He had to make up for his humiliation right now. If no one had been there, then that would have been different. But this had happened in front of his little sister. So, just as Hajer was staring at him, he glared back at her.
    “What? What are you looking at? You’ve never seen a human?”
    Hajer looked away.
    Abbas said, “Very well! So if you don’t want me to make you pay for it, tell me, where did you go with Mama today?”
    Hajer replied quietly, “We went to get some sun.”
    “What else? After that?”
    “After? After …”
    “Stop hemming and hawing! Speak up. Where did you hide the copper?”
    Hajer began to cry, half from fright and half on purpose.
    “I swear … I don’t know. I wasn’t there, I swear! I swear on my father’s grave!”
    “Watch what you’re saying, you! Has our father died for you to be swearing on his grave?”
    Hajer began to sob, saying, “Mama said. She said today he was dead!”
    “She’s talking out the side of her mouth! Dead? Ha! Just wait till she comes back. I’ll show her how dead our father is. She’ll see!”
    Hajer let out a cry. But Abbas wasn’t so weakhearted as to let her off so easily.
    “Fine. Let’s forget about this. Let’s imagine our father’s dead. Tell me, where did you two hide the copper work?”
    Hajer again evaded the question and set to stalling. Abbas began removing his