Zari finished ironing Khosrow’s old trousers and shirt which she had let out for Kolu and handed them to Gholam along with some socks, a vest and underpants. “Put anti-flea powder on all of these,” she said. “Buy him a pair of givehs too.” And she sat down on a chair. She was feeling parched, perhaps from all that ironing in the heat.
“The powder is finished,” Gholam told her. “I mixed the whole lot with water in the ewer to splash around the stables. They’re infested with lice.”
“Send Kolu here,” Yusef ordered.
“Let him have his bath first,” said Zari.
“Agha, he won’t come,” Gholam complained. “This morning he was like a wild animal. He wanted to run off into the hills. He kept saying he was going to walk all the way back to his mother.”
After Gholam had gone, Ameh Khanom said, “Brother, you can’t keep the boy here. He’s like that wild fawn we finally had to get rid of … still, it’s none of my business. I’m only a guest in this house for a few more days.”
At heart Zari agreed with her sister-in-law about Kolu. When she had seen him the day before, his eyes had looked to her just like those of the wild fawn—large and outlined, with a shocked expression. Even though he had smiled at his mistress, deep down in his eyes lurked the fearfulness of a trapped animal.
“It really is too soon to take him away from his home,” Zari observed. “It’s no use being kind to him. We’re only making him unhappy, and his relatives angry …”
“Once he’s lived here comfortably for a few days, he’ll feel at home with his new surroundings and he won’t even mention his village anymore,” Yusef said impatiently. “Next year I’ll send him to school.”
Khosrow stopped writing and giggled. “Not unless you send him there with his hands and feet tied inside a sack,” he said, “he’s too wild. And he’s too old, anyway; they may not accept him.”
“In a sack?” Yusef asked absently, folding his newspaper.
“Yes, father. I saw Davoud Khan’s son when they brought him to school from the tribe. They’d brought him straight there. I think I was in the second grade. At break-time we saw this tribal man with a big moustache arriving at school on a mule. He was wearing a felt hat and a slit tunic with a shawl wrapped around his waist. On his saddle was a big canvas sack tied up carefully at the top, with something wriggling inside it. The man got down from his mule and tied the bridle to the same tree I always use when I take Sahar to school. All this time he was holding the sack firmly with his other hand. He was being very careful with it. Then he hoisted the sack and brought it into the schoolyard. When he put it down and opened it, the Khan’s son jumped out, wearing nothing but long black trousers! He did a few somersaults—I don’t know what for. Then he started to run all around the schoolyard. As if anyone could catch him!”
Zari picked up her ironing and went to the pantry. She checked the cupboards. They’d completely run out of flower essence. In the kitchen she found Khadijeh, frying egg-plants on the stove. She was working stripped to the waist in the furnace-like heat, exposing sagging breasts and hairy armpits, while below the waist she wore her loose, flowery-patterned trousers. On seeing her mistress, Khadijeh grabbed her veil to cover herself.
Zari decided to pay a visit to her neighbours, the distillers. Maybe they could supply her with some essence. She went out the garden gate with her purse and two large pitchers. The neighbours’ garden door was open, so she went in without knocking. There wasn’t the usual pile of flowers on the paving in the middle of the garden, and the old distiller himself was nowhere in sight.
“Is anyone there?” she shouted.
She approached the house, knowing that the distillery store-rooms were in the basement. She had an uncontrollable urge to fill a china bowl with betony extract, add syrup to it and mix in some crushed ice … she would stir the ice in her drink with her fingers and with a ladle that had a carved handle … ah, how refreshing that would be! Even if the distillers weren’t there, she could go to the store-rooms, fill her pitchers and leave the money somewhere in sight.
Inside the house, she called out again, “Anybody there?”
Suddenly the head of the old distiller appeared behind one of the basement windows. He peered at her through the ornate stone lattice. Then he came out to greet her, dressed only in his drawers.
“Khanom, why go to the trouble of coming here yourself? You could’ve sent one of the servants …” And then he added, “Please come to the store-rooms. Take whatever you want. We were waiting for the last picking of eglantine which hasn’t arrived. The flowers will wilt. They say the whole town’s been blocked because some horse has taken off with the Governor’s daughter. They’re not even letting goods deliveries come through.”
Zari put the pitchers down.
“I’ll be going down to the garden door,” said the distiller. “I’ve sent my sons to fetch the load and I want to see if they’re here yet. I just know those flowers are going to wither. This town is turning into bedlam. Why does the girl have to go about riding a horse and getting herself into trouble? How can you make those fools understand that flowers don’t have the patience of human beings? Especially eglantine. They have to be picked at dawn and piled inside the store-rooms by early morning. Flowers can’t be kept waiting in this blazing sun!”
Zari didn’t know whether to be glad or upset. She felt for the child’s mother: she was, after all, a mother herself. She knew Sahar was a noble horse and wouldn’t throw his rider. But how terrified the girl must be! And how anxious the mother!
She took the pitchers and went to the basement. An intoxicating fragrance permeated the cool air of the cellars. The covers of the stone vats made especially for boiling flowers had been removed and leaned against the walls. The bamboo pipes leading from the vats to the tank were dry and, unlike the last time she had brought the twins to watch, were not dripping with thin streams of fragrant essences. Of the two tanks, one was full and the other half-full with rose-water. Flasks of rose-water were stacked neatly around the store-room. She opened a small door and went to an adjoining cellar. She dipped her pitcher in the first tank there and filled it with betony extract. How she longed to lie down right there on the cool moist earth of the store-rooms, next to the sweet aroma of those tanks!
On her return home, the first thing she noticed when she went to the verandah was the noise in the distance. The others were seemingly oblivious to it, Khosrow still writing his letter and Yusef leafing through his book, chuckling. The noises, however, seemed to be coming closer, a mixture of the sounds of a crowd and the hum of car engines. Zari glanced towards the hill. Not a soul in sight.
“Where are the twins?” Yusef asked.
No-one answered.
She could see two cars now, one following the other at an angle to the slope. A voice rose, saying, “He’s heading for the hill!” Several people started in the same direction.
“There! I’ve finished my letter,” said Khosrow. “Father, will you listen while I read it to you?”
Yusef shut his book, got up from the armchair and looked out. “What on earth is going on over there?” he asked.
Khosrow stood up too and went to the edge of the verandah. “Look how many people there are at the foot of the hill!” he exclaimed. “Four … five cars!”
A voice in the distance shouted, “Did you see? Right there!” And another voice commanded, “Don’t shoot, you idiot!” Someone screamed. The crowd at the foot of the hill was growing by the minute. A policeman and two gendarmes arrived. Two more cars passed by the slope. The first car was sounding its horn like an emergency siren, and raising a great trail of dust and gravel as it drove forward.
“Is there a war, father?” Khosrow asked. Before Yusef could answer, another voice shouted, “He’s going up the hill!” Other voices were lost in the din of the crowd, and the revving of car engines.
“I think it’s to do with Sahar,” Zari said. “The distiller next door was saying that a horse had taken o
ff with the Governor’s daughter.”
Yusef clapped a hand to his stomach and laughed heartily. “What a war!” he said, catching his breath. “All this to catch a colt! There he is! Look, it’s Sahar all right! He’s standing at the summit. She’ll be lucky if he doesn’t throw her!”
Ameh Khanom, still sitting with her back to the hill, didn’t even turn round. She was struggling with a thread and needle. “It’s just like threading a needle,” she observed. “If you aim the thread exactly at the needle’s eye and your vision is good, then you get it right the first time. But if your eyes are like mine, on the blind side, you have to keep wetting the thread in your mouth, and guessing at the eye. The thread goes back and forth so many times until finally, by accident, it goes through the hole. Now Khosrow, your horse has come to you on his own feet by accident too. Go out there and let’s see how well you thread your own needle.”
Yusef put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Your aunt is right, son,” he said. “Go ahead.”
Khosrow jumped down from the verandah and ran off. Zari, understanding Ameh’s hint, knelt down and threaded her needle for her. “But it can’t always be helped, you know,” Ameh commented. “In life you’re not always allowed to follow the right path, so only after a great many battles and a lot of failures do you finally make up for your mistakes.”
“Sister, ever since you’ve decided to leave for the Holy City, you’ve become quite a philosopher,” Yusef observed.
“Just a wise old owl,” Ameh sighed.
At that moment Zari noticed a car struggling noisily up the hill. Sahar, at the summit, neighed and shifted nervously from side to side. The girl grabbed at his golden mane, shrieking above the noise of the crowd. The mare and the chestnut horse neighed in response from the stables.
“I knew the first day they tried to ride him outside the four walls of their estate, he’d head straight back home,” Yusef said.
“A credit to that noble beast,” said Ameh, still busy with her sewing.
Suddenly a long black limousine drew up. The policeman saluted and the gendarmes presented arms. The driver jumped out to open the door, but the man in the back seat opened it himself and stepped out. Zari recognized the Governor. Then another limousine drew up behind the first. Singer stepped out, followed by two Indian soldiers. He and the Governor shook hands.
The crowd kept parting and re-assembling to allow for the random movement of the cars. The car which had driven up on to the hill backed down noiselessly as if afraid of causing Sahar to shy again.
Zari couldn’t see her son as she strained to pick him out in the crowd. This was the time to act, so where was he? By now, the army commander’s car had drawn up as well. Out stepped the commander and three more officers, slamming the door loudly. The car moved on, veering closely past the other two limousines. The army commander took in the scene around him. The officers, with swords dangling at their sides, headed straight for the hill. The Indian soldiers saluted and Singer started to do the same, but the army commander prevented him as if to emphasize their warm relations. Then the commander turned and saluted the Governor.
Yusef had meanwhile fetched his binoculars, and he and Zari took turns surveying the scene on the hill. Sahar neighed several times. The girl was clutching at his mane, lying full-length along his neck. Sahar slipped several times on the rocky terrain, veering first to the left and then to the right. The army commander, holding a short, thick baton in his hand, left the Governor and Singer behind, and headed uphill.
“Gilly dear,” he shouted at her, “take your feet out of the stirrups, sit sideways and try to jump down.”
“I’m scared! I’m scared!” came Gilan Taj’s voice.
“What an ass!” murmured Yusef.
Zari couldn’t tell whether he meant the army commander or ‘Gilly dear’.
Sahar seemed to notice the gendarmes all of a sudden. One of them uncoiled the rope he was carrying and threw the noose at him, in an attempt to lasso the horse and its rider. Sahar backed off, the girl screamed, and both disappeared down the other side of the ridge. The crowd surged towards the hill. The drivers of those cars who had room to manoeuvre, jumped behind their steering wheels, revved their engines and drove away to the other side.
“Get back, you half-wits!” yelled the army commander. “You’ve frightened the horse. He was standing perfectly calmly …”
“If there was an ounce of brain in their heads,” Yusef said, “they would all go away and let Sahar bring the girl safe and sound back here.”
Suddenly Zari caught sight of Khosrow clambering up the hill. Her stomach began to churn. “Amen Khanom, pray for him, pray for him!” She turned to Ameh and begged her. Ameh looked towards the hill, and her lips moved in prayer: “God’s protection upon him; He is the most merciful of the merciful.”
Khosrow had nearly reached the top. He put two fingers in his mouth and let out the long whistle he always used for Sahar. Whenever he heard that sound, no matter where he was in the garden, Sahar would come to Khosrow and sniff at his sleeves. The crowd fell silent. Zari looked at her husband. Yusef’s face was radiant with smiles and his green eyes were shining like two stars. Again Khosrow whistled. Sahar’s head appeared in sight, looking to left and right.
“Here I am, Sahar!” Khosrow shouted. “Don’t be scared,” he reassured the girl, “he won’t throw you.” The crowd was so silent, it was as if there had never been an uproar. Sahar neighed and slowly approached Khosrow. When he reached the boy, he lowered his head, as tamely as a household pet. Zari knew he would be sniffing at Khosrow’s sleeves and pockets, taking in the familiar odour. She knew how closely the animal’s existence was tied to familiar smells around him. Khosrow hugged Sahar’s head, kissed him and patted his mane. Then he held his hand to Sahar’s mouth, and Zari knew Khosrow had not forgotten the sugar-lumps.
Khosrow helped the girl dismount. She was wearing riding boots and jodhpurs. As she touched the ground, she collapsed. Khosrow held the bridle as he bent over to tell the girl something. She sat up and screamed. Khosrow stood in front of the girl and was obviously talking to her. Finally he gave her a hand and lifted her up and the three of them descended the hill. Sahar had brought his ears forward, as if to listen to Khosrow’s words. Near the foot of the hill, the girl left her companions and threw herself into the arms of her father, who had come forward to meet her. As the boy and his horse reached the crowd, people stood aside to make way for them. Then Khosrow mounted and galloped back home.
13
The mare was ready, saddled and bridled. Yusef was about to mount when Kolu dashed out of the stables and threw himself at his feet, begging to be taken back to the village. He was so altered after a haircut, a bath and some second-hand clothes! Or had he got thinner in the past few days? His dark eyes seemed sunken in his haggard face. Yusef tried to reason with him. “Listen son,” he said, “you’ll be staying in town, going to school, really be making something of yourself. You can learn a thousand things from Khosrow.”
But Kolu was deaf to the master’s words, uncomprehending, pleading only to be taken back to his mother and brother. Finally Yusef lost patience and boxed his ears. “I’m not going to your village just now! I’m going to Zarqan.” And he mounted. Kolu burst into tears and threw himself into the bushes, kicking and howling like a trapped animal. When Yusef bent over from the saddle to kiss Zari, he noticed tears in her eyes.
“Would you like me to take him back?” he asked.
“No, I expect he’ll settle down eventually,” Zari answered. “He can’t know what’s good for him, can he? Just remember, this time you’re the one who’s being charitable! What’s the use of helping this one out and adopting him when there are thousands of other peasant children like him?”
Over Yusef’s departing footsteps, Ameh Khanom splashed the customary water and orange blossom leaves from the crystal bowl she was holding, before going off to recite the An’am Surah for his protection and blowing it towards him with a sym
bolic gesture. What a curious creature a human being is! How easily a ray of hope or a happy event can renew his will to live! But when all around is oppression and despair, a person feels no more than a used-up shell, abandoned by the wayside. Ever since Sahar’s return, Ameh had connected her life with the family’s again and had stopped repeating that nothing concerned her anymore.
Zari went over to Kolu who had rolled away as far as the middle of the garden path. She knelt beside him and stroked his hair.
“Now look how you’ve dirtied your new clothes …” she scolded him gently.
Kolu sat up and tore his shirt off angrily, screwing it up and throwing it in front of the master’s wife.
“Listen,” said Zari, “if you’re a good boy, I’ll ask Khosrow to give you lessons from tomorrow. When you can read and write, I’ll send you to your village to see your mother and show her you can read their letters and write letters for her, too.”
Kolu had calmed down. Either he was paying attention or he had tired himself out. “But no one writes my mama letters,” he said.
“Get up, child,” Zari urged, patting his sweaty back. “Go and wash your hands and face. Shake the dust off your clothes and put them back on.”
As Kolu didn’t budge, she asked, “What do you want me to buy you?”
Kolu burst out crying again and sobbed, “Send me home, mistress! I beg you on your children’s lives, send me back to my mother and brother. My brother’s sitting right now by the stream playing his flute. My mother’s putting oil in the lamp. I’d laid some traps to catch a few goldfinches, and now they must be trapped and there’s no one to get them out … I put my slingshot on the shelf—my sister Massoumeh will take it and lose it. If I was there now, I’d have pinched a few walnuts and I’d be cracking them and eating them.”