Missing Soluch

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Mergan raised her head from the pillow. Soluch was gone. Her children were still asleep — Abbas, Abrau, and Hajer. Mergan tied the loose curls around her face into a scarf, rose, and stepped through the doorway into the small yard. She walked straight to the bread oven. Soluch was not there. Lately, at night, Soluch had been sleeping outside next to the oven. Mergan didn’t know why. She would just see him sleeping out beside the oven. He had been coming back home late at night, very late. He would go straight to the awning over the oven and curl up beneath it. He had a tiny body. He would fold himself, pull his knees to his belly, and fit his hands between his thighs, which were hardly more than two bones. He would rest his head against the edge of the wall, draw up his donkey-skin blanket — made from the skin of the same donkey that got sick and died the last spring — and go to sleep. Or, perhaps he wouldn’t sleep. Who knows? Maybe he stayed up until dawn, muttering and mumbling to himself. He’d grown less talkative of late. He’d come and go without a word. In the mornings, Mergan would stand over him, and Soluch would rise in silence. Not looking at his wife, he would sneak out before the children were up, exiting through the opening in the wall. Mergan would only hear her husband’s cough as he walked away down the alleyway. And then Soluch would be gone. Soluch and his cough would be gone. He didn’t even own shoes or slippers for Mergan to hear his footsteps as he left. But where would he go? Mergan could never understand. Where could he go? Where would he lose himself? It wasn’t clear — no one knew. Or, no one would say. People kept to themselves. People were preoccupied with their own lives and hid their faces inside upturned collars.

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