Chapter 13
The hole
I am holding the rope tightly in my hands and am suspended and spinning around in the air while I shout deeply from inside. Suddenly a rod passes by my head quickly, I lose my balance, collide with the iron beam and finally I stop moving after I hit the wall of the valley.
My breast goes up and down continuously and I gulp my saliva once in a while. My body trembles and my hands are shaky. The rope slides off my hand momentarily. I swing in the air looking for an iron beam, and then I come down on one of them by a short jump. I take a rest on the beam until I can clench my fists, then I grab hold of the rope.
Slowly and sweating, while I try to be inattentive to my pains, I climb up the rope. The weather is calmer than before and the sand fall is weak. By each centimeter of ascension, I feel that a nail is stabbed in my body.
When I reach the edge, the sands rush to my face and I have to close my mouth. I cough so that I empty the sands out of my mouth and I grab the edge. But the concreted sands collapse under my hand. Again I have to grab the rope. I pull myself up with the help of the rope. The edges and the ground are loose and wobbly and once in a while, some part of them collapse. I pull myself up and open my way through the sands, which are knee-high, immediately and go toward my knapsack.
The loop of the rope caught the bumper. Again I thanks God and I take my knapsack behind the door of the car. But suddenly something stops me. The position of the rope around the bumper is rather strange. The shape of the bumper doesn’t allow the rope to loop around it. This needs more skill and mastery than a random or natural skill to loop the rope around the bumper. I should leave here soon.
The ground is too loose so that I may fall again at any moment. I remember the shelter but in this storm which nothing meets the eye, it is impossible I find it. For the time being, I should go away from here as soon as possible and then I put my plan into effect again. I have to lie on the ground again because as I go forward, more sands debar me; like the sea in which as you approach the center, it becomes deeper.
It seems a great deal of sands has flowed down to the valley again. I have not enough strength to force my way through the sands and I can’t forge forward but rather I go backward. I have to hold my hands as a shield in front of my eyes and move slouching. I feel rain drops beating on my face along with the sands.
I find myself sad. Then something smashes into my face severely insomuch that I grab my face, and my head reels under the blow for a while. I fall on the sands and flounce against the sands stream. I open my eyes and suddenly see a yellow snake creeping on the sands. I jump back by fear.
The movement of the snake is rather strange to me. After a while looking at it, I angrily take the rope, which is creeping like a snake. I don’t know why I thought that some animal may live in this desert.
I take the rope which seems has come from nowhere to save me, and pull it toward myself so that it pulls me forward too. As I go forward, I hear the cries which seem come out from the mouth of a ghost or a shadow. The cries are completely vague and hardly can be understood. Finally I approach the voice insomuch I can realize the words:
No long way left, hold out! Don’t release the rope. Not too much way left. Just some steps. Come on!
All of these words echoes through my head as if a tape is playing at a slow motion, and I see Vorarin like a ghost. If Vorarin didn’t catch me, I would fall on the ground. We push along while all of my weight is on Vorarin’s body. His words are like a whisper which echoes through my ears.
I stop with the motion of his hand which presses on my breast. He pulls out a blanket of his knapsack and pulls it over both of us. I don’t know why, but I feel that my feet are linked to the ground like the roots of a tree. I feel their weight manifold, but I push along again with the help of Vorarin. I am totally obedient to Vorarin for a while and he guides me. We walk for an unknown period of time continuously, until Vorarin tucks up the edge of the blanket. I see that we are approaching a dark thing. The air is slightly dark or I see it like this. Vorarin is completely bent under my weight and due to his little body, he is physically weak. But he moves me along by his full force. The blanket is completely wet and raindrops leak and fall on us.
Vorarin again tucks up the blanket and I see that the dark spot is the same shelter I have found. We enter and he takes me to a corner under the ceiling. Then, he crumples up the blanket and throws it aside.
You’d better take off your wet clothes while I set these bricks, otherwise your glassy clothes become ruined.
Then he begins his work. He puts and arranges the scattered bricks as a wall, at a distance of a man room from me. Then he goes toward his knapsack and pulls out a dry blanket, and he does the same with my knapsack, without asking me. Then he sits by me and removes all of his clothes except for his trousers and his shirt. His body is slender. He rises like a statue and says in wonder:
Why you didn’t take off your clothes yet?
Then he grumbles under his breath and comes to help me. He only removes my trousers, it seems he had pulled the most part of the blanket over me that my shirt is not wet. He snuggles up to me and gives me one of the blankets:
Pull it over yourself. It would be so cold tonight. We must sleep hunkered and stay close to each other to get warm.
As soon as he becomes quiet, and the air under the blanket becomes warm, I fall asleep despite of my body pains and the intensity of tiredness.
***
Zairas, get up! Zairas…
Vorarin shakes my shoulder. I open my eyes but I can’t see anything. It is like I am looking through a lens closely, everything is dim and unclear. I wink my eyelids repeatedly so that my eyes could see clear. It is dark and the moon is shining. Maybe one or two days left to full moon. I turn my head and see Vorarin sitting near me and tries to wake me up.
I look at him confused. He also stares at me and I can see the pity and compassion in his eyes which change his face. I look around like the paralytics, who can move only their eyes, to recover my memory.
Seeing the sands, which have reach in front my feet, and the walls of the shelter, I remember all last night events. I can’t believe that last night events to be real. It is Just like a dream which newly I woken up. Maybe I am still dreaming, but the pain which increases momentarily disproves it.
I bring my head out of the blanket completely, and the first thing which attracts me is the reek coming out of my mouth. The cold air enters the space under the blanket like the water through a small hole on the dam wall. I pull up the blanket again and just let my eyes to be out of it. Vorarin shows his hand to me and says:
Look this! I saw it a few minutes ago when I woke up.
I show him my disesteem for the matter by looking his hand and then again to the moon. Nothing is matter for me for a while and I just want to look at the moon. But it seems he can’t understand what I mean, or he pays no attention to it.
You know, it’s not my blood…it’s from your back. I think you’re wounded. I should have a look at it.
I know it, but I say nothing and do anything. He misunderstands my act and, while reproaches himself, he says with a sad mien:
I’m really sorry for last night. It was all my fault that it happened to you. If I hadn’t lost you maybe it wouldn’t have happened to you and you won’t have wounded. I was coming behind you and then I don’t know what happened that I lost you. I look for you so much, I call you many times. I even come here because I thought you may be here. But there was no sign of you. I went back the way to search for you more but the storm became fierce and I had to lie on the ground and wait. After a while, maybe five minutes, it seemed to me I saw someone. I got up and I reached you one way or another. I wasn’t sure it is you, yet I threw the rope and…
He cuts his words at this point, because I know the rest. I don’t deem him guilty even for one per cent, I even don’t give importance to last night events but I don’t know why I am annoyed and sad. I just planned to bring back Mansidan.
The blood stain on Vorarin’s hand denotes that maybe the wound on my back isn’t serious, but it also may not be superficial; yet, I even don’t care about my wounds. Even the moon has no luster to me. I close my eyes. Vorarin says insistently:
I don’t like to piggyback you rest of the way. I should have a look at your wound. It’s unknown how much blood you’ve lost till now.
My eyelids are heavy and I want to sleep to the end of the world. My lips just say two words:
I’m fine.
I don’t care about my wound but he shows his hand again and says:
I think you lost too much blood. I should treat it before it becomes infected. Hold on, let me help you to be in a better position.
Then he takes off his blanket. A weak shake engulfs him. The reek of his mouth increases and he rubs his hands. He has worn his clothes. He comes to me and after a pause and thinking for a while, he says:
I help you to sit in a position so that I have a look at your back. You must sit toward the small wall I made last night, bend down and lean against the wall.
Then he takes my blanket off. I gasp and my mouth remains open. All of My hair stand on end. I feel like I take a shower outdoor in winter. The air brings us the chill caused by the water on the ground. It is too cold so that my body becomes numb. When Vorrarin sees I am trembling, gives me my trousers, which is dry now, and says:
Put it on for the nonce. You have to tolerate till I finish my job.
My trousers is too cold so that I’d rather not to pull it on. I close my eyes, gnash my teeth and pull my trousers up quickly. Maybe it wouldn’t sting and ache this much if I sat on glowing coals; it is like I pull on a trousers of ice.
After a slight hesitation, he takes my hands and separates me from the wall. All of my bones make cracking sound and if he leaves me alone I can’t hold myself up, and this way, I would feel thousand knives are thrust into my body and hundred sledgehammers are pounding on my breast. So, when he hears my shout, he doesn’t move me and ask me frightened:
What happened? Are you ok?
He receives no reply from me. I grab the wall with my hands and hold myself up. Then I bend forward. Now I realize that why he made this small wall. The sands stopped in the back of the wall. If this wall wasn’t there, we would sink half high.
I feel a breath taking burning on my back, and I find out he is taking my shirt out of my body. It is stuck to my body with dried blood. As he says, my back is thoroughly red. He gives a deep sigh when he pulls up my shirt half, and then he stops.
Your back is wounded seriously. Almost up from your shoulder to down on your back is ripped by something sharp. It’s not a deep wound but it needs some stitches.
Then he leaves me and spreads his own blanket on the ground.
You should lie on it so I could stich it.
I lie prostrate on the blanket without his help. I feel a hot spear is thrust into my body little by little. My breast frizzles like a fish in the hot pan. I try to reduce my pain with holding my breath.
He brings his outfits out of knapsack and set them near me. He cleans the blood out of my back and I feel a cold liquid on my back. He starts stitching and breathes a sigh of revulsion once in a while. My body is too numb so that I feel the tip of the needle on my back only every few seconds.
He stitches so fast and finishes his job quickly so that I don’t notice when he holds my shirt in front of me. I reach out my hand to take my shirt but he suddenly pulls his hand back and says perplexedly:
What happened to your breast?
His words makes me bend my head down and I see the bruises on my breast caused by the two edges of the iron beam. Now I realize its reason. Vorarin sits on his legs and examines my breast with his soft hands. Then he frowns and says:
It’s too bad. Some of your ribs may be broken. What happened to you last night? Tell something. You haven’t talked at all since you woke up.
I take my shirt from him and put it on slowly. Then I rise with the help of the wall and he also comes to help me. I take my raincoat but he stops me and says:
Hold on, you should rest.
Then he pauses for a while. He pretends a pitiful face. He challenges with himself. I can see in his face that he finds himself guilty. I don’t know what mien I exhibit that he recedes one step.
Forget it, you’re not guilty. We should move otherwise we’ll meet day. I’m not fine.
He shakes his head to show his agreement. Then he gets ready to go. So I take my knapsack and wend my way.
You should eat something. You seem too weak. Your face is pale. It’s because of the blood you’ve lost. I’m too hungry.
I reply him lifelessly:
We haven’t time. We’ll eat while walking.
Why you’re so in hurry?
I must find Mansidan.
I gasp when I step out. I can’t believe such a difference between the temperatures in and out of the shelter. I bring the edges of my raincoat together and Vorarin intertwines his hands.
The wind pours the chill of the wet sands on our faces and then goes on its way. The ground is muddy in some parts and the water has pressed the sands together. When we move and go far away from the shelter, Vorarin says:
It’s too cold!
His red face and the reek which is coming out from his mouth prove this. The sands are the snow of our mountains. The difference is in their physicality and just the snow appears here differently. Its chill is the same. Vorarin winds the blanket around his body and proceeds. I do the same as he does and go along with him.
I thanks God the wind blows from behind, yet it makes us tremble. The sound of Vorarin’s gnashing is louder than mine. We move ahead slouchy. I am floating in my thoughts. Vorarine stares at me, and I leer at him. He offers me a canned food:
You should eat it, you have lost much blood. I can’t realize how you still are alive. How you can walk with such condition?
I take the can.
We’d better talk to get warm. Silence is painful, I mean I hate it.
My idea is different as chalk and cheese. In my opinion, silence is soothing, especially when it is linked with a thought. When I do think, the distance of my way seems shorter than one minute. Maybe he means something else. I take my fork, which its handle is bent, out of my knapsack.
I’m all ears to hear what happened to you.
I tell him the events in some short sentences and he forgets to eat his food while I am talking.
Did you weather these happenings? It’s too hard to understand, I mean it’s unbelievable.
Then he ponders, yet I change the subject and I say:
Which way we should go?
He puts his fork in the half-eaten can and takes out the map:
If we are still in that road, we shouldn’t be so far from there, unless we are walking in the wrong way. Yet, I could see the road few seconds ago, but not now.
There is no sign of the road. It is faded completely by the storm few hours ago. Vorarin suddenly stops reading the map and says:
There’s another way. We can find our way using the stars, but I don’t know anything about them.
I also shake my head to show that I don’t know too.
We’d better mark these two stars lest we lose our way.
Then he points at the two stars, which one is above his left shoulder and the other is above his right shoulder, in the sky. So we go that way. Time passes in silence for a while, then he throws his empty can toward the hungry desert and says:
I hadn’t seen a calamity worse than this. Killing this many people, what for?
I stare at him. I see so many differences between me and him; he probably is one or two years younger than me.
I don’t know… I don’t know at all.
It shouldn’t …
He finishes his words with scream and shout. I turn to him so fast insomuch my breast and back ache. He is not there as if a thunder destroyed him or the earth absorbed him and nothing remained of him.