I inherited my father’s house from my mother. It was never your father’s, she used to say, but then, most of the houses in the valley have been absent of men for most of my lifetime. The lopsided house, made of wood, leans toward an unnamed dirt road, opposite of which runs a glacial stream. It sits on the upper end of a valley between two ridges in the Benaam Mountains. Everything in the valley has been shaped by ice and water and wind. That’s why the house is crooked, my mom told me, and that’s why when she grew older, her body bent with age.
Long before that, when I was a barefoot toddler, I stood atop the dirt road facing the house. It was summer and the road was dry and dusty. I could hear the stream running behind me and I remember that when I kicked out with my feet, the rocks rolled down the sloping road toward the town below. Everything lived on a slant. I took my first steps, my legs still encased in soft rolls of baby fat. I walked toward a row of Allium that my mother had planted next to the house. I had been watching how the young stalks grew straight upwards toward the sky and I wanted to see how it was that they stood on the mountain without falling down, unlike the water in the stream, which always found its way downhill.
I squatted by the plants with the crumbly dirt between my toes. The acrid smell of the small crop, tempered by the sun-warmed earth, hit the back of my throat. Tears welled up in my eyes. I sneezed and I felt the ground move under my feet. I thought that I had caused the tremble, but then I saw that the world all around me was moving in waves. I stood and ran across the yard back into the road. I began to run down the road, laughing like the stream. Tears leftover from the onions mixed with tears from laughter and ran in rivulets down my dusty cheeks. I could make the world shake with my steps, I thought. But soon I found my mother’s arms were around me. She pressed my face into her neck, which was cold and wet with sweat. My feet were no longer on the shaking ground. She took me back to the house and covered me with her body until the shaking stopped. When the world finally stood still, her body continued to shudder from crying and I thought that maybe she had smelled the onions too, or that I had scared her by running in the road, too close to the water.
*
My mother’s arms were blemished with old scars. Sitting in her lap, she rubbed ointment onto my shoulder where a small cut had opened up. We bear the borders on our bodies, my mother explained to me as I ran my fingers over the mountain ranges made of welts on her forearms.
My mother told me that she could remember how one day when she was a child the earth had quaked so violently that the rivers changed their course. A new mountain grew out of the dust of that day, she said. She traced the ridges of her arm like they were a map of the valley, pointing out the longest scar. I looked at the valley from our door, which stood open to the evening. The setting sun was a ruby orb that distilled into a peach light and fell across the dirt road. On the other side of the road the water in the stream had turned from green and white to slate, as if all the minerals that came with it from the glaciers above had been frightened away.
Who makes the ground shake? I asked her.
She told me to imagine a table as big as our house in a building as big as the town. On the table there was a map and on the map, men with red pens drew and redrew the borders of our valley. We live in a valley that every man wants, but which none can fully obtain. The cuts that open on our bodies are the lashes of their pens as they try to flatten us, and the quakes we feel under are feet are the mountains rising in protest.
As she spoke I heard the singsong drain out of her voice. Her face went far away, became clouded. The pitch in her voice rose the way it always did when she was thinking about my father, a person I had heard of but never knew.
I reached for her hand and found that it was still shaking. Her face was the river and I intervened before it carried her away. I squeezed her hand and asked, why don’t they feel it too? She told me that the men with the pens and the maps are separated from the land, like bodies without souls.
I remembered why I had been in the yard. I had seen how when I kicked the rocks in the road, they rolled downhill like the water in the stream. The land is on a slant, I said. Why doesn’t the Allium fall over?
With my hand in hers, she said my name, Manzar, their roots hold them to the ground.
*
Early on spring mornings, the valley is sometimes shrouded in a yellow mist that originates from the stream. The stream is a constant presence, a uniting force that runs from the upper valley to the lower. It gurgles like a baby. And the wind, blowing among the roads and rocks, hisses and whispers. Like a creature, it leaves tracks and trails in the sand. It is capable of twisting the tiny ancient trees that manage to survive the altitude into knots with invisible hands. In the winter, the ice causes those precious trees to crack and explode. When the melt arrives, the stream swells beyond the rocky riverbed and covers the road. It rushes past my door, sometimes knocking as if asking to be let in. The stream takes the old silt away and carries new soil into the valley. It originates from a place higher than the valley itself, and it carries itself beyond the borders of the valley. It is the opposite of the mountains, which are always reaching higher. The stream tumbles down. The three elements, wind, water, and ice, combined to carry the whole world with them as they moved across the valley. Except for me. I have never left this valley, which I watch through my doorway.
It was to my doorway that the boys came, a dog following close behind.
They were the first boys I had seen in decades, and I had to resist reaching out to touch their faces in case their apparition was a trick of my eyes. I was now beyond the age of having children, and in the yellow light of the morning, I thought I could be having a hallucination. It felt as though my body floated above my house, watching the scene below unfold. I could remember a few boys who I had gone to school with, before they had been pulled away, and there was the occasional foot soldier who passed by on his way from Zanejeer or one of the other upper settlements. This shortage had caused stories to drift into town of women hiding their boys in cellars and caves, of mothers who dressed their sons in rags, who they fed by night, deliberately keeping them weak so that if the soldiers came to take them away, they boys would be deemed unfit. But the boys framed in my doorway had strong round calves. The one holding the baby stood tall and straight.
And then there were the stories of boys dressed as girls, hiding in plain sight. Their mothers would wrap the older boys’ necks in scarves to hide bulging Adam’s apples, and went to great lengths to shave downy cheeks all in an effort to fool the roving bands of armies. But these boys wore clothes that were too thin to hide behind, and the oldest seemed only moments away from springing into manhood.
He was the one who spoke to me first. We had heard of each other. Their father was my father’s cousin, Parbat said. His voice cracked when he spoke. His brother, Saya, was the one holding the baby, who was named Neher. The older boys appeared identical in every way except for their hair. Where Saya’s stood straight like the blades of grass that, anchored to the shore, get pulled into the stream, Parbat’s had curled like the trunks of ancient trees in the wind.
Standing in the doorway, the oldest boy told me their story. I found out that like my father years before, theirs had also been bound to the border. Also like my father, theirs had never returned. Based on their timeline, I was able to piece together that Neher would have been conceived in the desperate hours before the final separation. How their father managed to evade the border for so long was inconceivable. Their mother fell ill with pneumonia the following winter, when the valley had closed in on itself completely with ice and snow. By the time it had opened up to make way for the melt, it was too late for the elderly doctor in their settlement to help. To make up for her death, the doctor’s wife stayed with the boys until this past spring, then sent them downhill to me, their closest known relative.
I knew that to reach their settlement from my house, you would have to follow the road uphill until it narrows into a footpath akin to a staircase that had been carved into the mountainside. A chain runs alongside the path and it is used by travelers to keep their footing on the steep, slanted mountain. The path is where the settlement derives its name, Zanjeer, which means chain.
Chain. The word brought me back into my body. I ushered them, boys and baby, in to the house. Saya insisted that the dog be allowed inside too. She watches over us, he said. I allowed it, reasoning that it wouldn’t hurt to have a guard dog, and locked the door with the chain.
*
One afternoon the boys found me in the garden. It was warm and dry in the valley, the air was so crisp and clean that even the distant mountains peaks were visible evidence that there was a world beyond the valley. The dog, as always, was at their heels. Neher toddled around my legs.
Manzar, Parbat began. It was clear the older boys had been scheming. Don’t you want a husband?
Neher fell. He sat in place for a while, making noises up at his brothers, who stared at me.
How long have you been wondering this? I asked. They shrugged and shifted and looked at their brother playing on the ground.
Neher began to squirm and Parbat leaned down to heave him into his arms. I saw that he was almost too big for Parbat to lift now; they had been with me that long. They had grown up with a man in their house, I reasoned. It was a normal thing to wonder. I looked from face to face, all brown eyes and long lashes
I tried to laugh to break the tension but it fell flat. Let me ask you something. Where are the men of this valley? I asked them.
They thought about my question. It was only aunties and mamas and sisters everywhere, selling, buying, herding, farming, cleaning, and feeding.
Where are they? Parbat asked, the missing men.
They have all been pulled to the border, I said. Many of them from birth.
Will they come back? Parbat asked.
Sometimes they don’t, I said. My father didn’t. We began walking from the yard to the house, our bodies leaning into the slope of the grade.
Will we have to go? Parbat asked, locking eyes with me. I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
But, you can’t have a village without men! Parbat shot him a look of contempt.
We are the men, Parbat said. They were bickering with each other because my answers were insufficient.
Manzar is right, said Parbat. He was frustrated.
Neher, sensing the tension of the conversation, let out a scream as we entered the house. Parbat set him down and Neher began pulling on the door to try and shut it. He won’t let us forget that he is the last man, said Parbat.
What was his name? Saya asked me.
Whose name? I asked.
The last man, Saya said. Your dad.
Tara. I said. It means shore. Shorelines shift, I said to myself. Rivers change their course, and mountains can spring from dust.
Parbat and Saya were laughing.
What had I missed? I asked.
That is a woman’s name, they said. I had told them my mother’s name by mistake.
*
In the moments after I wake up, before I open my eyes, I see the stream tiptoeing between the rocks, creeping into the gaps and fractures of the riverbed. Allowing this vision to vanish, my eyes open and I sit up. Stretching my arms, I reach around until I can feel the small scar on my shoulder. It will always be there. A warm weight falls into my lap. It is the dog’s head, now gray around the muzzle. She whines until I rest my hand on her head, and then slaps the floor with her tail.
It is morning and the boys are rising from the bed that they share. The youngest has had a bad dream. His little body, now seven years old, jerks around in the bed, disturbing his grown brothers. It is getting closer. When I stand up, the dog goes back to her spot by the boys’ bed.
I sigh and wish I had a sweet for our breakfast, but I will boil oats instead. I feed the fire with twigs and scraps of newspaper. One headline reported that there was an unusual amount of seismic activity last month. I rip it off slowly; my body is stiff from the cool night, and it curls in the flame. The headline underneath has more troubling news. It says that unless the remaining boys in the valley report to the border, we will be stripped of our citizenship. Forcibly removed, it says. The boys have one month to report, but before I can read any more, it turns to black ash. News comes to the valley one month too late.
We can go, says Saya. He is sitting upright on the bed, feet planted on the floor. He had read the paper. At seventeen, he should have already been at the border for one year. What does the old dog do when she is backed into a corner? He asks. She fights her way out. The wounds heal. The dog’s head is raised. She is sniffing the morning air. Saya reaches to scratch her ear, but the sudden movement causes her to cower.
Careful, I say, or she will snap at you. I walk toward the bed and put my hand on the back of Saya’s wrist, covering the small patch of cuts. Lowering his arm, I sit down next to him. My body is small and lately I noticed that I’m becoming bent over like my mother. I don’t think the dog fights of free will. She fights to protect you. I remember how she followed you here.
How long ago was it? Asks Neher, the youngest.
Six years, I say, before you can remember.
We can stay, says Parbat. If Neher is the last man of the valley, Parbat is the first. He is already out of bed picking out clothes for the day from a trunk that had been left behind by my father. We can try to become like them. It is the smart thing to do. I can see how he has begun adjusting himself by changing his hair to match the styles more common in the cities. We bear the borders on our bodies, I say. Parbat is slender compared to the broad Saya, whose jaw line is already sharper than his older brother’s.
Do you dare to lose yourself in the process? I ask Parbat and I reach up to push his black hair from his forehead. He swats my hand away, but smiles and doesn’t brush it forward again. I like to see your face, I say, but his eyes are already looking for his reflection in the mirror.
Then where do we go? The youngest one asks, still lying in bed. Where is safe for us? I wish I had wings. This child is slender, almost pulled into himself, but not fragile. His body is in constant, sudden motion, athletic, like the stream after a rainstorm.
It’s true, I say. At birth our souls took the bodies of humans. We have hands for holding and feet for keeping us on the ground.
Neher crawls toward me over the bed and sits next to me. We can climb! He says, eyes are wide with excitement. All four of us are quiet for a moment, captured by the image of climbing out of the gorges, wind whipping our dark hair and dirty clothes. The fantasy picks me up, but it stalls at the top of the cliff. Where is safe for us?
Just don’t look down, I say.
Because there’s a river, says Saya. A rushing glacial river, white with minerals! He embellishes for his youngest brother.
There is a bridge, says the oldest, finally brushing his hair back toward his forehead, deflecting my reproachful glance with a smile and shrug.
It’s merely a rope bridge that sways and rocks! You must hold on tight or you’ll fly over! Says Saya. He can’t resist. Parbat rolls his eyes.
The cool water mists our faces and droplets of fresh water washes the dust from our cheeks, says the youngest, stretching back out on to the bed. We are quiet again.
Maybe afterwards he will be a poet, says Parbat.
And we will fly away on his words, says Saya.
The house grows quiet and an empty feeling grips me behind my bellybutton and under my armpits. The memory of the smell of sweat on my mother’s neck resurfaces. The dog whines and looks at the door.
Saya, will you open the door to let in some air, I ask, fanning myself. I look down at the youngest boy to see if he heard what his brother said. But the last boy in the valley is fast asleep. Through the open doorway I can hear the stream gurgling. Before I can pull my eyes away from him to take in the morning, they catch on a cut on his upper arm.
I say to the older boys, let him a little while longer. A mist is a veil and the veil is the truth, I say absently, looking through the open door into the morning. It is the same yellow mist that they boys had brought with them the first day they had arrived. The older boys look at me, surprised at my words, which came automatically, and I can’t remember where I first heard them. It’s from somewhere in the valley, I shrug and prepare to move on with the morning, but then there is a knock at the open door. I see that the hand connected to the arm reaching through the open doorway has hair on its knuckles. A gold chain hangs from its wrist. When I rise to answer, I feel a hot blade slice into my arm and the earth begins to shake.