I understand you were a famous city singer,” Akbar addressed Fatemeh.
“What is it to you?” Fatemeh responded coldly.
“Oh nothing. But, can you sing us a song?” Akbar asked.
“Only if you sing me a Kurdish song,” she responded with gaiety.
“I've heard my own voice a thousand times. I'm too old, my voice has grown coarse, no longer pleases me. I'll tell you, it's not something you'd like to hear. ... It's yours that I'm interested in.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Fatemeh reputed Akbar’s statement.
“Look, lady. Don’t you know that when a song comes from under a mustache it is worth nothing, but boy-o-boy, when it comes through the soft lips of a woman it drives you nuts and takes you straight to paradise?” Akbar questioned philosophically. He paused for a while as if he had changed his mind. He said authoritatively, “We gotta go now.” He didn’t wait for anybody’s comment, rose and kept going, leaving the others with no option except to follow him.
“I'll sing you a song if you let us sit here a little longer, just ten more minutes,” Fatemeh proposed, giving in to Akbar’s wish.
Akbar turned, looked at her, brightened his face with a smile, and responded, “It's too late, lady. Let’s move on!”
Responding, she whispered to herself, “You men ... you're all the same. You're all beasts.”
“Let's vote again to see whether we rest here a bit longer or not,” the short nervous old man said seriously.
More than half voted to move on. Those who voted against whispered their disapproval but moved on. The result of the voting turning in his favor pleased Akbar. He followed a narrow trail on the riverbank’s north side, sometimes walking through fields blanketed with rainbow colors of wild poppies and tulips in full spring bloom, spectacularly surrounded by endless patches of mustard grass ranging in color from light yellow to dark olive.
The trail ended at the river with its own carved banks at the bottom of a shear cliff. They were left with no choice except to cross the river by jumping from rock to rock, scattered just above the water, while trying to avoid getting wet. The possibility of slipping on the wet moss-covered rocks made it difficult for the women to cross by themselves. Javad offered his help to Maryam after easily carrying the children on his back to the other side. She accepted, and he lifted her in his arms like a feather, crossed the river and put her down on the other side. The nervous little old man, who had had his eyes on Fatemeh since she took off her veil, walked to her and said, “Can I help you, I mean carrying you across?”
She gazed at him, went over his entire body length, as though trying to find something terribly wrong with him. She then responded, “You look like you're gonna shit in your pants any minute, and you wanna carry me across the river, Mr. David! You're really funny. No, I can cross the damn thing by myself.”
Stunned by hearing his name out of the blue, David said, “That was uncalled for.”
“I wasn’t about to tell the others who you are, but you asked for it.”
Still shocked, David kept quiet. Maybe it was a calculated attempt to protect whatever might have been left of his accurate identity, especially from those who might not have heard Fatemeh's forthright response. But it seemed it was too late. Everyone heard the conversation and turned to look at him.
When Rayan came back to help Fatemeh, she had already taken off her shoes and socks and was walking through the knee-high freezing water towards the other bank. The water’s cold temperature shocked her and sobered her up if she hadn’t been already. Rayan reached for her and grabbed her arm ignoring her comment to David. She looked at him sideways as they crossed the water.
“You know, mister?” she addressed him. “I don't really need your help. ... Do you know that?”
“I'm sure you don't. It's just a matter of courtesy. I don’t see any harm in it, do you?”
“No, I don’t, but I mean, that goes to show stupid me. ... I could’ve done a lot better without any man's help, if only I hadn’t been afraid to get my feet cold and wet.”
“That’s for sure,” Rayan replied calmly.
“You know what?” she asked again. “You're all right in my book.”
“I think you're a fine person, too,” he said, smiling.
With that they reached the bank of the river. For the first time in her life, she felt her own long-hidden self-confidence. She liked herself at that moment. The feeling brought a smile to her lips, a genuine smile, the first in a long time.
When the man with bloody gauze wrapped around his head tried to jump over the rocks, his foot slipped and he fell into the water. He was partially submerged, getting his head wet. Javad immediately rushed to his rescue, grabbed his shoulders firmly and pulled him out of the water. With all his clothes soaking wet, the small man pathetically looked even smaller.
Further down, they had to cross the river four more times in the same fashion before the valley widened, and each time Fatemeh crossed it without anyone's assistance and felt a little better about herself.
The trail reappeared and remained on the south side of the river. Ten minutes later, Akbar waited for everybody to catch up. He pointed to a long steep slope where the trail zig-zagged upward cutting through the rocks and boulders.
“You see the pass up there? It’ll take us to another valley. It’s gonna take us more than four hours to get up there. Just take short small steps, one foot in front of the other, and don’t think about where you’re going, because that’s too far and you are not there yet. And one more thing, don't get too far behind.”
With sure, rock-steady steps, he then began walking, and they all followed him silently.
Thirty minutes into the hiking only Rasol, Jaleh, Javad, Maryam and the children could keep up with the pace. Fatemeh, the man with the gauze around his head, the short old nervous man, and Pary and Rayan were spread out, quite a distance behind Akbar.
Moaning, the man with the head wound apparently could no longer endure the severe pain on the left side of his head. Fatemeh's energy had rapidly diminished and was gone. She could hardly take another step. David was totally exhausted. Akbar looked back and saw them far behind in various spots on the winding trail. He waited impatiently, naively expecting them to catch up quickly.
“I don't think those guys back there are gonna make it,” Akbar expressed his pessimistic view of the situation to Javad.
“Give them more time. ... They'll slowly make it,” Javad responded with optimism.
“We gotta make camp before nightfall. The next guide is waiting for us up there. I’m afraid we're gonna miss him,” Akbar explained the reason for his pessimism. He then lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, let the smoke out and began to whisper a Kurdish song. His voice went into a higher pitch with a few lines of lyrics; it bounced against the rocks and its echoes fragmented the silence of the valley below.
It took some time for the rest to straggle in, fatigued beyond their fortitude. Asking no one’s permission, they all dropped to the ground as they arrived. Akbar looked at them, shook his head and began another song, a song with melancholic notes wrapped
