Sofrehs were laid and rental china plates came out of the kitchen. Rice and kebab with grilled tomatoes. Jugs of yogurt drink and water, pieces of sangak bread and plates of basil studded the sofrehs. A cacophony of spoons and forks clinking and clattering against china rose from both rooms over the hum of subdued small talk. The plate in front of Agha remained untouched.
Time came for the guests to leave. At the front door, Khan, Ahmad, Majeed, and his father stood in a row, shaking hands, kissing men, thanking them for coming, and accepting the repeated condolences. From behind the curtain, Leyla watched the long line move ahead and out one by one until Mr. Zia was gone. When Ahmad clanked the doors closed the house fell into a heavy silence. An hour later came the time for departure.
With the dead man on his back, Ahmad walked around the whole house for Agha’s farewell tour. They went through the kitchen where Agha opened the fridge, the guest room, the living room, the corridor where he touched the walls, down into the basement, up the elevator onto the roof, into Zeeba’s room where Nana Shamsi used to live—Agha wanted to take something of Nana with him, but there was nothing—into Leyla’s room where she had never stayed, and up into Lalah’s on top of her sister’s. On the highest roof, Agha asked Ahmad to linger for a while to look at the snow-covered roofs. The edges of the city stretched far in the distance in all directions. The north was his destination, where the mountains were.
They put Agha in the back of a neighbor’s car. Ahmad and Pooran sat on either side of him. Khan held onto his cane in the front seat. Majeed started the engine and they drove through the streets of iced-over asphalt. A row of young trees separated the road from the sidewalk where people strolled in their warm coats. They passed an empty cart pulled by a horse that blew clouds out of its round nostrils. The driver raised his hand and smiled at the strangers in the car. They swerved through buses, bicycles, cars, and people and left the expanding city for Tajrish. When the back wheels started to spin, they parked the car, and up the steep, snowy mountain roads they trudged. Humongous and skeletal, Agha’s plane tree towered against the white backdrop of the mountain.
Twenty years had changed the face of the village. New houses with travertine facades replaced the old brick ones. The kids in the alleys looked at the party with curiosity. Some women stepped out to help Pooran up. “Khan’s back!” Ahmad heard someone shout and by the time they got to the Orchard, a small crowd was gathered at the door. Mohammad the Carpenter arrived trudging—still fat but old—and hugged Khan. In the Orchard were dead trees half buried in snow. It took Ahmad, Majeed, and the volunteer villagers two hours to clear a path to the tree. Soon Agha was put snug in his home, with fresh blankets under and over him. Mohammad had a young man Khan did not know install a heater inside, its electricity stolen with hook lines from the nearest power post in the alley. One by one, they kissed Agha and held him in their arms. Except for Khan.
“Come, my son,” Agha said from inside, “Let me kiss you one last time.”
Khan remained outside, his head bowed, his hands resting on his lion. “I am not going in.” His turned-up collar fluttered in the mountain wind. “This cannot be my last image of you.”
There was no sound for a moment except for the hiss of the wind and Pooran’s stifled cries. “You are my children.” Agha’s sound came from inside the tree. “I have loved you all. I will never forget you.” He fell silent for a short time. “But Khan, let me see your face one last time.”
Khan shook his head. “I can’t,” he said before he turned around and crunched away in the snowy trench. After everyone had left, Ahmad hugged Agha once more. Then he stepped out and pulled the tarpaulin curtain. “Ahmad,” Agha called out from inside the tree, “don’t forget me, my son.” From over his shoulder, Ahmad looked at the bluish-gray tarp as he walked away. “Death is frightening, Ahmad.”
Down they went followed by neighbors from twenty years before, one unstable foot in front of another, toward the