you want girls.” Khan pounded on the table. Sergey denied the rumors, only confessing to Sara’s innocent visits which he said happened in the presence of Ahmad. Having witnessed the Russian’s appetite for young, female bodies in Tehran, Khan could hardly believe him. But he was ready to feign it. A palpable tension hung over the village. Sergey stopped going out altogether and although no one dared direct any irreverence at Khan, he could feel their hatred behind the spurious appreciative looks.
Khan decided to stay home for a few days and put his thoughts together, but before he could do so, Mulla pulled a new trick out of his sleeve: after the evening prayer some days later he started talking about the Russians, this time specifically mentioning Sergey. He said he had proof of Sergey’s otherworldly deception and evil. From a paper bag he pulled out a wooden doll on which a woman was painted in gay colors. He said some well-meaning person in the village had brought it to him from the Russian’s very room to reveal his true nature to everyone. Brandishing the doll with a dramatic gesture so everyone could see well, Mulla twisted the doll in half to reveal a second one inside the first. He did the same thing four more times and every time more eyes opened wide in surprise. The row of six dolls standing in order of height on the minbar was evidence that Sergey was a womanizer, and that the six families who had left the village were victims of his lust. Fury welled up in the village.
Khan was in his room when he heard the angry mob break into the Orchard holding up lanterns and waving sticks in the air. By the time he was out of the house, they had gathered in front of Sergey’s rooms. The murmurs receded as Khan walked toward them with confident strides. He climbed up a rock at the foot of a tree and looked at the crowd, his face barely visible in the dark. With an unwavering voice, he announced that the man had done nothing wrong. Before the whispers snowballed into protesting words again, he said it was thanks to Sergey that they had bread to feed their wives and children, that if going back to misery was what they wanted, he would arrange for him to leave. But the man needed time to pack his belongings and prepare for his departure. Sensing the double thoughts brewing in the villagers’ heads, Mulla accepted Khan’s offer and said they would give Sergey three days, not a single day more; they wanted the Russian gone by Friday noon.
In the feeble lights from the lanterns Norooz and the stable boy held up near Khan, Ahmad did not see the whirlwind in Khan’s heart, or the shaking of his hands that he hid in his pants pocket. The first thing Ahmad thought that night, as Khan stepped down from the rock and strode toward his house with the gardener and others following, was that more than anything he wanted to be like Khan: strong and resolute, a man of not too many words, but of exemplary determination, capable of anything.
Sergey had heard the commotion from his room but decided not to show his face. Khan opened his door and went in. The prudent thing would be for him to leave, even if temporarily.
“I understand, I understand,” Sergey answered as he dragged at his cigarette. When Khan was gone, he sneaked across the garden to the stable boy’s room. Through the small wooden window set in the cob wall, Sergey passed the boy a letter to take to Tehran, and before the boy had the chance to open his mouth, he stretched his hand through the window into the shadows of the room and slid a folded bill into the boy’s breast pocket, promising there would be more when he made sure the job had been duly done.
Three hours after breakfast on Friday, Khan knocked and stepped into Sergey’s room. The place was untouched, showing no sign of an imminent departure. Gently swaying back and forth in his wicker rocking chair, Sergey was listening to Russian music wheezing from the radio that he had placed on a low table. A soft smile flashed on his wide, flushed face when he saw Khan. Without a drop of consternation in his blue eyes, he kept smiling and rocking to the beat of the song. If Sergey needed help with