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dance you’ve put on for me, you hyena! I have no food for my own children, and here you are trying to drag the last few pieces of copper I own away from me. You think you’re up against a weakling?”
    Salar Abdullah, who had also jumped to his feet, said, “I should leave? Fine, I’m going. But I’m taking the five measures of copper that are owed me before I leave this house.”
    He rushed into the pantry of the house and emerged a moment later carrying a tray, a vase, a bathing pitcher, and a pot. Mergan threw herself onto him, grabbed his hands, and cried out, “Put them down. Put them down, you merciless bastard!”
    Salar Abdullah reached out and also took a skillet set beside the doorjamb. Mergan grabbed onto his arms and hung on.
    “Put them down, you bastard … Leave them!”
    With a single motion, Salar Abdullah threw Mergan to one side. Mergan rebounded and shouted, “Children! Abbas, Abrau, my girl, block the door. Don’t let him take what’s yours. Get him!”
    Abrau had just returned with the short-handled sickle, and he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Abbas in the doorway. Salar Abdullah rushed the door with his hands full of the items. Mergan leapt onto him from behind, tore his scarf from his head, and threw it to the edge of the room. She grabbed the cloth of his robe, and he had to let go and drop the pot, vase, and pitcher to try to disentangle himself from her. Hajer quickly grabbed the copper pieces and hid them in a chest. Mergan slid down to Salar Abdullah’s feet and grabbed him between the legs. Shouting, he kept trying to free himself, butMergan would not let go. She dragged on him, pulling him down. Salar Abdullah’s wailing filled the air. Then he kneed Mergan in the shoulder violently, sending her tumbling.
    Salar Abdullah had lost any sense of restraint and unleashed a stream of whatever insults came to his lips. The boys rushed in, Abrau with the sickle and Abbas with a cord of rope. Mergan, short of breath from the pain in her shoulder, dragged herself back to the center of the room, grabbed Salar Abdullah’s leg, and sank her teeth into his heel. He screamed and kicked Mergan away. Reaching the door, Salar Abdullah was entangled with three people at once, swearing and swinging. Abbas and Abrau didn’t back down either, insulting his wife, children, father, and mother in return. He finally freed himself of Mergan and her sons and rushed back toward the chest, opened the door, and threw the copper pieces out. Abbas and Abrau threw their bodies on the copper. Salar Abdullah flayed at them, trying in vain to pull them off. Mergan dashed to the door shouting, “Thief, help! Thief … Help me! In broad daylight, he’s emptying my home!”
    Somehow she rushed to the stable and grabbed Soluch’s shovel and was back inside the house in seconds, like the wind. She raised the shovel and with wild eyes and foam at her lips said, “Salar Abdullah … your life is in your hands. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and one of these children as well. I’ll kill you with God’s blessing. I’m done with living! Done. Do you hear me, man?”
    Under Mergan’s shovel, Salar Abdullah slid up against the wall and, with wide eyes, stared at her. Mergan’s eyes were also tinged with dread. Kill him? Could she really kill him? Salar Abdullah, with an uncovered head, raised himself from theground and threw himself out the door of the house, where, met by the frightened faces of the neighbors, he broke his silence. “That woman … that bitch … she’s crazy! She tried to kill me! Ay … Ay … Honest to God, she wanted to kill me! I swear … I swear on the Prophet, she wanted to kill me! Kadkhoda … Norouz … She wanted to kill me. She almost smashed my head in with a shovel!”
    The neighbors gathered one by one in the alley and joined the arena. Ali Genav took the role of the mediator. Sanam’s son, Murad, went back to calm Mergan. In the midst of this, Kadkhoda Norouz