The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  Observant of Orzu’s gaze at the loose leaves lining the forest floor, Illyana gives him a little hug. “Don’t worry. You will find a woman like Mother. I know all the young girls of the village. I’ll find you a good woman. I’ll even tell her what a great provider you will be. But that means you need to step up, big brother.”

  Their grandfather smiles at the exchange, then stares towards their home many days’ hike away. “Up until your time, our family has survived for generations because we follow this tradition. Now we have our backs to the vast lake and things have changed. But you must understand these traditions—act on them, or pass them to your children so they can act on them.”

  Lost between jealousy of his sister’s keenness with words and bow and his poor comprehension of the oral tradition, Orzu asks, “But what do these words really mean, Parcza?”

  “The Reindeer People came into the lands after the long-tailed star came. For cycles and cycles, they expanded their lands and their numbers by taking from our kind and breeding with our women. Their women are barren, so they need ours. Even their daughters born by our women are mostly barren, so they need to steal our women constantly to reproduce. This is why they have so little regard for females, as they are just objects, mere reproductive animals to them, and why we should fear them so. They worship the sky where the long-tailed star came from. It is said they gained their size and their power when the star landed out of the heavens. Our family has survived up until now as we have always moved away from the Reindeer People. That star we see at night, the tail of the bird in the milky streak, it is our reference point of where we need to move away from. Do you understand?”

  Orzu and Illyana nod.

  Minutes later, evening starts to come and the stars emerge. Parcza points up to the sky and shows them the three brightest stars in the milkiest, cloudiest part of the night. “See the bird? The star at its tail? Always remember this star, and when you’re in danger, move away from it. Tell your children to watch it each night and flee if the star with the long tail returns, for the Reindeer People were born of that star. The next may bring worse to our kind.

  “After the raid that led to the death of your parents, we fled from the tail of the bird, and we moved our house near the vast lake—the lake that we cannot see across. The surviving villagers followed us, as they have no traditions. We are now cornered if the Reindeer People move in this direction. If we need to move again, then you or your children or your children’s children will need to cross the lake. I know not what is there. But you must find out what is on the other side, prepare your family for the journey, and remember to find the tail of the bird and move in the other direction.”

  Parcza moves to give them a hug when the bushes rumble. A boar taller than Illyana leaps at them, knocking Parcza down as he brings his spear around defensively. Orzu instinctively pushes Illyana back behind him and stabs his spear at the boar repeatedly, at the neck and then the chest. He checks to see that Illyana is okay, then goes to Parcza, who is bleeding from a shallow thigh wound.

  Illyana rips some of her clothing, exposing much of her legs, to make a bandage to tie around Parcza’s wound. They help Parcza stand, and they all look at the boar, writhing in pain as it dies in front of them. Illyana stares at Orzu and says, “So you cannot shoot a little rabbit, but you can brutally maim a monster boar.” She hugs her big brother with renewed respect.

  Orzu makes a cane for Parcza to use while Illyana carves up portions of the boar to take back to the village. Parcza puts his arm around Orzu for support and pats his head. “So, you will make a good provider for your family after all.”

  The three of them look for a place to make camp for the night, with Parcza using both his cane and his spear to steady his walk. In the camp, Illyana smokes the boar meat in preparation for the several days of travel ahead. The next day, they break camp at dawn and head through the forests, back to the village. Orzu is at point with his spear, with renewed confidence after his boar kill. Illyana helps Parcza navigate the debris of the forest floor.

  Then the bushes rumble again. Orzu, with spear ready, scans for the next boar. But this time it is no boar. He stands four heads higher than Orzu, with massive pectoral muscles and sculpted abdominals showing through the open-hooded feathered cape he wears. Underneath a large bird-head headdress, his face is long, his ears are long, and his eyes are dark and piercing as he looks at Illyana and her exposed legs. It is very clear what his intentions are as his member extends from his loincloth.

  Parcza rushes forward with his spear but irrationally stops short of spearing this Reindeer warrior, as he recognizes the face. The face of his wife. He cannot kill his wife’s son.

  And with that momentary delay, the fraction of a second of hesitation, the massive warrior rips the spear from Parcza’s hands and tosses it to the ground. “I am the great Tureal, grandson of the King Anneal, great-great-grandson of those who are descendant from the stars.”

  He surveys the three and recognizes Parcza’s face. “You. I remember you. My mother fled from you to seek the joy of my father’s loins. My father could split her slit better than you, puny man. She screamed in pleasure and pain, as only a real warrior like him could have so pleased her.” He hits Parcza in the groin with the butt of his spear, sending him to the ground howling in pain and bleeding from the crotch.

  Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Illyana plants three of her black-tipped arrows deep into Tureal’s perfect left pec. She smiles, as she has exacted revenge for her mother. And for her grandmother.

  Much to her shock, Tureal lunges at her, ripping the arrows from his chest, and grabs her by the waist, turning her upside down. He rips her already-shredded lower garments off and fingers her, as Illyana screams in pain. “Good, you are virgin. My finest warriors will savor your slit, and you will become the prize for the strongest of—”

  He is interrupted by Illyana’s screams. “Kill him. Kill him. Like you did the boar. Don’t let him take me.”

  With haste, Orzu interrupts Tureal’s attempt to violate his sister as he thrusts his black-tipped spear at Tureal’s neck. Thrust after thrust is glanced to the side as if Tureal were swatting flies. Tiring of the game, Tureal rips the spear from Orzu’s hands, turns it around, and spears Parcza in the gut, through and through. Tureal turns to leave with the struggling Illyana, who has begun to recognize the futility of her situation.

  And so she decisively screams to her brother, “Kill me. Kill me. Kill me now. Don’t let them do to me what they did to Mother.”

  Orzu has drawn his bow with a black-tipped arrow. It will slice so clean and fast, maybe she won’t feel it, Orzu hopes. Tureal has torn her upper garment open so that her fully blossomed breasts are exposed. And Orzu has a clear aim at her heart. Just let those fingers loose and it will be a clean kill.

  But he hesitates. As Illyana hysterically screams to kill her, Orzu’s mind races. I can do this. I can do this. I can…No I cannot. I cannot kill. I cannot kill. It is not right. What do I do? What do I do? And time slows to a crawl.

  Illyana cries, “Orzu, you promised to kill me. I’m not the rabbit. I’m your sister. If you love me, if you truly love me, kill me. Kill me now.”

  Orzu stares down the arrow at his sister’s heart between her breasts. And he searches inside for a voice, the voice that will tell him what he should do. What is right? As Illyana continues to scream and cry, inside him it is only silent, empty, and dark.

  Chapter 3

  A country can’t be free unless the women are free.

  —Abdullah Öcalan,

  imprisoned leader of the PKK,

  recognized as a terrorist organization by the US,

  NATO, and the EU.

  Mountains outside Siirt, Turkey

  12:40 p.m. GMT−8, May 1, 2021

  “He didn’t die in vain, Zara.”

  Two dark-haired women stand high, overlooking a green valley, beyond which there is another mountain, and another behind that. These are the northernmost peaks o
f the Zagros Fold, a 1500-kilometer creation of the Arabic tectonic plate smashing into the Eurasian plate twenty million years ago. They form a crown around the lands known today as the Fertile Crescent, extending from southern Turkey through northern Iraq, along the border with Iran and down to the Red Sea.

  But for these two women, the only importance of these mountains is the safe haven they have provided for the people known as Kurds, who have found shelter and safety in these alpines for thousands upon thousands of years. Who until two years ago were the largest ethnic group in the world without a country.

  The taller of the two women wears a grey outer gown over a full-length purple dress, black belt, sandals, and headscarf, the latter decorated with colorful embroidered flowers and carefully wrapped around her oval face, tucking away her shoulder-length dark brown hair. On her wrist is a simple wind-up watch. Her almond-shaped dark eyes are fixed on the horizon, where she still sees the village.

  “Didn’t he? Die in vain?” replies Zara. “I told my little boy brother not to join the PKK. We needed him at home. He was the last man left in my family. And now, there is only me, my mother, my grandmother, and thank Xwedê, still my great-grandmother.”

  Putting her hand around Zara to comfort her is Peri, who in contrast wears a formfitting red cotton top covered by a loose beige sweater, black cotton capri pants, and tan sandals with sequins matching the ones on her sweater. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair is pulled into a ponytail, with two stylish twists on each side of her face. And on her wrist, at the adamant request of her friend, nothing. No MoxWorld devices at all.

  “He died while trying to get the women and children of that village, the one you imagine seeing on the horizon, up into the mountains as government troops searched for the PKK,” Peri states calmly. “He died a hero.”

  “And what good are heroes?” Zara laments. “Especially when they are dead.”

  Zara walks along the mountainside through the lush green vegetation of spring. Patches of red, purple, blue, and yellow flowers litter the landscape. She bends over to pick a number of red ones.

  “My mother lined his room with poppies of this color after his death. The color of the blood shed by the men of our family.”

  Following her best friend as she walks, as she always has, Peri asks, “Then why did you insist we meet here, if his memory brings back such pain?”

  “Because you want me to help the Anatolian Kurdish separatists. There is a price one pays. My little boy brother did,” the taller woman replies, her long earlobes peeking out from her headscarf in the gust of wind. “I don’t agree with separatism. I believe we should work out a peaceful solution. One that would better the lives of Kurdish women. Equality for all as we saw in Rojava. Women and men governed together as equals. I want you to think about the consequences of what you ask of me now.”

  “They only want your advice. You do not have to take up arms.”

  “They want my connection to him,” Zara replies, pulling her silk scarf closer around her oval face. She throws her poppies with the wind gust, which sends them flying a hundred meters as if they were little balloons.

  Silence as they walk by a more crimson-red set of poppies. Peri bends down and picks some and hands them to Zara.

  “I do not like that shade of red,” Zara says as she drops the crimson reminders of “him” and crushes them under her sandal.

  “Why do I follow you, Zara?” asks the disturbed Peri. “You are so complicated. Poppies are poppies.”

  “Why did you follow me?” retorts her friend.

  “You were the only woman to beat me in the Peshmerga training camp,” says Peri, slapping Zara’s shoulder with the back of her hand. “You were the best. The American military advisors knew that too. You were only second to me in attracting men of all sorts…mostly the wrong sort, unfortunately.”

  Zara winces. “Don’t mention that American. He’s history to me.”

  Peri slaps her shoulder again. “And when you punched out that boy you followed into the Peshmerga, you were my hero.”

  And that gets Zara to stop. She stamps her feet. Her hands form fists by her sides. “He should have told me rather than hide his deceit. Men. Their failed promises. Their lies. Chlamydia is not something you hide. Nor is a family and an adorable wife safe at home away from the war zone where you have seduced an unwitting local girl into thinking she would marry you after the next campaign, and the next, and the next.”

  Rubbing her finger across her teeth, Peri smiles. “I’m sure Mr. Chlamydia still remembers you too, with his two front false teeth.”

  She takes Zara’s hand, looking at the scars across her knuckles. “And this one here is from the teeth that you knocked out from that Daesh ape who grabbed me when we were on patrol outside Kobanî.”

  Taking her hand back, rubbing across her knuckles, Zara says, “They kidnapped women in the villages they took to make them their so-called ‘wives.’ As your commanding officer, I couldn’t let them take you.”

  “As my friend, you couldn’t,” Peri replies as she punches her friend’s left shoulder. “Does it still hurt where you took the bullet instead of me?”

  Zara pretends to wince and smiles as she replies, “Well, you did the same for me.”

  “Yeah, but that one missed me as I shoved you aside.” Peri punches Zara again in the same spot. “That’s why I followed you into your YPJ unit. We were there to save the Rojovan Kurds in Syria, like we did the Bashur Kurds back home in Iraq. And now, after the non-Kurdish Syrian and Iraqi factions united to form the AC, the Arabic Confederation, the Kurds finally have won their nation. At least the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds.”

  Stopping to gaze upon the horizon again, but this time looking southeast, Zara says, “I miss my mountains back in Duhok Province.”

  “Well, I miss my mountains east of Hewler. And they are prettier than the ones in Duhok.”

  And that is what best friends are for. Getting you to smile when you talk yourself into a slump. And Zara smiles. “Don’t tell me about pretty and Hewler. I had a bad dress day there when I was a teen.” She pulls her scarf tight around her head again. “My grandmother made sure I was appropriately corrected.” And she laughs.

  With a sly look on her face, Peri says, “If you help the nearly fifteen million Kurds here in Turkey, they can unite with the other Kurds, including our friends in Duhok and Hewler, in the New Kurdistan. One nation of twenty-three million who can freely speak, teach, and practice their Kurdish traditions without prosecution.”

  She turns Zara to face her and with a very somber visage she states, “But that can only happen if you talk with the big man. What do you call him? Sasha?”

  Eyes closed, a big sigh, and a series of little breaths. Finally, Zara replies, “It’s been nearly three years. He knows I want nothing to do with him.”

  “He wants to talk with you. He’ll get the Russians to back the Anatolian Kurds. Come on, the Chinese backed the moderate factions in old Syria and Iraq, which led to the formation of the Arabic Confederation. Rumor is, after the Americans backed out, your Sasha got his Russian buddies to back the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, which allowed them to form New Kurdistan. With your word in his ear, he’ll do it again for the Kurds here in Turkey.”

  The proverbial lightbulb goes off, and Zara squints and peers into her eyes. She opens up Peri’s loose sweater to get a better look at the tight fit of her red cotton top. And she sighs again.

  “You saw him, didn’t you? What did he ask you to do? You didn’t? Did you?”

  “What do you mean?” Peri gasps, closing her sweater around her bust. “He was a gentleman. A little lecherous in the way he looks you over…and where he put his hands when he said goodbye.” She pauses. “Come to think of it, maybe he was not such a gentleman.”

  “Peri, don’t be naïve,” yells Zara. “Monstrous men like him have only two purposes for women. And if you’re lucky, you’re only a sexual object to him. I wasn’t so lucky.”

  Silence aga
in. Zara takes Peri’s hand. “If you promise me you will never meet with him again, I will consult for those who wish to form the Anatolian Kurdish State. Stay away from Sasha.”

  Arms folded, covering her bust, Peri pleads, “With the AC forces threatening Turkey’s border this morning, the time is perfect for the Kurds in this region to declare independence. The Turkish army will be split between chasing us and defending the southern flank.”

  Clasping Zara’s hands in hers, Peri adds, “You know full well without the advanced weaponry from MoxWorld Defense Industries and the Russians, the Anatolian Kurds will be crushed within months of their declaration of independence. The slaughter will be worse than Kobanî in every one of our cities. Remember what Saddam did to our families, our villages? Was that all in vain, what we fought for?”

  Zara looks afar. Adjusts her scarf again. Drapes her grey outer gown tightly around her body. “It’s one thing to have your body taken away from you to do with what they wish. It’s another when they own your soul. I have taken both back. I live in complete submission to Xwedê and only serve Him now.”

  “And Xwedê will watch the Kurds be slaughtered once again,” Peri insists as she pushes Zara’s headscarf off her head. “Unless Xwedê offers better military technology than Alexander Murometz, all the mothers of this region will be putting poppies on the graves of their sons, their husbands, their uncles, and now, their daughters.”

  Her piercing eyes darken, like the grey clouds above that now blot out sun. The grounds go dark. The winds pick up. Silence as the two women stare at each other, neither one willing to give ground as the winds swirls around them, lifting the edges of Zara’s scarf into the air.

  With pure black circles for eyes, Zara pulls the black cloth back around her head and asserts, “Tell the regional commander of your new Anatolian Kurdish State to give this message to Mr. Murometz. If the great giant will not protect them, I will hunt him down and shoot him.” She pokes Peri’s forehead with her index finger. “In the head. One shot. In those words, exactly. Sasha will recognize those as my words.”