The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  “It is said, ‘A girl without a mother is like a mountain with no paths; a girl without a father is like a mountain with no streams.’ And I am a mountain with no streams. Life has been tremendously difficult these last years for Mama and me. We both loved my father so much, even with his difficulties after he came back. I missed his warm hands on my cheeks, his kisses on my forehead, and his big bear hugs. They killed him. Even though he died by his own hands, they killed him. I will kill them. Each and every one of them.”

  Gazing on the heavens, Zara reflects upon certain moments of her life, moments that have defined her life here to date. She reflects upon her family and her family’s family, who have played such an important role in her life—a life she is now ready to take unto herself as a woman fighting to avenge her family.

  *

  It is her fifth birthday at the end of March, 1991. Both her grandparents have come to the house of her maternal grandfather, Baho, a Sufi like his father, the Sufi imam. As recounted by her maternal grandmother, Roza, that day she and her little brother of three years, Soran, sit with Roza as they do at least once a week and listen to her recite Sufi poems written by her father as well as the poems by Rūmī, the same that Roza read to their mother when she was their age. And her paternal grandfather, Karza, the mufti, reads passages from the Qur’an.

  In the afternoon, sitting outside, looking at the pasture, grandfather Karza asks her the following question. “Little Zara, why is that lamb black?”

  Zara reflects, looking at the lamb, and replies in the voice she uses in her kindergarten class, trying to sound good to the teacher, “Because that is Xwedê’s plan.”

  Grandfather Karza smiles at her answer and asks, “And why is that lamb white?”

  Zara, reflecting again, says, “Because that is Xwedê’s plan.”

  Her grandfather smiles at her again and, with a wink in his eye, challenges her five-year-old mind. “And which lamb is Muslim?”

  Looking extremely ponderous, Zara thinks and thinks. Looks at the black one. Looks at the white one. She puts her finger up and replies, “Grandfather, I cannot tell. Until one fails to follow Xwedê’s plan, I must assume both are showing their surrender and submission to Xwedê.” And her grandfather hugs her. For she is, as she always has been, Zara the special.

  And then the best part of the day comes. Grandfather Baho, husband of Roza, teaches them to whirl as his father taught him. Whether they truly derive the meditative benefits of the Sufi spinning, whether they truly become closer to Xwedê, is not as important as the beauty and joy the pretty five-year-old girl exudes as she spins around and around in her pretty flowered dress. Her three-year-old brother just spins and falls, spins, and tumbles into something. Zara spins with the peace, harmony, and beauty of the universe.

  Grandmother Roza stays after the party is over to spend the week with her daughter, Zara’s mother, Maryam. And the next day is very typical of their life with her father, as recounted by Roza. For as she will tell Zara, he disappeared one day, after a gas attack on their village by Saddam’s air force. Her daughter is so distraught when her dear Nawdar does not arrive up on the mountain at their agreed-upon meeting point.

  After she cries herself to sleep, sitting on the side of the trail with little Zara in her arms, Nawdar finally does arrive, with gas masks in hand and blisters throughout his exposed skin. He comforts Roza’s daughter as best he can without her touching his clothes, covered in Saddam’s poison. Nawdar helped others in the village with their gas masks and led a large group into the safety of the heights of the mountain. He is a hero, as many did not know that gas stays close to the ground and that, by ascending the mountain, they would climb higher than the gas cloud and finally breathe freely once again.

  Once the village is safe to reenter, Maryam and Nawdar return to their partially destroyed home. And they reconstruct it, but this time with another bedroom for Zara’s yet-to-be-born sibling, as well as a bomb shelter where they would always keep a supply of gas masks. Nawdar is Maryam’s hero, in addition to being a village hero.

  As his Zara grows, Nawdar continues playing with her, both intellectually stimulating games, and physically challenging ones that lead to the development of her stout muscles. He hikes with her hours and hours in the mountains, for Kurds have no friends but the mountains. And the part Zara loves and cherishes the most, his kisses to her forehead, and the warmth and deep love of his bear hugs.

  And she loves her little brother as well, whom she calls “Little Boy” whenever he annoys her. She plays sheep and wolves with him with stones on the floor. When her wolves eat all his sheep, she wrestles with him and then hugs him to the floor—something her grandmother, Roza, will teach her not to do in years to come.

  For now, it is the love of a big sister for a little brother. And they chant and whirl and whirl and whirl on their own like their grandfather has taught them. Zara so loves the whirl, as her pretty dresses float up and show her pretty legs. She loves her pretty legs. For her mama says she is pretty. Well, her mama said inside she has beauty. But what is beautiful on the inside must be on the outside, concluded this precocious five-year-old. And so she tells herself this every day, and she tells herself this every day as she twirls and twirls and twirls, around and around and around.

  Even without Roza’s recounting of the story of the next day, Zara vividly remembers this moment, which lives as a deep fear within her even today. What starts as a low thrum becomes a low buzz but grows louder and louder, until it bellows the deafening sound of extermination. Helicopters. Many of them, raining death from the skies. To this day, the sound of helicopters unnerves Zara, no matter how strong she has become.

  As the tanks roll into the village following upon the carnage from the helicopters with their own fiery version of hell, her family, along with Grandmother Roza, hides in the bomb shelter next to the house. They witness the horror of women and children being slaughtered down the street, maimed and mutilated by the bullets and bombs, and worse, crushed under the treads of the tanks. And the soldiers come, knocking down the doors of every house, and find them scared and huddled in their little bomb shelter.

  They drag Nawdar out of the shelter and beat him in front of the family. For his brother is a known member of the Peshmerga, so Nawdar must be a collaborator. Maryam screams and screams and runs to protect her husband from more beatings with her body. And they beat her. Zara comes out and tries to protect her mother, and they pick her up and take her towards a truck. Maryam pleads with the soldiers not to take her little girl away. They tie up the little girl and take her mother behind the truck.

  Still today, Zara can remember hearing the screams of her mother from behind the truck. She did not know hate until this day.

  As the soldier finishes with her, with bruises across her body and her daughter finally back in hand, Maryam, in torn, ragged clothes, watches her beaten and broken husband being bound and dragged away. Her beautiful life is over. For it is well understood what happens when Saddam’s police take someone away. These so-called prisons are actually torture camps or execution camps. Zara hugs her mother and tries to calm her tears as best a terrified five-year-old can.

  *

  In March, 1995, Zara celebrates her ninth birthday, which she clearly remembers without aid from her family. Grandmother Roza has spent much time with her, like a surrogate mother, as Maryam has been so distraught since her father was taken. Four years after he was taken to prison, negotiations and favors finally won his freedom. His mother, Grandmother Amina, is half Arab and used her Arab family connections to gain lines of communications to those who could free her son. But in the end, only money, enormous sums of money coming from a distant relative, would bribe and buy Nawdar’s freedom.

  But sometimes, as Zara was to find out, death is better than the alternative—the tortured life of a survivor. For her father returned as but a shell of a human being, no longer with a soul, no longer with love. Starved to the silhouette of a skeleton, his once bushy
soft black hair turned into grey strands of wire. But his hair shines like the peak of health compared to his mind, as he stares and stares and stares off into somewhere no one should ever see. He says only a few things to the family, mostly incomprehensible.

  He still holds his warm hands to Zara’s cheeks, kisses her forehead, and gives the big bear hug, the memory of which he says kept his hope alive in the deepest, darkest moments of his torture. But it is Maryam who bears the brunt of the family pain, as it is only to her, in the deepest, darkest parts of night, that he tells of the inhumanity of his existence, the prolonged pains of the others around him, and the death and death and death all over, all around.

  This insanity creeps into Maryam’s soul, permeating it slowly but surely each night she comforts her beloved, broken Nawdar. Zara will remember sitting with her in the day, away from the insanity of the night, as her mother laments, “Life was once beautiful. How can one think of the beauty of life when one can only see those awful things? We are prisoners with no hope of escape as these images are forever imprinted inside our dreams. The screams are forever heard in our ears. Anger and blackness. I have to hide this in my heart as the anger consumes. Consuming the point of life so there is no life at all.”

  And as little Zara does every day of her life with Maryam, she comes up to her and says things that make things a little bit better each day, poke a pinhole in the darkness, yield a bit of light so that the beauty of life might gleam again. Zara remembers the Rūmī poem Maryam read to her when she was distressed over the death of her great-grandfather, the Sufi imam, and she recites part of it to her depressed mother:

  You mustn’t be afraid of death

  You’re a deathless soul

  You can’t be kept in a dark grave

  You’re filled with God’s glow

  Be happy with your beloved

  You can’t find any better

  The world will shimmer

  Because of the diamond you hold

  When your heart is immersed

  in this blissful love

  You can easily endure

  any bitter face around

  in the absence of malice

  There is nothing but

  happiness and good times

  Don’t dwell in sorrow my friend.

  Maryam hugs her unbelievably mature little Zara, always surprised by what she might say. And day after day of Zara’s little rays of hope lead Maryam to cherish not only her special daughter, but in years to come, her special friend. As they say, “One can never repay one’s debt to one’s mother.” But this never stops Zara from trying.

  Zara continues showing her love and faith to her father too, even if he does not speak much to her anymore. She tries to bring hope into his soul as she did with her mother, but his despair is much different. She takes him up into his mountains for long hikes with Soran, whose littler legs struggle to keep pace. And then, only then, a spark of smile emerges, only visible if you know Nawdar’s face as well as his loving daughter does.

  It is true, for this Kurd, his only friends are the mountains. And maybe it is only here in the mountains where he will find Xwedê again. But then again, maybe it is only together in their mountains with his pretty Zara that he can rediscover his bond with Xwedê. And each time they return home, he puts his hands on her cheeks, kisses her forehead, and gives his big bear hug, the last remnants of the man she once knew to be her father.

  It is the day before her birthday party, and family will be coming from all over—from Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon, France, the UK, and Russia. Her little brother, Soran, follows her everywhere, for Zara is his everything. She appears to know what he does not. She appears to understand his parents in a way he does not. And normally, she loves her brother too. But some days, she needs a little space. And she tries to lose him and inevitably they end up wrestling, which is such a special joy for him. He figures if he annoys her enough, endures being called “Little Boy” enough, she will get infuriated enough to try to wrestle him to the ground.

  And around and around the ground they roll, with Zara’s dress coming up and over her head so she can’t see a thing, and her brother can see everything. Everything including her buds, which he loved to touch. This was a normal physicality in their daily lives, but Zara’s grandmother Roza, shocked at seeing this, breaks them apart. It is time to have that talk with her granddaughter. She brings her to her room, which Maryam has prepared for her regular and long visits. Soran wants to come too as not to be left out. Grandmother Roza says this is a girls- only discussion. Zara sticks her tongue out at him and says it’s not for Little Boys. Girls only.

  And with such a special celebration tomorrow, Zara tries on many different dresses with her grandmother Roza. Each of the prettiest ones, which Zara loves, which accent her pretty legs, her grandmother gives a funny look and then shows her other options. But to Zara, these are not as pretty. She says back to her grandmother, “I have beauty within, Grandmama. I do. I do. I do.” Roza simply smiles and shows her another dress.

  After several rounds, with neither side relenting, Roza says to Zara that she is approaching the age of accountability, the age when she becomes accountable to Xwedê for her actions. Zara looks at her, perplexed, as she stands in front of the mirror. When a girl becomes a woman, her breasts develop and hair begins to grow down there, Roza explains as she points to Zara’s panties. Zara looks at the buds on her chest, and then the fuller bosom of Roza, and asks if these will be one day like hers. Roza explains that the day when she menstruates, bleeds from her loins, which may be before her next birthday, is when the age of accountability starts. She will be responsible for the Salat, the daily prayers; Zakat, giving to the poor; the fastings, and partaking in the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

  And her grandmother explains a concept that will stay with and even haunt Zara in many different ways, good and bad—the concept of a woman’s modesty. One day, Roza explains, boys and men will find her body attractive. To have modesty is to have respect. A bright girl like Zara should have the respect of the men she meets in life. They should value her for her spirit, her accomplishments, her skills, and not treat her as an object of desire. One day, parts of her body could lead to temptation, or desire. And these parts should be covered.

  She says some, like her paternal grandmother, Amina, wife of a mufti, might say the awrah, the intimate parts of a woman, consists of her entire body, neck to ankles, in front of non-blood-related men. “When in doubt,” she says, “as your guide, think whether or not you are creating desire or temptation. Some will tell you your faith dictates your covering of your body.” But even though her father was an imam, Roza professes that she believes a woman should cover herself for her own modesty, not anyone else’s, nor anyone’s dictate to them. It is a principle of respect. Respect that Zara deserves.

  And with this moment of inner reflection, Zara accepts the dress which Roza has offered. Her legs are covered down to below her calves. Zara is certainly not going to tell her grandmother that when she whirls, this dress will come flying up and she can show her legs again.

  Roza opens up a box and pulls out a beautiful black scarf with red-and-gold embroidery. This was her first hijab that her grandmother gave her, Roza explains as she passes it to Zara, who strokes the soft lamb’s wool in deep admiration, for the scarf is more elegant than any she has seen. And much to her surprise, her grandmother says she passes it to her granddaughter, just as her grandmother did to her. She puts around Zara’s head and says that, with the chosen dress and this scarf, she is still very pretty. Pretty, but with modesty. Roza explains a woman’s beauty is always with her, within her. She does not need to show her beauty to the world, for her actions, her modesty, her grace will connote to all the beauty within. Your love of God is the true beauty within.

  Roza explains another concept that Zara will think about for many years to come. Many will refer to this head covering as a hijab. But in its full definition, hijab refers to modesty in i
ts entirety—your behavior, your speech, your appearance, along with your dress. It means avoiding obnoxiousness and unruliness. And with the opposite sex, it means not yielding to flirtations, not giving prolonged stares. And in public, it means wearing clothes that conceal the details of one’s figure, while preserving one’s beauty.

  Zara looks at herself in the mirror, fully covered, and there a beautiful woman stares back. A beautiful woman saying, “I have beauty within, Mama. I do. I do. I do.”

  *

  It is the year 2000, and Zara is fourteen, having only lived in the beauty of her village, her paternal grandparents’ villages and the mountains that surround them. Her best friends are her cousins, daughters of her mother’s brother Avan—Rona, born the same year as her, and her little sister, Diyar, the same age as her little boy brother. They live an hour-and-a-half walk away in a Ezidi community, for they are half Ezidi, as Avan married a Ezidi beauty, Ezna. Zara does not see what difference this makes, maybe because the Ezidi faith was influenced by the Sufi long, long ago. For her, they are her “sisters,” whom she sees once, twice, and if she is lucky, even three times a week. Her little boy brother comes along, but they only tease him for being a boy and dress him up as they would themselves.

  On this trip, Rona has a couple Western magazines, the kind that show the famous film and music stars and all the rumors about the sins in their lives. Zara likes to thumb through, looking at the women, how they dress, how they paint themselves, all so different from what she, Rona, and Diyar have been taught by their grandmother Roza. And for days after, Zara ponders the meaning of modesty until she visits her “sisters” again to look at those magazines.

  And then Zara’s fashion chance comes from the heavens. Aunt Birca, her mother’s sister, and Rona and Diyar’s father’s sister, who lives in the big city to the east, Hewler, also known as Erbil, has asked for the three girls to come live with her for a few weeks during the summer. Aunt Birca is six years younger than Maryam and is like a big sister to Zara. This would be a girls’ night and day out, a long sleepover, a pajama party, for weeks on end, in the big city. At least, one that is big for a simple village girl like Zara.