Peter meekly peeks his head in and, as he has done repeatedly since he first met her, he apologizes profusely. “Peter, what do you want?” Zara asks in an extremely tired voice.
“I liked your mother’s lamb casserole so much, I thought maybe I could steal another bite,” Peter says sheepishly, like the boy who got caught looking for leftovers in the refrigerator. He glances down at her sore feet. “Feet killing you?”
Too tired to keep pounding on this man, to pretend to keep him at bay, she rubs her feet and bemoans, “Peter, I have been through a lot in my life that has not been kind to me. My feet, my poor feet.” She closes her eyes, hoping he does not link the state of her feet to the state of her inner being.
Kneeling down in front of her, Peter risks his life by saying, “I’m really expert at solving the feet problem of women. May I help?”
Zara stares at him cross-eyed, but she is so fatigued she cannot fight him anymore. And besides, she needs help. So she holds her bare foot up and wiggles her toes in front of him, asking him, “Peter, do you think my feet are attractive?”
Peter finds this a conundrum. Her feet, rough, scarred, are much different than the soft, smooth, pedicured ones of Mei. But if he says no, he insults her. Say yes and get yelled at for being a foot fetish sexual pervert. No-win scenarios. What should he do? What should he do?
“Zara, I need your help in how to answer your question. If I say yes, then you’ll think me a lecher drooling for erotic pleasure as I fondle your foot. If I say no, then I dishonor you, for you deserve to have wonderful feet.”
For Zara, this is the first logical thing this silly little boy has said to her since they first met earlier today. The teachings of modesty by her grandmother Roza, who is sleeping only meters away in the adjoining building, ring in her ears. “Peter, if you find my feet attractive, do they create desire or temptation in your blood?”
“Not at all. Your feet are a very important part of your happiness, and I merely offer to help give a little relief back to you,” replies Peter, who recoils, waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop and for Zara to attack him.
Zara drops her gaze to her ravaged feet. She has suffered so, and a foot rub is so viscerally appealing at this moment. But in her upbringing, one should not let a man touch you so. She has been so faithful to her traditions since she has come back to live here. But what harm would there be in his helping her in this small way?
And to his surprise, she puts her foot into his hand and says, “You may. Only up to the ankle. No higher, or you will lose your fingers.”
And Peter proceeds to perform the miracles he did to Sarah’s feet after the day-long hikes, to Mei on the plane, with each toe getting released, the sole of her foot rejuvenated. He can only sympathize with this poor woman, for the scars outside her foot are surpassed by the scar tissue inside. What she must have suffered through. And as he finishes one foot, he does the same to the other with much more empathy. Then, he works his miracles around her ankles.
Zara has had her eyes closed. This rub is almost as enrapturing as their sweaty palm touch. No, Grandmother Roza, there is no sex going on here. Just what a woman should have every day of her life. Someone waiting at home to give her a foot massage.
Maybe having Peter around is not such a bad idea after all. Certainly, not for what Alexander wanted, but he may have other redeeming values.
Unseen to the two of them, Maryam is peeking out her door, watching the whole interaction between her daughter and this new man. And she smiles. The best smile she has had for her little Zara in over two decades. Finally.
“She has finally found him and let him in. Maybe finally it will happen,” she hopes.
Chapter 24
If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces… never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again. That’s the beauty of being alive… We can always start all over again. Enjoy God’s amazing opportunities bestowed on us. Have faith in Him always…
—Saint Bernadette Soubirous
9580 BCE
Northside of juncture of Tigris and Batman Rivers
Twenty-five cycles ago we landed on the “other side” of the big lake. As my father said to me, his oldest daughter, Ki, we should find lands of great beauty between two great rivers rich in animals, grass, and water past the mountain of obsidian. And now we live there as the traditions said we should.
My mother, Nanshe, has fifty-four sun cycles and continues as our group’s spiritual leader. My brother An has thirty-seven cycles; he has two sons and a daughter with his wife, Sorba. I was so fortunate to have finally found a husband worthy of my hunting skills, Mawra, who has thirty-eight cycles, one less than I. We have a son, Parcza, named in honor of my late great-grandfather, nineteen cycles of age, and my daughter-in-law, Serima, with a beautiful little granddaughter, Perima, of two cycles. We also have a daughter, Ramana, seventeen cycles of age, who is pregnant with her first child.
My mother says to me every day, “Ki, you are so fortunate to have such lovely children and such a lovely granddaughter. Pray to God with your thanks.”
Our community now has ten families in addition to ours. We have the good fortune that God has led Nanshe to this place, where we have such an abundance of food, game, nuts, fruits, grains, and water. We have more food than our community can ever eat. For the first time in our existence, we have buildings solely dedicated to storing our excess food. The word has spread of our abundance and wealth, so that each week, new people come from afar to trade with us for food. I have said to my uncle Narn and my brother An that we must remain vigilant at each of these visits, for a robber group may come and raid our peaceful village.
My two sisters, Zirbani and Sarpani, twins with twenty-four cycles, were born less than a year after we landed on the other side of the lake, now this side of the lake. I joke with them that they were conceived the night before our great fight with the giant Reindeer warriors, and so they must have the blood of the warrior in their veins. They do not find my joke as amusing as do I.
I tell their sons and daughter, my children, An’s children, the oral traditions and drill them every day in repeating them, just as my father did with me. I also tell them the story of how we came here. I remember as if it were yesterday.
The rain fell harder and harder as I held my father after he tried to delay the giant Tureal from taking me as his son Doroda’s first sex slave, or wife in their vernacular. I pinned that giant boy to a log after ripping up his organ with which he wanted to assault me. I will never, ever be any man’s slave, I said to him and to the world. After helping Mother to the boat, An helped me fulfill our father’s last wish. That cursed dark stone he said was more important than his life, we needed to save it. After pondering how to get that thing onto the boat, it dawned on me we could put a net around it, tie it to our anchor ropes, and drag it with us as we do the anchor. Brilliant, if I do say so myself, for I was never the modest one of Nanshe’s children. After Narn had his wife, Sama, secure in the boat after her tragic and vicious violation by the giant boy, he carried his brother-in-law, my father, onto the boat. None too soon, as the rising waves would have drowned Orzu only minutes later.
And the waves began to lift the boat up with the stone, or the object, as Nanshe says. As we floated, An and I set up the sails, catching the winds that fiercely blew out from the direction of the tail of the bird star. I have never seen the wind blow one way and the tide crash in from the opposite direction, but that day was like no other. The winds blew at the strength of four to five winds, harder than any I had ever seen, and I had been on that boat since I had three cycles. And we flew like ducks across that lake.
I remember looking back at the shoreline. The waves began to recede, exposing the beach and lake bottom. When we reached the dark part of the lake, where we could never set anchor, we were lifted up and down on the highest waves I have ever seen. As Nanshe had yelled to do, I was roped in tightly at the rear of the boat, helping Narn with the rudder
. And then we saw it behind us. The waves, which were enormous when we crested them, became the size of mountains as they rushed across the exposed lake bed and then demolished the beach in front of it. Nanshe told us later that God had killed the giants, who had defiled God’s people. We all prayed that my uncle, Nanshe’s brother, Namu, his wife Zamana, and my dear cousin, Taja, were all safe in that giant almond-shaped thing they had built.
It took a little more than half a day to cross the lake with the winds blowing as hard as they did. God must have been looking out for us, as the winds blew constantly and straight. If they had gusted or come at varying angles to us, our little boat would have been ripped into timbers, and I would not be able to tell our story to our grandchildren. Even half a sun cycle was too long for Nanshe as she treated her sister-in-law, who had been terribly torn by that giant’s member, the evil organ I had speared four times to end its days of violating women. And then she treated my father, who was surely one step away from his death. Nanshe’s herbs were the best of any in the villages that had surrounded us. Only she could have saved him. And she did, barely.
Once the worst of the storm had passed, my father, so sure he was going to die, made sure An and I gathered with him to recite the traditions. And he added more: “And be wary of the giants, the Reindeer People, for when they arrive, flee and seek the mountains past the hill of obsidian rocks that overlook land rich in animals, water, grasses, and your new safety. Follow the vision and words of the black object, for this will guide you as you seek your new land.” And I obediently memorized this forwards and backwards, just like Aunt Illyana could.
Having reached the other side, Nanshe insisted we turn to the left and sail along the coast until we reached the trading village, which the Other Siders, with whom she had traded that great shark, had indicated as the gateway to the obsidian mountain. As we sailed along the coast, we could see the devastation on this side as well. Houses were underwater, and boats had washed hundreds and hundreds of paces inland and some up onto cliffs. We finally reached the place where that trading village was supposed to be, sailed into the flooded inland area, and dropped the object as our anchor. We exited the boat to scout, while Narn and An rode the boat back out to the new lakefront when the waters began to recede, leaving the object where we had anchored. As the water receded in the days that followed and exposed the land, Nanshe had us kneel with her in front of the object. And we prayed. And prayed. And prayed our thanks to God for saving us.
We made our house there. Narn and An continued our fishing traditions. I found an abundance of wild animals in the hills surrounding us. Once the dark clouds that overshadowed her mind dissipated, Sama began to gather fruits, nuts, and grasses.
Within our first day on our new shoreline, we helped a number of Other Sider families survive with our abundance of fish, wild game, and plant foods. Nanshe was generous and asked nothing of these families other than to pray to God with us in thanks for our good fortune. And she led prayers with our community every night at dinner without fail. And in that first cycle, my twin sisters were born, as well as a new boy cousin, Nirra, son to Sama and Narn. And from the wombs of women, we began to repopulate the lands.
My father never fully recovered. His broken bones did not heal correctly, as my mother had told me they had been broken in too many places. My father, her husband, had been prepared to give his life to ensure we escaped. He never talked too much about this one point, but I clearly recall him saying that giant boy was my cousin, the son of my aunt Illyana and that monster Tureal. And my father is permanently crippled, near death, because he could not kill his sister’s son, his nephew, my cousin.
I clearly did not have that problem. I would kill him again if I had to. My mother has become the harbinger of peace. Something changed in her after she harpooned Tureal’s throat. So now I am the born killer in the family. Someone has to be. My father wanted me never to suffer what his sister did. And I will forever thank him, as I am the family huntress, the family protector, the family giant killer.
And in my seventeenth cycle, three cycles into our new life, I found a young man worthy enough to consider as the father of my children. Many had previously proposed marriage. Who would not? I was the best provider in our new village, man or woman. But a new family came to our village. Their son, Mawra, would go on the hunts with me. He feared nothing and could shoot almost as well as I, the least humble of my mother’s children, could. He was the man I was destined to meet. He was at first taken aback by our tradition of covering our womanly features in cloth, but he came to love me for who I was, not my form or skin. And one hunt, we found what I was searching for throughout our first three cycles here—baby aurochs. We killed their mother together, and together we raised the babies as our own.
And in that same cycle of the sun, an ongoing dispute between my uncle Narn and his wife Sama exploded. My cousin, Nirra, had grown at such a tremendous rate that at two cycles he stood to the height of his mother’s breasts. He was still breastfeeding and could do so with his mother standing up. Narn and Sama would have shouting bouts into the night for over a year. My mother would intercede, and her brother would leave for the lake, sulking. But this last fight was the final one. He screamed at the top of his lungs at my mother that this boy would grow to be one of the Reindeer Giants and rape me, my sisters, and all the other young women in our village.
Narn grabbed a spear and ran into his house, ready to kill this monster in the making. My mother signaled to me to get my bow and arrows. And when Narn chased Sama out of their house with her monster child in hand, I laid an arrow in front of my uncle to let him know in no uncertain terms that it was over. Nanshe told her brother that I would shoot him if he proceeded to chase his wife and child. It was not God’s will for a man to kill his son. He relented, only because she was his big sister. And Sama, crazed and incensed, fled the village with her son screaming for his father. I should have killed my cousin and not have shot at my uncle. That would be a debate that I would have with my mother for years to come. Clearly, I was not as close to God as she. Maybe not at all close.
And maybe God punished us for Narn’s transgression, or maybe for my failure to fix a sin, as Orzu became worse and worse. My mother used her techniques in the nights and the mornings to comfort him. He would have his dreams, which they would work together to interpret, along with the words from the voice that guided her. And one day he said he was to die soon and we must leave the village and seek our true destination, the fertile lands past the mountain of obsidian.
And four sun cycles after we had arrived, my father passed away in the night in the midst of his dreams. My mother cried for weeks, for she was lost without him. For after the day they had taken their half of the object, she had said Orzu and she were two halves of the same apple. Now she cried she was only half. She gathered me, my brother, and my twin sisters and said we were her reasons for continuing on and we should seek our new lands together. She then had us recite her addition to our family’s oral tradition:
“Remember your father’s words. But equally remember your mother’s words. Only with the two together can you find peace. The object. You might see in sleep, might hear. But only as man and woman. The object can destroy. The object can save. But only for the man and woman together. Together, guide the salvation of others.”
We needed each other. We needed the object.
And we packed to leave. My baby aurochs grew into the massive adults we had known and loved on the other side of the lake, and we loaded the object onto a sled and hitched it to my aurochs to drag across the mountains to come.
Following the instruction of local traders, we followed a valley farther and farther into this new land. The lands were green, full of forests, and the tall mountains reached the clouds. We came to the end of the river and creek we had been following, where the mountains split, showing a pass through to the other side. These were the tallest things I had ever seen, but the beauty of the landscape was bewitching. I knew in my
heart we belonged in this paradise. Between coaxing the aurochs to climb up, constantly rebuilding the sled carrying the object, and at times lifting the object ourselves, we took a week to cross the pass.
Another two smaller but longer mountain passes and a larger valley later, we found a fertile plain. And we found a crossroad in trails—one back towards the big lake, another leading to the ancient fire mountain where the obsidian was found, and a third one, which Nanshe said would take us to our destined valley. Our group was tired and exhausted, as were my aurochs. We had lost two families, who had opted to stay in the two valleys we’d previously crossed. My sister, Sarpani, lost her husband, who was killed by a wild boar on a hunting trip. And so we opted to make a temporary camp in this valley.
We formed good relations with those who worked in the obsidian fields where An had visited, looking for the best shiny black rocks for our weapons. The twins went hunting with me, and I taught them the art I had learned from our mother and from the inspiration of our late aunt Illyana. And they found baby boars near where we had killed their mother. And they brought these little ones back. If I did not know better, I would have thought these babies thought my sisters were their mother, as they followed my sisters around the camp and even slept next to them.
My sisters had their baby boars, like their foster children. And I had found an empty fox den, which did not turn out so empty as there were a pair of baby foxes left abandoned. They became my foster children to replace my now-grown baby aurochs. So much better than little boars, as my pet foxes went on the hunt with me, chasing down game for their and our dinners.
Nanshe decided we should stay in this paradise to wait out the cold moon cycles. We had again an abundance of smoked game meat, nuts and fruits that could tide us over through the cold and icy moon cycles. Narn had become our maker of stinky aged grain water, which he called beer, something he’d learned from his lost brother, Namu. When the coldest temperatures I could ever have imagined came, his beer supplies froze, separating the water from the stinky fluids. He said this residual liquid was even more potent. He would take these with us to use in the most special ceremonies, which he and his sister would host.
The Matriarch Matrix Page 30