The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  Six more families joined us and followed Nanshe’s prayer sessions. And then one prayer session, it happened. The twins heard Nanshe’s voice. The same beautiful harmony and peace our mother had been hearing for the past six sun cycles. And the six sun cycles of the greatest peace of my life were to come to an end, or so the voice had warned. Somehow there were giants on this side of the lake. How, I could not fathom. They were killed by the giant killer waves. Oh, god of my mother, why are you so cruel to torment us again?

  When the temperatures warmed and the tree branches budded, we left our paradise. Only four families were willing to come with us—the two with fathers who were once slaves of the giants, and two more who had many daughters and were fearful of our stories of what these giants would do our women. We followed a path over the mountains, away from the big lake, away from the tail of the bird star. And we found the valley. The valley. It was larger than any I have ever seen. Hundreds of thousands of paces of grasslands. Game animals all over. This was the true paradise that Orzu had dreamed of, or so we hoped.

  And so here we live in paradise today, twenty-five sun cycles after we fled the other side of the lake. We have ten families in our village, with more on the farms surrounding us. My mother has stepped down as the physical leader of our group, turning that onus over to her oldest child, me, but continues as our spiritual leader, training my twin sisters to take on that role someday. And I teach my children, my nephew and nieces, the lore of Illyana, her strength and beauty, the hunt, and the traditions. I am faithful to my father’s wishes. I was not blessed as were my twin sisters with the voice, to hear God. I can only pray and have faith. I can only be obedient to what my mother says. And obedience is what I teach our children.

  My mother has wrestled with a fundamental problem. It has been very clear that my twin sisters, Zirbani and Sarpani, have been gifted with the voice. But their children have ten or more sun cycles in age and show less of the abilities my parents or their parents have. Nanshe has discussed her moral dilemma with me in private—does she let the ability to touch God, to hear God, disappear with the twins, or does she advocate that the girls from the twins marry their brothers? We have already learned about selective mating from the animals we have raised. My mother wrestles with this question and says that one day, not too long from now, I might have to make that hard call with my sisters before their children are of the mating age.

  And her prayers were answered, as just over two moon cycles ago, a man came to our village alone. He was fatigued from his long journey to find us. He said he was Morda, son of my uncle Namu and aunt Zamana. He was Nanshe’s nephew, born a moon cycle after my twin sisters. Nanshe quizzed him about personal facts that only her brother and sister-in-law would know and determined he was indeed her nephew.

  Morda explained his mother had sent him out to find our family, and he had wandered the lands, asking for anyone who knew of us. And then he found traders from the obsidian mountain who knew us, and he followed our trail from that mountain. My uncle’s funny boat had taken them to another part of the lakeshore, farther along than where we had landed. They had lost their half of the object into the seas when their boat broke up on the rocky shores on this side of the lake. Somehow they had salvaged only part of that object. The voice had guided my uncle to find another mountain than the one we sought, and his family had proceeded to find that mountain with the remnants of their object.

  My mother has become smarter and cleverer since she met the voice of the object. Over a moon cycle ago, she talked with Sarpani, who agreed that she would marry Morda. And today, we have a fabulous ceremony arranged, with the largest feast ever. People from the lands all around our village have been invited, as well as the traders who have come to have alliances with us.

  My husband, Mawra, our son, our daughter, Zirbani, her son, and I hunted aurochs, gazelle, boar, and female goats for this feast. An and his wife, Sorba, with their children collected the grasses we call barley and wheat to make flatbreads, as well as wild pistachios, almonds, lentils, flax, and chickpeas. We prepared all the great foods our new paradise had to offer.

  As I had admired in my husband, Morda was patient with Sarpani, having been well raised by my aunt, Zamana. For Sarpani kept her respect and modesty at all times with him. Morda married her without ever seeing even her full tresses of hair. And his respect of her in their courtship led her to understand he would be a good husband, the same as I felt about Mawra, my mate.

  And as the village settled after the festivities, many drunk on the smelly brews of Narn, a late group arrived at the celebrations. I froze for a moment as I tried to discern who they were. And then I bolted to get my weapons. Giants. My twin sisters and my husband were well trained. As they saw me bolt for my weapons, they did the same.

  Spears in hand and bow and quiver across my back, I stood forth in front of my family. And he saw me. And I saw him. How? How had he survived? That was impossible. He had drowned and died on that log I had speared him to. He saw my disbelief and stripped off his top clothing to show the wound in his shoulder where I had drilled that spear through. It was Doroda.

  He yelled that he had been searching for a woman, the daughter of Orzu, the betrayer of his father Tureal. I was his rightful property, rightful wife, rightful slave, and he had come to collect what was owed to him. Clearly he meant his sexual pleasures at my expense, as his member stood erect through his fox pelt loincloth hanging from the belt around his waist. I could see behind him his harem of captured sex slaves and their children. His sons, of age to carry weapons, numbered over a half dozen. They wore the same belt with fox pelt loincloth their father wore. And certainly they knew no modesty like their father, as their erections bespoke that they were here to take their own sex slaves from our women.

  Doroda came towards me, close enough that I could see the details of his pendant, a circle in stone, with a deep center hole, sitting above a crescent. He pointed to the hole and said it symbolized my hole, which belonged to him. If I came willingly, he would spare the drunken village the slaughter and rape that was to come, for this sun cycle. He saw I was covered, like the rest of the women in my family, and ordered that I uncover my head and remove my top clothing so he could see I was truly the one who was to bear him his rightful sons. That was a lie, for twenty-five sun cycles ago, he could see no more than my ashen greased face and hair and my burning eyes.

  And as I had done back then on the other side of the lake, I yelled for him and the entire drunken village to hear that I would never be any man’s slave, ever. Ever. And then my husband, Mawra, with the best of spirit, faith, and intentions, but not so good tactical sense, charged this giant with his spear in defense of his wife’s honor. To my horror, Doroda cleaved his head straight off. I cringed as I heard the fabric of my soul being torn in half. I closed my eyes for but a moment as I prayed for his soul.

  And the giant, not satisfied with decapitating my dearest husband, lifted his loincloth to show the four scars around his manhood. He said I had not been able to kill him then and I could not do so now, as he was destined to have his member inside me. I momentarily scolded myself. How could I have missed? I would not miss again. And I charged him with spear in hand.

  Doroda raised his hand, and his sons began the slaughter of the men in the village. Our men, only born to be slaughtered. With his hand up, I sliced the side of his neck, dodged his spear parry, and cut his side. But even my speed could not overcome his brute giant strength as he ripped the spear from my hands and threw me to the ground, towering over me with his member red, angry, and throbbing. I fumbled to get out my second spear when whoosh, whoosh.

  My twin sisters fired their arrows into the left side of his chest, giving me the opportunity to plunge my second spear into his gut. These giants have extraordinarily tough meat, tougher than aurochs or boars, but he began to bleed from his chest and gut nonetheless.

  But that did not stop him as he ripped off his loincloth and bent down to begin his violation of
my body and my soul. As full of themselves as the giants were, he had to give a soliloquy that he was taking the right to my body granted by his race, by his dead father, by their descendancy from the stars. Talk, talk, talk. I found my knife and rammed it into his gut wound and twisted and twisted and twisted. But he covered my body with his mass as he tried to take his rights with me. My pet foxes attacked his arms, but to no avail as he swatted them aside.

  Whoosh. Whoosh. My twin sisters fired into his back at point-blank range, standing right above him, and the giant would-be violator rolled over, screaming in pain. I got my spear and I finished what I had thought I had done back on the other side of the lake—I speared him in the groin again and again and again and again. And I did not miss this time and pinned him to the ground with the spear through this precious part of his body.

  Seeing the chaos surrounding the village as our men futilely attempted to fight the giant boys, I took Doroda’s loincloth and his pendant onto my spear tip and held them towards the moonlit sky. I yelled to the giant boys that their father was dead and the same would happen to them. And the boys, not as versed in the art of war as their father, decided to flee. I signaled to my uncle Narn and my brother An to try to rescue as many of Doroda’s sex slaves as possible.

  As we cleaned up from this battle, it was clear that our paradise had been spoiled with the blood of our own villagers and that of the last of the giants from the other side. We could no longer stay here. We needed to pick up the pieces of our lives and move onwards. The giant boys would grow and they would seek revenge for the death of their father as well as seek their right to our daughters. I talked with my mother and said we had clearly failed my great-grandfather’s oral tradition, for we had become complacent in our land of peace and plenty. We could not let our guard down again. And so I added to our oral tradition, which I will continue to drill into my extended family.

  “Always watch and be vigilant, for the giants, your new enemies, can come when you are lax. Remember that you are only as strong as your numbers, your practice of the hunting arts, and your faith. Practice peace first, but always be ready to defend and kill if needed.”

  My mother, the holder of peace, love, and harmony, felt my wording could lead our children’s children to lead lives of violence and war, fighting among themselves. And so she added more to our tradition.

  “God asks us to be people of peace. Find ways to have peace and harmony. Find ways to create bounty to share and create community. For those who are close to God, they can find peace with ease. But for those who are not close to God, they need to have abundance to find peace. For without abundance, there is want, need, jealousy, intolerance, all things that stand in the way of peace. And avoid killing if all possible, but defend people’s right to peace.”

  Chapter 25

  Temperance is a disposition that restrains our desires for things which it is base to desire.

  —Saint Augustine of Hippo

  5:45 a.m. GMT+3, May 16, 2021

  Hills outside Siirt, formerly Turkey, now Anatolian Kurdish State

  The crows of a rooster. The bleats of a goat. Her eyelids open slowly. She is back in her room. A simple room, but she is again back with family. She stretches. Her feet have never before felt so wonderful. No desire. No temptation. She stayed within the boundaries of modesty in letting Alexander’s little boy fix her feet. Ones ravaged by disfigurement from what they did to her. And she slept so well. Maybe she should let him do this again tonight.

  Her mother has probably finished morning prayer. Zara is not clean today, still having menses, and thus has not performed prayer with her. She dons a simple dress and headscarf, for there are strangers in the house, and goes to help her mother prepare breakfast. Yawning as she leaves her room and goes into the main family room, she closes her eyes. When her eyes refocus, she is shocked, simply and purely shocked.

  “Peter, what are you doing? Get away from my mother,” Zara cries, outraged. Her mother is seated on the couch where Zara sat last night, with Peter’s head in her hands as she rubs his neck.

  Peter, in great confusion, looks at Zara, then at Maryam, and responds, “But your mother asked me to.”

  “Get away from my mother now,” commands Zara.

  In her simple English, Maryam says to Peter, “No, no. No, stay.”

  And mother and daughter have a minor disagreement in Kurdish, with Maryam saying to her daughter, “I understand how much stress you have been under. I only hope you do not lose sight of how important this man will be in your life.”

  Zara is beside herself. Her own mother. “Mama, this man is only a stranger. No more. How could you touch a strange man’s neck as you did?”

  Maryam smiles and says, “I saw you two last night. He must not be such a stranger if you allowed him to take care of your feet.”

  “He is non-Mahram, and neither of us should have had physical contact with him,” Zara retorts.

  Maryam puts on her mother-knows-best face and replies, “This man is practically family. He dreamed of our family words. ‘God asks us to be people of peace.’ Can you not see? This is the man you were meant to marry.”

  Zara is at the precipice of utter frustration. “Mama, I have chosen to be single and celibate.” She glances down and sighs. “And you know why I can never marry. Ever. No man will want me. I cannot fulfill the marriage promise.”

  A frown overcomes Maryam’s face. “My dear little Zara, at thirty-five you are no longer young. Here’s a good man who looks up to you the same way Soran looked up to you. You are not getting any younger.”

  And Maryam puts on the prospective mother-in-law smile, turns to Peter, and says in English, “You are gifted in ways that Zara is. You have the health of youth in your soul. You know that Zara is still very young.”

  Zara yells, “No. Peter, stop that. She’s my mother.”

  Confused, Peter looks at Zara and then at her mother, who signals him to continue.

  Zara asserts, “Peter, any higher and you will lose your fingers.”

  Again, Maryam chastises her daughter in Kurdish. “How can you talk with our guest with such a disrespectful tone? We raised you to be better than that. You will not get a good man to marry you if you talk with him with such disregard.”

  Letting out a huff, Zara replies in Kurdish, “Mama, these two men are business, and that is all. Bringing them here is but a favor for Sasha, and they will be gone tomorrow, never to come back.”

  Maryam turns back to Peter and says in English, “Please excuse my daughter. She is a very lovely, respectable woman.”

  Zara, having enough of this nonsense, tells Peter to leave the room and go wash up. In his haste to get up, he startles Zara’s lambs, who back into a floor lamp, sending it into a collision course with the ground. Crash. The sound startles not only the little lambs, but Peter equally so. All frozen in fear together. Something that does not escape Maryam’s attention.

  After cleaning up her children’s mess, or was that her guest’s mess, Zara sits down next to her mother on the couch and asks in Kurdish, “Mama, what led you to touch a man who just came here only hours ago?”

  Maryam reaches out to touch her daughter’s shoulder and replies, “I saw you two last night. I saw you. The ‘you’ who you have been missing for many years now. I have not seen you in such bliss for nearly twenty years. This man, this Peter, he brings back your youth, brings back the you who you loved so much. The Zara you have wanted to find again.”

  Zara takes her mother’s hand in hers as she replies, “Mama, what you saw was a moment of weakness. I have had too many of those in my life, and nothing good ever came from those moments. It will not happen again.”

  Petting her daughter’s hand, Maryam says, “You should know he is like your father. No, I do not mean he has Nawdar’s beautiful curly black hair and dark eyes, but the same sleep. Your Peter was having a very rough sleep, crying out and swinging his limbs all over, same as your father would do when I met him. I heard the sounds,
the same sounds I heard over thirty-five years ago, and I came to look. I woke him and comforted him.”

  Alarmed at her last sentence, Zara interjects, “Mama, what do you mean you comforted him?”

  “Nothing of which Xwedê would not approve, my daughter. I showed him compassion. I took his head in my hands as I did with you and your brother and stroked his temples and his neck, telling him everything was fine, he only had a dream. He calmed down, told me of his dream, and I brought him out here, so we were not in his bed, if you must know.”

  “Mama, you and Father, you never told me about his dreams before. Why?” asks a bewildered Zara.

  Maryam places her warm hands around Zara’s straining face. “We were going to tell you when you married, at which time you might have a son who suffered these dreams. Your father had them. My father had them. My grandfather had them. Sara taught Roza how to comfort a man who has these dreams. And Roza taught me. And we can teach you how to comfort this Peter you have brought home so you can be a good wife to him as we have been to our dream-laden men.”

  Maryam tilts Zara’s head down to make eye contact and says, “He is the one. He is who Xwedê has planned for you.”

  As her daughter shakes her head no in defiance of the idea, Maryam calls over her daughter’s black lamb and holds her up. “See her eyes. They are the same as his. Pure innocence in her heart. Pure innocence like his.”

  Zara takes her mother’s hands away from her cheeks and stares at the ground. “No, Mama. You are mistaken. He is only a silly man from California, and he is here only for one more night. And then we are gone. He will never be seen again.”