The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

Getting up from the couch, Maryam shakes her head. She turns and says to her stubborn daughter, “You should be open. Xwedê’s plan is not always for us to see clearly at first. Give it time, you will see.”

  Jean-Paul enters the front door and excuses himself as he has taken a morning walk to invigorate the soul in the beauty of their neighborhood. As Jean-Paul takes off his jacket, Maryam sees his crucifix. She bows her head and says, “Please, forgive me, we have never had a priest in our home before. I hope you have found our home appropriate.”

  “Mama, Jean-Paul renounced his priesthood. You need to do nothing more than we always do for our guests.”

  “I had hoped you had brought a priest with you to marry you and Peter. Please do not worry, I am fine with a mixed marriage. We need to have a private conversation with Roza and your great-grandmother, Sara, though, about a Catholic ceremony. But for you, I believe they will give their blessings. And even that he is not from here, we would still give him our blessings. They have waited so long for this day.”

  Zara is clearly not amused, but Jean-Paul smiles at this charming Kurdish mother, who is only looking out for her beloved daughter’s best interests. Jean-Paul touches Maryam’s head lightly as he says, “Please, do not stand on ceremony on my behalf. I am no longer a priest. Only a humble man who thanks you for your hospitality and kindness in housing us on such short notice.”

  Maryam smiles and says, “Once a priest, always a priest. What order are you?”

  “Jesuit. I was a Jesuit,” Jean-Paul replies humbly.

  Maryam gives a pleased glance at her daughter. “Perfect, Zara likes Jesuits.”

  “Mama, enough of this nonsense. We need to get dressed and leave to run some errands in the mountains, so we need to hurry.”

  Peter peeks out his door to see if it is safe to come out. Maryam sees him and waves him over. She says she will show him how to set up a Kurdish breakfast. And on the floor in the room near the kitchen, they lay out a floral-patterned cloth. And Peter brings out assorted breads, cheeses, yogurt, goats’ milk, and tea, all under the tutelage of Maryam, who increasingly approves of this man her daughter has brought home.

  With Zara perturbed about the delay, the four of them have breakfast at her mother’s insistence. Maryam asks Jean-Paul about his time as a priest, for she knows the rest of her family will want to focus on Peter at dinner tonight. Grandmother Roza enters the room, fully covered for the guests. Peter and Jean-Paul rise to greet her. Before she can sit down, Zara kisses her hand and says, “We must leave now, as we have business we must attend to.”

  Roza apologizes to the men for her daughter’s abruptness, assuring them she is normally a polite and respectful woman. Zara is about to go out the front door first, but then thinks, and ushers the men out first. Roza goes to Maryam to discuss what her daughter has learned about these men.

  As they drive out of the village, Peter watches the beauty of these mountains. Rivers and valleys of many shades of green. The spring wildflowers are still in bloom, drawing lines of red, blue, yellow, and orange along the hillsides.

  Many kilometers later, they make a left up a dirt road, heading into a narrow valley. They pass through a small village as they ascend into the hills. Peter sees someone with binoculars watching them. He yells to Zara, “Someone is watching us.”

  “Of course they are. You should be glad they watch,” Zara states simply.

  Further up the dirt road, under a tree, a camouflaged truck is stationed with armed guards. Zara taps her MoxWrap, and one of the guards looks at his own. She pulls up to their checkpoint and speaks with them in Kurdish. The guard salutes her and they let her pickup truck pass. Peter is getting that feeling of apprehension again, the same one that kicked in when the F-16s came to escort their jet. He is hoping nothing like the dogfight they had in the sky yesterday is about to transpire.

  Next checkpoint, same thing. Zara taps her MoxWrap and the guards tap back. Though this time, the checkpoint is surrounded by heavy machine guns, and further up the road are antiaircraft batteries near an open area large enough for a cargo helicopter. Peter turns to Jean-Paul, who is simply serene and completely composed. Peter cannot fathom what type of training this priest has been through that he can be so serene around such military hardware.

  Another five hundred meters up the road, Zara takes a left up another dirt road and stops two hundred meters later in front of a cave. Smelling the scent of oak and pine, Peter is anxious to stretch his legs and move around to alleviate his anxiousness. Zara yells at him not to move or he will get them all killed. She takes a zigzag path to a box next to the cave entrance and punches in a code, then scans her fingerprints. She then waves them over.

  “The entrance to the cave is mined. Only the depot commander and I have the codes to deactivate. This is one of the special weapons caches that Alexander promised,” she says as she turns to Peter. “Thanks to what spilled out of your little head, these are the special weapons needed by the Kurds to defend against the Turks or the Arabic Confederation,” Zara explains. “I had all of twenty minutes yesterday afternoon to memorize the plan and the codes. So be happy I did not make a mistake.”

  They enter the cave, which lights up after Zara taps her MoxWrap. Peter’s jaw drops. He recognizes the weaponry here from a series of articles he edited for Future Warfare magazine. They are surrounded by the latest Russian antitank and antiaircraft missiles with launchers. Zara explains that these are so new, NATO does not have them classified. They have been equipped with Alexander’s latest electronic warfare technologies, the same as the advanced weapons of the AC, Turks, Americans, Chinese, Israelis, and of course, the Russians. As he promised yesterday after Zara extracted what was needed from Peter’s brain, Alexander had equipped the Kurds with limited supplies of the latest versions of these defensive weapons, which are designed to overcome the AC, Turk, and American weapons systems.

  Peter looks at Jean-Paul to see if this finally gets a rise out of him. And no. It is simply serene, humble Jean-Paul.

  Zara takes them over to another area, where communications equipment is stored. She asks Jean-Paul which ones could replace what they lost last night in the packs they were not able to evacuate from their plane. Jean-Paul finally drops his serenity mode and grins at the equipment, picking a couple of boxes.

  Waving them over to the small arms section, Zara tosses Jean-Paul a pistol, which he ably catches. Peter, on the other hand, fumbles with the pistol he is tossed and ultimately, after seconds of juggling, drops it, much to the displeasure of the woman who tossed it. Zara takes the pistol back, shaking her head. Peter recognizes the rifles Zara has selected as the AK-74MX, a digitally upgraded version of the Russian standard field rifle. Upgraded, of course, with Alexander’s latest tech. Zara tosses one to Jean-Paul, who catches it like a professional soldier. She looks at Peter and shakes her head, taking one for herself along with several boxes of magazines for both rifles and pistols.

  After securing two other packs and food supplies, she takes them outside and reactivates the cave’s security systems, and they drive down to a firing range. She loads a magazine in her pistol, cocks it, and fires a rapid five rounds into the center of the target twenty-five meters away. Not bad for three years in retirement, she thinks. She asks Jean-Paul if he can shoot. Jean-Paul coolly takes his pistol, cocks it, and then fires two rounds into the middle of Zara’s cluster of shots. He smiles at Zara and puts the pistol down.

  Peter’s cheeky monkey gene kicks in as he says, “Soldier of the pope, huh, Jean-Paul?”

  “What about you, Little Boy? How well can you shoot?” asks Zara as she tosses him a holstered pistol.

  With a number of bobbles and almost drops, Peter ultimate catches it this time, but suddenly freezes as he stares at it. He goes into a glazed stare, shaking, while he mumbles, “I can do this. I can do this. No, I can’t. I can’t.”

  After a momentary reflective pause, Jean-Paul comes to his side, takes the pistol from his hands and waves his hands in
front of Peter’s face. He waves to Zara to come over and says, “Please, give me your hand.”

  She reluctantly offers a hand, which Jean-Paul clasps around Peter’s. “What are you doing, priest? I do not wish to touch this man again.”

  “Zara, please. It is only touching hands. Remember Luxembourg? Why didn’t Peter fumble with your gun yesterday? And now, he is seeing something we need to know about. Please. Please rub his hands, gently.”

  Zara hesitates, deciding what she should do. Especially after seeing Sasha’s boy in her mother’s hands this morning, she debates whether to crush them or comply with Jean-Paul’s request. And her mother’s words this morning, “I showed him compassion,” overwhelm her senses, and she gently rubs this odd man’s clammy hand.

  Peter’s sweaty face begins to show signs of life, slowly. He then clasps Zara’s hand with his other, looks at her and thanks her.

  “Peter, you saw something. What did you see?” Jean-Paul asks him.

  “I’m afraid something very hazy and vague. A segment of a dream both my grandfather and I had. The first time we ever had similar dreams within days of each other. I’m holding a gun. There’s a woman screaming at me. That’s all I can remember.”

  Jean-Paul looks at Zara, who says, “No. No. No. Hands are it. That’s as far as I go.”

  “Peter, let us try again with you learning to shoot this gun,” Jean-Paul suggests, putting the gun back into his hands. “Zara, would you please proceed with your lesson?”

  Peter looks at Zara and says, “Please, I’ll try harder this time. I’d love to learn to shoot, to use a gun. That and grow pecs and six-pack abs—then I can go back to Sarah and show her I can be an alpha male too.”

  Shaking her head, Zara explains the following sequence: load, release safety, pull backwards on the top slide until it clicks, aim with both hands at shoulder level, feet apart, breathe in, and pull. Peter says all the steps, twice. Then practices them himself. He pulls back on the slide and no click. Zara explains he should not force it and tells him to take out the bullet, reload it into the magazine and start again. He asks what happens if he does not. She explains that in rare instances, the gun could explode in his hands. He shivers.

  Peter aims down the gun barrel at the target. Slowly pulls the trigger. Bang. And he yells, “The gun, it exploded. My hand. My hand. It’s injured.”

  Zara takes the gun from his hand, looks at it. Spits on it to wipe away the blood and says, “It’s only a slide bite. You held the gun wrong. Put your left thumb next to your right thumb, with your left finger holding the right ones from the front.”

  Something about her saliva helps calm Peter and inspires his brave genes to activate. He tries again. Load, slide back once, aim, trigger pull. Bang. “Ouch. My other hand is injured,” yells Peter.

  Zara looks at his right hand, spits on it, and says, “Slide bite again. You are not controlling the kickback, and you are letting the gun rise when you shoot. Okay, let’s pull the slide back and see where you are gripping the pistol. Hold your hand lower like this, lower on the grip. Try to do it again like this.”

  “No. No. No. Not even for Sarah. I’m not doing this again,” Peter cries, despite what her saliva might be activating within him.

  Zara looks at him in the eye and says, “If Jean-Paul’s life depended on it, you would shoot this gun. You need to shoot this gun.” She looks at Jean-Paul and then says, “My life will never depend on you, silly Little Boy. I will never put myself in such a situation. But Jean-Paul, you might want to save him.”

  Peter relents to the logic and tries again. This time no bite. No target hit, but no bite. At her request, he continues shooting, emptying the seventeen-round magazine, proud that he hit the target twice, nowhere near center, but just in the biggest circle. Zara shakes her head, happy he did not shoot them by accident, but she worries what would happen if their lives depended on him.

  She takes the AK-74MX, loads the magazine, and shoots off several rounds at a fifty-meter target, shredding a hole in it. She gives Jean-Paul the other one, and he does the same. She looks at him and says, “Fancy shooting for a priest. I did not know there was a firing range under the Vatican.”

  Jean-Paul simply shrugs.

  Zara looks at Peter and decides that discretion is truly the better part of valor. She bypasses teaching him how to shoot a rifle and leads them over to a clearing in an adjacent wooded area, nicely padded with fallen leaves. “Okay. Let us see where you are with hand-to-hand combat.” She tosses a sheathed combat knife to Jean-Paul and says, “You first. Keep the sheath on.”

  She pulls out her sheathed knife and positions her arms out in combat position. Much to her surprise, the good Father drops the knife to the ground. She says, “So you can shoot, but are a pacifist with a knife? No matter, let us see what you can do unarmed.” She makes a few exploratory strikes at him, and much to her surprise, he has her in an armlock as he disarms and throws her to the side.

  Resetting her scarf on her head, she wipes her brow and says, “Where does a priest learn to do that?”

  Jean-Paul nods to her, smiles so serenely, and says, “I learned Filipino martial arts when I was in my Regency in the Philippines. Such things came in handy to teach the boys in my school how to handle the local boys.”

  Zara pulls out her pistol, unloads the chambered round and then the magazine, and points it at him. “Priest, can you teach me how to disarm a gun pointed at your chest?”

  Jean-Paul slaps his hands hard around her wrist and the gun simultaneously, and the gun goes flying to the side. Zara is impressed. He says this is the Krav Maga style. He picks up the gun and gives it back to Zara to try again. This time, he slaps the gun with both hands and pulls the weapon out of her hands, saying that is the Filipino Kali method. Zara asks him to help her learn. He asks permission to touch her, which she says, “Of course.” And they spend a half hour practicing different techniques. Zara smiles. This priest will come in handy after all.

  Now it is Peter’s turn. She gives him a sheathed knife and says for him to stab at her. He reluctantly does, and she steps to one side, grabs his arm, and puts it into an elbow lock. He cries in pain. Such a baby, she thinks. She shows him again, more slowly and gently.

  Then it is his turn. She takes the knife and thrusts at him. He gets things all twisted up in a panic, and the two of them go falling to the ground. Zara is so infuriated that she tries to put him into a head lock on the ground, but they just go rolling around and around, with Jean-Paul laughing in the background at the comedy of the situation.

  Finally, she secures him, sitting atop his chest with his shoulders pinned by her knees. “There, that should teach you, Little Boy, for throwing me to the ground.”

  Peter looks up and realizes he is seeing too much. “Zara, your dress.”

  Looking down, she sees her dress has gotten hiked up, and she straightens it. And then it hits her. Little Boy. She is experiencing the same warmth and love as she did when her brother would try to wrestle her and inevitably lose, the same as this little boy did. She gets up quickly to take her mind off such a thought.

  “Enough of playing. We need to go back to my mother’s house and get ready for the trip to Göbekli Tepe,” she says as she takes her weapons back to the truck. Jean-Paul offers Peter a hand and they collect their weapons as well.

  Zara is noticeably silent on the drive past the security checkpoints, where a senior officer jokes with her about her coming back from retirement. Jean-Paul rests in the backseat, meditating. Peter sits across from Zara, nursing his slide bite wounds, and the internal wounds to his pride. He works up the courage to ask her a question. “Zara, may I ask how you are so fast with your fighting skills?”

  She appreciates his question, as it shows he was closely observing. Watching with respect. “Peter, when you are in a combat situation and you are totally focused, time slows down.”

  The cheeky gene in Peter pipes up, “You mean like in the movies? It really happens that way?” />
  She smiles. “Hollywood is Hollywood, and they will do whatever sells the movie. In real life, you may have this microsecond when you must be decisive. It is so trinary. A good thing can happen, or you may always regret your indecision, or worse, you may be dead. And if you are calm and focused, that microsecond will feel much, much longer. It will appear as if everyone else has slowed down. And you must use that time to be decisive. Yes or no. No maybes.”

  Peter turns to look out the window, reflecting upon whether he can be that focused, that calm, and that decisive when this moment comes.

  They pass a sign that says twenty kilometers to Siirt, and Zara says, “Peter, tell me about your Sarah. How long did you know her?”

  “About four and a half years. A little bit more than that,” Peter replies, wondering where this conversation came from and where it is going. Jean-Paul’s ears have awoken from his meditation and are attuned to their conversation as well.

  “What did you love about her, your Sarah? Her appearance, or something else?” asks Zara as she glances at Peter.

  “Yes, and yes. What I most loved more than anyone else before her was how we could talk. I thought she loved ancient aliens and we could talk for hours on end. But maybe I was wrong about her,” Peter laments, remembering their last few conversations.

  His answer is not what she had expected, and she probes further. “And how did she dress for you?”

  “Oh, she dressed quite modestly. Well, not your kind of modest, but for California, she was pragmatic. She dressed for the weather, for the type of sport we did, very pragmatic. Well, that was until she met mister alpha male Army Ranger sniper Sam.” And Peter turns his head to hide his tear.

  Her curiosity gets the best of her as Zara continues. “Why do you think she would leave you for, as you said, gun and muscles, pecs and abs? This seems so shallow for such a woman as you had described.”

  Peter chokes and mumbles, “I couldn’t tell you. I thought she said I didn’t understand what unconditional love was. But that day I came home early and saw her and him naked in our bed. And he just had to show how big he was all over. I just don’t know. I only know I don’t have what she wants.”