Maryam stands up to grab her daughter. She takes her head into her chest and hugs her, and years of repressed emotion unwinds as Zara cries, “I will never be a man’s slave. Ever. Ever.” Maryam hugs and comforts her little Zara as she murmurs, “Ever, ever again.” Maryam brings her daughter back to her room so she can change out of her sullied clothes.
Roza and Jean-Paul lift Peter off the ground and onto the couch. Roza cannot help but see Jean-Paul’s glistening crucifix. She says, “Man of the cloth. Man of arms.” She smiles at Jean-Paul. “But I am very glad you came to my granddaughter’s defense. You are her friend. She needs friends like you.” Jean-Paul simply smiles, in his serene way.
Maryam comes back into the room and invites her guests to be seated in the dining area, where a beautiful floral cloth of roses of all colors lies in the middle of the floor. She shows them the area to remove their shoes and seats them so she and Roza can surround Peter. Zara comes back in a royal-blue dress with yellow-and-black trim, escorting her great-grandmother Sara. Peter gets up and fetches her a chair, but Sara waves no and gracefully sits on the floor with the rest of the family.
Maryam and Roza have worked all afternoon to prepare this feast. Mehir, a cool yogurt soup, curecur, a lamb stew, and kutilk, meat-filled dumplings, along with fresh-baked flatbread, a bowl of mixed local greens and herbs, and chai tea. And for dessert, koliche, a pastry delight.
Zara sits next to her mother and Sara. In Kurdish, she introduces Peter and Jean-Paul to Sara. She acknowledges apparently having been well briefed about them by her children in Zara’s absence. She gives a special smile to Peter.
Sara asks Zara something in Kurdish as she touches the hand of Jean-Paul, who is seated to her side. Zara explains to Jean-Paul, “My great-grandmother would be very honored if you would say grace before we eat.”
Jean-Paul smiles at Sara and folds his hands together and says, “Bismillahi wa ’ala baraka-tillah.”
Zara’s family is very surprised and pleased with her priest, ex-priest, friend. And Roza says, “In the name of Xwedê and with the blessings of Xwedê. That was very nice of you, Father Jean-Paul, to honor our faith. Please continue with a grace in your faith.”
Jean-Paul searches his index of graces for something that would be appropriate for this interfaith gathering and says, “For good food and those who prepare it, for good friends with whom to share it, we thank you, um, our Lord. Amen.” And Sara pats him on his hand and says thank you in Kurdish.
Zara translates again for Sara. “My great-grandmother welcomes you all to her home. As you can see, the part she and my grandmother sleep in, where your room is, Jean-Paul, this is their historic home. The newer additions here—the kitchen, the other bedrooms, the bomb shelter—are all gifts from my great-granddaughter.”
Pausing to give thanks Sara for her acknowledgment, Zara continues translating. “My daughter, Roza, married Zara’s grandfather, Baho, who was also a Sufi like my husband. He worked in the oil fields not far from our home in Batman. Sadly, they needed to move to Baho’s hometown, Silopi, twelve years ago, after PKK military actions disrupted the oil industry in this area, and innocent Kurds like him were under investigation. I am thankful my great-granddaughter and my great-grandson moved my daughter back after the Turkish police tragically took Baho into custody. May he return to Xwedê.”
Sara asks another question for Zara to translate. “My great-grandmother would like to know if a Catholic priest like you is comfortable in a Muslim country, a Muslim house.”
“Please let your grandmother know, I have fulfilled my missions in many Muslim countries. I was near here ten years ago, working relief services in Van after the great earthquake. I also helped people in Egypt, Mali, and Nigeria. And so, I have learned a few words in Arabic along the way.” Zara translates to Sara, who nods her appreciation and approval of her guest’s nobility of character.
Roza speaks to Jean-Paul. “Please excuse our poor English. We learned from watching the news on Zara’s devices she gave us a few years ago, that MoxRappea thing. It has brought us closer to the rest of the world, even more so than when we first had access to the internet, something we would not have been able to do when we were mere farming people. Zara tells us little of what she really does, other than take care of us as a good daughter and granddaughter. We are familiar with her times in the Peshmerga and met some of the soldiers and officers who served with her in her fighter roles. We are very curious, all three of us, why she would be in the company of nonmilitary men, an ex-priest and an editor.”
Zara interrupts quickly in Kurdish. “Grandmother Roza, what I do has kept you, Great-grandmother Sara, and my mother all well taken care of. All your needs are met, and you are safe. And I do so in full respect of the wishes of Xwedê. That is all that needs to be said.”
Roza lets her impertinent granddaughter understand that her tone is inappropriate, but concedes her point and will redirect her conversation. “We love our Zara so very much. She is our treasure,” Roza says to Jean-Paul. “We hope you are able to help her find what she has lost. She is, at heart, a very beautiful girl full of love and joy. And she loved her little brother so much. We are happy she did not join the PKK as he did. May he return to Xwedê.”
“And to her sisters too,” blurts Peter.
Looking confused, Maryam and Roza are about to respond when Zara explains in Kurdish that he means her cousins Rona and Diyar, who were like her sisters. They nod in agreement.
Roza turns to Peter to her left and serves him more curecur and kutilk. “Peter, young man, what do you know of women of the Islamic faith?”
Scratching his head without scratching his head, Peter needs to think long and hard about that question, as the only woman of Islamic faith he has ever met, he only met a day and a half ago. And he has not been very successful at engaging her in any meaningful discussion of her faith, or anything else for that matter, since then.
He squeezes his brain until it hurts and something comes out of his mouth. “Dignity. Respect. And modesty as a sign of respect.” He looks at Zara and then Roza to see if he is going to be disciplined for his ignorance. Nothing. So, he continues, “A man should respect a woman and allow her to pursue her faith, to pursue her growth of knowledge.” He crosses his fingers that he did not make some huge transgression of faith and still gets to finish his dinner.
Roza looks at her mother, Sara, who nods for her to continue. “And Mr. Peter, what do you know of our traditions, the Kurdish ways?”
Looking down at his delicious mehir soup, Peter tries to hide his eyes, which are in terror of imminent brain freeze. Oh, how he wishes he had edited something, anything, on Kurds, Kurdish traditions, Kurdish history. He knows nothing in life other than what he edits.
Seeing his hesitance, Roza prods the young man. “We have a saying, ‘A shy woman is worth a city, a shy man is worth a goat.’ Are you a goat, Mr. Peter?”
And Peter gets it. “Grandmother Roza, goats and sheep have been staples of the Kurdish life. And as such, I could only be so proud to be a goat. One that sustains a family.” He looks at Zara, as she is the best barometer if he is just being a silly little boy. Nothing. These folks are as bad as Harlan Chapwell the Third. And Peter continues, “Is it not said that the male is born to be slaughtered? Then I am proud to offer my life to defend my family.”
That one got a glance by Zara, who realizes this little boy did indeed listen to her every word.
Peter, gaining confidence from Zara’s slight, very slight acknowledgment, goes for it. “And is it not said that whoever is fond of cream should take the cow around with him?” he says as he winks subtly at Zara. “I can only hope that I am such a cow that produces such cream.”
Roza simply stares at him, ever so slightly shaking her head. Seeing that the cow saying kind of ricocheted in the room, Peter tries a different route. “Stretch your feet according to your blanket,” says Peter as he glances towards Zara’s mother. “So important, as happy feet make a happy woma
n.” Maryam looks down, trying to hide her internal laughter.
Realizing he is now bordering on the silly, he refrains again. “But as you say, ‘Kurds have no friends but the mountains.’ This speaks to the hard and long history your people have endured, trying to carve out a peaceful existence among the wars and the greed of numerous despots over several hundred years.”
Sara nods at Roza. Peter catches that, but is unable to discern what is happening other than that he is being grilled for dinner. Maybe he is the dessert. But Roza and Sara are not yet finished with this young man. Maryam leans over to Zara and whispers. She then says to Peter, “You are doing fine. I thank you, personally, for your dignity in your answers.”
Zara looks at her three generations of matriarchy, and then says in Kurdish, “My mothers, we should discontinue this conversation. As I have said to my mother, this man is only here for tonight, and tomorrow we go to complete his mission and he will never return here. There is no deeper interest between us other than helping Sasha with this small favor. Please, let him finish his dinner and we can wish him farewell tomorrow morning, Xwedê willing.”
To Zara’s surprise, Sara addresses her in Kurdish. “Our dear little Zara, we have already heard from Maryam your statement about this young man. We simply wish to know more about him, even if you have no interest in him. Please be the good girl you are and let us proceed.” And Zara, the good daughter, the good granddaughter, the good great-granddaughter, sits back in submission to her elders.
And Sara proceeds to tell an old riddle and asks Zara to translate. “Peter, my great-grandmother wishes to ask you this question. There is a certain piece of flesh in your body, and if that piece of flesh is impure, then all of your body will be impure. What is that piece of flesh?”
Jean-Paul puts his finger up and is about to answer, but Zara intercedes, “Please, Jean-Paul, I know you know. It is for Peter to show he knows.”
And poor Peter, he sinks into the ground, if that were even possible on this cement floor. This is worse than the five hours of interview test questions he endured only two days or so ago. He closes his eyes and wishes Mei were here to help him out. He pictures her and how she comforted him in his angst. And then he sees it. Actually, sees her palm on his chest.
“It is the heart,” Peter replies with his eyes open and mouth smiling.
Roza smiles at him for the first time. Now he understands where Zara gets her demeanor from. The apple does not fall far from the tree, even in Kurdistan. “Mr. Peter, for a sheltered young man who has never ventured farther than his safe little town on the Pacific, you have done surprisingly well. We would never have expected this.” She takes his hand into hers, wrinkled, having seen the ages, but nonetheless warm.
And much to Peter’s surprise, she places her warm hand behind his neck, right on that spot, and she says, “Your dreams, tell me of your dreams.”
In shock, unsure whether her hand is there by some strange Kurdish tradition or she is aware of the God Gene cluster, Peter becomes the shy goat, not knowing what to say. He looks at Zara, then at her mother, who is nodding her head. And he gets it—Maryam has told her mother and grandmother about this morning.
With a sigh, he tells of the nights, the fighting with the pillows and sheets, the dreams that cry out to him as if the world depended on him taking action, the mornings with the fog and haze, not being able to pull together their importance, and the tiredness that plagues him. Roza asks him about other family members who experience the same, and he confirms his grandfather and his mother’s uncle, strategically leaving out the DNA information Jean-Paul shared with him yesterday about all the women in his family.
Roza rubs his special bump, then takes his hand up to her lips and lightly, but moistly kisses it. And he calms. She lightly kisses his forehead. Roza confesses—a confession that only is done among family, as per her definition of Mahram, “Mr. Peter, your dreams, your angst, runs deep in our family. Maryam’s husband, Zara’s father, my husband, my father and uncles, Sara’s father, her uncles and grandfathers, all suffered what you do.”
Zara’s eyes betray the shock of this revelation. She looks at the three matriarchs and says to Roza in Kurdish, “Why do you say this now and never before? Why in front of these strangers? Am I not your blood, your daughter, your granddaughter, your great-granddaughter? Why do I not deserve the respect to be told this in privacy?”
Sara tells Roza in Kurdish that this should be explained in the language of their guests. And Roza replies in English, “There was no need to tell you until the day it was needed, the day you brought back home a kind man who had such dreams. It was not important unless you were to marry someone who suffered these nightly torments. And last night, you brought Mr. Peter home with you, and he suffered the dreams in your brother’s room, to be discovered by your mother, who, like us, knows very well how to comfort the men who suffer so.”
In a new state of outrage, Zara strains to maintain composure with her most important family members. She starts to speak in Kurdish, but Sara admonishes her and Zara continues in English. “As I said, these men are only here on business. I am not here to marry this young one. He is an employee of Alexander Murometz, the same as the ex-priest is. They merely must complete something for him. That is all. No marriage. No children. Nothing but business.”
Jean-Paul has been literally sitting on his hands this entire time, balancing on the floor in front of his food. He has been dying to know more about this family and their Sufi heritage. He asks, “Then the Sufi traditions were vital for your husbands, to help them manage their conditions. Is this not correct? The meditations and prayers helped them.”
“You are a very wise man. You are still a man of God at heart. Yes, my husband, my grandfather, they managed their pains with their closeness to Xwedê. Of course, we as their spouses played our role, actions which I cannot speak of in mixed gender company. But we can teach Zara,” says Roza as she looks at her granddaughter, who is still reeling from the shock of tonight’s confessions. “This ailment, it has been known for hundreds and hundreds of years. As Zara may have said to you, I have recited the works of the thirteenth-century Sufi mystic, Rūmī, to her mother and her since they were children.
“Listen to this poem of his.
No memory of his past abides with him,
And from his present soul he shall be changes.
Though he is fallen asleep, God will not leave him
In this forgetfulness. Awakened, he
Will laugh to think what troublous dreams he had.
And wonder how his happy state of being
He could forget, and not perceive that all
Those pains and sorrows were the effect of sleep
And guile and vain illusion. So this world
Seems lasting, though ’tis but the sleepers’ dream;
Who, when the appointed Day shall dawn, escapes
From dark imaginings that haunted him,
And turns with laughter on his phantom griefs
When he beholds his everlasting home.”
Peter identifies very much with this poem, and the editor in him says, “I wish I could have edited a poem about the dreams so eloquently. That is exactly what it is like.”
Roza continues, “Those who have the dreams, they are halfway to Xwedê. They just need a little extra help to get the rest of the way. We spouses have been like their other halves, and between the pair, we are closer to Xwedê together. It takes both halves to make an apple.”
Seeing the despondence seeping back into her granddaughter, Roza says, “Zara is a special girl. Loving, full of love and joy. She may not seem like it now, but that loving girl, she is still in there.” She looks at Peter and Jean-Paul and says, “I am happy she has found friends.” She looks back at Zara, who refuses to make eye contact, and says, “For she needs true friends. The kind of friends who can help her find her way back.”
She looks at Maryam at Zara’s side and asks in Kurdish if she and her daughter
could recite the last lines of Rūmī’s Two Insomnias poem. Maryam whispers to Zara, who shakes her head no. Maryam whispers again, rubbing her shoulders, and Zara sits up straight. And together they recite the poem, Maryam in Arabic and Zara translating into English.
“When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
How blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”
Jean-Paul is very impressed how true this poem is to the afflicted he has studied. For Peter, there is another meaning. He looks into Zara’s eyes, and for a moment they connect just like the poem, but then she disconnects.
With tears about to form in her eyes, Zara gets up, looks at her mothers, and says, “The day has been long. We have a hard day tomorrow. I must retire.” And she heads for the door, turning back and looking at Peter for only a glance. And with her head down, she leaves.
Chapter 28
Beyond those hills and oak woods,
Beyond those vineyards and gardens,
We passed in health and joy, glory be to God.
We were dry, but we moistened.
We grew wings and became birds,
We married one another and flew,
Glory be to God.
—Yunus Emre,
thirteenth-century Turkish poet and Sufi mystic
9565 BCE
Site of modern-day Göbekli Tepe
Sixty-nine cycles, cries my mother, thinking she is old. My twin, Zirbani, and I, Sarpani, can see into her soul when the three of us pray together. And she is still young. She is still that young woman whom our father, Orzu, saved from a life of the unspeakable. I pray to God that my daughters, my granddaughters, never face the same choices—death or life worse than death.
The Matriarch Matrix Page 36