The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  But Nanshe’s body is old, and she says she may not have more days ahead of her as she pushes with her will, her might, her indomitable presence to overcome our band of families’ fatigue and desire to settle down. She has let us settle on the side of an ancient mountain of fire for a season while we planted grains and let our animals reproduce. We saw great plains on the horizon, but she said these were still not the right ones. But by the cold months, she willed us into moving, leaving some weary families to continue their farms.

  Continue we did until we found this mountain ridge. And from here, we see it finally. The plains of grasses that extend forever. The promised lands. And here, my mother said she can finally die and rejoin her husband, our father, and be buried under the object.

  We have left a trail of our farming, our animals, and our language as we wove down this land on the other side of the big lake. A trail that can be traced. In my communion with God, I can see our descendants will view our work someday long into the future, long, long into the future. Ki, my older sister, my second mother, is always vigilant, afraid the giants, Doroda’s boys and even our cousin Nirra, will follow our trail.

  Nanshe calms us, saying it is our destiny to be here, for great worlds will be created from our presence here. One night, my dear husband, Morda, suffered through a dream, which, of course, I helped him recall with the methods my mother taught me. He dreamt of a great man arising from the valley below us. A man from whom great religions would arise.

  Ki, ever the cynic, the forever loyal, dismissed him, saying our mother is that great person, if only more would listen to her as faithfully as she listens. I feel so bad for Ki. I feel her pain that she cannot hear the voice as do her sisters and mother. She prays with us always, but she is an outsider to the voice who guides us. But her faith, her obedience to our mother, her will to make what is right happen, leads to my utter respect for her. I am proud to be her little sister.

  I feel too for my inseparable twin, Zirbani. As girls, we were so alike, but subtly different. Of course our mother could tell us apart, but we loved to play games with the villagers, pretending to be one another. And even though we continue to live in the same household together, we have regrettably grown apart, no fault of hers. My second marriage changed everything. My mother noted this change with great interest. She not only taught me how to comfort my cousin, my husband, each night as he experienced his dreams, but taught him, as well, how to comfort me based on the way my father did with her. She confided in me that after the battle with the giant Tureal and his son Doroda, my father was critically injured and they could no longer have children. But he found ways of comforting her without the child-making intimate capacity. She said overt sex was not the key to the maturing of a pair who, as she says, is afflicted with the dreams and visions from the object.

  And as Morda and I comforted each other each night and each morning, we grew. We grew in our ability to understand the message of the voice, the meanings of the dreams. So true what she had put into our family oral tradition: “Only with the two together can you find peace. The object. You might see in sleep, might hear. But only as man and woman.” For nonbelievers, for nonafflicted, they will not know the bliss of this togetherness, the power of it.

  Whereas our mother and her twins form the spiritual leadership of the group, she and Ki form the earthly leadership. Ki, as she always has, continues to fulfill our father’s request to teach our children, their children, and their children, the oral tradition of our ancestors. But Ki and my mother lament that, despite their best intentions, efforts, and practice, the younger generations are not recalling the traditions well, nor are they as motivated as we. For we have been successful in creating a life of peace, a life where our family, our people, prosper and can explore the world, their minds, and most importantly, our deepening relationship with God.

  Ki was so funny. She said if only we could not depend on passing the tradition down by mouth, we could ensure the safety of generations to come. I guess I cannot feel her pain as much on this point, as the voice is our continuity, but poor Ki cannot hear it. She talked with An of carving our story on rocks, stones, anything that will last forever, so the wisdom and warnings of our ancestors would not be lost. And for a woman who neither has a husband who is possessed by the dreams nor can hear the voice herself, she has great vision for the future. She convinced our mother we should build a massive monument that will last forever.

  Thus, twelve sun cycles ago, my mother willed, she persuaded the community to join together to build this monument. The word of our ways had spread rapidly, and we enjoyed the company of over forty families in our area who came to pray with us and share in the bounties of our food and our methods to plant and harvest grains, to breed and raise animals. She would say, “Activity breeds prosperity.”

  Whatever happened to my mother with the object on the other side of the lake, it not only allowed her to hear the voice, but gave her an understanding of the nature of things far beyond the comprehension of the rest of us. She showed the community how to carve, lift, and fit stones that even the giants could not lift alone. Of course, my uncle Narn and the two men who had also escaped from the pyramid-building slave camps brought the techniques they had learned from the giants. But it was this extra-special cerebral understanding of my mother that showed how.

  After we erected the two massive grand pillars, we placed the object in between them. This became our place of worship. Over Ki’s protests, my mother wanted to limit the number of carvings on these main pillars as we should not be distracted from our focus, our communion with God. Ki, just as strong-willed as Mother, asked An to carve a special smaller pillar to be placed on the side, one that would show the tail of the bird constellation. An’s sense of humor led him to invert the constellation and place the tail of the bird star at the bird’s head. Ki was not so amused. And I cannot relate, I pray to God I never have to relate, but twice in her life, Ki had the experience of facing an attacking giant with erect member. And so she asked An to carve such an erection-laden figure into this smaller pillar.

  Last moon cycle, my dearest Morda had a torturous dream. Horrors of the giants attacking our village. And horrors worse than that. Of great wars to come. Ki and An were at their wits’ end trying to figure out how to communicate the dangers that our great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren would face. She wished they had carved the most dangerous animals we know onto the pillars, but she always followed the will of our mother. She looked at the grand pillars, which were designed to show the way to the tail of the bird star, just as her father made in stones in front of her childhood house. She wished as before they could clearly communicate to our next generations the danger of the giants.

  And so they began to make another monument area, right next to the one we created. The central pillars would more clearly show the giants. On the first pillar, Ki instructed for the arms of the giant around a fox to be carved, just as Doroda fended off her pet foxes. But at the top of the side of the pillar, she had An carve the pendant. The one she has worn since she killed Doroda. The one that Nanshe has told us was worn by our aunt Illyana during the moon cycle they had known each other before our father had saved both their souls.

  A circle with a crescent below.

  Chapter 29

  Even if the aliens are short, dour, and sexually obsessed—if they’re here, I want to know about them.

  —Carl Sagan

  8:00 a.m. GMT+3, May 17, 2021

  Highway D370 west of Batman, formerly Turkey, now Anatolian Kurdish State

  The hot, dry air outside predicts searing temperatures, deadly for those who did not come prepared. But the silence in the car is far deadlier, as Zara fumes, peeved at her family, the family secret that they withheld from her, and this silly little boy next to her, who charmed them. Putty in his hands, silly little hands.

  Peter, sensing the extremely dangerous tension and seething fury in the woman next to him driving the truck, sensibly looks out his window, av
oiding her gaze and reflecting on what her family said to him this morning. While Zara and Jean-Paul were loading the truck, Maryam and Roza pulled him aside into Roza’s room.

  *

  Maryam, meeker than yesterday morning, said, “I must apologize for my actions. In my eagerness to find a good husband for my only daughter, I may have made a number of missteps with you. Clearly, the road to marriage in our culture is much different than yours.” Blushing and looking at the floor, she quietly said, “The Qur’an, much like your Bible, says that the unmarried must have no sex or paths leading to sex as one thing could lead to another. They must avoid everything that may incite one to have sex.”

  The much-less-timid Roza interceded. “That means no kissing, no sensual touching, no gazing at her sexually. Zara has had a very hard life. She was raised with great faith. She strayed. Fell upon very hard times. Lost her way and balance. Praise Xwedê, she came back to embrace her faith, our faith, and found her balance.”

  With the deep love of a mother, Maryam added, “Zara returned to being very devout and pious. It is what holds her together. We pray together many times a day each time she is back. You may mistakenly believe your affections are innocent. But if you care for her as a friend, a colleague, then you will do nothing, absolutely nothing that will pit her against her faith.”

  Roza shook her head again and excused herself; being over seventy, she could only be direct. She pointed to his crotch and said, “Keep that zipped up and tucked away. Do we have a clear understanding, young man?” And of course, a scared Peter nodded yes.

  Her finger tapped on his chest as Roza opined, “Where you are going, heed not the temptation.”

  His lips quivered as he readied himself for more admonishments of sexual thoughts about her granddaughter.

  “My Zara, your priest, they are exceptional in what they do. I am sure. You, Peter, are exceptional in ways very different from them. You are what Zara is not. And there may be a moment where your focus on what you are best at will be what she will need the most, what might save her.”

  Taking Peter’s hand, trying to settle his fears from Roza’s directness, Maryam said, “You have learned much about our ways in only a day’s time. But you must understand that Zara’s husband will need to fully embrace and practice her ways, all of them. I again apologize for my haste at inviting you to marry her.”

  A sonly Peter rubbed, then kissed her hand to show his respect for her words. She was different from his mother, but in some ways just the same. And that made him smile.

  Roza, watching this young man very carefully, nodded to Maryam, who then put a lambskin sac into his hands. Inside was a pendant, a grey stone with a carved circle with a deep center hole and a crescent below. Clasping her hands around his, she whispered, “I believe in my heart that you are the one. The one who will free my daughter from her chains. You are kind in your heart. Your head, it may need some work, which we can fix. And Zara will need your inner strength on this mission that Sasha has sent you on.”

  She held the pendant up and said, “This is very ancient, having been handed down through many, many generations. It is for Zara to pass to her children. As she had not been told about her legacy, we never shared this with her. Only show it to her if it is absolutely necessary to save her. It is on loan to you. You will give this back when you return.”

  “But Zara said I was never coming back, ever,” Peter replied.

  Maryam nodded. “I know that you will.”

  *

  Peter’s reflecting out the window is jarred by Zara admonishing Jean-Paul. “So, priest, did you have a good time with my family after I left? I heard the singing of poems and my mother’s laughter.”

  Tucked in the backseat, next to the two EM detector packs, Jean-Paul leans forward and says, “We found a lot of commonality, comparing the thinking and words of the Sufi mystics with the Catholic mystics.”

  Good, she thinks. He’s opened the door. I still don’t trust him. Jesuits are obedient to the pope, then the Church. And where do his loyalties lie?

  Like a viper, Zara whips at him. “Catholic mystics? The Catholics slaughtered innocents. The Crusaders killed two percent of the world population under Catholic orders. The Thirty Years’ War, another two percent of the world population killed. For what? And what was the role of the Jesuits? Soldiers of the White Pope? Soldiers of the Black Pope?”

  Fascinated with her command of religious history, Jean-Paul decides to turn her attitude. “Zara, I cannot defend the actions of man in the past. I can only speak for the present. And these are not the intentions of the current pope, nor the Superior General of our Order. You think of me as French, but my heritage comes from the Occitan, the south of France. And I am descendant from the Cathars, who were slaughtered by the French on the authority of Pope Innocent the Third, a Vatican-sanctioned genocide that killed a million people. For religion? No. For their lands, as the French nobles of the north wanted the lands to the south. The atrocities were committed against Catholics and Cathars alike.”

  Sighing, he continues. “In the town of Béziers, seven thousand of both faiths hid in the main church. The French commander said, ‘Kill them all, the Lord will recognize His own,’ as he burned the church down with no regard for whether they were Catholic or not.” Jean-Paul puts his hand on Zara’s shoulder and says, “I feel the pain of my people. It was not just. But I cannot hold that hatred in my heart. We must love and move on.”

  Peter chimes in, saying, “And the siege of Montségur ended with two hundred Cathar Perfects, their priests, being marched onto pyres and burned to death.”

  Jean-Paul shivers and says, “And that is my worst nightmare, being burned alive.”

  And as wickedly fast as she initiated her attack, Zara nods with a smile and nicely says, “Jean-Paul, I apologize for my attack on your faith. I had heard of the Cathars, but not in so much detail, and I did not know this was your ancestry. I am so sorry. Now I know you better.”

  With crossed legs, Peter interrupts, asking, “Can we stop for a bio break? I had too much tea at breakfast.”

  As Peter is outside the truck taking care of business, Zara turns around with a serious frown, looking at Jean-Paul square in the eyes. “I am disappointed with my family for not telling me about our affliction. I am disappointed with you as well. What have not you told me yet? I know you are conspiring with Alexander about something. Why did I have to find out my family is afflicted at my house in front of guests?”

  Jean-Paul remains silent, no serene smile, just blank. And Peter, not knowing the danger he is in by coming back into the truck, closes his door and says, “Ah, I feel so much better.”

  “Well, I hope you are happy, Little Boy,” Zara whips at him. “I am a mutant just like you. I am so happy I have not passed on this accursed disease to children. Even more reason not to have any.”

  Trying to ease her temperament, Peter jokes back. “Think of it this way—when we find the object, our alien DNA will come in handy as we try to talk with them.”

  And he has pushed the wrong button again as Zara says disdainfully, “Do not even think of blaspheming the prophets. Those who do will burn in Jahannam, either burned by fire on the skin or by boiling water across their body.”

  Tired of being pushed around and threatened by the Khatum family today, Peter fights back. “Talk about heresies, your saintliness lied about her connection to terrorists. Your brother was PKK. You lied to us. What else have you lied to us about?” He crosses his arms indignantly.

  “My brother was PKK, the same as he was YPG,” Zara affirms, “And he did not die in jail as a terrorist. He died trying to evacuate a village under air and ground attack.” Zara pulls her headscarf over her face, only exposing her eyes, and stares at Peter. “You Westerners, you think if a woman has a veil, she is a terrorist. If a man joins an ethnic organization, he must be involved with violent terrorist acts. He was fighting with the YPG in Syria, just as I had been. The line between YPG and PKK is very blurr
ed if not nonexistent. Do you call me a terrorist too?”

  She pauses to let Peter absorb her words and then says, “After he saw what happened to our grandfather, what government forces did to our villages, he moved my mother and grandmother out of Silopi, out of harm’s way to Siirt to be with Sara. And then he joined the PKK to help others escape attack.”

  And silence once again falls upon the truck.

  The once-again-serene good Father breaks the silence, saying to Zara, “Your cousin Rohat, he is someone we should not take lightly. Honor killings are another tragic part of an ancient tribal patriarchal culture. There are over two hundred per year each in Turkey and Syria. One year in Iraq, more than a thousand. Sometimes, the woman is asked to commit suicide to save the family dishonor. Sometimes it is made to look as if she committed suicide.”

  Zara adds, “The judges, they are often lenient, sympathizing with the men. I know of women who set themselves on fire to escape their families, their husbands.”

  Jean-Paul shivers again at the word fire, and he says in sympathy, “It is very sad and so tragic, indeed. Zara, have you considered exactly how Rohat knew where to find you? And on the exact date you would be there?” That gets Zara’s attention—that odd coincidence she missed in her anger towards her ultraorthodox cousin.

  While her mind chews on this coincidence, she says, “We have a saying, ‘It is better to be a male for one day than a female for ten.’ The life of rural Kurdish women is difficult. On average, they bear five to six children, in contrast to two for non-Kurdish women. The lack of access to education and good healthcare in their language prevents their empowerment. Their bodies are not their own, but belong to their husband’s family.”

  She looks at Peter and says, “You have not seen the villages in further into the mountains. Life is beautiful there. People can live off the land and mountains. They eat well and live well. But when people get displaced from their villages, poverty and hunger set in, followed by despair and depression. It is especially difficult for the women.”