Page 24 of There Are Rivers in the Sky

H— NARIN

By the River Tigris, 2014

‘ T hree more days and we’ll be on our way,’ Grandma says.

The old woman has been frantically preparing food for the road. This morning she stuffed vine leaves with rice, spices and currants, and now she is making borek – crispy pastry filled with spinach and feta cheese.

‘I’m so excited!’ Narin exclaims.

‘Me, too, my heart. May Khider take care of us on the road.’

Khider is a protective spirit. He is also the patron of travellers, learners and lovers – which, Grandma says, often amounts to the same thing.

There are invisible beings all around that offer help and guidance without humans ever realizing, let alone appreciating, it. Sore-Soran controls the winds and sends a cool breeze when it gets unbearably hot. Mama-Rasan is in charge of harvests, doing her best to grow crops. Xatuna-Farxa is the patroness of pregnant women and toddlers. Pira-Fat , for her part, watches over younger babies, particularly in their first forty days. Mama-Sivan and Garvane-Zarzan protect shepherds and their flocks. And Mama-Rasan is the one who helps when water is scarce. That is why, during times of drought, when the earth is dry like cinders, Grandma takes a ritual cup and asks Narin to write these words inside: Don’t Forget Us, Mama-Rasan . Then she holds up the cup to the skies and says, ‘Fill it, God. Fill it with Thy mercy.’

There is also Pira-Ster , a benevolent spirit who appears in the shape of a grey-haired woman. During daytime she sleeps but as soon as night falls she starts roaming about the house, moving the furniture around. She is caring, if a little crazy and unpredictable. Xud ā ne-M ā l ē , ‘master of the house’, resides inside the fireplace and keeps the family safe. Khalil-Ibrahim , a ‘friend of God’, looks after larders and pantries. Then there is Jin-Tayyar – the ‘flying djinni’. Full of mischief and not always well behaved, he likes playing tricks on people. But, while he delights in outwitting those who think they are smart, he is considerate with the weak and the vulnerable. Narin knows they are all here, somewhere. Invisible beings share the same space with the living, some outside and above the house, others much closer.

‘Sometimes kindness comes from the least expected places,’ says Grandma, as she sifts flour into a bowl. ‘Have I told you the story of Ibrahim?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, Ibrahim was God’s beloved. That is why Nemrud hated him. He said to his henchmen: build a fire, cast Ibrahim into it. Turn him into charcoal, burn him to cinders.’

‘Oh, he is cruel!’

‘He was cruel. But it’s also important to ask how everyone else behaved when calamity struck. Many just watched. Some even rushed to fetch wood, to add to the blaze. The lizard, for instance. Only a few good souls tried to save Ibrahim – like the frog. It filled its mouth with water and spat it into the flames, and kept doing this, until it was exhausted. The lizard laughed and said, “You are tiny, the fire is massive, what do you think you’ll achieve with your itty-bitty water?” But the frog said, “If I were to do nothing, would I be any different from you?” Now that was a wise frog. We must always listen to our conscience and help those in need. We don’t throw gasoline on a burning man. We carry him water.’

Narin contemplates. ‘So when did this happen?’

‘In olden times,’ replies Grandma, as she cracks two eggs into the centre of the pile of flour.

‘You always say that!’

‘Because that’s where stories live – in olden times.’

Grandma says time is a sentinel tree, marked with invisible rings inside, its straggly branches extending into the infinite sky, never perfect, never linear. In the span of a sentence a storyteller can jump back and forth centuries, as if a millennium could pass in the blink of an eye. But then it takes hours to describe a single event, every minute a stretch, an eternity.

‘Remember, my heart. Story-time is different from clock-time.’

Clock-time, however punctual it may purport to be, is distorted and deceptive. It runs under the illusion that everything is moving steadily forward, and the future, therefore, will always be better than the past. Story-time understands the fragility of peace, the fickleness of circumstances, the dangers lurking in the night but also appreciates small acts of kindness. That is why minorities do not live in clock-time.

They live in story-time.

When the borek is baked, a delicious smell wafting throughout the house, Grandma cuts a generous portion for Narin. She sets a pitcher of cold, foamy yogurt drink by her plate and smiles fondly as she watches the child tuck in.

‘When someone gives you the food they’ve prepared, they give you their heart.’

Grandma says that when she was little, there was a Muslim girl she loved to play with. The families were close and saw each other regularly. One day, on her way back from the shops, the girl’s mother stopped by their house. It was a sweltering hot afternoon, and they served her freshly cut watermelon in their shady garden. The woman turned it down with a polite smile, saying she did not like the taste of the fruit. Nor would she accept the water offered, even though anyone could see she was sweating. So they brought her a jug of delicious lemonade. This time the woman reluctantly took a glass, but as soon as she thought no one was watching she poured it away behind a tree. They were shocked to find it there after she left. And that is when they realized something they had failed to notice all this time: that, even though the two families were neighbours, and they shared many a laugh and gossip together, the girl’s parents refrained from eating their food because they regarded Yazidis as heathens.

‘They thought our bread, even our water, was haram ,’ Grandma says. ‘How can that be? We were children. We were friends.’

‘I’m so sorry, Grandma.’

‘I’m not telling this to upset you. I want to strengthen your resolve. Our ancestors were resilient and passed this resilience down through generations. But no matter how tall your grandfather, you have to do your own growing.’

‘I understand, Grandma.’

‘Remember, for all its pains and sorrows, the world is beautiful. How can it not be, when it is painted in the iridescent colours of the plumes of Melek Taw?s? If we know how to look, we can see beauty even with eyes closed.’

Narin sips her drink, a white moustache forming above her lips. When she puts down her glass, she asks, ‘How long will we be staying in Iraq?’

‘Two and a half months, my heart.’

‘What if Hasankeyf gets flooded while we are away?’

‘Don’t worry. It’ll take those bulldozers a while to build the dam.’ Grandma wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘This trip will cheer us up. Blessed are those who get to visit the holy Lalish. Do you know the legend of how our sacred valley came into being? It is all in the “Hymn of the Thousand and One Names”, “ Qewlê Hezar ? Yek Nav ”.’

‘Tell me.’

‘The hymn says that the earth rests on the head of a bull and the bull stands on the fins of a fish.’

‘No way! How is that even possible?’

‘You can’t know what is possible unless you try to imagine it first,’ says Grandma. ‘Now when God created the angels, they floated above the seas for a long time. Upon arriving in Lalish, the angels exclaimed in unison: “This is the right place!” God threw leaven into the water to make it thicken. The earth turned solid. Lalish became a place of peace and safety. That is why, when you hear the name of our valley, you must say: “Oh my Home, my Home, you are my Home!”’

As Narin repeats these words, her gaze lovingly fixed on her grandmother, for a moment it feels as if she is addressing the old woman herself: ‘Oh my Home, my Home, you are my Home!’

Home is where your loved ones are, but the reverse is also true. Those you love are your sanctuary, your shelter, your country and even, when it comes to that, your exile. Wherever they go, you will follow.

The night before they are to leave for Iraq, under a pale moonlight seeping from the open window, they curl up side by side on a mattress on the floor.

‘Are you sleeping, Grandma?’

‘Not yet, my heart.’

Narin sits up. ‘There’s something I don’t understand. If Leila was born in Nineveh, why did she come here to Hasankeyf?’

‘In the olden days both places were in the Ottoman Empire, but, more importantly, they were connected by water. The Tigris starts its journey in Turkey, flowing all the way into Iraq. It runs through mountains and valleys. People’s lives and livelihoods depend on it. Our Leila was from a village downstream.’

‘But why did she leave?’

Grandma heaves herself upright. Her long hair, hennaed and unbraided, spills on to her shoulders. ‘She had no choice. Sometimes even trees have to uproot themselves – entire forests have been known to migrate.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means, as settled as we are in this land, the winds can blow so harshly at times that they can force us out.’

‘You speak like a riddle.’

‘Riddles are how Lady Truth cloaks herself.’

‘Why would truth need to cloak herself?’

‘Because if she were to walk about naked, people would stone her in the streets.’

Grandma waits as the child considers these words. Then she says: ‘When Leila left home, she journeyed northwards, following the Tigris upstream. On horseback, all by herself. It was a difficult thing to do for a woman back then – it still is. But she made it. She settled in Castrum Kefa. This is where she got married and gave birth to her twelve children. Now, when my mother was born, it quickly became apparent that she had inherited some of Leila’s talents. Then I was born, and they realized I had more of Leila’s talents. Then my daughter – your mother – was born, may her return be easy. She had even more of Leila’s talents, but your darling mother passed away far too young.’ Grandma pauses. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘No.’

‘Pay more attention, then … Some of the women in our family have a gift. Although the nature of the gift may alter, in every generation since Leila left Nineveh it has been getting stronger. That means you, my heart, may possess even more of Leila’s talents than your mother and me and my mother combined –’

‘Me!’ Narin exclaims.

‘You, dilê min .’

The child frowns, seized by a surge of anger rising in her chest. ‘How can you say that? The doctor said I’ll go deaf.’

‘What I’m talking about has nothing to do with your condition. Water-dowsing is an awareness . The gift is not constant – otherwise we would not be able to bear its strength. There are moments of illumination, and then it wanes. Leila used to call them “dreams”. You must not be afraid of them. They may become more frequent as you get older. Be grateful, my child, be faithful. Always, honour your ancestry. There is a skill that runs in our family. We, the daughters of Leila, might have what she had, some of us a little less, others a bit more. It all depends on how you nurture what you’ve been given. It’s a talent held in trust. No one owns it. We care for it before passing it on to the next generation.’

Through the open window, a languid breeze, saturated with the smell of reeds and peaty waters, creeps along from the shore. The river now feels imminent in the same way that tomorrow seems just around the corner.

‘You said Leila foresaw that something terrible was going to happen and that’s why she stopped divining. What was it? You still haven’t explained.’

‘It was a firman .’

‘What is that?’

‘ Firman means authorization, sanction. A decree.’

‘Why is that a bad thing?’

‘Because it could also mean permission for massacre,’ Grandma says.

Narin feels her heart accelerate.

‘It was a long time ago. There was a pasha in Mosul, a greedy, selfish man who cared only about wealth and power. One of his eyes was brown, the other dull grey, like ash left over from a fire. He made a pact with a ruthless qadi to kill all Yazidi men and enslave the women. Ask the people in this region, do they remember what happened to our ancestors? Everyone has forgotten, everyone but us – and the Tigris.’

‘Is that why Leila had to escape?’

‘Yes, my heart.’ Grandma smooths a strand of hair from Narin’s face. ‘But now let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll be travelling. When we arrive in Nineveh, I’ll show you where it happened. Then you’ll understand why sometimes even rivers have to migrate from their beds.’