Page 37 of There Are Rivers in the Sky
—O— ARTHUR
By the River Tigris, 1872
? ar?ema Sor , ‘Red Wednesday’ – the festival that welcomes spring and hails new beginnings. The day the universe was created from a white pearl, and water and land were separated from each other. A time of rebirth and revival. April is ‘the bride of the year’. The villagers boil eggs and paint them in the brightest colours, ready for the festive game hekkane . A mixture of broken eggshells, wild flowers and clay is applied to the entrances of homes. They decorate the graves, celebrating the arrival of the new year with the living and the dead.
The whole week a frenzy of cleaning consumed the village of Zêrav. Wherever Arthur turned, he saw people washing carpets, scrubbing stoves, sweeping compacted earth floors. Now the sheikh knocks on each door to distribute a loaf of bread – and yeast to use as leaven. Wealthier families slaughter sheep, sharing the meat with those who cannot afford it. They melt the fat of sacrificial animals to make candles – ?ire . The large candles will be lit for God, the medium for the angels, the small for humans. All these traditions are as old and unchanging as the mountains.
The children are puzzled when Arthur tells them that where he comes from the new year takes place not when blossom garlands the trees, chicks call from nests, lambs bounce around and the earth is revived but in the midst of freezing winter. They smile at him politely, displaying the gaps between their teeth. They do not want to offend the Englishman with his blue eyes and bizarre customs.
On the seventh sunset, it is time to celebrate. They gather inside and around the sheikh’s house, bringing food and flowers. Through the open windows wafts the smell of rosemary, honeysuckle, sage and wild garlic. Arranged neatly on a table are seven pieces of meat, seven loaves of bread and seven clusters of raisins. Arthur is invited to join, although it is unusual for an outsider to attend the ceremony. He is deeply moved. He understands they are making an exception for him. They see him as a friend. It occurs to him on that night that there is a side to friendship that resembles faith. Both are built on the fragility of trust.
A sherbet in his hand, Arthur retreats to a corner. Life feels blissful, and he hopes that the new year will bring joy to these people who have been so kind to him. In a little while, Leila enters the room – she is wearing a long white robe with red-and-black trim sewn across her chest. She carries a daf , every so often striking its edge. Tonight she will be divining. The children are escorted outside. This is not for them to see.
The faqra ’s fingers move towards the centre of the daf , reaching its heart. As she plays the instrument, she slightly sways. The candles burn, shadows dance on the walls, and, outside the room, darkness gathers. Arthur does not dare to make a sound, let alone ask a question. He senses what he is about to witness is an arcane ritual. He will never know whether they have forgotten he is in the room, or whether they are allowing him into a sacred moment.
Leila starts to sing – a haunting melody, dirge-like. Her voice keeps rising and falling. One moment she is a young woman, but the next she sounds ageless, featureless, a creature of water and foam. When she speaks it is no longer in Kurdish. Arthur feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The words pouring from her lips are remarkably similar to Akkadian, the ancient Semitic language of Mesopotamia. It enthrals him, the mirroring of the consonants. Yet again he finds himself wondering whether the Yazidis could be the descendants of a civilization that flourished in this region thousands of years back. But there is no time for scholarly musings. The music accelerates, Leila’s fingers rhythmically tapping the surface of the daf . And, just like that, she slides into a trance.
She starts spinning – fast, faster. Then, all of a sudden, she covers her face with both hands. Trembling, she releases a scream. Although it does not last long, the pain in her voice is so intense it reverberates across the room. Lines of worry appear on her forehead. Her face is waxen, as if drained of blood. She mutters something incomprehensible, but, between strange words, Arthur picks out one that he instantly recognizes.
‘ Firman! ’
Bewildered, Arthur leans forward. Her use of this familiar word throws him. He whispers to the sheikh’s son, ‘What does she mean?’
‘A massacre.’
‘A massacre?’
‘She is saying this will happen to our people. An enemy will come, some outsiders, others from around here. They will kill the men and abduct the women and the girls. She says their cruelty will know no limits.’
‘But I don’t understand. Firman means …’ Arthur halts as it dawns on him that the same word – permission, order, authorization – can also stand for a licence to attack and kill. A licence for the decimation of a whole community.
Dropping the daf , Leila falls to her knees, shaking so fiercely that her teeth begin to chatter. Tears stream down her cheeks. Horrified, Arthur lurches forward as if to hold her, but the sheikh bars his way with his cane. There is a barrier, a line he cannot cross. Quietly, Arthur takes a step back. Whatever horror she is predicting must be heard.
When the firman strikes, the faqra says, the tomb of Nabi Yunus, the prophet Jonah, will be destroyed. Sacred sites will be reduced to ruins. Many will die; others will experience such brutality that they will wish they had.
‘ I see men, armed and trained, their hearts of stone
I see my village burn, my home razed,
Cries of the elderly, hills of bone. ’
Everyone in the room is silent. Some are weeping without a sound. No one dares to interrupt.
‘ The day they come to kill us
run to the mountain.
Do not go near the water,
river, well nor fountain. ’
Leila falls quiet, having nothing else left to share. Exhausted and sapped of all emotion, she rises to her feet. Slowly, she walks out. Although she is still in a half-conscious state, when she comes to her senses, she will remember every word. Memory is a burden, and no one understands this better than Arthur.
As soon as the door opens, the children scamper back to the room, delighted to be allowed in again, eager to taste the food and join the evening. Their faces aglow, they clutch their parents’ hands and ask what the faqra said, and whether it was good and joyful. The adults struggle to find their voices.
That night, Arthur is unable to fall asleep. His mind keeps circling back to the same question. So many civilizations and creeds have bloomed, thrived and withered across this region. But they must all have retained the belief that the future, their future, would somehow be better than the past, that tomorrow the sun would glow brighter and the shadows diminish. The Yazidis have a long-established tradition of divination. How does a people survive the painful realization that not only is their history full of oppression, persecution and massacres, but their future may also offer more of the same?
The next afternoon, Arthur sits by the River Tigris. The heat is insufferable, the mosquitoes even more so. The remains of Nineveh break his heart. This wasn’t what he was expecting. When he arrived here, all he had imagined was that it was his responsibility to unearth antiquities and take them back to England. He wasn’t prepared for the sadness that keeps pecking at his breast like a vulture at a carcass.
The faqra ’s premonitions have bored into his soul. If they are true, does it really help a person, or a community, to learn what terrible fate lies ahead? All his life Arthur has made every effort to broaden his experience and expand his knowledge. He never thought there would come a day when he would wonder if it were preferable to live in innocence and die in ignorance instead.
Something is changing – he can sense it. It is in the orb of the sun, the swell of the river, the harsh trills and screams of starlings massing in billowing clouds – a gathering in the air like a premonition.