Page 51 of There Are Rivers in the Sky

—H 2 O— NARIN, ZALEEKHAH, ARTHUR

By the River Tigris, 2018

T hey are opening the floodgates today. The water will start pouring through the finished dam, a forceful, ceaseless flow – roaring, expanding, demanding its own quantum of space. The level of the reservoir will rise imperceptibly at first, but it will soon fill up. Each day the water will climb another 35 centimetres, reaching 20 metres in a couple of months. By the end of this year, Castrum Kefa will be completely inundated, the ancient walled city submerged for generations to come.

Watching her surroundings, Zaleekhah feels a swelling sadness wash over her, an acute awareness of things coming to an end. The landscape – barren, baked and treeless – resembles the underbelly of an animal fallen on its back, struggling to flip itself over, just as small and helpless.

‘Are you all right?’ asks Nen. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘Soft-shelled turtles …’ Zaleekhah says with a distracted smile. ‘They used to lay eggs by the Euphrates, but when the hydroelectric power stations destroyed the reed banks they were forced to migrate here to the Tigris. And now this refuge is also ruined … I wonder where they’ll be able to go next?’

Nen listens, attentive as always. After a heartbeat, she asks gently, ‘Did you manage to talk to your uncle?’

Zaleekhah shakes her head. ‘He won’t take my phone calls. Nor will my aunt. I don’t think they’ll forgive me for a long time, maybe ever. But I did manage to get through to Helen. It was the most difficult conversation I’ve had in my life. She was quite shaken, devastated. It had all been scheduled in and now they’re back at the bottom of the waiting list. I feel awful.’

Nen removes a strand of hair from Zaleekhah’s face. ‘You did the right thing – the difficult thing.’

‘Helen understands. She and I, we’re looking for another donor – through official channels this time. I’ll do everything I can to help her. I won’t leave her and Lily alone.’

Nen nods. ‘Ready to go see Narin?’

‘Ready.’

They climb the steep hill, falling naturally into step. Past a broken splintered fence, the ancient cemetery stretches, its border blending with the horizon. The girl is there. She wished to spend time alone by her ancestors’ graves, and, to give her privacy, Nen and Zaleekhah have been rambling around for the last half an hour, exploring the surroundings.

They bought Narin from a dealer who did business with a dealer who did business with ISIS. They paid $3,200 – the market price for a human being on that particular day. Most of the money came from the tattoo shop. They had assistance from locals, people who wanted to help. It was no secret that one more Yazidi slave was being held captive in a house in a busy suburb in a booming city in Turkey, just as thousands of others were still in family homes in Syria, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia … prisoners in ordinary neighbourhoods where life went on as normal.

As the two women enter the old graveyard with its crumbling stones and tangled weeds, they fall silent. Further up the dust-ridden track, Narin’s sylphlike frame is haloed by the baking sun. The girl has not heard them coming and will not notice their presence until they stand in front of her. So as not to scare her, Zaleekhah and Nen pause for a moment. Though they will not voice this out loud, they both wonder in that instant how long will it take for the child to recover. The other possibility is too harrowing to contemplate: that the wounds are so deep they might never heal, the heart might never forget. For now, they are glad they were able to bring her to her birthplace before it is lost forever.

Meanwhile, a few metres away, sitting on the scorched grass, Narin has withdrawn into her silent world. She has laid flowers by the graves of her mother and her great-great-grandmother Leila … Her beloved Grandma Besma is not here, buried in a mass grave in Iraq. The child has no idea whether her father is alive, but she clings fiercely to the prospect that someday they will find each other. In the afternoon she will speak to her relatives in Germany. When they found out she was alive, they were ecstatic. Maybe one day Narin will join them in Hanover. She is also aware that Zaleekhah and Nen want to bring her to London with them. What she doesn’t know is how difficult it is to get the necessary permissions and paperwork for any such move. Nothing is clear yet. The only definite thing is that her old life is no more.

In a little while, Narin lifts her chin, as if to catch some scent from the riverbank, and sees the two women waiting for her – like figures hovering at the edge of a dream. Her face remains motionless. Neither relief nor recognition, only nothingness.

Slowly, the women approach the girl. Something unexpected happens then. As Zaleekhah proffers her hand to help her stand, her sleeve hitches up a little and Narin notices the tattoo on her wrist – identical to the deq on Grandma’s forehead. Blinking back her tears, she stares at the image, the confusion and sorrow in her eyes joined by a new feeling – a tiny seed of trust that one day may or may not grow into something stronger.

The three of them pick their way through the scattered rocks and sparse undergrowth, heading back to the shabby hotel where they will spend the night. Before they leave the cemetery, Narin points out a tombstone, on which Nen and Zaleekhah are surprised to find an eccentric inscription in English: King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums . As they read, murmuring in puzzlement, Narin, unbeknown to them, gives a subtle nod in its direction, a last goodbye to Arthur before the waters arrive.

It is only a matter of time now, and time, like an ancient tablet, is breaking apart, faster than anyone can reassemble it. Tomorrow, when the last remaining poems of Mesopotamia are submerged and all that was Hasankeyf has drowned, people will speak of the destruction of culture and environment and the memories of the land, though no one, not even the river itself, will remember that it all began with a single raindrop.

A droplet from the Tigris ascends ever so slowly, evaporating under the sun, a gauzy spiral of mist. An eternal cycle starts to repeat itself, from liquid to vapour to solid. Tears from the destroyed cities of Mesopotamia mingle with the haze of torrents yet to come. As the cloud passes over continents, it freezes into crystals. A snowflake falls over London, see-sawing rapidly towards a newborn baby lying on the icy ground. And the infant looks up at the mystery that is water, all flurry and movement, now silver, now blue, the most beautiful, deepest blue. And if we could only see the world through a baby’s eyes, gazing up with innocent wonder, we could watch the rivers in the sky. Mighty rivers that never cease to flow.