About a year after their marriage, my mother gave birth to a healthy baby boy. My father took a first look at his son’s robust form and named him Asad, the lion. My grandfather whispered the azaan, or call to prayer, in Asad’s newborn ear, baptizing him as a Muslim. I doubt Asad was any different then. Most likely, he didn’t hear Boba-jan’s azaan, already distracted by mischief and ignoring the call to be righteous.
Asad seemed to be born feeling he owned the world. He was, after all, my father’s first son, a source of immense pride for the family. He would carry our family name, inherit the land, and care for our parents in their golden years. As if he knew what was to be expected of him later in life, he consumed my mother and father. He nursed until my mother was raw and exhausted. My father scrambled to construct toys for his son to play with, planned for his education, and became even more intent that he bring home enough to keep his wife, a new mother, in good health and well nourished.
My mother was proud to have given her husband a son, and a healthy one at that. Fearful that the neighbors or family members would be jealous and cast an evil eye on him, she sewed a small blue stone, an amulet, to the baby clothing her sister-in-law had given her to ward off the evil eye, or nazar. That wasn’t all she did. She had an arsenal of tricks to combat the many faces of nazar. If Asad felt heavier in her hands or if a visitor commented on his pink, fleshy cheeks, she would look to her nails. She punctuated their compliments with whispers of nam-e-khoda, praising God’s name. Arrogance attracted nazar with the ferocity of lightning on an open field.
Day by day, Asad fattened off our mother’s milk, his face taking shape and his thighs thickening. Forty days after his birth, my mother breathed a sigh of relief that her son had survived the most dangerous time. My mother had seen a neighbor’s baby, two weeks after its birth, stiffen and shake desperately as if overcome by a wave of evil. The newborn’s spirit was taken before it could be named. I learned later that cutting an umbilical cord with a dirty knife probably seeded toxic bacteria in the baby’s blood. True or not, we Afghans are firm believers in not counting our chickens until forty days after they’ve hatched.
Like so many mothers, Madar-jan called upon the powers of wild rue seeds, called espand. She let a handful of the black seeds smolder and pop over an open flame, the smoke wafting above Asad’s head as she sang
It banishes the Evil eye, it is espand
The blessing of King Naqshband
Eye of nil, Eye of folks
Eye of allies, Eye of foes
Who ever wishes ill, let burn in these coals.
The song traced back to the pre-Islamic religion of Zoroastrianism, though even Muslims trusted its powers. My father watched, pleased that his wife was taking such care to safeguard his progeny. And, oh, how it must have worked! My mother’s death didn’t affect my brother’s life the way it did mine. He was still my father’s first-born, still managed to be successful in life, usually at the expense of others. His careless doings hurt those around him, often me, and yet he always seemed to emerge unscathed. In the two short years my mother nurtured him, he had gained enough strength to secure his place in the world.
But my mother died before she could pin an amulet to my gown, before she could whisper nam-e-khoda, before she could look at her fingernails, and before she could lovingly waft the espand over my head. My life became a series of misfortunes, a product of unthwarted evil eyes. My birth was haunted by the death of my mother and, while Boba-jan mournfully whispered the azaan in my ear, a very different prayer was being said over my mother’s depleted body. The azaan, spoken in my grandfather’s voice, wove its way through to the fabric of my being, telling me to keep faith. My salvation was that I listened.
My mother was buried in a newly dedicated cemetery near our home. I didn’t visit much, partly because no one would take me and partly because of my lingering guilt. I knew I had put her there and people would remind me of that.
My father became a young widower with a two-year-old son and a newborn daughter. My brother, unruffled by our mother’s absence, crankily went about his toddler business, while I naïvely sought my mother’s bosom. With two children now in the nest, my father buried his bride and began looking for a new mother for his children.
My grandfather hastened the process, knowing a newborn would not fare well in the unintuitive care of a man. As vizier, he was familiar with all the families in the neighborhood. He knew a local farmer who had five daughters, and the eldest was of marrying age. Boba-jan was sure the farmer, burdened with providing for five girls until they wed, would be agreeable to his son as a suitor.
My grandfather went to the farmer’s home and, praising his son as a noble and trustworthy person who had the misfortune to be widowed early in life, he negotiated the engagement of the eldest daughter to my father. Gently emphasizing that the welfare of two small babes were to be taken into consideration, the process moved quickly. In months, Mahbuba entered our home where she was renamed, as most brides were, with a “house name.” It’s meant to be respectful, not calling a woman by her familiar name. I think it’s more than that, though. I think it’s a way of telling the bride not to look back. And sometimes that’s a good thing.
KokoGul, as the eldest of five sisters, had cared for her younger siblings from an early age and was fully capable of tending to two children. She decided quickly not to live in my mother’s shadow. She rearranged the few decorative pieces in our home, discarded my mother’s clothing, and erased all evidence of her existence, save my brother and me. We were the only proof that she was not the first wife, an important distinction even if the first wife was dead.
It was more common then for men to take on multiple wives, a practice that stemmed from times of war and the need to provide for widows, I’d been told. Practically speaking, this created a certain undercurrent of tension among the wives. The status of the first wife could not be matched by those that followed. KokoGul was robbed of the opportunity to be the first wife by a woman she never met, a woman she could not challenge. Instead, she was forced to rear the first wife’s children.
KokoGul was not an evil woman. She did not starve me, beat me, or throw me out of the house. In fact, she fed me, bathed me, clothed me, and did all the things a mother should. When I stumbled upon language, I called her Mother. My first steps were toward her, the woman who nursed me through childhood fevers and scrapes.
Yet all this was done at arm’s length. It didn’t take long for me to feel her resentment though it would be years before I could give it a name. My brother was the same but different. Within months, he transferred the title of “mother” to KokoGul and forgot that there had been another woman in her place. She tended to his needs with a bit more diligence, knowing that he was the key to my father’s heart. My complacent father, when at home, was satisfied that he had found his children a suitable mother. My grandfather, more astute with years, knew to watch over us. He was a constant presence.
I wasn’t an orphan. I had parents and siblings, a warm home and enough food. I should have felt complete.
But being without a mother is like being stripped naked and thrown into the snow. My biggest fear, the dread that grows alongside my love for my children, is that I may leave them in the same way.
I wonder if that fear will ever pass.
CHAPTER 2
Fereiba
KOKOGUL WAS A PLEASANT-LOOKING WOMAN, BUT SOMEONE YOU wouldn’t notice in a crowded room. She was nearly as tall as my father, with thick black hair that just grazed her shoulders. It was the kind of hair that would fall limp just minutes after the curlers came out. She was too buxom to look dainty and too thin to appear commanding. KokoGul had been painted with a palette of average colors.
Two years after she married my father, KokoGul delivered her first child, a daughter, a disappointment she promptly blamed on my mother’s ghost. My half sister was named Najiba, after my deceased grandmother. Najiba had KokoGul’s round face, and dark eyes framed by thick, arched b
rows. KokoGul, following tradition, lined her daughter’s lids with kohl so she would have healthy eyesight and striking eyes. For the first two months, KokoGul spent hours trying to make some concoction of fennel seeds and herbs that would soothe Najiba’s colic and stop her howling. Until her temperament calmed, mother and daughter were a sleep-deprived, ornery duo.
KokoGul’s patience with her stepchildren wore even thinner once her own daughter was born. Even more aware than before that we were not her own, she was quickly exasperated and lashed out at us with the swift strike of a viper. We were disciplined by the back of her hand. Meals were laid out with disinterest and inconsistency when my father was away. We ate as a family only when he came home at the day’s end.
With Najiba’s birth, KokoGul’s womb warmed to the idea of carrying children, and over the next four years she delivered three more girls. With each pregnancy, her patience shortened and my father, preferring peaceful days but unable to demand them, grew more distant. Sultana was born a year after Najiba. KokoGul did not make any effort to hide the fact that she had been hoping for a son, unlike my curiously disinterested father. With her third pregnancy almost two years later, she prayed, reluctantly gave alms to the poor, and ate all the foods that she heard would guarantee her a male child. Mauriya’s birth disappointed her and she believed that my mother’s spirit had placed a powerful curse on her womb. When Mariam, my fourth sister was born, KokoGul was not in the least disappointed or surprised. Feeling thwarted by my dead mother, she bitterly resolved not to have any more children. Asad would be my father’s only son.
MY EARLIEST MEMORY SHOULD HAVE HAD SOMETHING TO DO with school or a favorite doll, but that was not the childhood I had. KokoGul lay on a cushion in the living room, a newly born Mauriya nestled beside her, tightly swaddled in a prayer shawl. I was five years old.
“Fereiba!” KokoGul bellowed. Mauriya’s tiny face grimaced, too tightly bound to react in any other way.
“Yes, Madar-jan.” I was only steps away. KokoGul, still recovering from childbirth, was to do nothing but nurse the baby. I knew this because she’d reminded me of it often.
“Fereiba, your aunt left some chicken stew still simmering on the fire. There’s hardly enough for all of us. Why don’t you get some potatoes from outside so we’ll have enough to feed everyone.”
This meant two things. One, that my father and brother would be the only ones eating chicken tonight and the rest of us would have to settle for stewed potatoes. And two, that I would have to go out into the frosted backyard to dig out some spuds. Earlier in the season, we had buried a stash of potatoes, radishes, carrots, and turnips behind the house where they were refrigerated in the earth.
“Madar, can’t you tell Asad to get them?” It was cold out, and I could already imagine myself struggling with the shovel.
“He’s not here and we need the potatoes now or they won’t be ready in time for dinner. Put on the coat and mittens your father bought you. It’ll only take you a few minutes.”
I didn’t want to go.
“Go on, sweetheart. Help your mother, will you?”
Her endearments were like powdered sugar on burnt bread. I bit into it.
I remember struggling with a shovel that was as tall as me, then giving up and finding a trowel that I could actually manage. My breath seemed to crystallize in the icy air and my fingers were numb despite my mittens. Hurriedly, I picked out four potatoes and was about to rebury the rest when I saw a few radishes. For no real reason that I can recall, I brought the radishes in as well, stuffing them in my pockets since my hands were full.
“I got them, Madar-jan,” I called out from the kitchen.
“Good girl, Fereiba. God bless you. Now wash and peel them and toss them into the pot so they can cook in the tomato sauce.” Mauriya had started to whimper.
I did as KokoGul instructed and cut the potatoes as she’d taught me, careful not to slice my fingers in the process. On a whim, I washed and cut the radishes as well, tossing them into the pot as a bit of culinary creativity. I stirred once, re-covered the aluminum vessel, and went to check on my other sisters.
“What is that awful smell? Fereiba! What have you done?” KokoGul’s voice traveled through our home as if it had legs and a will. I’d noticed the smell earlier but dismissed it with the carelessness of a five-year-old.
I didn’t think I had anything to do with the smell until KokoGul pulled herself to her feet, walked into the kitchen, and lifted the aluminum top. A pungent cloud of steam filled the room. I covered my nose with my hand, surprised I’d missed this smell.
“Fereiba, you fool! You fool!” She repeated those words over and over again, shaking her head and huffing, one hand on the small of her back.
The red flesh of my cubed radishes had told KokoGul exactly what I’d done. I learned that day that those hard, fuchsia bulbs let out a horrible stench when cooked. It was a smell I would never forget and a feeling I would always remember.
AFTER EACH BIRTH, THE ROUTINE KOKOGUL USED WITH NAJIBA was repeated. The babies’ eyes were lined with kohl, sweets were purchased when they’d survived forty days, and their heads were shaved to give them full, thick locks. I was left to mourn the miserable eyesight, fortune, and hair I would have since none of that had been done for me.
When it came time for me to attend school, KokoGul convinced Padar-jan that she needed my assistance at home with the younger children. My father, unable to afford help, agreed to have me stay back a year. Though I was young, I was useful—able to fetch things and do small chores. But even as my sisters grew, the same argument prevailed.
Thankfully, Boba-jan, my grandfather, kept a close eye on us. He dropped by frequently, and KokoGul’s behavior was notably different in his presence. He would call Asad and me to walk with him, his pockets jingling with coins and candies; there was no visitor we looked forward to more than Boba-jan. He would ask us to recite our prayers while he inspected our clothing and pinched the fat of our arms. KokoGul would watch him out of the corner of her eye, resentful of his mistrust.
But Boba-jan’s visits didn’t change much for me at home. As my sisters got older and KokoGul busied herself caring for them, I shouldered more and more of the household chores. I fed the chickens and tended to the goat. I beat the carpets daily and watched the younger girls. When Najiba reached school age, KokoGul argued that there was more to do than she could manage alone. My father conceded and I was relegated to home for another year. My younger sisters trotted off to learn the alphabet and numbers while I learned how to cook. My hands were chafed and cracked from scrubbing food stains from dirty clothes. Still, it stung more to stay in the kitchen while everyone else busily dressed for school in the morning.
KokoGul’s mania for superstitions made the situation even more maddening. Superstitions abound in our culture, but KokoGul took them on with a special zeal. We could not sleep with socks on, lest we go blind. If anyone dropped a piece of silverware, I was tasked with cleaning the house from top to bottom in anticipation of guests. If she coughed while eating or drinking, she cursed those who were undoubtedly speaking ill of her somewhere. I think that was her favorite, the conviction that others were jealous of the relatively privileged life she had.
As if popular superstitions weren’t enough, KokoGul created plenty of her own. Two birds flying overhead meant she would get into an argument with a close friend. If her onions burned on the fire, someone was bad-mouthing her cooking, and if she sneezed more than twice, evil spirits were toying with her. Padar-jan said nothing to KokoGul but would quietly tell us which interpretations she had invented so that we wouldn’t share them with others. He shouldn’t have bothered. KokoGul wasn’t the type to keep her thoughts to herself, and all the neighbors were familiar with her fantastic theories.
In one corner of our orchard stood a cluster of striking mulberry trees, their overgrown branches draped down, bringing tiny fruits within arm’s reach. The trees were mature with heavy, rooted trunks. One tree in the ce
nter of the group had bark so knotted and gnarled that KokoGul swore she could make out the face of an evil spirit in its woody convolutions. She was petrified of the bark-carved face but loved the mulberries that came from the branches above. Whenever KokoGul fancied mulberries, she would summon me.
“Fereiba-jan,” she would call sweetly, pulling a ceramic bowl from the cupboard. “I need you to fetch some berries from the orchard. You know no one else can pluck those little fruits as delicately as you. I’ll get nothing but jam if I send anyone else to pick them.”
Her cajoling was unnecessary, but knowing KokoGul was too frightened to come out herself made me smile. As a skinny, stringy-haired twelve-year-old, I feared KokoGul more than the mysterious maze of trees in the orchard. In fact, in the light of day, when the house was full of people and demands, the orchard was my refuge.
One weekday night, with my sisters hunched over homework assignments, KokoGul was struck with a craving for mulberries. Obediently, I crept out the back door with an empty bowl and made my way to the familiar tree, the twisted bark snarling in the amber moonlight. Without daylight to help me, I let my fingers float through the leaves and guide me to the berries. I’d plucked no more than two or three when I felt a soft breeze behind me, as gentle as a whisper.
I turned around to see a luminous figure, a man, standing behind me. I dared not breathe as he placed his hand on my shoulder, so lightly that I hardly felt his touch.
I followed his long tapered fingers to his arm until I could take in all of him. He was old; a short, white beard covered his chin and crisscrossed wrinkles lined his face. Thick, white brows hung heavily, leaving just slits of his blue-gray eyes. He was a friend, I knew instantly. My racing heart slowed at the tender sound of his voice.