An excerpt from the novel Yazan Yazan
It wasn’t with you that I first became a mother. I should have told you that. Didn’t I? Well, I’m telling you now.
Bashir came before you. He fell into my lap when I was still a child myself, still at primary school. You should have seen me then, setting off for school in my pinafore dress, its straps crossing at the back, and a long-sleeved pink blouse over it; pink shoes and white socks reaching almost to my knees. Every morning Mother scraped my scalp with a comb, wound my hair around her hand and pulled it straight before tying it with a pink ribbon.
I loved school, but I had few friends there. Mother belonged to the parents’ association and had warned Mrs Razeghi not to let me mix with children whose families were not “of any standing.” Mrs Razeghi, an old classmate of hers, never took her eyes off me. The other children noticed. No one wanted to sit beside me. They sat three to a bench; I was given a chair of my own.
When the second school year ended, Mother, Yasaman and I went to the summer pastures of Talesh. Shanderman was full of children—“village children,” dirty children, as Mother called them. They spoke with an accent I could not understand. Mother watched me like a hawk to make sure my clothes and shoes stayed clean.
I sat alone and played by myself—with the clouds, and with the branch of a pomegranate tree that peered through the window and now and then tossed a crimson flower towards me. I loved playing with flowers. Khanom-Jan taught me to thread orange blossoms into necklaces and bracelets, and to make rings and earrings from pomegranate flowers. In the afternoons, while everyone slept, I wore a crown of flowers and lived through a hundred stories.
Kobra’s mother came every day to wash clothes. One day she brought Kobra with her. She was my height and had a doll made of cotton and cloth, called Gisheh, with hair of yellow wool. Kobra spoke to her as if she were a real child. My doll was plastic, rosy-cheeked, with arms and legs that came off. Grandfather had brought her back from Damascus. I had named her Shirin.
To make Kobra jealous, I swapped Shirin’s arms and legs. Kobra was upset. She wept for the doll and spoke in her voice: “Why did you put my hands and feet in the wrong places? How would you feel if somebody did that to you?”
At first I was ashamed. Then I grew stubborn and pulled off Shirin’s head as well. Kobra sulked and would not play with me. For the first time in my life, I could not bear to have someone angry with me. I followed her and pleaded until at last she forgave me. She made me promise to be kind to Shirin. When her mother finished work and they were leaving, we exchanged dolls.
I sat in a corner talking to Gisheh. Gisheh was shy and would not answer. Mother came in.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Gisheh.”
“Where did you get that filthy rag? Where is Shirin?”
“She’s gone to Kobra’s for a visit.”
Mother’s voice rose to the rafters. “You traded a foreign doll—your grandfather’s gift from Damascus—for this rag of a handkerchief case?”
She would not even wait until nightfall. She tore Gisheh from my hands, summoned Gol-Agha and ordered him to go up to the village and bring Shirin back. Gol-Agha muttered that he had to watch Bamani. “I can’t leave her alone. The poor mare has been in pain for two days. I sent for the farrier, but no one can find him. God knows which hole he has crawled into. Better wait until tomorrow. I have to tend to this poor speechless creature.”
Mother said nothing. She merely looked at him—a look worse than a hundred curses. Gol-Agha went back to the stable, threw his Taleshi choqa over his shoulders, put on his leather chomosh, and set out beneath a rain that showed no sign of stopping. The sun had gone down when he returned. He drew Shirin from under his cloak and held her out to me. I would not take her. Mother dried her with a towel and set her on the mantelpiece.
I went to the storeroom and hid in the cupboard. Whenever I did not want to meet anyone’s eyes, that was where I went. Everyone knew it; no one was allowed to open the door. Khanom-Jan knew too. She always left something there for me to eat.
Then strange sounds reached me: moaning, neighing, Gol-Agha swearing and pleading tenderly with someone. I opened the cupboard. No one was there. Khanom-Jan was nowhere to be seen. Mother had spread a pillow in the talar room and was asleep. She slept through most of the day.
I slipped past the ladder, pushed my feet into a pair of wooden clogs and followed the sounds. The stables stood some distance behind the house. The horses said to be part of Mother’s dowry were kept there. The main herd, people said, lived higher in the mountains, and sick or wounded animals were brought down to these stalls.
The stable door was open. I stood at the threshold until my eyes grew used to the dark. Gol-Agha was beside Bamani, rubbing her belly and soothing her. He pretended not to see me. At last he came over.
“Does your mother know you’re here?”
I said nothing.
“It’s cold and dirty here. Go back to the house.”
I still said nothing. He took his cloak from a nail and spread it over a stump. “Sit here, then, and don’t come any closer. Bamani is in terrible pain. She may kick. Keep your distance and watch.”
I sat and watched.
“She should have foaled last night,” he said. “She suffered until morning. She has no strength left. Perhaps your feet will bring her luck.”
I did not know what kind of luck feet could bring.
Gol-Agha had melted tallow over a brazier. He bared his arms to the elbows, greased them, took hold of a rope and pushed one arm deep inside the mare. As he worked, he sang a Deylami song:
The sky hangs heavy, Bamani,
and sorrow grips my heart.
Who has taken my child from me?
Must I die for love of you?
Stay, Bamani, when I am gone—
oh, my life, Bamani,
oh, my heart, Bamani.
He told me an animal in such pain might strike anyone who came close, smash a skull so hard the brains would spill into the mouth. “I think the cord is caught around the foal’s head.”
He found a leg inside her and cried, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” His arm moved within the mare up to the shoulder. Bamani strained and bit the plank of the water trough. She beat her head against the wall. The stable shook. Gol-Agha tied the rope around the foal’s leg, rubbing Bamani’s belly with his free hand. I began to sing with him:
My heart is in the fire, Bamani,
the flames have taken hold.
From my eyes a river runs;
my eyes still watch the road for you,
my soul still burns for you.
Let me be your sacrifice—
my heart lies faint for you.
Oh, my life, Bamani,
oh, my heart, Bamani.
The mare strained. One of the foal’s legs appeared; the rest of its body remained hidden. Bamani roared. Gol-Agha was frantic. He called me over.
“Come, my girl. Take the end of the rope. Pull from a distance and don’t let the leg slip back in. Gently now.”
I wound the rope around my wrist. Gol-Agha crouched beneath Bamani, bending his back as if he meant to carry the mare on his shoulders. He pressed his head and shoulder against her swollen, misshapen belly, trying to drive the foal out. I pulled. Bamani strained. Gol-Agha strained. I was not strong enough to draw out those small legs.
“Pull! Pull!” he shouted.
I pulled with all my strength.
“In God’s name, animal—push! Once more… there, good girl!”
Bamani gave one last heave. Gol-Agha let out one last roar. I pulled with every scrap of strength in my hands, and the foal slid out like a piece of raw flesh. Gol-Agha sprang forward, caught it in his sheepskin coat and laid it on a mound of straw.
“We’ll call him Bashir,” he said. “Bashir—the bearer of glad tidings. A name of good omen.”
Bashir’s eyes were open. He looked at me as if he wanted to know me. I wiped away my tears and stepped towards him. Gol-Agha’s voice had fallen to a whisper. “Bismillah, Bismillah—in the name of God,” he murmured, reciting prayers and blowing his breath over the foal.
He told me to keep away and not touch him. “If your scent gets on him, his mother may refuse him. She’ll push him away and the poor creature will be orphaned.”
I drew back. Gol-Agha did not touch him with his bare hands either. He took a fistful of straw and wiped away the blood and slime, then lifted him in the sheepskin and placed him beside his mother. Bamani licked him. Gol-Agha’s face lit up. He rubbed his hands together. “It’s all right. When a mare licks her foal, it means she has accepted him.”
He cut the cord. Bashir kicked feebly and tried to stand, but fell. His mother nudged him with her muzzle, urging him up. I begged God to let him rise on his own legs. Bashir stood, and I cried out with delight. Gol-Agha put a finger to his lips. Without looking around, Bashir went straight to his mother’s udder. Gol-Agha motioned for us to leave mother and child alone.
Mother had heard me and came running. She seized my hand and dragged me away.
“Shame on you! Are you some muleteer’s brat? What are you doing in a stable? Look at you—straw all over your clothes, cobwebs in your hair. I only just knitted that woollen dress, and you take it into a filthy stall!”
She was in a foul temper. She was always in a foul temper. She hauled me to the well and shouted for someone to draw water so she could wash “this wretched creature’s” face and hands. The Taleshi women hurried over, lowered a bucket, poured the water into an ewer and stood ready to pour it over Mother’s hands. One look at the vessel made her recoil.
“You take that thing to the privy and wash your backsides with it, and now you want to pour water from it over my daughter?”
The women shrank back in shame. Khanom-Jan, sitting on the veranda, rescued them. “Golshan-Jan, take that pitcher instead. The pitcher is clean, and so is its water.”
Afterwards, no matter what Mother did, I would not go upstairs. I sat in a corner of the veranda, chirping with the chicks as they pecked grain in the yard, and sang a Deylami song to a kid tethered to a tree. I stayed there until afternoon. Mother returned to the talar room, took up her woven fan and went to sleep. The other women went back to their work.
Khanom-Jan came quietly and sat beside me. “What has made your heart so heavy?”
I said nothing. She handed me bread with cheese and fried egg. “Eat this, and I’ll take you to see Bashir.”
I ate in a hurry. I can still taste the sharpness of the Siamazgi cheese beneath my tongue, and the buttermilk that followed it. Before we set off, Khanom-Jan took a loose flowered dress from the washing line and put it over my clothes. “Here—this will keep your woollen dress clean.” Then, as if speaking to herself, she added, “Lady Malek can tell her own backside not to follow her because it smells.”
Before we reached the stable, we saw Gol-Agha sitting by the stone trough, sharpening a sickle.
“May God give you strength, Gol-Agha,” Khanom-Jan said. “You stayed awake with Bamani all night. It’s time you slept.”
“I can’t sleep, my lady. Bamani is not well at all.”
“God have mercy on her. It was her first birth. God alone knows what mothers suffer the first time. They die and come alive again.”
“May God hear you and spare her to us this once.”
“Have you lost hope, then? Is she so bad?”
“Very bad, my lady. Can’t you see what I’m sharpening?”
“God strike me dead.”
When we opened the stable door, Bamani lay on her side, her head crooked and one leg suspended in the air. Bashir had her teat in his mouth and was suckling. Khanom-Jan beckoned Gol-Agha and whispered in his ear. He slipped a rope around Bashir’s neck, handed me the end and said, “Now it is your turn to look after this child of yours. Take him to the trough and give him water while we see how we can feed him.”
I busied myself with Bashir. Khanom-Jan rubbed a leather feeding bag against Bamani’s udder, filled it with another mare’s milk and gave it to me.
“From now on, you are his mother. Feed your child slowly through this opening. When it is empty, tell me and I’ll fill it again.”
I did not ask what happened to Bamani. I did not want to give Bashir back. Wherever I went, he followed. I never had to pull the rope. If I ran, he ran. If I stopped, he stopped. Soon neither of us could bear a moment apart. Whenever Mother was out of sight, I drank from the same leather bag I used to feed him. I held my plate under his nose, but he would not eat.
“Bashir doesn’t like ghormeh sabzi.”
“Of course he doesn’t,” Mother said. “He mustn’t and can’t eat herb stew. He drinks milk. When he grows, he’ll eat grass. Animals should eat their own food.”
Even Mother was no longer strong enough to separate us. Bashir drew the village children around me. Kobra came too, carrying Gisheh. I walked in front, Bashir trotted after me, and all the children followed Bashir.
Khanom-Jan fretted, wringing her hands and muttering to herself. “What are we going to tell Torab?”
At the sound of his name, Mother changed colour and went inside. I heard everything in those days, but understood none of the connections. Later I learned that Uncle Torab had been Bamani’s true owner. He had vanished on Mother’s wedding night—leaving the family lands, abandoning the village, abandoning Bamani. And now Bamani’s foal had come to me. Bashir was mine.
My motherhood began with Bashir. Except at Nowruz and during the summer holidays, I had little chance to care for him. But whenever we returned to the village, he knew me. He knew the sound of our car. He grew tall and strong. At four, he lacked nothing of a thoroughbred. I rode him to the highest ridges of Dorfak. With him, I was safe everywhere.
I stroked his mane and his ears trembled. If a stranger approached, he struck the earth with his hoof and pricked his ears, ready to charge. I had become his mother—his Bamani.
Gol-Agha taught me to ride without saddle or bridle. “When the rider’s body touches the horse,” he said, “horse and rider become one: one soul, one body. That is when riding has its true taste.”
Sometimes, tired and breathless after riding over the mountains, I would slip down beside a stream. Bashir would rest his muzzle on my shoulder and close his eyes. His breath smelled of fresh hay.
The scent of hay makes me drunk. Even now, whenever I come to a hayfield, I throw myself down and roll over and over in it.