‘Grandma?’
‘Umm?’
‘When I go deaf, will I forget your voice?’
‘How is that possible? The ear never forgets what the heart has heard.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘It means my voice will always be by your side – even after I’m gone. Because I’m impressed here … and here …’ Grandma touches the girl’s temples. ‘That is what happens when you love someone – you carry their face behind your eyelids, and their whispers in your ears, so that even in deep sleep, years later, you can still see and hear them in your dreams.’
Tilting her head, Narin considers. It is a comforting thought, though a bit baffling, but by now she has no doubt Grandma is always wonderfully baffling. For a peaceful instant, which lasts no longer than a breath, she forgets all that has been troubling her, suspended in the warmth of the old woman’s compassion. Then the moment passes, and the child says, ‘That bulldozer-driver … He was not a nice man.’
‘He was not, my heart.’
‘He called us a bad word.’
Grandma stares at the girl, puzzled. Narin is biting her bottom lip, the way she always does when confused or worried.
‘What are you talking about, child?’
‘He called us devil-worshippers.’
A shadow passes across the old woman’s face. ‘Don’t utter those words.’
‘But why did he say that?’
‘Maybe he meant something else?’
The girl shakes her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. And it wasn’t the first time. It happened at the hospital, too. While Baba was speaking to the doctor, they asked me to wait in the corridor. A cleaner walked by, and he said, What are these filthy, fallen devil-worshippers doing here? He was talking about us.’
A quail calls in the undergrowth – a solitary succession of chirrups. When the bird falls quiet, Grandma asks, ‘Did you tell your father?’
‘No, I didn’t want him to be sad.’ Narin folds her hands on her lap. ‘Why do people call us that?’
‘Listen, my soul, there are those who say wrong things about us. They utter harmful lies and hurtful slanders. They’ve no right to do this, but they do it anyway. They vilify us not because they know us well. Quite the opposite: they do not know us at all.’
‘But that doesn’t make any sense. I don’t go around saying horrible things about people I don’t know!’
‘Of course you don’t; that’s because you’re wise.’
Narin is not satisfied with the answer. She does not want to be wise. She wants to understand why people are the way they are and if they can ever change.
Sensing her disappointment, Grandma opens another bag. Inside, wrapped in a cloth to keep them warm, are flatbreads – each spread with sheep’s milk butter and filled with herbed cheese. The old woman makes these every morning at the crack of dawn, settled on a stool in the courtyard. She pats the dough into round pieces, slaps them against the tandoor and bakes them until they are crisp and puffy. She knows how much the girl loves them.
‘Eat, Narin. When the belly is light, the heart will be heavy.’
The child bites into her flatbread, the taste of herbs and butter mixing on her tongue.
As she chews slowly, she says, ‘I just don’t understand –’
‘Well, this world is a school and we are its students. Each of us studies something as we pass through. Some people learn love, kindness. Others, I’m afraid, abuse and brutality. But the best students are those who acquire generosity and compassion from their encounters with hardship and cruelty. The ones who choose not to inflict their suffering on to others. And what you learn is what you take with you to your grave.’
‘Why so much hatred towards us?’
‘Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire – because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind – when people hate those they have hurt.’
‘But why?’
‘Because the tree remembers what the axe forgets.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means it’s not the harmer who bears the scars, but the one who has been harmed. For us, memory is all we have. If you want to know who you are, you need to learn the stories of your ancestors. Since time immemorial, the Yazidis have been misunderstood, maligned, mistreated. Ours is a history of pain and persecution. Seventy-two times we have been massacred. The Tigris turned red with our blood, the soil dried up with our grief – and they still haven’t finished hating us.’
