Erupting her
Will the spikes of our torment ever stop penetrating our brains and hearts? Will we become invincible or die of our fears? Can the sheep eat the wolf? Can our plans stop fading the way Ocean washes the strand away…? Can they stop? The stars, us, the universe, and all that makes the world a living hell, can it stop miscarrying our plans?
Gre-basse, Duhok. 15th Jul. 2015
I and Deneb had a mission of finding Zahra, we also had plans, we’d agree on some and disagree on some; chocolate, ice-cream, cats and tea. However, he didn’t possess deep emotions and horizons of depression. While I talked nonstop about my day, he went through his e-mails and often mistook me for Layla.
Even though we had everything we wanted, it still felt empty. I confided my trust in Deneb1. Although he wasn’t the brightest thing I’d seen, he was the closest and the warmest for me. When you live with such a strong character, you will come to know that life is too short to be carefree about your diploma, too short to wait for a text reply, and way too short to make unnecessary plans of the future. You will learn to make quick decisions and move on, ignore the fallouts and step over what’s not worthy of being into.
I am Nermeen, the youngest daughter of Zahra. The stable? The thinker? …The one that’s haunted by thoughts the most, doesn’t carry-on easily and conflicted within.
It did get better when I found Deneb, almost as if I got the backbone I lacked.
My self, which was tangled up in herself, got too tired of thinking; the clingy feeling of a stuffy nose and glossy eyes had been well fed. I didn’t think of myself as an impulsive person, from then on, it was up to my mind and feet to take me where I wished to be. From then on, I was too good to miss in my life.
It started with how I lost my Mum and how I finally unveiled the mystery that haunted my mind. Nevertheless, her warmth had been with me wherever I went, for so many years that followed.
“How did I lose you, mother? My light, my doorway to being. Where are you? Do you miss me when you see Spica2 in September? Does it come to your mind that I still feel your existence?”- I wrote in the diaries of my disturbing thoughts.
1 Deneb: The brightest star in Capricorn’s star constellation.
2Spica: The brightest star in Virgo’s star constellation.
The thought of loss and insincerity ate me alive, burnt my scalp and made me lose hair in patches. The sickness I grew inside of me, mental and physical. It was wanting and the holding-on to my dreams, the strength was traded for weakness, and heart shredded to pieces. It’s when he wanted to feel good, my heart was torn into pieces.
As the hot breeze of summer faded at night time 1 a.m. felt like the right time to take my blanket and pillow to the rooftop, gaze at the night sky and think for hours. When was the last time you thought for hours?
19 years ago, I would lie next to my mother, and we would count the stars till I’d fall asleep. On that rooftop, I’d ask myself, “What will I be in 10 years? will I be beautiful? Or ever grow up? And where will I be living?” … There she is; Spica reminds me of change, the hurricanes. All of a sudden, you lost everything, right? Did you get back up? Have all your scars healed up?
Zahra. Gre-basse, Duhok. 1996
Curls folded upwards, eyes hazel-red, sad and awaiting the day where peace flyers grow mountains, for her other half to come home and for her heart to forget the terror. She’s a typical Kurdish woman who is strong and independent. In times of internal and external conflicts, she is the lioness that Kurds need, holding tremendous responsibility, while they dream and fight for freedom. Zahra is a deep thinker. She forgets to drink her tea, till it’s cold and undrinkable.
She saved money, even pennies, for a nightmare she feared. Her devotion was to her nationality, and faith for a better day, where she could grow daisies and not worry about what kills them. As well as patriotic song cassettes although hidden underneath her bed, because she couldn’t trust the ‘cold peace’, and had framed portraits of her president — also hidden from sight. Zahra was my mother, she still is — although no longer with me.
After the 17th of Jul. 1996, Babo’s3 death in Erbil fighting alongside the KDP4, sadness perpetually redesigned her facial expressions, almost as if her beauty owned sadness, the warmth was gone and a kiss from her couldn’t heal anymore our scars.
Our mother had drowned in her own body, as if Aphrodite5 had fallen from the heavens of Gods and Goddesses, into the chaos of man.
Ever felt your chest too heavy to breathe? You’d rather be dead than get that feeling every night. You miss the other you, the one that carried love. But now, she was filled with hate, pain, and sorrow. Stuck in the thoughts of the past present and future.
Thinking about her memories, her current situation and imagining a future that’s empty of the dreams she’s been having for long, where she doesn’t look up to make happen and kids who are a constant reminder of what she lost.
The depressive words, the devil whispered in her ears, were echoing from afar, crumbling into our lifestyle. Anger was boiling her blood, feverish and locking her heart from affection. And at times, making her chest too heavy to breathe. Although Fatma was only ten years old at the time, however, she had to be the one to pick Zahra up from her tremulous breakdowns.
5Babo: ‘Dad,’ in Kurdish Badini.
6 KDP: Kurdistan Democratic Party.
7Aphrodite: The mother of beauty, daughter of Uranus and the Sea. She would vanish to the skies. Not letting the naïve humans have her.
An August Afternoon, 1996
This one day, in particular, Fatma, Hileen and I watched baby chicks hatch out of eggs — we had never seen baby-chicks before. I had an idea and went on “Fatma, I have an idea” Hileen and Fatma seemed to already know what was on my mind, smiling: “Okay, bring 3 eggs from the fridge downstairs,” said Fatma.
The little me filled with enthusiasm in an instant, went running to the fridge — little thin fingers wrapped around those three eggs.
While I was on my quest Zahra had been sitting on the bed with the bedroom’s door open — most of the time she just sat on her bed and thought for hours.
When she saw me running so quickly, carrying what seemed like eggs and on my way to the stairs that led to the roof, she shouted “Nermo!!” Instantly knowing what we were up to. I didn’t respond and kept running. When I got there, Fatma took the eggs from me and put them under Kurko in between her newborn chicks, for warmth — we had named her that for always being able to bring up baby-chicks. When Kurko saw the eggs, she started hitting them with her beak. We all looked at each other in shock and surprise. At the same moment, Zahra had climbed up the stairs to the roof, she looked at us with anger and said “what have you done? Why can’t you behave like Khawla’s kids?” — Khawla was our neighbor and was a teacher in the same middle school our mum taught at, Kurdistan Middle school for girls.
Afterward Mum held our hands in a tight grip, we knew the scolding had only begun. She wasn’t willing to take statements and blamed all of it on Fatma — for being the one who should’ve known better than that.
As for me and Hileen, we loved drawing models in princess dresses, so we took our papers and colors to that spot upstairs, sat on the stairs and started to draw, trying to avoid the shouting from Zahra. Later on, Fatma came upstairs to sit with us, but to cry instead of drawing.
KRO, Duhok. 30th Dec. 2015
I had a dream, I was on my way to a mansion Saddam Hussein owned in Amadiya. We were a group of Kurds and Arabs, but you wouldn’t be able to distinguish the Kurd from the Arab.
We were sitting on a bus, it looked like one of those from two decades ago, to say the least. On the bus, Saddam was sitting in the first section, wearing humble clothes, also looking very young and happy. I stared at him without blinking, somewhat in fear and doubting my situation. The bus had golden door handles, huge doors with servants, and top-rank military commanders — ones you only heard about in stories your grandparents told you in cozy winter nights. This was one of the mansions I had only heard of in stories about Saddam’s estates. While I was thinking about the way I’m dying after we get off in a deserted place, the mansion was a much better place to be at.
Shortly after we had arrived, we heard Saddam yell and shout at his servants to prepare his guests a feast, in a glance, everything was prepared. Various sorts of delicious meals, fruit, and dessert. I got skeptical when I heard him ordering us to eat, with his guards standing behind us, also weirdly enough wearing worn-off clothes, with dirt all over their faces, legs, and hands, just as if they had been dead for some days, and then taken out of their graves to serve their master for one last time.
They were not armed, but rather barely able to stand, looking hungry and tired. because his execution on the 30th of December, 2006 had been difficult to slip off of my mind, it slowly turned into a lucid dream and I was in control again.
Food tasted like nothing but air, and the air smelled like nothing but dust; type of the dust that floats in the air after being dusted-off of furniture. When I existed; in that space, I felt special, almost preferred?
After the feast, Saddam accompanied me to a Jeep he seemed to own, a Wrangler that can be driven on an off-road trip, with no top. It felt like a good time to strike up a conversation with a dead man, Calmly, I asked him, “didn’t they execute you?” for a moment, he stared at me without even blinking or making an expression, then he laughed, as if I was missing out on something-That he was young and good looking.
While we were on that ride around Amadiya, he never spoke again. It felt very real as if I had left this life behind and there I was with the dead. When he dropped me off back home, I had to let it out, I had to ask him at least “do you know what happened to my Mum? Her name was Zahra Saifullah.” Surprisingly enough, he answered and said: “you should’ve had asked one of my dogs…”
Meeting Khalil Al-Zadie, Basra. 10th Jun. 2016
I was on the edge of my nerves and hiding my inner rage, as we sat across the room from this old man originally from Basra, who had been a Baathist and served Saddam in Mosul. I had hoped he might know something about the people going missing in 1999.
Smoking and puffing it into my face — showing me that women should not have the right to negotiate with men.
Iraqi military recruits, back in the days, didn’t fear anything but Saddam. Although most of them received their due punishment after 2003’s fall of Saddam, however, it was kinds like this one in particular, who found some gaps in the system to slip from justice.
Some were even worse than those who had received their just punishment. They were the ones who buried mothers and their babies and who shot fathers on their ways to buy bread. As if that was not enough, after the fall, they organized bombings and terror acts.
Because the evidence for his crimes were few, Khalil served 13 years in jail for his crimes, thus, he was recently set free, only
and luckily, to be found by me, before turning into mirage and vanishing.
He’d decided to plant some flowers and raise a couple of budgies as if he cared about them; the budgies and the plants were depressed also dehydrated under plain solar ray.
After some long thoughts and wandering around the room, we were calmly sitting and drinking this very cold water he offered us.
I decided that I should no longer push him to talk. I eyed Deneb to excuse me and continue chatting with the man on the wheeled-chair. The house had a weird feeling to give, a feeling I could recognize as if I didn’t belong there, and neither did the budgies. They had been waiting long to be set free and dreaming of building a nest somewhere with nice weather. The freedom of making choices, and tangling their feet into the real world. When stray birds
approach them, they dance and make all sorts of sounds out of joy, thinking these strays will have their back when they do escape the cage one day.
They don’t know, it’s a system they can’t glare in those gray dots they call ‘techniques of running a country’. But still, these budgies never give up, they try and try, ignored by the nation of panic and suppressed under the cruelty of Baghdad.
Are we budgies? Were we meant to be flushed down their system’s regularity? How long will the youth be busy taking self-portraits…?
Fame or reality, we still have a question to answer, when we’re asked who we are. Money or power, to satisfy Satan in your spine. Everything I asked was answered as Deneb called for my attention, “he knows the 1999 Mosul regulations.”
Gre-basse, Duhok, Aug. 1996
Nesreen — the green-eyed, black and white cat, the smart and cautious. In May 1996, she gave birth to three kittens, of which two died right after birth. But this one ginger kitten grew stronger with time. I fed them every day at noon, I’d dive into the universe gazing into their eyes; the way they were filled with water, almost as if there were galaxies inscribed in them.
That year, summer was the hottest in Iraq, birds had started falling onto the ground and dying, plants were turning yellow and rotting afterward. My feet were burning each time I’d visit my chicken on the open roof. That heatwave caused the ginger kitten, who was only 3 months old, to fall ill. unable to leave our garden and lying on the grass for many days, her organs had already started to fail when I started to use methods from my childish imagination hoping to save the kitten; making her drink more water, petting her and pouring water over her every little while. The morning later, I woke up to find the kitten out of breath. It’s all coming back to me in flashbacks, I am 5 again…
I couldn’t shout, I didn’t know how loud it would have been. I didn’t want to disturb Zahra, I was sobbing, the poor kitten looked as if she was asleep, except she was not opening her eyes or making little Meows.
As I was crying, lying on the grass, next to the dead kitten, I noticed movement from under the front gate, a cat was trying to get in… It was her, the mother cat! I was curious, how was she going to react…?
Gre-basse, Duhok. 2nd Sept. 1996
Very long ago, when the dark clouds roamed above our home when Zahra had lost Father, there was silence, not even a bird would dare to chirp. They were automatically mute; voices weren’t desirable in their house anymore. As for Zahra, she would always tie a scarf tight ‘round her forehead to prevent high headache strokes.’ People believed that this remedy lessened painful headaches. But for Mum, these painful headaches never faded.
We dug a hole in the garden, for a mini Barbie swimming pool. We weren’t so clever, right? it ended up becoming a mud-pool– but was nice for the sake of our thoughts.
The next day, Zahra was supposed to go to Mosul for shopping purposes, since we needed school supplies. That day, our destiny took place. Losing our father was the worst thing that could ever happen, and we thought God would have sympathy for us. We had many thoughts that kept us very silent but none of them were true.
A small portrait of Mustafa Barzani, in a wooden frame, was hanged in my parent’s bedroom, after my father’s death. It was hanged there because we weren’t afraid of anything anymore, we were Kurds and not afraid of being so.
But Zahra didn’t seem to care about any of that — after my father’s death, she was as if dead walking, only that her death was on the inside.
Late afternoon, we went into my parent’s bedroom; that’s where we kept our precious things hidden. As we walked in through the old creaking door, we hoped for the room to be empty of our mother, because we didn’t want to disturb her. Our little bare feet touching the smooth granite softly and in a unique rhythm.
Fatma waved her hand to me and pointed at the portrait on the way — Fatma was my eldest sister and the kindest soul to me. As she waved to me to catch up on what she was saying, she started to whispers to Hileen, “Let’s take the Mustafa Barzani portrait!” in a wide smile, I remember it as a dream. We didn’t even have a purpose for taking it, similar to when we’d play with something we weren’t supposed to play with, only to be scolded later on by Zahra. Except for this time, we hid our mischief too well to be noticed.
Fatma was the tallest, tall enough to reach the portrait over the bed.
After having taken the portrait, all we could think of was the open roof and dressing up as Peshmerga. So, we went and opened our dad’s closet and took out his spare peshmerga hats. Fatma laid the wooden frame on the shelf that was fixed to the rooftop’s wall — the same shelves my chicken slept on. After everything was set up and we stood in our positions; standing still and right hands fixed in a 30-degree angle to our heads, Fatma started to recite the Kurdish national anthem we all knew well,
“Ey raqîb her mawe qewmî Kurd ziman,
Nay şikên danery topî zeman.
Kes nellê kurd mirduwe, kurd zînduwe,
Zînduwe qet nanewê allakeman.”
Which translates into:
“Oh, Sergeant! The Kurdish people live on, they have not been crushed by the cannons of any time Let no one say Kurds are dead, they are living, they live and never shall we lower our flag”
*Written by Dildar the Kurdish poet in 1938, then taken as the official Kurdish national anthem in 1946.
For a moment there, we felt Babo was alongside warbling Ey Raqib as well. Sun was almost setting, and a cool breeze was blowing in from Duhok’s valley. I looked up at Fatma and her eyes were all glossy, red and filled with nostalgia. Then I looked at Hileen and she had already started crying, face tinted red and sobbing. And so, my throat starting to tighten up and I burst in tears as well. We all hugged and wiped each other’s tears. I wiped my face with Fatma’s blouse and each time I felt that warm blouse, the happier I got.
It felt very beautiful to have them with me as well as joyous and hopeful for having Mum. As it started getting dark and chickens started jumping onto the shelves to sleep. When they did so, the portrait fell onto the ground and the glass broke to pieces. Zahra was visiting the neighbors next door, otherwise, she would’ve come up to us. Instead, it was up to us to figure it out. Fatma quickly went downstairs and brought a mop to clear off the glass shards. We were left to throw out the broken frame and find a place to put the president’s paper portrait. We almost had run out of ideas when we heard Zahra trying to unlock the front iron gate. Hileen got an idea that we should wrap the paper picture and put it in Zahra’s handbag, which she had left in her bedroom hanged to the closet’s handle. And so, we folded the picture into four sections and put it in a very small
Khalil Al-Zadie, Basra. 10th Jun. 2016
My body went ice-solid and concrete-heavy as I heard Deneb say the words! In which we had finally found the right person to ask about what happened to Mum. My feet carried me like a feather to the edge of the room which Khalil was sitting at, I sat right next to him, eyes full of hope and excitement. I said, “Don’t be afraid Khalil, let your heart out, this ends here, today.” He looked at me in disbelief, and replied, “it sure ends here?” Me, being Nermeen, full of enthusiasm, went on and said “I will never bother you again sir! I only need you to lead me in to what happened in September 1996. Please try to remember!”
In a chuckle filled with pride, he said, “Oh, you Kurds, so innocent and always dreamy…” and went on saying, “I remember very well the cold peace, I remember every check-up we had to make with the buses that arrived in Mosul every day.” My face went pale, distant and more afraid than ever, as I said, “what?” With shaky legs, he stood up, looked down at me and said, “In fact, I kept a list of people we shot into trenches.” My eyes filled with fear, followed him opening a book from the shelf he had, and threw it at my feet, I reached out for the book that turned out to be a notebook full of notes, which included dates, names, and numbers of killings. I stood up shaking and uncontrollable crying in pain, every page I flipped had about a hundred names written within. I went and searched for September 3rd, 1996. There it was, “Zahra Saifullah” number 85 that day to be killed, proudly inked and signed ‘Khalil’. I looked up from the notebook, heavy from tears and pain. Observed him limping and reaching out for something else in a drawer right next to the shelves. He turns around with a small gun in his hand and pointing it out. I blinked and the gun was already fired, shooting Deneb down, he screams and yells in panic and fear. I jumped to the ground as well trying to reach out to Deneb, to hold him or somehow stop Khalil from firing again… I had even started crawling, then I felt my blouse get soaking wet, reached my hand to my tummy, I was bleeding, but there wasn’t any pain to be felt. I felt cold and was shaking, only this time due to cold, not fear.
While I was laying on the floor, covered with my blood and hideously dying, I realized the truth, in which there was no Deneb and that it was only me and Khalil in his home. It was me who had been shot, not Deneb. It had been me investigating him and wandering at the room at the same time.
Deneb had been the self-support I always wanted to have but rather lately gained and quickly lost.
On this cold floor, my mind floats back to 2003’s Christmas and what happened to Layla who was my best friend — she had gone missing on the 23rd of December.
I feel light as air, free of all weight. I see Babo shaving his beard in the daylight. Zahra making breakfast in Eid mornings, feeding me honey and milk. Hileen and Fatma, putting on their Eid dresses and calling out, “Nermeen! Quick finish eating and join us!” the giggles, smell of incense in the Eid morning and all of us in one piece carried me more towards the dreams I had long been having.
And then I opened my eyes to see Khalil sitting back at his wheelchair and speak the words, “I remember Zahra in particular. We found Mustafa Barzani’s picture hidden in her handbag, she was a Kurd at heart. So, we killed her and ditched her body in a trench.” Then I heard the gunshot for one last time.
Giveaway. 17th Jul. 2017
Been looking at plain void for a while now, planning for a giveaway on my memories. As much as how hard they are to give, it’s harder to hold on to them. If I could build a museum, I would keep them safe in one.
No regrets in giveaways, no looking back. The stars we once counted 21 years ago are the number of the scars we medicate nowadays. The brutal knives we have been stabbed with are poisonous, it’s no wonder why humans are so filled up with hate and disrespect. Hypocrisy and greed have taken over orange bridges that were supposed to hold peace together.
If there are lessons to be learned, I have had enough of them to distinguish between a snake and a dog.
Khalil had shot open my tummy, but he’d forgotten to bury me the way he did with all of his other 4,088 victims. I survived, not making his list longer. But he suicided, putting an end to his chapter.
KRO, Duhok. 21st Dec. 2018
Thoughts of possibilities in my life — past midnight conclusions on paths life forced on me and ones I deserted. All on my own, a world built by my thoughts, the people I wake up to and the cats on pavements. I sleep to my thoughts and dream of beautiful flowers, colored pale velvet, blue and pink. A world where nothing was ever bigger than the Sun, where no Deneb ever existed. Except for the dark tea the cafeteria guy is used to pour me, the files I’m obliged to archive, the safest life choices and the great destiny that life designed for me. But, sometimes one can get lucky, through little moments that include unexpected successes or a happy meal, finding good friendships and long hours of sleep. I feel lucky for many reasons and they don’t have to stay constant, they can be variables with an infinite number of assumptions. I love being young, the smell of my garden filled with daises in the morning and even the dreams that take me away from here.
I have been having some good dreams, where I’m numb and happy to be in an artificial world built of my daydreams. For all the times I stayed calm, for every flame that ever burned my heart and every drop of a tear that fell off my eyes, I can be a mother to all the fragile livings; redhead birds deoxidized water and sad howlers. Not a literal mother of birth, but a mother in caring. For all the times I had wished for a mother, I’d be one as many. For every time I was hurt, I’d heal as many. Shall the Creator reign with the truth, fill us with the brisk of better beginnings and cast upon us things we want but can’t get. I raise my hands to heavens to watch my imaginary future rebuild itself, to once again die and rebirth in dreaming of her.
“Dear dreams please don’t evaporate,
Not in front of me,
Never, please.
Dear dreams have faith in me,
Bear my failure and misfortune.
Have a common sense and stay with me,
You are mine and I am yours.
We are what we have; I am not me without I dream.”
I wrote into the diaries of my disturbing thoughts.
Diaries containing my whole life, I have stored on bookshelves in our home. This winter has been too cold already and one of my fishes has died of reaching the end of its life span, but the budgies keep hatching eggs and my fluffy cat prefers indoors.
I put the heater on and warmed up the living room, looking for this one day, in particular, I have written about August 1996, when Nesreen arrived to find her kitten dead. Carrying the fluffy cat, I love stuffing my nose in her fur, continuing the search out of curiosity. Here it is “Nermeen 1996”. It reads “when Nesreen arrived, she ran as quickly as possible to her kitten, licked her fur clean and abandoned us.”
