Pidgeon

Pidgeon

Back when I was telling you about Kure Mama I may have mentioned that people don’t wait very long between pregnancies here in Diyarbakir. Before you know it our women are “with two souls” again. Spring and autumn bring forth new babies  at the hands of Kure Mama’s magical hands and Father Arsen’s prayers. When they arrive, they are greeted by the World as “black sheep” if they happen to be girls, and saluted as “pashas” if boys.

Yes, when it turns out to be a little girl, the pregnancy is seen to have been a waste of time, or as they say “a spade hit upon nothing.” Getting pregnant and giving birth to a girl here is a pretty normal affair. So normal in fact nobody would really consider it an affair as much as a chore. A baby girl is seen as a poor creature,  looked upon as glumly as if a war had been lost. A “pasha” on the other hand, is greeted with hands thrown up in the air in a sign of victory. To put it bluntly: there wasn’t much of anything good to say when a pregnant, expecting, burdened, or “two-souled” woman gave birth to a girl. It was just another birth. If it not a boy, there wasn’t even much of a point in having been pregnant for those 9 long months and some odd days. But on the other hand, if you somehow could give birth to multiple sons in a row, well then may your femininity, your womanhood be praised. How did that old saying go? “Beget a girl be hazed, beget a boy be praised.”

If we were to go so far as to put it in numbers: a half-brained son, was equal to four smart girls. And against a healthy and intelligent son, well again to put it mathematically, a girl plus a girl times a girl would be equal to nil...

Just like anywhere else on the face of the Earth, the women in Diyarbakir hadn’t figured out any special formula for giving birth to sons. Not for lack of trying. I can remember them trying to have their wombs ready for when the good Lord passed between the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper in the skies over Diyarbakir. It was believed that the sex of the child was a matter of his supreme will and design so they would send off their fervent prayers with their holy ambassador Father Arsen.

“My lord, supreme and great God, who creates all, who decides over all, who forgives his sinful servants and who bestows upon them what he wills, please preserve the unlucky ones! Because you are great...”

Even Father Arsen succumbed to this type of pleading, using just the right combination of words he thought would work best, knowing that God was pleased with such groveling.

And as long as we’re speaking now in the presence of the Lord, you’ll know I’m being honest when I say that it wouldn’t have seemed right to stop at two or three kids either. Around here you weren’t any kind of woman if your belly didn’t swell up like a plump Diyarbakir watermelon five or six times; and preferably seven or eight. Any woman who didn’t was said to have had her field left fallow. Some considered it so bad that they said her field might as well have been barren. For this reason our women were sent off to the waiting embraces of husbands as soon as they reached the age of marriage, which around here meant around fifteen or sixteen, girls of fourteen, even girls pushing up against thirteen years old. If you were to have said of your 18 year old daughter still living at home “what’s the rush, she’s still really young?”, someone would be sure to chime in with that old saying.

“Early to rise takes the road, early to work gets the load.”

If you tried to disagree you’d end up getting more of an earful than a pair of those extravagant earrings made by the hunchback jeweler Minas. The other proverb you’d be sure to hear could be found back with Father Arsen, wagging his wooden walking stick angrily at Kurdish children who had been harassing him  by singing “a monk a monk, a glass in his rump.” There it was written in the red bible with the cross on it that he kept in his pocket as he went back and forth between home to church, and church to home with the punctuality of a clocksmith and the black robe and beard of any other priest. It was also written clearly upon his seat of honor.     

“Be fruitful and multiply...”

It was no laughing matter. Everyone had to get married, sooner much better than later, otherwise it was well known what would happen to you; you’d end up as an unmarried postwoman...

With such a fear in the air about the whole thing, was it really surprising to see brides and their mother-in-laws pregnant at the same time? Some might think that it went against natural law or even God, while others might actually see it as a lucky omen. Those women, mother-in-laws by the time they reached thirty five, make me think of that line in the poem by our famous Diyarbakir poet Cahit Sikti Taranci  about being “ half way through my journey.”  Would you expect them to give up on being mothers halfway through their journey by saying,  like him,“I finished sifting my flour so I hung up my sieve”?

Could anyone give up on motherhood at such a young age? Think about a man giving up on fatherhood like that. Do you think that even if a man had became a father at twenty, before even having gone off to military service and eaten gruel from a mess tin, who was now a grandfather at forty, do you think he was done being a father?  Anyone who thinks so is having their brains eaten with bread and cheese, they’re talking nonsense...     

   The kind of person who’d feel finished with their duties as a father at that age are the same kind of good-for-nothing who went around being a braggart, talking themselves up, and in the end, as they say, would have to send in reinforcements on their own wedding night. Rather than face their responsibilities, they would come up with a thousand excuses in order to avoid it. As for our Kejo, what do you think he did faced with this responsibility?

Poor Kejo never caught a break when it came to being a father. Fate had never smiled on him in this regard, not even so much as a hint of one. But what had he ever done to fate to deserve its scorn? He had prostrated himself in front of the biblical injunction to “be fruitful and multiply”, meekly obeying by getting married. Not just getting married mind you. He took those holy words to heart and for his efforts was given six little “black sheep” one after another. Was this how God treats his servants? Kejo’s lovely wife and mother of six girls Haçhatun, fertile as a chicken, was only forty years old. Kejo was forty five. Do you think either one of them thought at that age that their work was done? Did either one of them rest on their laurels saying “we’ve gotten old, the fire’s gone cold”? Or maybe being an artisan plasterer Kujo would know the expression “when the mortar is used up, it’s on to the next house.” But does a plasterer ever really run out of mortar?  

    For one moment try to put yourself in poor Kejo’s shoes. For the love of God and the prophet try to imagine it. You live in Diyarbakir, every morning you get up early and go to work working as a plasterer. While on your way you continue running to people you know; your wife, a friend, a relative, any number of people.  You are greeting some of them in Armenian with “Pariluys”,  and others in Arabic with “as-Sallam alay-kum.”  Then in the evening, covered in a mixture of lime, mortar, and calcimine,  you walk home again  carrying enormous watermelons underneath your arms, saying “parirgun” in Armenian to some and “iyi akşamlar” to others in Turkish, and still to others saying “ُEvarete ğher” in Kurdish. When you finally arrive after all that hard work to see your daughters waiting for you, lined up according to size like pearls on a necklace, wouldn’t it be great to also see your own dark eyebrowed, dark eyed pantsless little boy there at the end? Okay, perhaps that’s not such a big deal for you. Maybe even as the master of his own domain Kejo would agree if he ever heard you say “eh, that’s enough children.” But none of that mattered. The midwife of his children happened to be Kure Mama, and so every day he was pursued by her endless pleading.

“Kejo, Kejo, curse these broken hands, these damned fingers. When I look at these clumsy hands of mine, how they couldn’t pull out a little colt of a boy for you, What a shame..!”

Hadn’t Kure Mama pulled babies out of everyone else in town? Now her sights were turned to Kejo, or more accurately on Kejo’s wife. You don’t think Kure Mama would have left this world without having delivered a boy to them, do you? If she died before doing so she’d be sure to die with her eyes wide open. It wasn’t just a question of Kejo’s honor, it was Kure Mama’s as at stake as well. So anytime she ran into him on the road at night she made sure to give him a little advice.

“Kejo, Kejo, my dear sir, lovely evening, might as well make the most of it, how about you set your eyes on the prize.”

This kind of sly and subtle prodding that Kure Mama had used was what had given Kejo his sixth black sheep. Now what could anyone say? What could Haçhatun say for that matter? She was merely Kejo’s wife, the decision was in Kejo’s hands...at the end of the day wasn’t he the one in charge of whether or not they would have a son? Whenever he was ready to go to bed, she would be ready to lay down. When he wanted to get up, she would get up... Didn’t this all fall to Kejo?  

Everyone had come to same conclusion about the matter: Kure Mama’s opinion.

“This is Kejo’s responsibility. Haçhatun is like a field, it’s up to Kejo to plow it.. if a woman is a field she remains fallow unless she is planted... When you sew barley, can you reap wheat? To put it plainly, you reap what you sew...”

As time went on even Kure Mama lost hope. It started going around that it was all Kejo’s fault. People began saying that he had jumped the murky waters three times... the murky waters like in the beginning of that old folk song “I jumped over the murky waters, I tied on the Mantin belt...” The murky waters refer to the river flowing at the foot of Diyarbakir’s historical ramparts. It makes its way through the various vegetables, romaine lettuce, cabbage patches, and several mulberry trees before spilling into the city’s old broken drain pipes though dregs. Then it passes through the rusted mill wheels, tired and forlorn, before finally spilling into the Tigris river.  

According to local legend, if you jumped over this water three times, over the water spinning in whirlpools as they were sucked into the mill wheels, it would eventually make its way up to God along with your prayers, soon bringing back a response....

It didn’t.

After the dirty water incident it was clear that Kejo’s fate had been sealed: written in big letters with henna ink on his forehead. As clear as the huge black mole that had been on his forehead since birth...

As for our reaction to the whole affair, let me be totally frank. I might as well admit it. People in Diyarbakir talk too much. We’re always dying to stick our noses into other people’s business. We love it.  Whatever the cause, whether it be the weather in our town, or the ice-cold water of the Hamravat river coming from  Karadağ mountain, or our own extravagant beliefs... whatever the cause, we just can’t get enough. Whenever we see someone putting down the foundation for a new house, we’ll chide the builder by saying:

“Master Norabet, for the love of God lookie here, are you going to leave this foundation stone all crooked like Kejo here...?”

Around here a fruitless tree is called a Kejo. A crooked hanging door is a Kejo. Whatever unfavorable situation, no matter how small, any event has its own little share of “kejoness” in it. As old women ululated with the of having a new groom in the family, they would secretly prey to themselves:

“God on high, we implore you, please don’t let this bridal bed be like that of Kejo.”

Kure Mama, once she had squeezed out every last bit of hope she had for Kejo, once she realized that all that seeds she had planted in him had turned out to be hollow little “bastard” seeds, she gave up. Proclaiming to herself “my life no longer has any purpose” , and with her eyes open, her heart broken, her insides sour, and by deliriously repeating “Kejo, Kejo, Kejo!..” she passed to the other side, on to the next world.

With a reading from the bible, a few sticks of incense, a little mist of rain, a few prayers from father Arsen, and the abundant tears and weeping of two generations of women, Kure Mama was given to the earth. Her mission, now a matter of pride and honor, was inherited by the other women and widows left behind.  Having handed off such a weighty responsibility, Kure Mama could now sleep peacefully on the other side. But if they were going to get her eyes to close the women were going to have to roll up their sleeves. Drawing on their own past experiences, they set upon Haçhatun armed with the tactics that had once been used on them.

“Dearie, go cuddle up to your husband.”

“Dearie, go lay down at the side of your man.”

“Dearie, don’t turn your back to your husband in bed.”

Around here, there was no rule on where frankness began or ended. In fact, when people tried to be helpful in certain circumstances that line was never drawn. Who to whom, why, in what measure, where, and however someone needed help the rules of good manners were all left to the side. The important thing was the task at hand, which in this case was Kure Mama’s task which had been left unfinished and given over to the widows. But on that topic it was worth asking: Who exactly could ensure Kejo a male child, a young colt, even if Haçhatun was pregnant every spring? Amongst all of the widows of Diyarbakir, could anybody actually finish the job? Could anyone find a solution? Was there not a single favorable, helpful suggestion to be found in the whole of the enormous Gavur District?

Was it possible?

That day the women of the widow’s ward: Gılor Enne, who lived in the ruins next to the Surp Giragos church and was better known as rotund Enne, Mrs. Ağgık, better known as Mrs. Lovely, and Dzur Peran Almast, better known as crooked mouthed Almast, all sat knitting wool in the courtyard of the church. After a long talk they came to a historical decision: that spring Haçhatun would give birth to a son... and nobody other than God himself would interfere. To make sure that God wouldn’t interfere they thought of a new strategy.

The convoy set out, Gılor Enne rocking back and forth, Mrs. Ağgık strutting flirtatiously, and Dzur Peran Almast trying to smooth her crooked mouth out a bit. Full of optimism, they headed over to the house of another Widow, Hent ِAğavni.

Hent ِAğavni-  which in Turkish would translated to Crazy ِAğavni - wasn’t as crazy as she was stark raving mad. She was a dotard, a dried up mulberry...but the widow’s ward, paid no mind to the old mulberry’s age, and snatched her up. They then brought her to  Haçhatun’s side. They had made a firm decision based on a rational argument.

“If all of our efforts have come to no good, if the prayers of a thousands souls have gone unheeded, then it is certainly more likely that the prayers of a crazy person will be heard up in heaven...”

Haçhatun didn’t object by saying “nooo, definitely not.”  Neither did she say “che” in Armenian or “nabe” in Kurdish. It would be useless to say any of those things. She was actually appreciative of their efforts. They had dropped everything they were doing in order to find some remedy for her troubles. They should be rewarded for being so kind. It would have been a sin for Kejo’s wife to say  “che, chem uzer” in Armenian, “no, I don’t want to”. For Kejo and his wife, wouldn’t having a chubby little baby boy set upon their laps be like coming back from the dead? After six daughters, six unhelpful offspring, to give birth to a boy on the seventh try, it would be like laying a Persian rug at the head of their room. Oh, what a great joy, by God how delightful it would be!..

Ağavni, had come from around Tokat and settled down in Diyarbakir during the Great War, the First World War, in around 1915. It was said that she spoke English, French, or some other foreign language. But there weren’t many who had actually heard or seen her speak any of them. Most of those who had heard or seen her speak them had gone to heaven a long time ago. But it was believed that she had been a cultured and smart woman. One day after she had lost both her husband and son in the War, she was bathing in the Pasha Hamam in the Gavur District. All of a sudden she shouted “where is my bowl and my comb, where is my house?” and ran out into the street butt naked. She went on running all over town, going into every Armenian house as though it were her own. She came in completely relaxed, going into their store rooms without permission, and eating her fill. Her situation was just as dire as Kejo’s.

As sane people we might not know what to do all of the time. Crazy people on the other hand always know exactly how to set to work. For them time is very important. Hent Ağavni knew why she had been brought there on that day and in such a rush. She could get right down to business.

But first she made sure to fill herself up on Haçhatun’s grape molasses “Malez”.  After having eaten the fruit paste and walnuts off the top of it, she turned to the task at hand. Ağavni was very pleased with her position in life. She reveled in taking charge of such important tasks. She would use prayer to erase the black ink of fate off of Kejo’s forehead, and to absolve Haçhatun’s womb. The widows had waited impatiently for the ceremony to begin, and so felt relieved when they saw the sign from Ağavni. Ağavni’s first signal was to close her eyes and begin to whisper something that couldn’t be heard, and probably not understood anyways. After putting her dirty, jittery hands on Haçhatun’s head, and taking an extremely serious pose, she called out to the widows.

“Bring an Onion!”

Gılor Enne began to run, or rather began to spin like a ball, over to the pantry. She brought back an onion as round as her, holding it out to Ağavni. Ağavni took the onion, and after smelling it three times called out:

“Give me a knife!”

This time Mrs. Ağgık went strutting  towards the kitchen in the yard, and not able to find a knife and brought back a huge meat cleaver and handed it timidly to Ağavni.

“And also bring a slice of bread.”

It was Dzur Peran Almast’s turn. She also ran immediately to the storeroom. She was able to find a piece of bread in the “teşt” bowl. After holding the bread in her crooked hands and kissing it three times, she ran back and gave it to Ağavni. Ağavni looked it over intently then took a bite. Dissatisfied, she threw it out into the yard yelling angrily:

“This bread won’t do! I want dry stale bread!”

The piece of bread Ağavni threw landed in a drainpipe. Dzur Peran Almast thought that this type of  behavior was sinful and would probably negate the power of Ağavni’s prayers, but she kept it to herself.

Ağavni didn’t think anything of sins or good deeds. At that moment she had already turned to other matters. The widows ward all went down into the storeroom together,  rummaging through  everything  but still unable to come up with a single slice of dry bread.  Haçhatun was sitting on her knees in front of  Ağavni watching the events unfold silently. At that moment she muttered in a low voice and with a sense of embarrassment:

“You should take a look in the henhouse.”

The women bolted out to the henhouse in a last ditch effort. The rooster inside began to warble from happiness at the sight of three widows joining the ranks of his chickens. The jealous chickens refused to acknowledge their presence and stayed silently perched inside. The widows didn’t notice any of this as they turned the hen house upside down looking for a piece of stale bread. In the end they finally found a piece.  

But that wasn’t the end of Ağavni’s demands. The women were about out of patience. But there was no longer anything more they could do. As they say, once you’ve started down a path there is no turning back. They had already tried to cross the bridge before getting there  but it was clear that one shouldn't change horses while crossing a river. Haçhatun was in pain. Like a sheep at the butcher, she was squat down in front of Ağavni putting her faith in the woman’s prayers. For poor Haçhatun’s sake the widows were willing to put up with this crazy woman.

“And bring a handful of salt.”

The widows hoped this would be Ağavni’s last request. From the green enamel jar in the storeroom they brought a rock of salt in the palm of their hands and handed it to her.

“Quickly, light the fire!”

Light the fire, and quickly! Was she out of her mind?..

Without any explanation, she wanted them to light a fire? And you couldn’t just snap your fingers and make a fire appear... you had to light the coals, get a lülük, one of those flute like tubes, fill your cheeks with air, and then blow through it nonstop. If there was even one coal left burning in the habeş you’d be lucky. Otherwise you had your work cut out for you.

They lit a fire... Ağavni may have been crazy, but not crazy enough to keep a fire lit all by herself.

Her demands finally came to an end and the ritual could proceed to the second stage.

Being left-handed Ağavni, brought down the meat cleaver in her right hand with a sudden blow onto the onion lying on the ground. Somehow it split the onion right down the middle. The widows looked at one another in shock and not a little fear. Ağavni then slowly withdrew the blade then threw it into the well. The widows were sad to lose their meat cleaver but their sadness was far outweighed by the relief at knowing that it would never again be wielded by this crazy woman. Ağavni took the the bread and salt in her left hand, grasping them tightly, and holding it over Haçhatun’s head she began an unending string of prayers. Nobody dared interrupt her. They all found new lengths to their patience... When Ağavni finally opened her eyes it seemed as though the prayers had ended. The final prayer resembled the final litany in Father Arsen’s sunday service. Ağavni’s right hand thumb and pointer finger made a cross in the air, crossing the yard, and then she said “I entrust you to God”. After showing reverence for Father Arsen, she approached the glowing fire in the habeş , narrowed her eyes and for a short while stared into the flames. The women who had watched the beginning of the litany but had no idea when or how it would end, stood there waiting. As the darkness of the evening began to close in slowly Ağavni passed the salt in her hand three times over the head of Haçhatun and then tossed it into the fire. The large chunks of salt sizzled on the glowing fire. The sound of the sizzling salt peppered her prayers.

“Out with the bad, in with the good.”

“Out with the bad, in with the good.”

Once the salt had burnt up, Ağavni ripped off pieces of the dry moldy bread and gave it to the women to taste. This last act was reminiscent of the ritual on Sundays when Father Arsen gave holy bread, the body of Christ, out to those who repented their sins. And just as this marked the end of the service in church, all of the Armenians present took this to be the end of the ritual.

Haçhatun got back up from the place where she had been lying down.  Gılor Enne, Mrs. Ağgık, and Dzur Peran Almast all repeated Ağavni’s last phrase together:

“Out with the bad, in with the good.”

The bad did not go, and the good did not come. In the spring Haçhatun gave birth to her seventh daugher. Kejo never got word of the incident with Ağavni.

We have no idea what our heavenly father might have whispered in Kejo’s ear. But for his part, Kejo decided that “it all ends here”and gave his daughter the name Ağavni, which means pidgeon...