Kure Mama

Around here, in our part of the country, if a mother is expecting, we say she is “with two souls.” We also like to say that she is “burdened.”
“The missus has been burdened...”
“Hiche has taken on two souls, did they tell you? Have you heard?”
“Hatun is also with child, bravo...”
Around here, if you’re with child, whether you call it being pregnant, “burdened” or “with two souls”, it may mean that you’re in for a lot of pain, quite a bit of work, and above all remedies and tonics. But you won’t ever hear of the need for a doctor. If a wife, well, any woman for that matter, finds a spot to lie down with their man then voila!.. Sure enough nine months and some odd days later the burdened’s burden will be set free in the World. If you aren’t troubled by the thought of your wife going a year or two without having a balloon for a belly, you better not go around in public calling her your wife! Especially if you’re not ready for this to happen eight to ten times. You might as well consider yourself infertile.
Around here, if you wanted to know if a mother was expecting; how many days, or how many months she had been burdened, you always went and asked Kure Mama.  We couldn’t do without her. Who else could have delivered all those little rascals, who else would have pulled those little bastards from the bellies of their mothers, who would have cut them free with a pair of dull rusty scissors, and just as casually announced:
“Hiche, it’s a girl again.”
“Hatun, damn your eyes, it’s a girl for the fourth time...”
“My dear lady, bless you, this time it’s a son with the head of a watermelon...” 
Do you about  “Birnoti”?  I mean do you know what that word means? Well, Birnoti and Kure Mama are one in the same. When we - and by we I mean those born in Diyarbakir during a certain time   (you could call it Kure Mama’s generation) - when we first met her, that’s when we also came to learn about Birnoti.
Kure Mama would carefully take out the tiny metal box hidden in the ornate Kurdish belt she had wrapped around her elbow, point with her right hand and tap gravely on the top of the box, then carefully screw open its lid. As if carrying out some ancient ritual, she used to take a pinch of brown dust from inside the box, look around at all of the eyes watching her, then with happiness and pride she would turn up her nose, and breathe it in with first her right, then her left nostril. She would then inhale the granules caught in between her yellowed nose hair with a deep breath, inhaling them deep down into her lungs. Kure Mama could not function without her snuff. Snuff, what we knew as Birnoti, was inseparable from the thought of Kure Mama. We couldn’t imagine Kure Mama without it. It was as absurd as thinking of a Christian without their baptism. Perhaps that’s what made Diyarbakir’s Father Arsen, in the presence of the Holy Gospel and the holy cross and in the presence of God himself, once remark:
“Yes, as soon as Kure Mama was born she was baptized with snuff - Birnoti - and thus was her Christianity confirmed.”
Back when we were young, in the happy years of childhood when we went around without any pants, all of the kids Kure Mama had helped deliver flocked to her side, grasping and kissing her hand; never failing to show respect. The words of our parents stuck in our ears like earrings.
“Whenever you see Kure Mama, go kiss her hand and press it to your forehead.”
“If it weren’t for Kure Mama you would have died before you were born...”’
“I never want to hear you say you’ve forgotten about Kure Mama, and all the work she put into you.”
Kure Mama was a legend in every sense. And we were part of this legend. Her existence was the reason for ours; she had lived so that we could be born. While raising our hands in prayer on Sunday, sometimes we didn’t know whether we owed more to God in heaven, whose face we had never seen, or to Mama Kure. Our little army of pantsless children went after this woman who spent her time snorting  snuff to her heart’s content, running after her, clinging on and calling out in chorus:
“Kure Mama, Kure Mama, just give us a little Birnoti.”
Kure Mama refused, brushing us off by saying “No,” “no way,” “not a chance.” But we continued begging her. “Kure Mama, Kure Mama, just give us a tiny bit, a pinch, what’ll happen?”
“Children, I didn’t pull you out from between your mothers’ legs just to have misfortune fall down on your heads...”
Sometimes we caught her on her good side and all our pleading would pay off. As she outstretched her little shiny box she said:
“Go ahead you little bastards, but just a pinch.”
Those of us in Kure Mama’s entourage drew close to her stingily extended Birnoti box with pleasure and reverence. It was as if we were gathering in around a piece of the dear Prophet Jesus’s holy cross; as if we were touching the Holy Gospel that Father Arsen read from every Sunday. We would pinch off a little bit of snuff in our tiny fingers, and just like we saw Kure Mama do it, breathe it into our noses. And then, just as you would predict, our eyes became bloodshot, filled with tears, and we would proceed to sneeze. Seeing us in this state, Kure Mama would grin between fits of laughter and tell us, “My little bastards...who are you to be snorting snuff, who are you all? You’ll use up all my sweet Birnoti.” Whenever those of us “bastards” saw Kure Mama inhale snuff without sneezing, we thought that she must possess some superhuman power.     

We showed her our greatest respect whenever she came in under our straw adobe roofs. We ushered her into our meager homes, held up by just a few pillars, and motioned her over to the most respectable seat on the couch.
“Kure Mama, stretch your legs out here, get comfortable.”
“Kure Mama, take that pillow and rest your back against it, get nice and comfortable.”
In every Armenian home that Kure Mama entered she could always find one or more of the “bastards” that she had helped deliver. This was the true source of our respect. We showed as much respect to her as we did to Father Arsen, perhaps even a little more. One’s power came from the Gospel, the other’s from her own hands... Father Arsen had upon his stage the holy cross, the Bible, blessed bread, wine, Mother Mary, Jesus, and God. Kure Mama’s performance only involved one or two old assistants, a saucepan of unsanctified hot water, three pieces of cloth, and her blunt scissors. Our mothers always remembered her dramatic performances with phrases like:
“Kure Mama came right on time, she saved me.”
“When I was pregnant with Serop, if Kura Mama hadn’t been around, I would have died.”
“My life is owed to Father Arsen’s prayers, but first and foremost to Kure Mama’s fingers.”
Kure Mama loved playing cards. You could always find a pack of playing cards smooshed in between her worn out drooping breasts. As soon as she entered a house, our mothers gathered around and a game would start. Kure Mama beat them every time. While they were playing, no one could go check on food in the oven, stoke the fire, stir the soup, or tend to any other chore. Nobody was allowed to get up until the game was over. Anyone who wanted to leave would be reprimanded:
“Now then, let’s play one more hand.”
“Now then, pass out those cards.”
“Now then, take that King of Diamonds too.”
She always found a way to stretch out games with her Now then’s. By indulging her, pots overflowed, and food stuck and burned in pans.
When our fathers returned home in the evening, they sat down at the head of the table and were welcomed with tasteless burnt food served on copper trays. They would point at the pot and ask:
“What is this Hiche, the food is burnt, was Kure Mama here?”
Most of the time our mothers could preempt our fathers’ anger by bringing it up themselves:
“The Ayran soup is a little burnt, what could I do, we had Kure Mama over.”
Kure Mama was often times their saving grace as she could be used as an excuse to placate our fathers. She was our mothers’ hope, consolation, and saving angel.
She was the only one in town with dyed red hair. She colored it with henna. Well, actually she would show up to our houses with her henna in hand.
“Hiche, honey, get up and help me color this faded hair with henna.”
“Hatun, it’s your turn today to henna my hair.”
Kure Mama could enter any house uninvited if she found the door open. And woe to any closed door! She would add her own shrill voice to the clacking sound of the hanging door mallet, causing quite a stir.
“Ladies, laaaaaadies! Where are you, where have you gone off to? It’s already past noon. You aren’t still burrowed in the lice ridden bosoms of  your husbands, are you?”
Doors immediately opened to the sounds of her voice and the door knocker. As soon as she was ushered in, the henna ceremony began. After coloring it, she would bathe her long hair, comb it with a wide wooden comb, braid it up on top of her head, and then finally the card game could begin.
There was a role for our fathers, too, in Kure Mama’s performance.  They all competed for Kure Mama’s favor. They did it for the sake of their future investments.  Was it not Kure Mama who reaped what they had sown in the wombs of our mothers every year?
“Kure Mama, this Birnoti smells wonderful, have some!”
“Kure Mama, look, I smuggled you this snuff all the way from Aleppo, and the box is an antique, here you go!”
“Please Kure Mama! This deck of playing cards is for you, all the way from Syria...”
She could remember who these gifts came from, when, and which children had been delivered because of them. Laughing like a hyena, she would recall just which gifts had yielded girls and which had yielded boys. Pleased with this, she stuck her snuff box into the belt stretched snuggly around her full stomach. Then she put her playing cards in between her shriveled wrinkled breasts…
Kure Mama lived on her own, on one of Diyarbakir’s dark narrow alleys. Her house was a religious endowment from the Surp Giragos Armenian Church. It would be most accurate to call her home a refuge. There weren’t very many details known about her.  In a way she was inexplicable. We did know that she had come from somewhere near Dibne.
Around here, somewhere near Diyarbakir, she had lost a son in a landslide. That was about all that was known…but that didn’t matter. The important thing was this: every Armenian house was considered hers. And not only were our homes hers, she was also the owner of our mother’s wombs. She always said to them:
“Hatun, I see you with two souls next year, okay? What’s what this laziness dear?”
“Meyro, what’s going on honey? Aren’t you cuddling up to your husband’s hairy goat chest at night? You’ve gotten quite lazy these last two years.”
“Senem, look, this fall by the grape festival, I’m seeing you pregnant. Don’t be coquettish like a new bride, dear. Show yourself off. Then say to your husband, Dikro, take me in your arms and to bed; then give him a nice embrace and you’ll be sure to give birth to a boy…”
*
By now all the children Kure Mama gave birth to have become parents themselves. And now at the bottom of Diyarbakir’s walls there is a small mound of earth inside an Armenian graveyard…
There, underneath that mound of earth she is in an endless sleep along with her deck of playing cards and her snuff box…
      Those who go to the graveyard know exactly where she’s buried. Above this mound of earth there is no sign, no name, no cross, not even a gravestone. Visitors will always point out to each other:
      “That is Kure Mama’s grave…”
      “Our Kure Mama lies here. May God pardon her sins…”
      “Come, let’s read a prayer over Kure Mama’s grave…”
      People who go to the grave, read there, say prayers, and burn frankincense…I hear from them that the bluish smoke given off from the burning of frankincense over her grave will sometimes form the shape of a pair of diamonds, or resemble the king of spades…
And it always smells like Birnoti…


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