From my father's rifle: a childhood in Kurdistan

Literary Review, Wntr, 2005 by Hiner Saleem

I woke up. I was warm and dry. When I opened my eyes, my family was having breakfast and the spoons tinkled in the teacups. Sunbeams shone through the wide-open door and the little window, lighting up the room. I stretched out like a snake. Cheerful, I joined my family for breakfast. The silhouette of a man appeared at the door; he coughed to announce his presence and asked my father if he was ready. My father gulped down his glass of tea. He was already completely dressed, in his sarwel (3) and the long black belt printed with small while tulips would around his waist. He made sure his red-checked white turban was well adjusted on his head, then he turned to my mother and said, "I'm leaving."

My mother answered, "OK."

My mother's face had lost its smile; she mourned her brother and the six other members of the family who had been killed.

But I was still a kid.

In front of the house, I saw little puddles left by the night storm. In the distance, the mountain and the chestnut groves were bathed in a beautiful morning light. The blankets drying in the sun were the only unpleasant reminder of the night before. Curious, I walked around our house and approached a large cement building. I looked through the doorway and was astonished to see a huge woman, at least six feet tall, with straight blond hair, skin as white as cheese, and big blue eyes. She was dressed like a Kurd, the same as my mother, in a long, very colorful dress that fell to her ankles and a close-fitting vest. She smiled at me and asked if I was a child from the newly arrived family. Timid as a young calf, I nodded, yes. She called to her son to come play with me. I waited for this son with great curiosity, wondering what he would look like. He came out of the house and came toward me. I was disappointed: he was like me, dark eyes, black hair, olive skin. We were the same age. I looked at the mother and son and I wondered how such a woman could have produced a child like that; how this fair blond angel, this extraterrestrial being, could have given birth to this swarthy boy with a gypsy face like mine.

His name was Rezgar and we became good friends. We went to fetch water. I didn't know where the well was, but Rezgar told me we would go to the river, to he banks of the Zab. We meandered through the alleyways of the village, and had just passed the last house when I stopped. I couldn't believe my eves. Before me was another woman as tall as Rezgar's mother, with the same hair color, skin, and blue eyes. She too dressed like a Kurd, but her clothes seemed to me even more beautiful than my mother's.

Rezgar had kept walking. I ran to catch up with him, and soon we reached the banks of the Zab. It was a wide river, with a strong current. The water was clear. On the other side, there were Iraqi soldiers. It was the frontier.

Bille was a tiny village compared to my own of Aqra, but here there was no government official and everything was under the control of General Barzani, the leader of the Kurds. Ever since we had arrived, men had come to fetch my father, and he would disappear for several days with them. He was summoned by the general to intercept and decode Iraqi messages and send instructions in Morse code to our fighters. My father was General Barzani's Morse code operator. He often used to say to my mother, "Haybet, I'm the general's personal operator," smoothing his mustache between his thumb and his index finger.