About a year after their marriage, my mother gave birth to a healthy baby boy. My father took a first look at his son’s robust form and named him Asad, the lion. My grandfather whispered the azaan, or call to prayer, in Asad’s newborn ear, baptizing him as a Muslim. I doubt Asad was any different then. Most likely, he didn’t hear Boba-jan’s azaan, already distracted by mischief and ignoring the call to be righteous.
Asad seemed to be born feeling he owned the world. He was, after all, my father’s first son, a source of immense pride for the family. He would carry our family name, inherit the land, and care for our parents in their golden years. As if he knew what was to be expected of him later in life, he consumed my mother and father. He nursed until my mother was raw and exhausted. My father scrambled to construct toys for his son to play with, planned for his education, and became even more intent that he bring home enough to keep his wife, a new mother, in good health and well nourished.
My mother was proud to have given her husband a son, and a healthy one at that. Fearful that the neighbors or family members would be jealous and cast an evil eye on him, she sewed a small blue stone, an amulet, to the baby clothing her sister-in-law had given her to ward off the evil eye, or nazar. That wasn’t all she did. She had an arsenal of tricks to combat the many faces of nazar. If Asad felt heavier in her hands or if a visitor commented on his pink, fleshy cheeks, she would look to her nails. She punctuated their compliments with whispers of nam-e-khoda, praising God’s name. Arrogance attracted nazar with the ferocity of lightning on an open field.
Day by day, Asad fattened off our mother’s milk, his face taking shape and his thighs thickening. Forty days after his birth, my mother breathed a sigh of relief that her son had survived the most dangerous time. My mother had seen a neighbor’s baby, two weeks after its birth, stiffen and shake desperately as if overcome by a wave of evil. The newborn’s spirit was taken before it could be named. I learned later that cutting an umbilical cord with a dirty knife probably seeded toxic bacteria in the baby’s blood. True or not, we Afghans are firm believers in not counting our chickens until forty days after they’ve hatched.
Like so many mothers, Madar-jan called upon the powers of wild rue seeds, called espand. She let a handful of the black seeds smolder and pop over an open flame, the smoke wafting above Asad’s head as she sang
It banishes the Evil eye, it is espand
The blessing of King Naqshband
Eye of nil, Eye of folks
Eye of allies, Eye of foes
Who ever wishes ill, let burn in these coals.
The song traced back to the pre-Islamic religion of Zoroastrianism, though even Muslims trusted its powers. My father watched, pleased that his wife was taking such care to safeguard his progeny. And, oh, how it must have worked! My mother’s death didn’t affect my brother’s life the way it did mine. He was still my father’s firstborn, still managed to be successful in life, usually at the expense of others. His careless doings hurt those around him, often me, and yet he always seemed to emerge unscathed. In the two short years my mother nurtured him, he had gained enough strength to secure his place in the world.
But my mother died before she could pin an amulet to my gown, before she could whisper nam-e-khoda, before she could look at her fingernails, and before she could lovingly waft the espand over my head. My life became a series of misfortunes, a product of unthwarted evil eyes. My birth was haunted by the death of my mother and, while Boba-jan mournfully whispered the azaan in my ear, a very different prayer was being said over my mother’s depleted body. The azaan, spoken in my grandfather’s voice, wove its way through to the fabric of my being, telling me to keep faith. My salvation was that I listened.
My mother was buried in a newly dedicated cemetery near our home. I didn’t visit much, partly because no one would take me and partly because of my lingering guilt. I knew I had put her there and people would remind me of that.
My father became a young widower with a two-year-old son and a newborn daughter. My brother, unruffled by our mother’s absence, crankily went about his toddler business, while I naïvely sought my mother’s bosom. With two children now in the nest, my father buried his bride and began looking for a new mother for his children.
My grandfather hastened the process, knowing a newborn would not fare well in the unintuitive care of a man. As vizier, he was familiar with all the families in the neighborhood. He knew a local farmer who had five daughters, and the eldest was of marrying age. Boba-jan was sure the farmer, burdened with providing for five girls until they wed, would be agreeable to his son as a suitor.
My grandfather went to the farmer’s home and, praising his son as a noble and trustworthy person who had the misfortune to be widowed early in life, he negotiated the engagement of the eldest daughter to my father. Gently emphasizing that the welfare of two small babes were to be taken into consideration, the process moved quickly. In months, Mahbuba entered our home where she was renamed, as most brides were, with a “house name.” It’s meant to be respectful, not calling a woman by her familiar name. I think it’s more than that, though. I think it’s a way of telling the bride not to look back. And sometimes that’s a good thing.
KokoGul, as the eldest of five sisters, had cared for her younger siblings from an early age and was fully capable of tending to two children. She decided quickly not to live in my mother’s shadow. She rearranged the few decorative pieces in our home, discarded my mother’s clothing, and erased all evidence of her existence, save my brother and me. We were the only proof that she was not the first wife, an important distinction even if the first wife was dead.
It was more common then for men to take on multiple wives, a practice that stemmed from times of war and the need to provide for widows, I’d been told. Practically speaking, this created a certain undercurrent of tension among the wives. The status of the first wife could not be matched by those that followed. KokoGul was robbed of the opportunity to be the first wife by a woman she never met, a woman she could not challenge. Instead, she was forced to rear the first wife’s children.
KokoGul was not an evil woman. She did not starve me, beat me, or throw me out of the house. In fact, she fed me, bathed me, clothed me, and did all the things a mother should. When I stumbled upon language, I called her Mother. My first steps were toward her, the woman who nursed me through childhood fevers and scrapes.
Yet all this was done at arm’s length. It didn’t take long for me to feel her resentment though it would be years before I could give it a name. My brother was the same but different. Within months, he transferred the title of “mother” to KokoGul and forgot that there had been another woman in her place. She tended to his needs with a bit more diligence, knowing that he was the key to my father’s heart. My complacent father, when at home, was satisfied that he had found his children a suitable mother. My grandfather, more astute with years, knew to watch over us. He was a constant presence.