I wasn’t an orphan. I had parents and siblings, a warm home and enough food. I should have felt complete.
But being without a mother is like being stripped naked and thrown into the snow. My biggest fear, the dread that grows alongside my love for my children, is that I may leave them in the same way.
I wonder if that fear will ever pass.
CHAPTER 2. Fereiba
KOKOGUL WAS A PLEASANT-LOOKING WOMAN, BUT SOMEONE YOU wouldn’t notice in a crowded room. She was nearly as tall as my father, with thick black hair that just grazed her shoulders. It was the kind of hair that would fall limp just minutes after the curlers came out. She was too buxom to look dainty and too thin to appear commanding. KokoGul had been painted with a palette of average colors.
Two years after she married my father, KokoGul delivered her first child, a daughter, a disappointment she promptly blamed on my mother’s ghost. My half sister was named Najiba, after my deceased grandmother. Najiba had KokoGul’s round face, and dark eyes framed by thick, arched brows. KokoGul, following tradition, lined her daughter’s lids with kohl so she would have healthy eyesight and striking eyes. For the first two months, KokoGul spent hours trying to make some concoction of fennel seeds and herbs that would soothe Najiba’s colic and stop her howling. Until her temperament calmed, mother and daughter were a sleep-deprived, ornery duo.
KokoGul’s patience with her stepchildren wore even thinner once her own daughter was born. Even more aware than before that we were not her own, she was quickly exasperated and lashed out at us with the swift strike of a viper. We were disciplined by the back of her hand. Meals were laid out with disinterest and inconsistency when my father was away. We ate as a family only when he came home at the day’s end.
With Najiba’s birth, KokoGul’s womb warmed to the idea of carrying children, and over the next four years she delivered three more girls. With each pregnancy, her patience shortened and my father, preferring peaceful days but unable to demand them, grew more distant. Sultana was born a year after Najiba. KokoGul did not make any effort to hide the fact that she had been hoping for a son, unlike my curiously disinterested father. With her third pregnancy almost two years later, she prayed, reluctantly gave alms to the poor, and ate all the foods that she heard would guarantee her a male child. Mauriya’s birth disappointed her and she believed that my mother’s spirit had placed a powerful curse on her womb. When Mariam, my fourth sister was born, KokoGul was not in the least disappointed or surprised. Feeling thwarted by my dead mother, she bitterly resolved not to have any more children. Asad would be my father’s only son.
MY EARLIEST MEMORY SHOULD HAVE HAD SOMETHING TO DO with school or a favorite doll, but that was not the childhood I had. KokoGul lay on a cushion in the living room, a newly born Mauriya nestled beside her, tightly swaddled in a prayer shawl. I was five years old.
“Fereiba!” KokoGul bellowed. Mauriya’s tiny face grimaced. She was too tightly bound to react in any other way.
“Yes, Madar-jan.” I was only steps away. KokoGul, still recovering from childbirth, was to do nothing but nurse the baby. I knew this because she’d reminded me of it often.
“Fereiba, your aunt left some chicken stew still simmering on the fire. There’s hardly enough for all of us. Why don’t you get some potatoes from outside so we’ll have enough to feed everyone.”
This meant two things. One, that my father and brother would be the only ones eating chicken tonight and the rest of us would have to settle for stewed potatoes. And two, that I would have to go out into the frosted backyard to dig out some spuds. Earlier in the season, we had buried a stash of potatoes, radishes, carrots, and turnips behind the house where they were refrigerated in the earth.
“Madar-jan, can’t you tell Asad to get them?” It was cold out, and I could already imagine myself struggling with the shovel.
“He’s not here and we need the potatoes now or they won’t be ready in time for dinner. Put on the coat and mittens your father bought you. It’ll only take you a few minutes.”
I didn’t want to go.
“Go on, sweetheart. Help your mother, will you?”
Her endearments were like powdered sugar on burnt bread. I bit into it.
I remember struggling with a shovel that was as tall as me, then giving up and finding a trowel that I could actually manage. My breath seemed to crystallize in the icy air and my fingers were numb despite my mittens. Hurriedly, I picked out four potatoes and was about to rebury the rest when I saw a few radishes. For no real reason that I can recall, I brought the radishes in as well, stuffing them in my pockets since my hands were full.
“I got them, Madar-jan,” I called out from the kitchen.
“Good girl, Fereiba. God bless you. Now wash and peel them and toss them into the pot so they can cook in the tomato sauce.” Mauriya had started to whimper.
I did as KokoGul instructed and cut the potatoes as she’d taught me, careful not to slice my fingers in the process. On a whim, I washed and cut the radishes as well, tossing them into the pot as a bit of culinary creativity. I stirred once, re-covered the aluminum vessel, and went to check on my other sisters.
“What is that awful smell? Fereiba! What have you done?” KokoGul’s voice traveled through our home as if it had legs and a will. I’d noticed the smell earlier but dismissed it with the carelessness of a five-year-old.
I didn’t think I had anything to do with the smell until KokoGul pulled herself to her feet, walked into the kitchen, and lifted the aluminum top. A pungent cloud of steam filled the room. I covered my nose with my hand, surprised I’d missed this smell.
“Fereiba, you fool! You fool!” She repeated those words over and over again, shaking her head and huffing, one hand on the small of her back.
The red flesh of my cubed radishes had told KokoGul exactly what I’d done. I learned that day that those hard, fuchsia bulbs let out a horrible stench when cooked. It was a smell I would never forget and a feeling I would always remember.
AFTER EACH BIRTH, THE ROUTINE KOKOGUL USED WITH NAJIBA was repeated. The babies’ eyes were lined with kohl, sweets were purchased when they’d survived forty days, and their heads were shaved to give them full, thick locks. I was left to mourn the miserable eyesight, fortune, and hair I would have since none of that had been done for me.
When it came time for me to attend school, KokoGul convinced Padar-jan that she needed my assistance at home with the younger children. My father, unable to afford help, agreed to have me stay back a year. Though I was young, I was useful — able to fetch things and do small chores. But even as my sisters grew, the same argument prevailed.
Thankfully, Boba-jan, my grandfather, kept a close eye on us. He dropped by frequently, and KokoGul’s behavior was notably different in his presence. He would call Asad and me to walk with him, his pockets jingling with coins and candies; there was no visitor we looked forward to more than Boba-jan. He would ask us to recite our prayers while he inspected our clothing and pinched the fat of our arms. KokoGul would watch him out of the corner of her eye, resentful of his mistrust.
But Boba-jan’s visits didn’t change much for me at home. As my sisters got older and KokoGul busied herself caring for them, I shouldered more and more of the household chores. I fed the chickens and tended to the goat. I beat the carpets daily and watched the younger girls. When Najiba reached school age, KokoGul argued that there was more to do than she could manage alone. My father conceded and I was relegated to home for another year. My younger sisters trotted off to learn the alphabet and numbers while I learned how to cook. My hands were chafed and cracked from scrubbing food stains from dirty clothes. Still, it stung more to stay in the kitchen while everyone else busily dressed for school in the morning.