Mother's Testament: 2 A Springtime Farewell

It was the month of May. In our village the apple and apricot trees were blossoming and the air was heady with sweet scents. Fed by the spring rains, the grass had grown high and was bright green. One night I was awoken by a storm; peals of thunder and violent flashes of lightning, followed by a torrential downpour. No sooner had this died down a little than the telephone rang. My heart began to pound with unease. I lifted the receiver to my ear and heard the words: ‘Mehriban, Gyuli-ana[1] has died.’ This fateful news arrived with the dawn: the clock said half past five, but I knew I would be unable to go back to sleep. I went over to the window and pressed my forehead to the cold glass. The news had shaken me. Death, of course, comes to us all sooner or later, but I had hoped that old Gyuli-ana would be able to overcome her illness one more time. But why was I still standing here thinking? I had to go and help relieve the suffering of my relatives.

           

I dressed quickly and went out into the street. The houses and gardens had been washed clean by the rain and everything seemed to breathe freshness. Yet this only made it harder for me, and my chest ached from my sense of loss.

           

People were already crowding along the street to Gyuli’s house. The elders were sitting in the yard on long benches. The sounds of weeping and keening made my shoulders sink even lower. Her son Yadikar was unable to contain his sobbing: ‘Oh Mama, you looked after us; you gave to us all your life! Why did you leave us so soon, Mama? Forgive me, Mama!’ The grandchildren, who like their father were wearing white bands around their waists, also keened: ‘Moma, our own dearest grandmother, you were solid gold! And now you’ve gone away and left us.’

           

Nor did the neighbours standing around them hold back their tears. And since Gyuli-ana had been known and respected far beyond the boundaries of the village, the street and the yard were soon full of people. Death forces us to feel our frailty and dependency, and when somebody departs this world forever, we try to be closer to one another.

           

I went inside, to the inner room where the women were sitting. Their heads were covered with white mourners’ shawls. Scarcely had we greeted each other before my two cousins, Selimyam and Saniyam, came over to me. We hugged each other and wept together. One after another we lamented: ‘Oh, mother! How much you laboured, all your life long! In the heat and the cold, in the garden and in the house! You raised us, you nurtured us, then you were nanny to our own children. You really loved life! But now you’ll never see your grandchildren marry! You cannot now rejoice in the good life, our beloved ana, our priceless, irreplaceable mother!’

           

Appak-ana, the wife of the village imam, sitting on a korpya in the centre of the room, said: ‘My children, stop weeping now and pull yourselves together. Nobody in this world lives for ever. We will all leave by the same road. Allah said, and may it be so, that the child will lament its mother, but not the other way round. May heaven protect us from the grief of a mother who weeps for her child!’

           

Soon more relatives arrived from the nearby village of Pidzhim. Our neighbours, my sisters and their woman friends resumed their keening and sobbing. May their crying reach heaven, may it help the soul of the departed to find the straight path to the Most High God!

           

Then came an announcement. ‘Quiet please, everybody. They are now ready at the cemetery. Who will go in and wash the body of the deceased?’ At this the crying stopped.

           

Selimyam spoke up: ‘Mama’s wish was that her friends Mervan, Mariyam and Zaynap would wash her for the last time. And let Sepiyam-hada bring and pour the water.’

           

The women mentioned went out into the yard and began by performing an ablution as if before the ritual prayer. Next they went into a separate room and sewed a garment for the deceased out of white material. Once this was completed, the oldest of them, Mervan-hada, wrapped everything they had prepared in white cloth. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘now let’s go in and say Bismillah, then wash our friend’s body and comb her hair before she is laid to rest. We’ll give her the best of farewells,’ she said and went into the room where Gyuli had been laid.

           

They fetched two buckets of water and a kapak-chumush for pouring it. Once they had washed the body they dressed it in a shirt, tidied the hair and wrapped the body in the white cloth. Now the children, relatives and close friends came to pay their respects. Gyuli had changed: her eye sockets had grown deeper, all her features had become sharper – and her face suddenly seemed small.

           

Whispering our farewell, ‘Mother, may your resting place be paradise,’ we quietly went outside.

           

The men gently lifted the shrouded body, carried it out to the yard and placed it on a covered stretcher. A prayer was recited, then the men carried Gyuli off to the cemetery. The sound of keening grew stronger as they went. The women accompanied the procession as far as the cemetery gates, then washed their hands and returned to the house. I looked over the rooms with their subdued occupants and felt a lump in my chest. Another wave of crying and ritual lamentation broke over us. As is our custom, the eldest daughter Selimyam then stood up and asked:

           

‘My dear friends and relatives, tell us, what kind of person was my mother?’

           

Mervan-ana replied: ‘Gyuli was a good woman. She never hurt anybody; she was gentle, unassuming and hard-working. Everyone in the village respected her highly. When I think of how much we went through together…!’ The old woman broke into sobs.

           

And it was true. Gyuli-ana was one of the oldest among us. Today the number of old-timers left in the village can be counted on one hand, like precious beans in a thin soup.

           

Now Zaynap-ana spoke up. ‘Selimyam, child, that’s enough crying. Calm yourself. Let’s choose who will take care of the kazan and who will stay in this house for the next seven days to care for the family.’ She pulled her shawl a little tighter.

           

‘Dzhanyam and Halidam, my mother loved and respected you very much,’ Selimyam addressed her neighbours, ‘would you be willing to work at the kazan for seven days?’

           

‘Of course, we will be happy to fulfil your mother’s wishes.’ The two women rolled up their sleeves and went over to the hearth straight away.

           

Old Zaynaphan, stroking her aching knees, added: ‘And I will make zhit for the seven days.’

           

Selimyam turned to the others. ‘Dear friends of my mother, relatives and elders of our community, please stay with us, any of you who can, for this period of seven days.’

           

Sighing, the younger women, neighbours, reluctantly declined, unable as they were to leave their work, their homes and their animals for a whole week. Many of the older people were also distressed that they could not stay – but how could they neglect their grandchildren, whom they looked after every day? Free time is precious nowadays.

           

Now Dzhanyam entered the room holding a tray piled high with freshly-baked nan from the tono oven. She went up to each woman in turn and said: ‘Take some of this nan, it has been held over the head of our deceased mother.’ Each took half of one of the flatbreads, and when they had all sat down, Halidam came in. She also had a tray, on which was a quantity of tea wrapped in newspaper together with some needles and thread. Going up to the older women, Halidam said to each: ‘Take a handful of tea, a needle and some thread.’ They did so, and then she addressed the younger women: ‘And you take some as well, and tomorrow, when you do your namaz, remember our Gyuli-ana.’ Each of the women took a handful of tea and a needle and thread and wrapped them, together with the piece of nan, in their shawl.

           

‘Why do they give out nan and tea after someone has died?’ a young woman asked the elderly Zaynaphan.

           

‘If a neighbour borrows bread, tea or a needle and thread and does not manage to return them while she is alive, then on the day after her death her relatives give out all three, to ensure that the soul of the deceased is free of debts,’ she replied. ‘This is an ancient custom of ours, daughter.’

           

Noticing that some of the older women were preparing to leave, Selimyam stood up and said in a trembling voice: ‘My dear ones, thank you, all of you, very much for coming to pay your respects to my ana.’

           

Appak-ana, filled with compassion, responded: ‘You are all deserving children. You buried your mother beautifully. Those of you who remain, I wish you the best of health. Let me say a prayer.’ All the women sitting in the room lifted up their hands and passed their palms over their faces. After the prayer, Appak-ana continued: ‘Selimyam, I’m not feeling too well. Allow me to go home. But on the seventh day I will come back and pray with you all again.’ The old woman got up to leave.

           

Since our tradition forbids any close relative of the deceased to leave the house, Selimyam-hada asked one of the young girls to go with Appak-ana and put her in a taxi home.

           

Old Zaynaphan stood up, took the jug for ablution and went out into the garden. Then, going into the chayhana, she filled a large bowl with flour, took a tea bowl and placed a little salt in it, dissolved the salt in some cold water and poured this onto the flour, then began kneading the mixture into dough for zhit. Nine-year-old Guncham, watching every movement of the old woman, asked her: ‘Moma, why are you making zhit?’

           

‘These breads will be fried in oil while we remember and pray for the person who has died.’

           

‘Moma, let me help you.’

           

‘No, daughter, it’s better for you just to watch. One day you will have to make zhit yourself.’

           

While Zaynaphan-ana was frying the thin bread, Mervanam-ana went out into the yard and gave instructions to two younger women. ‘Daughters, would you place a table in one of the rooms for when the men come back, and put a tablecloth on it. As soon as Zaynaphan finishes making the zhit, she’ll come and put them and the other food out on the table.’

           

By now, it was hot in the house. The woman beside me, Pashahan, and I went out into the yard. I looked at the house whose owner had for many years been Gyuli-ana. On one side of it was a canopy up which a vine now crept, with new shoots appearing in tender green. On the other side of the house stood the chayhana, decorated with a carved floral pattern. On a high shelf in a corner of the chayhana were two kazans that had been scrubbed up until they shone. Not for nothing did the villagers say that Yadikar had golden hands. His yard was tidy and attractive. Around the chayhana Gyuli-ana had planted rose bushes whose swelling buds now glittered with dew. For the whole of the summer to come, the yard would be pervaded by the fragrance of roses – Gyuli’s final farewell. Gyuli used to work incessantly – but she and her children had it no worse than others, and her children grew up to be hard-working and honest.

           

There was a creak as the gate opened and the men returned from the cemetery. Yadikar was in front; he looked as though he had aged. He stopped in front of the entrance to the house and lamented: ‘So I have entrusted my ana to Allah. Without you this yard is bereft, my dear mother, my source of joy and wisdom…’

           

To Yadikar’s lament was added the voices of his sisters. The women came out; once more the yard was filled with weeping, and not even the men could hold back their tears. For all of us, after all, our mother is the dearest and most irreplaceable person. A mother is ready to suffer anything for the sake of her children, yet does not show her suffering or complain about her hardship. And so when their mother departs this world, the grief of the children is great.

           

The weeping died down in due course and the men were invited to the room prepared for them. The zhit was consecrated with a prayer recited from the Qur’an and everybody prayed for Gyuli-ana. They drank their tea in silence.

           

When they had finished drinking tea, Yadikar addressed the mullah: ‘Mullah, father, would you please pray for our mother.’

           

‘Very well, son, I will do as you ask. I will say prayers for forty days,’ he replied.

           

After the closing grace everybody got up from the table and began to say goodbye to one another and to disperse. The friends, in-laws and close neighbours appointed to rememorate Gyuli-ana for seven days stayed behind in the house. We talked softly, sometimes reducing our voices to a whisper. At times of sadness the familiar world can seem quite different: the eyes see more sharply, and feelings are felt more keenly. In the evening, when it was time for the meal, Dzhanyam and Halidam brought long low tables into the room and announced: ‘The daughters-in-law of Mervanam-ana have brought you suyuk ash.’

           

The daughters-in-law, Pashahan and Memanhan, served the soup into bowls and placed one of these in front of each woman, then broke a large nan into pieces that had been baked in the tono and placed it on the table. The men meanwhile assembled in the chayhana. They were also each given a bowl of suyuk ash. After the meal, aktyan-chay was served. As they drank their tea they conversed at leisure. Afterwards the women silently cleared the dishes from the tables.

           

After their tea the most respected of the women, who were sitting in the places of honour, took turns to invite one another to lead prayers, as was part of the memorial ceremony.

           

At last Maryam-ana turned to Pashahan and Memanhan and said: ‘Daughters, may your hands never be tainted! You have given us such delicious food! Thank you,’ and raised her hands for prayer.

           

According to Uighur custom, when a person dies at home, their relatives do not prepare or serve any food or drink; instead, this is brought in by friends and neighbours. This goes on for seven days. The two women chosen to work at the kazan prepare the food, wash the dishes and perform the other kitchen tasks for that week. The same women also serve the food to the others who have elected to stay for the seven days of remembrance. As the close of the seventh day approaches, the people who washed the body are presented with the best clothes of the deceased as a token of thanks, while the neighbours who served in the kitchen are each given a blanket or korpya, a block of soap, plus tablecloths, spoons and a large bowl filled with rice. Significant events always become covered over with small, commonplace happenings, and these help to heal the wound of loss. Life goes on and takes us forward with it.

* * *

It is customary in Uighur villages that money will have been collected from each household at some past time and a large kazan purchased, along with two hundred trays, spoons, plates and bowls, plus tablecloths and benches. These items are then used for nazyrs, weddings and other communal events. At the end of each occasion they are washed, put away and stored ready for the next.

           

Before we knew it, it was time to prepare for the seventh-day nazyr, the wake for Gyuli-ana. On the appointed morning, people brought tables and benches into Yadikar’s yard, where they were arranged under the vine canopy in two rows. Cloths were spread on the tables. On one side of the yard men were butchering meat, while on the other side, women peeled carrots. These people included relatives, neighbours and friends. Dzhanyam and Halidam, aided by other women, baked ten batches of nan in the tono and arranged them on the tables. The sight of these people, who had put aside their own affairs to support the family that had been afflicted by grief, was heart-warming. But ordinary people are like this – friendly and responsive to need.

           

Two days earlier, Yadikar had gone to visit Nizamdun, a cook well known in the village who was always ready to help, be it for a wedding or a wake.

           

‘Aka, can you please prepare a special plov in honour of my deceased mother? Tomorrow we will kill a large bullock – do come and see. If we need extra we will also slaughter a sheep.’

           

‘Don’t worry, brother, I will come and check everything,’ the cook answered.

           

The day before the nazyr Nizamdun came to boil the meat of the bullock. He inspected the sliced carrot and estimated the quantity. He took a handful of rice, examined it and let pour back into the sack. Only after this did he sit down with the others to drink a bowl of broth.

           

And now the day of the nazyr had arrived. From early morning Nizamdun had set to preparing the plov in two large kazans. By his calculation, each person would require roughly a hundred grams of rice, fifty grams of meat, eighty grams of carrot, thirty grams of oil, thirty grams of onion and various seasonings. Normally, before starting to cook the plov, Nizamdun heats the oil to a high temperature and fries the meat together with the onion and carrot. He examines the type of rice, estimates the amount of water required and brings this to the boil in a separate kazan. While it is heating up he washes the rice carefully in warm water. Finally he places the rice on top of the fried meat and vegetables and pours in the boiling water. It is a perfectly ordinary recipe, but Nizamdun’s plovs are nevertheless particularly delicious; the guests eat it with relish and compliment the cook.

           

By midday more than three hundred men had gathered in the yard. After washing their hands, they took their places. The mullah said a prayer and blessed the zhit. Women poured tea for them and then began to serve the steaming plov. The men ate unhurriedly, in serious mood, talking quietly among themselves. The day was calm and sunny.

           

Towards two o’clock the men began to disperse. It was the turn of the women. After they had washed their hands, the oldest women went into the house, while the younger women sat down under the canopy. Once again they were first given bowls of sin chay, then, once this was complete, the appetising, fragrant plov was served on deep plates called tavak. The serving of women was followed immediately by milky aktyan-chay.

           

By this time sunset was approaching. The memorial meal was over and the crockery was cleared from the tables. They gave thanks. Yadikar’s wife Hushnyam, and his sisters Selimyam and Sepiyam, brought four bundles of clothes into the room and placed them in front of Mervan-ana, Zaynaphan-ana and Maryam-ana, who had washed the body of the deceased, and Sepiyam-ana, who had poured the water. Once again the daughters wept a little, then said to the four helpers: ‘Please accept these things of our mother and do not be offended if anything isn’t quite right.’

           

Hushnyam then turned to Dzhanyam and Halidam. ‘Dear neighbours, you’ve worked so hard in the kitchen all these seven days. Thank you.’ Selimyam and Saniyam now put in front of them everything that they had prepared.

The two women declined, however. ‘No, no, what are you doing? We are close neighbours, almost relatives, you could say. And we helped you out of respect for your mother.’

           

Appak-ana, sitting in the place of honour in the centre, said: ‘Selimyam and Saniyam, you took good care of Gyuli, you kept an eye on her and took her to the doctors. But there is nothing for it – her days on this earth have ended. There is a day and an hour appointed for all of us. Yadikar is a deserving son and he buried his mother very well. May the place where Gyuli lay down be soft and may her soul be at rest. Good health to you all! And never let your mother’s light, the light of your family, ever go dim.’ After saying these words Appak-ana raised her hands to lead a prayer, and the others followed her movements, bringing their palms towards their faces.

           

Afterwards, Zaynaphan-ana spoke. ‘Dzhanyam and Halidam! May you have long lives! Thank you, dear neighbours, for everything. We will pray for your wellbeing.’

           

All the women raised their hands to their faces.

           

The seventh-day nazyr for the deceased Gyuli-ana was now over, and the relatives departed. The neighbours took Selimyam and Saniyam back to their homes. Hushnyam and her daughters began the cleaning up. Once everything was tidy, Yadikar went into his mother’s room. Looking at the empty bed, he felt a wrench in his heart and once again he began sobbing violently.

His own young son Tairzhan came up to him, looked at his grandmother’s bed and asked: ‘Papa, why did moma die? Her friends also got ill, but then they got better again. Why didn’t my grandma get better?’ He collapsed on the bed and cried.

Yadikar was at a loss as to how to answer his six-year-old boy. He stroked his head, wiped away his tears and said: ‘Don’t cry, your moma didn’t like it when you cry. I’ll take you to her tomorrow.’

The child looked up at his father. ‘I loved sleeping next to her so much, she used to tell me all kinds of stories. Who’s going to tell me stories now?’ He hugged his father.

‘Your moma is in heaven and she’s watching us. If you want to make her happy, be a good dzhigit and remember what she told you.’

Next day, as promised, Yadikar took his wife, little Tairzhan and his daughters Unchyam and Guncham to the cemetery. Unchyam made a bouquet of her grandmother’s favourite peonies and placed it in a jar of water. The cemetery was situated in a hollow below the mountain. The family walked up to the mound over the grave and stopped. Yadikar squatted down and said a prayer. They all whispered ‘Amen’ and passed their hands over their faces. Unchyam placed her bouquet of peonies on the grave.

Tairzhan had never been in a cemetery before. He walked about the mound that had been built over his grandmother’s grave. He could not have imagined the amount of suffering and grief that had been her portion before she was laid out in the dark earth.

* * *

When I had finished my tale, I added: ‘So where can children learn about grandmothers and mothers like Gyuli-ana, except from books? This is why I have written my book.’

           

Ruth nodded agreement. The aircraft was droning along, trying to catch up with the sunset, but the wing was already bathed in pink light.

           

I looked at Ruth. ‘I don’t know how much you know about what happened to us in the 1930s. The truth was covered up for decades. Almost all of our history from that time is a blank. So I had to rely on eyewitnesses for many events from that period. They remembered how some men were labelled as ‘enemies of the people’ and thrown into prison or tortured. Their wives and mothers, left at home with the children, had no easier a time; they were often forcibly relocated to unfamiliar places. The mothers held themselves together heroically for the sake of their children. Each of them, down to the last, hoped that their menfolk would come home. So what happened in our village is what happened all over the country.’

           

‘And what is the name of your village?’ Ruth asked curiously.

           

‘It’s called Bolshoy Chigan. It’s divided into two parts, the upper village and the lower village, by the Great Silk Road. There used not to be more than fifty families there, but it has gradually grown. And what used to be clay adobe huts have been replaced now with modern, good-quality houses. People have a better life there today. Before we had only an outdated primary school, but now we can boast a ten-year combined school on three floors. Its classrooms are bright and it has a sports hall and an assembly hall. The streets have proper asphalt and there are flowers everywhere. The one thing that hasn’t changed here is the ability of its inhabitants to work hard. They labour on the land, which they love and understand. But I want them also to know and understand our history there. That’s why the heroine of the book is Gyuli-ana, one of the women from the village.’

             

‘So was it her death that stimulated you to start writing?’

           

‘It wasn’t just that. It was also that for many years nobody could write or speak about the repressions. Only decades later were the archive documents declassified and the truth became known. The times had changed. So I decided to portray the suffering of thousands of people through the lives of an ordinary Uighur family.’

           

‘So, will you now tell me the very start of your story?’ Ruth declined the tray of drinks proffered by the stewardess, while I took a glass of water.

           

‘If you aren’t tired yet,’ I smiled at my travelling companion, ‘then I’ll start at the beginning.’

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[1] For explanations of italicised words – mostly Uighur expressions – see the glossary at the end of the book.