Substance and Shadow

There are women in my neighbourhood from the 'mothers of a great nation' stock. It was fitting to celebrate the most recent Eid and think on Father Abraham with one such, whom I sometimes see on the path to school, always surveying her livestock and the offspring who graze or mill about her. She is vast, built for a lifetime of service to cattle. Her scarf barely skims her bosom where a similar-sized one would normally swamp other women. She never moves. Her still, stable solidity seems to keep her flock safe. She is their centre of gravity, they will not stray. I pass her and greet her but she never turns her head to look at me. She does not say hello but always, 'come in and eat something.' So it was good to be able to accept that day after months of having to decline and say, 'got to get to school you know.' One of her sons attends our school. I police him more than I teach him.
Inside, lesser family members revolve around her. Her scrap of a father in law is hunched in blankets in the corner and croaks out a small greeting to me. Brothers in law come and go and fail to make an impression. Children scuttle hither and thither but only this lady of such ample carriage has any standing. Her clothes, all the length and breadth of them, are deep red. Before her sit three large cauldrons from which she ladles out meat, tea and veg with one hand while changing a nappy and swaddling a baby with the other. she smooths down cloth, positions the baby on it and with a deft flick of the wrist flips him over once, twice and back again and lo and behold he is a tightly bound Christmas present with a face. There won't be any more bother from him.
I struggle to know what to talk about with this capable woman. After all, what has chat ever done to help rear her young? 'You must have had an early start to cook all this today,' I attempt. 'Every morning is an early morning,' she replies, and casts her gaze over the assemblage of children. 'Ah, yes, I suppose it is.' I shovel more rice in, obediently.
I feel it would not be well received to tell this bastion of womanhood that I didn't want too much as I wasn't feeling too well. Everything she feeds thrives; she has never heard of ill-health or reduced appetites in man or beast. So I go home feeling green but it doesn't do to be on one's own on Eid so shortly there are knocks at the door as women come to invite me round. 'My health,' I stammer weakly. This buys me neither time nor space. 'Oh no! Alone and unwell!' That will never do. And in they come, kicking off their shoes. 'Salty tea or sweet?' I ask as I hobble through to put the kettle on. I fish around for something to feed them and find the remains of my birthday snacks to fry up. (Nothing goes off in this weather.) It transpires none of the children are well either as they all cough and splutter into their cups of tea (salty) and my room takes on the air of a hospital. A neighbour of ours had a baby recently, by c-section, so the conversation turns to childbirth. 'If you work hard in pregnancy,' one woman informs us, 'you should never have difficulty in childbirth and never have to have one of those operations.' Her tone is derisive. 'Take my lot, for example,' and she paused to tot them up: '...eleven, twelve, thirteen. I had thirteen of them, never took more than an hour for one of them.'

The tea and conviviality had a reviving affect. Maybe there is something in not leaving a patient alone after all.

A trip is planned to go and visit the sister of some friends who has moved to the other end of town after she got married. I am keen to visit her after her life has so completely changed. After more tea and more refusals of sweets and kebabs and slices of roast and cake we bundle into the car, dressed as chic as possible in the bitingly cold air. We pull off into the night. We pass a few huddled figures moving from one meal to the next. It's known locally as the festival of meat. 'Don't worry,' said one lady who fed me the night before, 'it's not like the last Eid, all salads and chickpeas. You'll only get meat this time.'

We keep overtaking a motorbike that stops and starts, stops and starts. Every time it stops the passenger gets down and pushes it, running, head down, sleeves rolled up. Then it starts and he rides for a minute, then pushes till sweat drips from his brow like it's July. Mr Front Seat stares forward, oblivious as to whether his bike is powered by fossil-fuel or friend's brawn. He cares not if his energy source is sustainable. I marvel at the strength of their friendship that would keep a man pushing.

We begin to wind through an unfamiliar part of town where there is no electricity right now. I peer out into the darkness. Most people will be inside around fires and floor-cloths that speak of plenty. Then a cold square of gas-light flares into view. In a dirty white-washed diner, three men sit hunched over their plastic tables as a boy wipes up. A lonely steel pan simmers. I hold the child on my lap closer and turn back to face the cosiness in the car. We're laughing at song lyrics and I'm glad to be with friends.

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The stove is my centre of gravity, I shall not be cold. Its warmth, its quiet voice and the occasional funny noises it makes as it expands, contracts and plays with wood chips makes it like a friend whose side you don't want to leave. Nipping into the kitchen I am cold and fretful, hurrying the washing-up, the only job I have not been able to bring to do by the fireside. I have moved my desk so I sit almost on top of the stove. From there, I mark exam scripts, chop vegetables, read and pray. I can lean over and give the onions a stir or brew tea thick and fast. I've forgotten why it was that houses were ever built so big. The other rooms are cold places, voids.

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This morning when I had no reason to wake early I woke early and pulled back the curtains for the light that the electric company is currently unable to provide. I caught the mountain iced and the first rays of the sun burning off the cloud. I have never seen this mountain silver and white before, as I only see the south face. Seeing the cloud linger and then slowly peel back reminds me of my own reluctance to pull back the blankets these days and expose myself to the cold. But, by the time I've had my breakfast, there the mountain is again, stone and still, standing guard over the city with no sign of ever having slumbered. I take my cue and get out myself.

I am trying to escape the shadow of the mountain looming over me so I walk north to the middle of the valley which basks in the sun when, as this morning, it comes out. I walk along the ledge to see the river and see my shadow moving sometimes along the rocky bank far below, sometimes over dried grass in winter orchards or barren land. It is cut up by the long lines of poplar shadows. The shadow has a great big chadar flapping about it and no clear shape I can call my own. For a moment it seems I am watching another woman's life - one who walks in dry remote places. Then I wonder how much is she me or I her?