by Haiva Askari
Summer of 1984 in Shadala, Kurdistan
Heat rays beat down hard on the grassy hills of the village. A couple of tall trees provided relief from the dry, arid heat. Mosquitos flew about, and the old men sitting in their yards swatted at them. They held their tasbih rosaries, occasionally slipping beads down with their papery fingers and sipping chai from delicate glass teacups. Down the winding dusty path, a group of young boys tossed pebbles at each other, hollering each time one of them got hit.
Tara watched sitting atop a big rock in front of her own house. Today was the day. She was so excited she could hardly sit still. After months of begging, her mother and grandmother had finally agreed to get her ears pierced. Tara saw the older women of the household move, their shiny gold earrings swaying with their movements. When she had first brought it up, they had told her “Na, wait a little longer,” but over time, they had become worn down. The 4th grade was never that fun to learn in, but she came home from school that day, jumping up and down when her grandmother finally agreed.
“Send her to pura Ismat,” her grandmother had said. Tara recognized the name. She was an elderly woman, who lived across the neighborhood. Ismat was the woman in the village who everyone went to for piercings, women and girls alike, along with many other things.
So, her aunt had held her hand and taken her across the village. They walked along the path, and Tara avoided kicking the dust up with her sandals each time she took a step. Her aunt clutched a box that contained the earrings she would be wearing. They were coin-shaped, and engraved with the traditional pattern that all women wore on their jewelry at the time. Tara had seen them, and she was ecstatic that soon, they would be hers. They were hefty. She had held them in her palm earlier. She loved how heavy they were, and as she shifted them from palm to palm, she watched as the sunlight gleamed on the metal with delight. Tara happily pulled her aunt along the path, eager to get it done.
They arrived at the clay house. The straw roof hurt Tara’s eyes to look at, it was so brightly illuminated by the sun. Her aunt unlatched the gate, and they entered the yard.
Ismat hobbled out of the house, long gray hairs exposed underneath her headwrap. Her back arched as she made her way over to them. Tara stared in awe as the old lady slowly made her way over to them. Her aunt began to speak. “Tara is getting her ears pierced today. You can do it, right pura?”
Ismat nodded. She began to speak in a gravelly voice, and called into the house, two names that Tara didn’t recognize. She knew they were men’s names, and she was correct. In a matter of seconds, two men appeared at the front door of the house. They were young, with determined brows set low on their forehead.
Ismat reached down, stooping so low that Tara was afraid she’d fall over and break her back. She grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground. She rubbed it in between her palms and used her index finger and thumb to pinch some. She reached over to Tara and pulled her face forward. Her aunt pushed back her hair.
Tara ignored how strange the old lady’s hands felt on her ears. Ismat pinched her earlobe hard and rubbed dirt on it. She reached for her palm yet again, and massaged Tara’s earlobes. “I’m numbing it,” she announced in a wavering voice.
“Now, palkawa.” Lie down.
Tara did as she was told.
Suddenly, as if they had never been there, the two men appeared in Tara’s peripheral vision. “One of you sits on her right arm,” Ismat ordered. “The other on her left. Make sure she can’t move.”
Fear crept into her heart. Is this how all the girls in the village had it done? Tara wriggled underneath the grasp of the two men. She didn’t like the way her arms felt, trapped, with nowhere to go. Her aunt gripped her feet. “Hold her,” Ismat appeared, holding a needle.
Except, it wasn’t just any needle. It was a “Sarupe” needle. A needle used to prepare a traditional dish prepared from stuffed sheep skin. The women would spend hours sewing the sheep skin shut, with thick, long needles. Longer and thicker than any other needles. Terror gripped Tara’s heart as she watched Ismat turn the needle over so the sharp point was no longer facing her. Instead, it was the blunt end, the thickest part of the needle.
Ismat approached her, squinting. Tara quivered. She hadn’t expected it to go like this.
“Breathe, my girl.” Ismat lowered her small frame to the ground.
Tara exhaled sharply. The hot summer air burned her upper lip as she continued breathing hard, inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Then came the pain.
It was sharp and blinding. Tara’s mouth made an “O” shape, but no sound came out. She felt unable to scream, but it was only momentary. Hot tears spilled over her eyes as sound finally emerged from her mouth. Animal cries, she thought. I sound like an animal. She writhed under the grip of the two men holding her and began kicking her feet at her aunt.
“Hold her still!” Ismat cried. She stabbed Tara’s earlobe, not once, not twice, but over three times. Tara bit her tongue and cursed the woman’s eyesight. She screamed as Ismat continued to stab her earlobes, in and out, with the blunt end of the needle.
Finally, it was over. The two men released her arms. Tara sat up in shock as blood trickled down both sides of her face. The excitement she had felt bubbling in her earlier sitting in the 4th-grade classroom had vanished. The golden coins dangled from her earlobes, and she touched them, wincing at the pain the slightest touch brought.
Her aunt looked at her with pity in her eyes.
“Come. Let’s go home.”
Tara had no memory of the walk home. When they arrived, her grandmother ushered her through the door. The women sat her down and wiped her face, careful to avoid touching her raw earlobes. She sat, biting her fingernails as they applied butter to her ears. She was careful not to let it get in her hair and sat still. A cup of hot chai was set in front of her. Two cubes of sugar. Tara moved slowly and sipped it. It burned her mouth.
The coins were so heavy that they ached and itched. Tara resisted the urge to yank them out to relieve herself of the dull throb.
In the following weeks, eight-year-old Tara faced many trials and tribulations. Her swollen earlobes had become infected. The house’s women fussed over her, and they had no choice but to remove the heavy, dangling coins from her tender ears. At her grandmother’s order, they replaced it with a thick string, to prevent the hole from closing. The blistering summer heat made everything all the more difficult. Her ears screamed whenever she lay on her side, so she laid on her back, no matter how difficult it made it to sleep. Tara lay on the sarban, the roof, to sleep. Her siblings snored lightly beside her.
She looked up at the stars in wonder. She thought there must’ve been so many, there was no way people across the world in America were seeing the same ones. And the moon, too, shone down. Tara stared up at the moon, as she crossed her arms over her chest. She reached up with her left hand and touched her earlobe. Weeks had passed and it was only slightly sore now. She pinched the thin string between her fingers. Tara closed her eyes.
She had school the next morning.
About the Author:
Haiva Askari is a senior Writing and Publishing major at Champlain College. Her focus is on writing poetry and nonfiction essays that highlight her ancestral and familial roots in the Middle East. In her free time, she enjoys drawing, painting, and snuggling her cat.