There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

Grandma says that when she was little, there was a Muslim girl she loved to play with. The families were close and saw each other regularly. One day, on her way back from the shops, the girl’s mother stopped by their house. It was a sweltering-hot afternoon, and they served her freshly cut watermelon in their shady garden. The woman turned it down with a polite smile, saying she did not like the taste of the fruit. Nor would she accept the water offered, even though anyone could see she was sweating. So they brought her a jug of delicious lemonade. This time the woman reluctantly took a glass, but as soon as she thought no one was watching she poured it away behind a tree. They were shocked to find it there after she left. And that is when they realized something they had failed to notice all this time: that, even though the two families were neighbors, and they shared many a laugh and gossip together, the girl’s parents refrained from eating their food because they regarded Yazidis as heathens. “They thought our bread, even our water, was haram,” Grandma says. “How can that be? We were children. We were friends.”