There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

What happened in the village of Golden Waters will never be mentioned in history books. Only the grandchildren of the survivors will remember. It will remain unvoiced in their unfinished sentences, uneasy silences, resurfacing nightmares. The memory of the massacre will be carefully handed down from one generation to the next, like passing someone a lit match protected from the wind in the shelter of your palm. One day itinerant bards will sing about the firman. Luring the ghosts from their burial places, the ballads will tell how the pasha and the qadi, joining forces with the Beg of Rowanduz, known as Mir Kura, put hundreds of Yazidis to the sword in a matter of hours. Together they organized an army, instructing the soldiers to kill all the men and boys, and keep the women and girls as spoils of war. The songs will lament how, outnumbered and outgunned, the villagers—women, men, children—tried to outrun their fate. Some fled toward Mount Judi and Tûr Abdin, others toward Mount Sinjar, but a larger group made for the River Tigris—the waters roiling and rising with melted snow. To their horror they found the makeshift bridge had disappeared. They searched for a boat, a raft, anything to help them cross, but there wasn’t one to be found for miles. Unbeknownst to them, the qadi had had the bridge destroyed and the vessels removed. And so the people of Zêrav were trapped, the river rushing past in front of their eyes. Those who tried to swim were drowned. Paralyzed by fear, ...