set in Osh, Kyrgyzstan
Mother looks at the roses growing in the bushes in the garden outside of their apartment complex. It is the nearing the end of autumn. The weather is a little above zero degrees Celsius. A grey fog hovers in the sky and makes all of the apartment buildings in the distance look in half. The environment shows off the influence of the season. The mud on the other side of the complex is starting to stiffen. The men and women passing are wearing thick layers. Some of the women keep their heads covered, while others manage with a scarf around their neck or mufflers. It’s a miracle that any flower can still grow when winter is about to start, but if there is such a flower that can survive anything, it is the rose.
Mother looks at these roses, and she thinks of her mother-in-law. What an unpredictable woman. The woman looked to be on her deathbed for most of this year. And Mother still thinks this will be the case for the most part. But in the last month or so since Father retired, each and every day she is getting a little better. There’s a bit more light in her eyes. There’s the sense that she’s trying to follow Mother and Father when they speak. She moves her head depending on who is talking. She makes an effort to smile when Father is near. Mother is starting to believe that this woman being around her son is making a difference.
These roses are beautiful. Mother wonders if she should pluck some of them. She wants some fresh ones in the house so that she can smell them while she is praying. Something about having the fragrance of nature in her home makes her feel more connected to Allah during salah.
Mother looks at the green space between the footpath and the apartment building. The wall looks as battered and beat up as the road. The rest of the bushes and grass look dry. They are alive but also dead, like many things before winter sets in. There’s very little beauty left by this time of the year. There’s nothing left of colour on this entire street, on this entire block, in this entire suburb a few kilometres away from the city centre. There really are just the roses.
If she takes some of these roses, then there’ll be one less thing that stands out along the footpath during this otherwise drab time of the year.
« Aygul. »
Mother hears her name . She looks towards the entrance to the apartment complex to see Father, speaking in his soft and gentlemanly but gruff voice, the voice of an older man. He has covered himself up with a jumper and then a sweater on top of that. The wool of the sweater has shrunk so that the blue outer lines of the jumper stick out. Mother wonders if he just wanted to put on the jumper, but then noticed how much his belly showed, and so he put something over it in a rush. He has gained some weight in the month since he has retired, but Mother feels rude to mention it, especially seeing how happily he spends his idle hours sitting with his own mother, sharing in her favourite food and television shows.
He is with her now in fact. His mother is in her wheelchair, and he is zig-zagging her down the small ramp next to the staircase. Is it time for their evening outdoor excursion? Mother looks at the time on her phone to see it is a little past seven, some forty minutes before the evening prayer. Mother cannot believe she has dawdled outside for so long. She thought she was out in the garden for some ten minutes, not over an hour.
Her husband has now joined her. She doesn’t have a lot of time to wash herself before the prayer, but she cannot ignore him or her mother-in law as that would be rude.
« Still looking for the right flower? » her husband asks.
« Ooba » Mother says, but then she corrects herself. « Actually, I like this weather. I wanted to be out for some time, away from the heater. »
« You are the only woman who thinks like this » Father chuckles. « Then again today is a sunny day. Soon the winter will start. And then we will be home all day for months. I used to hate driving in the snowstorms. I can’t imagine what it will be like to not be in the hospital. I will have to be inside with nothing to do. »
«You will get used to it » Mother says. Personally she cannot imagine leaving the home in those months because the entire apartment complex keeps the heating on, and it is always nice and warm. But of course she prefers the natural warmth of the sun and the outdoors anytime. Allah gave Earth the sun for a reason, and it has to be appreciated during the warmer months.
Mother notices once again that her mother-in-law is paying attention to their back-and-forths, her eyes darting between Mother and Father. This is a huge improvement compared to the months prior when Mother was wheeling her around, and her mother-in-law made no response to her gestures or comments at all. Mother makes an attempt at a conversation.
« Kaynenem » Mother coos like a little girl. « My mother-in-law? My mother-in-law! My mother-in-law is so cute. »
It could be the tone, it could be the sun, it could be the fact that Father is taking the time to make sure that the scarf around his mother’s neck is properly wrapped. The point is Mother’s mother-in-law gives a big toothless grin. Again, this is a huge improvement. Her mother-in-law is making eye contact, she is smiling, she is giving Mother the impression that she understands her.
Energised, Mother goes on:
« Kaynenem! My mother-in-law! Is your name Tatyana? Your name is Tatyana! You are so pretty. You are so beautiful. I love my mother-in-law. »
Mother is really happy. She loves the calming cold wind against her skin and the balminess of the sun shining at the same time. She loves the smell of the dying grass but also the fresh roses and the crispness of the autumn air. She loves that she can have this moment with her husband, who used to always be stuck at work. She loves that all of them are able to enjoy the end of the day together. It was an unremarkable day, and yet it was remarkable moment.
« I love my mother-in-law » Mother says. « I love my mother-in-law too much. »
She says it, and she means it. Her mother-in-law isn’t the only person to have made an improvement in the past few weeks. Previously, Mother only saw herself as a caretaker. She was doing a job for the family, performing a duty to help her husband. But did she ever show true love to her mother-in-law? Did she ever genuinely feel any hope? The truth was she had felt this woman was going to die any day.
But today, Mother points at the flowers.
Her mother-in-law doesn’t seem to notice the flowers. Her smile is still wide, but it looks plastered on like stucco. Mother wonders if she’s expecting too much progress. She goes up to one of the rose bushes and plucks a flower for her. She takes it and puts it right under her mother-in-law’s nose.
Father says: « Ene, do you like? »
Mother says: « Kaynenem, I brought a rose just for you. »
As Mother holds out the rose, her mother-in-law’s hand starts lifting upwards. Her mother-in-law has this habit of stretching out her arm and fingers, and it is hard to tell whether she is responding to the rose. But there is a difference, Mother notices. Smells are supposed to be better at awakening memories than words—that is what the nurse told Mother. Is that what is happening? Her mother-in-law puts out her hand but doesn’t let her fingers twitch in the air. Instead, she takes the time to slowly uncurl her fingers, one by one. Then it looks like she wants to curl them close again, but around the stem of the rose.
Father holds Mother’s hand and pulls the rose closer. Both are clasping the rose in the way this woman cannot. It looks like their fingers are their own tangle of vines, trying to get this woman dear to their heart to put her fingers around the stem as well.
She isn’t able to close her hand around it. Nonetheless her mouth opens up and a sound comes out. At first it sounds like she is trying to spit out something. Then it sounds like the start of a cough. Finally, there is a word.
« Ba… ba… barkhost… »
Mother cannot help but let out a smile. Rose. It’s the first time her mother-in-law has said a word with a sense of coherence and intention and meaning for months. It makes Mother wonder if there is more soon to come.
