Ajkuna mourns Omer

Ajkuna heard the words that Omer had gone ‘to his uncles,’ yet her heart would not accept them, because in Muji’s eyes she saw a shadow unlike any victory, and in Halili’s silence each word fell like a stone to the bottom of a well. In the men’s chamber, the lahuta died earlier than usual, as if the string’s voice had perished, and Ajkuna, seated by the hearth, found the ash colder than the night, as though the fire had forgotten the memory of warmth. She asked the men once more, not loudly and not with wailing, but with that clean, cutting calm that does not allow a lie, and Muji turned his head aside, so that in the turning itself the truth opened, the one they had held like a curtain. Then Ajkuna rose, tied her scarf tight, and took the road without permission and without company, while outside the mountain wind tugged at her cloak as if to pull her back, yet she did not turn, because mothers walk even when their legs beg them to stop. On the path she questioned a shepherd, and the shepherd lowered his eyes before pointing the way, then said ‘up there, where stones weigh more than speech,’ like a man who knows a truth, once spoken, chills the hands. Ajkuna climbed the slope until her breath cut her chest, yet her step did not fail, and when she saw the ravens circling, she understood the mountain was guarding a name, so she walked even straighter, as if every stone were a witness. On a harsh flat she found the great stone set like a lid upon the earth, and beneath it the soil was still fresh, as though a door had only just been shut that should never open again. Ajkuna dropped to her knees, pressed her palm to the stone as if seeking her son’s warmth through the cold, and said ‘Omer, why did you become silent so quickly,’ while the wind took her words into the pines, yet she spoke louder, refusing to leave her lament trapped inside. She scolded the mountains as if they had held him in trust and failed to keep him, scolded the roads for letting him return without returning, and scolded her own hands for not becoming a shield when they should have, because when a mother cannot find blame outside, she finds it within. Then she drew out a white kerchief and spread it over the stone as though setting a table for one grown cold, left milk in a small hollow so the spirit would not remain ungreeted, and whispered ‘they told me you went to your uncles, but I knew you went to the stones,’ begging the stone to crack for only a moment so she could tell him one unsaid word, yet the stone stayed sealed and the sealing stretched her wail even longer. She lifted her face to the sky and asked the sun why it shines on an emptied mother, asked the moon why it knows the paths of heroes yet does not bring them home, then bent again and spoke to Omer as if he were asleep, saying his father’s name should not have weighed on him like a stone, and that she would remember every one of his steps until memory became a path through blood. When she stood, her knees were trembling, but her voice had left a mark on the mountain, and on the way back the wind felt colder, because now she walked with an absence at her side, until later the bard sang her lament and people understood that in the Epic it is not only the hero who dies, but the mother’s laughter as well.