Mariam Athra
By Deborah Najor Alkamano

Khokheh had visions.

Her father left Iraq, her mother, and her when she was five. 1908. He planned to find money in America; instead he found Mexico, a second wife, and a new son. Khokheh always expected her Baba to come back. He lived in Mexico his whole life with his second family, but he sent money every few months for the rest of their lives.

At nine, Khokheh was engaged to a young gentleman, Zia, nineteen, determined, deliberate. The young bride slept at her mom’s for the first year. Her husband then insisted she stay with him. She didn’t sleep very well. She had dreams: The Virgin would come to see her and tell her to spread God’s words. Khokheh would visit the women in the village and tell all of them that Miriam Athra had come to Telkaif, she wanted them to listen to her. Khokheh gave away rosaries, Tasbeeheh, and in exchange she wanted nothing, just wanted them to say prayers. One young girl had warts on all of her fingers and her neck. She asked Khokheh to pray. The warts were gone. Khokheh brought a picture of St. Theresa to another girl, married for seven years, no pregnancies, and then months later, the girl proudly showed her gift, her miracle. Another woman, after having ten kids, could not bear the idea of another pregnancy and sought counsel with Khokheh. Name him Yousif. He will be your blessing, you will see. Yousif became a well-known journalist in the U.S. later and her favorite in the family, always the baby.

Zia, Khokheh's husband, thought that his wife should stay home and not visit with so many women. It could only bring trouble. The more the women in the village praised Khokheh, the more Zia thought that he needed to take his family and move to Baghdad. He would need to make some money. He traveled to America and didn’t return for seven years. Khokheh didn’t expect him back. When Zia returned, he purchased a wheat-grinding machine and offered his services to the poor farmers in Telkaif. In this way, he built his family a castle in the center of that village. He would later build them a beautiful home in Baghdad. His wife took care of his four children while he was gone; she also became a famous midwife. She had assisted in almost 200 births. He insisted that she stop, so Khokheh stayed home and had ten more children in the next ten years. Khokheh’s name meant peaches, but to the women in Telkaif, her name meant healer. Any woman who was having a difficult time during delivery would cry out her name and the name of Mariam Athra.

When her youngest, Jewel, was 22, she married her cousin Basil from America. Khokheh upset the Garmo families because they wanted her, Khokheh’s youngest daughter, for their son. Khokheh insisted that her daughter did not want to marry a cousin or live outside of Baghdad, and here she was giving her to the brother who left, after the flood, so many years ago. His son owned a grocery store in a place called Detroit. What kind of life would that be? She had to be crazy.

Khokheh’s visions returned after her daughter left for America. She couldn’t sleep. Mariam Athra told her to pray to Esho, and Khokheh would have peace. In her vision, she saw her daughter with a new baby, a little girl, and she saw that all of the village would leave Telkaif and Baghdad and go to that same place.

Khokheh told all the women in her village about this vision.

This time they did not believe her.

Deborah Najor Alkamano is a faculty member of the English department at Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan. Her short story publications include Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review and Forkroads.