At the Feet of Mothers

By Adnan Mahmutovic

Joseph Schneider grows up in a Cherokee-Jewish family in the Smokey mountains of North Carolina. He dreams to be a cook on the biggest ship there is in the world but his attachment to his mother Rachel and his rootedness to the little mountain village keep him from moving on. When his mother falls ill she reveals she stole him from a Palestinian girl Aliya in the 80s when she volunteered at a hospital in Gaza. Joseph refuses to know anything more about his biological mother, but later when Rachel dies, Joseph honors his promise to her and embarks on a painful pilgrimage to the holy land, a walk in the footsteps of his American mother and a search for Aliya.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cinnamon Press
• Release date: May 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781788641012

Adnan Mahmutovic

Adnan Mahmutović (1974) became a refugee of war in 1993 and ended up in Sweden. He worked for a decade with people with brain damage while studying English and philosophy. He has PhD in English literature and MFA in creative writing, and he is currently a lecturer and writer-in-residence at the Department of English, Stockholm University. As a part of a global project Transnational Creatives and GALA Network, he has started and is managing the first MA in Transnational Creative Writing. He has published a novel Thinner than a Hair with Cinnamon Press (2010), as well as short story collection How to Fare Well and Stay Fair (Salt, 2012), and a volume of literary criticism Ways of Being Free (2012).

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Published by Cinnamon Press

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The right of Adnan Mahmutović to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. © 2020 Adnan Mahmutović ISBN 978-1-78864-101-2

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Cinnamon Press is represented by Inpress and by the Books Council of Wales.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Welsh Books Council.

Surely

There is something wrong

With your ideas of

God

—Hafiz

Nothing will be done anymore,

without the whole world meddling in it.

—Paul Valéry

At the Feet of Mothers

PART 1: BOYHOOD

TOURISTS ARE COMING

JUNE 1997

‘You’re a cute little Cherokee,’ the tourist lady said and pinched my cheek. ‘I love the eye-patch. Can I take a picture?’

Fucking tourists. They just had to ask it. Every time. A picture of a real Injun boy. Should I say I’m a fake? Not sure they’d care. I looked like an Indian and that was plenty. She was fat, this one, I remember. And she’d just come out of Joey’s Pancake. They all come to Maggie Valley to eat pancakes. And what else? See the reservation? Watch clogging? Take the kids to Ghost Town in the Sky? Take deep breaths in our woods? Nah, this one was here for the Golden Pancakes and Silver Dollar and Pecan and Chocolate-Chip and Sweet Potato. And she must have had Strawberry Roll-up. Or maybe not. Maybe they didn’t exist back when I was twelve.

I should’ve listened to my mother and not come down to Maggie during the tourist season. I really should’ve stayed in the woods and survive the Flood like Noah and his kin by staying on the top. It was always too damn hot in the valley anyway. But I was there and one thing was true, we mountain people were not rude. And we smiled at tourists even when we imagined coons nagging at their bone. At least my family did. The rest of the valley were just genuine tourist-loving bastards, I suppose. Yeah, they damn well were. So I smiled. Yes, I used to do that back then. A lot. And I said to her, ‘Where do you want me to stand?’

The woman looked around and said, ‘Let’s see. Would be good if you stood against an old tree or something,’ but there were no old trees on the parking lot so she said, ‘I suppose right here outside the pancake place is just as nice.’

I stretched my back, trying to look taller, like my mom and my sisters. They were tall all right, real tall. And Dad was quite tall too. I was short. It sucked being short and one-eyed. And it sucks that I’m still so damn short.

She said, ‘That’s great. Looking good… sorry, what was your name? I’m Laura.’

‘I’m Joseph. Pleased to meet you Laura.’

‘That’s a nice name. But do you have an Inj… Native American name?’

‘This is my Injun name.’ I loved saying Injun back then. They always smiled their awkward smiles when I did, and I’d say it way too many times for it to be so funny. For a second the fat lady looked reluctant to breathe, so I said, ‘I’m just joking. Sorry. I’m so rude. People call me Joseph, or Jo, or… but I’m really called Ani’ Tsa’guhi.’

She laughed. ‘You’re funny. Love your sense of humor.’ She came closer and patted me on the shoulder. ‘And does it mean anything?’

‘It means me.’ Dear God, I loved the faces she was making. She laughed again, as if she had to. I felt I’d crossed the line there. I was raised right, after all. And the valley had a reputation to live up to. But she wanted the experience, didn’t she? I wished I had my knife with some made-up signs I carved in the wood. I’d tell her those were Cherokee letters, and she’d go, Wow, beautiful. I felt this tickling in my stomach and I couldn’t tell if it was the excitement or my conscience, my dad’s laughter or my mother’s reprieve. Even now that I’m older I still don’t know. I guess it was a bit of both. Still is.

I said, ‘It means Bear Boy.’

‘Ah, that is soooo cute. Bear Boy. Adorable.’

MICE AND DOGS

BACK IN OUR cove, I found my dad cleaning the porch. Our three bird feeders lay on the floor and the seeds were everywhere.

‘Dad, what happened here?’

Before he said anything, Mom turned up at the kitchen window and said, ‘His favorite squirrels got tired of waiting for the apple slices and destroyed the feeders. He’s turned them into junkies and this is what happens when you don’t feed the junkies.’

Dad turned to her. ‘Damn it Rachel, you can’t get addicted to fruit.’

‘I know addiction when I see it. You’re messing up the poor creatures.’

For a moment, it looked like he was going to fight back, but I knew that face, I knew he was already giving up. He continued cleaning.

I smelled fresh bread and said, ‘Mom, you’re not cooking, are you?’

‘I’m making us sourdough buns, potatoes carved into boats, and a new version of that dish of ground cherries with ice-cream.’

‘But Mom, I said I’d make us dinner today.’

‘You can do it another time. I just wanted to cook you a nice Sunday meal.’

‘Come on, you gotta let me do it sometime. I want to cook as good as you.’

‘You’re young, there’s time.’

Dad signaled me I should stop trying. Her kitchen was like some shrine only she was pure enough to be in.

‘All right Mom, I’ll help Dad instead. He’s a total mess.’

‘He sure is,’ she said and disappeared from the window.

When we cleaned the porch and hanged up new bird feeders and given the squirrels their fixes, we sat and watched the birds arrive from the woods one by one. You see, on the north side, you couldn’t tell where the cove stopped and the woods began, and that was how we liked it. And we liked the company of critters. If we wanted to see the valley we’d go to the valley. No one in the Schneider family has ever cut down a tree or marred the mountain by leveling spots for parking space or other stupid things.

‘What’s new in the valley?’ Dad asked.

Dear God, I loved my dad’s New York accent so much. It hadn’t changed a bit, Mom told me, since she’d found him walking in her woods like he’d just happened to get lost in Brooklyn. I could listen to my dad read a phonebook. I wished I could speak like that but my mom’s mountain voice was way too strong in me. I spoke like her and I sounded like her and I felt I couldn’t even write a school paper without her voice shouting from the pages.

I said, ‘Nothing much.’

‘Did you have fun with the tourists again?’

‘A bit. There was this one lady who wanted to have a nice picture of a Cherokee. Didn’t have the heart to tell her I’m half Jewish.’

‘That’s good. We don’t want them to stop coming here and spending their money, right? Besides, you know very well in Judaism the father doesn’t count, so yes, you’re all Cherokee.’

‘I know, but Mom always says in her family the mother never counted so that’d mean I’m all Jewish.’

‘What do you want to be?’

‘I want to be a great chef on the largest ship in the world so I can travel the world like Marco Polo and cook all the food there is.’

Dad laughed so much and I wanted him to set the woods on fire with that laughter. Mom showed up on the window again. ‘What’s so funny y’all?’

Dad said, ‘Nothing, just telling jokes.’

‘Nothing dirty I hope.’

‘Nope, just some old Jewish jokes from New York.’

When she was gone again, he said, ‘I was actually hoping you’d take over my tailor shop, or at least follow my dream and become a comic book artist.’

‘Dad, you know I can’t draw a lemon to save my life.’

I wasn’t sure what magical thing it was that he saw in comics but I loved when he talked about them so I pretended I liked them more than I did and then he’d talk and talk until I felt I was no longer pretending.

‘Dad, speaking of the whole Jewish or Cherokee thing, I read that comic you gave me, Maus. It’s… good. Really like the whole mice-cats thing, you know, the animals being humans. Or is it the other way round? Felt like, what’s his name, Art, was our family.’

He kissed the top of my head and said, ‘That’s absolutely right. I think even your mother would agree.’

I liked it better when he kissed me on the cheek, or sometimes, when he tucked me in, he’d kiss the corner of my lips. I loved his bad breath more than he loved garlic.

‘Dad, what animal would you like to be? I don’t see myself as a mouse or a dog. I guess you’d be a mouse and Mom a dog. But then you’re American too, right? You should be a dog. Or dog-mouse? I don’t get how it all works. I wouldn’t mind being a raccoon, though.’

‘Yes, and your sisters could be chatting red squirrels and your mother a wild turkey.’

‘Dad, the window’s open,’ I said and laughed. ‘Wait, I got it. I know Mom would say I’m a bear, but I’d like to be some big bird. Not a buzzard or an owl. A sea bird.’

‘How about an albatross? Handsome and strong and holy. A divine bird.’

‘I like that. An albatross.’

I sat there, watching all the small birds crowding around the feeders and thinking of divine albatrosses. Divine. That was what he said, I think. Weird. Or no, not weird, not at the time. It’s only now that I wonder why he said that. He never talked like that, never about God and the Devil and the angels and all the other things Mom loved. Was it that day I asked him about God, or was it years later when Mom died? I think at the time I was afraid I wouldn’t like his answer, or worse, that I would like it, and that’d get me into trouble with Mom. But let’s say it was that day, yes, because that’d make me brave, and curious, and it’d mean we had a good connection, my dad and I. Let’s say I said this, ‘Dad, I wanna ask you something. Mom takes us to church, but you never even speak about God.’

‘I read comics, I suppose,’ he said and then he went silent for a minute and then he continued. ‘You see Joseph, comics are liberating. At least they used to be. You know what the problem with today’s comics is? They’ve become accepted. When I was as a kid, comics were violating conventions, playing havoc on educational logic. Direct. That’s the word. There was something more direct and weirdly religious about comics back then, something intoxicatingly overstated. And sexual. I used to smuggle issues of Sheena of the Jungle. Your generation is lost when it comes to comics. Lost. You won’t learn a thing.’

I just stared at him, nodding, and hoping Mom wouldn’t catch him speak about sex and intoxication, speaking like he was rehearsing a lecture. He knew, I suppose, I’d never get into Eisner or Herge or one of those Belgian artists he liked.

Our dog Caddy came out and sat at my feet. I rubbed his head a little and he just slouched like he was really tired.

Dad said, ‘Sorry, I got carried away. You wanted to talk religion. Got it. Well, no one in my family was religious. Sure we observed Yom Kippur like most people did anyway, and my aunt would light the Shabbat candles on a Friday evening but she didn’t visit much. There was this time I was dating a girl that went to a Catholic school and she got me interested in the entire thing about bread turning into Jesus in my mouth, but my uncle told me Christianity was like a sequel, with some new characters, and sequels are never good anyway, so why bother.’

‘But you married Mom.’

‘She’s a special breed, your mom. You’re a smart boy. And your mother is not directly a fanatic either. So I don’t mind that she’s raising you Christian. But I still like comics better than the Bible.’

‘Me too,’ I said, and at the time it felt like I meant it.

DAY OF REST

A LOT OF things happened following that Saturday. A lot. I don’t even know where to begin. With Mom’s sexual appetite? Or Helen not coming home from New Orleans? Or the birth of an ugly little boy that I witnessed? Ah, and then there was my sister Kathryn dating the biggest jerk in the county. Yeah, a lot of things happened but all I was thinking at the time was I wanted to cook like Mom did, or better than her, much better, so when I turned eighteen I’d leave the valley on a big ass ship, cook for sailors and spend the nights on the deck looking for weird new constellations. God, I had no idea when that day came how bad I’d feel about leaving the woods for the seas.

All right, let’s start with the things that’d make Freud come to Maggie. My mother was changing. And she didn’t think I’d notice. She became a head-nurse down in St Joseph’s hospital where she’d worked for… I don’t know how long… decades probably, since she was a girl, since way before I was born. She loved delivering babies and no promotion could stop her from helping the other nurses bring a baby into this world, at least once a month, yes, something like that, and she’d always want to be the one to tag it with its mother’s name and a proper number. Kathryn once told me Mom freaked out when a nurse didn’t tag the baby right away. But that’s not what I’m getting at. That year, Mom often looked like someone had smacked her upside her head and made her all wide-eyed and hot. I don’t know how many times I’d seen her signal to Dad and pretend they had something to do, like she had to help him in his workshop with whatever suit he was tailoring at the moment. Sure they tried to be quiet but we did live in a cove. A big cove, I give you that, but… you know. And I’m not sure if that behavior explains what’d happen later, the stuff she’d come to tell me, the things she’d come to do, the way she’d die, but a horny mother is not exactly something you just forget.

I think what started it all was Caddy. He got sick on the Sunday Helen was supposed to come home from New Orleans and stay over the summer, but she didn’t, because she had an internship at some newspaper and was hoping they’d offer her a job after she finished college. Mom was angry and Dad sad and Kathryn didn’t care and I was the only one who knew that the internship was an excuse. Not a lie, mind you, no way Helen would lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. Helen had a new girlfriend. A really pretty one, she told me, but I doubted any girl could hold a candle to my sister.

Anyway, as always Mom and I woke up at sunrise and she hung the big clay disc on four old cords with buzzard feathers attached to its bottom. An inch underneath she put a white enamel pan filled with water. On the tense surface, there was a water-beetle made of fine wire mesh and black yarn. I’d made that model of the Cherokee creation myth at school but still Mom wouldn’t let me touch it like it was something that’d been handed down since the great buzzard created the mountains.

She’d baked bread the night before and put it on the disk, and sprinkled it with water and covered it with a linen cloth. The next morning the loaf was harder, but still fresh. She took a long stalk of lemongrass, checked that it hadn’t gone soggy, and laid it on the cutting board and cut off the woody leaves and peeled off the outer layers of the white stalk, and then she pressed it with a wide kitchen knife to release the juices and left it on the windowsill. I buttered a slice of bread, and we went out onto the porch.

Caddy lay at our feet, eyes hardly open. Dad came out and sat between us and rubbed his head against Mom’s shoulder and whispered something about the last night. She dug her fingers into his beard. ‘I could always braid it for you.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘What’s with all that lemongrass in the kitchen?’

I said, ‘It kills the spirits that didn’t drown in the water.’

‘That’s fantastic. You guys are updating old superstitions.’

‘Shut up,’ Mom said.

‘You’re not going to church today, are you?’

‘We are. To St John’s.’

‘Again? Joseph doesn’t even like Father Finn.’

‘Yes he does. And so does Kathryn.’

I really did, but decided not to say anything. Kathryn didn’t much like church whoever the priest was. There was never anyone handsome there, she’d say.

Dad went on, ‘Come on, that silly priest speaks like he was born and bred in the South. I hate him. I hate eloquent, liberal Catholic priests who bring up gay rights before their congregations. They mess up the order of things.’

‘Nothing left for you New Yorkers to complain about, huh? Besides, now that she got herself that hillbilly, it’s only good that Kathryn’s still keen on going.’

‘For God’s sake, Rachel. You’re as close to Catholicism as your mother was to sobriety.’

‘What do you know Mr. Big Apple Man? Sometimes you sound like you’re the one who grew up in these backwoods with my kin and their moonshine.’

I couldn’t listen to that so I got a bowl of milk and crumbled bread and tried feeding Caddy, but he wouldn’t open his mouth. I massaged his jaw until he did and fed him. I wasn’t worried at the time. I’d seen him drowsy like that and chalked it up to laziness.

Kathryn came out, mumbled Good morning, sat on the floor next to Caddy and fingered his ears. She was really cool, my big sister. Like some old Cherokee goddess. Mom and Dad stopped talking and each pinched a lock of Kat’s curly hair and then looked at each other and smiled. Kat looked so much like Mum I could understand that back when Dad came to the mountain and saw this creature in the woods, he got drunker than if she’d poured Grandpaw’s moonshine into him through a sieve. It’s odd, I have to say, how Helen never had that fire though they were like two drops of water. You could see this even in a picture, as if Kat sucked in more sunshine.

We sat there among the sounds of the woods, until Mom’s said, ‘Let’s go. It’s Father Flinn’s last day. I want to hear how he’s going to round off these ten years in the county.’

‘Can I come too?’ Dad asked.

We all stared at him because we weren’t entirely sure he was joking. Then he smiled and said, ‘Nah, I love being Jewish on Sundays. I’ll listen to Blond on Blond and Road to Ruin until I’m sick and tired of those ugly voices.’

In church, Kathryn and I sat around Mom in the pew closest to the door. Kathryn leaned on her and so did I. Mom loved this church, said it was among the few places where the ghost of her late mother didn't follow her with that moonshine breath and preaching prejudices like she seasoned food, and Grandmaw’s food was spicy I’d heard, too spicy even for all the heavy drinkers congregating at their old house.

In his farewell sermon, Father Finn looked like he was taking the temperature of his congregation with all the big words, fate and choice, and turning the other