I'm doing this empathic piece on Sanaubar, and no one else in my year has done her. So... to maybe help those who may have the same problem (probably not), here is the evidence I took from the books. Should be all of it, but yea. In any case, do your own work. I'm putting this here cos I did quite some work on mine.
Title: I am Sanaubar when Sohrab was just born.
[past] ran off with a clan of traveling singers and dancers. Had sex with a soldier at the barracks. Beautiful but notoriously unscrupulous woman who lived up to her dishonourable reputation. Brilliant green eyes, impish face tempted countless men into sin. Suggestive stride and oscillating hips sent men to reveries of infidelity.
No one surprised she eloped. 19 years younger than ali.
Joined neighborhood kids in taunting Ali. made no secret of her disdain for his appearance. “This is a husband?” she would sneer. “I have seen old donkeys better suited to be a husband”
Ali married her to help restore some honour to his uncle’s blemished name.
Gave birth to Hassan. Simple, no obstetricians, no anesthesiologists, no fancy monitoring devices. Lying on stained, naked mattress with Ali and a midwife. Didn’t need much help. Hassan came out smiling.
Took one glance at hassan in ali’s arms, saw cleft lip, barked bitter laughter. “Now you have your own idiot child to do all your smiling for you!”. Refused to even hold him. 5 days later was gone.
She knows? That she’s not his first wife, ali married to another for 3 years, no children. 1st wife remarried, bore him 3 children = ali sterile. Did sanaubar know this?
[past] toothless woman with stringy graying hair and sores on her arms. Looked like she had not eaten for days. Someone had taken a knife to her face, slashes cut this way and that way. One of the cuts went from cheekbone to hairline and it had not spared her left eye on the way. It was grotesque.
[past] “You smiled coming out of me, did anyone ever tell you? And I wouldn’t even hold you. Allah forgive me, I wouldn’t even hold you”
[past] Hassan and his mother kneeling together, picking tomatoes or trimming a rosebush, talking. They were catching up on all the lost years, I suppose. As far as I [rahim khan] know, he never asked where she had been or why she had left and she never told. I guess some stories do not need telling.
[at that moment] Came out of hut holding him wrapped in wool blanket. Beaming under dull grey sky, tears streaming down her cheeks, needle-cold wind blowing her hair, and clutching that baby in her arms like she never wanted to let go. Not this time.
[things she will do] Sewed clothes, built him toys, cared for him when he had a fever.
[death] she lived to see him turn four, and then, one morning, she just did not wake up. She looked calm , at peace, like she did not mind dying now.
