Türkiye'nin nesine alışmak en zor geliyor? What is the most difficult thing to get used to in Turkey?

(English below)

Bunlardan biri olmaya çalışıyorum aslında

Birkaç yıl önce, eşimin kuzeni bir sunucu olarak Istanbulun radyo kanallarından birinde bir gece programı yapıyordu. Bir akşam, saat 11de, sırf zevk için ben onun konuğu oldum. Temamız ‘Bir yabancının gözünden Istanbul!’ Şarkılar arasında dinleyiciler aklarına gelen her hangi bir soru sormaya davet ettik. ‘Eveeet arayın konuşalalım, konuşalım arayıııın!’ İlk sorulan soru şuydu: ‘Türkiye’nin nesine alışmak en zor geliyor size?’ Mutlaka ‘kellepaça!’ yada ‘kokoreç’ söylememı bekliyormuştur ama cevabım şimdi de o zamandakiyle aynı: Alışveriş gittiğimde her yerde aynı çocuk eleman olarak çalışıyor. Ne tür dukkan olsa olsun, neyi satarlarsa satsınlar, ama hep aynı jöleli saçlı, sağ elinde cep telefon, sol elinde sigara, siyah deri ceketi giyen kirli sakallı delikanlı kapı da kıpır kıpır müsterileri karşılıyor. İstisnasız!

Işimizi kolaylaştırmak için böyle bir çocuğa ‘Burak’ diyelim, zira Türkiye’deki ilk öğrettiğim sınıfımda bu tipe benzer bir ‘Burak’ vardı. Neyse bu Burak tipi bana her şey ama herşey satmış oldu--balı, vesika fotoğraflarını, tabakları, ekmeği, ve oyuncakları da. Evimizin karşısındaki çiçekci? Burak. Deri ceketin altında gömlek düğmeleri karnına kadar açık ama çok nazik, zarif bir buket yapabilir. Bir gün eşimin sütyeni alması lazım diye bir iş çamaşır dukkanına daldik, tabii ki Burak kasadaydı. Amerika’da olsaydık böyle bir tipin bir sütyen satmasını görseydim hemen polis çağırdım çünkü, emin olun ki, ya timarhane yeni kaçan bir sapık olurdu ya toplumun güvenliği için bir timarhaneye gitmesi lazım olurdu.

Bir Burak’ı görünce hemen Asi Gençlik filminde James Dean’ın oynadığı serseri ‘Jim Stark’ aklıma geliyor. Kılık kıyafet aynı zaten. Jim bir sahnede kasabanın en vahşi zorbayla dalaşıyor, herifin boğazına bir bıçak dayanıyor ve karnından yarayacağını tehdit ediyor. Böyle bir serseriden eşinizin iç çamaşırı alınır mı? Ama Türkiye’de aynı tipin dün bir pastane’de çalıştığını gördüm. Hatta ondan bir uğur böceğinin şeklinde çok şirin bir kek aldım. Bir de o yapmış.

‘Dilimleyelim mi?’

‘Yoooo kardesim, kesmeniz gerek yok. Merak etmeyin, biz evde yaparız. Bıçak yer de birakın, ne olur?’

Amerika’dan getirdiğim şuursuz kanaatimin yüzünden,her böyle siyah deri ceketli sigara içen çocuğu gördüğüm zaman, tepkisel olarak cuzdanım halen cebimde olup olmadığını kontrol ederek, adımlarımı hızlandırıp kaçıyorum. Yani, bu ülkede alişverişi bir türlü halledemem.

Birinin giyim kuşamı resmen sinyal, yani subliminal mesajları yayıyor ve bu mesajlar bilinç altında bir otomatik tepki uyandırıyor.  Üstelik kültürünüze göre aynı giysının farklı mesajı verebilir.

Mesela, bıyıklar.

Türkiye’de bir bıyık maço sembol olarak kabul ediliyor—neden olmasın? Bir iki istisna hariç (örneğin beş sene önce çalıştığım okulun sosyal öğretmeni) kadınlar doğru dürüstce gür bir bıyığı beceremezler. Ayrıca, Türkiye’de bir bıyık bir erkeğin siyasal kimliğini bile tespit edebiliyor. Başbakan gibi dar ve biraz Şarlo’nun oynadığı karakteri ‘Büyük Dikatör’ü anımsatan bir bıyığınız varsa, AKPlisiniz, belki de kendinizi liberal muhafazakarlardan biri olarak tanımlıyorsunuz. Dudaklarınızı gizleyen tropikal ormanı gibi pos bıyığınız var mı? Solcusunuz, Kürt bile olabilirsiniz. Barış Mançovari sarkık bir bıyığınız varsa, kesinlikle bir milliyetçisiniz, belki MHP’ye oy veriyorsunuz. Bir website buldum bile, Osmanlı zamanında hangi bıyığın hangi mesleğe uymasını anlatıyor. Mesela ‘karanfil bıyığı’ diye bir şey varmış. Şairlere ait olan ‘kararınca uzatılmış, üst dudak yine tam şekliyle görünür’ bir türmüş. Amerika ise, bir bıyığın sadece iki anlamı var. Ya geysin ya pornucusun. O kadar.

Normal bir erkeklik aksesuarı olarak bıyıklar 70lerde modası geçmiş oldu. (Gerçi hiç kimse babama haber vermemiş) Bugünkü moda dünyasında bir bıyık bırakmak bir gramofonı satın almak gibi bir şey. Fakat, gey kesimlerde halen bir fetiş olarak duruyormuş. Belki Freddy Mercury ve Village People’nın yüzünden. ‘YMCA’ şarkısını söyleyen var ya? Hepsi gey ve hepsi pos bıyıklı. O zaman niye pornucularda da var diye merak ediyor musunuz? Hani, en heteroseksüel görünmek isteyenler onlar değil mi? Valla bilimiyorum, ama o sektörde antik zamandan kalma bir maço sembolunun statüsünü koruyor. Maşallah.

Her neyse Türkiye’de her bıyıklı adam gördüğümde ilk aklıma gelen ‘bu adam gey’! İkinci aklıma gelen ‘ya pornucu?’ Ondan sonra Örümcek Adam’ın tehlikeleri önceden haber veren Örümcek Hissi gibi benim ‘Türkiye hissim’ devreye girip, bu adam hangi partiye ait olduğunu çözmeye çalışmaya başlıyorum.’ İtiraf etmek zorunda kalsam bir hastalıktan mustarıp oluyorum—Freud’in tarif ettiği ‘bıyık kışkançlığı’. Babamın Alevi dedesi gibi pos bıyığına rağmen benim ki en gür halinde bile bir çölün solmuş ölmüş çalısı gibi oluyor, ki, bu ülkede beni bir hilkat garibesini ediyor. Muhtemelen bana da Başbakan ‘ucube’ derdi, görseydi.

Tamam tamam. Evet, doğru söylüyorsunuz. Karşılıklı oluyor. Eminim ki, Türkiye’den biri Amerika’ya gidip gezerse, aynen böyle bilinç altında varsayımlar yapar. İstanbul’da Amerikan erkek modasınin temsilcisi olarak (aman!) Türkiyeli öğrencilerim sürekli benim kravatlarımın yaydığı mesajlarını yorumlamaya çalışıyorlar mesela. Bir turkuaz kravatım var. Taktığım zaman öğrenciler beni biraz daha uysalca dinleme eğilimi gösteriyorlar. Fakat Japonya’dan aldığım elle cizilmiş kırmızı balıklı desenli kravatımı takarsam, oohoo, çok nostaljik ve duygusal oluyorlar. Sadece eski güzel günlerinden muhabbet edip hasret gidermek istiyorlar. ‘Hocam, hatırlıyor musunuz? İlk defa o kravatı gördüğüm zaman benim telefonum derste caldı ve siz bana müdüre gönderdiniz! Ne kadar bağırdınız bana! Ne kadar gençtim.’ Korkuyorum ki, benim giysilerim istemeden her yere sinyal saçıyorlar, hem benim kontrolum dışında çıkmış bir şekilde, yani ipin ucu kaçtı. Bazen fermuar kapatmayı unutuyorum. O ne diyor herkese? Bana sadece bir tür unutkanlık iletiyor, ama Allah bilir, bu kültürde bir savaş ilanı olabilir.

Amerikalı iş arkadaşlarımdan oldukça genç, bir öğretmen var. Yaşının yüzünden bazen sınıfta disiplin sorunları yaşıyor. Bir akşam efkarlarımızı dağıtmak için bir yerde bira içiyorduk. Çocuk kafa yiyordu. O gün öğrenciler son derece vahşiymiş, neredeyse onu gebertmişler. Kafamızı bayağı iyi olunca arkadaşımın sorununu çözmek için, onun daha ciddice daha efendi gibi muhafazakar giysi giymesi gerektiğini karar verdik. Böyle çocukların bilinçlerinin altında biraz saygı uyandırabilir sandık. Ertesi gün, bu zavallı arkadaş kırmızı beyaz kareli gömlekle okula geldi. Aynen bir masa örtüsüne benziyordu. Ayrıca, taktığı kravat üstünde bir kaniş yavrusunun resmi çizildi. Çok feci bir kombin, ama iyimser olmaya çalıştım.

‘Henüz ciddi bir şey bulmamışsın, ha? Bugün alışverişe gideceğiz.’

‘Yooo,’ dedi. ‘Bunu aldım, dün akşam. Orta yaşlının giydiği gibi bir şey, değil mi? Çocuklar bu gömleği görünce, bir amca yada bir memur aklarına gelecek.’

Ya bir köpek sofrada dolaşıyor diyecekler.

‘Ne zaman böyle giyenen bir adam gördün, allah aşkına?’ dedim. ‘Diğer öğretmenlerin ne giydiklerine hiç göz atmadın mı?’

‘Modadan bir şey bilmiyorsun,’ diye karşılık verdi. ‘Sen ki hiç fermuarını kapatmayı hatırlayamıyorsun!’

Harbiden, modadan hiç bir şey bilmiyorum. Evet.

Türkiye’ye geldim geleli altı yıl oldu artık. Bıyıksızlığımı bir yana bırak, bir yerli erkeğinden o kadar farklı görünmüyorum. Bayağı esmerim. Gözlerim, mesela, çok koyu bir kahve rengi. Saçım da öyle. Tenim beyazımsı, tamam, ama klasik bir İngiliz gibi şeffaf hayalet gibi değilim. Kiyafetimi hep Türkiye’de satın aldım—stilim ‘yerli’ yani. Yine de, her İstiklal yada Mısır Çarşı’dan yürüdüğüm zaman, tezgahtarlar aniden ama aniden benim yabancı olduğumu kavrıyorlar ve yolumu kesip ‘Hello! Hello! Buy something’ diyerek bana saldırıyorlar. Ama nasıl, nereden biliyorlar? Tip olarak Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ’dan katbekat daha klasik Türk’e benziyorum. Biraz Acun Ilıcalı’ya benzerliğim bile var. Nerden bu yabancı muamelesi? Çok abartılı şey istemiyorum, aslında. Yalnız günlük hayatımda biri bir kutu lokma bana satmaya çalışmadan bir günü geçirebilmek istiyorum. O kadar. Bu yüzden hiç kimsenin tarafından tanınmayacağım sırrını aramaktayım, bu altı yıldır.

Bu sırrın peşinde bir deney yaptım, bir gün. Kendimi Buraklaştırdım! İlk önce yapabildiğim kadar bir sakal bıraktım. Ondan sonra, bir gömlek giyip, karnıma kadar düğmeleri açtım. Onun üzerinde bir siyah deri ceketi omzuma attım, gittim Mısır Çarşı’ya. Kabadayı gibi bir taraftan öbür tarafa göğsümü gere gere yürüdüm, kaşlarım çatarak. Yemin ederim hiç kimse bana ‘hello’ demedi. Ben yerliyim sandılar, o yüzden mi acaba, yoksa sadece kaçınılması gereken bir  manyağim zannetikleri için miydi?

Genel olarak, bu yabancı olduğumu teşhir eden sinyal yaymamı durdurmak istiyorum, fakat, ne tuhaf ki ara sıra benim ‘yabancılığımı’ muhafaza etmeyi tercih ediyorum. Sözgelimi yeni evlendiğim zaman benim evde eşofmanla dolanmayı kesin reddim mesela. Türkiye’de neden her erkek eşikten geçer geçmez hemen bir eşoman giyer diye merak ediyordum. Hatta, sokakta gördüğüm erkeklere göre bir eşofman herhangi bir yerde ve durumda uygun bir giyimmiş. Benim Amerikan gözlerim için biraz fazla rahat, biraz sapık bile görünüyor. Bir misafir gelip eşofmanlı halimi görşe ne söylecek? Amerika’da bir eşofman giyersen ya spor külübünde sırf terli erkeklerin arasında antrenman yapıyorsun ya sapıklık yapmaya karanlık bir tiyatroya geldin ya New Jersey’lisin. Sakın bir kadın senin böyle giyinmeni görmesin. Sosyal hayatın biter!

Benim yaştaki bir Amerikalı evde kendine rahat hissetmek isterse genelde kot pantalon giyer. Valla. Türkiye’de ben de öyle yapıyordum. Fakat her eve gelen misafirimiz art arda soruyordu, ‘niye eşofman giymiyorsun? Daha rahat olacaksın!’ Yıllarca ayak diriyordum. Asla giymeyeceğim! Asla giymeyeceğim! Bir prensip, bir onur meselesi bile gibime geliyordu. Ama şimdi, nedense, benim eşofmanımı bulamıyorsam tepeme atıyorum. ‘O lanetli eşofman neeeeerde?’ eşime bağırıp, çaresizlikten dolaptan her şey fırlatarak bir acil arayışa başlarım. Bu ne demek acaba? Bana özgü Amerıkalılığımı yitirip asimile mi olmuşum? Bu eşofman ne kadar memleketimin törelerine ihanet ettiğim bir sembol mu oldu? Bilmem. Ben sadece eşomanımı istiyorum!

Demişler ki, kadınlar ve kızlar medya ve reklamlar tarafından çok etkileniyor. Dergi ve televizyondaki mankenler ve ünlüler bir kızın öz-imajını şekillendirebiliyor. Emin ol ki, erkek için iki kat daha geçerli, ama biz kabul edemeyiz.Ben bu fenomene ‘Cennet Kuşu Sendromu’ diyorum. ‘Gezegenimiz Dünya’ diye doğa belgeseli hiç izlediniz mi? You Tube’da da bulabilirsiniz. Bir kuş var, Yeni Gine’de. Cennet Kuşu. Rengarenk erkek kuşu kur yapmak için derviş gibi bir dans yapar ama bu dans yapmadan önce, hatta dişi hiç piyasa da yokken, hazırlık yapıyor. Bekar kuş dans için bir sahne kurup, kurduğu sahneyi bir çırpıyla süpüruyor. Ondan sonra gagasına bir yaprak alıp, bu yaprağı bezi olarak kullanarak etraftaki dalları bile siliyor. Mumların yakıp romantik müziğini koymasını bile bekliyordum! Erkek kuşu birkaç kız tavlama ötmeleri attıktan sonra, renksiz zevksiz dişi Cennet Kuşu bir dala konup, garibanımızın yaptığı dansı seyretmeye geliyor. Bu dans mühteşem bir performans ama. Tam bir dervişin seması gibi, dönüp dönüp, tüylerin renklerini tüm ihtişamıyla sergiliyor. Bu dans hatasız olması şart, çünkü öyle değilşe bir sürü aynı dans kusursuzca yapabilen erkek cennet kuşları var, ormanda, dişi onların yanlarına gidecek. (Maalesef, You Tube’da ki videoda dans bitince kız biraz düşündükten sonra, uçup kaçıyor! Bir teşekkür bile söylemeden.)

Insanoğlu erkekler olarak da biz çok benzer bir dansı yapmaya çalışıyoruz. Bir dişinin gözünü almak için envai çeşit kur yöntemleri deniyoruz ve fikir için etrafımızdaki erkeklere bakıyoruz. Biyologik açısından en az onlara kadar renkli olmamız lazım yani. Bu bir bilim gerçek değilse neden hepimiz tamamen aynı modayla giyiniyoruz? Benim tüylerim onun tüyleri kadar gösterişli olması gerekiyor, çünkü. Bugünlerde Türkiye’nin erkeklerinin tüyleri sık beyaz tişört olmuş. Benim çalıştığım lisedeki çocuklar üniform gibi giyiyorlar. Geçen yılın ilkbaharında ilk defa fark ettim—bir sınıfta on erkek öğrenci aynı beyaz tişört giyiyordu. Allah allah, bir maç mı var bugün kendime dedim. Bu nasıl bir forma! Ondan sonra sanki sokaktaki yanımdan geçen erkeklerin yüzde altmışı da giyiyordu. Bir iki erkek için spor salonunda deli gibi çalıştıktan sonra kazanmayı başardığı iri kaslarını gösterebilimek için bir şeçenek, ama çoğunluğumuz için, bu beyaz tişörtün en çok gösterdiği özellik ya bir göbek ya cılız bir gögüs ya erkek memeleri. Ama vücudun tipi ne olsa olsun, dar beyaz tişört modası büyüyor.

Türkiye’de yaşayan bir Amerikalı erkek olarak bazen kafam allak bullak oluyor, çok kültürlülüğümden. Benim kur yapma dansım çoktan memleketimin erkeklerinden öğrenmiştim benimsemiştim ama her gün etrafımdaki erkeklerden etkilenmeyeceğim demek değil. Yani aylarca ben eve gelirken aynı dükkandan geçiyordum. Her gün vitrinde aynı dar beyaz tişört’e benzer uzun kollu kazağa gözüm koydu. Giyinen idmanlı manken yaklışıklı olsa, bu kazakla ben de öyle olacağım. Gitgide kendimin bu dar beyaz kazakla sokakta göğsümü gere gere yürüdüğümü hayal etmeye başladım. Yakasını kaldırıp geniş omuzlarımda siyah deri ceketim olacak. Bir sakal bırakamaszam bir takma sakal satın alabilirdim. Bir şey olmaz. Eşim bir bakışta yanıma koşa koşa gelip, bir büyülenmiş dişi cennet kuşu gibi ötmeye başlayacak.

Neye üğradığımı bilimiyorum. Biraz hafizamı kaybettmişim galiba ama bir baktım, dükkandan çıkıyordum, elimde bir poşet var. Poşetin içinde, o kazak! Giydiğimde eşimin tek yorumu şuydu ‘Sen çok kuro oldun . Üstüne bir şey giy.’ Şimdi dolabımın dibinde duruyor. Ara sıra eşimin sakladığı yerden çıkıyorum. Yatağın üstüne serip, gözlerimi dikip hasretle bakıyorum. Eşim evde değilse, onu giyip mutfağa kadar kabadayılık takınıp dolaşıyorum. İçimden beni bir kur yapma dansa çağıran içgüdüm var herhalde. Bir kaç dakika sonra aynaya baktığımda aklımı başına devşiriyor. Çıkartıp yere fırlatırım ve orada duran beyaz ucubeye korkuyla bakıyorum, denizin en derin, kara sularından kaçan mutasyona uğramış bir yaratığa bakmışım gibi. 

Son bir öğüt olarak bir şey söyleyim size. Bir süre yaşamak için yurt dışına giderseniz (özelikle erkekseniz) kendi stilinizle tam olarak nasıl bir mesaj verdiğinizi, yani, nasıl bir tipin dikkatini çekeceğnizden emin olmak için yerli erkeklerin kur yapma yöntemlerini gözemlemekle biraz vakit geçirseniz son derece faydalı olur bence. Yani Bostonda eski Türkiyeli öğrencilerimden biri gibi olmayın, sakın, o ki hem bayağı pos bir bıyığı bıraktı hem kahramanı David Beckam’ı özenerek ünlü futbolcunun o zamanlarda taktığı gibi her yer de şaç bandı takıyordu. Avrupa’da erkek modasının dünyasında çok şık bir şeçenek olabilirdi ama bu kombin, onun giydiği turkuaza çalan eşofmanla beraber, çok şaşırtıcı bir tipten ilgiyi çekti. Buraya kadar okuduğunuza göre bu tip artık tanıyorsunuzdur. Yani pornucuya benzeyen, ortayaşlı, bu öğrencimle aynı ‘giyim zevkisi’ olan bıyıklı erkekler. Kötünün iyisi, öğrencim mecburen onunla farklı cinsel yönelim olanlara biraz tolerans öğrenebildi. Ama onun kur yapma dansını izlemek için gökyüzünden uçup gelmesini beklediği kuşlar bunlar değildi herhalde. 

A couple of years back, I was a guest on a radio show here in Istanbul and a listener called in to ask this: ‘What was one of the most difficult things to get used to in Turkey?’ I think they were expecting me to say something like ‘şalgam suyu’ or ‘kokoreç’, but my answer was this. When you are shopping, no matter what kind of shop it is or what they are selling, the same young boy is out front with spiky hair and a black leather jacket, smoking a cigarette and typing into his i-Phone. Let’s call him Burak to make it easy. In any case, I’ve bought honey comb, cell phones, passport photos, and dishware from Burak. I’ve even gone with my wife to buy a bra, and 9 times out of 10, Burak is standing at the door ready to serve. It was the time we shopped for a bra that it really started to grab my attention. In America, you only see this type of guy in movies about the 50s or 60s, and he is always trouble, the last person in the world to talk to you about the quality of cloth in your fine linens. I think of James Dean’s character in Rebel Without A Cause—of the knife fight where Dean’s character hold’s a knife to the throat of the local bully and threatens to slice him open. In Turkey, this guy would have a kitchenware store and sell the knives at a discount if you pay in cash. Because of this image I’ve brought from home, whenever I see the guy in the black leather jacket smoking in the doorway, I tend to hurry by and check for my wallet, which means I get very little shopping done.

There are lots of little fashion differences that produce these subconcious reactions. Th e moustache for example. It’s a very manly thing to have a moustache in Turkey—and why shouldn’t it be? Most women--with certain exceptions, an old manager of mine for instance--cannot manage bushy facial hair. In Turkey, the moustache can even bestow on one his political identity. A narrow moustache like the Prime Minister’s—you’re an AKP supporter, probably a ‘liberally conservative’ Muslim. A bushy moustache that hides most of your mouth—a leftist, probably a Kurd. Barış Manchovari sarkık bir bıyığınız var mı? You are probably a nationalist in the MHP. I’ve even found a website that describes traditional Ottoman moustaches and how each one corresponds to a specific trade. The moustache in America means one of two things—you are a porn star, or you are gay. Moustaches went out of fashion in the 70s (something no one every told my father)—and having one is a bit like having an eight track. It remains a macho fetish among the gay community, I think, because of Freddy Mercury and the Village People. Why porn stars—who, you would think, would be the very opposite of a gay stereotype? Or not? I have no clue. Some sort of signal of atavistic machoness? In any case, when I see one of the ubiquitous Turkish moustaches my first impression is ‘gay’, my second is ‘porn star’, and when my second culture spider sense kicks in I start to try and figure out what political party the guy belongs to. To be honest, I’ve been here so long that I now suffer from a disease that I can only call Moustache Envy. Despite my father’s leftist facial hair, I cannot manage but the most paltry of moustaches which, in Turkey, makes me somewhat of a circus freak.

I imagine that the same sorts of subconcious assumptions go on all the time when someone from Turkey visits the U.S. My students are endlessly commenting on my ties for example, which seem to give off messages that I’m completely unaware of. When I wear a certain turquoise tie, I notice that the kids tend to be a bit quieter and when I wear a tie that has a hand painted Koi fish on it, they veer toward nostalgia. ‘Remember teacher, our first day of class? You wore that tie then and you said the funniest thing to me!’ I fear I am giving off all sorts of subliminal signals I have absolutely no control over with my wardrobe. God knows what my indifference to zipping my pants is saying. To me it says, unutkanlık. To them it might be some kind of declaration of war.

One of my American colleagues is a bit on the young side, and struggles sometimes with discipline problems in the class room. Over a couple of beers, we decided that a more serious, conservative wardrobe might subconsciously inspire some discipline. The poor guy showed up the next day wearing a red and white checked shirt that looked for all intents and purposes like a table cloth. On top of that, he wore a tie with pictures of dogs on it. ‘I think this is definitely something an older man would wear,’ he said. ‘When the kids see this they will think of a father or uncle.’ Or, I thought, they will think there’s a dog loose on the dinner table. ‘What older man have you ever seen wear something like that?’ I asked. ‘Have you looked around at the other teachers?’

‘What do you know?’ he retorted. ‘Half the time you don’t even remember to zip your pants!’

What do I know indeed.

I have been here for nearly six years at this point. I don’t look all that different from a local, except for the lack of facial hair. I have dark hair, dark eyes, am pale enough but not bleach white. All of my clothes were bought in Turkey at this point, too, so my style should be local, and yet whenever I walk down, say İstiklal or through the Mısır Çarşısı everyone knows instantly I’m a foreigner and attacks me with ‘Hello hello buy this.’ In day to day life, one wants to get through the day without anyone trying to sell you a box of lokum, so I have long been after the secret of not being recognized. I did an experiment once. I let what facial hair I could grow, grow. I put on a button down shirt and opened it halfway down my belly, then threw on a faux leather jacket. I strutted through the Mısır Çarşı with a bored scowl, and low and behold, not one person ran after me saying ‘hello’. Did they think I was local? Or simply an idiot?

And yet, bizarrely, at other times, I try to preserve my foreigness—my initial refusal to wear sweat pants at home for instance. Why does every man immediately change into sweat pants, I wondered, as soon as they get in the door? They look kind of sloppy, to my mind, and what if company comes over? What if somebody sees? The only time you wear these things in America is if you are among other guys at a smelly gym or if you are from New Jersey. An American man my age generally wears jeans when he wants to feel relaxed at home. And yet in-law after in-law kept asking ‘Where are you sweat pants? Don’t you want to be comfortable?’ For years, I dug in my heels. It seemed a matter of principle. Or honor even. And now, for some reason, I get angry when I can’t find them. ‘Where are my damn sweat pants?’ I’ll bellow in frustration from the wardrobe as I throw everything aside in a desperate search. Have I lost my unique Americanness and become a local? Is this a mark of how disloyal I am to my own homeland’s values? I don’t know. I just know I want my sweat pants.

I think we human males go through a similar ritual. To attract and keep our females we do all sorts of courtship rituals and take our signals from what the other males around us our doing. We are always looking around you at the other birds to evaluate the competition. Why else would we all suddenly start dressing the same? How else can you explain the sudden proliferation of the tight white t-shirts for example? I noticed it first at school last spring, how our high school boys wore it like a uniform and then, it seemed that nearly half of Istanbul’s men were wearing the same outfit. For a few of them, I suppose, it shows off well toned muscles. Mostly though, it accents pot bellies or man boobs or bird-chests. But it doesn’t matter your body type—the tight white T-shirt phenomenon grows.

As an American, I’m a bit confused. I get my courtship ritual dance from the boys back home but I can’t help be affected by what I see here, too. Yani, for a long time I have been compulsely walking by a clothing store just up the street. Every day I look at the same white winter shirt that covers the well-toned plastic body of the store mannequin. Slowly, I started to envision myself strutting down the street wearing it, my brown leather jacket thrown over my wide shoulders, my collar turned up, my muscles bulging. My wife would purr and sidle up to me, like an entranced female paradise bird. Before I knew what I was doing, I entered the store and was having Burak take it off the mannequin and put it in a bag for me. When I first threw it on my wife’s only comment was ‘You’d better wear a shirt over it or else it’ll look too kuro.’ Now it just sits in my wardrobe. I’ll take it out once in a while and stare at it longingly. Perhaps there’s some sort of deep instinct summoning me to a courtship dance. And then reason kicks in and I stare at the thing in horror, like its some mutated sea creature washed ashore during a storm.

Let me end with one last thing—if you ever go to another country to live, and especially if you are a male, spend a little time watching the courtship displays of the local men just to be sure of what kind of mate you’re attracting. Don’t be like one of my Turkish ex-students in Boston for instance, who, not only sported a moustache but wore a hair band in homage to his idol, David Beckham. The bomb, in Europe perhaps, but this in combination with some pale blue sweat pants led to several offers of a date from older porn star looking men who had remarkably similar tastes in clothes. On the bright side, I suppose, he did learn to be more tolerant toward people of different sexual orientations—mecburen. But I don’t think these were the birds he’d hoped would come swooping down through the trees.

 

The Ghosts of Bingöl

(This is an older article that I touched up and sent out to magazines for publication. I had to take it off my blog while it was in circulation--they said no, and it's important, so I am sticking it back up here.)

The Ghosts of Dersim, Lost and by the Wind Grieved

By Jeff Gibbs

Waterfalls at Bağın

The moon is full. That’s how you know you’re smack in the middle of Ramadan. It floats like a balloon in the daytime sky over the western walls of the canyon.

Here, down below on earth, the sun is white bright in the east and the temperature is over 90 degrees and climbing. Desert mountains. Mesopotamia. We are dancing the halay, sweating and sweating and sweating as we weave sunburned bodies around tables of kebab eaters, pushed along by the long-haired hippy DJ singing guerrilla songs into the microphone. There’s a gypsy drum and pipe (the davul and zurna). A few of the men are shirtless, the girls in tanktops and bathing suits. Everybody’s turning red. The kebabs on the tables are served on huge platters heaped with sizzling chicken, beef, and lamb, peppers, tomatoes, and spiced onions. A group of men play cards and drink beer after beer.  Another group has a Turkish mahjong set (Okey) and are smoking so vigorously a small stormcloud whirls around their table. Gluttony and boozing and hedonism.

Naughty Sin #1

Naughty Sin #2

            None of this should be happening in Ramadan.  From the rowdy music, to the beer, to the cigarettes and skimpy clothing—it’s all haram, forbidden in the somber holy month of fasting and reflection. You’re not even supposed to swim for fear that a little water might slip between your lips. (There’s also no kissing or sex allowed for similar reasons—even a tongue is a no-no.)

But this is Tunceli, stronghold of the Alevi faith, and most of these people couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Ramadan. And they take pride in that irreverance, wearing it on their sleeves. Or in this case, their naked shoulders. Of course, the guerilla songs, while not against anyone’s religion, would certainly rile up any mainstream Turk who heard them back in Istanbul.

We are being naughty in every way imaginable in Atatürk’s Turkish Republic.

            That morning, we awoke at six and boarded the only means of public transport in Conag, my wife’s Kurdish village—a minivan managed by cranky neighbor Şerafettin who, on a daily basis, rounds up all the travelers in the surrounding villages and takes them to Karakoçan—the nearest city at thirty-five miles south. There some go shopping (food, clothes, furniture—there are no shops in Conag), some go visiting, and some, like us, head farther afield toward one of the hot springs. We’re going to Bağın. Or Bagen, or Bagin, or Bağen. I’ve seen all four spellings on different signs and on different websites and God knows, in this very mix-and-match land of Zaza and Kurmanci Kurds, Turks and Islamicized Armenians, Sunnis and Alevis and hidden Christians, the uncertainty is understandable.  Whose language do you use and whose letters do you use to spell it with? Who cares! Use all of them at the same time!

From Conag to Karakoçan, we have nearly twenty-two bodies rammed into a car built for a maximum of fifteen. Cousin Hussein rides up front sandwiched between the driver and the driver’s side door. But from Karakoçan to Bağın, it’s just the Mala Memli—the house of Memli, my grandfather in law, which today consists of my wife Delal, her sister Zelal, Hussein, me and of course, Dede (Grandfather). Just last year, this journey could have taken a couple of hours because between us and our destination were five army checkpoints where we would have had to stop, show our IDs, unpack our luggage, and undergo interrogation. These checkpoints have mysteriously been lifted despite the rise in guerrilla attacks and the more than five hundred arrests of Kurdish activists in the last six months.

            Bağın is downstream from two dams that block the Peri River. It is a local-run resort with a restaurant, a picnic area, and a pool that teeter on the edge of a small canyon. The cliffs following the river look like the walls of a cave turned inside out, with stalagmites and stalactites and waxy formations of limestone melting into the water below. Water trickles off the red stone into the bright blue-green rapids. Mountain sheep climb the rocks, skipping across the precipice as if it were a flat grassy meadow.  In short, the scenery is electrifying.

            They may be ignoring the most holy of Muslim months, but people are still on the conservative side here. To wit, the hot spring pool is segregated according to gender. From 8 to 10 it’s the women’s turn, from 10 to 12, the men’s. Thus, come ten o’clock, Hussein, Dede, and I mosy over to the baths with towel and shampoo (for washing the smelly ‘therapeutic’ minerals out of our hair). Both warn me repeatedly about how hot it’s going to be, but to be frank, with my expectations founded on the scalding volcanic springs of Japan (which sometimes can be used to boil eggs!), the water here feels like a slightly tepid bath. Probably a good thing considering the heat. The water is bubbly and reddish orange. Boys are doing cannon balls. Old men hog the spring jets.

After swimming, I pull one of the chaise lounge chairs over to the cliff edge and stretch out in the sun. I could easily spend the whole day just lying here and gazing out over this incredible scenery. If only they let beer in the pool area!

A rather hairy guy walks up to the fence just in front of me and looks out over the desert vista toward a gnarled mesa of red rock.

            ‘What do you think of the scenery?’ he asks.

            ‘It’s unbelievable,’ I say.

            He nods at the cross around my neck and the Arabic tattoo on my back. His brow wrinkles.

‘Are you Christian?’

            ‘Well, yes, I guess.’

            ‘My brother is a Christian, too’ he says. ‘He converted a while back and now runs the evangelical church in Kadikoy, for converted Turks.’

‘I live in Kadıköy!’

‘Maybe you know the one I mean, then. Across from the Limon Cafe? Have you been?’

            The Limon Cafe is where Delal and I met. The owner, the mutual friend who introduced us, is also from Dersim. We’d gone to the very church this guy was talking about last Christmas Eve and found a group of Turks in a circle singing ‘Silent Night’ in Turkish. I am liking this conversation so far—none of the usual yabancı stuff. No ‘Can you drink tea? Do you like Turkey? Are you a married?’

            ‘I know the church,’ I say. ‘Your brother converted?  That’s...unusual.’

            ‘Not really. Our great-grandmother is half Armenian. Her mother had to convert to Islam but we always knew about our Armenian roots. I think it’s his way of getting back to that.’

            ‘Why not join an Armenian church then?’

            ‘Maybe he was afraid? You know how it is.’

He rocks back on his heels and then gestures out across the desert expanse.

‘Look at that castle over there, for example. It’s Armenian.’

I squint at what I thought was a gnarled mesa and make out doors and walls running along the ledges. How hadn’t I noticed them before?

Bağın Castle

‘This whole area used to be an Armenian city, I’m told, a long time ago. Then they got rid of them. Some of them were locked up in the old rooms of the castle and burned. They tied others together, shot one of them, and then let him drag the rest down into the river to drown. You know about the massacres.’

            It’s not a question.

‘Yes, I know.’

I have read hundreds of stories about groups of Armenians marched out to remote places on the pretext of relocation and then murdered near a river. The government followed the same pattern when it came time for the Dersimlis themselves to go in ‘38. For one second, being on site of one of these massacres, I get a shiver. I can almost see the bodies flowing down the Peri’s blue waters, accumulating in places to form dams of dead (another phenomenon described in countless accounts).

‘When the Armenians left,’ he continues, ‘the Kurds came and built a village.  You see the walls at the base of the mountain?’

‘Yep.’

‘That was the old Kurdish village. They burned it in the nineties. Now these Kurdish boys have built this resort here, but they get harassed too. On the crest of that hill over there are nine graves. They are relatives of the people who built this resort. They were shot by the gendarmes as a warning to the owners, though they accused them of terrorism or whatever excuse they needed to feel okay with what they’d done. But really they just want no trace of Kurdish life in this area, certainly not a flourishing business like this. Why do you think they built two dams up river?’

‘Money?’

He frowns and then looks at me. ‘They want to flood us out of here.’

He grimaces and we are silent for a few minutes.

‘Do you like the music here? I saw you doing the halay. You’re really good!’

Meanwhile, back in the picnic area, Delal has been having a conversation with a woman who is apparently my guy’s mother. She was looking out over the river when bescarved Mom came up beside her and pointed up toward a line of watch towers on the cliffs above.

‘They got their gendarme station up there. It’s disgusting. Can you believe they’d put one in a place like this? Why are they watching us here? First they kill all the Armenians. My own grandmother was Armenian, you know. Yep, she converted and hid with a Kurdish family to save herself. Then in 1938, back the soldiers come again. You know what they did this time? They kidnapped a local girl and locked her up in a barn for ten days. That’s right. God knows what she went through, but when she was let out, she took her two children and hurled them in the river, then killed herself. Animals. That’s why I say never marry an outsider. Speaking of, my son is here and he’s single. He’s got a good job and doesn’t gamble. Let me introduce you.’

‘Actually I am married,’ Delal says quickly. ‘But look, my sister is right over there and she’s single!’

A circle of halay dancers is carrying the unsuspecting Zelal ever closer, and as the woman looks up, Delal makes her escape. From genocide to matchmaking in two minutes or less.

These topics are the small talk of this region. I hear or have one every day, sometimes more. The memories are part of daily life to a degree that would drive Turks back in Istanbul into a frothing rage. There, you deny even the existence of the Armenian church just across the sidewalk. Why that’s just a rather ornate souvenir shop that is open only on Sunday! In Istanbul, even your foreign friends married to Turks follow the official line of the military controlled governments that have been in power for decades. ‘Genocide? Millions of Armenians vanishing into the deserts? Silly you, it was just all part of a civil war, if it happened at all. There were never that many Armenians there anyway. But millions died just from the trauma of war. It certainly wasn’t organized, but if it was, they deserved it because they were rebelling.’ In my high school, the denial goes so far as to force units on a made-up Turkish genocide at the hands of the Armenians (though there were undoubtedly revenge massacres, a people without access to state power cannot use all the organs of government to murder a race). Or, as was in the Radikal newspaper this month, the Turkish government can issue orders to its ambassadors across the world to do everything in their power ‘to hinder or halt’ a proposed compilation of original documents of the genocide, and somehow not look ridiculous or sinister. The Armenian journalist Hrant Dink is assassinated for ‘insulting Turkey’ though he never once said the forbidden G word. Orhan Pamuk and Elif Şafak are sued in Federal courts for suggesting large massacres of Armenians (to my knowledge neither have said the G word either).

Yet here, the topic is a living part of every day conversation.

Here is my wife’s home region on the border of Bingöl and Tunceli (all of it the old defunct province of Dersim). I figure the people make no bones about it because the memories come down from first hand sources—their grandparents. Plus, the results of the killings are all around them. They literally live on the ruins. Not to mention, they’ve gone through a similar process of torment and denial themseives—in Dersim, several times. Holy Mt. Silbüs that looms over Conag like a guardian was a pilgrimage site for Armenians. Forty miles north, the city of Kiğı where Delal was born has an Armenian castle on a hilltop and the ruins of two Armenian churches. In at least eleven of the surrounding villages, and I stress ‘at least’, you can find churches dating back to the 14th century. ‘All so vividly preserved,’ boasts a locally published guidebook on Bingöl, ‘that you get the feeling they were just built!’ None of these ruins are tended or officially recognized. All are falling into ruin. (One in the village of Eskikavak is called ‘an architectural masterpiece known in its day as the second Aya Sofia!’) In other villages people have take the stones from the ruins and used them to constructs their own houses and stables. Crosses are carved haphazardly in kitchen walls.

Bağın has its Armenian ruins. Across the canyon from Conag is the village of Kilise (Church), bombed all to hell in the 90’s. It, too, was once Armenian and there are old Armenian graves in the village of Hasköy just down the road from Conag itself. The village of Herdif may still be Armenian—not impossible. Rakel, the wife of Hrant Dink, came from Varto, an entire village that pretended to be Kurdish to the point of forgetting Armenian. Her mother was named Delal, Kurdish for ‘Of great worth’.

The whole area around Conag, before 1915, was said to have 19, 859 Armenians, 45 churches, and 5 monasteries according to census records at the time. Walk through the mountains and you stumble on crosses carved into rocks. Kurds and Turks alike search them out and dig for the legendary buried gold. That Bingöl guidebook stops to condemn treasure hunting—‘Every sort of historical artifact has been plundered here. Hunters after gold and jewels and money have broken walls and dug up foundations until nothing remains. The presence of Armenian gold in the hills is simply taken for granted. There’s so much of it and everyone knows.

And everyone has a secret Armenian relative, including Delal, whose uncle’s grandmother, Makrik, escaped from under a pile of dead with her sister and made her way to the nearby village of Zenan to hide among sympathetic Kurds. As a memorial, her cousin was named for Makrik’s sister, herself shot during their flight to Zenan. Many Kurds today are rebuilding new village houses from the bombed out rubble of the old. So our uncle was rebuilding his ancestry with the old names. Of course, the name had to be Turkified for public consumption. It could not rouse the suspicions of the Turkish government. A kılım hand woven by Makrik still lies on the floor of our uncle’s bedroom in Istanbul.

Conag itself has its own famous Armenian shrine—Ziyaret (Kurmanci Kurdish for ‘The Visit’).

On our first few days in Conag, Delal is swamped with housework, and feeling cooped up, I embark with cousin Hussein on a tour of the village. On a winding dirt path downhill, we stumble, literally, into a square of broken foundation stones. The side facing the downward slope has a pile of blocks burned black with soot. Half melted candles are stuck in the sand at their base. What startles me are the carvings, an ornate cross entwined with vines and several smaller crosses radiating outward. Husein bends down and touches his forehead three times to the crucifix and kisses it. Then, he takes a pinch of sand from where the candles sit and eats it. Finally, he leaves a few coins. It’s an extraordinary ritual—a Muslim Kurd kissing the cross and then eating dirt.

            ‘Okay Hussein,’ I ask. ‘What’s the deal here?’

            He explains, as best he can, for no one seems entirely sure what the Ziyaret was. Its past is a murk of legend and speculation, a crumbling symbol of what’s been lost.

‘The Armenians were smart,’ Hussein says, ‘And the Muslims around them superstitious. When they were taken away, they buried their gold and jewels to keep the soldiers from stealing them. They thought they would come back for it one day. To scare off any Muslim treasure hunters, they piled all these religious stones wherever their money was buried. They thought people would be too afraid to touch them, but they were wrong. People have dug up a lot of gold here, but I know there’s still more buried under those rocks. I know.’

            This is the refrain I hear from all the young men. They come sometimes and roam the hills with metal detectors. It’s still there, if only. But Dede says that he remembers seeing the last of the gold plundered decades before.

            ‘Even so,’ Husein says, ‘There’s treasure everywhere in these mountains. You see rocks out in the middle of nowhere marked with crosses. A Turkish officer came here to the Ziyaret one night and started digging. He made off with a ton of gold. There are soldiers digging everywhere in these mountains.’

            If this is true (and why wouldn’t it be? The stones are out in the open and the stories widely known) then it reveals the official line for the cynical bullshit that it is. Basically if you don’t believe your government tried to wipe them out, then don’t go digging for the evidence just because you think it might make you rich.

            The Ziyaret is not unusual in the Dersim region. Hüseyin Aygun, an expert on the Dersim massacres of 1938, says that Kurds and Armenians had long shared each other’s holy sites. ‘In the village of Vank near Dersim City,’ he writes, ‘both Kizilbash Kurds and Armenians made pilgrimages to the church there. The Kurds revered it so much that they took their sick there for miracle cures. Sick children would wash themselves in the water of a fountain found at the church called ‘Mezele Tor’. The old people even believed that the fingers of the Imam Hussein (grandson of the prophet Ali sacred to Alevis) were on the hands of the monks.’ There was a monastery on the western edge of Dersim (now Kayseri) called Surp Garabet—and it was one of the most important centers of pilgrimage sites in the Ottoman Empire, rumored to house the relics of Saint John the Baptist.  I found a description of the Monastery written by a 19th century Armenian traveler. ‘People made donations to the monastery each according to his means. Those having made vows or pledges also brought gifts, such as silver items. ‘Madagh,’ the Divine Liturgy, and various services were held. Candles were lit on the grave of Soorp Garabed and lame, blind and crippled persons, as well as those suffering from other afflictions, would kiss the ground, hoping for miraculous cures.’

            The kiss, the candles, the coins. Just like Hussein at the Ziyaret. Was this the grave of an Armenian saint?

            ‘The earth is supposed to have certain powers,’ Husein explains. ‘You eat it for blessings. It’s perfectly clean and is delicious. Really.’

            I bend down, touch my head to the stones, kiss the sooty surface and take a pinch of dirt. It certainly tastes clean.

            ‘Sometimes people sleep here. It’s supposed to cure mental illnesses. One time, the daughter of one of the villagers went mad. For weeks, she would run out of the house and roam around naked, tearing at her hair and shrieking and jumping at people. No one could do a thing with her. Then one night she fell asleep here at the foot of the Ziyaret. I don’t know what dreams she had, but when she awoke the next morning, she stumbled up the hill trying to cover herself—actually ashamed that she was nüde! She was calm for the first time in months. There are spirits here, really. Something really holy.’

            According to Dede, the Ziyaret had been a religious school for the training of priests. Some say it was a monastery, others just a church. Whatever it was, when we visit the fabled Akdamar church in Van a few weeks later, I see the same carvings on stones over the entrance to the sanctuary. But we’ll probably never know for sure. Ghosts are the only thing that walk here now, and they don’t give interviews or pose for cameras.

            We walk back up the hill toward Dede’s house, plucking mulberries off trees as we go. There’s a white-stone house to the left and Huseyn points.

            ‘That used to be the shop of an Armenian guy, the last in the village.’

            Husein himself doesn’t know the story so I ask that repository of stories, Dede.

            ‘There was a store there,’ he confirms. ‘That was back when Conag was the center of this whole region. We had a police station, shops, everything. He was the last Armenian in Conag. One day the gendarmes came and told him that a letter had come from his brother. He had to travel with them to Kiğı to pick it up. Now this was back in the day when letters came once a year and only in emergencies, and why did he need the gendarmes to escort him? When they told him to make sure he packed all his gold and jewels, but to leave his store as it was, he was sure what they were up to. They led him off, and as they were crossing the Peri River, he told the guards, ‘I know why you’ve brought me here, but if you shoot me, you’ll never get my gold. I’ll jump in the river and it’ll be lost forever.’ They started to take out their guns and the Armenian jumped. His body was lost in the river and he was never seen again.’

            I hear the same story from all the older men (maybe because they all get it from Dede) but it raises as many questions as it answers. Could there really have been only one Armenian in a village that sported a religious school? Where were the others and why was this one allowed to remain? How does anyone know his fate after he left the village? It has the air of apocrypha—a legend forged from phantoms of a bigger truth that the authorities have stamped out. But that story told at Bağın, of people being lead away on some pretense or another and then shot at rivers is so widespread that perhaps for the villagers his fate was a foregone conclusion. They knew because it was happening everywhere.

            According to the cranky minibus driver, Şeraffetin, there were seventeen Armenians in Conag before the genocide. They were lead away in a kafile (a ‘file’) in 1915 and never seen again. People here refer to this period as the sefalet, the time of Wretched Poverty.

            We have stopped at Şerafettin’s house for tea. His pet sheep is trying to nibble at his pants legs and belt buckle. Şerafettin has served us fresh cucumbers from the garden and to placate the ravenous animal, he collects the peels into a bowl and sets them on the floor. Voila, the sheep is distracted momentarily. Munch munch munch.

The topic, at first, is how things ain’t what they used to be. The beekeepers, these days, are feeding sugar to their bees for a quick yield, but cheap flavor.

            ‘Ah when the Armenians were here, it was different,’ Şerafettin says wistfully. ‘They were a clever people, educated and cultured. We had seventeen here until they rounded them up during the sefalet.’ He pauses and shakes his shaggy head. ‘When they left, one of the mothers had two baby boys. She gave them secretly to a woman who lived a few houses down that way,’ he points, ‘to save them from the killings. The woman adopted them as her own, and they grew up here in the village. One day, when they were older, they were out in the fields playing with some other village boys. They had a pellet gun, and one of the Armenian boys accidentally shot a Kurdish boy in the leg. They were all afraid of getting into trouble so they agreed not to tell anyone, but when the Kurdish boy got home, his father noticed and demanded to know who’d done it. So the father marched to the gendarme station and demanded something be done. The police went to the woman’s house and asked for the ID of the two brothers. No one had bothered to change their ID cards. We were in a remote village, who needed to bother? The woman started to cry, ‘Please!’ she said. ‘Take me! I’m the one who committed the crime! I hid these boys!’ The gendarme seemed to agree. He told the two boys to run. They left the house and took off across the field. Then, before they got too far, he raised his gun and murdered them both.’

            He scowls. ‘These were Kurds that did this!  Kurds!’ And I’m not sure if he’s talking about the woman who adopted the infants or the man who turned the boys in. Is it shame or is it frustration at a foiled good deed? And like the other story, it has a lot of strange implications. If the boys had grown up a bit, for instance, then this happened long after the 1915 genocide—and shows that killing Armenians was still a priority years later.

            Another story floats around. One of the villagers tells about Armenians hiding in caves on Mt. Silbüs from murdering soldiers and then being killed by the bombs of the Turkish airforce. This, he says, was in 1938, at the time of the Dersim massacre. ‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘Armenians? Not Kurds?’ ‘Armenians,’ he insists. By some estimates, over 40,000 were sheltered in Dersim during the genocide. The mountains had made it nearly impassable for Ottoman forces to get at them. Aygün says that part of the government’s motive for destroying the Dersimlis was to punish them for saving Armenians—just twenty years after the fact, there could have been many still living there. I imagine they would have seen the writing on the wall when the soldiers came and told them they were being ‘relocated’. There are even some stories of Dersim men being made to prove they had been circumcised—as if the soldiers were hunting for Christians.

But again, this story of Silbüs’s caves just kind of floats untethered to any past. Names? Dates? It’s all a mystery. Just enough to tantalize. Years and years of censorship and suppression consign it to a perpetual legend. The Holocaust researcher William Schulman describes denial as a way of killing a people twice. First you take their lives and then you take the memories of them.  Here in Turkey the memory of the Armenians (and the Kurds who followed) has almost been wiped clean, the second murder nearly complete.  But clearly memory cannot truly be stamped out. It pops back up as local legends, told to neighbors and friends, kept alive in the oral tradition.

Nothing can make up for the sin of denial. But perhaps the stories I have heard occupy a niche in this history. This is a land of unparalleled natural beauty and cultural richness, but it is also one of unremembered loss—by Kurds and Armenians alike. The tale of the Armenian merchant who took his gold into the Peri River. Of the Armenians who dodged the first genocide only to wander into another one—slaughtered finally on a mountain holy to both them and the Kurds. These are the new myths, perhaps, that help define a people and how they are feeling today—abused, ruined, but tough and not easily rooted out or forgotten. And above all, bound to this land, to the rocks and mountains and rivers. So much so that they eat its body in a different kind of Communion.

Far away in Istanbul lives one of our aunts. She never returns to Conag because she has to stay in her inlaws’ house instead of her childhood home, and it’s unpleasant apparently. Yet she misses the village profoundly. Mentioning Conag can make her cry. I filled a Ziploc bag with Ziyaret sand and brought it to her the other night on a dinner visit. She took the bag,’hugged my neck’ as we Southerners say, and held on tight. ‘Ay canım benim!’ Oh my dear one!

 I like to think that some of the resilience and loss buried in that sand, some of the healing magic, can comfort a little a soul that longs unceasingly for home. The Armenian musician and poet, Komitas, wrote:

Sweet spring

Flower and bud

The merry stream,

Sparkling babble,

Green bloom,

Delightful dew,

Refreshing brook

Where did you leave all these?

I see a lost look on our aunt’s face. Maybe she asks herself that last question, away from Conag, an exile here in Istanbul. Maybe all of Conag’s exiles ask themselves the same.

END