Out of Istanbul

by Bernard Ollivier

  Kurdish villages blend into the natural surroundings. Their walls are made of stones excavated from the mountains and have the same color; the earthen roofs planted with grass blend in with the prairie. All of the houses and stables—which resemble one another—face south. The houses have few windows and the stables have none, so as to better withstand the heat and cold. Hamlets are typically located on the edge of a plain, slightly terraced up the hillsides. Before them lies the cropland. Behind them, the pasturage. In this land ravaged by hordes of warriors for three millennia, the mountains’ proximity provides a refuge. On the road, there are more soldiers than ever. In the hills, armored vehicles take up position, monitoring dozens of kilometers in every direction. A tractor is towing a trailer containing three large metal beds. In the front of the trailer, a special seat has been constructed for the grandfather, a handsome, hieratic old man protecting himself from the sun with a wide, black umbrella he holds straight up as if he were doing a sword salute.

  By the time I reach Sac Dağı (sadj dah’-uh) pass, at an elevation of 2,300 meters (7,550 feet), I’m drained. A young shepherd comes over to me and offers me a drink.

  “If you want,” he adds, “I’ll bleed a calf, and you can drink his blood. That will give you strength.”

  And as he says this, he mimics having large pectoral muscles. I give him my sincere thanks and do a poor job holding back a shiver of disgust.

  On the other side of the pass, the small village of Aydıntepe would be perfect for a stopover, if it weren’t for the memory of Payveren, which dissuades me from seeking hospitality. There is indeed one large house, where, I imagine, the lord resides. But I lack the courage. Farther below, the road plunges into a deep gorge. It’s late: for my safety I have to stop walking. I therefore opt to stop a long black car, which already has five men in it. I’ve barely settled in when the driver, a solid fellow whose face is dashed with a large black mustache, says, in a voice pierced with political passion:

  “What do you think of Öcalan’s conviction?”

  Good grief! This is no time to answer carelessly. Are they Turks or Kurds? I get myself off the hook by asking a question of my own:

  “I’m a foreigner and don’t know much about the situation or the region. Isn’t this conviction going to cause trouble around here?”

  The answer, which I have a hard time understanding, is spoken in a rather reassuring tone. But suddenly the term “Turks” is pronounced, and the man who says it slides his finger over his throat like a knife blade. Now I know. Their expressions are stern. Well dressed, they’re no country yokels, and they don’t look like businessmen. Having worked for fifteen years in political reporting, I recognize their kind: they’re militants. Possibly members of the PKK. I’m dying to find out, but how should I ask? I try to sound as innocent as possible:

  “Do you know any people with the PKK? I’d like to know what they think about all this.”

  The question ushers in a deep freeze in the passenger compartment. After a few moments of silence, the driver points to the cliffs:

  “There is gold there!”

  I obviously stood no chance of getting a reply, but at least I tried. I take a stab at the gold story:

  “So why don’t you mine it?”

  He holds his finger against his throat:

  “The Turks won’t allow it.”

  Many throats are cut with gestures in this car. And I see the same sign again later on when, in the city suburbs, we drive past some army barracks. Turned toward the road, dozens of tanks display the black, menacing hole of their cannon. My five rascals, as soon as they see them, in a collective gesture, slice their carotid arteries with their index fingers.

  In Eleşkirt, the five cutthroats get out and go over to a group of men—other cutthroats?—waiting for them in lively discussion. As they bid me good-bye, they say something nice about Danielle Mitterrand.* I’d give anything to be fluent in Turkish and be able to chat with them, but I carry only a few lonely words in my bag, just enough to thank them for having brought me here and wish them a good evening.

  The only hotel in Eleşkirt, located above a service station-restaurant open all night, is, needless to say, very, very noisy. But I’m so far behind on sleep that I go to bed before it’s dark out and I sleep straight through till five o’clock. When I rise, I empty a fair amount of my gear out onto the bed, keeping only the essentials, then get back on the road. A truck heading to Erzurum to deliver wood takes me back to the spot where I was picked up yesterday evening in the Kurdish limousine. I know how odd this way of doing things may seem. But I want to be clear: this defile along the Eleşkirt road that I’m already acquainted with after having traversed it twice, in a car yesterday evening, now in a truck this morning, I have not, in fact, truly seen: I want to experience it on foot, at eye level. And indeed, when I do, it appears quite different to me: it’s larger, more majestic, more impressive. In a word, more real. Grain of sand by grain of sand, the river was thinking big as it hewed a bed out of the rock into which the road has now slipped. A rider on a fine white horse waves at me before turning into a kind of narrow corridor that weaves its way through the cliff. Three kids I give some candy to head off to work, each holding a billhook. The youngest, about ten years old, is mounted on a donkey, starts whining, acting quarrelsome. I tell them I have nothing else to give them, having lost the small bag that contained my little buttons. But the kid keeps on grumbling and grows bolder, repeating louder and louder: “para, para, para.” And when I ask him what he’d do with it, he mimics smoking. So I answer him by mimicking empty pockets and leave them high and dry, furious at my refusal. A few hundred meters on, the English cyclists pass me up, loudly ringing their bells and waving their arms. They must have bivouacked at the entrance to the defile and woke up late.

  As I exit the gorge, I take a break and contemplate the scenery. To my right, a poor Kurdish village, just like all the others I’ve seen over the past two days: a few houses with rust-colored walls, sheep returning from pasture, not even a mosque. To my left, overhead, an army garrison guarding the entrance to the defile. Clean, new buildings covered in fresh sheet metal, flowerbeds, and the usual rows of tanks. Behind the barbed wire, soldiers stand guard bearing assault rifles across their chest. My eyes behold The Castle by Kafka. Two worlds that either ignore or confront each other. And for those who may wish to “climb up” to the castle-garrison, the sight of all the menacing muzzles of rifles and tanks does little to foster dialogue, on one side or the other.

  I walk along effortlessly. My backpack is light. The deep, post-Payveren depression I had fallen into melts away under a sun already high in the sky. Here and there, young boys are watching over their herds, throwing stones at the stray cows, coaxing them to rejoin the main group. Once again, I come across a construction site for the gas pipeline. Here, it’s nearly completed. The backfilled trenches have left a trace of fresh dirt that looks like an open wound running across the steppe. The natural gas flowing in these big black pipelines—so large I can almost stand inside them—will go to the Ankara region.

  Several dozen kilometers to the south is the huge Atatürk Dam, which people tell me is the largest in the world. Other dams, twenty-two in all, are almost all situated in the same zone. They hold back the water of two rivers that witnessed the birth of the earliest civilizations, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and form the GAP (Great Anatolian Project). The electricity they produce is routed to the industrial West. In Kurdistan, wealth only passes through. If some share of the jobs and revenue don’t stay put, the army will be guarding the narrow passes, pylons, and pipelines until the end of time.

  Upon my return to Eleşkirt, a crowd is gathered around a man covered in blood and terribly banged up. A car ran him over: they’re waiting for the ambulance while speaking about the accident vociferously and waving their arms. But I’m certain that the reckless driver will get off scot-free. Every driver in Turkey, as I’ve said before, is entitled to spill blood in the country’
s busiest streets, most peaceful roads, and bucolic byways!

  The next day, up early, I’ve traveled for ten kilometers or so when a minibus full of passengers comes to a stop alongside me. A man lowers his window. I’m about to state that I prefer to walk, but he smiles and says, in my native tongue:

  “Tu es français.”

  “Comment le savez-vous?”

  “Des gens me l’ont dit . . . De quelle ville?”

  “Paris.”

  “J’ai travaillé à Créteil. Tu connais Créteil?”

  “Oui.”

  “J’y étais en même temps que Mitterrand. Tu as connu Mitterrand? Et Danielle? C’est une amie . . .” *

  Danielle Mitterrand is as loved by the Kurds as she is hated by the Turks.

  Having left Eleşkirt around 5:30 a.m., five hours later I’m already within sight of Ağrı, lurking on the plain off in the distance. But it will still take me at least two more hours to reach the city’s center. The road leading in is reminiscent of certain villages in Normandy: houses with small yards all lined up alongside the road, standing with their backs to the fields. As I walk, I slide my hands under my backpack, which has regained all its weight, to help alleviate the friction on my shoulders. In so doing, I notice that the backside of my pants has ripped through. I doubt the poor thing will make it all the way to Tehran. With two safety pins, I attach a t-shirt onto my pack as a screen to cover up my brightly colored boxer shorts that must be visible through the gaping hole.

  As soon as I find a hotel, I start an urgent search for a tailor who can do a temporary fix. I also make some large withdrawals from my bank account and convert my last Turkish liras to dollars. I’m afraid I won’t be able to exchange money in Doğubeyazıt (doh-hoo-beh-ya-zuht’ ), the last city before the Iranian border. I also buy a long-sleeved shirt because you don’t trifle with the ayatollahs. A banner is stretched over the street advertising an Internet café. I make a mad dash to get there, but it’s occupied by painters who inform me it won’t be open until the following evening, provided the work is complete and the paint dry. Tomorrow evening, I’ll be long gone. I’m told there are none in Doğubeyazıt. I don’t expect to find any in Iran. So here I am, for a full month at least, cut off from my friends and family, as well as from the news.

  I spend July 7 resting and mostly getting ready to cross the Iranian border. As at the outset of my journey, my natural pessimism hits me like a wave. I hear that the border-crossing formalities are long, cumbersome, and complicated. So I start letting myself get carried away by unanswerable questions that only serve to put into words the dull misgivings now engulfing me. For example, how am I going to communicate with the Iranians? As though I’d never given the problem any thought. Or, how am I going to manage with a map with a scale of 1:3,000,000, barely good enough for motorists? I suddenly fear being condemned to stick to state highways, which I utterly despise. Another source of anxiety: I have no arrangement, as in Turkey, with an Iranian bank, so I’m going to have to move about with large sums of cash with me. I’m decidedly much too unreasonable, and I reprimand myself mercilessly. The only pat on the back I give myself is for having resolved my visa problem thanks to my forced marches. It’s valid until July 29: I’ll be at the border on the eleventh, and in Tabriz between the twentieth and the twenty-fifth. I’ll be able to extend my visa there. I study the possible stages on the other side of the Turkish border. If all goes well, at an average pace of thirty kilometers (19 miles) a day and stopping one day per week, I’ll be in Tehran by the end of the first week of August, the fifteenth at the very latest.

  My pants were ripping all over the place. The tailor—a veritable artist—had to sew on at least nine patches. But with what results! Imagine a Harlequinesque garment, with a subtle blend of colors ranging from the ochre of the savannas to the golden beige of the dunes, a model that our noble fashion designers in the West would most certainly want to copy, were it, by the most unusual of circumstances, to fall into their hands. Long live Turkey’s creative little tailors! I’ve now earned the right to rail against so-called “adventure” clothing, barely designed to withstand parading about Paris’s Left Bank bistros. My mind is made up: I’m going to buy a new set of clothes in Tabriz. In preparation for the border formalities, I have some ID photos made along with some copies of my passport, as I’ll be asked to provide these in hotels. It’s cold and rainy in Ağrı; recurrent icy downpours wash over the city. The downtown seems to be of little interest, and, despite several attempts, I fail to engage anyone in conversation. Mistrust or indifference?

  So I leave Ağrı with no regrets. Instead of continuing along State Road 100, I’ve decided to try one more jaunt into the Kurdish countryside. Last night, I told myself that I couldn’t leave Turkey without having established some connections with the countryfolk of this region. My adventure in Payveren was pure bad luck. I have to stop imagining that all the muhtars will be out of town and replaced by their deranged brothers. Out there, behind these barren hills, I’m going to meet some warm and generous countryfolk, like so many I’ve seen up till now. More careful now as the result of my misadventures, and in order to enjoy both the pleasure of meeting people and the security provided by a hotel, I’ve identified a route that travels cross-country and taking me into villages but that doesn’t lead me too far from the next city along the highway, where I’ll sleep tonight free of fear.

  Confident and reassured, after leaving the city, I take a dirt road soggy from the past few days’ rain. I wade through a field of slippery, clayey soil. A jandarmas’s car, skating through this cesspit, comes to a stop. The officer asks to see my passport. The usual routine. They go their way, and so do I. As I lose sight of the last few houses, I catch up to a young man coming back from the city with his groceries. We come upon one of those cursed forks in the road. To the right or to the left? “To the left,” he tells me; whereas my compass tells me it should be to the right. But he must be correct, he knows. We walk for about one kilometer. Then the road turns into a two-track, and then finally a footpath that vanishes into the prairie. Not so sure, I stop:

  “This isn’t the road to Eskiharman.”

  “Yes, yes, it is . . . and hey, do you see that house over there? That’s mine. I’ll make some tea for you.”

  “No thank you. I’m going to Eskiharman, and this is the wrong road.”

  “Do you want to buy this bread, or these cigarettes?’

  So that was it. He dragged me here to get money from me. If any doubt remained, his next question sweeps it away.

  “The money you have, is it marks or dollars?”

  I laugh at his naive question. On the front porch of his house, another scamp about his age appears. He hails him and invites him to come over. I make a quick U-turn, for, if I stay here, with two against one, I’m in danger. He doesn’t try to follow me, but the other man runs after me for a little while. I stop, ready to confront him. He must have been convinced by either my determination or my walking stick, for he wisely ends the chase.

  I’m back at the fork in the road and forge ahead. Three or four kilometers farther, a car driven by two young people stops.

  “What are you doing here? It’s dangerous. There is ‘terror’ ahead.”

  The driver offers to provide me with dinner and a place to sleep in his home and suggests I hop in his car. But his village is too far off my path. So that he doesn’t press the issue, I tell him that when I reach his village, I’ll stop by to see him. They take off again. A little later, a taxi stops. The driver gets out and comes over.

  “Where are you going? There is no road farther on.”

  I show him on my map the path that I intend to follow. He doesn’t know these roads. His passengers are telling him which way to go. They told him to ask about me and are ready to pay for my journey if I want to join them. Once again, I refuse, and the taxi drives off.

  Finally, I can enjoy some peace and quiet, the steppe, and the rolling, barren hills. The road, full of ruts, dawdles
along through the hills. Another fork in the road, but this one appears on my map, and I head due south. The same map shows that, very soon, one or two kilometers on, a path will take me east, back to the highway. But as much as I walk along looking for it, I can’t find it; there’s neither path nor road, only fields of grain and pastures grazed by livestock. In an electric company jeep, four men confirm what I already know: there is no road. Once again, my map has betrayed me. It shows, about five kilometers away, a small village and a secondary road heading from it to my destination. It will make for a long detour, but let’s give it a try.

  As soon as he sees me, a young cowherd on horseback comes galloping in my direction, passing me by while shouting a sonorous “salamalek,” then rushes off toward the village. Well, people will know I’m coming. Indeed, as soon as I reach the first house, a group of children escorts me. I haven’t bought any more candy, so I don’t have anything to give them. A ruffian, stepping out of a stable, a bucket in his hand, hurries over.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Taşlıçay (tash-luh-chai’ ). There must be a road this way if I’m to believe my map.”

  He reaches out to see my map, takes it, and, without even looking at it, stuffs it in his pocket.

  “I’ll come with you to Taşlıçay.”

  “OK, but give me back my map.”

  “When we get to Taşlıçay . . .”

  I’m instantly on my guard. The city is thirty-some kilometers away, and I can’t imagine that this fellow will just drop what he’s doing and travel that far for the simple joy of accompanying me. The way he swiped my map makes me suspicious. About twenty-five years old, short, stocky, and fidgeting, the fellow has a plaid shirt he has probably worn every day for eons beneath a sweater studded with holes. One of his shoes is on its last leg, and he has tied it up with string like a rump roast, so the sole doesn’t slip off for good.