But I do have regrets. By a twist of fate, I have an opportunity to enter Iran while events are taking place that would, for me, be captivating. I have a hard time putting up with forced inaction. Lying on my bed, gazing out at the turbaned summit of Mount Ararat, I simply can’t believe that this is the end—even if only for a time—of my adventure. At this hour, the ambulance must be leaving Istanbul. The countdown to the motorized return to the starting point of my Turkish adventure has begun. To keep myself busy, I reread the only book I’ve hardly had the time to look at and that I’ve been toting with me all the way from Paris: The Lonely Planet guide to Iran, in English.
Despite the medicine, the amoebas are still eating away at my intestines. My belly is a wound radiating throughout my body. Sleep finally comes over me, disrupted by a concert of furious barking. As soon as night invades the city, its streets become a battleground for wild dogs. Ice-cold rain falls on the deserted streets. It must be snowing on Ararat’s summit. I barely sleep. When I wake up, my stomach’s a little less painful. Dawn reveals the sheer mass of the snow-capped mountain looming 5,300 meters (17,400 feet) above the city. It’s still early; the clouds have not yet appeared. This extinct volcano is as beautiful as Mount Fujiyama, which I had the opportunity to see last year. The majestic mass rising up out of the plain, the perfect shape of the cone, the many shades of white in which it is clothed compose one of those visions that never tire the eyes. Is it any surprise that this mountain was considered a god by those who lived in its shadow? Just to the east, Little Ararat takes advantage of the diffuse morning light, which, combined with an optical effect, makes it seem as if it were as large as the “great pain.”
I walk about the city bent over, tense, and hunched up, hoping to control the wild rumpus some unknown, cannibalistic germs are raising in my tormented bowels.
On the street corners, piles of smelly garbage attract throngs of chickens and ducks that wander from their yards to come squabble over leftovers from the feast abandoned by the now-sated dogs. There’s no sewer, either, and so vast pools of greenish, putrid liquid seep out from beneath the heaping piles of plastic bags, swollen from the decomposition of their contents or that have burst, spewing out frothy slime. I reach the edge of the city and contemplate Mount Ararat, whose perfect triangle stands on the horizon. It was only supposed to be a signpost along the way, but today it’s a wall. I gingerly walk back toward downtown. Businesses are already open, even though it’s not yet the break of dawn. Here, as throughout the Orient, shops open onto the street, and the goods for sale are piled up outside, for all to see. The few cars driving about at this hour stir up clouds of fine dust that floats down onto the stalls and sneaks in the open doors. I feel small, miserable, and dirty, both inside and out, just like this city at the edge of the world. Bouts of nausea have me afraid I might throw up right in the middle of the street. Still, for nine weeks now, filth was part of my daily routine, and I was never turned off by it. Here, I find it revolting. But could this intense feeling of disgust simply be due to the unbearable thought that today’s the day my adventure comes to an end?
Back at the hotel around 7:30 a.m., I manage to swallow—and keep down—a few cups of tea, and I even chew for a long time on a small piece of bread. How will I get through the day? I cannot stand the idea of just sitting around waiting for the ambulance to pick me up. Because I am tormented by the pain, time seems to drag on forever. But whenever it subsides, the second hand of my watch suddenly seems to speed up. As if to hasten the arrival of that damned ambulance that, alas, will mark the end of my dream and of my walk toward China for a long time to come.
Since I can’t walk, I’ll have to sacrifice some of the tourist’s must-sees. There are three local attractions here. First, Mount Ararat, of course. But the army has all but forbidden access to its slopes ever since the start of the war against the PKK. Next, the “Meteor Çukuru” (choo-koo-roo). It’s located about thirty kilometers from the city, near the Iranian border. I’d planned to make a side trip along the way. In 1920, in what was already a desolate landscape, an enormous meteorite fell here, leaving a huge crater sixty meters (200 feet) in diameter and over thirty meters (100 feet) deep, the world’s second largest. There, too, the army has put up so many hurdles that visiting it is unpredictable. The war with the Kurdish rebels has ruined a once-thriving tourist industry, based on these two attractions. But in any event, the mountain and the crater are much too far afield for me to even attempt visiting them.
That leaves the third local marvel, and that one’s within my reach. Five kilometers from the city, towering over the plain, stands one of the most beautiful architectural treasures of the entire country: the palace-fortress of İshak Paşa (Lord Isaac). This was a family affair. Begun in 1685 by a paşa, it was completed a century later by his son, who gave his name to the edifice. The castle guarded the eastern entrance to Turkey, defending it against the armies of the Persians, Armenians, and Russians, who relentlessly laid the region to waste. From time immemorial, insecurity was the rule here. The men lived in the hills, safe from those wielding sabers. Before the establishment of the Republic, Doğubeyazıt did not exist. At the end of the 1930s, the new regime having better secured its borders, it went in search of the region’s inhabitants living high in the mountains and low in the valleys, and they were then resettled in this city, created out of thin air.
The expedition promises to be risky. So I load up with toilet paper and negotiate my trip with a taxi driver. We come to the agreement that he’ll drive me to the palace without taking any other passengers; he’ll wait for me while I’m there and will drive me back here. Unable to sit, I lie down on the back seat, and off we go, but not before I ask him to do his best to avoid potholes. He reassures me in the half-amused, half-outraged way of someone who’s not about to be told how to do his job. But not even a hundred meters into the journey, I have the unpleasant feeling my body’s about to explode. It’s too harsh an ordeal. I ask my disappointed driver to take me back to the hotel. I lie down and try to sleep. The second hand seems to stand still.
A little after twelve, I’m feeling better. Unable to stay put, I go back outside. The same taxi driver is still there. Can we try again? He agrees. This time, he drives very carefully. I try not to howl at every jolt over the bumpy road leading to the palace. As soon as we arrive, I bolt out of the taxi and dart into the bathroom belonging to the restaurant that overlooks the edifice, while my driver sips tea. Then I begin my tour, taking small steps, blocking my sphincter, and squeezing my buttocks as much as my sore muscles allow. I won’t see the gold-plated doors that were carried off by the Russians and are now in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The three hundred and sixty rooms that made up the palace have mostly collapsed. Elsewhere, vast areas are off-limits to visitors because the marvel is literally being rebuilt. The ringed minaret, made of rows of red and white stones, is in good condition, as is the adjacent türbe (mausoleum). I’m fortunately the only visitor, and so whenever the need is so urgent that I can’t make it back to the restaurant, I’m free to leave a little souvenir in one of the palace’s remote corners. One less enduring than the words “Mehmet loves Fatime” engraved in a heart on one of the palace’s soft, chalky walls.
Despite the passing years and how weather has taken a toll on the stone, what remains unchanged is the palace’s extraordinary viewpoint looking out over the plain. I stand and get lost in dreams for a moment as I survey the vast territory stretching beyond the fortress walls. Often, in moments like this, from atop the mountain passes I’d just climbed, I’d be preparing to savor close-up all the beauty spread out at my feet. That has all changed. I’m unfortunately going to head back down in a car, time is now running short, and with it the pleasure of taking in the sights at my own pace. I scold myself: after refusing for all these weeks to climb into a vehicle, I need to be careful not to develop some form of autophobia.
When I walk tight-stepped out of the palace, my faithful driver is waiting for m
e by the front door. On the way back, sympathetic, he stops near a grove of hazelnut trees so that I can relieve yet another crisis of my tormented bowels. Time has flown by. At the hotel, weary from the expedition, I doze off. The excursion was painful, but I managed to while away this seemingly endless day in a rather pleasant way.
In the evening, around ten o’clock, the ambulance has arrived. The two drivers and the nurse look exhausted. Without the slightest appetite, I watch as they wolf down some dish that I don’t recognize, and then we agree on the plan. They’ll get some sleep for three or four hours, then we’ll leave at three in the morning. The nurse, who looks a little hard to please, pinches my skin. “You’re dehydrated, you have to drink, and drink a lot.” I’d very much like to comply, but I explain that because of some blockage probably caused by the pain, I’ve hardly urinated all day. “Drink, and you will pee.” That’s the young lady’s injunction, and so, on that highly encouraging note, we wish each other good night.
A 3:00 a.m., as I make my way downstairs, the large ambulance’s engine is already warming up, filling the hotel courtyard with the nauseating odor of burnt diesel fuel. They get me settled in on the gurney. The nurse takes up position on a seat nearby. To say that I’m in high spirits at this point would truly be an exaggeration. I had sworn not to get into a car during the journey until reaching Tehran. And now here I am, my belly on fire, shamelessly about to retrace my journey in reverse on four wheels. I think back to the driver who, just before Suşehri, offered to give me a ride in his ambulance and how I told him in what was, at the time, an ironic and brash tone: “Not yet. Maybe later on.” Well, here I am, and I’m not about to brag or crack jokes. As I very carefully set my rear end on the mattress, I promise myself to return here, sometime very soon. Overnight, I went back over my calculations: back in Paris, after three weeks or perhaps a month to rest up and regain my strength, I can get to Erzurum by plane, hop on a bus to the very spot where I left off, and continue my journey as if nothing ever happened. I even see an upside to this: this unexpected delay will allow me to cross Iran in the autumn, once the hottest weather, which would have meant nothing but suffering, has passed. But, try as I might to look on the bright side, none of that is a done deal, and I’m unable to rid myself of my bitterness at having to undergo medical evacuation.
The start of our journey through the city’s rutted dirt streets sets me moaning. My abdomen is as hard, bloated, and painful as it’s ever been since my bout of dysentery began, and, when the wheels drop into the potholes, violent jolts make all my muscles go rigid, as if I were being struck by bolts of electricity. The ambulance moves along fairly slowly, zigzagging to avoid ruts, but these streets are but a gigantic minefield. After only an hour on the road, the grueling shocks get the better of my willpower. Despite my heroic desire to suffer in silence, I yell out each time a more dramatic bump shakes my bed. The ambulance slows down. If we continue at this speed, it will take us two days to reach Istanbul.
Will I be able to hang on? I ordinarily have a fairly high tolerance to pain. But the stomachache eating away at my insides seems to have grown worse. The meltdown in my intestines has caused an enlarged prostate, and then a urinary tract obstruction. On top of all the suffering, my sense of modesty is under attack, which very quickly becomes just as terrible as my bowels. The situation would be much easier to bear if it were caused by some noble wound. If only I’d taken a bullet in a scuffle with the PKK or broken several bones falling into a ravine. Then you can go home head high, weighed down by a cast, wrapped in bloodstained bandages that you wear like a crown of laurels. But there’s no bullet hole. All I’ve got, so to speak, is a large wound in the . . . bunghole.
We’ve been rolling along for a little over an hour when I decide to try to urinate, since the urge is so strong. This is compounded by the need to do, as kids might say, number two. I have to wonder how it’s even possible, since I haven’t digested anything for four days. The nurse, of course, has everything ready. She takes a kind of round bedpan, sets it down in the back of the vehicle, and tells me to have a go. While I am by no means particularly prudish, I’m not very keen on making a show of my privates, either. I tell her this, and she goes up front, facing the drivers. A titanic struggle then ensues. Given how weak I am, it’s hard enough for me to maintain my balance standing up. But squatting, it becomes a veritable high-wire act. With the ambulance swerving back and forth, despite holding on with two hands, I unpredictably swing to the right and then to the left each time the breakneck coffin zigzags or lurches forward. And if I manage to hold myself in a steady, albeit hardly dignified, position, then the bedpan starts to move across the liner made of some sort of polished linoleum, as slick as a dance floor. I try my valiant best for fifteen minutes, and then, exhausted and humiliated, I hand the empty bucket back to the nurse and lie down, completely disheartened.
And at that point, a tussle begins between me and the nurse, one that will last for most of the journey. She insists on trying to get me to drink in order to alleviate the dehydration I’m apparently suffering from. I refuse so long as I haven’t relieved my epic urge to urinate, which has caused my belly to become frighteningly swollen. After Erzurum, the road is in better condition, and the bumps become less frequent. We stop from time to time for the drivers to have tea and change positions. The nurse keeps at it, cruelly pinching the skin of my arm to prove how dehydrated I am, telling me over and over how I’m the one responsible for this vicious circle. If I drink, she says, I rehydrate myself, and therefore I piss. I’m tormented by thirst, and that makes me want to give it a try. I swallow several cups of tea and a can of juice. But nothing happens, except the pressure in my belly gets worse.
From time to time, I get up from my cot, and, my nose pressed against the ambulance’s little window, I watch the very landscapes fly by that I contemplated those many days at the slow pace of walking. I recognize them, but they’re not the same. A city, a village won’t let you grasp it in such a quick glance. You have to approach it slowly, with love.
In early afternoon, I manage to sleep a little, but I’m wakened shortly thereafter by the terrifying feeling of being a wineskin about to burst open. Every square millimeter of the skin of my abdomen is stretched to the point of breaking. The nurse, who can’t seem to take no for an answer, tells me I have to drink. I brush her off. This time, I’m not giving in. Brazen right to the end, now she won’t even talk to me.
My eyes riveted on the vehicle’s ceiling, rigged with hooks and cables, I try to escape from this world of plastic and chrome steel by focusing on the future. I’ll soon be in Istanbul, then in Paris, and then back home. There, I’ll see the faces of my children and friends once again, the restorative calm of the Norman countryside; and, in a few weeks, I will be back on my feet, ready for adventure. My Iranian visa won’t pose any problems if I start the process early enough. From the very beginning of my affliction, I’ve clung to one idea bordering on an obsession: to pick up EX-ACT-LY where I collapsed, just before Doğubeyazıt. That road and its barren hills in front of me and behind me, the plain where the plumes of a few poplar trees were turning yellow under the heat of the sun, the trickle of a river down below and even grass of the berm where I fell face-forward: every detail is etched in my memory with photographic precision. I cling to it as if to a promise. The moment I take my first step, the nightmare that I’ve endured these last four days will finally be over.
After all, I really don’t have all that much to complain about. I’ll receive medical attention. The merchants and caravanners who fell along the Silk Road had no other recourse than to wait wherever they were, in precarious conditions, until they recovered from their illness before they could continue their journey. In a few hours, they’ll be pampering me in a clinic in Istanbul; they’ll get me refueled and back on my feet.
But we’re not there yet. With every passing minute, I grow increasingly impatient. I start thinking what slowpokes the drivers are. When the pain becomes too much, I a
sk the nurse for a shot of morphine. She doesn’t have any. “Buy some!” I shout. The pressure from my urinary blockage is becoming unbearable. No position—I’ve tried them all—provides any relief whatsoever. I writhe about on my cot, racked with pain. The nurse decides to spread an ointment over my buttocks that should calm things down. I don’t really see the connection, but I’d happily let her butter my entire body if it came with the promise that I would feel better. So I ready myself to let her do what she wants despite my reluctance to show her my ass. The miracle salve fails to bring about any improvement. It’s dark out. I lack the energy now even to sit up and watch the scenery. I have just one desire: to get there. “Faster, faster.” I have the feeling that the ambulance is crawling along. The rescue team has decided that I’m a dyed-in-the-wool pain in the butt and no longer even bothers to answer me. I suggest that we stop in a hospital along the way, so I can be catheterized. Let’s put an end to this ordeal. They try to put my mind at ease: we’re almost there.
They can say whatever they want: mired in pain, I have no idea where we are; I have no idea what condition I’m in. While it was still light out, I occasionally glanced at my watch, but at nighttime, without my glasses, I no longer even have a sense of time whether standing still, calmly wandering about my body—now agony incarnate—or dragging its feet while butchering my bowels. The increasingly heavy traffic gives me some hope that we’re nearing Istanbul. From time to time, the drivers turn on the siren to force their way through the traffic. My belly is so taut that I try to urinate several times without even getting up. If I could, I’d pee all over the damn gurney in plain view of this baleful young lady: that’s how torture can destroy all sense of dignity. Two or three times, overcome, I sink into a kind of comatose, restorative sleep, but, unfortunately, only for short spells. By dint of twisting around, I finally hit on a less painful position—on all fours on the gurney—but I nevertheless howl with every jolt. I’ve lost all sense of what’s going on. Little by little, on top of the pain permeating my intestines and bloating my bladder, there’s now another one: a burning sensation over my buttocks, accompanied by a feeling of wetness.
Out of Istanbul Page 32
