The house had been in a state of construction for years; no one had borrowed to finance this home’s completion.
Children milled about the minibus, chattering and pushing each other in order to be closest to the strangers. Grandfather stood on the plywood-covered porch. My host’s face was serene, his cheeks covered with a bristly gray beard. He didn’t greet us and would hardly speak during my visit. He wore an argyle sweater and long pants tucked into his socks, in turn tucked into his slippers. Ahmet introduced us. “His name is Mohammed. He is eighty-five.” He muffled a cough and sniffled.
“That is grandmother, mine,” said Ahmet. She carried a year-old baby. “Asile is her name. You call her Grandmother.” Grandmother wore a floor-length brown skirt around a notable girth. Her bosom overflowed everywhere; wide and down. She owned her age.
It was İlhan, Ahmet’s uncle, who delivered the greetings on everyone’s behalf—“Hoşgeldiniz,” first to Patricia, then to Nico and me.
In Çaliğa village, en route from Fish Lake, at the home of Ahmet’s grandfather Mohammed (his hands on Mem’s shoulders) and grandmother Asile (holding the baby), beside Nico and Patricia, at the back. Ahmet (center) and his nephew kneel beside İlhan.
Grandmother disappeared. Ahmet took us inside, where tea was set for the infidels, the others respecting Ramadan. There was room for two on the couch, and I sat on the floor by the serving utensils. Nico tripped on a fold in the carpet and pointed to how it was rolled in a low and loose wave across the floor in little humps, not tacked down.
Ahmet caught up with family gossip. Once in a while he motioned to one of us, as his stories brought us into his grandfather and grandmother’s world.
Nico and I talked of friendship, with pledges to meet again. He said, “I’m not much good with emails, but if you’re in my city I’m good with a skillet and serve nice wines. There’s a spare couch.”
İlhan took us outside to walk around the yard, pointing out future walls, and plans for the expansion of the house, and the toilet. Ahmet was with us. “Rick, you and İlhan should walk when we leave. He will show you everywhere that is village. Grandmother has prepared family dinner for you. Then you sleep in room with others.”
Looking across the road, I saw that Ararat imposed itself on this village. It dominated the eastern horizon. Mown hay and piles of building lumber were set alongside the road. A mile away was a collection of homes, but not many. Our side of the road had more residences, irregularly placed, and strung out over half a mile. The villagers were walking along the road to see us, the visitors. They paused and stood respectfully near Grandfather and Grandmother’s place.
Ahmet, Patricia, and Nico readied themselves to leave. “In the morning my cousin drives a bus to Doğubeyazit. He starts by Fish Lake. Comes through here at 5:00 a.m. on way to the city. You need be on that bus. Is only way to leave. Grandfather will wake you.”
“Thanks, Ahmet. I’ve wanted this to happen, and you made it so.”
“You will be comfortable. Safe.”
“Just don’t stub your toe on the carpet,” Patricia said, and Ahmet laughed.
“Patricia,” I said, looking at Nico, “Make sure this guy keeps breathing.” I put my hand up onto Nico’s shoulder as I said it; he pulled me into a hug.
“Nico …”
“Riko …”
I hugged Patricia. “Safe passage.”
Nico and Patricia got into the minibus, and Ahmet drove them out of my life.
İlhan was fortyish and lean, with black hair that lapped his head in a long comb. His left wrist sported a gold watch. He did not speak English but was a willing listener, and it was not long before he’d taken me on the street for Ahmet’s promised walkabout. There, a small group of men and children wanted to say hi and practice their English on me.
“Where are you from?”
“Did you climb Ağrı with Ahmet?”
“Will you stay tomorrow?”
“Do you play soccer?”
I answered each question slowly, knowing my audience wanted to hear a native speaker of English. The middle-aged men were more interested in my handshake or canvassing my face, reddened by sun and wind. Kids strayed behind us as we walked, but one came abreast of me and remained there. Mem was Ahmet’s five-year-old nephew. He became my companion on the walk with İlhan, at the dinner, and throughout the evening. He was inventive at getting attention; tugging at the cuff of my pullover or bouncing a red rubber ball on the road so that it veered into my hands—a game of catch that lasted, in various settings, until midnight.
Dinner was at dusk. The comfortable place to sit was on the living room floor, which was covered wall to wall with the unsecured carpet that bubbled everywhere. Grandfather, İlhan, Mem, and I sat cross-legged, each male facing a setting of cutlery, plates, and mugs.
Food kept coming to us over the course of an hour. Flatbread was served first and often replenished, always kept warm until eaten. Dishes of roasted vegetables were first passed my way and then put down for others to reach—eggplant, potatoes, cooked tomatoes, and grilled red peppers, accompanied by bowls of yogurt and several cheeses set out on a plate, all similarly white but cut differently to define their type. We helped ourselves by using our hands for the hard pieces and a spoon on the soft cheese.
All this without conversation. The women, including İlhan’s wife Rahime, were in the other room preparing the next serving, also silent. I wondered if they’d have spoken were I not there. Or would their dining ritual be one of silence? Maybe they held back words as a courtesy toward their visitor, who would not be able to join in.
Sliced roast of lamb arrived, prepared earlier in the day, and was placed before me. Lettuce was provided, torn by mother’s hand and in a glass bowl, ready for each diner to wrap the lamb and garnishes individually.
After our evening meal, I signaled to İlhan that I was happy to walk on my own. I went up the road, flashlight in hand. When I turned down the way, I saw that he was behind me, perhaps unsure where his hospitality ended and wardenship began.
“Hoşgeldiniz,” he said again when he caught up to me. Welcome.
When we returned, Mem’s red ball bounced my way on the lumpy carpet. I tossed it back to him. For an hour this would be a welcome distraction. I was awkward company—we had no conversation to share and so exchanged spattering comments, falling back on smiles and nods to convey serenity in place of observations. Comfort grew from this, and our idleness fell into a rhythm of polite grunts or the occasional “uh huh” from me, which I could only hope was not a vulgarity in their language. There was a television in the corner of the room, but when turned on the picture was just black and white hail. Music came through the low static though, and was pleasant enough. Time passed and nothing was asked of anyone. Tea was served. The red ball bounced between Mem and me.
I was shown my sleeping quarters, which I helped set up by laying out a mattress taken from a closet and putting a blanket on it. I had a corner to myself in a room with two unmade beds in separate corners. Grandmother gave me a comforter and slippers to wear, and soon I was first to bed.
My room’s window was closed against the cold and the door left ajar. I’d barely fallen asleep when a red ball bounced in and landed on my bed, waking me. Mem opened the door and went to another corner. A cigarette was lit in the dark corner; İlhan smoked, lying down, and continued to do so throughout the night, even while asleep, it seemed to me. Mem moved close to his father and every few minutes, for over an hour, the red ball landed in my corner. As soon as I felt he thought I would not return it, I bounced it back to Mem, keeping him awake.
An old man’s hand shook my shoulder. It was 4:50 a.m. and time to catch the bus. I coughed in the smoke-filled room, clearing my throat as I stepped outside. On the porch, I took in a vista few anywhere in the world could match. Across the fields was Grandfather’s neighbor, Mount Ararat. A fresh fall of snow graced the massif’s upper reaches. The air sparkled, its crystals reflecting the snow in what I
wanted to believe was a white rainbow arching out of the cloud cover.
Who might have tried to summit last night? I wondered. Would they have made it? I held the coffee Grandmother had given me before she shooed me out of her kitchen. I sat in a porch chair made of tree branches and squeezed the red rubber ball in my hand, thinking good wishes for the little friend’s future and that of his family. Grandfather appeared, dressed as the night before, only with shoes on. Sitting in a side chair on the porch, he was talkative as he drank his coffee, as though to make sure I kept awake. His focus was getting me on the morning bus, as he’d assured Ahmet.
At 5:00 a.m. he and I stood at the roadside as a pair of headlights came down from Fish Lake. We shook hands. “See you,” I said, quickly realizing the inaccuracy of that common farewell, and so added “Thank you” in the language he’d understand: “Sapas Dicam.”
The bus slowed and stopped beside us. The cousin-driver shook my hand, rejected my offered fare, and closed the front door, all while smiling to indicate that the family’s cooperative hosting was nearly complete.
Five passengers snoozed in their seats, and I made my way past them as a woman shifted over to make room for me. “We heard you were staying in Çaliğa. You’re from America. Which part? USA? Canada? Mexico?”
Such encounters satisfy an urge to reach across a cultural divide, reminding us that we can. All night, Grandfather and Grandmother had seen to my comfort, intuiting something about their grandson’s life from the stranger in their home. That was more than sufficient for me. Mem earned an undemanding—if temporary—friendship by initiating a game of ball catch. I’d fallen asleep without returning the last pitch. Along with İlhan, Mem had overslept my quiet departure. Just before leaving the porch with Grandfather that morning, I’d gone back in the house, poked my arm into the quiet bedroom, and ricocheted the red ball into Mem’s corner.
Now, as the bus pulled away, I saw Mem, red ball in hand, waving goodbye from the porch.
Ahmet’s cousin dropped me off a few blocks from the Isfahan Hotel. I walked the quiet town with all its closed shops. Bakeries were busy, however, as evidenced by the delightful aroma. I was lured into an alleyway with a table featuring a variety of breads, many braided knots and rounded loaves to choose from. At the bakery I pointed to a naan I’d become fond of, and on a bench beside the baker’s helper I spotted a coffee pot, intended for the workers. One of them poured me a cup. Smiles all around.
I sat on the sidewalk, tore into the warm bread, and sipped my coffee.
A while later, arriving at the Isfahan hotel, I was surprised to see two men from the Armenian climbing group, and wondered how they’d fared.
“When did you get back?” I asked.
“We thought all of you would be gone,” was the response.
“Yes, except for me. I leave this morning for Van.”
“Us too. Or maybe we go this afternoon instead. Depends—as this whole trip has—on our fellow travelers.”
“Did you attempt the summit again?”
One said, “Some of us.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Not all,” said the same man.
“Those who waited at camp helped the rest of us be successful. It snowed. We went up with two guides. One brought a hiker back from halfway, as he was tuckered out.”
The mountain wins, I thought. Really, though, the team won—they did what was right in mountaineering: worked together to enable those most capable of attaining the highest success, and shared in that achievement.
Ahmet greeted me later that morning in the hotel lobby. He treated me as a newly adopted relative. “We drive soon.”
“Thank you,” I said, and began a deeper explanation of what it all meant to me, but it was not necessary.
“We know. Us too.” With that he closed the pleasantries like a verbal handshake.
“The Armenians?” I asked, thinking they’d accompany us.
“Zafer, at noon.”
Along the drive, I asked Ahmet about my prospects for traveling overland to Iraq.
“You could,” he told me. “No one else goes, you know. Everyone feels dangerous. I don’t see Western media, but travelers tell me says eastern Turkey dangerous. Is not. Not too much. Iraq, in north, is sensible part of insensible country. More dangerous is Van to Iraq, short route. You cannot take. You go long way. Two days. Is by bus. Unless rich for taxi.”
“I might try to fly. If not, then the long road,” I said. I remembered my so-far-unfulfilled commitment to Janice, that I’d get the letter translated or read before I entered Iraq. “Do you read Farsi?”
Shaking his head, he said, “I give you my phone number.” He wrote it down as he drove, and handed the paper to me. “I know Iraqis, in north. They are Kurds. My friends. You have troubles, call me. I will help.”
Knowing that the Van hotel clerk Aysenur was trying to figure out the air ticket for me, I said, “If I could get to Erbil by air, maybe I could come over land, back into Turkey.”
Ahmet was educated at what he called “the University of the Street.”
“Rick, I tell you I heard people crossing the border. Brave Europeans. You have caution with border drivers. Please. Some, like with taxis, they also smugglers. One person I trekked, his taxi driver brought cigarettes from Iraq into Turkey. In taxi-car’s trunk. The traveler—he was afraid, of being caught. Punishment.”
“I understand …”
“You think you understand. You don’t. If you get bad driver at border and get caught with something, my phone number no good for help. You’ll be … the American term? … Screwed.”
“I need to get out safely and return to Van. I plan to board the Trans-Asia Express in Van next week.”
“You have good adventures. Ararat and Iraq and Iran, and grandfathers,” he teased.
Aysenur was behind the Şahmaran hotel’s check-in desk. He greeted me as a friend, bursting with the news.
“My cousin, he has help for you, Richard. He’s airport. Remember? There is flight from Van to Istanbul. Tomorrow. You be on it.”
“Istanbul? Aysenur, I was trying to get to Iraq.”
“Istanbul. Then Iraq. Two times each week. Flight Istanbul to Erbil. You know Erbil?”
Andam and Taha’s family live there, I thought. “Yes. Good news.”
“If you want ticket, he has hold for you. You must buy. Decide now,” he said, politely but firmly. “Now.”
“I will check in and go to my room. I will decide soon.”
“No flight left. You will miss. Decide now. Or don’t go. I say right? You understand ‘now’?”
“I will take the flight,” I decided. “Here is my credit card.”
“No. Need your cash. I must send cash to cousin.”
The moment of hesitation was more a question of trusting my own whim than of trusting Aysenur and his cousin. I gave him the cash I had. “Richard, you are complexed. This, yes, to Istanbul. You want Iraq?”
Of course I did. He pointed me to the ATM tucked around the corner (I wished I’d seen it there my first day here).
He was jubilant for me. “Ticket tonight. Leave tomorrow. Am happy.”
Using the computer in the lobby, I emailed Andam and Taha back home: “Will be in Erbil day after tomorrow.” I wrote the date I expected to be in Iraq, along with the Turkish Airline flight number and arrival time in Erbil. “From airport I will get taxi and ask the driver to phone your family. I’ll use the envelope Taha gave me, with numbers. Is this still ok?”
I sent emails to Janice, Brent, and Sean: “I am going south.”
After dinner, there was a reply from Andam. “Taha just spoke with his brother. I spoke with him too. He is my uncle. He will meet you at the airport in Erbil. You will love Iraq. And Kurdistan.”
There were three more replies. One of my sons reminded me, “Be safe.” The other said, “I wish I was with you.” Janice emailed, “I can’t believe you are really doing this. What does the letter say?”
&nb
sp; SIXTEEN
THE BURIED BOOK
“My mistress still the open road
And the bright eyes of danger.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson, Song of Travel and Other Verses
Was this a flight into danger?
It was the last Sunday of August when my flight took off from Istanbul, heading to Iraq. I was unprepared for this when I left home. Any cautionary tales I found were on the computer in the lobby of the Şahmaran hotel in Van. One nation’s travel advisory concerning its citizens’ travel to another nation is often different from that posted by other countries. The United States was adamant that travel into Iraq should be avoided. They felt no need to elaborate. Turkey’s advice was clear that they did not like people crossing the Iraq/Turkey borders for personal purposes, only for business. Canada and Britain advised against individuals traveling unless it was for family reasons. I could not find a single advisory online with the words “tourism” and “Iraq” in the same positive sentence; I did find many to the contrary. Such travel alerts are often national hesitations, alarmist, or serve as political insurance policies should something go amiss. Many nations extend broad warnings, while others caution with a less ominous air, a “travel at your own risk” advisory. If there is a bombing in northern India, for example, some countries will advise their citizens to avoid travel to that entire country, which seems to me irresponsible and unhelpful, as well as unnecessary. I carried that mindset with me on the plane to Erbil. Iraq was to be avoided, full stop. However, I’d learned from Taha that parts of the north, Kurdistan, were at that time civil. A safe haven, if I was so inclined. I thought along the lines Ahmet had stated, and felt it to be a reasonable part of an unreasonable country. Mostly.
After two and a half hours of flying southeast from Istanbul, the Turkish Airline flight entered Iraqi airspace, Syria to our right. I was freshly aware that gaining an Iraq entry visa upon arrival was far from assured, and tried not to think about the complications if I were refused entry. I would likely be forced back aboard the same plane, but I had no idea which country this aircraft would be flying to next. I could be stranded, and from outside the aircraft window it looked to be a desert of dubious hospitality.
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