Everyday Treasures

photo from guardian.co.uk

There is a strange sort of calm in my village these days.  It’s not any calmer than it usually is, but the fact that there is so much unrest around the country makes the quiet in my own backyard all the more disquieting.  For the past fifteen days, in nearly every city in the nation, hundreds of thousands of people have been staging anti-government protests, often resulting in violent clashes with the police.  I watch the rallies and the resulting “skirmishes” on the news each day, but if it weren’t for the fact that all the placards and graffiti are in Turkish, I might as well be watching events unfolding in Aleppo or Tahrir Square.  It feels that far away.

Last week, turning to Facebook and YouTube for current events when the local stations were downplaying things, I watched in disbelief as protestors set fire to vehicles in front of the ruling party’s headquarters just a few miles from my house.  Social media was alive with information on which streets were “controlled” by the police, which pharmacies were open ‘round the clock to take in wounded protestors and home remedies to combat the effects of tear gas.  The whole nation was on fire, it seemed.  

Still, in my municipality, a stronghold of the party in power, the only signs that anything has been going on at all are the quiet removal of a few flags from balconies (lest they be mistaken for support) and the clucking of tongues of a few teyzes who disapproved of “the mischief of those young people.”

In my city, for the most part, the TOMAs (riot control vehicles) are back in their garages and the battle has shifted back into a mainly ideological one.  A large plaza downtown - like so many around the country - has been “occupied” by protestors staging what is now largely a peaceful sit in.  Students chant slogans, people browse through an open-air library, tea is distributed with generous smiles. But this isn’t the case everywhere and things are far from settled.  It may well be a long, turbulent road to next year’s elections.

I read an article recently by a journalist who lives in Istanbul, just off Taksim Square, the epicentre of the uprising.  She detailed the sights and sounds - the “mundane terror” - that, whether she chooses to take part in the protests or not, have invaded the most minute aspects of her daily life since this season of unrest began - tear gas wafting through her windows, the banging of pots and pans in opposition to the status quo, and riot police stationed on her street.  

We may live in the same country, but her experience is the polar opposite of mine.  With the events of the last two weeks at the forefront of my mind, the very absence of that “mundane terror” feels all the more pronounced.  The “revolution” is all around me - in my newsfeed and in the recently tear-gassed eyes of the friend I sit across from at Starbucks - and yet nowhere to be seen.  The contrasting normalcy of my immediate surroundings makes it all feel like a dream, the silence shouting back in counterpoint.

Outside my window, I hear the gardener spraying the grapevine with a hose, and I can’t help but wonder how many people are being knocked off their feet by water cannons at this very moment.   In the apartment building across the olive grove from me, an old woman hangs her laundry out to dry in the sun.  Downtown, her secular counterparts hang flags and pictures of Atatürk on their balconies, wishing they were young enough to join in the marches.  A child playing on my street calls out excitedly, “Mom!  The watermelon truck’s coming!”  while somewhere in Adana a university student screams to her friend, “Look out!  A TOMA is coming!”

At the pazar, sellers cry out, “Peaches, two lira a kilo!”  In İzmir, a mob cries out, “Hükümet istifa!  Hükümet istifa!”  (“Government resign!”)  A hurdacı (junk collector) rolls through my neighbourhood gathering broken furniture and old washing machines, while in Beşiktaş, residents grab their brooms and clean up the debris after another night of rioting.  At the bus stop, a woman pulls the corner of her headscarf over her mouth to block the dust.  In Taksim, a professor pulls a gas mask over his face and stands his ground.

When I arrive home in the evening, I inhale the sweet smell of honeysuckle and akşam sefası.  In Kızılay Square in Ankara, a woman gasps for air as she is bombarded with tear gas.  The clatter of silverware on plates gives way to laughter and the sound of tiny spoons in tea glasses as my neighbours settle in for a night of balcony chatting.  Downtown, the clanging of the nightly “pots and pans protest” begins promptly at the stroke of nine.  I run excitedly to my window, trying to catch a glimpse of the wedding fireworks I hear exploding in the sky.  An old man in Istanbul tosses and turns, unable to sleep for the sounds of tear gas canisters and rubber bullets bursting in the street below.  

And so, with my eyes glued to the evening news and my knees glued to the floor, I continue to live in the tension between “here” and “there”.....

I am a teyze magnet.  I attract little old ladies everywhere I go.  It’s a fact of my life here that hardly a week goes by without a cheek pinch or an invitation to marry a young nephew or grandson by a wrinkled and toothless auntie on the bus or at the market.  

I suppose I attract them because they attract me.  I find a group of ladies knitting on the sidewalk positively irresistible and don’t have to be asked twice to come and sit awhile.  Besides children, they’re the easiest segment of society to smile my way into, and I love the cheeky way they’ll joke and speak their minds, having cast off polite restraint decades ago.  They have all the time in the world to tell stories and, as long as I can sort out their accents, they are usually fascinating.  And there’s almost always çay.

Last week, my roommate and I were showing her niece around Kapadokya.  I’m always excited to visit my favourite region of the country, but sometimes when the activity is something I’ve done before (can we say six trips to the Göreme Open Air Museum?) I like to wander off and do my own thing.  After a straight week of guests and gezzing (sightseeing/showing people around) I was in desperate need of some alone time and my friends’ planned stroll through the carpet and pottery shops provided just the opportunity I’d been waiting for. 

I’d brought my journal along and had an hour of introverting at a cafe in mind.  Trouble was, I’d also brought my camera, and all those old stone houses and winding cobblestone streets proved too much for me and my Canon sidekick to resist.  After a satisfying meander through the upper old quarter, replete with the wooden doors, stone arches and wrought iron balconies my eye so loves, I came upon a gaggle of teyzes sitting on cushions and knitting slippers in the shade. 

I called out a “Merhaba” (“Hello”) and a “Kolay gelsin” (“May your work come easily”) which were instantly reciprocated with a “Come sit and talk to us!”  Throwing all introverted needs to the wind, I obliged.  Şalvar-clad hips made room and a fresh cushion was laid.  After the usual “Where-are-you-from-how’d-you-learn-Turkish-maşallah-you-should-marry-a-Turk” chitchat, they settled back into the rhythm of their knitting needles, their hennaed fingers flying.  

The woman to my right, who didn’t look a day over a Turkish sixty (which, incidentally, looks like a Canadian ninety) turned out to be eighty-one years old.  She modestly regaled me with her family history - Grandpa was a pasha, Dad was a military officer during Atatürk’s “taking back of the land” and the founding of the Republic in 1923.  (“Did he meet him, Teyze?”  “Of course, and he loved him.”)  Her father, who had been dead for 57 years, moved the family back to their hometown of Avanos before she was born, so she knew nothing of the Istanbul life of her older siblings and had lived in this neighbourhood all her years.  (“That house is the one I was born in.  That one over there was my mother’s sister’s but we sold it to some Dutch tourists....”)

The “younger” woman to my left, darker than the others complexion and clearly from out east (“But I’ve lived here forty years”) was singularly interested in selling me her woolen booties. 

From the end of the row came an offer to show me around some of the prettiest houses (“I have to walk up that way anyway”) so off we went.  Sahide Teyze, in her white headscarf and brown sweater vest, led me up the block and made a tottering beeline for an elegant stone mansion that, judging by the way she walked up to the wooden outer door and started fiddling with the latch, I assumed was hers.

“Hoo hoo!  Are you home?”  She shouted instead of knocking.  “Oh, they’ve shut it tight,” she said, beginning to shove her shoulder against the sticky door.

“Teyze, be careful, let me do it!”  She either didn’t hear me or didn’t care and continued to fuss with the door.  

“They’ve locked it, I see.”  She reached through a small hole and tried to lift a metal bar.  I started to wonder if I was about to become a trespasser.

“There, I’ve got it,” she exclaimed with a wheeze and a look of triumph.  “Come in, come in.”

I followed her into a high-walled courtyard dotted with pomegranate and apricot trees, a wheelbarrow and bags of cement.  The main house rose in front of us, its tall arches gazing down like eyes from the second floor, intricate designs carved into the pale yellow stone walls.  

“Come see the restoration they’ve done.”  She led me through an archway to a white-washed room with a vaulted ceiling.  “These walls used to be painted so pretty.”  She shook her head, fingering the plaster.  

The faint sound of a drill came from somewhere upstairs.  

“Ah, they are home!” she exclaimed, making her way towards the stone staircase in the courtyard that led to the upper floor.  I was beginning to wonder who “they” were.

The stairs were a considerable feat for her old legs, but she persevered to the top.  I followed behind in spotter mode.  In front of the house’ magnificent stone facade was small garden in which a grey haired man of about sixty, wearing protective goggles, was crouched down drilling holes into a piece of wood.  

“Hoo hoo!  Merhaba!” Sahide Teyze called out.  

The man looked up, his expression going from startled to mildly irritated to resigned in a matter of seconds.

“Kolay gelsin,” I said to him.  

“Thank you,” he replied in English.  “Please, sit.”  He dusted off two plastic chairs and we sat.

“You aren’t Turkish?” I asked.

“No.  And neither are you.”

I laughed.  “I’m sorry to have barged in on you like this.”  I glanced at the grinning teyze beside me, who was watching a caramel-striped cat with great interest.  “She insisted on showing me.  I thought this was her house.”

“Ah, yes, well, it used to be.  She likes to stop by unannounced.”

Sahide Teyze leveled her eyes at the man.  “You still haven’t come over for tea!  Where is your wife?”

“Working in the house,” he answered slowly in Turkish. 

Just then a tanned woman with dyed-blond hair in a strappy pink tank top and cut-offs emerged from the house’s arched entryway.  He eyes lit up when she saw Sahide Teyze - seemingly more in genuine delight then faked hospitality - and she kissed the older woman on both cheeks.

“You said you were going to come for tea!”  Sahide Teyze swatted her on the bottom.  

The woman smiled good-naturedly at this accusation and gestured at the house.  “Çok iş var.”    (“We’ve had so much to do.”)  “Bu hafta,” she said, her hand over her heart.  (This week.)  

“I’ll go get us some lemonade,” she continued in English and disappeared into the house, returning a minute later with glasses of cold, thick peach juice.

“Where are you from?” I asked the man.

“Holland.”

Ah, the “Dutch tourists!” I thought.

“And did you just buy the house?  Congratulations.”

“Oh, no, we bought it six years ago.  We come work on it every summer holiday.”

Six years and she still feels free to pop the latch and poke around!  And to bring in some foreigner off the street for a tour!  Then again, she is a teyze.  I suppose it comes with the territory.  

Tulips are an important national symbol, and every April Istanbul holds a city-wide Tulip Festival.  I've been around for it in previous years and enjoyed the tulips on every median and in public parks, but this year was the first year I had a chance to actually head over to Emirgan Park, the main display site.  There were 270 different varieties on display there, amounting to 2.5 MILLION tulips in that one park alone!  (Can you imagine planting all those bulbs??)

I was in town on a layover last month and had just enough time to meet a friend (a Dutch one, no less!), hop a bus up the Bosphorus to Emirgan and take in an hour or so of the colourful tulip glory.  We barely made it through the first section of the park, but what we saw we loved!

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“Did you hear the fight last night?” asked my kuaför, Ayla Abla.  

Let the salon gossip begin, I thought.

Her neighbour, Ayşe Hanım, leaned forward in her seat on the couch beside me, immediately taking the bait.  

“How could I not?  It was right outside my kitchen window.”  

“So much yelling!  I’m sure the whole complex heard it.   Güler and her chickens....”

“Selma had had it up to here with them pooping on her porch.  She’s right, too.  What business does Güler have raising chickens in the complex anyway?  You’d think we lived on a farm, all that squawking....”

“Did you hear her say she was just ‘airing out the chicken coop?’  Right, airing it out for three days...  Other foot, please.”  

I shook the soapy water off my left foot and placed in on the towel on Ayla Abla’s lap.

“She knew she was in trouble, that’s why she was out there sweeping up their little presents.  In the dark, all secretive - as if Selma wouldn’t hear her broom!”  

She was picking up speed now, her eyes wild. 

“And, boy, she caught her red-handed!  Serves her right.  Dirty birds....”

“You cut your toenails short again!  Honey, I’ve been telling you for...how many years now?  Six years!  Don’t cut them so short!”

“I like them short.”

“You’ll get ingrown toenails!  Don’t cut them so short.”

I shrugged and reached for my tea.  Ayşe Hanım un-paused and saved me from further lecturing.  

“That Güler, she thinks she owns the place.  I wonder if Selma filed a complaint?  She said she would.  If it happens again, Selma should collect up all that poop and stick it on Güler’s front porch - wouldn’t that be funny?”  

She cackled at her own mischief and carried on.

“You know what I just thought?  Oh, what a horrible thought.”  She rubbed her hands together with glee.  “Selma has daughters.  And Güler has a son.  What if he married one of her girls?  Then Selma and Güler would be dunurs!  Can you imagine?”

Ayla Abla roared with laughter.  I was grateful she put down the foot-file until it passed.

“Pretty girls, too,” Ayla Abla added between giggles.  “It could happen.”

“If this were the old days, that’s exactly what would happen.  No one marries their neighbour’s daughter anymore, though.  It used to be enough to know she could cook and clean and had a pretty face.  Now they wander all over town looking for girls.”

Ayla Abla nodded in agreement.  “They want options now, kids do.  And freedom.  No one gets married at fifteen anymore, not like we did.  My daughter wants to wait until after university to think about getting married.  Heck, I want her to wait til she’s thirty.”

“Imagine, though,” said Ayşe Hanım, pulling us all back into the daydream.  Selma’s daughter and Güler’s son.  Then those two could fight for the rest of their lives!  And, just think” - she was on the edge of her seat now - “they could have the wedding in that empty lot out back.  And the chickens would all wander around amongst the guests and poop everywhere.  And Selma would start yelling at Güler because it got all over her shoes while she was dancing.  Oh, the fight that would break out.....”

Trains really are my favourite way to travel.  You get to see the countryside and all the little towns you wouldn’t see from a plane (or even the highway) and you skip all the traffic and sorting directions and motion sickness you (at least I) deal with in a car.  Plus, there are all sorts of interesting people to look at and talk to.  Good deal all around.  

The only inter-city train I’ve taken in Turkey is the one from Istanbul to Sofia, Bulgaria.  I did that twice for visa runs back in the early days.  That one goes at night, so you can’t see anything, and you have to stand outside and freeze at the border in the wee hours of the morning, which really isn’t my idea of a fun outing.  

Some of my most memorable train trips have been from Beijing to Western China (try using a squatty potty while the train is rocking back and forth!) and the time my mom and I took the Amtrak from Seattle to Yuma, Arizona to visit my grandparents when I was ten.  We made friends with a Brazilian lady and her daughter who hardly knew any English and we played and “talked” for much of that forty-one hour trip.  Apparently I got the “cross-cultural communication bug” at a young age.  :)

Right now I’m on the Selçuk - İzmir train, having popped in to see a friend at her guesthouse on my way to visit other friends in Izmir.  (Most people come to Selçuk for Ephesus - I come for this joyful lady.)  It’ll be a bit over an hour and I have a seat, so it should be a pleasant ride.

It’s spring in the Aegean - much more so than at home where we’ve crossed into summer and most of the wildflowers have already dried up.  The Ege (Aegean) is blooming pink and white, with bougainvillea trailing down the south sides of houses and squat, fuller palm trees than the ones we have.  It’s always had sort of a “vacation” feel to me - not the “sun and sand” my town is known for, but more the “barbecue and çay on the balcony and laughter into the night” feel of my friend Mehmet’s village.  Maybe it’s because I only ever come out this way when I’m on vacation.

It’s been a stormy day, and while the rain has stopped, the sky is gray and the clouds low, making the poppies and bougainvillea stand out all the more beautifully.  I love watching the fields fly by - row upon straight row of crops that seem to curve and come alive as we whiz past.  Not so many silvery olive trees here, but lots of vineyards in this drier climate.

The towns we’re passing through feel a lot older to me than most where I live.  Perhaps it’s just that most of our older buildings - save those inside the fortress walls - have been torn down to build high-rise apartments.  I guess, too, Izmir has been a “modern city” for a good hundred years, while my city has only boomed in the last twenty.  We’ve got Roman ruins and mega-malls, but not much in between.

Most of these neighbourhoods along the tracks are poorer and run down, so there are more of the decrepit, colourfully painted cement houses that I love - peeling green doors, crooked blue shutters, purple iron gates, rainbows of laundry strung across terraces under terra cotta roofs.  

Turkish flags wave as we pass, a high percentage of them sporting the face of the great Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, increasing steadily as we approach “Gavur İzmir” (“Infidel Izmir”), the great bastion of secularism.

It’s approaching evening.  Outside the window, men are on their way home from work or crowded in the cafes, drinking tea and playing backgammon.  Women pull their loaded carts home from the pazar and boys play football in empty lots.  The scruffy man across from me has clearly had a long day and is sprawled out across two seats, amusing the rest of us with his snoring and his dreamland exclamations of “Aboooooooo!”  

I love the old stone buildings at the railway stations, with their wooden benches outside by the tracks for waiting.  They look just how I imagine they looked fifty years ago, before bus and air travel took over.  I can easily picture Ahmet, Yasemin and Rüya from “Hatırla Sevgili” getting off to buy a snack on their way up to Istanbul.  

Sometimes I try to see the passing sights with new eyes - fresh, like they were before shepherds and headscarves and döner shops became familiar fare, before this land became home.  I remember what it was like my first time here, traversing the country by bus, nose glued to the window, taking it all in.  Back then I didn’t know a pomegranate tree from a fig tree or have a clue how to render grape leaves an edible delicacy.  Every trip to the store was an adventure, and every new town a treasure trove waiting to be unpacked.  

Today, traveling a route I’ve never traveled before, I feel like I’ve recaptured just a little slice of that wonder...

I dearly hope my body decides to be Turkish instead of Canadian tonight and let me sleep in spite of the massive amounts of çay I’ve consumed today.  

This morning we went up to “the breakfast district” with friends for brunch.  There is a spot where the city stops and the forest starts that is known for its fabulous köy kahvaltısı - “village breakfasts.”  There are a dozen or so restaurants in which one can settle down in a hut or a tent for a long, leisurely brunch - a popular weekend activity, especially when the weather gets as hot as it’s been.

We didn’t get up there early enough to score a hut, but we found a nicely shaded wooden platform with a low table surrounded by cushions and settled in.  And then came the food!  The table was so full, we had to hold our own plates on our laps.  The bazlama - a sort of dense flatbread - was fresh from the oven and stuffed with cheese.  Olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted red peppers, fried potatoes, two kinds of cheese, honey, several jams, eggs with sucuk (a cousin to pepperoni) and greens -  Everything a Turkish breakfast should be!

They brought the çay in a semaver (samovar) with a pot for the dark tea keeping warm on top and a spouted urn full of water on the bottom.  The way we ended up sitting, the “menfolk” were the ones closest to the tea, and we had a good laugh over the fact that this meant they had to serve the women.  In this culture, çay is always the women’s job, so this was a special treat.  One used to work in a hotel and the other ran his own tea house, and both are very servant-hearted, so they were gracious refillers.  :)  Not one to ever say no to a cup of tea, I stuck with it until the pot was empty and drank a good five or six cups.

Today being my day off and the evening being gorgeous as it was, I decided it was a balkon sefası sort of a night.  The best translation I can think of for this is “balcony delight” - a warm summer breeze, the wafting scent of honeysuckle, sanat müziği (a style of older, melancholy Turkish music) and endless cups of tea.  This beloved activity usually involves a crowd of family or neighbours and a whole lot of laughing and talking over one another, but after a week full of people-time, this introvert is more than happy to enjoy it alone.  

As the setting sun was turning the sky pink, I was sitting up here on the terrace enjoying “A Suitable Boy”, the mammoth novel I’ve been delightedly plowing through.  The evening call to prayer set off a night of wedding festivities all around the city.  From my perch I’ve spotted fireworks in five different places and I can hear competing music and microphone announcements from at least two of them, punctuated by the occasional celebratory popping of gunfire.  

Fireworks junkie that I am, I am constantly slamming my book shut and running to one side of the terrace or the other, straining to catch a glimpse of the explosions of colour in the sky, feeling alternately defrauded when they are blocked by a nearby apartment building and tickled when the booms echoing off the hillsides are coupled with a sky full of glitter. 

Having already drank an Oregon Chai earlier in the evening, I had decided I didn’t need any more hot drinks tonight.  But round about 9:30, my inner Turk won out, telling me that a balkon sefası without çay is simply wrong.  So off I went to brew a pot.  And, yes, it did make the picture complete.  As of 11:30 I am five cups in.  I’ll likely regret it when I’m still lying awake in two hours, but for now, I am thoroughly happy to be accompanying the wedding music with the tinkling of my tea spoon.

I parked my scooter in my usual spot beside the old shoe shine guy and the man who sells chicks out of a cardboard box.  Stashing my helmet and sunglasses in the baggage compartment, I locked the back wheel and, with a nod to the shoe shiner, headed into the covered Thursday Pazar to buy my fruit and veggies for the week.  

My strawberry guy didn’t have any this week (I’m not usually fussy about “organic” but his truly are the best) so I had to settle for cheaper ones that will likely turn to mush by the weekend.  My greens guy had some nice spinach that, while its muddy state caused me to inwardly groan at the thought of the work it would take to clean it, I bought out of loyalty.  I was happy to find one stall still selling broccoli, as well as some sweet red peppers that didn’t look too squishy.  I’m excited about all the fruit that summer brings, but I grieve the end of the season for my favourite winter veggies.  I just don’t know how to plan a menu without red peppers.

When I’d loaded my arms up with as many bags as I could hold, I headed back to my bike to deposit my purchases and head back in to look for carrots and cucumbers, the last two items on my list.  Imagine my surprise when, as I approached, I discovered a man of about sixty perched quite comfortably on my bike, leaning over the handlebars and chatting happily with the shoe shine guy.  

As I got closer, I tried to think of a polite way to ask him to please remove himself from my scooter so I could put my veggies away.

“Amca, müsaade eder misiniz?”  (I figured “Uncle, could you please make way?” was more respectful than, “Gramps, what makes you think you can just hang out on my bike like that?!”)  I raised the bags in my hands, indicating that, if it wasn’t too much trouble, I’d like to have access to the compartment under his bottom please.

“Of course, of course,” he accomodated, not looking the least bit embarrassed.  He smiled in the shoe shiner’s direction.  “We were standing guard for you.”  

I decided that playing along would be better than making a scene.

“Ah, thank you,” I said as I fit what I could into the “trunk” and the hold under the seat and hung the rest off the handlebars.  “No one tried to steal it, inshallah?”

“No, no, we would never allow it!” he replied gallantly, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth, some gold, the others belying a lifelong tea habit.  “Are you leaving or do you have more to buy?”

“I have to grab a few more things.”  I motioned to the seat he’d been keeping warm.  “Carry on, carry on.”  Another nod to the shoe shiner and I made my way back into the crowded hubbub.  

When I returned a few minutes later with the last of my purchases, my sentry immediately rose from his place atop my bike with a sweep of his arms and a “Buyurun, buyurun.”  (Literally meaning “At your command,” but often used more like “Right this way, please.”)

I half expected him to ask for a tip for his services.

“Where are you from?”

Here we go, I thought.  The dreaded conversation I could have in my sleep because I have it just about every time I leave my house.  Or, at very least, every time I come to the pazar.

“Canada.”  

“Do you live here?”

“Yes.”

I unlocked my scooter and arranged the bags so they wouldn’t fall off.

“Married?”

“No.”

(I could’ve mouthed the next sentence along with him.)

“Don’t you think about getting married?”  (Duh.)

“Of course.”

“But he hasn’t appeared yet?”

“Nope.”

By this point, I was wishing my fingers would work faster on my helmet clasp.  I knew what was coming next.

“My son is single.”  (Of course he is.)

“Hmm.”  

“He’s an accountant.”

“Hmm.”

Helmet on, kickstand up.

“Do you want to meet him?”

“I’m very picky.”

“He has a car.”  (Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?)

Key in ignition....

“No, thank you.  Have a good day!”

And off I went, the shoe shine guy laughing in my wake.

I think I’d better park somewhere different next week.  Otherwise I might come out with my veggies and find an accountant sitting on my bike.....

“This one’s from our hometown,” she said to me proudly.  She began to wiggle her shoulders, satin and tulle vibrating to the beat of the darbuka.  I laughed as she  snapped her fingers, shaking off her wedding day stress, the gold bangles on her right arm clanging along to the music.  In the passenger seat, Ipek grooved along with her.  I’ve always been jealous of the way people in this country can shimmy.  I think they come out of the womb with something Canadians don’t.  

“Samet,” Nurcan leaned forward again.  “What kind of husband do you think Murat will be?”  

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the road.

“I don’t think he’ll beat you.  But,” he pushed up his glasses and turned left onto the dirt lane that led to the bride’s house, “just don’t make any waves or expect too much from him right in the beginning.”

She twisted the diamond ring on her right hand round and round.

“I know you’ve waited a long time for this.”

She exhaled.  “Ten years.”

“But he’s only been out a month.  He’s not back to normal yet.  He’ll get there.  Just be patient with him.”

I eyed her, wondering what it would be like to marry someone you’d loved since you were fourteen and pined away for while he spent five years in jail on false charges.  Probably a bit like marrying your first love and a stranger all at the same time.  

I’d only met Nurcan and her fiance, Murat, the previous night at the henna party.  A common friend had asked me to take pictures as a favour, and while I don’t usually do weddings, their story had intrigued me.  So I’d donned a sparkly outfit and fired up my flash for a long night of circle-dancing, henna-lighting, tongue-trilling, and and the traditional pinning of money on the happy couple.

We’d spent much of the afternoon shooting portraits at a park downtown, the bride practically melting in the late Mediterranean summer sun, the groom alternately smiling into his love’s eyes and looking like he was somewhere else.  Perhaps back in a cell with the friends he’d left behind.  

Having dropped Murat at friend’s place, we were now headed to Nurcan’s house to wait for the groom and his entourage to come and claim her from her family’s home.

We pulled up in front of the house - single-story, with peeling beige paint and a grapevine shading the entryway.  In the daylight, the empty lot next door looked even uglier than it had under the forgiving cover of darkness the night before when almost a hundred people had packed in for the henna party.  The ground was littered with candy wrappers and cigarette boxes and the uneven pavement was cracked and strewn with rocks.  It’s a wonder no one twisted their ankle dancing the halay in those long dresses and glittery high heels.

The door to the house opened and a squealing gaggle of sisters, cousins and aunts spilled out.  Nurcan wrestled her hoop skirt out of the car and let herself be enveloped in kisses and compliments.  I snapped into photographer mode and started clicking away, eager to capture every moment of the day that this bride had waited a whole decade to see.

In the living room, several more covered teyzes (aunties) sat stiffly on modern upholstery and leather couches that looked out of place next to the colourful woven carpets on the floor.  On the TV, Prime Minister Erdoğan an impassioned speech about  the martyred soldiers who had recently lost their lives fighting terror in the east.  

Nurcan bent down to kiss her mother’s hand and pressed it respectfully to her forehead.    “Maaşallah, maaşallah!” said her mother with a grin.  “May Allah protect you, my daughter.  You look beautiful.” 

“Let’s take some pictures of you and your parents,” I suggested.  Nurcan pulled her father and mother down onto the couch, arranged her tulle and smiled brightly.  A black velvet scroll decorated with glittery outlines of mosques and palm trees and the words “Memory of Cyprus” graced the otherwise bare wall behind them. 

“Me, too!  Me, too!” yelled Nurcan’s five-year-old neice, worming her way up onto her grandfather’s lap and striking a silly pose and causing everyone to laugh.  

A hundred or so bursts of the flash later, I had captured every possible combination of Nurcan and her relatives, each one presenting her with a piece of gold jewelry, her smile getting progressively more forced with every click of the shutter.   

The oldest teyze, her head wrapped in the white scarf reserved for someone who has been on the pilgimage to Mecca,  pointed to me and said something I didn’t understand.

“Speak Turkish, teyze.  She doesn’t know our language.”  Ipek turned to me.  “She says you should sit down and rest.  Your çay is getting cold.”  She motioned towards the tiny glass cup of dark red tea on the end table behind me.  

“I will, one sec,” I said, crouching down to get a few more shots of Nurcan by herself.  

More buzzing and glances my direction from the teyzes on the couch.  I took this as my cue to step out of work mode and into guest mode for a minute.  I stirred two sugar cubes into my tea and took a sip.  This seemed to put them at ease.

“What happens now?” I whispered to Ipek.

“The groom’s side comes to get the bride.  Then we’ll all go to city hall.”

Nurcan’s brother entered the room with a wide red ribbon in his hand.  The aunts and sisters clapped excitedly.  

“You’ll want to shoot this,” said Ipek, taking my tea cup.  

Her brother fumbled with the ribbon, trying to tie it around Nurcan’s waist.  She swatted him and said something in her language that I assumed to be the equivalent of “clumsy lout.”

“What is the significance of the ribbon?” I asked.

He shrugged.  “It’s just tradition.”

“It represents purity,” explained his mother.  “To show that we protected her namus until we gave her to the groom’s family.”

Just as the ribbon was finally successfully in place, there was a commotion and a loud knock at the front door.

“They’re here!” shouted a younger cousin who had been keeping watch at the window.

The room erupted into a flurry of motion.

“Quick, get the veil!”

“Who’s got my purse?”

“Someone turn off the tea!”

Nurcan’s brother placed a sequined red veil over her head, covering her face completely.  While sisters and cousins kept the crowd at the front door at bay, Nurcan made the rounds again, kissing the hands of her older relatives.  When she came to her mother, they leaned their heads close, the elder dabbing at her tears with the younger’s veil.  Amidst increasingly demanding cries of “Send out the bride!” they reluctantly pulled apart and made their way to the door.

Wiping her tears, Nurcan allowed herself to be engulfed by tongue trills and applause.  Murat stepped forward and kissed his almost-in-laws’ hands and then took that of his bride and led her through the crush of bodies to the waiting car, all decked out in tulle and rosettes.  

“You’re riding with us,” Ipek called to me as she slid into the front seat beside her father and brother in law.  I squeezed into the back beside Murat.  The late afternoon sun reflected off the silver sequins on my blouse, causing a pattern of light to dance on the car’s ceiling as we bumped off down the dirt road, a trail of cars honking exuberantly behind us.

As we pulled through the lot where the henna party had been, a clump of boys who had been waiting in ambush jumped out to block our path, demanding money before they’d let us pass.  Murat, who was obviously prepared for this, laughed and pulled out a wad of American one dollar bills, handing them to the driver to distribute to the mischievous urchins.  They pounded their fists on the side of the car, whooping and waving as we pulled away.

Murat leaned over to his bride and said something in their native tongue.  She leaned her head back and took a deep breath.  With Nurcan’s hoop skirt taking up half the back seat, there wasn’t much room for polite distance, so I did my best to hug the door and give the couple some privacy.  Then I laughed to my Canadian self; there were six of us crowded into the wedding car - clearly privacy was not a priority.  

“So, now we go to city hall?” I asked, wanting to get my camera settings right before we arrived.

“No, to my parents’ house,” said Murat.  “To kiss my mother’s hand.”

“Oh.  They’re not coming to the ceremony?”

A pause, a look exchanged with Vedat in the rear-view mirror.  

“No.”  He shifted uncomfortably.    “They’re not.  We’re distant relatives, Nurcan and I, and there’re some....bad blood between our families.  They’re not very happy about all this.”

He lit a cigarette, puffed and exhaled slowly.  Nurcan grabbed his wrist.  “I need one, too.”

Murat handed her the cigarette.  He carefully lifted her veil, holding it up while she took a drag, his face close to hers, whispering.  I looked away, feeling like I was intruding.  

A minute later, as we approached his parents’ house, she handed the cigarette back, pulling her veil over her face.  He took a few last puffs and then leaned over me to toss the butt out the open window.

Murat’s mother received the caravan with a gold-toothed smile, eagerly lifting the scarlet veil to kiss her new gelin.  Murat kissed her hands and tenderly patted her cheek, a farewell gesture.  His father never appeared.  Getting back into that wedding car cost him a lot, I imagined.

Nurcan’s gold bangles set off the metal detector at City Hall, but the security guard waved her on through with a smile.  In the “bridal room”, we shot dozens more family photos, Nurcan pacing nervously in between, everyone speculating as to whether or not they had time to run outside for a cigarette before our group, the last of the day, was called in.

A good half hour after the nikah was set to take place, the wedding official finally called them up.  And with a five minute ceremony, eager “yeses” from the bride and groom, and much clapping and ululating from the audience, their ten year wait was over at last.

Back in the wedding car (they insisted on driving me home, though I would’ve happily taken the bus) I no longer shared the backseat with a nervous engaged couple, but a relieved husband and wife.  As we pulled out of the parking lot, amidst waves and well-wishes, Nurcan leaned into Murat’s shoulder.  She exhaled, releasing the stress of the day and the years of tortured waiting in one long breath.  He whispered to her and wiped a tear from her cheek.  

After a moment, she pulled herself together.  “Look at this,” she smiled up at him, opening their marriage certificate.  “We’re married!”

At a red light, two boys knocked on the window demanding money.  Murat tore himself away from his bride and pulled a few bills from his wad.  Then we continued honking down the road, the entire caravan in tow.  

When we pulled onto my street, Murat and Nurcan thanked me for documenting their special days, and promised me a good, spicy Mardinli dinner as soon as they got their house set up.  I thanked them for allowing a stranger into the most intimate parts of their celebration and got out, leaving them alone in the back seat.

As they drove away honking, I was halfway disappointed that there were no neighbours around to witness the parade and ask what I was doing getting out of the back of a wedding car.

**Names have been changed.