‘Isn’t Jiyan Hanım in town? I’ve been calling her all day on the phone, and I haven’t been able to reach her.’
‘She’s in the country. There’s no reception there.’ He points to the invisible mountains. ‘Near the mountains…’
The adventure is about to begin, thinks Ömer. This scene could have been the opening sequence for a film about the Kurds. The handsome, mysterious man with a weapon in his belt has come to take the lovesick writer to an unknown destination in the middle of the mountains. Will the writer go? Will he have the courage? The Governor had mentioned the voice of the sirens the day we met. Did I not come here to hear that voice? Am I not after a voice that will whisper the word I lost?
He would go. The story that began with the scream in the coach station in the capital would write itself step by step. It would come to an end. This time he would not be the godlike writer who decided the fate of his heroes and heroines and who played with them like a cat with a mouse. He was not going to write the story; the story would write him.
‘At least wait five minutes and give me time to change this shirt.’
The man brings his right hand to his chest right on top of his heart with a gracious ‘Yes, sir.’ Yet another scene from a film, thinks Ömer as he walks towards the stairs. The man’s gesture was not natural to him: it was as though he had had to learn it. Why can’t I perceive my experience here as real life? Why does everything turn into a scenario, a film, a surreal adventure or poetry in my head? But it is all a part of everyday life here … Does the reality of other lands, other folk, other people always seem to us like a frightening or a seductive fairytale?
When he comes downstairs, the hotel clerk says, ‘He’s waiting for you outside, beg. He’s a relative of Jiyan Hanım. Please go, sir. If Jiyan Hanım has summoned you, you should go. Besides, it’s really beautiful in our mountains in this season.’
As he goes out of the hotel door he thinks about the way the man said, ‘our mountains’. Mahmut also used to say our mountains, as did Jiyan, Mahmut’s father and the others, too. It is as though the mountains are their most valuable, most prized possession. The refuge of hope, protecting spirits … Is that why those mountains are set on fire, to annihilate hope? Or is it the opposite: to revitalize hope? But how does this man know where to go? How much people here know, and how little they give away!
A black jeep stands before the door. The type of vehicle that challenged the widespread perception of poverty and deprivation in the region. As soon as the man sees Ömer in front of the hotel he springs with agility from the driving seat and opens the front passenger door. ‘Do be seated. You’ll be more comfortable here. We have over an hour’s journey. That is, if the road isn’t closed.’
Ömer doesn’t ask where they are going. They are going to Jiyan. I am going to look for her in her own land, in the land of her own reality and legend, far from this town that has lost its sound, withdrawn into itself and is lying in wait. He remembers the message that Elif left on his phone. Today is my wife’s birthday, and I have forgotten it for the first time in years. I must call her immediately. A little later when we leave the plain and dive into the depths of the valleys and gorges there will be no reception at all. He is going to speak to his wife without planning in advance what he is going to say, without making excuses, just as it springs to mind. Elif is the true me, my diary, she is a part of me: Jiyan is my legend, my fairy story, the mirage in the desert of lost words.
He dials Elif’s number. He lets it ring for a long time. If the phone were switched off there would be a notification to indicate this. She’s either left it somewhere or she’s not answering. He looks at his watch. It must be six o’clock there. Perhaps she has gone out to dinner, perhaps the congress has lasted a long time. Those boring, scientific meetings where no one listens to the speakers, and when it comes to debate everyone competes to show off their knowledge. He rejects the idea of sending a text message. It is not something that he can write in a few words. There is nothing to say at this moment. At this moment he is going along a road that follows the bends of a gurgling river, passing the fortified checkpoints of the military, towards the mountains whose snowy peaks are streaked red by the setting sun.
‘The surrounding mountains reach over 3,000 metres. The mountain that rises in front of us is almost 3,500 metres. No one has ever seen it without snow. Local folk say that if the snows of Mortepe melt the end of the world is nigh. They believe that the mountain protects them and that it has supernatural powers.’
Ömer is surprised at the man’s polished speech, his ability to explain his views so well and articulately. It’s as though his excellent Turkish has been learnt in adulthood. The difference in intonation calls to mind the accent of western foreigners rather than that of the east. The old man at the hotel had said that he was a relative of Jiyan Abla. A relative, a bodyguard or … Or what?
‘The snow on Mortepe has started to melt,’ says the man. ‘The glaciers won’t melt that easily, but global warming has come to our land.’ Then he notices Ömer’s welling curiosity and adds: ‘I know you, Ömer Bey, but I haven’t introduced myself yet. I did not want to do so in front of the hotel employee. Here words can easily be misinterpreted. There is no need for everyone to know everything about a person’s business either. Sometimes information brings danger in its wake. My name is Diyar. I’m a relative of Jiyan Hanım. Or, rather, I’m the son of her murdered husband.’
‘I had no idea,’ mumbles Ömer. ‘She told me that her husband had been killed — that was all.’
‘I know. She does not like to talk about it. She loved my father very much, and my father loved her, too. Their marriage lasted a short time. Only five years. It was the worst phase of this ongoing dirty war.’
He stops talking. He breaks off the story at the most exciting place, like a professional storyteller. Suddenly Ömer has the feeling that Diyar knows about his relationship with Jiyan, that he is trying to pass on a message and that Jiyan wishes him to do so. But he does not want to be the first to speak. He pretends to be engrossed in the redness of the setting sun reflected on the water, the rocks and the mountains.
‘Magical sights, aren’t they? Whenever I see the setting sun reflected on the mountains I feel that I’m in a fairytale world. This view must be one of the reasons for my returning to this land and not leaving it.’
‘Aren’t you from here?’
‘I don’t exactly know where a person’s homeland is. Is it the place where they are born, in which they grow up or the place they return to? I don’t know.’
‘Which is the place you’ve returned to?’
‘I suppose it’s here. The east of the east…’
‘Where did you get that expression from? I’m sorry, it’s a phrase that I use. I mean, it’s not mine, though, and I don’t know where I borrowed it from.’
‘My father used to say it. In one of his books he mentions this region as “the most east of the east”.’
‘Your father’s books…’
‘Yes, he wrote quite a few. On the Kurdish language, Kurdish history, Kurdish literature. You must have heard of him.’ He mentions a name that Ömer remembers from his youth. ‘Didn’t Jiyan tell you my father’s name either?’
‘No. We rarely had such conversations. We have spoken mainly about the region and its people. I wanted to write something about the area.’
‘Every sympathetic westerner wants to write about the region and our problems. I was born in Diyarbakır, but I grew up in Sweden. I’m one of the children of the Kurdish Diaspora following 1980. In Sweden people who consider themselves intellectual are curious about our region, the Kurds and Kurdistan. Some just from sympathy, from their devotion to human rights, to pay blood money for the prosperity of the west; some to manipulate the balance in the region. But all of them look through their own glasses and write what they see distorted in this way. And they give us advice. Not just the Swedes, of course, I mean all westerners. Please don’t be offended, I wasn’t referring to you. However, to be able to write about this area you have to understand the spirit of the place, to feel it inside. I have been here for four or five years now. My roots are in this land, but even I cannot say that I have been entirely able to comprehend it as yet.’